... human beings are not going to follow and obey the exact people they most blame for their suffering. They’re going to do exactly the opposite: purposely defy them and try to impose punishment in retaliation. Their instruments for retaliation are Brexit and Trump. Those are their agents, dispatched on a mission of destruction: aimed at a system and a culture that they regard, not without reason, as being rife with corruption and, above all else, contempt for them and their welfare ~ Glenn Greenwald.
On the few occasions over the past month or two when asked for my views on the US presidential election, I made the terse comment that the Bohemian Corporal had marched before and would at some point do so again. It was a sentiment prompted by the German playwright Berthold Brecht from his play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui:
Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.
That heat raged across the US yesterday, tearing aside firewall after firewall until Fahrenheit 270 was reached, the temperature required to melt the opposition. When this morning I told my fifteen year old daughter, who holds a US passport, that Trump had won she was aghast, saying "can the year really get any worse?" Knowing instinctively that "Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden", she went to look at the news for herself in the forlorn hope that I had been winding her up.
Last evening, prior to the main count, my American wife asked would reason prevail, leading to the late surge towards Trump dissipating in a last-minute rush of sanity, even though she did not think it reasonable to vote for either. I said “remember Brexit.”
There was no great insight whatsoever on my part. I was merely expressing apprehension rather than giving a solid forecast. I assumed, without being definitive, that Hillary Clinton would continue dynasty politics in the White House. One more spin on the golden circle that goes from the House of Bush to the House of Clinton and back round again. Having emulated the Henry Kissinger stance on the Iran-Iraq war ~ pity they both can’t lose ~ I can claim none of the prescient sagacity of Michael Moore who warned earlier in the year:
Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be saying them for the next four years:
I guess what I should have factored in more to my deliberations was Moore's observation that:
Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump – it’s Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest.
Unpopular was a less abrasive way of saying despised. A supposed shoe-in she got the boot out. There is only one good thing about the result - the humiliation of her hubris. Bearing none of her husband’s charisma she was so intensely obnoxious that the political Queen of the Democrats was put in her box by the apolitical commoner she so vainly dismissed as a court jester. He ~ the type of Pied Piper candidate her party promoted as the main rival to her crown because being so uncouth and vulgar he could never hope to wear it (sure he even threatened her with the Bastille if elected) ~ came indeed to call the tune, one that must echo in her ears like the sonorous tones of Handel’s Dead March From Saul.
Trump probably benefited from not having been a politician and was carried home on a vote against the political establishment.
Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years .... But they’ve done nothing to change the vicious cycle of wealth and power that has rigged the economy for the benefit of those at the top, and undermined the working class. In some respects, Democrats have been complicit in it. .... What happens when you combine freer trade, shrinking unions, Wall Street bailouts, growing corporate market power, and the abandonment of campaign finance reform? You shift political and economic power to the wealthy, and you shaft the working class.
Americans fed up with the smell of shit opted for a different sort of stench, albeit no less pungent. In those immortal words the people have voted, the bastards.
The outcome - a bastard won and a bastard lost. The world is not a safer place. Yet it is hard to believe it would be any different had they swopped sides.
It's good to see the yank establishment get a kick in the arse. Pity it wasn't Bernie Sanders doing the kicking.
ReplyDeleteHe came - he saw - Hillary died
ReplyDeleteOne self-righteous, self-important, corrupt narcissist has replaced another self-righteous, self-important, corrupt narcissist and the great unwashed are frothing at the mouth over a democratic vote. Both of them are despised by roughly equal number of US Citizens as Clinton won the popular vote while Trump won the electoral college, which is all that really matters.
ReplyDeleteWith his rhetoric, it is hard not to be reminded of an ambitious and charismatic Austrian and one wonders what actions Mr Trump will foist on the planet to satiate his clearly significant thirst for vengeance against those he perceived as having wronged him in the past, those of other religions (Muslims), and his close neighbours the Polish....I mean Mexicans.
Is it 'Hail to the Chief' or 'Heil dem furher'?
Clinton better be packing her bags and fleeing to Qatar, and rightly so, She should be facing significant charges for the Wikileaks revelations too!
There's a protest against Trump in Union sq to Trump tower.
ReplyDelete"Donald Trump go away, racist sexist anti gay..."
They're predicting the start of war...
Everybody needs to calm down.
So is it cause for celebration that a sexual predator and possible rapist of a 13 year old girl as well as a racist and serial tax dodger is elected to the White House in the cause of the "yank establishment getting a kick in the arse"? Such juvenile pseudo-leftism just serves the cause of useful idiots for Putin. Get real.
ReplyDeletePopular vote went against the President elect, 50%+ against him, protests in the streets. Time for a UN no fly zone, carpet bombing large civilian areas and arming of the rebels to the teeth. Get it on!! lol
ReplyDeleteClinton was probably the most dangerous candidate to run for the office of the American presidency in years. Trump is a business man and full of rhetoric. He says what pleases to get votes but he'll probably never build that wall or impose those restraints on Muslims entering America....how would the Sauds get in?!?!!?!??! He will do deals rather than go to war. He'll probably leave Office as one of the richest presidents ever. As for the American people, the two candidates would not have changed a thing and as for the plight of the working class Americans, who do you think has fought their last wars...it's as much Ma's apple pie and the American dream to them as it is to Clinton or Trump....
ReplyDelete"The best argument against Democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter." ~ Winston Churchill
ReplyDeleteAnd most of the average voters are going to be seriously disappointed.
Trump is a showman, an actor of sorts and a narcissist. He'll want to have his presidency remembered well. This and the constraint of realpolitik in the various scenarios he and the American people face suggests that Trump will probably want to act out the role of a good and benign president.
There won't be much of the drama or radical change that some people predict.
Now, back to chopping wood and carrying water.
I was asked last night what my thoughts were of the election of the new President of America I replied Brilliant great news as the old saying goes "a change is as good as a rest " Why not have an Idiot run America they have had Idiot's running them for years. Idiots can be cured were as the Corrupt can not. Hilary has "Honesty and Integrity" they say, were as Donald doesn't so who would you trust ...think about it. Maybe the Americans have finally gotten it right at last they voted for a "person of the people" rather than people who have Honesty and Integrity. One thing is for sure the poor will stay poor and the rich will get richer. By getting this new brush in maybe just maybe Trump will join the very few American Presidents who will not send his troops around the world committing mass murder but then again doesn't it all depend on whether the countries have OIL
ReplyDeleteBarry
ReplyDeleteYou assumed all that from my post? Where do I say it is a cause for celebration? The neo-liberal elites have been fucking up royally for decades and are now facing a backlash, which I am pleased to see. From interventions in Iraq and the Middle East to the banking crisis and subsequent bailouts, to the enforced mass immigration to Europe and the US. For the working class times are getting tougher and for the 1% times have never been so good. The US had a choice between two muppets and chose the one with the crap barnet. Good for them. Clinton would have meant more of the same. I personally wish it had been Trump against Bernie but the establishment had to have at least one of their own on the ticket.
We are told that all white people subconsciously are racist (check your privilege if you disagree!). So its descriptive value diminishes in the exact proportion to its ill use. Yes Trump is a racist, but so is everyone and everything,'brown paper bags' are racist, the point is?
ReplyDeleteIt really is ironic to see wingnuts protesting against Trumps election. I'd rather someone call me names than blow my house up. But the very thought that an alleged racist,homophobe,misogynist(I viewed black folk,Hispanics,homosexuals and women campaigning for him so go figure) has got to power is such an outrage that it trumps the fact that he declared he didn't want to fight with other countries? Hilary was determined to continue US foreign policy which if you have been paying attention means more murderous drone attacks on innocent Muslim people in foreign lands. So I pose the question, is the notion that these lands and people are so far way that they arnt important? Is it racist and sectarian to ignore the policy what Hilary and co were promising to continue with I.e bombing Muslim people? Who is right and who is wrong? Which side is racist and which isn't? Maybe we could also pose the question, which side is educated and which side has paper saying they achieved a degree?
ReplyDeleteDaithi,
ReplyDeleteI'm not racist. Coons, honkys, crackers, spics, chinks, and wops are equally worthless in my eyes.
....'sept when I need a blood transfusion.
....or maybe an organ.
Wonder how Herr Twump would go accepting a heart transplant from a Muslim?
Larry,
Where have you been hiding, in the naughty-naughty corner? Good to see you back.
Steve R
ReplyDeleteI've been about. Enjoying Donald Duck getting to the Shitehouse immensely. Walt Disney would have been elated. Adams and Marty Boy will be in good company Paddy's Day 2017.
Steve, if people use the language of racists, its a reasonable assumption for others to think them racist. What I despise is the current situation, where people who with no evidence other than their skin colour are deemed racist. You can dress it up intellectually and say its about the power structures there grouping enjoy etc....just fuck that. If you think this way, you are in for a misrable decade, because thats coming to end. Trump is the symptom, the not cause.
ReplyDeleteDaitihD,
ReplyDeletepeople believe lots of things without the slightest evidence and then discriminate against others on the basis of that very belief. Religious belief in a deity being a prime example of this.
I don't see much of people being accused of racism on the basis of skin colour alone. But we do live in a PC world out of control.
I think future generations might come to envy the era between WW2 and WW3 and think we lived in peaceful times.
Daithi D
ReplyDeleteAll the protests against Trump are by sexual deviants and rainbow warrior types and the illegal aliens trapped there with nothing to go home to, backed up by a media that has told so many lies no one believes what it says any longer. It is great to see those miss-fits, peripheral malcontents and professional liars/conditioners all having their biggest weapon of choice, 'PC', thrown back in their bullying little faces. Bring it on Trump...bring it on.
AM, my only experience of seeing it was at Uni, I was way too non-communicative for anyone to smear me with it. But I have family in the states, and it tallies with what I saw on social media when I took an interest to see what was going on. If anyone gets a chance, they should check this out : https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/502vvx/person_gets_lyft_driver_fired_because_they_dont
ReplyDeleteThis type of interaction is massively one way. If you can find one of a racists humiliating others, and expecting society to side with them in such a way as to get the other fired, ill re-consider. Just because we don’t perceive, doesn’t mean its not going on. People are rightly sick of it. I have no issue with calling out people that use overtly racist terms, but I totally reject interactions like in this film.
Larry, never sure when you are serious or not. If this is your view of the anti-racist movement, its not mine.
ReplyDeleteDaithiD,
ReplyDeleteif your only experience was of seeing it at Uni it suggests how rare it is.
The video - we could see nothing but it struck me that the woman was the jerk not the driver
Personally I still think when the Catholic church voted in a Jesuit to head the Vatican, trumps (no pun)Trump...
ReplyDeleteTrump & Hillary Clinton Promote NWO at Jesuit Dinner Party ..At 1min 11secs, Donald says... "We can also agree on the need to stand up to anti-Catholic bais...to defend religious liberty"...Ar 2mins 18secs he says "We have to come together as a world community....(Henry Kissinger was there to keep an eye on things for the Zionists..Didn't see any Taliban there)
Basically there will be a Jesuit in the White House and another in Rome. All you non religious people out there, like myself..We are fcuked.
Daithi D
ReplyDeleteSelf confessed illegals protesting against a USA President elect and getting full media coverage as the President of the day and his defeated candidate remain silent is mind blowing. If you wish to live in a country, apply for a visa. Otherwise you are breaking the law.
As for me I would be delighted to see all the loud mouthed Irish on steroids in S. Boston and Queens NY sent home. Put them all up the Falls road and see how loud they are a bit closer to home. Get real, get legal, get a green card or get out. SIMPLES.
I see CNN showing students chanting 'white-power' funny how that is dangerous but 'black power' is somehow commendable. 'Difference' is what made America great. Trump is merely showing the reality of the nation and stripping away the 'cool' PC facade that is pure phoney baloney. The media are simply licking their wounds of failure.
Trump saying he is dispensing with the 'media pool' is a master stroke to my mind. BRILLIANT. He owes them NOTHING.
Larry,the total contempt a large section of the populace have the media is definately encouraging. I cant claim that illegal immigration is a concern of mine, it was weird to Obama being interviewed about it though, he was suggesting these people should be allowed to vote. Students chanting weird slogans is something of a rite of passage, I respect them more than the little bastards who join say, the Tories as 12 years old. Kids should be communists or fascists etc. The protesting the result is something that is creeping in more and more over the years, as ive said before, we increasingly refuse to acknowlege legitimate differences of opinion. Along with the policing of language, its something of a principle of the Left/Liberals. Trump wont need to horse trade or build for a career after his term(s), so it will interesting what approach he takes in office.
ReplyDeleteAM, its like watching cops execute black motorists. Its not something ive experienced, but it happens, and many people are driven to despair when trying to alert others only to be called racist. It will be an interesting time, whether its world war three or something more localised i dont know, your generation is kind of unique in that there actions matched their rhetoric and you lot actually took up arms in pursuit of those goals.I wonder who is advising groups like BLM, who have legitmate greivences, but such a skewed analysis they alienate the bery allies they should be making.
DaithiD,
ReplyDeleteI think we can measure cops shooting black motorists. Your opening comment was "We are told that all white people subconsciously are racist". We are not told all cops shoot black motorists. Do the people who tell us all whites are racist have anything to back up their argument?
What passes for racism is often cultural differences and opinion and as you suggest the policing of discussion for censorious reasons is facilitated by the racist muffler. The one definition of racism that I think has unshakeable merit is the one that thinks some people are less human than we are and that they should not be allowed the same rights we have. We exclude them form the human race. That can be as evident within a race as between races.
Apparently Catholics in key states ignored Hilary in vast numbers. There are many more US Catholics who decry violence in Northern Ireland than perhaps she and her husband thought.
ReplyDelete