Neo-Liberalism Under Cover of Racism 244


It is indeed peculiar that Trump can be elected President on 47.4% of the popular vote. But not nearly as peculiar as that the Conservatives can have untrammelled power in the UK on 36.9% of the popular vote. Both electoral systems need reform, but the UK’s is absolutely indefensible.

There is a tiny blogroll down the bottom right hand margin of this blog, and most of the blogs on it have fallen by the wayside over the 12 years we have been going. But one which goes from strength to strength is Informed Comment by Juan Cole, whom I view as a towering intellectual figure. I have read reams and reams of comment on the direction of politics with the election of Trump, but Juan’s take is the best I have seen and I do urge you to read it.

The fact that death rates are actually increasing among middle aged white males in the USA is truly startling. To my understanding that is not yet the case in the UK, but what is true here is that the life expectancy gap between the rich and poor is growing again after a century of falling.

I think it is pretty common ground that we are seeing a reaction against the political class by the dispossessed former industrial working and middle class. That is scarcely remarkable. Given the vast increase in wealth inequality, against which this blog has been railing since its inception, a reaction is inevitable.

There are two ways the establishment has sought to divert this anger.

The first, and highly successful method is to convince people that it is not the massive appropriation of resources by the ultra-wealthy which causes their poverty, it is rather competition for the scraps with outsiders. This approach employs pandering to racism and xenophobia, and is characteristic of UKIP and Trump.

The second approach employs the antithesis to the same end. It is to co-opt the forces marginalised by the first approach and rally them behind an “alternative” approach which is still neo-liberalism. This is identity politics which reached its apotheosis in the Clinton campaign. The Wikileaks releases of DNC and Podesta emails revealed the extreme cynicism of Clinton manipulation of ethnic group votes. Still more blatant was the promotion of the idea that Hillary being a corrupt neo-con warmonger was outweighed by the fact she was female. The notion that elevating extremely rich and privileged women already within the 1% to top positions, breaks a glass ceiling and benefits all women, is the precise feminist equivalent of trickledown theory.

That the xenophobic strand rather than the identity politics strand won will, I predict, prove to have no impact on continued neo-liberal policies.

The British Labour Party has played identity politics for generations just as blatantly, as I know from my experience campaigning in Blackburn. The resources of state institutions are directed to obtain geographically and politically cohesive ethnic block votes.

Both Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn faced intellectually risible accusations of misogyny from the neo-liberal faux-feminists when they presented an alternative economic policy. This is the most conclusive proof of the appropriation of identity politics to the neo-liberal cause.

Opinion polls both before and after the US election appear to demonstrate beyond doubt that Sanders would have trounced Trump. But to a certainty, the financial and international interests who bankrolled Clinton would much prefer Trump to Sanders.

A number of people have been questioning what Hillary’s banker backers will make of her defeat. The answer is they will not be too disappointed. She earned her money by seeing off Sanders.

It is fascinating to see that the attitude of the salaried establishment, both elected and administrative, of the Labour and Democratic parties to Sanders and Corbyn has been identical.

The Labour nomenklatura tried to defeat Corbyn’s election by disqualifying or barring from voting well over 100,000 voters. The Democrat nomenklatura succeeded in their equivalent task by devices including a rigged count in Nevada, collusion with Clinton in sequencing of primaries to harm Sanders, and passing of debate questions in advance.

While Corbyn has retained his leadership position, he is not in control of the party machinery which daily leaks and spins against him. His leadership has been fatally undermined from day one by humiliating, vicious and continual attacks given to the media by his own party. As time goes by, it is more and more plain he is not able to get rid of the MPs and functionaries whose sole purpose is to promote right wing ideology. There is currently a controversy as to whether Dave Nellist and other old socialists should be permitted to rejoin. I cannot understand why they would wish to be in a party with John Woodcock, Simon Danczuk, Jess Phillips and lest we forget, still Blair, Mandelson and Campbell.

In short, in neither the US nor the UK is a viable radical alternative going to be put before the electorate in the near future. Those who believe either Brexit or Trump presage a break from neo-liberalism will be sore disappointed. They represent the continuance of neo-liberalism, but with popular discontent diverted into added racism.

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244 thoughts on “Neo-Liberalism Under Cover of Racism

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  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    :Loved Joseph Stiglitz’s column in The Guardian about all the things that Trump must do if he really wants to rebuild the USA, but he won’t because he is a failed ideologue of the Reaganite persuasion without using the word fascist a single time.

  • Ron Showalter

    Please everyone don’t let the fact that the election was stolen get in the way of any normalizing pity-parties:

    http://www.gregpalast.com/election-stolen-heres/

    Seriously, when you are confronted by things not making any sense – e.g., every single internal and external poll being wrong – then you should start to look for more logical explanations esp. ones that have precedent – i.e. 2000,2004.

    No, it’s not very difficult when you realize what TPTB are ALWAYS trying to steal from you is your ability to reason.

