With no sense of irony, a “liberal” media which rightly excoriates the President of Gambia for failing to accept an election result, continues to do precisely the same thing in the case of Donald Trump. No invective is too strong to be cast against a man whose election the “liberal” media did everything possible to prevent.
With the happy resignation of Stephen Daisley, a strong contender for worst journalist in the World is now Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian. He takes the irony to an entirely new level. He claims that Trump will destroy the legacy by which smaller nations “long looked to the US to maintain something close to a rules-based international system.” He completely ignores the fact that the greatest single hammer blow against the rules based international system was delivered by Freedland’s idol Tony Blair, when he supported the invasion of Iraq without a Security Council Resolution and in the specific knowledge that, if the matter of force were properly put to the Security Council, it would not merely meet three vetoes but lose a majority vote.
The UN, and the rule of international law, have never recovered from that hammer blow, which Freedland enthusiastically cheered on. Nor has Freedland apparently noticed that the smaller nations rather detest than worship the USA. It has invaded and bombed them, interfered in their elections, supported right wing coups and armies, run destabilising CIA drug rings in them, and armed and even sometimes led dictatorial death squads. Look at all those US Security Council vetoes and the resolutions that never got to a vote because of threatened US vetoes. Look at all those General Assembly votes that were everyone against the USA, Israel and the poor occupied Marshall Islands. Freedland’s hymn to the Pax Americana is a sick joke. For much of the world, a period of American isolationism would be extremely welcome.
I am thankfully too clear-headed to like Trump because of the extraordinary campaign of vilification to which he has been subjected. Freedland has no shame about repeating the lie that Trump kept Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. I was in a position to know for sure that the “Russian hacking” elements of the extraordinary “Manchurian candidate” rubbish which the entire establishment threw at Trump was definitively untrue. I had the background and training to see that the Christopher Steele dossier was not only nonsense, but a fake, not in fact produced seriatim on the dates claimed. The involvement of the US security services in spreading lies as intelligence to undermine an incoming President will go down as a crucial moment in US history. We have not yet seen the denouement of that story.
But none of that makes Trump a good person. He could be an appalling monster and still be subjected to dirty tricks by other very bad people. There is much about Trump to dislike. His sensible desire for better relations with Russia is matched by a stupid drive to goad China.
Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric did tap in to the populist racism which is unfortunately sweeping developed countries at the moment. The very wealthy have succeeded in diverting justified anger at the results of globalisation on to immigrant populations, who are themselves victims of globalisation. By shamelessly tapping in to the deep wells of popular atavism, the elite have managed the extraordinary trick of escaping the wrath their appalling profiteering and extreme levels of wealth should bring. His words on race in his inauguration address were good, but does he really mean them? His anti-Muslim rhetoric remains deeply troubling. His ludicrous boast yesterday that he would end radical Islamic terrorism is precisely indicative of the counter-productive stupidity that feeds it.
I am a free trader and dislike the march of protectionism. But on the other hand, international trade agreements have become routinely not about tariffs but much more about the allocation of resources within the states concerned, mandating a neo-liberal model and giving extraordinary legal status to multinational companies. The collapse of the current model of international trade agreement, if that is what Trump really heralds, has both its positive and negative aspects.
It is of course a major question whether the establishment and his own Republican party allow him to do anything too radical at all. My own suspicion is that after all the huffing and puffing, nothing much is going to change. The key intra-party battle will probably be over the only policy he affirmed in any detail yesterday, the return of New Deal type state infrastructure spending. The idea of a massive state funded programme of national infrastructure, particularly in transport, to get heavy industry back on its feet, is the very antithesis of neo-liberalism. I think yesterday cleared up the question of whether Trump really meant it – he does. Will he be allowed to do it by a party committed to small state and balanced budgets, is a huge question. As Trump is also committed to tax cuts, it implies a massive budget deficit – with which Trump might well be comfortable. If Trump does succeed, it could fundamentally shift the way western governments look at economics, turning back the clock to the happier days before the advent of monetarism.
So that is Trump. Much that is bad but some fascinating things to watch. I suppose the reason I can’t join in the “it’s a disaster” screams, is that I thought it was already a disaster. The neo-liberal, warmongering orthodoxies did not have my support, despite Obama’s suave veneer. The pandering to racist populism of Trump is bad, and we must keep a watch on it. He may turn out not really to be different at all. Like all politicians, personal enrichment will doubtless be high on his agenda. But I do not start from the presumption the world is now a worse place than it was last week. I shall wait and see.
“His ludicrous bosat yesterday…”
______________
Typo.
Trump has already launched an inquiry as to which infrastructure projects already under consideration are private and which are public. Expect an explosion of two-tier transportation, with a network of expensive toll roads and bridges.
” a network of expensive toll roads”
____________________
Like in France and Italy?
US Interstates are already frequently toll roads. I don’t know why the sneering remark about France and Italy.
Why a “sneering remark”, Laguerre – it’s a fact that most French and Italian motorways charge expensive tolls, isn’t it? As someone apparently living in France you should be aware of that. And that, therefore, any Trump move in that direction would have very honorable European precedents.
To help you further with your education about the country you apparently live in, did you know that the way French motorways were financed was by an early version of PPIs/PPPs, which pre-dated the Thatcher govts use of same by some considerable time?
Habbabkuk,
Whilst your information on how French motorways were financed is enlightening, the fact remains in the UK PFI has been an utter disaster, by way as an example let’s look at the Second Severn Crossing, which year in year out has increased its Tolls since it was built – Mr Major giving the PFI groupies some fine tender love. Regrettably, such is the expense of using the Second Severn Crossing that many businesses have re-located out of South Wales to the Bristol area. The PFI contract comes to an end in 2018 when the Bridge will then be owned by the public and Tolls will be reduced by some 50% to begin with, with off-peak crossing maybe being free. However, its not all glee I can assure you due to the fact that a number of persons working in the Bristol area now reside in South east wales, which has seen an explosion of private housing – regrettably we locals can’t afford the crass cost of these new-builds, but by Bristol standards they are cheap – so our homelessness figures remain static whilst the number of homes increase, just does not benefit us though and cheaper Severn Tolls will compound the issue – I prefer working in Cardiff myself, although at 6,000 miles away, it’s a bit of a journey!!!!
