It is indeed peculiar that Trump can be elected President on 47.4% of the popular vote. But not nearly as peculiar as that the Conservatives can have untrammelled power in the UK on 36.9% of the popular vote. Both electoral systems need reform, but the UK’s is absolutely indefensible.
There is a tiny blogroll down the bottom right hand margin of this blog, and most of the blogs on it have fallen by the wayside over the 12 years we have been going. But one which goes from strength to strength is Informed Comment by Juan Cole, whom I view as a towering intellectual figure. I have read reams and reams of comment on the direction of politics with the election of Trump, but Juan’s take is the best I have seen and I do urge you to read it.
The fact that death rates are actually increasing among middle aged white males in the USA is truly startling. To my understanding that is not yet the case in the UK, but what is true here is that the life expectancy gap between the rich and poor is growing again after a century of falling.
I think it is pretty common ground that we are seeing a reaction against the political class by the dispossessed former industrial working and middle class. That is scarcely remarkable. Given the vast increase in wealth inequality, against which this blog has been railing since its inception, a reaction is inevitable.
There are two ways the establishment has sought to divert this anger.
The first, and highly successful method is to convince people that it is not the massive appropriation of resources by the ultra-wealthy which causes their poverty, it is rather competition for the scraps with outsiders. This approach employs pandering to racism and xenophobia, and is characteristic of UKIP and Trump.
The second approach employs the antithesis to the same end. It is to co-opt the forces marginalised by the first approach and rally them behind an “alternative” approach which is still neo-liberalism. This is identity politics which reached its apotheosis in the Clinton campaign. The Wikileaks releases of DNC and Podesta emails revealed the extreme cynicism of Clinton manipulation of ethnic group votes. Still more blatant was the promotion of the idea that Hillary being a corrupt neo-con warmonger was outweighed by the fact she was female. The notion that elevating extremely rich and privileged women already within the 1% to top positions, breaks a glass ceiling and benefits all women, is the precise feminist equivalent of trickledown theory.
That the xenophobic strand rather than the identity politics strand won will, I predict, prove to have no impact on continued neo-liberal policies.
The British Labour Party has played identity politics for generations just as blatantly, as I know from my experience campaigning in Blackburn. The resources of state institutions are directed to obtain geographically and politically cohesive ethnic block votes.
Both Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn faced intellectually risible accusations of misogyny from the neo-liberal faux-feminists when they presented an alternative economic policy. This is the most conclusive proof of the appropriation of identity politics to the neo-liberal cause.
Opinion polls both before and after the US election appear to demonstrate beyond doubt that Sanders would have trounced Trump. But to a certainty, the financial and international interests who bankrolled Clinton would much prefer Trump to Sanders.
A number of people have been questioning what Hillary’s banker backers will make of her defeat. The answer is they will not be too disappointed. She earned her money by seeing off Sanders.
It is fascinating to see that the attitude of the salaried establishment, both elected and administrative, of the Labour and Democratic parties to Sanders and Corbyn has been identical.
The Labour nomenklatura tried to defeat Corbyn’s election by disqualifying or barring from voting well over 100,000 voters. The Democrat nomenklatura succeeded in their equivalent task by devices including a rigged count in Nevada, collusion with Clinton in sequencing of primaries to harm Sanders, and passing of debate questions in advance.
While Corbyn has retained his leadership position, he is not in control of the party machinery which daily leaks and spins against him. His leadership has been fatally undermined from day one by humiliating, vicious and continual attacks given to the media by his own party. As time goes by, it is more and more plain he is not able to get rid of the MPs and functionaries whose sole purpose is to promote right wing ideology. There is currently a controversy as to whether Dave Nellist and other old socialists should be permitted to rejoin. I cannot understand why they would wish to be in a party with John Woodcock, Simon Danczuk, Jess Phillips and lest we forget, still Blair, Mandelson and Campbell.
In short, in neither the US nor the UK is a viable radical alternative going to be put before the electorate in the near future. Those who believe either Brexit or Trump presage a break from neo-liberalism will be sore disappointed. They represent the continuance of neo-liberalism, but with popular discontent diverted into added racism.
Signed First Editions of Sikunder Burnes are now available direct from this blog! You can leave a message naming the dedication you want. Sold at cover price of £25 including p&p for UK delivery or £29 for overseas delivery. Ideal Christmas presents!!
First!
I beg to differ
Nothing about Brexit or Trump was presaged. The nature of it is pure surprise. But your minor point has some legs/
http://time.com/3175582/states-with-medical-marijuana-laws-have-fewer-opioid-overdose-deaths/
Feel free to peruse the long list of reasons why neoloberalism has failed to provide an alternative to the public health. It’s not like it’s exotic science.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=aaplw&p=marijuana+use+up+heroin++down
Breitbart News has an office in London. Apparently it’s swish and it’s in Westminster.
What is its street address?
Interesting question to ask on this post since Bannon is a person of interest in the upload of emails to WL.
Breitbart is in the process of expanding globally, but I hadn’t heard about Westminster.
Yes, I agree with the great bulk of this post. I rejoined the Labour Party despite Blair and his chronies, and the can’t dance won’t dance Ed Balls, who thinks his popularity on Strictly Come Dancing might get him his seat back, are still members. They do not really belong. They use their power to stamp on more talented people. But I have seen Jeremy Corbyn on rallies he did not need to give up his weekends to go on. So I stand behind him and hope for change. We, Momentum, are getting there.
As for Trump, another fly in the Neocon ointment even though he is one of them. He is no idiot. On many of his outspoken zenophobic and environmentally unsound policies we part company. On his attempts to build bridges with Russia and discontinue the perpetual wars in the Middle East, if he is genuine, I support him. How can anybody not?