    • Anon1

      I’m surprised you have the gall to show up here again after your spectacular fail in predicting a Hillary win and abusing all us ignorant folk for thinking otherwise. How’s that expert pollster of yours doing? Lol

      • Ron Showalter

        What part about stolen election don’t you freaking understand, slow-one?

        The gall to point out election theft? Priceless bootlicking.

    • Clark

      “… So Hart Intercivic and Dominion both made contributions to the Clinton foundation. So you wonder, when a candidate’s running for president, why are voting machine companies making donations to their campaigns?

      So we allow these private, for-profit partisan companies to count our vote, to set our databases with secret proprietary software that nobody can look at. It violates every principle of transparency. And the only person on a high level willing to talk about this is Jimmy Carter, who says to Der Spiegel that America has a dysfunctional democracy and that we don’t meet minimum standards of transparency.”

      http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16958#newsletter1

        • Clark

          Big Money was bound to win; it had both outcomes covered. The article is about Clinton cheating Sanders, and my point is that democracy is corrupted.

    • Ron Showalter

      Pointing out the fact that what I and EVERY analyst said was going to happen – even all of Vegas – did not happen – and that this defies common sense/normalized explanations – is butthurt? Even after having lived through two other stolen POTUS elections in the last 20 years?

      Wow, how does Trump’s chode taste? Like freedom yet?

      More on the stolen election that you all seem to think is just soooo boring:

      http://www.opednews.com/articles/tial-race–in-nearly-ever-by-Jonathan-Simon-Election-Integrity_Exit-Polls_Rigged-Elections-161113-815.html

      • kief

        Although you are hitting on all the right buttons, I don’t agree the election was fixed, unless you mean the unwashed have no coherent agreement on WHY they voted for Trump. I don’t think any of them really understand why, but as legitimacy goes in electoral politics, this was real.

  • John H

    One of the best analyses of the reasons for Trump’s victory is, in my view to be found here:

    Trump and the Revolt of the Rust Belt
    http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2016/11/11/23174/

    It digs deep into the data, looking at local variations and concludes that the ‘rust-belt’ was key.

    Extract:

    “Take Macomb County and Oakland County in Michigan. Macomb County is mostly white and has a median household income of around $53,000. It is not particularly poor, but also not affluent. It is often characterized as “working class” and “socially conservative”. The county voted enthusiastically for Kennedy in 1960, Johnson in 1964, Nixon in 1972, and Reagan in 1984. It voted for Obama twice (+9 in 2008, +4 in 2012). Trump won Macomb by nine points. The number of voters was the same. Trump peeled off white working-class votes. In contrast, we have neighboring Oakland County, which is considerably more affluent (median income of $66,000), has a university, and has more of a New Economy, advanced manufacturing economic base. It is more diverse as well. It is a traditionally conservative suburban community that has been drifting Democratic since 1996. Obama was the first presidential candidate to win a majority in the county since 1988. There, turnout for both candidates was down a bit, but the difference remained the exact same. Oakland was +8 Democrat in 2012 and +8 in 2016. Democratic support remained roughly the same in the more affluent, diverse, and educated county while shifting significantly in the traditionally working class community.

    Or take Mahoning and Ashtabula Counties in Ohio. Mahoning is the Rustiest part of the Rust Belt, once at the heart of American steel production. The city was unionized, multiracial, and solidly Democratic. It was also ravaged by deindustrialization. As writer Sean Posey points out, it was long represented in Congress by Jim Traficant, a proto-Trump who railed against the free trade policies until he ended up in jail on corruption charges (which had little impact on his popularity). The county is economically poor (median household income of $23,000) and culturally as working class as it gets. It has been solidly Democrat in presidential elections for decades. Obama won the county decisively (+26 in 2008, +28 in 2012) and the county contributed much to his statewide majority. Hillary Clinton won Mahoning by three points. Ashtabula, by contrast, is overwhelmingly white, more exurban, and more affluent than Mahoning, but with average household incomes considerably lower than the national average ($40,000 median family income). It has none of the knowledge economy trappings of Oakland County. People there once worked in auto plants and now work in hospitals. It has been solidly Democratic in presidential contests since 1988. Ashtabula decisively supported Obama in 2012 (+13) and decisively supported Trump in 2016 (+19).”

    • Martinned

      I like this article from the Harvard Business Review, of all places:

      https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-so-many-people-dont-get-about-the-u-s-working-class

      What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class
      Joan C. Williams

      (…)
      One little-known element of that gap is that the white working class (WWC) resents professionals but admires the rich. Class migrants (white-collar professionals born to blue-collar families) report that “professional people were generally suspect” and that managers are college kids “who don’t know shit about how to do anything but are full of ideas about how I have to do my job,” said Alfred Lubrano in Limbo. Barbara Ehrenreich recalled in 1990 that her blue-collar dad “could not say the word doctor without the virtual prefix quack. Lawyers were shysters…and professors were without exception phonies.” Annette Lareau found tremendous resentment against teachers, who were perceived as condescending and unhelpful.

