It's not about Trump
It's not about racism.
It's not about sexism.
It's not even about Trump.
It's all about the economy.
Specifically, it's about globalization.
I've noticed that the liberals who screamed "racism! sexism!" the most, were also the ones most confident that there was no possible way for Trump to beat Hillary. They were convinced this was what voters cared most about.
In a world with consequences, this crowd, which totally and completely misread the political winds, would now be discredited. But unfortunately, that's not how politics work.
Rather than admit being wrong, that same crowd is today trying to convince us that the white working class is just a bunch of racists, which is a strategy with no future.
On the other side of the ledger are people who correctly predicted this election outcome - like Michael Moore.
Moore actually talked to people in the Rust Belt. Did he find a growing white supremacy movement?
No. Moore found millions of people who were hurting and scared about their economic future.
Anyone that has spent any time on liberal blogs has notice the priority of social issues over economic ones, even to the point of accusations that prioritizing the economy is a symptom of white privilege.
The problem with de-emphasizing the economy is that the Dems aren't speaking to the concerns of the voters.
A majority (52 percent) of voters said the economy was the most important issue facing the country. (Voters were given a choice of four issues; “terrorism” was the second most commonly named “important” issue, with 18 percent choosing it.)
Liberals will most likely view the exit polls as evidence of the pervasive white privilege in American society. But the reality is that the exit polls show the opposite.
Overall, 46% of Hispanics cited the economy as the most important issue facing the country, followed by terrorism (20%), immigration (19%) and foreign policy (11%).
This wasn't a new development.
In 2014, the Pew Hispanic Center reached a similar conclusion as Gallup has:
Asked about a variety of pressing national priorities, 49% of Latino voters identified the economy as the most important issue facing the country, followed by health care (24%) and illegal immigration (16%). That ranking is similar to that of all U.S. voters, among whom 45% named the economy, 25% heath care and 14% illegal immigration.
Nor is just Hispanics, specifically
In an effort to hear what issues Black women are most concerned with this election cycle, Higher Heights asked Black women across the country (at events and online), what is the most important issue facing Black women and their families. 556 Black women responded to the survey, 49 percent stated that economic security was the most pressing issue.
Unless liberals are going to start accusing Hispanics of White Privilege, the obvious conclusion is that liberals aren't just out of touch with the white working class, liberals are out of touch with minority working class as well.
Moore wasn't the only one who predicted this outcome. A Scottish economist named Mark Blyth, not only saw Trump's win coming, he saw Brexit too.
That's critical to understand, because these events are connected, and without understanding that this is a worldwide movement against globalism, liberals will continue to be clueless about why they keep losing.
Did the Trump campaign have elements of racism? Yes, of course.
Did the Brexit campaign have elements of racism? Yes, of course.
Same with France's National Front.
But that isn't anywhere close to what is going on here.
It ignores the much bigger story of the collapse of center-left parties all over the western world.
Next up is Italy.
Trump is not a political movement. He's a con man. He didn't create anything.
However, he did two things that the Democrats didn't do: he listened to the working class and pretended to care.
Unlike what liberals would have you believe, Trump didn't spend his time talking about white power. Instead he talked primarily about jobs, and those jobs being shipped out of the country.
Trump merely tapped into something that was already there. That it came out with a crude, xenophobic tinge was because of the only available political outlet/filter - the Trump campaign.
The same thing can be said about Brexit, in which the defining characteristic of voters was class.
It's a crying shame that there is a global anti-establishment/anti-elitism/anti-globalization movement ongoing and the left is almost nowhere to be found. Not only is this a huge missed opportunity, it's a betrayal of centuries of leftist ideology.
The left is supposed to force the system to respond to the political and economic needs of the working class, not defend the political status quo like the Democratic Party is doing. (Pelosi and Shumer again!?! Really?)
This used to be how the left approached globalization in 1999.
But in 2016, this was the picture of the Democratic Party when it came to globalization.
Without question, the center-left is collapsing, and the radical-right is rising because the liberal establishment has betrayed the working class. In fact, even talking about class is rarely done in America.
The right-wing simply moved into the vacuum.
Fortunately, because this is a global movement, the anti-globalist left isn't deaf and mute everywhere.
In Britain there is Jeremy Corby, and leader of the Labour Party, and he's got a few choice words to say about Trump and the rise of the populist right.
“We can see the choice taken by politicians on the hard Right - to whip up division against migrants, Muslims, Mexicans, women, LGBT people, people with disabilities,” he said on Saturday.
