…...who wins the
U.S. party leaderships. It really doesn't matter who wins the
presidency. We should have learned that with Obama. I remember the
enthusiasm for Obama at the time of his first run at the presidency.
I remember the cheers when he said to America, “We can do it.”
Few, very few,
noticed that he never said what it was that they could do. Just “it”
was enough of a platform to win the presidency. Once he won the
presidency, the followed exactly the same policies Bush had – wars
of aggression to put the world at the feet of American billionaires.
He kept the torture camp at Guantanamo. (closing it was one of the
few coherent promises he had made.) He has refused to prosecute
torturers – while at the same time prosecuting the whistle blowers
who revealed the torture. He has created a war in Syria. He has
continued to lose one in Afghanistan. He has continued the process of
allowing the war industries to run wild. Following the leadership of
Bush and his invasion of Iraq, Obama has created the horror that is
the middle east – a horror that now threatens the stability of
Europe and is creating a showdown with Russia and, maybe, China.
The wage gap has
worsened under Obama. Poverty is rising steeply. The wealthy
continue, sometimes openly, to buy politicians. Race relations are as
dreadful as they were back in the 1960s. The police state in the U.S.
has never been so powerful and intrusive (and murderous) as it has
been under Obama.
He promised a
watered down form of medicare. But, at that, what he delivered was a
huge profit bonus for private medical insurance companies.
And now, it is Donald Trump who is profiting from the fears and
hatreds (and hysteria) that developed under Obama.
Nor is there any
reason to expect better from any of the other candidates. The only
difference between them and Trump is that Trump knows how to use TV.
All of them are are long since bought by the very wealthy. Nor would
Trump be able to dictate to the very wealthy. As billionaires go,
he's at the penny ante level.
On the Democrat
side, Hilary (and Bill) Clinton have long since been bought. Wall St.
has no bigger friend than Hilary.
Bernie Sanders seems
to be a ray of hope, the one person who understands this is about
people and the society they live in. Unfortunately, his thinking is
stuck in 1935. Anyway, no congress would ever approve his programmes.
American democracy is history. If there is to be any serious change
in U.S. domestic or foreign policy, it will have to come as a result
of severe and widespread violence because the very wealthy will not
permit peaceful change. That's why American police forces are being
equipped with armoured cars, and even tanks. That's why Canada now
has special police in camouflage outfits and carrying combat rifles.
Listen carefully to
the debates on both sides. All of them (except Sanders) are built on
fear and the hatreds that come from fear. Trump does it more than the
others but, again, that's just because he understands TV. He knows TV
is not for thinking. TV is moving colours, changing camera angles,
extreme behaviour, fast pace. And those words define what Trump is.
And they're all that Trump is.
Almost all of the
candidates refer to restoring American greatness. Almost all avoid
any reference to the wage gap or to controls on business. Without
saying so, almost all see big business as enjoying a special
relationship with government. Just like New Brunswick, big business
has become a “partner” with government. (That's why Trudeau
recently scampered to Davos to schmooze with the very wealthy.)
All of them see the
U.S. as a land of greatness whose greatness is threatened by the
influx of people who don't have “American values” (whatever that
may mean.) That attitude, with has been common throughout the western
world for centuries, and is really a form of racial superiority which
is why Canada and the U.S. both have had bitter debates over
immigrants from the coming of the Irish, to the Jews, to Ukrainians,
to Chinese, to Japanese and more. That's why so much of Europe, like
Britain, is dragging its heels on accepting refugees.
We've seen all this
before. This is what Hitler was all about and, to a lesser degree,
Mussolini. Hitler's major purpose was to restore German 'greatness',
to form partnerships with the world's very wealthy, to to protect the
wealthy by blocking the expansion of the Soviet Union. That's why the
same kind of people (sometimes the same families) who supported
Hitler and Mussolini now support Hilary Clinton, and all the
Republican candidates – and the Liberals and Conservatives in
Canada. (Several years ago, Mr. Irving wrote a column for his
newspapers in which he announced that he was “in coalition” with
the government. “Coalition” means in full partnership with it
(even without getting elected.) He was no longer just a voter like
the rest of us slobs. No. He had a right to be in government because
he was –-Mr. Irving. This is precisely what Mussolini's Fascism
meant.
Hitler and Mussolini lost the war. But their supporters didn't.