      Michèle Lamont, in The Dignity of Working Men, also found resentment of professionals — but not of the rich. “[I] can’t knock anyone for succeeding,” a laborer told her. “There’s a lot of people out there who are wealthy and I’m sure they worked darned hard for every cent they have,” chimed in a receiving clerk. Why the difference? For one thing, most blue-collar workers have little direct contact with the rich outside of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. But professionals order them around every day. The dream is not to become upper-middle-class, with its different food, family, and friendship patterns; the dream is to live in your own class milieu, where you feel comfortable — just with more money. “The main thing is to be independent and give your own orders and not have to take them from anybody else,” a machine operator told Lamont. Owning one’s own business — that’s the goal. That’s another part of Trump’s appeal.

      Hillary Clinton, by contrast, epitomizes the dorky arrogance and smugness of the professional elite. The dorkiness: the pantsuits. The arrogance: the email server. The smugness: the basket of deplorables. Worse, her mere presence rubs it in that even women from her class can treat working-class men with disrespect. Look at how she condescends to Trump as unfit to hold the office of the presidency and dismisses his supporters as racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic.

      • kief

        Yeah. American Exceptionalism…

        The silly notion that everyone can be rich. Who will you find to wash your car, or wait on you in the restaurant? Another conservative lie/exaggeration about the American Dream.

        • Martinned

          I don’t think that’s it. (At least not in this article.) It’s the observation that there is more affinity between the working/middle class and a rich entrepreneur like Donald Trump, who has working-class values, than with less rich professionals like Hillary Clinton’s target audience.

          • kief

            The article is in the neighborhood of answers but it has more to do with the misandry encroaching their lives. Politically correct words and behaviors drive the middle class crazy. Many females, obviously agree as they voted for the pussy-grabber. They are all tired of the nanny-state and the coddling of criminals in the justice system. Criminals have more rights than law-abiding citizens. They’ve had enough. Simple.

  • Republicofscotland

    Well the media, is reporting (sky news) that Donald Trump president-elect, is about to name John Bolton as Secretary of State.

    Bolton answered a few questions put to him on Sky news, he intimated that he’d be hard on Iran, and that Iran made Obama’s representatives (on Iranian nuclear deals etc) look like fools.

    When asked about the situation in Syria, again Bolton appeared to take a hardline stance, against, Russia and Assad.

    Bolton appears to be a old school hardliner, if indeed Trump does announce him (Bolton) as Secretary of State, it might give the rest of us, an indication of Trump’s stance on foreign policy.

      • bevin

        I didn’t know that. I was aware that he was not committed publicly to increasing confrontations with Moscow and Beijing or instituting a No Fly zone over Syria.
        It is to be hoped that, whoever may be the Sec of State, this remains his policy.
        The worrying thing is that as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, thanks to Obama’s systematic arrogation of powers, Trump has much more discretion to make war, torture, detain etc than the Constitution allows. He may even-this is hard to believe but it is true- decide whom he wishes to have assassinated. And this, despite US and international laws specifically banning the practise.

        • Martinned

          Every President since Washington has stretched the limits of his powers. And when they’ve been asked, the Supreme Court has typically allowed this. (Cf. appointments, recess.) And now the chickens may or may not come home to roost.

          • bevin

            You are very wrong. Ask Andrew Johnson or US Grant about it, if you run into them. The struggle over powers between the branches of government has ebbed and flowed over the centuries.
            The problem now is that Congress is more useless than it has ever been: there is nobody of any stature in the Senate and few who are not obviously corrupt.
            And the House, now that the CBC has been Clintonised, is worse. The only hope is a vigilant people.

        • Trowbridge H. Ford

          Reagan only signed Executive Order 12333 on December 4, 1981, reiterating the prohibition of US personnel from assassinating people. after he had recovered from being shot by revenge-seeking, CIA Manchurian Candidate John Hinckley, Jr.

          The Agency had had a long history of killing people, especially opposition, domestic leaders during the Nixon era, and it didn’t stop Ted Shackley et al, from assassinating Olof Palme, Owe Barschel and others after Reagan.

          Trump will have anyone assassinated, especially me, if it proves useful.

      • Republicofscotland

        That Poe fella is awful busy these days. ?

        Still one has to wonder if Trump can out gun, so to speak Obama, who’s America’s most at war president ever. As for Clinton, she never met a war she didn’t like.

        Mind you there were several presidents before Washington, including a Scottish one.

    • Sharp Ears

      There are too many old men in contention for these jobs.

      Bolton is 67, Giuliani is 72 and Trump himself is aged 70 and appointing them.

      • Habbabkuk

        I quite agree – there comes an age when people should think of other things than politics……

        (NB – rogue Moderator alert !! )

  • Sharp Ears

    Hillary is sending out religious and worthy homilies on her Twitter. There was a barrage on November 9th.

    Hillary Clinton ‏@HillaryClinton · Nov 9
    Scripture tells us: Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.

