No Trump

This post is going to be way too long anyway so I’ll keep my commentary to a minimum (the title refers to a Bridge bid). The thing about The Donald, the reason he’s so popular and remains that way, is that he expresses the rage people feel at the current Neoliberal governing consensus. As Ian Welsh puts it–

We can have reasonable policies, which will make the world better for everyone (even if that means there will be a lot less billionaires–the Corbyn solution), or we can have the rise of fascists and their left-wing equivalents.

The room in the mushy middle for those who aren’t willing to do something radical to fix the economy and other problems is narrowing. It will continue to narrow.

Our current elites will not adjust, so the question is: Who will we get? Corbyn and FDR? Mussolini, LePen, Trump?

Neo-liberalism is nearing the end of its cycle. It will kill a lot of people dying, but its death is now ordained and can only be slowed by fanatical levels of police state repression in a few countries. And its death convulsions and the birth pangs of the new system will create a new age of war and revolution which will kill far more.

This is now as close to inevitable as human affairs, endlessly complicated and subject to unexpected shocks, can be.

I have always advocated small revolutions in how we think and act, including turning off your TV or at least changing channels away from the Cable “News” outlets (you could also inflate your tires, slacker!).

Now there are other factors including Republican racism and tribalism (they will never vote for Sanders or Hillary even though it’s in their best interest economically, and I’m giving Hil a huge benefit of the doubt here) but rage is the motivator. More and more of even the top 10% are being consigned to the proletariat and, having been trained and deluded into thinking that they too are part of the elite, are very angry to see their positions of privilege siphoned away to benefit Billionaires.

Revolution is in the air and the National Razor is not far behind. Even the propaganda is losing its mask. Again from Ian–

Corbyn is the least unpopular of the UK’s leaders. He has negative ratings, yes, but the least negative.

The actively hostile press in Greece could not stop Syriza, nor could they stop the population from voting NO in the austerity referendum. Of course, Syriza decided to continue with austerity anyway, but the media failed.

In the US we have the media openly calling Trump a fascist, and that hasn’t slowed him down a bit. (I’m anti-Trump, as it happens, lest anyone think I approve of him.) To be sure, they keep giving him massive amounts of oxygen, by reporting on everything he says, because he knows how to be newsworthy, but their ridicule has not slowed him down.

One suspects, indeed, that it has made him stronger. Those who support Trump distrust the media. That the media is against Trump is a positive to them. This certainly isn’t an insane metric, the media has pushed mainstream candidates for decades who have not made the lives of Trump supporters better, after all.

Irregardless, the ideological mechanism of control thru the press is failing. In France, LePen rises. In Britain, Corbyn. In the US, Trump and, to a lesser extent, Sanders (who is bad on Imperialism, but good on many domestic issues). This trend continues elsewhere, such as Spain and Portugal.

This isn’t entirely a good thing, as I presume is evident. It is just a thing, good or bad. The establishment is losing control.

Indeed it has. Mass Media bootlicking has destroyed their credibility in fundamental ways and they, like the rest of the Neoliberal elite, are starting to feel the heat of the torches and prick of the pitchforks and are increasingly desparate to hide that fact lest it expose their vulnerability.

In England Jeremy Corbyn was elected by 60% of regular Labour Party members and is thoroughly despised by 60% of the Members of Parliament. Folks, your Congressional Representatives don’t represent you, they represent their crony capitalist friends that rely on government to protect them from actual competition in the “free” market.

Salon and Democracy Now! have noted this phenomena-

Meet the “British Bernie Sanders”: Now this is how you push back against the right
by Ben Norton, Salon
Thursday, Dec 10, 2015 07:56 AM EST

Corbyn, 66, was elected leader of the U.K.’s Labour Party in September in a historic landslide, earning 60 percent of the vote — over 40 percent more than the runner-up. He won with a larger percentage than any other Labour leader in history.

While the far right is on the rise throughout Europe, Corbyn has helped revive the left. The longtime British parliamentarian’s robust leftist policies and firm opposition to the ever right-leaning status quo have led some to characterize him as the “British Bernie Sanders” — or, rather, to dub Sanders the “American Jeremy Corbyn.” Given the more progressive political climate in Europe, however, Corbyn is even further to the left of Sanders in many ways.

In the 1990s, the Labour Party, mirroring the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton, took a turn to the right, adopting neoliberal economic policies not unlike those pursued by Thatcher or Reagan. Just as Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist, has in the past year reinvigorated the U.S. left, Corbyn, also a self-identified democratic socialist, has injected a shot of adrenaline into the moribund Labour Party.

Corbyn has promised to return Labour to its democratic socialist roots. He has pledged to renationalize public transportation, make university tuition free, institute strong rent control, and establish a national maximum wage, in order to cut back on enormous economic inequality.

Unlike many other progressives, however, including even Sen. Bernie Sanders, Corbyn also has a staunch anti-war record — and a long and accomplished one, at that. A former chairman of the U.K.’s Stop the War Coalition, Corbyn recently led the push back against the British bombing campaign in Syria.

Moreover, during the tenure of Prime Minister Tony Blair, Corbyn was one of the most outspoken critics of Labour’s backing of the internationally illegal U.S.-led war in Iraq. Much more knowledgeable about Middle Eastern conflicts than most of his politico peers, Corbyn warned Western politicians in the 1980s not to arm Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. He has also criticized Israel’s war crimes and illegal military occupation of the Palestinian territories, and supports elements of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on behalf of Palestinian human rights.

In the 1980s, Corbyn was a key figure in the movement against South African apartheid, at a time at which the white supremacist regime was an ally of the U.K. and U.S. and few politicians dared criticize it. He served on the National Executive Committee of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and is proud of the fact that he was arrested in 1984 at a protest outside of the South Africa House in London.

On Dec. 8, progressive news outlet Democracy Now broadcasted the first U.S. TV interview
conducted with Corbyn since he was elected as leader of the Labour Party. In the lengthy segment, Corbyn discusses a panoply of issues, covering the gamut from war to climate change. The new British Labour leader articulates a strong leftist platform that could permanently shake up establishment politics as we know it.

That interview, in full-

“I Want a World of Peace”: In Exclusive Interview UK Labour Head Jeremy Corbyn Opposes Bombing Syria

“A Legal Black Hole”: Jeremy Corbyn Calls for Closing of Guantánamo, Hails Release of Shaker Aamer

Jeremy Corbyn Connects Western Bombing Campaigns & Refugee Crisis: “What Goes Around Comes Around”