“The fake anti-elitism of rich white men like Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. It’s farcical at one level, but in reality it’s no joke.”
Yes! Yes! Yes!
"Fake anti-elitism of rich white men" is a great way of putting it. Why don't democrats ever say stuff like that?
Oh, right. Dems are also guilty of "fake anti-elitism".
Maybe they choke on the hypocrisy.
Corbyn then distinguishes himself from the corporate center, unlike the Dems.
“We won’t tackle the damage done by elite globalisation just by leaving the EU,” he will say.
“We won’t ‘take back control’ unless we take on the corporate vested interests that control our energy, our transport and have infiltrated our public services.
“Neither billionaire Donald Trump nor the billionaire-backed Tories have any interest in giving people back control or reining in the predatory excesses of a globalised free-for-all.”
Corbyn, being a real progressive, then does something the democratic liberal establishment, which is both undemocratic and illiberal, is unable to do - vocalize the language for a renewal of a left-wing, working class coalition.
"The gap between rich and poor is widening. Living standards are stagnating or falling. People feel left behind by the forces unleashed by globalisation. They feel powerless in the face of deregulated corporate power.
"We have to deal with those issues and we have to deal with them quickly and seriously.
"The populist right do identify many of the problems but their toxic solution is actually a dead end. It's about attacking minorities rather than facing the real issues that many communities face.
"So, unless progressive parties across Europe are prepared to break from the political establishment of the past, which has sought to manage the change of globalisation, then we are going to have problems."Mr Corbyn went on: "We have to offer a different economic message. It's about convincing the long-term unemployed that the reason there is no work for them is not because of migrants, it's because of an economic programme of deindustrialisation and insecurity.
"We have to make clear that our public services are being run down because of austerity and often very predatory privatisation.
"We cannot and must not abandon socialist principles, because many tell us that is the only way to achieve power.
"We have to put forward a very clear economic message - one of social justice and inclusion."
This the language of working-class socialism. It has power.
The kind of power that progressives are going to need, because shouting "racism! sexism!" has lost its ability to shock and move people. Once that's gone, and it is gone, it won't be coming back soon.
Finally, Corbyn gives a warning of what will happen if progressives don't act.
Corbyn told the Party of European Socialists Council that while the populist right had identified many of the correct problems at a time of growing insecurity and declining living standards, the solutions offered were “toxic dead-ends” of the past.
“They are political parasites feeding on people’s concerns and worsening conditions, blaming the most vulnerable for society’s ills instead of offering a way for taking back real control of our lives from the elites who serve their own interests,” he said.“But unless progressive parties and movements break with a failed economic and political establishment, it is the siren voices of the populist far right who will fill that gap.”
This is the kind of language the left-wing needs to reclaim the working class, but it is a language that is foreign to the Democratic Party.
Comments
So in 2047 or so --
We in the States will, according to Mora et al., experience "clilmate departure" -- at which point global agriculture will experience multiple crop failures. Plenty of people will die and nations will disappear from the face of the globe. It will happen at least a decade earlier for folks closer to the equatorial zones.
Do the neoliberals who run the Democratic Party care? They're so deep into the game that, to them, "climate change is real" is merely code for "vote for us instead of those Republican deniers." They have no clue that their children or grandchildren will be its victims.
This year the Clinton forces made a big deal about the idea that their candidate was "qualified." But qualified to do what? Suck up Saudi money while pretending to care? They're all unqualified -- every single one of them.
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
can anyone point me at the C99P post from a few days
ago concerning Trump appointing some guy who wants to slash NASA's earth-oriented projects?
the search function, i'm afraid, appears to have some big blind spots ...
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
It was in the Friday Evening Blues
It was in Friday's Evening Blues (Dec. 2), toward the end of the blog post, right underneath the Evening Greens banner.
http://caucus99percent.com/content/evening-blues-12-2-16
The Intercept article linked to in the post:
Global Warming Research in Danger as Trump Appoints Climate Skeptic to NASA Team
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
bing! we're so hosed. n/t
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
2047 or sooner, for agricultural and ecological disaster
All the estimates so far have been too timid. Not to mention the unknown tipping points which are apt to crash into us.
The government is bought and paid for
both parties are one, bi partisanship is a label for passing a bill that fucks the people, free trade is the label for corporate giveaways, etc.etc.etc.
When was the last time they passed a law that benefited the people?
D's, R's, it makes no difference, we're fucked.