    Hillary Clinton ‏@HillaryClinton · Nov 9
    “Let us have faith in each other. Let us not grow weary. Let us not lose heart. For there are more seasons to come and…more work to do.”

    Oh Lordy! Hallelujah.

  • Republicofscotland

    The ostrich (British government) sticks its head back in the sand again over Brexit.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37983948

    If Trump is seen as May’s white Knight (re trade etc) then he’d better hurry up and and get a move on. In my opinion the 51st state (UK) will be way down, the list of go to nations on trade deals.

  • Republicofscotland

    Meanwhile, the Admiral Kuznetsov has begun combat operations in Syria, pounding the Western/Saudi/Israeli backed Salafists and
    Wahabbists, in a bid to drive them out of Syria.

    If successful, and I can’t see why they shouldn’t be, it will be a kick in the teeth for the Great Satan (consecutive US governments) and its minions, such as Britain and France, who obediently follow the USA’s lead.

    One does wonder what Trump’s take on Syria is?

  • Roderick Russell

    Craig Murray – “Those who believe either Brexit or Trump presage a break from neo-liberalism will be sore disappointed

    ———————–

    We have not had a properly functioning liberal democracy for many years. What we have had is a form of “inverted totalitarianism” or “managed democracy” where the establishment “guides” political decision making on matters that are important to it.

    I am one of those who does see both brexit and the Sanders / Trump election results as a major protest vote against the establishment, and I hope that I am not sore disappointed.

    The establishment clearly interfered on behalf of their candidate (Ms. Clinton), not just with Trump on the right, but in the primaries with Sanders on the left – the only thing these two candidates had in common was that they were both opposed by the establishment. Nothing could be more politically cynical than the establishment candidate (Hillary Clinton), as reported by Wikileaks, stating to Goldman Sachs that “you need both a public and a private position” on the issues.

    In the case of Trump, the establishment threw all their assets into the ring against him. Not just money, but the vast bulk of the Main Stream Media did everything they could to throw honest journalism to the wind and rig the election with a barrage of one sided propaganda. And then, of course, there was the Republican establishment neocons who, showing their true colours, put loyalty to their establishment before their party and voted for Ms. Clinton.

    Brexit in the UK and Sanders / Trump in the US were a strong anti-establishment message. These issues are a bit rough around the edges (I actual support remain) but they are also a protest vote against the establishment and the lack of real democracy. I know there is a small core who are racist, and that it is very unpleasant for their victims, but a free society is less likely to be racist than the inverted totalitarianism we have today. Fully informed democratic societies do not convert discontent into racism or other persecutory practices, but inverted-totalitarian one’s do.

  • bevin

    A good piece in the LRB (and I think it is free to all!!)
    http://www.lrb.co.uk/2016/11/14/rw-johnson/trump-some-numbers?utm_source=LRB+online+email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20161115+online&utm_content=usca_subsact
    Could that possibly work??
    “…The failure of the American Dream, as we are told repeatedly, has produced a populist revolt of volcanic proportions. At the heart of the problem is the stagnation of real wages and the lack of upward social mobility as higher education costs escalate out of sight. The data is persuasive. Between 1948 and 1973, productivity rose by 96.7 per cent and real wages by 91.3 per cent, almost exactly in step. Those were the days of plentiful hard-hat jobs in steel and the auto industry when workers could afford to send their children to college and see them rise into the middle class. But from 1973 to 2015 – the era of globalisation, when many of those jobs vanished abroad – productivity rose 73.4 per cent while wages rose by only 11.1 per cent. Trump argued that this was caused by unrestricted illegal immigration and the off-shoring of jobs, though these were only partial causes: the erosion of trade unions probably accounts for 25 to 30 per cent of the net loss in earning power. The 11 million unauthorised immigrants in the US form only part of the vast mass of non-unionised labour competing for jobs…..

  • Loony

    It is probably correct that neither Brexit or Trump are, of themselves sufficient to presage a break from Neo-liberalism. They are however a necessary precondition.

    The next task is to destroy what remains of the EU dictatorship. This will be achieved via national plebiscites in Italy, France, the Netherlands and Germany. Contemporaneously with a democratic internal revolt there is like to be a lessening of support and direct orders issued by the hegemonic master in Washington. The privilege loving resource consumers of Brussels will be unable to respond to these twin events.

    NATO too is about to come under the hammer of Trump inspired realism. Already arch criminals such as Stoltenberg have commenced a well rehearsed media whining program. A weakening of NATO will force all manner of Europeans to adopt an approach to Russia that is less suicidal and hence more hopeful for European citizenry.

    Bond yields have started to spike and this may well be indicative that the long running financial ponzi scheme is entering the end phase. The gargantuan infusions of debt post 2008 have been undertaken with the sole aim of introducing the general populations of Europe and the US to serfdom.

    Those who today appear to revel in the arrogance of their power will soon discover that Brexit and Trunp have broken the consensus and all of the Kings horses and all of the Kings men will not be able to put old Humpty together again.