Naziism and Fascism are still alive and healthy. In fact, as I watch
the U.S. TV debates. I have to conclude that Naziism and Fascism are
“American values”. And maybe Canadian ones, too.
If you disagree with me, please send in a list of values that are
either Canadian or American. (Separatists tried to make a list for
Quebec, and failed miserably.)
As I write this, American police have killed only 71 people for
January. They'll have to pick up the pace to meet last year's
success. Canada's rate of such killings in far lower, even allowing
for population size. However, the rate has shown an alarming rise in
recent years. This suggests we should be examining this to determine
the cause – which may or may not be the police. There could be
other factors in our society affecting this.
The Guardian notes
that the Republican party has no policy on climate change. ( except
for Jeb Bush who says he hopes that some guy working in a garage will
invent something.) More commonly, Republicans deny there is any
climate change.
The Democrats have
something – but scarcely enough. Here in Canada, We're seriously
discussing a pipeline that will have to serve a gas-guzzling world
for thirty years and more just to break even.
What we need is to
call on our oil billionaires to lead the way. I mean, they're real
smart because they know how to get born to billionaires. And they
make their Irving press lead the way in discussion of climate change.
Much as I admire
Judaism and the Jewish community I used to know, I see no Judaic
qualities at all in Israel. Its theft of Palestinian land, its
unequal treatment of Palestinian Israelis, its destruction of
communities, its maintenance of an economic blockade on Palestine,
its mass murder of Palestinians, its imposition of poverty on them
have no connection with any Judaic teachings I have ever heard of. In
retaliation, some Palestinians have stabbed Israelis. That's big news
in our press. Israel bombs indiscriminately, and kills thousands -
and most of our news media don't even notice.
I often think that
one of the most terrible things Hitler did was to destroy Judaism and
to create the evil personified by Netanyahu. He is everything that
Judaism did not stand for. And Israel, of all places, has become much
of what Hitler stood for.
A similar theme is
repeated below as Israel has refused a bill to made all Israeli
citizens equal. Palestinians who are citizens of Israel will continue
to be segregated and will not have the rights of Jewish Israelis.
And here's an
opinion from a pretty good source about the relationship between the
Clintons and big money.
Now, here's an idea, get an idea of who the big donors to the
Liberals and Conservatives in New Brunswick are. ( I know who it was
when Pierre Trudeau was in power. And I know who collected it. And I
suspect things have changed very little.)
I don't know whether
the next story will actually happen. It is almost certain to be
opposed by the very wealthy – and by the people who read or listen
to the wealthy's news media. But here's an approach to a desperate
problem in our society that is likely to get much worse. Switzerland
is having a free vote on a suggestion that everybody get a basic
income from the government.
It may sound like a
stretch. But we won't revive an economy by making everybody but the
very rich poor. We tried that in the great recession of the 1930s. It
doesn't work. What did work was making more money available to
everybody. In 1939, that happened because of the war. The war, not
big business, created jobs. And it was all controlled by a very big
and well-qualified civil service. As long as people don't get enough
money, we're going to be in the economic toilet. Business does NOT
create jobs. If if did, the people of Congo would be rolling in
money instead of dying of starvation. Jobs are created when people
have money to spend.
We're doing the
opposite – helping the very rich to constantly get richer while
every body else gets poorer. Raising taxes won't help. Because the
very rich will avoid them, and the extra taxing will just cut
purchasing power for everybody else.
Firing civil
servants won't help. You can't improve an economy by putting people
out of jobs. And you can't control an economy without expert civil
servants.
Our governments just
love to do everything on the “business model”. It's a model that
works for the wealthy and, occasionally, raises up somebody who
wasn't wealthy. But generally, it destroys most people. Running a
government is not the same as running a business. A government is
about people. A business is about profits, and those only for the top
dogs.
We should have
learned that in the depression of the 1930s. We didn't because the
very wealthy didn't want us to learn it. The depression years were a
great time for big business. It could hire people dirt cheap. Then
throw them away. It sold less – but the cheap salaries made profits
still good. And, anyway, the very rich weren't the ones going hungry.
So who could give damn?
Thank about that,
Richard Saillant, as you lead us to the edge of the cliff.
of note today:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thestar.com/business/2016/01/30/the-problem-with-postmedia-olive.html