If the language upsets anyone, my apologies, seeing O smiling with the TPP placard in front of him pissed me off.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Pissed me off as well. Pelosi talks about improving
the message. Heh.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Pelosi needed to go yesterday, along with the whole DNC
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/
neither of the two parties represent the people, improving the message on how they're gonna fuck us, won't help us, only them.
great article, thanks for the link.
Patman, Brandeis, two of the good guys, we don't have them anymore.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Definitely,
yet the Dem establishment has such a death grip on the DNC, and is so terrified of changing, that I don't see any solution anytime soon. The statements Pelosi made were incredibly obtuse, and it's clear that they haven't hit bottom yet, in spite of the evidence.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Those out of work people in Detroit aren't hiring
right now, but you can bet there are tons of think tanks and hedge funds and investment banks, and Centers for Progress and all that wall street funded shit that are.
And that is the secret: Neoliberals are comfortable losing. They actually make more money in between innings. Do you think Donna Brazile is worried about where her next paycheck is coming from? Howard Dean did pretty well for a guy who lost. Podesta wont be giving up his mansion, Mook will not go hungry.
But to actually represent the poor or working class invites risk: No one there to pick you up if you lose. And at election time you have to work for your donations, they don't come bundled in maxed out checks.
You literally cannot represent wall street and workers at the same time.
Wall Street knows that too
and it's why they work overtime to coax and charm Democrats. If they have friends in both parties, the working class is effectively disenfranchised and unrepresented.
Those workers in Detroit, why don't they just apply for jobs at a think tank, or do some consulting? Why don't they just start a hedge fund? What's wrong with them?
If that's their message, the Dems are screwed for at least another cycle or three.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Those out of work people in Detroit aren't hiring
right now, but you can bet there are tons of think tanks and hedge funds and investment banks, and Centers for Progress and all that wall street funded shit that are.
And that is the secret: Neoliberals are comfortable losing. They actually make more money in between innings. Do you think Donna Brazile is worried about where her next paycheck is coming from? Howard Dean did pretty well for a guy who lost. Podesta wont be giving up his mansion, Mook will not go hungry.
But to actually represent the poor or working class invites risk: No one there to pick you up if you lose. And at election time you have to work for your donations, they don't come bundled in maxed out checks.
You literally cannot represent wall street and workers at the same time.
The NWO template
we lose, no worries, we just have to fundraise a little harder. In a fake markit economy the people will always lose.
It wouldn't surprise me if WJC is having a daily chat with Trump, he'll definitely know how to profit from being a prez.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
OWS sounded the first alarm
Bernie picked up where they left.
Hillary, Obama and the establishment didn't get it.
Obama did great at the macro level. But he never got the micro.
The 800 lbs gorilla is the stagnation of average wages for decades. Also supported by the productivity-pay gap.
But how do you put the globalization cat back in the bag? Tariffs?
The political revolution continues
I'd really like to hear more about the connection
…between the spirit that moved OWS and what happened during the 2016 election. I know there's a great deal there.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Compare OWS with the Tea Party
The GOP immediately embraced the Tea Party movement.
Granted, it was a poisoned embrace.
Now compare that to OWS, which the Democratic establishment didn't want anything to do with. Dirty peasants.
Bingo!
The Dems don't listen to the people at all. At least the GOP listens to people and talks with them.
The Dems purged me of my right to vote in the primary, then told me to vote for Hillary and shut the fuck up.
The Dems didn't even try to reach out to OWS, they simply ignored them and then ignored the police brutality against the people.
Fuck the Democrats. They never stood up for anyone but themselves and the elite.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
We got the last laugh on that one though
in spades!
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Sun, 12/04/2016 - 10:17pm —
Sun, 12/04/2016 - 10:17pm — Shockwave
Well, you do need to neuter it, and since it's so vicious and destructive, have it declawed and kept somewhere that it represents no hazard to anyone.
But if people/countries actually had the basic freaking protections many Constitutions already provide and which are considered by the sane to be also basic human rights, much of this 'globalization' reframing of a destructive global hostile corporate take-over could not occur - nor could have the official acceptance of the distortion of fact, rights and science by propagandists/polluters in order to so freely continue to pollute and poison human, societal and environmental health while off-loading health and fiscal costs onto the public and individual victims, such as this enabling corporations to accumulate the wealth and power to purchase governments in order to entirely dictate public policy.
This has occurred because public servants have been allowed to pass 'laws' violating Constitutional/human rights, which Constitutions/standards were established specifically to prevent, and this has occurred because the checks and balances of democracy were also staffed with the corrupt.