“it’s a fact that most French and Italian motorways charge expensive tolls, isn’t it?”
Really? I can’t say I noticed. It doesn’t add much to the cost of fuel.
In any case, a good part of the traffic on the autoroutes in France is trans-national. All those courgettes you want to eat for your Mediterranean diet, and which are apparently currently lacking in the UK, don’t move by themselves, you know. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to make those lorries pay for the destruction they inflict on French roads. Not like that in Britain, where most international traffic finishes in Britain.
“And that, therefore, any Trump move in that direction would have very honorable European precedents.”
You mean European successors. It was the US who invented toll motorways, in the 1930s. They even called them turnpikes, after the British practice of the 18th century.
Really nothing new for Trump, and the European parallel is quite irrelevant, only an anti-European sneer.
“Really? I can’t say I noticed. It doesn’t add much to the cost of fuel.”
Maybe Monsieur laguerre only drives in Brittany, where tolls were forbidden as a condition of union with France in 1532, but elsewhere the cost of péage is often equivalent to that of petrol, and such a frequent source of discontent that the French motorway companies have been allowed very recently… to increase tolls.
The clear, blue-pink sky this morning, as well as yesterday, seems to be heralding in a new wave, a sea change metaphorically, It is clear and very cold yet remarkably beautiful as the sun rises in the sky. Gone has been days when it felt like the clouds were sitting on my head, damp and murky with no view further than 20 yards – the ground was wet as if it had rained, it hadn’t and it felt like you were in a shower without any abvious source of wetness.
1. I am not sure how Trump will pan out and am prepared to wait and see – he has undoubtedly struck a chord out there which is unliked by the elites – it is a wonder he made it to inaugeration
2. Where were all the protestors when the illegal wars were launched, when the banks failed, when austerity for the majority was introduced, when the opportunity to change positively was by-passed,when disabled people were being killed by the British government, when social cleansing commenced in London particularly and it towns up and down the country – where were they – ahha, they were the ones supporting these measures – let them hang
I think like most people you are underestimating Trump’s cunning and ability to do harm. He will ride roughshod over the traditional constraints of the office. Certainly he hasn’t demonstrated any interest in issues and neither has his constituency shown an ability to engage adult problems of utmost urgency. Of more interest to him will be building things, hospitals, highways, airports, never mind if they are in the wrong places or not wanted… He has just been handed the world’s biggest credit card and he will do all he knows, spend spend spend and future generations will pay pay pay after he is long dead for his vanity projects a la Pyongyang. It will be a conman’s presidency of photo opportunities to flatter his ego which is all he cares about, biggest photo op being of course a couple of wars for the commander in chief.
Obama has already done this with the use of executive orders
Obama really extended the worst excesses of George bush and hid behind his nice smile and compliant media
Oh by the way on the 18th January dropped more weapons into Syria to the di called moderate rebels
Alan, you may be right but do you think he is more dangerous than Clinton would have been? The USA is already overspent on its credit limit and even Trump will find it difficult to spend too much if Far East investors start withdrawing their US investments. I can recall the howls of derision when Ronald Reagan was elected but the Washington machine largely kept him from acts of stupidity and I am sure it will do the same for Trump.
Trump is a monstrous human being with utter contempt for humanity in general and women in particular, oh and the weak, the poor, foreigners too. I take believe any sensible person would say the same of Clinton, Obama, or Reagan. I think the caricature of Reagan was unfair and largely ignorant, as he was a former governor and highly capable debater. The election of Trump represents a total denigration of the entire system, a system which in fairness needs an utter redesign top to bottom.
Just read Matthew Parris in Times saying that while Trump is terrible etc. We should all just relax a little… Ffs, the Republic party relaxed a little, the media relaxed a whole lot, the democrats relaxed… Liberal voices like Craig seem to be relaxing. We cant, we really cant with a lunatic like Trump.
Alan, very easy to make that comment about Reagan with the benefit of hindsight. It was not the mood at the time. Many commentators considered him a buffoon albeit a charming one and his experience as a governor was not seen as at all relevant except in press releases. Trump comes over as an extremely unlikeable person but I really do have faith he will be kept in check by the Washington bureaucracy.
“I take believe any sensible person would say the same of Clinton,”
If that was meant to say “I don’t believe any sensible person would say the same of Clinton,” then I’d need to disagree with you. I would say all of that and worse about Clinton. Including the part about women because Hillary insulted all women by assuming they would just vote for her just because she was a woman and forget about her appalling track record when it came to things like showing her contempt for humanity and foreigners! She was all set to get right into a war with Russia. She made that more than clear.
If Clinton was president we would all be out in our backyards this morning brushing up the nuclear dust, hoping it doesn’t spoil the year’s crop of onions
Really Ron? I suspect there would actually have been a continuation of Obama’s well-intentioned but futile fiddling. Cant help but feel that much of the disaster predictions around HC is straight-up sexism, including from Craig…
“Cant help but feel that much of the disaster predictions around HC is straight-up sexism, including from Craig.”
Not true. I’m female. And did you miss her declaration during her campaign that she’d immediately impose a no-fly zone in Syria thus putting the US into direct conflict with Russia? It is too easy for people to dismiss all criticism of Clinton as sexism. It’s also a complete cop-out when her actual track record shows what she is.
I’m with you, Ron. One has only to watch her on youtube to get a fair idea of what we might conceivably have been in for.
Agreed.
Very fair comment. Though IMO a bit sweeping re Pax Americana: the prioritisation of American commercial interests rather than the expansion of its hegemony having been perhaps responsible for much US-inspired mayhem, and in particular the proxy wars between it and Russia which are now resurgent. The prioritisation of US interests is emphatically and explicitly what Trump wants, along with upgrading the US military. If he can bypass the legislature, we may well see the Bellum Americanum (Pedants – I was always shit at Latin, if it’s wrong, live with it), which will be a lot nastier than the Pax. Personally I think he’s shit scared of China’s economic muscle and thinks physical warfare can, er, trump economic warfare – he’s not going to be out there with a rifle, after all. Cue uneasy alliance with Russia. In which Trump will be diplomatically shafted by Putin.
Soros is interesting, though. At Davos he suggested that Trump would like to become a dictator, but concluded that Congress won’t let him. There are grounds for optimism.
I don’t think Trump will be attracting any more love from small countries with submersible coastlines if and when he tears up the Paris agreement and goes for coal, btw.
As a New York native, he might also be worried about big countries with submerisible cities too: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/new-york-future-flooding-climate-change.html
0.038% of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide and the human bit is a tiny fraction of that, but because the natural occurring carbon dioxide varies it can easily eclipses any thing man produces. Also the vast majority of CO2 is trapped in the oceans that cover over 75% of the planet. When the Sun shines the oceans evaporate releasing CO2 into the atmosphere and when its cold the CO2 sinks back into the oceans and into general vegetation growth. I.e, increases in CO2 follows rather than causes an increase in temperature live on earth prospers in a warm rather than cold climate.
Try telling Venus that. Yes life flourishes under warm earth situations, but it also means sea level rises and changes in regional climates that will affect millions/billions of humans by altering the possibilities for continuing to live where they currently find themselves. Many areas are already becoming deserts, crops fail, flooding destroys homes and uproots people. And that’s without questioning your argument that climate change is not now being driven by human activities. Virtually all the scientific evidence suggests otherwise, including the fact that anthropogenic carbon dioxide can be distinguished by the different isotopes involved. It seems even greenhouse gas sceptics now accept the planet is warming. Is it such an emotional jump to accept that global industrialization, fossil fuel burning and methane production are heavily responsible and we could do something about it?
“Try telling Venus that.”
In what way is Venus remotely comparable? It has CO2 where we we have N and O2, we have seas, it doesn’t. Apples are more similar to oranges.
“Virtually all the scientific evidence suggests otherwise, including the fact that anthropogenic carbon dioxide can be distinguished by the different isotopes involved.”
There is no scientific evidence that a rise in CO2 levels in the atmosphere causes a rise in global temperature. There is correlation, if you look at recent history, but none if you go back further in geological time, but there is no causality. There is a putative mechanism by which CO2 can raise the temperature, but the same mechanism also applies to H20 vapour in the atmosphere, which is 25 times more abundant in the atmosphere.
“It seems even greenhouse gas sceptics now accept the planet is warming.”
Wel, yes, because it is. Not that we have anything to do with it.
“Is it such an emotional jump to accept that global industrialization, fossil fuel burning and methane production are heavily responsible and we could do something about it?”
Is it such an emotional jump to accept that the earth has, throughout its multimillion year history, always warmed up and cooled down and that this current warming is totally natural and there’s nothing we can do about it? I know it means giving up the idea that you, too, can save the planet and that the planet is being destroyed by a small bunch or rich, evil, greedy men (well it is, but not the ones you global warmmongers think). I know it robs many people of the ability to choose saints and devils without having to think too much, but if that is what you really want, why not join the Catholic Church?
‘You global warmongers’? ‘join the Catholic Church’?
Are you capable of having a conversation without pre-judging who you’re talking to? Or (mis)labelling them with a cliched response to stymie your intellectual curiosity and not having to bother processing new information?
As for global warming, yes, well, the scientific community disagrees like 99.5% with you on the issue, but maybe you are in fact right. But I doubt it.
Sometimes you should try thinking for yourself. If man made emissions of carbon dioxide are a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of naturally occurring and variable carbon dioxide, why would you put aside elementary common sense and believe it alone determines climate, when you must know many things determine climate, including that gigantic burning ball of gas in the sky!
“Are you capable of having a conversation without pre-judging who you’re talking to”
Are you saying you don’t believe in AGW? I’m sorry, I must have misunderstood the bit where you say “climate change is not now being driven by human activities. Virtually all the scientific evidence suggests otherwise,” which very much looks like you do. So how is calling you a global warmmonger (a nickname for those who believe in AGW, not warmonger, please do read my posts carefully before replying, it wasn’t a typo) prejudging who I am talking to?
“As for global warming, yes, well, the scientific community disagrees like 99.5% with you”
Ah, that old chestnut. Have you ever tried verifying it rather than accepting it as holy writ?
I notice you don’t actually care to address any of my more scientific points.
Actually Bayard I’m not averse to outlier scientific theories. I just don’t find the arguments against anthropogenic global warming at all convincing (likely). That’s not the same as not considering them a possibility.
Well there we will have to differ. I just don’t find the arguments for the anthropogenicity of global warming at all convincing. We have a correlation and an untested hypothesis of an unconvincing mechanism.
We also have huge political and economic pressure on both sides to push their relative theories (you play me your oil lobby card and I’ll show you my green lobby card), which means that most of the data can’t be trusted. So it boils down to a matter of belief. Hence my remark about the Catholic Church.
There’s quite a lot wrong with that analysis, Dave. On every level. (Still, I have no doubt that your faith will make everything all right.)
This is probably not the place to explain to persons overwhelmed by the simplistic clarity of the Koch Bros. and Exxon’s PR on the subject: not too many here have pursued any science, let alone any geoscience, let alone climate physics, beyond A level, if that. But if you were to take a step or two on that road, you would see how wrong you were. And you would be able to comment authoritatively on the anomalously short timescale of the change, the wholesale death of coral reefs, desertification, and the impending water crisis arising from the loss of Himalayan glaciers. And insignificant stuff like that.
/3mm/year
In 1982 there were 12 million cars in the UK, Today there are 44 million. Did the Koch brothers or Exxon somehow force the people of the UK to buy all those additional cars?
Some on here, Loony (I do not mean you) will no doubt be thinking that it was all a CIA-inspired development. After all, the CIA is responsible for just about everything, isn’t it.
“In 1982 there were 12 million cars in the UK, Today there are 44 million. Did the Koch brothers or Exxon somehow force the people of the UK to buy all those additional cars?”
They did not.
But they are on record as funding groups who oppose any extension of public transport in the USA.
The oil lobby has no business interest from debunking the scam, because they have nothing to fear from the scam, indeed they have adjusted and make money from it too. But they have no fear, because even if alternatives to oil capture a bigger, but still small, percentage of the energy market, they will still grow their business because as the population grows and thrives demand for energy goes up too.
For an independent climatologist’s view, independent because he earns his income from accurate weather forecasts, visit Piers Corbyn @ weatheraction.com
“This is probably not the place to explain to persons overwhelmed by the simplistic clarity of the Koch Bros. and Exxon’s PR on the subject: not too many here have pursued any science, let alone any geoscience, let alone climate physics, beyond A level,”
From which I take it that everyone who does not believe in AGW is scientifically ignorant dupe of Exxon and the Koch Bros whereas everyone who believes in AGW has a degree in climate science. Seems a likely scenario!
“And you would be able to comment authoritatively on the anomalously short timescale of the change, the wholesale death of coral reefs, desertification, and the impending water crisis arising from the loss of Himalayan glaciers. And insignificant stuff like that.”
So as a climate scientist graduate yourself, perhaps you could expand beyond the undeniable acidification of the oceans, the warming of the planet and the rise in sea level, to explain how man has anything to do with it.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/cif-green/2010/jan/18/climate-change-himalayan-glaciers
Himalayan glaciers aren’t melting, even James Lovelock doesn’t believe in global warming anymore.
‘They just guess. And a whole group of them meet together and encourage each others guesses.’
Mike, global warming isn’t a matter of belief. Either the planet is getting warmer or it isn’t. It’s simply a matter of measurement. What is a matter of belief is whether we can do anything about it.
Saudi women are going to protest today at Trump’s treatment of women according to BBC World Service.
I know they’re now BBC light, but they don’t have to make me spray my tea over the room.
Good one Guano! Thanks for bringing to attention.
A very accomplished analysis- thank you
I hope The Scottish Donald, tears up the climate change “settled” argument.
It has been largely HYPE to enrich some and rob the masses.
Elon Musk has built the largest factory in the world, in Nevada, mostly to make lithium-ion car batteries – electric vehicles.
The batteries will move by rail, to his electric-car plants in the East.
So the solar powering of the world, will continue apace, because solar power is now effective and economic, it does not need
“Gobal Warming Alarmism” to win its coming dominant place.
Why shouldn’t Trump regenerate the coal and steel industry in the U.S.A.
Why should only China/Australia/Korea and India take on that production.
If you are very bothered by CO2, it makes sense to produce as locally as possible.
Australia is ripping out a great swathe of the Great Barrier reef to facilitate the export to India from what may become the worlds largest open cast coal mine, this is almost being done in a state of panic.
Trump wants to give back hope to the working classes, that is good – not bad.
Give him a chance.
Well I agree with lots of what you say there, but as usual you just can’t help yourself from inserting a wee bit of “scottish” scornfull abuse. A neurotic trait.
The real danger isn’t so much Trump himself, but the fact that his victory has unleashed and empowered an army of bigoted assholes down at street level. That’s what’s gonna do the most brutal damage.
Along with the corporate and financial deregulation, the quashing of any policies to counter global warming, the hike in spending for the armed forces, whatever they’re going to do with healthcare – and all of us guessing what will happen if and when conflict situations with other nations arise.
Craig
“The UN, and the rule of international law, have never recovered from that hammer blow [Iraq]”
To suggest that the UN and international law were an effective impediment to war and imperialist invasion before Iraq is unambiguously a delusion. Even Craig contradicts himself by immediately listing just a tiny number of the pre-Blair failures of the UN.
“a strong contender for worst journalist in the World is now Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian.”
And here’s another:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38666914
“the populist racism which is unfortunately sweeping developed countries at the moment”
Would suggest that people are no more racist today than they were a month or a year ago.
Just think: if Clinton hadn’t hijacked the DP nomination process and Bernie Sanders had stood for the presidency, he would most likely have beaten Trump with ease and we would be hearing how the US had lurched to the left.
But as in the UK and the increase in racist violence and anti-immigration policy after the referendum, the identification of Trump with a racist agenda – he was endorsed by the KKK and is backed by far right white supremacists, including in his inner circle – means that there’s space for a racist agenda to flourish with backing from the president and central government. Republican dominance in Congress means that any extremist social policy will receive little challenge. Yes Bernie could have won and we’d be talking about a more tolerant USA. But that’s not the case and the different outcomes will have very different social effects.
It’s easy for wealthy white people to sit back and see what happens with Trump. If it turns out he is indeed the conduit for a far right administration, they’ll have a lot less to lose. I prefer to go by what he’s already said and by who’s backing him. On that basis, it’s fairly clear what he is.
Would you think Aurora that aficionados of the Islamic State
are racist?
What are you on about?
“Would suggest that people are no more racist today than they were a month or a year ago.”
Or, indeed, a decade ago. What has changed, is that they are perceived as being more racist. Racism has “come out of the closet” as the racists are thinking “Hey, there are a lot more of us than we thought. Don’t all the papers say so?”
One thing for sure if the New York Times and Reaction are to be believed, is that Trump’s administration won’t be hitting the ground running on Monday morning. They have reported that of the 660 key appointments that needed to be made, just 29 have been completed, and that to get by, they have borrowed 50 key Obama staff to keep the place running. Apparently there are about 3000 other posts that need to be filled, so it might take a bit of time yet. Had Hillary won, all she would have had to do was move her framed pictures of Bill & Chelsea from one office desk to another, Oval one.
It is interesting to note that, Obama will be hanging around Washington, as his youngest daughter still attends school there.
Several press accounts of Trump’s inauguration ceremony, claim that Obama could be heard saying to Trump, I’ll be around if you need me, or words to that effect.
Some are now saying what is Obama’s legacy as POTUS, Guantanemo? I doubt it, it’s still open, what about Syria? Obama, did no favours there either, what about closer to home Obamacare will that be his lasting legacy?
We do know however that Obama, was the POTUS who spent the most time at war, and Obama also spent more time on golf trips, than any other POTUS before him.
We cannot say for sure what Trump will do, though one can have a guess looking at his super rich political team, which contains warhawks, climate change deniers and strong pro-Israel backers.
On Stephen Daisley, I think STV did the right think in removing his often onesided views, he wont be missed. Of course the unionist parties tried and failed miserably to blame the SNP, for his self inflicted demise.
Political censorship of the press is political censorship of the press whether they are censoring someone you agreed with or not.
Either you support political censorship of the press or you don’t.
“climate change deniers”
Are you sure? Aren’t they AGW deniers? No one can really deny the climate is changing. It always has done and always will.
“Hanging around Washington”, RoS?
In the same way as you’re “hanging around in Scotland”, d’ye mean?
Most people would have used the words “living in” or staying in” but let’s not miss an opportunity to show superior “wit”, eh?
Trump is a liar and a cheat. He got permission for his golf course at Balmedie with promises of a luxury resort costing a billion pounds and creating 6,000 jobs. Trump is a bully who rode roughshod over the rights of the poor residents who lived near his golf course.
Indeed it was the Labour branch in Scotland that aided and abetted, well according to one of your unionist rags that is.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/mcconnell-broke-rules-on-163-300m-trump-golf-deal-1-1411242
Don’t look now but your fanaticism is showing.
I think that one’s a draw. Salmond, too, was all for the golf course until Trump insisted that wind turbines miles out to sea would spoil his view and Scottish energy policy would have to be changed to accommodate his ugly wankathon. Say ‘jobs’ to a politician at any level, and they start drooling – belatedly, Salmond realised his error, but not in time to kill the project, unfortunately.
I have to admit that episode shaped my opinion of Trump, which agrees 100% with Fred’s, for once.
Craig is certainly correct in his assessment of the Guardian’s Freedland, and I’d add that most of the rest of them are scarcely any better. Their unwillingness or inability to acknowledge the scale of Trump’s triumph, let alone the reasons for it, almost guarantees that he’ll roll over them like a steamroller and is looking at eight years in the White House virtually unopposed.
Looking at the Guardian over the last few days is really depressing reading. The collapse, ideologically and intellectually, morally too, of the liberal/left in the United States, paved the way for the rise of Trump. They abandoned ‘class’ politics, jobs and wages, and embraced identity and gender politics instead, to an extraordinary degree, because to have concentrated on ‘class’ and economics, would have meant confronting the glaring failures at the heart of the Obama years, another, eight, wasted, years.
Liberals, typified by the Guardian and huge swathes of the US media, are still in a state of denial about Donald Trump. They keep on and on and on about Obama, as if he was anything more than a very mediocre president, who’s achievements were paltry and his successes marginal. Obama was always a very rightwing president, a rightwing Republican politically, yet his progressie rhetoric diverted attention from the harsh reality of more neo-con foreign adventures and more neo-liberal economic policies, all of which most Americans were against. With Obama there was no peace dividened, because the wars never stopped. Continual fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, destroying Libya and Syria, is a legacy that’s criminal in scope. Yet for most liberals in the media Libya and Syria weren’t colossal international crimes that ravaged law and order on a global scale, they were examples of Obama’s ‘restraint’! Un-fucking-believable.
I think the future belongs to leaders like Trump as the liberal/left seems dead, like a zombie. No, ideas, no brain, and no morals worth talking about. A smooth facade hiding a gaping void or even a vacuum, which the ‘social-nationalist’ right is only too eager and willing to step into with their easy answers. It’s not that the ‘social national’ right are so impressive, their not, what really should concern people it the almost total collapse of the mainstream liberal/left in the west who’ve capitulated to the dogmas of neo-liberalism with diasterous results to follow, not least their own irrelevance and demise.
The reason Trump won was that not enough of the people who came out to vote for Obama bothered to do so this time around. They weren’t galvanised, unlike Trump’s supporters. Too many Democrats in key states were disappointed and felt betrayed after eight years of Obama and stayed home. Clinton was the choice of the party elite who rigged the election to get her in, even though Sanders was the people’s choice. This alone was a recipe for electoral defeat. Trump, in contrast, took on the Repubublican elite and beat them to a pulp, which he had to do if he was gonna effectively challenge Clinton. Sanders was a poor leader. He accepted being shafted by the Democratic Party and that diasterous strategic failure paved the way for Trump.
Affluent liberals and leftists in the media are so smug and narcissistic and look down with contempt on the ‘deplorables’ and their biggotry, crudeness, racism, misogyny… but mostly their lack of wealth. Perhaps the worst thing is the liberal lack of appreciation that the ‘deplorables’ know and understand this, the contempt the liberal elite have for them. This only adds insult to injury. It’s one thing to abandon millions of poor people to their harsh economic fate, it’s something else to laugh at them and their situation and given them a giant golden shower for not accepting it as the price they have to pay for progress towards the liberal utopia.
Painting Obama as a war-mongerer to justify some kind of ‘neutrality’ over Trump’s election strikes me as contrary to the facts of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Cuba, for example. We can condemn his signing off on drone warfare and mass state surveillance, but there’s little justification for depicting him as a neo-con when he palpably isn’t or wasn’t. Ukraine and Syria have both unfolded without an escalation of conflict with Russia.
As for Trump, how do you reconcile his repeated calls for remilitarization and expansion of the US armed forces, his aggressive nationalism, his call for nuclear weapons for everyone, and his call to ‘wipe ISIS off the face of the earth’ with a more passive international role? Even if he is more personally inclined to deal-making, contrary to half of his aggressive pronouncements, the machinery he’s promising to feed demands actual military engagement to justify its existence.
Aurora,
You are but another Obomber apologist, but lets just remember Honduras, Libya and Syria, before moving to Ukraine – your words ring hollow given the facts. Unless I’m mistaken and Obomber did not sign off on any of these adventures or subscribe to a policy of regime change and interference that has evolved since Kosovo in the late 90s. I’ll add another one, under Obomber more illegal immigrants were apprehended and returned to their home nations than under any other sitting President, further the living standards of his own core voting constituency, namely African American’s and other coloured immigrant groups declined under his two terms in office, whilst the killing of Black civilians by the Police expanded exponentially. To say Obomber was not a disaster is an understatement. Will things get any better under Trump, well I seriously doubt it, particularly given his choices for the key Cabinet positions within his administration, but, at least I’m willing to give him 100 days before denouncing him, which is the same rule I applied to Obomber.
No, I’m not an apologist for Obama. I could say you sound like another ranting idiot believing that irrational, unmeasured argument counts as some kind of radicalism, any direction, left or right or do, as long as it has a dose of antisocial aggression about it, but what’s the justification for labelling people from a few internet comments? I’m sure you’re actually smarter and more reasonable than you appear, and actually do have a notion of ‘proportionality.’
Aurora,
So by pointing out the realities I’m a ranting idiot – I see.
When I start issuing apologies on behalf of the new exploiter-in-chief, please have a word with me, until that day lets stick to facts, facts like under Obomber’s Presidency munitions by the USA were deployed every single day of his Presidency, and in many new places he certainly never inherited from bumbling Bush. I was able, like many on the actual left of the political spectrum, to gauge how Obomber’s Presidency would operate when he announced Timothy Geithner as his Treasury Secretary, suffice to say it was all downhill from there – still, him and his wife look good on the cover of glossy magazines, can’t say the same about the innocents he’s slaughtered. Obviously a price worth paying though!
Apologies for Obama, no – it’s called nuance. Try some. My issue is with hyperbolic descriptions of perceived enemies that end up allowing far worse options (like Trump and his far right cohorts) to assume power. But hey, maybe all that neo-Nazi backing and promises to escalate the US military are just incidental and everything will be fine.
It was the far right Ronald Reagan who, together with Gorbachev, ended the Cold War.
It was Richard Nixon who went to China.
Most Democratic politicians are afraid of being labeled as soft on whoever the enemy du jour is.
“I could say you sound like another ranting idiot ….”
Oh dear.
Aurora
Obama has bombed almost 10 countries, either you are uninformed or you are a supporter of a sheer warcriminal.
Almost 10? Sounds convincing. List them and tell me about them. Labelling people as ‘enemies’ is easier, though isn’t it? Saves you the effort of making an argument.
Aurora
Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria,
That is what we know, your support for this warcriminal makes me sick.
You’re easily sickened.
I don’t think you’ll find the Trumpeters here agreeing that their hero is set fair to become the most belligerent and least democratic President in US history. It will take them a couple of years to realise that Donald is doing a good deal less agonising about bombing and imprisoning brown people than Obama did…in the interests of American supremacism. But even then, I’d doubt they’ll admit their mistake.
Syria has been mentioned. Obama resisted the pressure from Israel and the military wing of the Republicans to put US boots on the ground and repeat the Iraq debacle. Would Trump, in similar circumstances? Again, in Libya, his intervention was reluctant, and partially delegated to the UK and France (who didn’t invade, either) He is aware that he failed to plan for the aftermath –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36013703
-would Trump have instigated a minimal intervention and averted the subsequent bloodshed? Planning for the aftermath of his own election seems to have been too much for him;
http://theweek.com/5things/662124/trump-transition-team-begin-collaboration-obama-aides
…let alone the aftermath of the hypothetical rigged election of an Israel-approved local plutocrat following a Trump-led invasion of somewhere with oil…in America’s interests.
But we’ll see how it pans out. If it all gets too much to bear we can always watch the sea ice melting.
The whole point of UK and US foreign jaunts is that they have needlessly interfered in the affairs of countries, and peoples, over whom they had no authority and without the UN.
You excuse Obama a great deal when, on his watch, the US (and the UK) were funding groups linked with IS/Daesh and Al Qaeda in Syria. (They liked to call them moderates, when, in fact, they were executing civilians loyal to Assad and using them as human shields to protect themselves.)
As for your comments about Libya, I’m stunned! France and the UK were meant to be “enforcing a no-fly zone” there. In fact they were involved in the fighting. Indeed, it was the French who attacked Gaddafi’s convoy and delivered him into the hands of others who basically killed him and it was the monster Clinton who sat in a TV studio grinning all over her shameless fact while declaring, with a laugh, “We came, we saw, he died!” Have you also forgotten about the Americans who died in Benghazi? Have you checked out the mess Libya is in today as a result of that debacle?
You call all that “minimal intervention”. Really?
Why was so little headway being made against IS/Daesh in Syria before Russia got involved? Why, it was because the UK and the US and France were bluffing about fighting IS! Their presence and involvement were about regime change and bringing down yet another legitimate leader of yet another country: it wasn’t about defeating IS. They were essentially supporting IS which is why they were so peed off when Assad asked for help from Russia. We didn’t see any progress at all on pushing them back until Russia got involved.
All of these things happened on Obama’s watch, whether he was “reluctant” or not. And, as always, we saw the usual suspects setting the UN aside as and when they saw fit while the streets of various foreign cities ran with the blood of innocents in the midst of carnage. Minimal intervention? I don’t think so.
“I don’t think you’ll find the Trumpeters here agreeing that their hero ….”
I think you’ll find that many commentating here aren’t necessarily supporters of Trump. Rather, many were horrified at the prospect of Clinton as president particularly when she made it so clear during her campaign that she was relishing the idea of going to war with Russia at the earliest possible date by imposing yet another no-fly zone over yet another country where she had no authority whatsoever!
Defeating so-called Islamic State is easy, just ask the CIA and allies to stop promoting, funding and arming them. Simples.
The River bends. Right Here, Right Now.
We can’t read The Future but Thank God the last 16 years are in The Past, as is The Queen of Swords.
http://bobdylan.com/songs/changing-guards/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMOwFgKZACY
Count your blessings Ladies and Gentlemen, you don’t have the grinning jenny to grin at you, or into your TV’s any more. Karma.
Today, that is ALL! And I mean TODAY, though I don’t truly mean ALL.
ALL will be when we ALL change. Change from thinking, thinking, thinking, analysing, analysing, analysing to INSIGHT. As brilliant an analyst Craig is, I’m afraid to say that is all he is, an Analyst. His stuff comes across as ‘lateral’, simply because the rest are so lost in a variety of confusion, but he is till analysing.
Today is not a day for analysing. Rather it is day for deep reflection to grasp the ‘What Is’ not just outwardly in the external world, but inwardly in the question of living creatively. Though that comes after a huge amount of de-conditioning. It is not just the Washington Swamp that needs to be drained. We each have our washing and draining to do. Else, we have learnt nothing.
For example, one person who can never be washed is We-came-we-saw-he-died-ha-ha-ha Hillary. One person who needs no washing, nor decoration is Bob Dylan. Go figure.
“I suppose the reason I can’t join in the “it’s a disaster” screams, is that……”
My own ending to that sentence would be :
“I’m delighted HIllary didn’t end up in the White House as that really would have been a disaster for the world.”
Agree with Craig re Freedland. Just listened to his sidekick Polly on Dateline London this morning ranting, positively ranting, like a mad woman about Trump. Not pleasant.
Because Trump is pleasant and never sounds mad?
You miss the point. Both of these candidates for the presidency were flawed yet many journalists on both sides of the pond presented Clinton like she was Mother Theresa as opposed to the war-mongering, reckless monster she is…..and a dishonest one too!
The hysteria in the media over Trump’s win is unprecedented and pretty unprofessional in my view. It has been a hate-fest. Listening to Toynbee on Dateline London today was embarrassing in the extreme as she behaved like a little girl having a tantrum demanding that the sooner Trump is impeached and got rid of by any means the better. She only just stopped short, in my view, of saying “assassinated”. That really is deplorable.
Yesterday while watching what is usually a fairly straightforward process when a new president is inaugurated I found it irritating in the extreme to have to put up with the vicious commentary that came with it from the BBC. It was full of vicious, nasty little asides from the various people who were supposed to be there to cover the event, not give us their personal opinions on the man who, whether we like it or not, won the election. We saw precious little condemnation either of those who attempted to disrupt public order by smashing shop windows and rioting in some twisted process the media portrayed as the “defence of democracy”! From where I was sitting those people were seeking to defeat democracy, not defend it.
We’ve all seen elections where we didn’t like the result. I certainly have but I’ve never in my life seen anything like this and I sincerely hope we don’t see it again. It has been ugly from start to finish and we should all condemn the part the media has played in seeking to stir up so much hatred with their one-sided and irresponsible reporting.
The saddest part is that from a country the size of the US these were the two candidates America was asked to choose between. That is perhaps the real tragedy but I still say we should all breathe a sigh of relief that Clinton is not in the White House.
So those two and a half million women marching right now against Trump are all wrong too?
Shame the ‘it’s all a liberal media conspiracy’ narrative doesn’t tally with reality, convenient as it may be for those who want to see a white supremacist male billionaire militarist run the show for a while to, quote, ‘shake things up.’
Aurora
Off course Trump is dreadful. But you talk as if Clinton didn’t support Iraq and enable Libya. As if the US has suddenly become a racist, imperialist state worthy of your objection.
As you are beckoned onto the street you will be as easily instructed back indoors. Instead of suddenly discovering your anger at the bequest of one part of the ruling class you could instead consider how your lesser evilism might have sustained the consistent reality of US state violence.
“But you talk as if Clinton didn’t support Iraq and enable Libya”
I didn’t mention Clinton – that would be voices you’re hearing inside your own head. If you want to preempt my views and thoughts go ahead, just count me out of the conversation.
Stop pussy footing around Aurora (nice name). Spell it out, ae you underwhelmed that we have been saved from we-came-we-saw-he-died-ha-ha-ha HC (WCWSHDH3 HC)?
If you think Trump is a militarist, you are hearing voices of fear in your head! That would be normal for many.
1.We in US d have seen our boarders erased, especially southern end, over past 8 yrs. We’re not safe. Not at all “racist” to mind the shop.
2. Trump comes to the office, a businessman with no previous political office holding. One could argue, I suppose, that business and politics demand much the same from a man, but as far as Trump goes, he’s coming from outside the arena. Take a peek at vids from 80’s interviews with Oprah and Phil Donahue.
3.He’s certainly aware of vulnerabilities of being inside this arena.
Americans who voted Trump don’t see him the fool others pretend to see.
They weren’t erased, merely deported.
From Craig’s post:
“..the extraordinary “Manchurian candidate” rubbish which the entire establishment threw at Trump..”
______________________
I agree it was rubbish.
Can someone tell me what one should think of Lysias’s recent claim (repeated) that Barack Obama was the CIA’s “Manchurian candidate” ?
🙂
The evidence that Obama was a CIA candidate, from a CIA household, is obvious enough. The claims re Trump were clearly ludicrous and there was no evidence.
So Bevin, on the basis of “obvious evidence” (LOL), joins Lysias in asserting that Barack Obama was the CIA’s Manchurian candidate.
Let readers note and draw their conclusions about that identity of views.
CM,
Like you, I highlighted Jonathan Freedland’s god damned awful Journalist attack on the incoming President Trump on another Board I inhabit somewhat earlier than you – that this is a Group of Left-wingers, my post elicited some strange responses, with some posters bringing Putin into the equation as far as Obomber’s warmongering goes, or losing all perspective in applying rules they apply to their own to Trump by way of critique, all of which is pure hypocrisy in my humble opinion. Hence, I’m delighted we share a similar opinion of Trump and a similar contempt of the supposed ‘Progressive’ media, which in most respects is outright propaganda dressed as considered thought, The Guardian and its many paid scribblers being the personification of this issue.
Well let’s see. Things weren’t great, but I reckon they can get much much worse. It’s not just the glaring character flaws, there’s something in the group dynamic. This is a group that wants to put billionaires first, and to continue thwarting and dismantling competent government, and they’ve got form. Then in the population, they’ve stopped listening to each other, there are tons of guns, they’re on the slippery slope to the next civil war.
Majorities form nations and all nations contain minorities, but if the minority gets too big and becomes a majority it (or the other side) will want separation to reinvent/form its own nation. There are now more nations in the world than ever, and stateless people, and there will be many more as the world’s population grows.
Due to the growth of minorities within America, the republic could go the way of the old Soviet Union and break up into component parts and not unlikely because if we look at North America as a whole it already includes the separate nations of Mexico and Canada/Quebec.
Trump’s appeal to “unity” could work and postpone a breakup and ironically his “racist” appeal to the just about white majority will delay the breakup, because nations work when the majority is confident and rules. Its when the majority feels vulnerable that it becomes a threat to and fearful of the minority.
Make America Great Again reassures the majority and if enough minorities prefer to be part of the American rather than their own dream, to be unionists rather than separatives, then it will keep the republic together, although demands for a confederacy/devolution will grow.
“For much of the world, a period of American isolationism would be extremely welcome.”
________________________
And it would for many on here, of course, with the happy result that the Egregiousness of Excellences would have less to bitch and rave on about.
But I somehow think that the US will continue to get much stick from the Excellences on here no matter what it does or doesn’t do.
As witnessed by the confusion of the Hillary-haters when confronted with the Trump victory, which is a true joy to behold 🙂
Good to see you Habby. Appreciate your helping me see the funny side of it; always reliable! 🙂
So important after listening to so much anal-analysis!
Thank you, Alcyone, appreciated!
As you’ve noticed, I’ve been away a couple of days, following actual developments as opposed to pontificating, rambling and raving on about them in the usual modus operandi of the Eminences (ie, much opinion and bluster, little knowledge and understanding). 🙂
Hand on in there!
Yes and even littler Wisdom!
When The Deal Goes Down
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN
In the still of the night, in the world’s ancient light
Where wisdom grows up in strife
My bewildering brain, toils in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turning around
We live and we die, we know not why
But I’ll be with you when the deal goes down
http://bobdylan.com/songs/when-deal-goes-down/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=when+the+deal+goes+down+bob+dylan+vevo
Dedicated to the author of The Art of the Deal, but it’s Dylan who is the REAL Deal to me. The greatest living poet.
Habby did you see the cartoon I posted further down? Did you read the american Dennis the Menace in your younger days? (I know you are still very young 😉 )
The mutual admiration society on here is so touching.
Seconded!
Recognise change when it happens; good of you to point out.
Donald Trump’s gift to the world will hopefully be an end to Political Correctness. In my opinion PC is the greatest threat to free speach.
“With no sense of irony, a “liberal” media which rightly excoriates the President of Gambia for failing to accept an election result, continues to do precisely the same thing in the case of Donald Trump.”
Without no sense of irony, Craig rightly excoriates the liberal media for failing to accept an election result, while himself calling for the results of the EU and Scottish independence referendums to be ignored.
Touche!
With no sense of irony, Craig Murray labels himself a ‘human rights activist’ while crowing that WikiLeaks got Trump elected, and complains that the ‘liberal’ media (in quote marks) – i.e. the bits that aren’t Fox, Breibart, the Daily Mail etc. yet – are giving his preference for US president a hard time. Isn’t that what the media is supposed to do, question, especially right now when the rights of women, the environment and immigrants are being closed down in his very first days of office? Seriously fucked up.
That about sums it up Aurora.
Trump isn’t an idiot, on the contrary. This is a terrible mistake liberals and the left have made, because it also reflects their attitude to the people who vote for Trump. One is, at the same time, effectively, calling them idiots as well.
Trump’s pulled off a neat trick in re-branding the Republican Party as a party of the working man. The social-nationalism he’s selling, the type, has been increasingly influential in mainland Europe for a long time. I suppose it’s a new type of ‘fascism’ really, but without the overt militarisation and uniforms, only in the US they’ve got that already, given the central role of the military in society and the number of wars they are involved in and have been for decades. This is normal. The wages of empire.
I’m not sure the left/liberals are gonna recover from this anytime soon. After eight years of Trump the US is gonna be a very different country. Just imagine how much worse attitudes to the environment and global warming will be, heavens! Whilst we may avoid open conflict with Russia, it’s the environment that’s the big loser here. Trump’s election means that we can kiss the environment goodbye and the chances of avoiding runaway climate change, already slim, have virtually disappeared.
The media’s fawning and open love for Obama, mesmerized by his grace, charm and beauty, has been a disaster.
No amount of tax is going to stop the climate changing.
Wot about carbon tax?
No I don’t think Trump’s an idiot, per se, he’s just someone who learned that non-empathic anti-social ruthlessness is the best way to make money under build-and-destroy capitalism. His skills are entirely focused on ‘closing the deal’ by exploiting the ‘weakness’ of his rivals/adversaries. He comes across as an idiot, maybe, because he really doesn’t need or want to think beyond these business strategies. He’s the perfect pre-neoliberal capitalist. But the idea that he’ll return the US and the world to pre-neoliberal times is farcical. Capital is now globalized, including huge proportions of American capital.
As for Obama, he is at least aware of global warming. The question is why his stated aim when entering office of removing the US from oil dependency (and Middle Eastern wars) proved unsuccessful.
Saudi migrant ‘murdered Catholic pensioner for beliefs then left Arabic messages in home’
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/757189/Saudi-migrant-murdered-Catholic-pensioner-beliefs-Arabic-messages
racist / sexist
Again, what’s the point you’re trying to make?
“…the happier days before the advent of monetarism…” Are you conflating monetarism and a “neoliberal model”? Or equating it solely with the proposition that active counter-cyclical fiscal policy is ineffective by comparison with monetary policy?
Indeed “Trumponomics” looks very much like “Reaganomics” or what George Bush called “voo-doo” economics before he agreed to be VP…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics
I wasn’t trying to say anything, just asking for a clarification of meaning. What part of monetarism is referred to? or is the term just used to say boo-hiss? – but then, why? – monetarism has not been tried in thirty-odd years, if then. Were the times happier times before because not monetarist, “Keynesian”, perhaps? despite the fact that “Keynesianism” (Keynes would insist on the scare quotes) was flawed and not obviously the reason for post-War prosperity? There are several such broadbrush obscurities here. – The EU is “successful” we were told the other day – a successful what? Monetary policy (or is it economic policy) has been “monetarist” – meaning what?
The way that the comments section of this blog works s on the “Humpty Dumpty” principle i.e. “If I use a word it means what I say it means”. Keynes was indeed not a Keynsian and Im told Darwin was no Darwinian nor Feud a Freudian.
And Marx said, “I am not a Marxist”.
The Humpty Dumpty principle: a word means what I want it to mean. Trouble is no-one else knows what you mean. I just wanted to know what was intended by “monetarist”. It appeared to be used as a simple term of abuse or as a blanket description of period when economic policy was in no sense monetarist.