He knows about the construction industry. He is better-informed than most. He spoke on the 11th September 2001 about a subject we are not allowed to discuss on the general feed. But we are allowed to discuss it here.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-99/#comment-636740
– “But we are allowed to discuss it here”
(cough)
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-99/#comment-636825
Some believe the hacks were the result of incessant monitoring of Anthony Wiener the disgraced Congressman and wife of key aide to Hillary Huma Abedin. That saga to continue.
Heh…husband of….
Good as far as it goes, but blue-collar jobs have increased in the cities in the Rust Belt, and I believe that Afro–Americans have been getting more of them. And then there is what is going on in profession sports, and the blacks are taking more than their expected share.
There is even racism here but the media has no idea about it.
Last Night. Patriot football coach Bill Belichick and his star white-boy quarterback Tom Brady were beaten, the first casualties of the Trump revolution. They had made their support of him so blatant that two black defensive stars, Jones and Collins, rebelled, obliging the coach to stupidly trade them away. The Patriots surprisingly then lost the game to the Seahawks,
Now it is only going to get worse with the blacks on the team more conflicted than ever about what they are doing, and opponents only trying their hardest to defeat them.
Trump’s racism is going to plague all jobs.
“The blacks”? racist git.
Slight typo para. 13.. it’s the “Democratic Party”, when referred to as a proper noun. The “Democrat Party” was something McCarthy dreamed up, apparently, and the emphasis was supposed to be on the “RAT” part of it. Roger Ailes (of Fox “news”) was a great wordsmith when it came to this sort of unending campaign of maligning with his propaganda. Very successful, too.
But don’t forget, it wasn’t just the hated immigrants which were the supposed problem. Public sector workers had overtaken even single-parent mothers as the group onto which we should pour blame.
They had _pensions_? How dare they! People working for all sorts of exploitative conglomerates didn’t get a pension – how dare a fireman, a teacher or a librarian get one? They’re hardly better than those other publicly funded people – politicians. And everyone hates them.
So after years of grinding down rights in the private sector, the Establishment points to those still with pensions, rights built up over scores of years, and says _that_ is the problem.
Oh yes – don’t forget those on disability benefit!
I would urge you to read this article
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/13/revenge-forgotten-class
And then to follow the links to the reporter’s campaign coverage. The key factors in Clinton’s loss of Michigan, Pennsylvania etc appear to have been opposition not to public sector workers, pensions etc but to job loss and degradation through Free Trade deals. NAFTA really did kill millions of jobs in these states. And TPP and TTIP would have killed many more, indeed were designed to do so.
It was perfectly rational to vote against Hillary to obstruct a process which has been ongoing since the mid seventies, and a significant number of working people, women and men, black, latino and white did so.
It is time to face up to the fact that, long before revealing herself as a dangerous warmongering demagogue, Mrs Clinton was an active member of the Board of Directors of the biggest anti-union corporation, and the most determinedly non union employer in the United States, WalMart.
My guess is that most Wal Mart employees voted against her, in some part because of this.
“…In short, in neither the US nor the UK is a viable radical alternative going to be put before the electorate in the near future…”
Very likely true unless by ‘radical’ one includes fascistic parties. And they are likely to do very well because the socialist alternative is hamstrung.
This is more or less what happened in Europe in the twenties and thirties when the left was split between pro and anti Soviet groupings, both of which so detested each other that they allowed fascists to pose as the viable alternative to capitalism.
Corbyn and his supporters have to move quickly to establish democracy within the Labour Party. Without it the membership is impotent and very likely to become disillusioned in very short order.
Until there is democracy sufficient to allow local members to choose their own candidates, which is to say to refuse to back MPs who are fighting against the Labour Party and preventing an alternative platform from being presented and explained to the people, there is no hope whatever of Corbyn fulfilling his mandate.
If he cannot a new alliance, semi fascist in its radicalism, is going to emerge and challenge the status quo.
So angry and disillusioned are people that change is inevitable whether it will be real change based on a left socialist programme restating the possibilities of progressive taxation, nationalised utilities and an end to unemployment and poverty or a recycled capitalism sporting an authoritarian demagogic rather than a liberal mask depends upon the speed with which accounts are settled with the Blairite cuckoos preening themselves in the socialists’ nest.
Right. So a whole range of policies, many of them wild opposites, are all “neo-liberal” and all part of the capitalist conspiracy of the bourgeoisie looking to perpetuate its oppression of the proletariat. Am I getting that right?
Maybe no more late-night posting for a while?
Perhaps you are right about late night postings: I Certainly can make no sense of yours, (mine was made, locally before 9pm).
There is something very predictable about your critiques of socialism-they are all firmly grounded in the world of the mid C20th, complete with silly jibes regarding ‘bourgeois conspiracies’ etc.
The reality is that neo-liberalism is precisely what it says- a revival of the liberal ideologies, discredited in the first half of the C20th, which underpin capitalism/imperialism. Neo-liberalism is the theory of the system, there is nothing new about it, it is essentially unchanged since Nassau Senior, Malthus, Ricardo and Mill developed it. All those who support or seek to preserve Capitalism are neo-liberals. Trump is one, Clinton is another. Geert Wilders is one, Marine Le Pen is another. Renzi is one. Merkel is another.
There are many differences between these various schools of political thought but the sanctity of capitalism is not among them. Now go back to bed.
Neo-liberalism is the theory of the system, there is nothing new about it, it is essentially unchanged since Nassau Senior, Malthus, Ricardo and Mill developed it.
So not very “neo”, then?
All those who support or seek to preserve Capitalism are neo-liberals.
Yes, like I said, it’s a word you, Craig and all of your friends use to describe the people you disagree with, be they Scottish Nationalists concerned with alcohol addiction or wild alt-right racists. It’s a completely content-free label.
Absolutely correct, Martinned.