A recent attempt to effectively do away with such checks and balances within government was just rejected by the people of Italy, thank goodness, because there appears to be a major attempt by the global PTB (which shouldn't exist at all as such) for 'Constitutional reform' to provide the 'legal' opportunity to do away with protections for the people and country and redefine countries and their people/ecologies as assets for the few to 'legally' drain, and this may well be why retaining Constitutional integrity - and Brexit, allowing for local, answerable government, as democracy requires - has been claimed to potentially adversely affect financial markets, where the relative few have been thwarted in the progress of their global hostile corporate takeover and having hissy fits over what's often (in my admittedly uninformed view) speculative data-dot 'paper' wealth increases based on pretty much nothing except expectations and cons anyway.
I personally believe that the problem solving starts with achieving a whole bunch of impossible things before breakfast, which involve going back to principles.
A legitimate democratic government is of, by and for the people and ensures the welfare of the people and country - if it isn't, it's not legitimate.
A legitimate democratic government ensures equal rights, treatment and opportunity for all, with no-one 'above the law' - if it doesn't, it isn't legitimate.
With great foresight, the American Founders guaranteed the right for each person to pursue happiness in their individual fashion, also clearly demonstrating the purpose of the government and country as existing to ensure the welfare, liberty and potential for the pursuit of individual happiness of the people, maximizing freedoms as far as is possible, within restraints intended to protect the rights of all as far as possible, in a definition of democracy which became widely accepted, at least among the publics of many countries.
(Corporations are, obviously, not people; to my limited understanding, they are legal evasions of personal responsibility intended to protect other personal properties of owners/investors in the event of a company bankruptcy, but which nonetheless fall under law and those responsible for such entities must be held accountable for abuses, that they may be corrected or have their license to function rescinded where they fail to serve the public interest and/or work against it. And claiming corporate money to be political speech in order to increase propaganda and endemic equity, unlimited for the ones draining the public's resources and bleeding the workers for continuous record corporate/CEO/billionaire profits while killing the reality-based economy and those on whom the profiteers stand is downright traitorous, since the government/judiciary exists to serve/protect the public interest, not to crush it and them into servitude. Apart from anything else, all people have political speech - why should relatively small but wealthy and powerful self-interested groups have extra and louder voices intended to overpower those of the people, by, of and for whom legitimate government exists to ensure equal rights, treatment and opportunity of all, not more for some who have already taken most away from the rest? These are not 'special interests'; they are self-interests working against those of the public.)
I periodically see comments in which democracy is defined as 'direct democracy' where virtually every government action must be determined by public vote - but is that what your Founders defined as their Great Experiment, or is it rather that specified above?
And I've seen people pointing out that the US is a Republic, not a democracy - but it was to be a democratic republic, not a banana republic.
Law has been converted to a game where a bad precedent, rather than being overturned/pointed to as a bad example, has been used to establish bad and undemocratic law acting against the public interest and that of justice in order to protect/benefit predators from these.
If the purpose of law is to seek justice within a democracy where government is to be of, for and by the people, enforcing equal rights, treatment and opportunity for all, and with no-one 'above the law', then the law must follow these principles in order to be legitimate, and corrupt/ignorant judges acting against the public interest and justice in order to benefit predators are illegitimate judges creating illegitimate law.
There has been a great propaganda effort to blur the perception of right and wrong into 'political opinion'.
The powerful sickening/injuring/killing/stealing property or rights from those less powerful is wrong. This is not a political opinion, this is basic to civilization, sustainability and survival; if protections in law are warped to allow this, disaster occurs - and no-one and nothing is safe.
Ignoring science/reality doesn't work; individuals may have their own opinions, but public policy must be based on sanity, humanity and sense, while protecting individual human liberties against the impositions of the powerful, including those of personal opinions intruding into personal decision-making.
This has not been the case in a country which has been founded upon a defined democracy as one where government is to be of, for and by the people, having equal rights, treatment and opportunity for all, and with no-one 'above the law' - but who but a raving lunatic can look at this definition and fail to understand its intent? Or one who, having no moral principles, also disregards other principles as not serving their own self-interests and therefore has no place in the public service.
So it has been from the beginning, but does this have to continue to a rapidly nearing end of life as we know it on the planet?
I've no idea as to how this can be achieved in a thoroughly corrupted system - but we have to fight our own acceptance of the propagandist reframing of the corrupt and stick to our principles while working on how this can be accomplished.