    The times they are indeed a changing.

  • Sharp Ears

    LOL A copy of his birth certificate is available for inspection. Inquiries to Millbank enclosing a SAE.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Really hard to understand the limited perspectives that people have about who voted for whom.

    Got interested in this from an article about why Steubenville, Ohio in the Rust Belt voted for Trump in The Guardian..

    It was all because the Democrats paid no attention to its declining vote there.

    No mention that President Clinton went there specially is early October to shore up their vote.

    More important, no mention that Steubenville is the home of the Franciscan University which is the center for the whole country in getting out the Catholic vote to stop abortions, something that Hitler Light went out of his way to take advantage of.

    Just check the next addition to the SCOTUS.

  • Sharp Ears

    Craig put this on his Twitter earlier (and others).

    _______________

    Craig Murray ‏@CraigMurrayOrg · 18h

    Craig Murray Retweeted The Times of London
    Melanie Phillips also believes Iraqi WMD exist hidden under the Euphrates. Yet a darling of BBC panels. Go figure.
    I found Iraq’s WMD Bunkers
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/06/i_found_iraqs_w/

    Craig Murray added,
    Times of London @thetimes
    Trump’s opponents are the real bigots, says Melanie Phillips @MelanieLatest http://thetim.es/2fT51bu

    ______________

    Fortunately, the paywall prevents Phillips’ garbage being revealed beyond the opening paragraph.

  • Loony

    You claim that your bog rails against “the vast increase in wealth inequality”

    That may be true in a superficial sense, but it is far from true in a more profound and meaningful sense.

    This blog tends to be supportive of the EU. The EU is the very essence of neo-liberalism and it is wholly dedicated to a vast transference of wealth from Southern Europe to Germany and various ancillary territories in northern Europe. The economic destruction of Greece and the ongoing economic depression in Spain, Portugal and Italy surely proves this point.

    Nothing that has happened to southern Europe has happened by accident. Bleeding heart liberals who bleat about immigration and racists would do well to remember that the vast emigration of Spanish youth is not so different from Stalin’s forced migrations imposed on populations within the USSR.

    Neo-Liberalism cannot be defeated unless and until the EU is destroyed. The twin phenomena of Trump and Brexit have forced open a crack in the clouds through which the bright light of hope can finally be discerned.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    And Obama didn’t fire James Comey as FBI Director, as his aides wanted in a last-ditch effort to save Hillary’s chances, as he knew it would be dismissed as simply politically motivated, and quite likely lead to her impeachment, and removal from office by the Republican controlled Congress.

    Consequently, Obama held back on any attack against Comey, and in the process of allowing Trump to win he is going a long way to protect his legacy.

    In the process, though, American democray is nearly dead.

    • Trowbridge H. Ford

      Now Obama had volunteered this about the latest “October Surprise:”: “Not My Fault”.

      Neither Spiro Agnew nor Poppy Bush had the hutzpah to deny the previous ones.

      Just more evidence of the USA becoming a complete crap hole.

  • Becky Cohen

    Yes, it’s true one should never underestimate the amount of racism in the USA. It’s still virtually impossible for most black people to get out of the poverty trap in much the same way that the working class of all races are held back by the class system in Britain. The USA was, and still is, in essence very much a colonial society too. The historical fact is that the USA was created by white Europeans stealing the land off the indigenous native American population whose only difference from the imperialist powers was that they didn’t want to pay taxes to them. I suppose this could give rise to the argument as to whether or not the USA is legitimately a country itself, or an illegitimate business enterprise. Had the two East India Companies (which even had its own army) similarly decided to break ties with Britain and Holland respectively and call themselves call themselves the EIC how would this be different from the thirteen colonies re-inventing themselves as the USA?

    • kief

      clearly you have your finger on the pulse of the narrative, but you should brace yourself for the genuine zeitgeist, as a female.

      Many Trump supporters are females who empathize with the push-back on misandry through politically-correct speech nazis and public attitudes characterizing all men as clueless dolts, insensitive to the needs of women.

      There is a broad political spectrum of angry citizens and many can’t be called red-necks. You will be seeing it in Europe as the tide comes back in.

      • kief

        Heh. Some guy on TeeVee just got dressed down by a feminist for saying “Transgender”. You need a program to avoid those confrontations..

        C’mon man. Keep up !

  • writerman

    Though Craig seems especially enamoured with Cole I still can’t forget his enthusiastic support and advocacy of the disasterous decision to destroy Libya and all the suffering, bloodshed, destruction and mass murder that followed. Heres Stephen Cohen who is an American academic and expert on Russia interviewed on RT. His views about the election and Russia are interesting and link to my own. Though, as I have family in Russia perhaps I’m biased, because Cohen doesn’t seem like a rabid dog that hates Russia, well, for almost everything.

    https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/366442-trump-promises-foreign-policy/

  • Habbabkuk

    Bevin

    Firstly, in a point of fact: Comrade Nellist was kicked out of the Labour Party not for being a Trotskyite but for his open support for Militant (contrary to the Constitution of the Labour Party).

    Secondly, the objections to the Good Comrade are not so much because of anything he did (he was not in a position to do very much, save discrediting the Labour Party and harming its chances of taking power) but of what he might do in the unlikely event of a Mr Corbyn-led Labour Party winning the next general election.

    More generally in reply to your comment and especially its second paragraph, my considered response is : 3you would say that, wouldn’t you”.

    I think you know what I mean and therefore I offer you the opportunity of stating clearly, here and now

    – whether you were a supporter of Militant in its heyday (or since)

    – whether you are or have been a Trotskyite or member of any Trotskyite organisation or grouping.

    Off ye go.

    • bevin

      You clearly suggested that Nellist ought to be disqualified because he is “a Trotskyite’. There are no if and buts about it it is there under your infamous pseudonym.
      Of course he was not expelled on the grounds that he was ‘a Trotskyite’, not even the Kinnock Labour Party would have stood for that- bad as they were, they were not in your sub-Stalinist league of bigots.
      I’m not sure what it is in my comment that prompts you to make the extraordinarily original observation that ‘you would say that wouldn’t you’ ( I am not going to look back to find what each paragraph contained) but to satisfy for your impertinent questions (which nobody who knew anything about politics who had read my many comments, would need to ask):
      No, I have never been a supporter of Militant, though I defended then and defend yet their right to be in the Labour Party, and felt great admiration for the work they did in Liverpool and in crushing the Poll Tax.
      I did not support them because they are believers in Democratic Centralism and Leninist organisational politics. I believe that socialism and democracy are the same thing and that there is no surer way of ensuring that members of a political movement do not develop the ‘political class consciousness’ crucial to transforming society than to order them around in an hierarchical party in which a few ‘leaders’ shape political strategy.
      That having been said I have enormous respect for Trotsky’s courage and principled behaviour as well as his literary and philosophical achievements.
      I have no interest whatever in your political career. You are obviously among the last of the Thatcherite True Believers as you make clear by sharing your banal observation that “Capitalism is the only game in town.”

  • kief

    Mr. Trump has repeatedly emphasized a set of ideas that would reduce America’s role in the world. He said he would take unilateral action, move away from traditional allies and move closer to adversaries.

    Continue reading the main story
    He said during the campaign that he would diminish or possibly abandon American commitments to security alliances. That includes NATO and defense treaties with Japan and South Korea.

    He has threatened to pull out of the World Trade Organization and called the North American Free Trade Agreement “the single worst trade deal ever signed in this country.” And he said he would “cancel” the international agreement on combating climate change, reached last year in Paris.

    Mr. Trump has suggested that more countries should acquire nuclear weapons, to protect themselves without Washington’s help. He has said allies like Saudi Arabia must pay for American support.

    He has voiced admiration for Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, and said the United States should work with him and align with his Syrian ally, President Bashar al-Assad, in that country’s civil war.

    But Mr. Trump, not a dove, has indicated a willingness to use force and promised to reinstate waterboarding, a form of torture.

    “Somebody hits us within ISIS, you wouldn’t fight back with a nuke?” Mr. Trump asked rhetorically in an MSNBC interview this spring.

    When the Iranian Navy intercepted American sailors who had drifted into their waters, Mr. Trump said that, had he been president, the Iranians would have been “shot out of the water.” He has threatened to dismantle the international agreement that limits Iran’s nuclear program.

    He supports imposing punitive economic measures on China, threatening high tariffs that would devastate trade between the world’s two largest economies.

    He supported the United States-led invasion of Iraq at the time, but harshly criticized it during the campaign, and he said that American troops should have “taken the oil” from that country by force. He has also said that the United States should have seized Libya’s oil.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/world/what-is-donald-trumps-foreign-policy.html?_r=1

  • Anon1

    Scots top poll for racist and homophobic abuse on Twitter

    SCOTLAND is top of the table for racist and homophobic Twitter trolls in the UK, it’s been revealed.

    New research has shown users in Midlothian and East Ayrshire post more offensive messages than anywhere in Britain.

    Around 19 million tweets from the US and the UK were studied by anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label and social media monitors Brandwatch.

    The research included separating hateful tweets from posts which could be considered constructive or neutral.

    The results were used for a “hate speech ratio” for every council area in the UK, including 32 local authorities in Scotland.

    Dundee has a score of 24 for homophobia compared with the country’s average of 8.9.

    Moray notched up a score of 16.73, with the Highlands sitting at 15.55 and Aberdeen scoring 15.04.

    Glasgow and Edinburgh are among the most tolerant tweeters, with both cities seven times less likely than Dundee to post racist messages.

    http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/7261964/Top-Twit-Scots-top-poll-for-racist-and-homophobic-abuse-on-Twitter.html

  • Hieroglyph

    Not to brag, but I called a Trump victory. Lots of people did, and it’s only really a surprise to people who write for The Guardian, and their ilk. Clinton was a terrible candidate, got beat. Such is life. The crying protesters are getting slaughtered on conservative media, and probably deserve it.

    I actually disagree with Mr Murray about Trump. I hesitate to speculate, as Mr Trump’s world of rich Manhattan douchebags is really not one I understand. However, Trump did talk about NAFTA, and the unfairness of free trade deals, on the trail, and this is not neoliberal talk. I add a slight caveat: it’s perfectly acceptable, within neoliberal circles, to rubesplain, and criticize any and all aspects of neoliberalism, on the understanding that the uttered criticisms are just for the rubes, and that the candidate doesn’t mean a word of it. The public position can differ from the private position. This is an acceptable neoliberal strategy, so leaves us wondering how much Trump means it. I’ve no idea. Where I pressed for an opinion, I’d say Trump was a standard-issue, low tax Republican; wants to cut taxes, spending, and bash welfare claimants. Very different beast to a neoliberal. For a start, neoliberals are crazy. Republicans are just misguided (though some of them are crazy).

    The same theory of rubesplaining holds for neocon foreign policy. However, here I think here we may be more certain: Trump isn’t a neocon. There is nothing in his history to suggest he’s part of the neocon establishment, and he’s already been conciliatory to Putin; the contrast to Clinton is fairly clear here, and may have contributed to her defeat, not that she’ll ever understand this. I’m quite sure we’ve narrowly avoided some nasty business with Russia, for which we can thank the wisdom of the US people.

    His immigration policy is disturbing of course, and his wall facing Mexico idea just stupid. But, to read the media, you’d think that if a candidate has a terrible idea, then all his\her ideas are terrible. Also: all criticism of Clinton is support for Trump. Doesn’t work like that. Mind, I scarcely pay attention to the corporate outlets these days, as they seem to be written by heavily indoctrinated numbskulls.

    • kief

      You were better off just saying you predicted Trump. Your explanations undermine your prescience and the details are deviling your credibility.

  • kief

    How ironic that the Trump victory gets extolled by all sides with their guilt-ridden and self-effacing humor on the thinking liberal side, and the mendacious victors stewing in schadenfreude.

    While true, though you’d never know it by the certainty of posters here, that the upstart Trump could prevail in a vacuum, there is precious little evidence it could survive in an oxygen-rich environment. You know; the kind of environment cancer cells tend to die in? But you keep feeding the virus it’s favorite toxins. Why is that?

    Because it feeds some psychopathology inherent in the human genome? No? Then you can fill in that blank.

    • Loony

      Trump is not a solution – but a necessary stepping stone on the road to a solution. Hopefully Trump will be a catalyst for the dismembering of neo-con power structures – the EU, NATO, The WTO et al. Attacking these institutions may serve to weaken the grip that Wall Street has on the throats of humanity.

      Brexit was the start, Trump the secondary wave and with further reinforcement coming from the European mainland.

      Trump only exists as a consequence of the failure of the Occupy movement. Forces are at work – they are the forces of constant self contradiction and they cannot be stopped. These forces can and will morph far faster than it is possible to create a strategy to contain them.

      While the media bleats about left right politics and socialism, capitalism, fascism and communism the people are awakening. They will be solidly socialist in the UK and right behind Jeremy Corbyn – the same people will be solid right wing nationalists in France and right behind Marine Le Pen.

  • kief

    Kinda funny that my missives intended to stimulate discussion….stifle them. What is that indicative of?

    I hope that inspires some critical thinking, but I’m not holding my breath.

  • RobG

    Very few mentions on this thread of the stuff that Wikileaks have been releasing in the run-up to the US election; releases that contain things I probably can’t mention without being moderated/censored, such is the ‘free world’ that we are told we live in.

    I got my call on the US election wrong (I was certain Queen Hillary would be crowned), but many others got it wrong as well.

    The 2016 US presidential election was historic in modern terms in the sense that the mainstream media/biggest propaganda machine in history lost control of the narrative, and the Wikileaks releases/alternate media swayed the election.

    This is earth shattering stuff (in that it’s never happened before in quite this way).

    Judging by FBI announcements, in the two weeks leading up to the election there was some kind of coup within the US power structure, which was all hidden from the public courtesy of the presstitutes, because the citizens of USUK live in totally closed societies.

    It seems that if Trump is sworn in as President next January he’s going to prosecute Hillary Clinton via the ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

    It’s got to the level where I wouldn’t dare predict what’s going to happen next…

    • Hieroglyph

      The inner workings of the Kremlin are hard to discern, and Pravda certainly isn’t telling. But there appears to have been some serious high-level shit going on in the background, involving the FBI, NYPD, and the the branches of the security apparatus. Yours truly doesn’t have any access, naturally, but in a few years, perhaps part of the story will be told. Put it this way, there may have been considerable push-back against a Clinton ascendancy, not all of it from Russia.

      • kief

        But you seem so certain.

        Pray tell. Why would a cookie-cutter globalist war-monger, be less preferable than Trump?

        I mean, c’mon. Here I am. A certified American crazy with no cultural aesthetics and I can’t get a single conversation going on, because everyone in the UK/Europe knows more about this situation than I.

        Please forgive the arrogance, but that goes with the american territory.

        • kief

          Furthermore; Obama finally pulled up his kilts but had to hold his balls high after they were handed back for a brief moment in time. He’s been born-again as a player being tough on the right parties…too late Fosgate. It’s like he pulled a November surprise on his own Party

          • kief

            Truly Obama became a metaphor for the House Blacks of the South.

            He sold his soul for a bed and a bowl.

  • Alcyone

    Next post please Craig. I am tired of all these ‘ism’s. And because I don’t understand them or care to go into the mechanisms, it bores me to tears.

  • Brianfujisan

    bevin
    November 15, 2016 at 15:35

    Ceers for the cluborlov.. From that i liked this Paragraph –

    “Back to those grieving Clinton’s loss: ironically, they are clustered in the larger cities, and would be the first to be killed by a Russian nuclear strike if Clinton’s relentless warmongering and Russia-baiting succeeded in triggering World War III. Thus, for them, voting for Clinton was symptomatic of a suppressed instinct of self-preservation. But this is not entirely their fault: they have been manipulated into thinking that anyone who supports Trump is automatically stupid, ignorant, racist, sexist and a xenophobe—and that simply isn’t true. The reason they are clustered in the big cities is simple: those are the places that the technosphere controls most fully. City dwellers tend to be oversocialized, eager to strive for ever greater inclusive fitness within a large and anonymous social realm, and that makes them easy to control.”

    Is not Trumps Choice of Steve Bannon, the head of his campaign and of the far-right website Breitbart, as his chief strategist and senior counselor Not An indicator of where he is going on Race issues.

    Anyhow, At least the First Nations will let Most of them Stay –

    Native American Council offers amnesty to 220 million undocumented whites

    “We are prepared to offer White people the option of staying on this continent legally and applying for citizenship,” explains Chief Wamsutta of the Wampanoag nation.
    “In return, they must pay any outstanding taxes and give back the land stolen from our ancestors.
    “Any white person with a criminal record, however, will be deported in the next 90 days back to their ancestral homeland.
    Rush Limbaugh will be going to Germany. Justin Bieber will depart for Canada.
    And the entire cast of Jersey Shore will be returning to Italy.”

    http://theindigenouspeoples.com/2016/11/15/native-american-council-offers-amnesty-to-220-million-undocumented-whites/

  • mauisurfer

    I too read Juan Cole’s blog, and hold him in high esteem.
    However, in this election cycle Cole became an advocate for Clinton, which is OK, BUT he twisted his analysis and avoided truth/wisdom.
    A good example was his column of on USA breaking off cooperation with Russia in Syria, which column failed to mention that USA had bombed Russian forces at Deir al-Zour, which attack lasted a long time, during which the Russians calls to USA military were ignored entirely. The IS promptly followed this bombing with a prepared attack on the ground against this same critical Russian position. This USA attack was a devious way to defeat the agreement which had been reached between Russia and USA to jointly attack Al Qaeda groups in Syria.
    Also worth mentioning, Cole is very restrictive of comments on his blog, does not allow disagreement with his wisdom.
    http://www.juancole.com/2016/10/breaks-military-cooperation.html

    • craig Post author

      On the blocking comments that disagree point, I am afraid that is the norm. This blog is extremely unusual in allowing such free discussion, despite the nonsense spouted by some commenters.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Because I have written here for many years, I am just writing this as a matter of record.

    I don’t blame anyone. I just think it was just an accident.

    Accidents happen – its just in the nature of things.

    All I wanted to do, when I finally got home after 6 hours in Emergency and Casualty..

    Is to say – that I think our NHS is magnificent.

    My Wife is OK – she was even laughing about it – on the gas and air – whilst her leg was being reset after multiple (well more than one) fractures to her leg – when tonight..she was walking to a dance class and was run over by a car.

    I just received – a phone call – on my land line – went blank after one ring.

    Then a call made to my mobile phone…He said.

    “Hello, sorry you don’t know me. Your wife has just been run over”

    (or something very close)

    Then Blank nothing.

    I thought she was dead.

    I just wanted to text him – and say – She’s O.K. – it could happen to anyone.

    Its just an accident.

    The ambulance turned up incredibly quickly and so did my son and I…and then the police..

    It was just an accident.

    The police gave me his details, but not his phone number…yet he did phone me twice.

    I thought the call logs should display his number.

    I don’t want to sue him or anything – just empathize with him.

    I know how I would feel if I ran over someone.

    She was incredibly unlucky that it happened.

    But incredibly lucky to survive.

    The police and the NHS have to deal with this kind of thing every day.

    And the lunatics in power are trying to close down our hospitals.

    They certainly weren’t over-staffed tonight.

    Tony

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