Underlying all the expressions of anguish, which find expression, inter alia, in the use of the portmanteau and meaningless term “neo-liberal”, is the refusal of a few people to accept that capitalism is the only game in town.
Fifteen “Ha,ha,ha’s” and one hundred and eighty down-votes. Lol.
You really ought to learn how to read. The term neo-liberalism is used to describe a re-statement of the liberal ideology of capitalism which arose after a long period in which all parties agreed that ‘liberalism’ was outdated, and discredited by events.
This is really the story of the first three quarters of the C20th.
When you have learned to read you should look up Karl Polanyi’s book, known in North America as The Great Transformation. Alternatively you could study the history of the C20th.
As to Habbakkuk’s dictum that “Capitalism is the only game in town” its idiocy is too apparent to need commenting upon. He might have added “and we have reached the end of history.”
Actually, neo-liberalism is a euphemism for palaeo-fascism.
There is no doubt at all that Sanders was cheated out of primary votes in several if not all states. Unfortunately he chose, for reasons entirely consistent with his long career of compromising for tactical advantage, not to contest the matter.
As to whether Sanders would have beaten Trump in the General, who knows? What seems reasonable to me is the argument that he would not have lost in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, where Clinton clearly lost working class votes because of her association with off shoring and ‘Free Trade.’
I’ve started your Brougham, incidentally. It is, as you say, a very handsomely produced volume. The copy at Wayne State or one of them has been sold: buying second hand books is a bittersweet experience. So many of them are from University Libraries in which it would be much better that they should remain. Yours is such a book- belated congratulations.
These claims that Sanders was cheated out of the Democratic nomination is as absurd as Julian Assange’s claim that Snowden’s leaks of her latest e-mails would constitute her “October Surprise” when it was that letter by Director James Comey that did it.
Thanks for the bit about the Brougham volume, but I don’t know which one you are referring to as there are two.
Hope you read it with what Richard Hoggart had in mind when he wrote The Uses of Literacy..
I am not concerned about what ultimately happened to them.
I used a good bit of subterfuge to spread them around , and a good nit of my own money after they were published.
I had gotten at least two years salary from my employer to research them, so I figured I was still ahead.
Who was your employer?
The real power is held by the Koch brothers with their enormous wealth. Pence dances to their tune. He is to Trump what Cheney was to Bush.
Keep Your Eyes on Pence
http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/11/keep-your-eyes-on-pence/
‘Interesting isn’t it? During the campaign, Pence was almost invisible. No razzmatazz. No media hype. Just a kinda quiet, handsome, hoosier. Nothing to write home about.
Bingo! Once Trump is in, Pence is in the news. Chris Christie is side-lined and Pence is taking over the transition team. You know the team that decides who is going to be in the Cabinet and in the West Wing. The team that will select the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney-General, the…
What about the other claim by the New York Times: Trump owes nothing to the traditional powers in his party? Well, besides Pence, there’s another way the Koch brothers will loom large in the Donald’s presidency. The media focus on Trump’s consistently outrageous behavior shifted attention away from key Senate races. Yet these will shape Donald’s time in the Nation’s Capitol – and over-turn the world as we know it.
The Senate will be controlled by Republicans, very conservative right-wing Republicans. This might not have happened if the Koch empire, through its various subsidiaries, hadn’t in the last weeks of October and early November pumped $42 million into key states.’
Interesting post – thanks Mary. I didn’t know anything about the brothers or Koch Industries. With a name like that they ought to employ Wiener.
Reading the Beeb this morning: “The memo – obtained by The Times and seen by the BBC – warns Whitehall is working on 500 Brexit-related projects and could need 30,000 extra staff.”
Then reading CM’s chapter on the (earlier) Dodgy Dossier in which he writes: “Under Palmerston, the entire staff of the Foreign office in London was only about three dozen people. This was therefore a major task for overstretched officials.” This brought a smilee.
36 or an extra 30,000. Both seem bonkers, but I suspect the Koch brothers and the Libertarian wing of the GOP would approve of the 36 and outsource the rest to a modern day EIC.
“With a name like that they { the Koch brothers } ought to employ Wiener.”
________________________
You’ve lost me there, fwl. Could you expand on that puzzling thought?
Sense of humour failure above! Get yer titters out as Frankie Howerd would have said.
You may be right, Squonk.
Were it not fwl but certain other commenters who had posted that I think we would be justified in finding it suspicious.
If you know what I lean.
Cheap throwaway line; my apologies.
The real power is held by the Koch brothers with their enormous wealth. Pence dances to their tune. He is to Trump what Cheney was to Bush.
Are you sure it isn’t George Soros?
Not that I’m a trump fan, but…..
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/14/republicans-call-clinton-obama-reel-professional-a/
Before the Russians risk capturing Al-Nusra and ISIS commanders live and put them on trial, Obama and May have ordered a desperate remote killing splurge to try to kill them first – which they describe as “the mission could be the most important ever undertaken by the SAS in its entire 75-year history” – because Washington’s and Westminster’s heads are on the line!
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/11/14/us-british-clean-house-delete-syria-terror-links.html
Despite being supposedly “unable” to give coordinates of the terrorist bases to the Russians, both the Pentagon and the British SAS are now apparently in a position to make accurate remote targetted killings. This happens, tellingly, immediately after the shock victory of Trump, which puts the entire US-UK state sponsored terrorism project directly at risk.
This is perhaps the most blatent evidence yet that officials in the Obama and the British administrations were deliberately and willfully sponsorism Islamic extremist terrorism, and are now in a desperate race to cover their tracks.
I hope Russia and Syria capture key terrorists alive and put them on public trial, and I hope they uncover a wealth of explicit documentary evidence about the support their received from the US-UK governments, and the names of their contacts.
It goes to show what a profoundly criminal enterprise the SAS is; incidentally the British government’s first (of 3) attempt to assassinate me was carried out by two SAS officers 23 years ago (for no more weighty motive than that I was regarded as a slight impediment to the foreign investment projects of British companies).
The entire MI5, MI6, SAS, GCHQ tetrad are profoundly criminal and terrorist organisations that serve no useful security purpose whatsoever, that profoundly compromise legitimate security, and that should be disbanded and banned; and all employees should be investigated and tried for crimes against humanity, terrorism, sponsorship of terrorism, gangsterism, treason, murder, attempted murder, fraud, perversion of justice and thousands of other serious crimes.
Take anything said by the “saving the Muslims of Benghazi” puppet with a hefty pinch of salt. You will remember it was really designed to con the Russians and Chinese into okaying a NFZ at the UNSC So what is obola up to in this two month lame duck period with this spin against al-nusra?
– “I hope Russia and Syria capture key terrorists alive and put them on public trial”
Some hope; the indoctrinated extremists that get exploited always end up slaughtered, by one side, another, or their own hand. Betrayal helps to generate replacements. It’s not going to stop just because of Trump; he just hasn’t been fully briefed yet.
The same Juan Cole who was utterly unapologetic over, firstly, supporting the Libya intervention, and its horrendous aftermath. That Juan Cole.
Those who only admire people who agree with them on everything, are in fact just admiring themselves,
@Craig, what a cheap & facile response.
He’s right, though. I have never met (or read) anyone I agree with 100%. I don’t even agree with everything I’ve ever written, said or done, never mind anyone else.
It’s call a “strawman” deflection; look it up.
No need to be rude.
Kingfelix suggested that Juan Cole’s blog should be ignored because he supported the bombing of Libya, the implication being that this automatically renders the rest of his opinions invalid. I think this position is, well, bobbins. It’s perfectly possible to disagree with someone on one point while agreeing with them on another; for example, I agree with a lot of what Craig writes but would prefer Scotland remain part of the United Kingdom.
I see no strawmen.
It’s a strawman because Craig responded with a superfluous truism against something that Kingfelx had not argued against; not surprising that you don’t recognise strawmen, as you have just made one by stating that Kingfelix “suggested” Juan Cole’s blog should be ignored”. Kingfelix merely drew attention to the fact that Juan Cole was not only wrong about Libya, but also unrepentant, and it’s only your assumed inference that Kingsfelix had “suggested” that therefore all of Juan Cole’s opinions are invalid; providing additional contextual information in helping assess somebody’s opinion is not the same as what you & Craig are imputing it to be.
Anyhow seeing as Blair is similarly both wrong & unrepentant about Iraq, isn’t it just amazing that most people (MSM excluded of course) don’t attach to much importance or even draw too much attention to his opinions now; a matter of taste perhaps.
Macks
Having read and reread your convoluted apologia at 11h27 I’ve come to the conclusion that I should not wish you to ever back up anything I might opine.
@Habba-Clown, commenting without argument is just a egoistic distraction, which is what clowns tend to do, distract attention upon themselves.
My apologies to His Majesty Kingfelix if I misunderstood his post, but it reads very much to me like he disagreed with one point the blogger made, and so used it as an example to discredit his whole output. Just for once I would like to be able to indulge in a discussion on the internet without either party taking wildly polarised opinions and/or decrying everything as a straw man.
@Wolsto,
I’m sure in his Regal Greatness, Kingfelix’s magnanimity will even extend to you. 😀
(Note this is not “being rude”, but after your earlier accusation I guess you must be one of those much talked of “Liberals” who helped put Trump in power, because they get so very offended if anybody has a different opinion, or even calls out straw-men arguments ! 🙂 )
I am most certainly not a Trump supporter (Trumpist? Trumpian? Trumpeter?), I don’t have any preferred American politician, aside from a soft spot for Mr Sanders… and the entire gist of my previous posts was that disagreement is fine and natural!
Thanks for your comments further down, which show better comprehension skills than those hammering me for things that I did not say.
If you, Craig, are prepared to overlook Juan Cole’s support for the Libyan intervention, and subsequent refusal to admit he was completely wrong, that is your choice, but your reply was indeed facile. My point being not only did Cole’s behavior raise issues of judgment, but also of character. How much trust can one place in the thoughts of a commentator that refuses to believe they are ever in error? That a historian should proceed in this manner is doubly damaging.
(Side note: those mocking the ‘king’ in kingfelix should look up the phrase’s origin)
And the same “Informed” commentator that opined of Trump “there isn’t much chance he can win” in this ugly rant;
http://www.juancole.com/2016/11/hatred-trumps-behind.html
‘But even voices to the left of the ‘mainstream’ got Libya badly wrong. Most cringe-makingly, Professor Juan Cole declared:
‘The Libya intervention is legal and was necessary to prevent further massacres… If NATO needs me, I’m there.”
The Great Libya War Fraud
03 October 2016
David Cromwell and David Edwards – editors Medialens
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2016/827-the-great-libya.html
Very well said Craig
irony?
Well apart from the ridiculous liberal tendency to blame everything on neo-liberalism (if only I was the management of capitalism things would be great) the stand out daft line for me today is:
More and more plain? So, at what point did you think this might have happened?
You might argue it won’t happen (I would agree) but to suggest there was an opportunity that has passed, that the difficulties are becoming clear only now, is a notion that no serious commentator suggests. There never was a road map that could make it happen in such a time scale. Sure excitable folk rushed to momentum hoping for such a timetable but they were misled by those who know better.
Great article, Craig. Our civilization is truly at a crossroads.
Perhaps one way for both Sanders and Corbyn to give a boost to their stalled fortunes, and spread some cheer among the ranks, would be for Corbyn to tour the US sharing a platform with Bernie, and vice versa. A little bit of international solidarity always raises spirits. We are not alone.
It would be a sort of anti-Trump/Farage alignment, with reasoned arguments instead of gold doors.
Why not raise Michael foot from beyond the grave?
Some stinging, and stirring stuff. One can only hope that these articles-both here and on Juan Cole’s blog receive the attention they deserve but it must be difficult, in the toxic tsunami of the dominant media operators.
Juan Cole has an article on his blog which is basically saying that four years of Trump will almost certainly ‘finish’ the environment. i.e. policies and non-policies will be permitted (as in maximum permissiveness and empowerment of regressive corporate forces) and actual reactionary, vindictive, irrational, legislative action in favour of corporate cronies.
Juan Cole highlights the way population and birth rate are related to political policy. Russia suffered this decline due to existential crisis brought about by political malignancy-partly self inflicted by itself but partly by the carpetbagging vulture capitalist that moved into Russia in the early nineties .The soviet satellites also suffered this collapse and in some cases may have been worse. Bulgaria and Romania suffered a famine in the early nineties, and the death rate increased and birth rate collapsed. This was not reported at the time. Much of Eastern Europe descended into a nightmare of prostitution, drug fuelled gangsterism and other racketeering. There were many connections to organised crime and the political system in the ‘civilised west’.
Ukraine was certainly part of this picture and current and recent events there would need to be understood in that context.
Little or barely reported is the fact that until Thatcher, there was a good understanding, through sociological scholarship (no! -not an oxymoron) of the relationship between social policies, the benefit systems and demographic, (death rate and birth rate ) and health factors (prevalence of physical and mental illness, alcoholism, fertility etc).
Until Thatcher the analysis of these matters was used to seek out the optimal use of resources for the maximum benefit (yes, it was probably a faulty analysis in many instances but it was essentially a ‘benign’ process governed by a political consensus on the moral parameters).
The factor that distinguishes Thatcher and her government is that they used these factors to actively oppress distinct sections of the population. Thatcher was briefed extensively about these matters and her policy was actively engaged to create political advantage and social engineering by actively manipulating policy to suppress, oppress and distress particular communities and segments of society, essentially deliberately choosing to increase the death rate and diminish the birth rate, leading to a demoraiisation and the erosion of community cohesion.
We now live with this legacy of quasi- technocratic and malignant social manipulation(i.e neo-liberalism) by individuals who are governed solely by their limited understandings, vindivtive leanings and simplistic ideas related to human affairs. What is horrifying is that we see from Craig’s post about the selectivity of policy on drinking that it is crudely targeting a distinct section of humanity.
It is beyond shameful.
It is also the reality of current times that institutions that have traditionally been protective of the wider population have been traduced and undermined by the ‘bourgeoisisaion’ /gentrification process. I refer to organisations such as many unions which have now been co-opted onto the neoliberal agenda, as well as the major functions of the state such as the education and health services. We now have a situation where the these systems is now separated from any kind of political or ideological purpose.Schooling has become a means of selecting out and ‘schooling’ (i.e social and technical training) individuals who are fully committed to the neoliberal technical agenda. Education is no longer about personal development-but selection, social stratification and technique.
The scale of the ideological, ‘cultural’ war is becoming ever more apparent.
These excess deaths really put the ‘terrorist threat’ in perspective, don’t they? It’s shocking and bizarre that informed liberal opinion is so lacking in empathy for the white working class, who are about the only minority group one is allowed to openly ridicule in this politically correct age. It gets worse though. It’s become acceptable to not just criticise their politics but their culture as well, and that hurts and enrages perhaps more than anything else.
I was recently in the South and because I have links there it’s easier for me to ‘gain acess’ to certain groups that normally keep outsiders at a distance. Go into the deep countryside and one finds the Confederate battle flag, the stars and bars, flying proudly and definiently, something that’s banned along the coast. I visited Fort Sumpter where the Civil War started, a fort controlling acess to Charlston. Talking to tourists there one had the impression that the Civil War, or the ‘recent unpleasantness’ had only just ended. Talk about people with long memories! I also found a small, almost hidden museum, packed to the rafters with Civil War and Confederate flags, statues, paintings… lots of stuff that’s been removed from public spaces over the years. It was like a time capsule, but one that seemed to be waking up. At least that was my impression talking to the white working class in the countryside.
For them, Clinton represents and symbolises not just political, economic, but cultural oppression too. That is a very dangerous mix. I was surprised by how many people, without promting, used words like ‘revolution’ and ‘civil war’ when we were chatting. The US is a very big place and these people literally live and feel like they are living in another country, an occupied country where urban liberals are pressing an economic and social model down over their heads and at the same time showing contempt and disdain for them adding insult to injury.
So Trump’s triumph didn’t surprise me at all, on the contrary. Giving so many disenfranchised people the vote is problematic.
Trump had first to ruthlessly topple the Republican Party’s establishment before he could do the same to the Democrats and along the way challenge the ‘liberal’ media. That he managed these feats is extarordinary and probably an historic cultural shift it’s too early to really understand the significance of. Sure, Trump’s a political opportunist and is serving up fascism lite, but it’s the wave he’s surfed on that’s important and worthy of study and examination. That the liberals/left have got so much about this election so wrong, is worrying. That the right, instead of the left, have cynically and successfully vacuumed up the working class discontent and anger, is tragic. Personally I think the ‘left’ should shut up for a few years, I mean they get way too much wrong, and reflect about why their analysis isn’t working. Perhaps it’s because they have too much ‘analysis’ and not enough rhetoric in their political toolbox?
What is the purpose, if any, of Obama’s trip to Europe, starting in Greece?
Obama sets off on farewell trip to Europe in shadow of president-elect
US president must reassure allies but may privately coach his closest partner Angela Merkel on ways to keep Trump in line
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/14/barack-obama-faces-awkward-task-on-sad-farewell-visit-to-europe
…and that is bad, because…?
I do not think that President Obama is the first outgoing US President to have made what you might describe as a “farewell tour” of various European countries.
So I’m somewhat at a loss to understand why anyone should be puzzled.
He’s telling them that unless they cough up for NATO, he’ll get Goldman Sachs in again to do them over.
Kurt Eichenwald argues that the alt. timeline of Sanders beating Trump is fantasy, as we didn’t get to see what the GOP had lined up for him. (Though his contempt for conscience voters is unpleasant.) http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/democrats-swallowed-these-two-giant-myths-and-it-cost-them-the-election/#.WCoRWbPZDpg.facebook
I don’t believe Trump is any more racist than the media are making him out to be, no more than Clinton is pro-feminist than the media made her out to be. He said things, she said things. She lied to women, he lied to ordinary people fed up with foreigners coming in and stressing ever-shrinking social services and to undercut their wages.
As a lefty one of Jeremy Corbyn’s policies I disagree with is letting in more immigrants. We’ve got enough social problems already, we don’t need more people. That’s a common sense observation not a racist opinion. And I voted Brexit not because of Nigel Farage and foreigners but because of the undemocratic EU. It did nothing to save us from decades of Tory abuses. Just what good is it?
It did nothing to save us from decades of Tory abuses.
You must be joking.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32003L0088
One thing Cole didn’t mention in his analysis of the rising death rate of middle aged Americans was the skyrocketing costs of healthcare. Even for someone in work the insurance premiums can be unaffordable, especially if they have a pre-existing condition, and companies have been dropping it from their employee packages for the past decade or more. Despite having the most expensive health care system overall life expectancy in the US has failed to keep up with other developed nations; even with the UK.
The really worrying thing is that consecutive governments in the UK seem to want adopt the US model in place of the NHS.
– “The really worrying thing is that consecutive governments in the UK seem to want adopt the US model in place of the NHS”
Kempe, well said. Here in Chelmsford the local group of Momentum is organising to support the junior doctors against the imposition of divisive new contracts and to prevent two major Accident and Emergency departments (Chelmsford and Southend) being downgraded to daytime only minor injury units.
Thankyou, you have summed up the current situation exactly as I see it.
Craig,
I found the “death rates are actually increasing among middle aged white males in the USA” startling as well. I found this video a few weeks ago. Its a year old, and published before Juan Cole by of all people Lyndon LaRouche – who is 94 years old. He still makes a lot of sense (though he blames most things on the British) and has been on the US Political Fringe (at least once as a US Presidential contender) for an extremely long time.
“Published on Nov 30, 2015
While Obama claims that the last 15 years have been an economic miracle for the United States, reality says something very different. The recent Deaton/Case study showing an increase in death rates among white, working age U.S. males makes the point: this is not a recovery. The Obama and Bush presidencies have ushered in a cultural economic dark age, comparable in scale to the years of Russian “shock therapy” after the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s. The best thing we could do for the U.S. economy is remove Obama from office, then a recovery can begin.”
“The Bush/Obama U.S. Dark Age”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-xi4eDN1mU
I still can’t work out Trump. Your view maybe correct, but this video is also very interesting, which I have just found on Dmitry Orlov’s website. It is very strong stuff indeed – but is it true? If he’s genuine, he ain’t half got some balls.
“Listen To This And Tell Me Trump Is Crazy!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2s9AV910NY
Tony
No he’s not crazy, but he is just a celebrity figurehead liar. Which PR outfit made that video?
I agree with everything you say apart from your comments about Juan Cole (‘a towering intellectual figure’), which I find baffling. This short piece captures why:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2011/03/juan-coles-warmongering-.html
Agreed. Cole was an enthusiast for war against Libya and has promoted the wahhabi cause n Syria.
Indeed. As Medialens noted in their article The Great Libya War Fraud:
“But even voices to the left of the ‘mainstream’ got Libya badly wrong. Most cringe-makingly, Professor Juan Cole declared:
‘The Libya intervention is legal and was necessary to prevent further massacres… If NATO needs me, I’m there.'”
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2016/827-the-great-libya.html
Craig- Apart from your usual blindspot on race and immigration (of which more later) a qualified return to form with this post, after the last 2 rather fevered offerings. FWIW I bigged-up up Juan Cole’s response to the Trump victory on another thread at the weekend- and received zilch feedback from the regular commenters.
However you use the term ‘identity politics ‘ much too imprecisely in this post, and don’t recognise that there is a jostling over the victim hierarchy between the practitioners of identity politics as to which category (ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation etc) trumps which (sorry for using that verb- but it is by far the most appropriate).
For most practical purposes, ethnicity trumps the other ‘identities’ in this post modern charade that has largely surperceded class based politics (to the benefit, as you rightly point out, to the 1% ‘ers). Two examples will suffice to prove my point-
1 UK feminists largely keep their traps shut over the industrial scale grooming of young white girls by muslim gangs we have witnessed recently- they know than in postcolonial Britain, being brown or black trumps being female in the designated victimhood stakes, and they thus allow via their silence (as social workers, teachers, councillors)horrendous crimes against young girls to go unpunished for decades (Rotherham refers)
2 In the Presidential election Trump received over 60% of the white working class male vote (unsurprisingly) but also 53% of all white female voters supported him- despite his succession of blonde trophy wives and his massive sense of sexual entitlement born of having loadsamoney- which manifested itself in the remarks he made in the 90s that rightly attracted so much negative attention during the campaign.
One thing that Trump’s victory signifies is that American whites outside of the upper echelons are contemplating their future in a USA that, demographically by 2050, will be a north American version of Brazil, and they don’t like the future they see. Thus they vote accordingly- even if it means voting for a faux populist born with a trust fund, who will cut corporate taxes and only help them ,economically speaking, by practicing Reaganite ‘trickle down’ economics.
@Old Mark,
Are you seriously suggesting being a feminist means that you can’t also be racist ?!
Trump got all those white female voters because of issues they considered more important than some locker-room type bragging back in the 1990’s !
Para 1- No
Para 2- that is exactly the point I was making Macky; for most women their gender, in a political context, is peripheral to how they vote and think.
@Old Mark, Well your Post reads like that your point to Craig was although agreeing that “identity politics‘ is an important factor, you believe that there is within it a “victim hierarchy” bias in which “ethnicity” comes top; and you gave your two example as being proof;
1.Feminists keep quiet about crimes committed by “Muslim gangs”; to which my point to you is that racists feminists exist, so for their “feminism” will always trump “ethnicity”.
2. White women voting for Trump despite his sexism; to which my point to you is yes of course, because “identity politics‘ is not as powerful as you seem to think it is, the antithesis of your suggestion that they voted for him simply because they were white !
I just luurve your implicit belief Macky that any woman, feminist or otherwise (such as the redoubtable former MP Ann Cryer) who objects to the sexual predation of vulnerable young females by grooming gangs whose members are overwhelmingly comprised of non white ethnicities is, by definition ‘racist’.
“I just luurve your implicit belief Macky that any woman, etc”
And only you could, because it only exists in your irational thinking !
Nowhere did I say or even imply that; basic comprehension skills seem to be letting you down.
Your preoccupation with people being termed racist, suggests to me at least, that thou doth protest too much.
Macky (to Old Mark):
“Your preoccupation with people being termed racist, suggests to me at least, that thou doth protest too much.”
Macky (to Habbabkuk, earlier on):
“@Habba-Clown, commenting without argument is just a egoistic distraction, which is what clowns tend to do, distract attention upon { sic } themselves.”
LOL
Yes, I have often pondered the different treatment that is given by the legal system and the media to 13 year old girls being gang raped and Lord Rennard who put his hand on a middle class female Oxbridge educated liberal democrat female’s leg.
“There is currently a controversy as to whether Dave Nellist and other old socialists should be permitted to rejoin. I cannot understand why they would wish to be in a party with John Woodcock, Simon Danczuk, Jess Phillips and lest we forget, still Blair, Mandelson and Campbell.”
Well, I trust that the left of the party is going to be working hard, within Labour Party rules, over the next four years or so on displacing Woodcock, Danczuk,, Phillips, and their friends before the next General Election, assuming it does not come earlier.
What’s with all this bigging-up of Mr David Nellist, Trotskyite, member of Militant and expelled from the Labour Party in the early 1990s?
Is he entering the Pantheon of the Lesser False Gods?
“What’s with all this bigging-up of Mr David Nellist, Trotskyite, member of Militant and expelled from the Labour Party in the early 1990s?”
How can anyone fail to understand that the argument that by labeling someone a Trotskyite (whatever that means) and expelling him on that basis-a trick taken straight out of Stalin’s playbook- the principle is established that- as in the CPSU- any critic can be disposed of simply by applying a label to him.
If there are any specific objections to Nellist, on rational grounds, let them be stated. Does he prevent members from holding meetings? Does he disenfranchise tens of thousands? Does he take part in sordid and dishonest witch hunts, involving illegal surveillance of social media accounts? Does he believe in convictions without trial and verdicts without appeal?
His opponents, and presumably Habbabkuk, do all of these things. And they do so because they dare not face his arguments in open debate within the Labour Party.
Firstly, in a point of fact: Comrade Nellist was kicked out of the Labour Party not for being a Trotskyite but for his open support for Militant (contrary to the Constitution of the Labour Party).
Secondly, the objections to the Good Comrade are not so much because of anything he did (he was not in a position to do very much, save discrediting the Labour Party and harming its chances of taking power) but of what he might do in the unlikely event of a Mr Corbyn-led Labour Party winning the next general election.
More generally in reply to your comment and especially its second paragraph, my considered response is : 3you would say that, wouldn’t you”.
I think you know what I mean and therefore I offer you the opportunity of stating clearly, here and now
– whether you were a supporter of Militant in its heyday (or since)
– whether you are or have been a Trotskyite or member of any Trotskyite organisation or grouping.
Off ye go.
The neocons are Trotskyists.
Permanent revolution.
Just not the way you thought.
“I cannot understand why they would wish to be in a party with John Woodcock, Simon Danczuk, Jess Phillips and lest we forget, still Blair, Mandelson and Campbell.”
And don’t forget Ian Austin:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-18304089
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/12/15/ian-austin-torture-report-dick-cheney_n_6328054.html
The anti-semitism report by the committee chaired by Vaz ‘villified’ Jeremy Corbyn says a civil servant.
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/11/14/ex-government-adviser-just-gutted-antisemitism-report-vilified-jeremy-corbyn/
Elsewhere, Vaz who is being investigated by the police, has been appointed to the committee scrutinising the criminal offences bill. YCNMIU.
Disgraced Vaz given new role tackling corruption
Francis Elliott, Political Editor
November 15 2016, 12:01am, The Times
‘Keith Vaz is under police investigation for alleged drugs offences after he appeared to offer to buy cocaine for male prostitutes
Keith Vaz, the disgraced Labour MP, has been handed a new House of Commons role preparing laws to tackle corruption and money laundering.
Mr Vaz, who is under police investigation for alleged drugs offences, will take his place on a parliamentary committee scrutinising the criminal offences bill today.
The role will reignite controversy over his election to the Commons justice committee after a newspaper sting in which he allegedly paid for the services of two male escorts, which cost him his job as the chairman of the home affairs committee in September.
Far from stepping back, however, the Leicester East MP has taken on a new role on the public bill committee scrutinising the criminal finances bill. The 20-strong cross-party committee, which will help to… paywall’.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/disgraced-vaz-given-new-role-tackling-corruption-qdltw03fq
“Keith Vaz, the disgraced Labour MP, has been handed a new House of Commons role preparing laws to tackle corruption and money laundering.”
YCNMIU !! x 100
A tellingly comparison of the rot of modern politics, with the surreal situation of HRC being allowed to run for President while under FBI investigation.
And they wonder why people don’t vote like they are supposed to !
The Republicans in Congress are still proceeding against H Clinton.
SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — Jason Chaffetz, the Utah congressman wrapping up his first term atop the powerful House Oversight Committee, unendorsed Donald Trump weeks ago. That freed him up to prepare for something else: spending years, come January, probing the record of a President Hillary Clinton.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-republicans-are-already-preparing-for-years-of-investigations-of-clinton/2016/10/26/e153a714-9ac3-11e6-9980-50913d68eacb_story.html
Chaffetz was on Sky News this morning saying that documentation from her is being sought.
Being on trial for fraud didn’t stop Trump from running…
“rot of modern politics” is generic & all emcompassing, “two wrongs, etc”
However in scale of seriousness, FBI investigation versus lawsuits that anybody can bring (even trumpted up ones ! :), I think an FBI investigation into a politician trumps lawsuits filed against a very active businessman, is simply not on the same page.
Funny how the US considers itself so clean & pure that it bars even tourists with old criminal convictions, yet allows candidates for its highest office to run even if under criminal investigations !
“It is indeed peculiar that Trump can be elected President on 47.4% of the popular vote. But not nearly as peculiar as that the Conservatives can have untrammelled power in the UK on 36.9% of the popular vote. Both electoral systems need reform, but the UK’s is absolutely indefensible.”
The British system is awful and deeply unfair, but at the very least the Conservatives got more of the vote than any other individual party/electoral force. Trump has been given massive power having actually received fewer votes not only than all other other candidates combined, but fewer votes than an individual rival candidate. Both systems are terrible, but giving power to the outright LOSER is the more ridiculous of the two.
I would guess the same applies in many respects to the legislature – Democratic senate candidates at least probably received far more votes overall as they come from big states such as California and New York, but Republicans control the Senate because tiny rural states get to appoint as many senators as large ones. (This is a guess, I haven’t looked into the figures). So Trump and the Republicans likely have untrammelled power despite another party having receiving more votes. That’s a ridiculous situation.
Electoral strategies in the US are designed to fit the Electoral College system: Trump barely campaigned at all in New York and California, for example, knowing that there was very little chance of winning their votes.
Two states-Nebraska and Maine I believe- split their electors according to the votes within the state. Were California and New York to do this Trump would have been campaigning in them and, in all probability, the popular vote split would have been different.
The fact that the winner takes all in any state tells you that the dominant parties in them like it that way: in New York and California the Democratic machines have long resisted calls to reform the system, which is very easily done, but choose not to. It is after all a key part of the triangulation strategy which allows parties to take their bases for granted and concentrate their energies on marginal ‘battleground’ constituencies. As one of the inventors of triangulation the Clintons are ill placed to complain about its side effects.
It ought always to be noted that the bulk of the popular vote in the election- almost as much as that of the two major candidates combined- was unused. For this there are many reasons but among the biggest is the fact that voting for the candidate of the Democrats in Alabama or the Republicans in Oregon is a waste of time and energy.
Actually, both New York and California have enacted the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would have the effect of reducing the likelihood that their states’ electoral college votes would go to a Democrat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
There’s a lot of truth to all that, and yes Trump might have won if there was a popular vote by adopting a different campaign strategy (we’ll never know), but the system is still unfair and ridiculous in that effectively weights the votes of some people much more strongly than others. My point isn’t to sympathise with the Democrats either – but it’s still an absurd set-up.
“…Republicans control the Senate because tiny rural states get to appoint as many senators as large ones. (This is a guess, I haven’t looked into the figures). So Trump and the Republicans likely have untrammelled power despite another party having receiving more votes. That’s a ridiculous situation…”
It is indeed ridiculous. Almost equally ridiculous, but rarely noted, is the enormous size of the House Districts which is designed to ensure that campaigning costs a fortune, so that parties have to represent the wealthy.
Euh, you don’t think that the point of having House Districts as big as they are – something required by the Constitution, IIRC – is intended to avoid ending up with a parliament bigger than the Chinese People’s Congress?
Certainly not. Are you unaware of the fact that the population, and the area, of the USA in 1788 was considerably less than it is today?
One of the reasons that there was a Constitutional Convention in 1788 was to produce a government strong enough to suppress democratic uprisings such as Shay’s Rebellion. Creating districts too large for grassroots campaigning was a deliberate strategy to suppress democracy. (cf Woody Holton ‘Unruly Americans’).
In 1788 there was no Chinese Peoples Congress. I’m genuinely surprised that you didn’t know that.
Certainly not. Are you unaware of the fact that the population, and the area, of the USA in 1788 was considerably less than it is today?
You’re right, to a point. I’d misremembered. What is capped is not the number of seats but the maximum number of voters per seat. Art. I section 2:
The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative;
That said, I’m not sure why you think that making the country – according to you – less democratic would be a strategy to make armed insurrection less likely.
(Also, one wonders why a constitution that took the number of members of Congress from about 50 to 59-65 (House) and 21-26 (Senate) would constitute a weakening of democracy.)
Whatever happened to our exchange about why Hillary lost, and why Lord Brougham deserves a serious historical revision?
As for America’s bloated federal system, it increasingly doesn’t work, and should be drastically reformed.
No idea what happened. I suspect that it is against the rules of the blog to correspond…whoops.