We need to dream big enough to overcome the nightmare...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Excellent essay that touches on all key aspects of Trump's win.
Personally, I found this final overview among the most comprehensive of any I've seen in the press. It looks at "what we knew, when we knew it, and what we refused to see" during the course of the election campaign.
• What were the main issues for voters? Check.
• What were the polls saying about that? Check.
• How was the US mood tracking with the rest of the world's? Check.
• Where did US propaganda intersect US polling? Check.
• Who predicted it right, and how did they do it? Check.
At almost every single point, it seems, the handwriting was on the wall.
In full concurrence with the author's view, I will add a couple of details that observers of like mind were also noticing in confirmation:
1. Almost every poll conducted was a "push" poll. Right from the beginning, the tone of the polling questions were "off." Even Pew and Gallup questions or frames were somewhat skewed far too early in the process. Furthermore, attitudes of those polled seem to "evolve" in the direction of the skewing, as time went on.
2. The nation was on the receiving end of unprecedented domestic propaganda of every possible kind, coming largely from the media, and attributed to unknown or anonymous "sources" or "insiders." It was like the loud crescendo of a great symphony playing in the background. And when the reaction to the propaganda-madness started flying — in the form of an, also unprecedented, release of powerful, targeted leaks — people started seeing things they were unprepared to see. I'll wager a prediction that elections in the US will never be the same again. It wouldn't be possible.
3. At no point, during the entire election campaign, was it ever unclear that the 2016 election was about economics, from top to bottom. It was about how economics affected the American people. Period. Anyone who saw a clip of a Bernie Sanders speech knew that. Trump's rally speeches, like heat-seeking missiles, were aimed at the condition of people's wallets. (In both cases, the media reported on them using sensational non sequiturs, deliberately omitting the fact that the topic was the People's Economics.) By the time the Presidential debates rolled around, issues were discussed at the level of cocktail party chatter, and questions about the Economic Experience of Americans were never posed.
Regardless of who Americans were voting for, they saw that happen. I'm certain they did.
(There are a couple of original points the author makes I'll touch on later, including the masterful ways race and sex was used, unsuccessfully, to blind voters.)
Insightful.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Fine comment.
You complement gjohnsit's points perfectly.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
I think when the Dems starting using "Putin Scary!"
was when they realized they were in trouble. That people weren't swallowing the normal BS.
In retrospect the whole strategy seems bizarre.
I'm going to do some edits and then drop this on GOS in a bit, just to stir up the sh*t.
I figured they knew they were in deep trouble
when Assange was framed as a pedophile, and Trump was accused of raping a minor, Lisa Bloom even signed on.
It's bizarre how the line from both the media and the Shillary campaign was that Bernie's ideas are unworkable, and Trump is lying, yet no economic solutions were forthcoming from the Clinton camp at all, it was all about qualified, woman, privilege and "look what Donald said". That's got to be the worst campaign on record.
I am certain that all the same shills will be re-hired.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
There was a polling techniques document in the Podesta emails
It talked about which groups to over-sample to make Hillary look good. And the pollsters always seemed to be following it, more people who called themselves Democrats than in the population, etc.
We noticed a trend
in the primaries, wherein Hillary would lead by ten or so, and then drop like a rock on election day. This trend repeated often enough to be noticeable, although not quite often enough to cause her to lose. Of course the Hillbots all shrieked that it was CT, but it was quite obvious that they were push-polling. They did it so often that they eventually tricked themselves.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Italy just went down. Renzi resigns.
The way racism and sexism and xenophobia manifest in the world
is often economic. Minorities aren't hired, women get paid less, don't let them in the country they will take my job.
True, but
one causes the other.
Liberals want to put the cart before the horse.
Yes there are many here
who are simply learned racists without understanding the underlying economic imperative.
Here in America not c99 just so I'm clear
Thank you for that clarification!
When there's not enough for supper,
the least - favored may go hungry.
One of your best essays yet.
Between you and Pluto's Republic there is no way someone can't see what happened this year and how awful neoliberals are. Unless, of course, they don't want to see. For those people the message should be, "Stand back! We're comin' through."
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
"Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall!"
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Well, here's an example of a person who can't see it
I find this so hard to believe, but it's true. She actually said this.
Keep telling myself she watched the movie too many times: "What we have here is a failure to communicate."
https://news.grabien.com/story-pelosi-i-dont-think-people-want-new-direc...
Pelosi speaks. Should have warned ya' all not to read with a mouth full of coffee.
thank you for this essay. Excellent, as usual.
She is a complete idiot.
This is why the dem party cannot be reformed. These people are living in a bubble and the bubbles are going up their noses and into their brains.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Mon, 12/05/2016 - 9:09am —
Mon, 12/05/2016 - 9:09am — Raggedy Ann
Making me very glad that I saw the coffee warning and swallowed before following the link to hear Pelosi babble bubble-talk!
(Not that regular coffee has bubbles and I suppose it would have squirted out of my nose anyway but I can't afford a new keyboard never mind a less-bubbled/soggy brain - the latter of which it appears even the super-rich can't afford either.)
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
...
Wow.
She doesn't think people want a new direction.
There are no words.
Failing economy
Yes, it is the economy, our economic system is destroying the
planet, exploiting people all over the world and benefiting
by the suffering of unjust, unnecessary and illegal wars in the middle east.
Meanwhile even with all that destruction, suffering and exploitation...
it fails to provide economic security to
half of the people and provides extreme wealth to an
oligarchy of billionaires allowing them to rig the game so it cannot change.
But then, Mark Blyth was saying there that this rise of the right wing around the
world is about economic austerity and about a show down
between debtors and creditors... is this about the imminent collapse of this
failing global capitalist system based on massive DEBT?
If there is a collapse...I hope we don't bail it out this time.
An economic collapse could provide an opportunity to take a new path.
Several countries have started over in this century
...including Iceland and Argentina.
Once the banks and the nation's resources are nationalized (returned to the people) anything is possible and affordable.
But only on that condition.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
It seems to me that a reaction
against the wave of migrants sweeping across Europe is a major factor in its shift to the Right. This does not necessarily equate with racism, as many Leftists would have it. There are real and pressing social problems being caused by excessive immigration, that the Left has by and large refused to recognize, or to adequately deal with. I don't think this is an exclusively economic problem, nor is racism per se is the primary motivation for the reaction to it.
native
By any reasonable metric this is a cultural conflict
…not a racial one. There would be a cultural conflict if 100,000 assertive and needy Australians or Russians suddenly swarmed western Europe or an island nation like the UK. The right wing would be bitching about them, too. Demanding immediate deportation. Any large scale migration of a population with very obvious differences in values, customs, and language is going to become an epic clash, regardless of skin colors. It can be resolved over time, but the burden is on the migrant to internalize his culture and blend seamlessly into the new one. This has been the case in the US with every wave of immigrants that arrived, and it took several generations to make the transition.
Mexicans and AAs were never immigrants in the US, nor were native Americans. Racism toward them does not parallel what is happening in Europe.
The right wing everywhere are equal opportunity haters of "others," including great swaths of their own race. They prefer to segregate themselves and their base from all "others." But race is merely one category of humans they wish to exclude, and filing them under "racists" is not nuanced enough, to manage them politically.
As long as their numbers were small, Africans and Indians got on quite well in Europe, according to them.
Mass migration puts tremendous pressure on the population receiving them. It is disruptive, both economically and socially. Just ask the Native Americans.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Bingo
Great point.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I agree with you and with native,
but most of the enormous numbers of people entering Europe are refugees, not migrants. They are not just people whose economies have failed and who are destitute because of corrupt dictatorship or climate change. They are mostly refugees fleeing our FUKKING WARS! Their livelihoods have been destroyed, their families are starving, they are under imminent threat of death, rape, kidnapping, and torture. They are not looking for jobs. they are seeking asylum, and they have no choice. The thousands who have been fleeing Libya since we attacked it and set off the bloodbath there have been forced out.
I believe the people of Europe know this because they are so much closer to the actual threat of the wars forcing these people by the millions to flee. Sadly, the American people are not paying attention and see all displaced people as trying to make more money.
So very true.
It's infuriating. I suspect the US is covering much of the expense, not that it will come to the surface. The EU nations are not paying their full commitment of NATO costs, and the American taxpayer are paying the difference. Not that it matters.
Sadly, there's no way to stop the problem through political action. That connection has been severed. Our rogue Federal government is not run by the people who are elected to office, and no one who is elected has the authority or security clearance to exercise oversight, in any case. We lost control a long time ago.
The world knows what it must do to put a stop to this. Only they have the power and leverage to bring Empire to a halt. The US currently has boots on the ground or special forces in 123 nations. We're in the caught in the Great De-population.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I think so too
I think that too... the migrants sweeping into Europe is causing
alarm, and rightly so in any case.. But, those refugees are coming out
of countries destroyed with the complicity of Europe. People must think,
if they are not our enemies, why did we make war on them?
It seems to me
That the current immigration issue is just the tip of the iceberg. It is caused by a few puny wars that keep the Oligarchy raking in the dough. The real immigration crisis is just beginning as climate refugees will overwhelm entire regions of our planet in the very near future unless there is a worldwide, immediate about face regarding stewardship of Mother Earth.
Water is life
"It's the economy, stoopid." Successful 1992 Clinton campaign
slogan, courtesy of Clinton campaign strategist and Clinton apologist James Carville. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_economy,_stupid
The problem is, Mr. Carville, you can only "end welfare as we know it" once in order to leave office with "modest budget surplus." And no Democrat is going to admit on the campaign trail that his or her next targets are Social Security and Medicare.
So, poor Hills was left with dumb sh*t like "basket of deplorables" and "temperament." Oh, yeah, and more affordable college, whatever that meant, but no one believed she was actually going to do a thing for the 90%.
Most of the Democratic Party isn't "the left."
Members of the left still champion the environment. Obama is not a leftist. Obama is a centrist. As Obama himself said, his policies are those of an 80's moderate Republican, not even an 80s liberal Republican. That is not "the left" under any definition I recognize.
"Left," "liberal" and "Democrat" are not interchangeable words. If all that is really meant by "the left" or "liberal"is "Democrat," then using "Democrat" help clarity.
You are correct
They are not the same, but there is considerable overlap.
My usage of those terms was intentional.
I've found that I'd rather cause some confusion than be guilty is saying something I didn't mean.
Obama is not moderate
or in the center nor is The third Way, New Democratic party. The Third Way is full of these neoliberal/neocon globalizing anti-democratic pols. On their web site they bill themselves as 'radical centrist's'. The Obama administration normalized, legalized and broke the political left/ center /right breakdown. The old political spectrum measurements are meaningless 'the pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles'. They make up the definitions to suit their agenda and divide humans with their phony ideological definitions.
There is nothing moderate about setting the planet on fire with bloody endless wars and corporate looting, austerity (global economic disparity) for profit, creating a police state and taking away all human and civil rights. Patriotic torturers? Cause 'terrist's are gonna kill yer family' and we need to win the race to the top for our USA, USA, USA, national interest's. Obama said a lot of thing and most of them are absolute bull shit. He was right when he said this 'Turns out I'm pretty good at killing'. He also said we must all sacrifice to keep the casino of disaster capitalist's (the inevitable global economy) alive and well fed.
All this political categorizing and dicing and slicing the 99% of humans by polls of mass deception boils down to getting people to fall in in line with the political divides they cook up. They have tweaked the norm. The political measurements only serve to define what Axelrod called the inevitable 'world as we find it'. They carefully created and own this world and regardless of what they say it's not moderate or the center of anything. If you believe the current measurement of what's moderate you end up thinking kissing the likes of Kissinger and working for slave labor wages for the profit's of wall street investors and vulture capitalist's is somehow normal. All this measures is the effectiveness of your delusional acceptance of their extreme NWO. Why define yourself or identify with measurements the propagandist's made up to tell you that up is not down and night is not day. Greed is not good, peace is not war and ignorance is not strength. We need a new gauge.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
"Political language is is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind." George Orwell
If you look at the Gallup poll in the essay they gave people 4 choices as to what the problem is with our country. How ridiculous as they get to decide your choices and the separate the issues as though they are not all related. Cause and effect? They do this like the wolves they are 'the better to eat you with'. Demorat's are not any thing other then the supposedly 'good cops' of the complicit duopoly. Looks like ordinary people globally of all demographics and political persuasions are getting hip to their jive. Maybe if they offered humans a real democratic choice instead of fascism vs. worse fascism passed off as populism we who reject there system would not be labeled sexist, racist, right wing Dr. Commie Rat's.
My post was about the fallacy inherent in using
using "the left" and "Democrat"as though they are synonyms, when most Democrats (holding office now) are not members of "the left." (or at least, they don't behave that way in their official capacities).
Also, in the course of making that point, I did not call Obama "a moderate." I said he himself said that his policies were those of a moderate Republican of the 1980s. I called him he was a centrist, a term most of us understand to mean someone like the Clintons, Podesta, et al. (at leas, I assume most who post here understand "centrist" to mean that).
I've had a visceral rather than well thought out verbal
reaction to the arc that I see in the last eight to ten years:
- Some real wins on the social/civil rights level
But.....
- Some real losses - surveillance; women's rights, wages and self determination; tolerance of hate of the "other" unless you happen to live in an urban island of tolerance and inclusion; habeas corpus; militarization of police; US non participation in the World Court and other UN charters; total loss of our moral compass on mass incarceration of all kinds, anywhere; torture; whistleblowers in prison; school and other mass killings; I could go on.
- It looks to me that yes there are civil rights wins, but the balance sheet has large take aways which are not off set by these wins.
Then there is the loss of a middle class with security and financial stability. The threat of "globalization" to small producers, Main Street. This is huge.
- People may not be able to identify their feelings of insecurity, but they sure resonate with them. They want the security and hope for upward mobility, or even staying on the game board, more than anything. Many feel the pressure of being on the brink even when to those looking in, they seem successful and comfortable.
This is why people are looking for answers outside the elites and the dynasties. Bernie and goddess help us, Trump, were able to translate those visceral, non verbal feelings into tangible statements.
All together, it led to our current state of politics. Unless a reverse sneak candidate for DNC arrives, I don't think the Dems can or will change and go back to the bread and butter issues of the past.
It's probably time to look at a coalition of Independents to form a proper third party.
You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce
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I've found
that all the "wins" are in areas that don't threaten the ruling elite's power or profits.
You too?
You noticed that too? It's a prima facie demonstration that we're both bigoted misogynists.
The far right says the elite is deliberately undermining nations
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-18519395
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutherland
Figures like Peter Sutherland show they are not wrong.
Pure motives
I'm sure the globalists have nothing but the purest motives. Their desire to boost immigration is all about peace, love and multiculturalism, and has nothing to do with flooding established labor markets to ensure universal 3rd world slave labor status for all in order to save corporations money...
Speaking of purest motives,
Bernard Henri Levy has been strangely silent recently, after advocating one disaster after another for years.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Goldman Sachs won the election
the same bank that is behind the economic ruin of so many countries. So a fake populist rouses up the voters by promising jobs and he becomes president. Then he proceeds to assemble of cabinet of Goldman Sachs alumni.
Yes, it's economics but also gullible voters who believe these right wing politicians will keep their promises.
See on Netflix "Goldman Sachs: the Bank That Rules the World"
To thine own self be true.
The beauty of it is
that had Clinton won, there would also have been a cabinet full of Goldman alumni. They win either way, it's what happens when Wall Street controls two parties, and the working class controls none.
The only advantage I can see between one and another has to do with which faction of elites will benefit. This time there were more war-mongers on the D side, in other elections they've clustered on the R team. The working class will get no representation either way.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Left hook?
Fight has been in motion for years. Each side walks a way, more cautious and more calculated.
The foolish keep walking. The more calculated brings friends ...
Notice to DLC, Dem Leadershi$:
Thank Ds! Nice walk you got there! Keep walking! Walking strong!
Sunset is a nice place! snark>
Fighting for democratic principles,... well, since forever
This is perhaps the most succinct
Summary of this clusterfuck of an election I've read anywhere. It is essays like this and the thoughtful comments that follow that keep me coming back.
Will be sharing liberally with my friends.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
There's a parallel concern
with corruption that is incredibly important, and rarely mentioned. It tends to track parallel to concerns with money/the economy: the idea that the government is bought and paid for in 2 senses: rich people get whatever they want out of politicians and the rest of us get nothing; rich people are above the law.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
This map says it all
From a wapo article titled Donald Trump lost most of the American economy in this election:
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Were they also counties where
Were they also counties where the Dems could cheat and the Repubs couldn't?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
You know, that's a really slippery stat
…that Brookings is trying to foist off as significant.
But Brookings is a weak think tank, and it didn't work.
The Republicans always sweep the many numerous counties spread across the land that have an average population of "not very many" clinging to their guns and bibles, so the saying goes..
Hillary won the high-density counties of the nation's largest metropolises, where industry and banking are concentrated and where the huge multinationals do their business. Most US cities are reliably blue in every election.
Brookings is twistimg this ubiquitous distribution pattern, in an attempt to link Hillary with economic activity, but there is no causal relationship. Democratic candidates always win the cities because cities are socialist entities and that's where you find the Democrats. It's a sure thing.
The Electoral College was designed to handicap the outcomes based on geography. That's what happened.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato