President Trump has defined the future as a battle between old-style nationalism and neoliberal globalism, a challenge that the West’s elites mock at their own peril, as ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke describes.
By Alastair Crooke
Europe, the Guardian tells us, has its old “mojo” back. There is a new optimistic mood – “or even a triumphalist mood, in much of Europe.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel is praised for achieving a “nuanced” final statement at the recent G20 meeting, and for “standing up” to President Trump, on behalf of the “liberal international order.” Really? If this is the “mood,” so be it, but even the Guardian op-ed writer argues that the narrative that Europe somehow “is back” – having beaten back the “populist wave” – is flawed: “the spirit of cohesion is overstated.”
President Barack Obama at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on June 19, 2013.
Actually, the Euro-élites must have had their attention fixed elsewhere. For the “Great Disrupter,” as David Stockman calls President Trump, threw a hefty stone into the liberal pond: It is fine to ignore it, but what is happening is that the old division between those inside the supposedly democratic, globalist “sphere,” and those of the delinquent “regimes” outside it – and lying beyond its civilized walls – is being, bit-by-bit, dissolved.
The “war” that used to be between one sphere and another is being overtaken by the insurgency within spheres. The bitterness and polarization so induced is having its effect: the “international liberal order” (as the Guardian terms it), may no longer work as the highly centralized, quasi- cohesive establishment that it has been for the last six decades. There is no more a “center”; no more a cohesive certainty; nor a common directionality, or purposiveness.
If Europe wants to present the G20 deliberation as the clever finessing of discordant views, that is understandable. But whereas Europe included in the declaration the commitment to “free” trade, U.S. negotiators parried this with a “right” – the right to protect against unfair trade practices, and to consider the imposition of tariffs, where appropriate (i.e. on steel products).
On climate change, the G19 stood by the Paris accord, but America, by contrast, retained its decision to withdraw from it. The consensus stood by carbon-reduction measures, but found this juxtaposed – uncomfortably – with an American call (rather), to use fossil fuels more cleanly. It was agreement, I would suggest, to disagree, rather than some Merkel-made synthesis.
Trump’s Biggest Rock
But the biggest rock thrown by Trump in the G20 pond, passed almost unnoticed. But potentially, it can hurt the Europeans in the spot, just where it hurts most. And this did not even occur at Hamburg. It occurred on the way there.
The run-down PIX Theatre sign reads “Vote Trump” on Main Street in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. July 15, 2016. (Photo by Tony Webster Flickr)
Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan summarizes: “Calling the Polish people ‘the soul of Europe,’ [Trump] related how, in the Miracle of the Vistula in 1920, Poland, reborn after 12 decades of subjugation, drove back the invading Red Army of Leon Trotsky.
[Then Trump] described the gang rape of Poland by Nazis and Soviets after the Hitler-Stalin pact. He cited the Katyn Forest massacre of the Polish officer corps by Stalin, and the rising of the Polish people against their Nazi occupiers in 1944.
“When the Polish Pope, John Paul II, celebrated his first Mass in Victory Square in 1979, said Trump, ‘a million Polish men, women and children raised their voices in a single prayer … “We want God” …’
“What enabled the Poles to endure [all their tribulations] was an unshakable belief in and a willingness to fight for, who they were — a people of God and country, faith, families, and freedom — with the courage and will to preserve a nation built on the truths of their ancient tribe and Catholic traditions.
“ ‘The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it? [emphasis added].
“ ‘We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive.”
Ignoring the Point
Did the G20 élites miss the point? Trump is asking the Europeans whether “you [still] have the will, the steadfastness, the clear-sightedness and strength, by which ‘to take back’ your culture, your way-of-being, your values” – your nations? The message was, I believe, not directed so much at the Poles, but rather, at other Europeans. Trump implicitly targeted the part where it hurts Europe the most: the immigration issue, at diversity and politics, and at the fear of Europeans for their cultural submersion, under the wave of immigration. (The G20 offered no solutions to this crucial question).
Did Merkel — the media-designated new “Leader of the West” — impress with her “resolute” response to mobs rioting in Germany’s second city, Buchanan asks, rather pointedly? The scenes from Hamburg, perhaps, he implied, reinforced Trump’s point.
Many in Europe may be offended by Trump’s words, perceiving them to be wholly contrary to everything for which they stand. They too, may dislike Trump, viscerally. But these feelings should not blind them to the very key point that he – rightly or wrongly – is pressing: Is diversity and identity politics our strength (as we are told), or is the possession of some sort of historical and cultural (including a spiritual) legacy, something which binds us, and gives a people its inner strength?
It is, at the very least, a valid question. And, it is the sides which are taken on this issue, which represent the new fault line that is displacing the old “good guy” globalist, versus the delinquent, “bad guy,” non-global sphere. This new insurgency is in-house. And the “center” has gone — bifurcated possibly irreparably, into two.
Meeting with Putin
And so, to Trump’s final symbolic “act of disruption”: the prolonged and warm encounter with President Putin. If not on exactly the same page as Trump, Russia nonetheless, has been pursuing a parallel path of political and cultural re-sovereigntization. The lengthy meeting with the Russian President disconcerted and outraged many (see here, for example). But the provoking of such an (over) reaction of outrage precisely would be viewed as its main merit by many Trump supporters, who value disruption of the old paradigm.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
Trump was not as alone and as isolated as the mainstream media portrayed him: the élites may revile and deprecate his abdication of American global leadership, and for dangerously insisting that job losses resulting from unfair trade practices must be redressed, but there is, however, a constituency within Europe that is entirely in sympathy with his approach.
Trump’s questioning of the orthodoxy that the U.S. must retain hegemony over the global order, and his sense that the free trade system simply has lost America its manufacturing base, possesses a self-evident content for many ordinary Americans and Europeans. Trump says simply enough: “We (the U.S.), can no longer afford it. We are up to the ceiling, and out of the windows, piled high in debts, and we anyway get zilch in return from all these ingrates who shelter under our bankrupting global security umbrella. Let us not go on trying to impose this on others; we shall rebuild ourselves, and pursue our own, culturally distinct, American way-of-being – and let them pursue theirs’. It is simple; it is plain; it has appeal.
Whether one thinks Trump is right or wrong on these issues, is beside the point. The essential point is that the key components — the Poland speech, the G20 dissidence, and the warm Putin meeting — do form a concerted, strategic whole. Too, the atmospherics were better at the G20, than at the G7 meeting in Sicily in May – President Trump seemed actually to be enjoying himself in Hamburg at dinner, (and why not). But two summits into Trump’s Presidency, it is hard to escape two conclusions:
Firstly, that things have changed – maybe permanently. Surprisingly, of all people, it was “globalist” Emmanuel Macron, who best caught this sense when he remarked: “Our world has never been so divided; centrifugal forces have never been so powerful; our common goods have never been so threatened.”
And secondly, the immediate relapse on the President’s return to Washington into the Donald Trump Jr. Russia “hysteria” over a “faux scandal” as an Op-Ed in the Washington Post describes it (whatever the whys and wherefores of the affair), reinforces the conclusion (as Mike Krieger notes) “that America may no longer work as the largely centralized, semi-cohesive unit it has been for our entire lives.” Maybe he puts it too mildly. To outsiders, Americans seem to be eating each other alive.
Aptly, Krieger quotes William Yeats:
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.
Alastair Crooke is a former British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy. He is the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum.
Diversity. To divide. As in Divide and conquer.
By definition, therefore, “diversity is our strength” is an oxymoron.
Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. .
Diversity breeds identity politics and therefore chaos. People voting for their group interests, which usually do not coincide with the native populations.
If you want global governance, you must have divided populations in Europe and America. Americans would never go along willingly and thus must be broken down and coerced.
The author gives Trump far too much credit for being consistent and coherent in his views. To define the future, one must understand the past. Trump has no depth of knowledge. When he repeats ad nauseum “Make America Great Again,” it is clear he does not know what America was in the past. One can only guess that he is not referring to the accomplishments of FDR during the depression. He will only continue to act on his own momentary volition which is often contradictory to what he said the day before. Watch out!
too many people do not appreciate the hollowness emptiness, possibly even a vacuum, that remains even if Trump were removed from the picture …. The democrats are so drunk on Trump Hate, they’ve lost sight of anything else … pathetic. At this rate, he may even win a second term because …. the voters are unlikely to turn out to vote on another Democratic candidate running on a “not Trump” status quo platform.
The creature is owned by the Russian mafia. They say “you’re fired,” and he is the apprentice.
Gosh, I’m sure glad the anti-Christ Ms. Clinton wasn’t elected, I’d be assured my health care benefits would continue next year.
Silly me.
Thomas Frank (as usual) makes some good and interesting points ….
Guardian: “” The media’s war on Trump is destined to fail. Why can’t it see that?: The news media needs to win its war with Trump, and urgently so. But the goal should be more than just reestablishing the old rules of legitimacy””
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/21/media-war-trump-destined-fail
We are catastrophically far from most of the media and most of the Democrat understanding what Frank is saying
There is nothing liberal about what is referred to as “neoliberalism”- a Bernaysian marketing term used to sell global capitalist/corporate control over the people and resources of all nations by any means necessary including devastating wars of global capitalist expansion and of ethnic cleansing. Call them what they are, corporate fascists and their gutless two bit tin horn sycophant politicians of a similar ilk selling us out with the help of msm presstitutes for a few stinkin’ sheckles. Stop using the term neoliberal. It is an artless lie.
Well said, and very true.
Good Op-Edge article by Neil Clarke on rt.com showing how Trump gets bashed by the neocons and their owned MSM at every step, and particularly over even a little tiny step toward peace. There are opportunities to “like” some of the tweets cited in this article.
I find this article remarkable for its misreading the intent of the Trump administration on economic policy and foreign policy. The idea that “Trump” questions that the US must retain hegemony of the global world order” is absurd. Increasing the military threats against China, Russia and North Korea during the first six months of this administration, requesting 54 billion dollars more in military spending, placing ICBMs around Russia and in South Korea is not an act of an administration pulling back on its imperial ambitions.
As for economic policy the Trump administration has demonstrated that it is as close to Wall Street and global multi national companies as was the Obama administration. The US is not pulling back from neo liberal global policies, but rather the US under this administration wants even more of the “pie” to come back to the US multi-national companies.
It’s genuinely very difficult in this active life to listen news on TV, so I simply use the web for
that purpose, and take the hottest information.
This sounds like Trump channeling Bannon. The thing is Trump doesn’t give squat about family values if he did he’d be working for a higher minimum wage, universal health care, free education, women’s reproductive rights, etc.
His speech is in effect describing a scrim of some boozers hallucination Bannon is obsessed with regarding sacred Western Christian values that extend only so far as they might infringe on corporate profits. Let’s not get carried away with any substantial message Trump might be spouting in a theoretical defense of Western values.
There is no ‘valid question’ there are not just two sides global vs. cultural nationalism, it’s really about how we do whatever we do. Is educational, health and wealth policy tailored to the great mass of humanity or the corporate one percent?
As to whether Trump is seriously, “questioning of the orthodoxy that the U.S. must retain hegemony over the global order,” I’ll believe when I see reduction in defense spending.
myshkin – on defense – Trump wanted to end wars, get rid of NATO, but, NO, we can’t have that. He has been vilified for even thinking such thoughts. I mean, if you start thinking about cutting back on defense, the elite might actually go after you on trumped-up charges of being a traitor to your country. Oh, wait, they have!
On the minimum wage – instead of asking why the minimum wage isn’t being raised, start asking why it has to be raised in the first place! What is causing inflation? Who is causing inflation? Does inflation just suddenly appear out of the blue, like lightning, or is it intentionally caused? Answer those questions, and then you might begin to see why you should instead be angry at the people who are causing inflation in the first place.
So inflation happens, prices go up and you ask for a raise. You get it, and prices rise to meet that new money. They always do as you now have more money chasing after a set supply of goods. Things go along fine for a while, and then you start to feel the effects again, ask for a raise, get it, and prices rise again. Chasing your tail. Put your anger on those who are causing the inflation in the first place. If there was no inflation (or very, very little), and prices didn’t rise, you wouldn’t ever need a raise, would you?
Trump asked the question: “Why don’t we just get our drugs from Canada?” WHAT? “No, no, Mr. Trump, you don’t ask such questions. Why, you’re actually treading in dangerous corporate waters here if you do. We might have to investigate you just to shut you up.”
Of course you should have single-payer. Trump has even mentioned that that would be the best idea. The Republicans AND the Democrats are both beholden more to corporate interests than the American people because for the life of them, they just won’t go there: single-payer. Under Obamacare, the poor and the rich were doing fine, but the Middle Class got screwed. I think Trump is letting it fall apart (well, it’s just happening all by itself), and then maybe the people will start getting angry, start pushing for single-payer.
Another blogger’s idea is to let people buy catastrophic insurance for things like heart attacks, falling off a ladder, cancer, etc., because that’s the true reason you buy insurance, for those unexpected life emergencies. He further goes on to say that for everything else (colds, sniffles, broken arms, non-emergencies), you simply go to your doctor and pay cash. Prices would come way down as you would cut out the middle man (the insurance companies).
Educational expenses have risen exponentially. Why? Well, the government got involved. They told the banks that they would back the loans. Up until that point, the banks had scrutinized potential students: what they were going to take, jobs available in their chosen field, how much they figured they’d make after graduation, etc. Once banks no longer had to ask these questions, once the government had the banks’ back, they opened the floodgates and okay’d anybody who could fog a mirror. Supply and demand kicked in again, more people chasing after educational spots, and prices went up. And a great percentage of the people coming out of university and college are pushing drinks in some bar and are heavily in debt. The jobs were offshored.
B.E.-
I agree with some of your points, but I think your missing some of the stuff going on with educational expenses. The colleges have become very top-heavy. Administrators make huge bucks, published and tenured professors make pretty big bucks, and TA’s don’t make squat and do all the work. It’s a mirror of the society writ large, the 1 percent hog the resources and game the system, and the serfs suffer.
Same thing with health care. The drug companies, the insurance industry, and the big hospitals game the system, and the patients pay for it. They re-did my county hospital in rural Arizona. It is huge! It has a grand piano in the lobby, an atrium, and a gift shop. Guess who pays for it.
Capitalism may be good for some things as long as it’s regulated to keep power from excessively accruing. However, things like education, health care, and the internet, IMHO, should be part of the publicly owned infrastructure. I suppose I’m more of a socialist in that regard.
Skip Scott – “However, things like education, health care, and the internet, IMHO, should be part of the publicly owned infrastructure.” You’ll get no argument from me there, except maybe on education.
Health care should be single-payer. Both the Democrats and Republicans have fought this, which proves they are in the pockets of the corporations. Of course, had they enforced the laws already on the books re anti-monopoly laws, things could have been much different. They didn’t, so the rest is history.
Internet – if they want to see a war, just try taking the Internet away or making it prohibitively costly!
Education? Education used to be paid for by students working part-time jobs on the side. They used to be able to afford it, handily. It was working, so what happened? The government came in and guaranteed the loans, the banks cranked out loans to anyone, demand increased and costs rose.
Administrators can charge whatever they want, but if no one can afford it, then they have to reduce their salaries or go out of business. But what happens when the government steps in and guarantees loans? That administrator is safe and can now charge a much higher fee as the government is now backstopping the price. Students don’t care because they put nothing down and they’ll worry about paying for the loan in the future, or defaulting. Banks don’t care because their backs are covered by the government, so they crank out the student loans.
Nobody has any skin in the game. If they did, if the banks had to hold those loans on their books and suffer losses because they made poor decisions about who they gave loans to, they’d think twice. This, in turn, would cause fewer student loans to be handed out and less money would flow to the universities, thereby decreasing salaries for administrators. Only the best and brightest would end up going to university, which is the way it should be, anyway.
I haven’t explained it as well as I would have liked, but life is interfering. I could also get into the wonderful game of securitization, but I’ll leave that for another day.
Cheers, Skip Scott.
Hi B.E.-
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. My argument for free public education is that they took all the decent paying blue-collar jobs overseas, so I think they should expand educational opportunities to support the middle class. Plus any advanced society thinking about the future should value education and promote opportunities for learning. However, perhaps the powers that be wouldn’t like a population of critical thinkers, as George Carlin argued so well in his famous rant.
I only went to a state college, but felt I got a pretty good liberal arts education. It was a valuable experience. I think my favorite course was Logic. It’s long term effect has been to give me a pretty good nose for BS. Neither I nor my parents incurred any debt. Tuition was cheap, and we had 5 of us in a two bedroom apartment.
As for the banking industry, I long for the days of the Glass-Steagal act. They have the foxes guarding the henhouse now, thanks to Bill Clinton. When I retired I was getting 5 pct. on CD’s that were FDIC insured through various banks. That ended my first year of retirement, and I was forced to go to the casino (financial advisor/portfolio) like everybody else trying to live off the interest of savings. Next they’ll be screwing with social security.
Skip Scott – thanks for your reply, Skip.
“My argument for free public education is that they took all the decent paying blue-collar jobs overseas, so I think they should expand educational opportunities to support the middle class.”
With so much being automated now (and much more in the future), I have no idea what people are going to do. They’re automating agriculture, factories, and even trucking and home building are headed that way. It’s scary. So even if factories eventually come back home, they’ll be severely automated.
Even if you end up with a well-educated citizenry, what are they going to do? And with over a million immigrants coming in every year, a good percentage uneducated, what are “they” going to do? Buy a house? With what? A part-time job? And with peak oil, how many more houses should we be building out in the suburbs?
Sorry, I’m rambling. Maybe I’m being too pessimistic right now. I’ll sleep on it. Thanks.
You are judging Trump on what you perceive he wants and not on what he does. That is sure to induce huge perception bias, particularly with Trump who says many things. There is no sign of Trump turning off the perpetual US war machine. Trump has visited and reassured our allies in the repressive Saudi terror state that the war crimes may continue unabated in Yemen with continued US backing, his support for Israel’s illegal occupation of the territories and choke hold on Gaza is clear , ongoing US participation in the Syrian meat grinder, 30-40,000 possible civilian dead in Mosul, escalating tensions with Iran and undermining the viable Iran nuclear deal.
Trump does not have a coherent policy on much of anything except perhaps that laws don’t apply to him and his family or anyone else with money and power, that may not be much of a de facto change in Washington but it has never been so blatant and likely to raise to de jure status. Your belief that Trump is somehow an agent of positive change in Washington doesn’t match with the events. Take a look at his appointments, Justice Gorsuch, Atty Gen Sessions, Sec State from Exxon Tillerson, Betsy ‘charter school’ Devos at education, Steve Mnuchin Treasury, Ben Carson HUD, General Mattis War Department (not the usual civilian oversight), Tom Price HHS, Rick Perry Energy, Scott Pruitt EPA and unfortunately the list goes on and on.
As far as your fear of inflation resulting from raising the minimum wage, “the buying power of the federal minimum wage hasn’t kept up with inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data show that in 1968, the federal minimum was equivalent to $10.90 in 2015 dollars, nearly $4 higher than today’s rate.” The ongoing problem is not inflation but deflationary conditions as the austerians continue to control global economic policy.
myshkin – well, of course there are deflationary forces. Whenever you blow bubble after bubble and artificially suppress interest rates, thereby creating an economy that’s fake, you are going to have deflationary forces because the bubble was never born of productivity, but of financial engineering. The center cannot hold.
Of course the minimum wage has not kept up. I know this. My point was: why is inflation occurring in the first place, and who is causing it? If the source could be stopped, no one would need a raise. I’m telling you to direct your anger at the cause, not the effect. The big boys create bubbles, then try to keep them in the air, and we all suffer as a result.
Justice Gorsuch, Atty Gen Sessions, Ben Carson you take offense to? End of conversation then.
As far as Trump goes, there’s been a witch-hunt directed against him, which by the sounds of it you are hoping they find something, anything. Go through anybody’s history and you will find something, even your’s and mine. If they just keep looking, expanding the search, they might find something.
I wonder if you would extend this search to Hillary Clinton as well. Would you agree to search through the Clinton Foundation ($100 million is missing), the Clinton Global Initiative, the email scandal, agree to have someone impartial (not Crowdstrike) look at her servers, Bill Clinton’s speech in Moscow and the resultant money that was funneled into the Clinton Foundation immediately following his speech, the Uranium One deal that she facilitated with Russia, Benghazi, the Christopher Steele dossier?
Trump wanted to do a lot of things, but he is being prevented by some very powerful forces. If you’re good with this, just remember they will come for you in time.
Low or mild inflation is a sign of a healthy economy. No inflation or deflation is usually a sign of a stalled economy nearing or already in recession. If minimum wage adjusted for inflation is $4 less than in 1968 it’s time to stop puzzling about the causes of inflation and demand a living wage for workers. What kind of society allows the top 0.1% to own as much wealth as the bottom 90% or an individual to make millions and a fast food worker working 40 hours a week to still be below the poverty line? Probably a desperately lost society where a corrupt billionaire like Donald Trump could pass himself off as a populist and the media would spend their time chasing Russian connections instead of serious issues.
I find the MSMs claims about Russians stealing the election for Trump absurd. If the media was interested in stolen US elections they would be focused on gerrymandered districts, the electoral college, and foremost, campaign finance and the billions of dollars poured into making sure the oligarchs and corporatists are well represented but not the people. By the way corporations and the rich are interested in keeping wages as low as they can while they line their pockets, offshore jobs and hide billions in unpaid taxes.
The Clinton’s are a non starter, clearly there were huge problems with her campaign, including conflicts of interest during her Secretary of State tenure while Bill was touring, turning proximity to power into millions. Clinton was the Democratic National Committee’s candidate by rote not by vote, it should have been Bernie Sanders. Sanders the democratic socialist likely would have beaten Trump the billionaire. Though Clinton is likely corrupt and Trump is clearly being hounded by the bought media and obviously has factions of the deep state opposing him, I believe Trump is corrupt as well. Some of his real estate deals look like money laundering and it’s likely that could be used to control him.
It’s kind of a win win, the establishment gets a Punch and Judy sideshow going with the media to distract Americans from the grifter politicians working the crowd and Trump gets to stay out of jail and enrich himself and his family while hanging on to office.
myshkin – “What kind of society allows the top 0.1% to own as much wealth as the bottom 90% or an individual to make millions and a fast food worker working 40 hours a week to still be below the poverty line?” Oh, maybe the same people who allow inflation to be rampant in the first place? The ones who purposely engineer and manufacture it? Yes, those people.
If you’re all for Trump being investigated, and yet you dismiss investigating the causes of inflation, or having the Clinton’s investigated, then I’m left with a pretty clear picture of you. Thanks.
That’s what Trump says, but mostly not what he does. His NAFTA rewrite reportedly steals the worst from TPP. He has appointed more Goldman Saks execs than anyone else. Neoliberalism appears to be safe on his watch. Neoconservatism, which often goes together with neoliberalism, but is not exactly the same thing appears at times to be taking a hit as with Trump cancelling aid to anti-Assad rebels, (one thing he got right) but he vacillates so much your can’t be sure it will last.
Leslie F – “His NAFTA rewrite reportedly steals the worst from TPP.” Have you got a link for that?
“He has appointed more Goldman Saks execs than anyone else.” Hard to beat Obama in that regard.
Tell me, Leslie, how is Trump supposed to get anything done when his own party, the Republicans, and the Democrats are both fighting him tooth and nail? I don’t see Trump beholden to neoliberal or neoconservative values, but the two parties are. They are crushing him every time he even mentions changing things. Now, you might be happy with that. “Yay, Trump is being strangled.” But think again.
And for all those who go on about Trump’s inability to complete a full sentence, that isn’t always a predictor of intelligence. When there is a deficiency somewhere, there is always a strength somewhere else. Or when there is a strength, there are deficiencies elsewhere. It happens every single time.
Trump is intuitive. That’s coming from the gut. Wordsmiths who are locked in their heads often do not see what intuitive people see; they’re too wrapped up in words.
Intuitions can be really way off. I have little trust in Trump’s shooting from the hip. Take cover! (Anymore than I would trust Dick Cheney with a gun, especially when he’s drunk). i used to have great intuitions when I was drunk; it’s amazing the amount of trouble they got me into!
mike k – “Intuitions can be really way off.” Sure, same as just using your head can be really way off. Best if you use both.
backwardsevolution
July 20, 2017 at 5:24 pm
And for all those who go on about Trump’s inability to complete a full sentence, that isn’t always a predictor of intelligence.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
True. Some very smart people aren’t always the greatest “explainers’.
Intuition as explained by the Indians is the ability to ‘sniff the wind’.
Intuition or gut instinct explained by experts is in how some individuals brains work. You have the ‘conscious brain and the ‘unconscious brain. The unconscious brain is the filing cabinet of ‘past’ stored information or even past thoughts or memories of things you have observed in the past.
In considering or thinking about something depending on your concentration powers a file in that cabinet will be triggered open and the information that appears will be pertinent to question at hand even though it may not be ‘specifically related’ ——you get a flash or ‘gut feeling’ that you might not even be able to identify its exact source.
I go with my gut most of the time, its seldom been wrong.
people have good ‘gut’ instincts
Alastair Crooke – that was a fantastic article; you did a great job. Thank you. I also like what Tucker Carlson had to say:
“People don’t understand the degree to which there is a real ideological gap between the Republican leadership, especially in the House, and the White House. They just don’t agree with each other at all. They really don’t. And I would argue that Trump is way more in the mainstream than the Republican leadership is, way more. I’m not even going to argue it; I know it.
Poll his issues. If you poll any of Trump’s issues by the way, even the ones that MSNBC is all upset about, pull up the Gallop Poll on that question, no matter how divisive it is – or ‘controversial’ I think is the cable news term we use – those issues, every one of them I’m aware of, has over 50% support. Trump himself scares the hell out of people, but his ideas are mainstream.”
And on foreign policy:
“At some point some soft form of nationalism will become what the Republican Party stands for because it’s what the majority of their voters want. What does it mean? On foreign policy – it doesn’t mean we’re going to retreat from the world; we keep the shipping lanes open, we run the world and we ought to continue doing that – but it does mean that every decision ought to be based on one question: is it good for America or not?
On economics – and this is what nobody has noticed – Trump has rejected Reaganism. He’s not a free market guy. The people behind Trump are very skeptical of market capitalism, and the reason they’re skeptical of it is it hasn’t served the Middle Class. We’ve had massive wealth generation in the past ten years and it has not been distributed equally. In fact, it’s been distributed more unequally than at any time in American history. It all went to the top 1%. Trust me, I’m not a socialist, but I’m just saying that’s true. And everyone lied about it. Democrats lied about it because it happened under Saint Obama and they didn’t want to tarnish his halo. And Republicans lied about it because they thought any talk of income inequality sounded like an attack on capitalism, and they didn’t want to attack capitalism.
Okay, I get it, but at some point you have to tell the truth. This is not serving the Middle Class, and without a thriving, independent Middle Class, you can’t have a democracy, you can’t have a market economy, your country will collapse. Have you ever wondered why Latin America is a mess? […] But it’s kind of a disaster. Why? The main reason is they don’t have a stable Middle Class. This has been true for centuries. […]
I think a lot of what Trump says is true, but I think it’s been pretty tough for him to govern, I mean very tough for him to govern. Very complex, the Executive Branch. Three million people in the Executive Branch, and maybe 50 of them don’t hate him. Imagine trying to run a company with three million people who are seeking your destruction. It’s a hard job.”
I think Trump is very intuitive. He realizes that in order to have a great country, just like a great family, you’ve got to have something that ties the country together. Divisive gender politics isn’t going to do it.
Speaking of Tucker Carlson and gender identity politics, I watched that interview with Bruce Jenner. He looked like a ridiculous villain in a Batman movie. Then, he said, “Idon’t have a disease.” The really serious disease is that people think…”That’s not a disease.” Well, have at it. Your grandchildren will look back and wonder what the hell was wrong with all of you.
F.G. Sanford – yeah, I watched that Jenner segment too. I can have compassion for the guy while at the same time realizing that something got totally f*cked up in early childhood. Most likely another narcissist, without even knowing the harm they were inflicting, screwed up another kid.
He might not have a disease, but what he has is a mixed-up belief system. He didn’t catch it from someone else, but instead he twisted his own mind when he was quite young. Like psychopathy or other personality disorders, it is by this time set in stone.
I have been quite surprised at the unanticipated frequency of folks coming out with altered and non-mainstream sexual identities. I hope it’s not just a fade or a movement some have been attracted to for other reasons like loneliness or depression. It’s especially worrisome to see very young children locked into alternate identities and feted as heroes by the media for it. Maybe it’s just a phase, or maybe some boys just like “feminine” toys and clothing, like a number of girls have always liked toy trucks and climbing trees. Maybe all the supposed accoutrements of sexual identity are not really linked to that thing per se, and movements, especially when allied with the media, work like propaganda to encourage what would not have otherwise happened in due course. It’s especially worrisome to see young teens already taking hormones and having operations when there is no going back. That said, I know it’s none of my business what any other person on the planet does with their own body. Of course, if that’s a given, why did everyone, including the media, deride the “Heaven’s Gate” crowd for choosing group castration? Maybe even their group suicide should have been permitted without the condemnation it received? How open can or should one’s mind be? Maybe if you can see it in the rest of the animal kingdom (much of which you do) it is not unnatural? I’m not surprised the human race is largely conflicted on this, especially when religion is brought into the picture. If the body is already a perfect “temple of God” why do multiple religions and cultures immediately chop off the foreskin, as though billions of years of evolution led to a big mistake? Explain this all to a Martian.
Realist – “If the body is already a perfect “temple of God” why do multiple religions and cultures immediately chop off the foreskin, as though billions of years of evolution led to a big mistake?” I’m not sure, but it was most probably started for hygienic reasons.
“I have been quite surprised at the unanticipated frequency of folks coming out with altered and non-mainstream sexual identities.” Some of this is most likely just people who want to stand out, be different, get the attention they’ve always wanted, but are not serious about changing their sexual identities. But then there are the ones who are serious, and they say that their numbers are indeed increasing.
Is it our lifestyle that’s causing this? Nobody home for the children? Nobody listening? No strong role models? Too many divorced families? Loss of permanent neighbors, communities? I don’t know, but it is a concern because, as you say, it is so permanent. And pedophiles are on the rise too. Maybe a sign of our times.
When you think about it, you’re born to two parents, an extended family, an environment, what’s good and bad, rules and regulations are sprinkled on top of you, it’s all mixed up, and voila – there you are, like a twisted pretzel. When you are very little and impressionable, all sorts of things can go wrong in your thinking.
I just hope that gender reassignment isn’t just a sign of self-loathing carried over from early childhood.
Realist
July 21, 2017 at 2:11 am
I have been quite surprised at the unanticipated frequency of folks coming out with altered and non-mainstream sexual identities.
>>>>>>>>>
I have lately not been so surprised. With Hollywood and the entertainment industry sort of ‘glorifying”, for lack of better word, all of the off the norm sexual identities I think a lot, especially impressionable young people in the throes of growing pains, can fall into questioning their sexual identity,
thinking that might be the reason for their problems–instead of whatever their real problem really is.
Very nice, Back. People try to believe but they don’t understand. You’ve spelled it out.
Honestly, I think you have a more nuanced understanding of Trump than anyone I’ve ever read and you explain what he represents better than any professional journalist tries to do… or tries to purposely obscure.
Trump could have run as either a Republican or a Democrat. He ran against and defeated both. What he needs are some influential allies both in the government and the media, people that can both teach and represent him. He’s not right about a lot of things, as I’ve often said, but neither is he the total jackass or traitor the media and both parties paint him as, especially on foreign issues. He could be much more popular with a few counterweights to the entire inside establishment that would sooner see a thermonuclear war than have him succeed.
Realist – I’d like to take credit, but I’m not that insightful. Actually I was quoting Tucker Carlson in the talk he gave to the Fire Fighters’ Association in March of 2017. It’s a great talk, approximately 30 minutes long. Have a listen. I think you’d enjoy it. I think Tucker said he spent a year and a half out on the road during the election, he spoke to hundreds of people all over the U.S., and actually ended up changing his mind on many of the beliefs he had previously held. IMO, he nails what’s going on in the country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2dct9ErA_g
Nationalism is just another name for selfishness. What fruits has nationalism brought us? You can answer – look at where we are in history, on the brink of extinction.
What we need is a real global human culture, not the phony rip-off version we have now. Just like we need a real united nations that helps us transcend the narrow identification with my tribe, my culture – which inevitably becomes us uber alles. When our primary identity and fealty becomes to the human species as a whole and all other living beings, then we will have a chance to live in peace.
Make America great again? It never was great, and thinking it was became our greatest error. Does anybody in this insane age think humility has any value? Apparently not.
Mike k – I don’t see it that way. If we can’t love ourselves, then we can’t love anyone else. We must start at home. And, yes, we must have a home. Everybody needs one.
If we didn’t need or want a tribe, then why do we form family units, marriages, towns, cities? We can still love the rest of the world while maintaining our own identity, our own culture, traditions. Without them, we’ve got nothing.
America might never have been great (as we are learning), but it could be. Just because it hasn’t been doesn’t mean it couldn’t be. Stripping away the propaganda and actually educating people would be a good start. IF people then started to become conscious, they would naturally begin to love ‘the human species as a whole and all other living beings’. But not until.
Humility comes from self-awareness. It doesn’t come from listening to MSM or reading it in a book.
So you are into nationalism? Your choice. Obviously I don’t see it that way. To me, our being strongly identified with being Chinese, or American, or White, or Catholic, or Atheist, or young, or old, male or female – all of that and more has become interwoven with exceptionalism, intolerance, and ultimately in war.
For myself, i don’t identify with any of those narrow categories. I am a citizen of the Cosmos period. The rest is inconsequential. My light colored skin does not make me think of myself as White. The accident of being born in America does not make me self identify as an American. My beliefs do not make me a socialist, or a conservative, or religious, or a rebel. I do not define myself in any of those and many other ways. I am free from those narrow and limiting definitions of myself. My thought is that when we set ourselves apart from others by self-definition, we create a distance and a possible barrier. I choose not to do that.
You know, I understand that others will often be convinced that I am X,Y, or Z – and that’s OK. It’s just I don’t choose to identify with those. those labels myself. And I know that others do this, and I have no feeling against them, or pride in my stance – it’s just how it is for them, And for me, it’s just how I am – nothing special, just the way I see it – for now…..
OK. Full disclosure. I don’t always maintain that posture of disidentification. I was brought up in this terribly identity conscious culture, and a lot of it has gone deep in me, as in most of us. I have worked, and still work to let go of all that stuff, but it clings, and trips me up from time to time. I choose to be free of identifications, but I don’t always manifest it. Like so much in life, it’s a long process…..
I’ve always tried to take the perspective of a “Martian,” a tolerant compassionate space alien who could look at human affairs as objectively as possible. I didn’t say non-judgmental. We all continuously judge everything whether we realise it or not. So, whose standards do I apply in my judgments? Most likely those “Utilitarians” who called for “the greatest good for the greatest number,” which seemed like the most concise and efficient desiderata possible when I first heard of their philosophy at about age 17 or 18. A universal simplicity underlies the entire cosmos in its splendiferous diversity , why not such a principle to live by?
You’re a “child of the universe,” like I am, Mike. I can dig it.
mike k – “…all of that and more has become interwoven with exceptionalism, intolerance, and ultimately in war.” It was propaganda from the elite that did this, just as they are using propaganda now to start new wars, to instill a hatred of Russia, or trying to impeach Trump.
“I do not define myself in any of those and many other ways. I am free from those narrow and limiting definitions of myself. My thought is that when we set ourselves apart from others by self-definition, we create a distance and a possible barrier. I choose not to do that.”
There was a couple in Canada recently who refused to even attach a gender to their child, not ticking “boy” or “girl”, but letting the child decide how he/she wanted to view him/herself when they got older. I suppose this is the final frontier.
Just curious, mike. Have you got children? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but it does make a difference, IMO.
backwardsevolution: “There was a couple in Canada recently who refused to even attach a gender to their child, not ticking “boy” or “girl”, but letting the child decide how he/she wanted to view him/herself when they got older.”
It is getting quite hilarious. The Canadian leader Justin Trudeau is very much into these things, leading the parades, with his wife and small children, for this kind of freedom and all that. I visited Tronto in May. Trudeau is overdoing every other leader in this “Russia Threat” hysteria as well. It seems like, in addition to Neoliberal Economic Order, the Western leaders – with the exception of Trump – are determined to impose this Genderless type society on other countries. Russia is the first target. It appears that the West is sliding into some type of weird state of reality.
Mike K,…right on!…as long as you don’t label yourself no one can put a label on the box and make it stick. When we stop evolving mentally we might as well quit! Nationalism is a restriction no one needs to accept.
Yes this has always been the human way: extended families, a clan or extended, inter-related families, a tribe of related, closely-allied clans, a Province of related, allied tribes in villages and towns, a Nation of Provinces. This secures sufficient division of labor for humans to thrive and prevail over other competitors of Nature.
backwardsevolution
July 20, 2017 at 5:38 pm
Mike k – I don’t see it that way.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Neither do I.
Mike envisions a fairy tale land—-that will never be— because the world is humans with both faults and virtues.
mike k-
I think you give nationalism a bad rap. The bigger the power structure, the less power is available to the average citizen, and the more the wealthy control the agenda, which is mainly about maintaining their wealth at the expense of the rest of us. I applaud attempts to wage world peace, but I do not think it can be done under a one-world government. The United States is unique in that it has been an experiment in multiculturalism almost from its outset. Most of the world still has a cultural reality within defined geographic areas with norms that define that culture, and I think they should be allowed to live as they choose. I think a one world government would have a hard time respecting that. Universal human rights can be better advanced by populations controlling their nation and its trade policies, and through choosing to do business with like minded nations, and ostracizing those who don’t meet their standards. I single out South Africa as an example. And, of course, I am in favor of organizations like the United Nations (for all its imperfections) that provide a platform for waging peace in a multi-polar world.
Skip Scott
July 21, 2017 at 7:45 am
mike k-
I think you give nationalism a bad rap.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I agree. Nationalism, as in fidelity/loyalty to nation is not a bad thing in itself. People have been brainwashed into associating nationalism with the ‘ethnic nationalism’ of the Nazi variety since WWll and other movements that advocate racial purity.
Those who think the world would be better if we all were ‘citizens of the universe’ without nationalities and organized states are very naïve . What you would have in that case would be even worse chaos than we have now. It would resemble the Neanderthal period of roaming tribes because people would still ‘group together’ out of needs or preferences and the human herd need for belonging—and then the ‘might’ of the strongest tribe would dictate rights, justice, life and death for other tribes.
Mike K,
I’m chiming in late here, but your first and last paragraphs kind of define the problem. It seems you think that nationalism, in and of itself brought us to the edge of extinction. Then you close with asking if anyone thinks humility has any value.
What I see is that nationalistic feelings can be at the root of all kinds of policies and actions. There is obvious danger in them. These have caused and continue to cause all kinds of conflicts and the problems that have brought us here, the possible edge of extinction. But the lack of humility, or conversely the sense of entitlement, is the greater problem. The “We are XXXXX and we are better/smarter/more powerful/ GAWD is on our side” crap is the problem. The Romanian guy in Louisiana who used to do little pieces on NPR used the phrase “the muddy ditch I was born in is more glorious than the muddy ditch you were born in” to describe the attitude. The need to push whatever it is you think your muddy ditch has to offer (that obviously so much better) onto the folks in the other ditch is the problem.
Making the world safe for democracy, jihad, regime change, R2P, Southern Baptists thinking Roman Catholics are a cult, you get the idea. Example abound. It all comes from ” I know what is good for everybody else, especially because it is good for me.” Mix in some greed with that lack of humility and you have a truly toxic combination. But being proud of family, and city, a country, a culture, is not by itself a terrible or unnatural thing. To me, the lack of perspective and lack of humility you justifiably ask about are more the cause of many of the problems.
How can you have a “real United Nations” if there are no separate nations to unite? Do you really want a “global human culture”? That sounds like a gray, dull, overly homogeneous mess to me. (If you really extend that it is a form of Totalitarianism, though I don’t think you are going there. Taking the example of the French Revolution, those who did not feel like joining the Brotherhood of Man had their heads removed. And eventually even the originators were not pure enough to fit in with their own ideals.) The lack of variation would be boring to say the least.
The paradox is you’ve got to have borders if you want some diversity to celebrate. You may feel like a citizen of the universe or something, but try taking your citizenship uninvited to your neighbors couch or to some place that does not recognize it and see what reaction you get. The problems are not in the differences that are natural phenomena (and I maintain are desirable), but in other facets of human nature, only two of which are excess pride and greed. The “uber alles”, not the “us”: there’s the rub.
A thoughtful, well-written explanation why many of this President’s views resonate with people who listen without pre-judging the speaker.
Trump is a weak and inconsistent advocate of a position that got him elected and is likely to become more influential in the US.
It is not Trump vs Europe. It goes far beyond that, and will get worse before it gets better. The era of flat earth globalization is running out, as its contradictions sharpen and benefits have been exploited past the balance point for return on investment.
It DOES go far beyond that. It is Oligarchic Empire (of, by, for, the 1%ers) versus a community of sovereign democratic Republics (of, by, for, the 99%ers) sharing many common interests. This conflict has been ongoing for centuries, and it’s not for nothing that the start of our War for Independence from the British Empire was referred to as “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World”, meaning it’s a global war of the 99%ers vs. the 1%ers, and Patriots for the 99% vs. Loyalists to the 1%, with a large swath of unknowing innocents. In our war, it was roughly a third for each Faction, with the Patriots prevailing on the Battlefield (but losing in the Boardrooms and Financial Houses)
The Poland speech could be viewed as a paraphrasing of Sir John Glubb’s treatise on the collapse of empire. It identified the deficits and wanting attributes which are already upon us. By the same token, Chalmers Johnson aptly describes the lack of resolve in which we languish to make the needed reforms. Glubb’s warning about the dilution of cultural heritage and dissolution of homogeneity as a result of interlopers drawn by the wealth and prosperity we have created is already come to pass. We are plagued by the exigencies of those among us who bear primary loyalty to other countries and cultures. Paradoxically, we create laws to protect and even enhance their ability to continue the gradual erosion of our sovereignty. The speech identified the problem; it offered no solution. The devolution continues unabated.
F. G. Sanford
July 20, 2017 at 2:05 pm
”Glubb’s warning about the dilution of cultural heritage and dissolution of homogeneity as a result of interlopers drawn by the wealth and prosperity we have created is already come to pass. We are plagued by the exigencies of those among us who bear primary loyalty to other countries and cultures. Paradoxically, we create laws to protect and even enhance their ability to continue the gradual erosion of our sovereignty. The speech identified the problem; it offered no solution. The devolution continues unabated”
Well said.
Prime example:..
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/720/text
S.720 – Israel Anti-Boycott Act115th Congress (2017-2018
“(j) Violations of section 8(a).—Whoever knowingly violates or conspires to or attempts to violate any provision of section 8(a) or any regulation, order, or license issued thereunder shall be fined in accordance with section 206 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1705).”…which is:
http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:50%20section:1705%20edition:prelim)
It shall be unlawful for a person to violate, attempt to violate, conspire to violate, or cause a violation of any license, order, regulation, or prohibition issued under this chapter.
(b) Civil penalty
A civil penalty may be imposed on any person who commits an unlawful act described in subsection (a) in an amount not to exceed the greater of-
(1) $250,000; or
(2) an amount that is twice the amount of the transaction that is the basis of the violation with respect to which the penalty is imposed.
(c) Criminal penalty
A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids or abets in the commission of, an unlawful act described in subsection (a) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both
Makes my blood fricking boil.
Dilution of what cultural heritage? The right to rape and pillage? And are we white Europeans not the interlopers here?
mike K: ” And are we white Europeans not the interlopers here?” You are right on that. How the wealth and prosperity was created is also debatable and controversial. But F. G. made a good point in his comment – “devolution continues”. Neoliberalism is creating wealth but destroying the communities and cultures as they were. Creating consumption oriented societies as the end point is not necessarily a worthy goal. Homogeneous communities with cultural roots and values, with reasonable amenities of life provided, will be in my opinion, stable and happier than what Neoliberalism is creating.
Along with empire comes the aggravating job of listening, and to some degree pleasing, your many vassals. Being number one, pushes you to contemplate what it would be like to be number two, or maybe even number three…everybody likes number three, because you don’t have the burden of being number one or two, and your are still fairly rich.
Talking about rich, will the day ever come when a country’s wealth is measured not by what they call assets, but by the actual debt the country has accrued. If that day ever does come where a nations wealth is determined by it’s debt. well then welcome to ‘3rd world America’. It’s so bad we would be lucky to settle for 3rd world, and not anything the lessor.
I recall a couple of times catching Chalmers Johnson speaking on c-span. Wow, what a brain, and his remarks were like no other, and so well thought out. I remember Johnson couldn’t figure out why we needed more air craft carriers. He went on to point out to how a B2 fly’s out of Missouri goes to Iraq to drop a few bombs, and then returns to Missouri. I guess he was right, although that seems a little long distance, but this brilliant man impressed me with his outside the box thinking. The other thing Chalmers Johnson pointed out was to how vulnerable an air craft carrier really is, not to mention how expensive a boat like that cost….so why have them?
Once again enjoyed your comment F.G. always something to learn when you are around. Joe
“The other thing Chalmers Johnson pointed out was to how vulnerable an air craft carrier really is, not to mention how expensive a boat like that cost….so why have them?”
http://news.sky.com/story/russia-mocks-uk-aircraft-carrier-as-convenient-target-at-sea-10931108
That’s hilarious.
British pomp no match for Russian romp
F.G. Sanford: “The devolution continues unabated.” I agree with your observation and comments.
The weakness in Mr Crooke’s argument is that he tries to reason for Europe on the basis of American premises. He postulates the American alt-right view that the world is in a conflict between nationalism and globalism, that the EU is in the globalist camp and that that is Donald Trump’s view of the world. Given Trump’s tendency to say everything and the opposite of everything, it’s very easy to cherrypick quotes to support almost any proposition as to Trump’s views. Secondly, he adopts the American view, which Trump indeed articulated in Warsaw, that there is something called “the West”, which seems to englobe the US, Europe (except, oddly, Russia!) and some other places and that that “West” constitutes a single civilisation which is essentially American, with us Europeans as backward yokels who haven’t yet caught on. To my mind, American civilisation is slowly but surely going under and that Americans don’t have the will to survive but we Europeans do. Thus, Americans are certainly eating each other alive but I don’t see how that is somehow “bad” for the EU. Quite the contrary, I would have thought. As American power collapses, the EU becomes the only game in town.
As for Putin, I would not have seen him as “re-sovereignizing” anything. He certainly doesn’t seem to be “re-sovereignizing” Ukraine! He seems to be an 18th century pre-nationalist leader who sees the state as the accidental combination of such territories as the sovereign has succeeded in conquering and holding against all comers. Putin isn’t a Russian nationalist, he’s a Russian supremacist and seems to be trying to re-conquer as much of the former Tsarist empire as he can, to the detriment of nationalism and sovereignty. Nor do I see a meeting between Trump and Putin as a “rock” thrown into the G20 pond. Who among the other 19 objects to dialoguing with Putin? None that I’m aware of. In fact, I think that most of the other 19 would have been very displeased if Trump hadn’t met Putin. Mr Crooke is postulating here that Trump actually is Putin’s stooge and that a meeting between him and Putin automatically constitutes subservience on Trump’s part. He is also adopting on of the two versions of the “US v Merkel split”, namely the one that has Merkel forcing sanctions down the throats not only of the other, unwilling, Member States but also of an unwilling US (the opposite version is also to be found on the US internet!).
Thus, all this is good news for the EU.
The EU is failing economically, as is the USA (this is the Trans-Atlantic Community; a single unit welded into an Oligarchs’ Empire stemming from ancient forces prevalent in Europe and Britain). China is actually the only game in town (since it adopted FDR’s dirigist New Deal policies; a fact which I dearly love, as it represents passing the baton on to China, to carry on getting FDR’s job done, while we are under constant assault by the Synarchists of the Trans-Atlantic Community). Russia is on THAT bandwagon (BRI bandwagon). Forces are in play in America to steer back to New Deal policies, with serious financial & workforce help offered by China and Japan, to restore American Infrastructure and, thereby, its economy. This is leading to the realization that we are a Pacific Nation signing on to the BRI, with its “win-win” policies, with us JOINING with China to help the rest of the World develop (what JFK wanted to do, but was murdered for it). This will finally make manifest FDR’s vision for the Post-WWII World of the three Great Republics (America, Russia, China, now with Japan and India too) guaranteeing the development of the former colonies of Euro-Empires into sovereign nation-states with modern, technological economies , under the U.N. umbrella (this is already happening in Africa, South America somewhat, and Asia rapidly, thanks to China’s BRI). This will be the “Waterloo” of Euro-Oligarchy’s cherished dream of Global Empire, with the rest of the World reduced to colonial status (pursued by Rhodes’ RoundTable Group and Synarchist Internationale going on a hundred fifty years now). From EIR’s search box: “Return of the Monarchs”, “Synarchy against America”, “Inter-Alpha Group”, “Cecil Rhodes”, “Round Table Group”, “New Silk Road becomes the World Land Bridge”. The search will turn up many other pertinent articles, for those so interested.
This is the End Game of the American Patriots’ Cause, versus the continuation of British/Euro Empire, favored by the American Tories opposed to the War for Independence.
I don’t see any difference between you and Trump. He speaks presumptuously about the West as you speak about Europe:
“but we Europeans do” – that there is something called “the Europe”, which seems to englobe all the countries of Europe (except, oddly, Russia!) and some other places and that that “Europe” constitutes a single civilization which is essentially… all that I say it is.
Why not just speak about your community instead of presumptuously homogenizing all of Europe? As you feel alienated by Trump, imagine the alienation your neighbors feel when you do the same to them.
You fault Trump for adopting an “… American view that there is something called ‘the West’…that constitutes a single civilization…”, and then proceed to refer to “… us Europeans…”. and “… we Europeans…” as if Europe was a single civilization. You can’t have it both ways, and defeat yourself before really getting started.
Then you assign a “… will to survive…” to this supposed European civilization. Based on what? Some proclamations from Brussels? All the popular ‘No’ votes against the European Constitution were nullified by having the respective legislatures in each country – not the populace – vote again until they came up with the answer Brussels required.
And to survive as what? As “Europeans”? I assume you might have noticed, for example, that Southern Italians and Northern Germans don’t exactly live, work, or think the same way. The whole EU project was designed from the beginning – among other things – to slowly destroy national identity, and is succeeding on some levels. You certainly seem to have bought the propaganda: “…the EU becomes the only game in town.” But when pro-EU German legislators eagerly and publicly proclaiming that Germany will be dark-haired and Muslim in a few decades, that hardly demonstrates a will to survive as “European” much less German.
My experience the past 15 years is much more in France, and it has always been with some dismay how many French people are somewhat ashamed of being French. It’s not cool, not modern. They just elected a President who stated there is no such thing as French culture during the campaign. This demonstrates a will to survive?
There are, of course, people and groups in Europe who have a will to survive, but as soon as they express this will as something other than the meaningless “European” they get labeled as nationalist (i.e. Nazi), stuck in the past, isolationist, etc. They recognize that the EU plan is little more than the effort to create a United States of Europe with even more centralized control than than the USA model. For the very reasons you state, “… American civilization slowly but surely going under…” and “…Americans eating each other alive…” (ignoring the hyperbole) many people in Europe do NOT want to follow that example and know the EU offers nothing but the same outcome.
Maybe “Michael Kenny” is Irish. A former landlady of mine (a member of the Doyle clan) told me the Irish fight among themselves so much because they can find no worthy opponents. “We Europeans”? Yeah, right.
If indeed the charges of an aggressively expansionist Russia were true, then why, when Russia trounced the Georgian army, and was literally in charge of the country where Stalin was born, did the army leave and march back to Russia?
While normally a fan of Mr. Crooke’s writings, I find his despair perplexing and indicative of his sequestered diplomatic life at 60,000 feet. As others have pointed out, globalism has resulted in dramatic wealth and income inequality throughout the United States, surpassing that of the Gilded Age. The election of Mr. Trump was merely a rejection of politics as usual. Additionally, any words he speaks are are not coherent, but those of an opportunist, designed to appeal to local right wing dissidents.
IMHO we indeed are in the midst of an enormous upheaval, but I see neither Mr. Trump, nor the globalists as heroes, but rather as antagonists leading to one of two variants of facism.
Wealth and income inequality have been true of civilization all the way back to it’s Pre Egyptian beginnings. Capitalism and it’s evil offspring globalism are just the latest wrinkles on an old scam. The few against the many – the oldest theme in history.
That neither Trumpism or Globalism will solve our world crisis is evident. The real solutions go deep into very basis and understanding of why we are here, and how we can live together in peace and mutual support. These solutions can only emerge from our dedicated and intelligent work on ourselves to bring them forth. The old ways are in the final stages of complete and final failure.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING
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: a waste of desert sand;
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
Wind 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?
———————————————
That rough beast is the masses longing to be free of the oppressive rule of the wealthy and powerful elites. It is the card that Trump played to get elected, however cynically. It is the specter of communism that still frightens the elites. It is the real core of the radical revolutionary Jesus who pronounced that the first shall be last, and that it is harder than a camel passing through the eye of a needle for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
This is the real primary fault line dividing the world today – the gap between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots. This is where the rumblings of global earthquakes are emanating from. How this works out will determine the fate of Humankind. The happenings of the times cannot be understood if we neglect this crucial major dynamic.
Is it possible to negotiate with the United States? Kind of like asking if it was possible to do same with al capone. Sure, as long as you ignore law like all gangsters do, and behave likewise.
The sooner tRump is allowed to take the USA into an isolationist approach to world affairs, the world will be a better place.
In the meantime the US can disappear up it own arsehole of the typical myths and delusions about its history and itself.
” Is diversity and identity politics our strength (as we are told), or is the possession of some sort of historical and cultural (including a spiritual) legacy, something which binds us, and gives a people its inner strength.”
Identity politics is sure as hell not a strength for a nation.
” “What enabled the Poles to endure [all their tribulations] was an unshakable belief in and a willingness to fight for, who they were — a people of God and country, faith, families, and freedom — with the courage and will to preserve a nation built on the truths of their ancient tribe and Catholic traditions.”>>>>>>
Well can we?
I cringe a lot at the comments here that bash “America” and Americans collectively instead of bashing the actual guilty –the ‘government(s) and politicians and other self serving actors that have led us so far astray.
We talk a lot about msm propaganda but some don’t realize they themselves have been brain washed by the ‘America is evil’ brigade coming from some quarters who would love nothing more than to see Americans turned into weeping guilt ridden weaklings who will not protest their country being ruled by foreign and other special interest.
They don’t realize they are digging their own graves. They need to learn to separate the ‘country’ from’ the government’ in their critiques.
As French writer Jean Francois Revel wrote, “Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.”
Better wake up.
They also need to separate THEIR government from the powerful, moneyed interests in the private sector, as in take it back for “We The People”, and realize it is the tool for fulfilling the Preamble (Promote the General Welfare, Establish Justice, Provide for the Common Defense). This is just another reiteration of “We The People” vs. powerful, wealthy Oligarchs who strive to hold erstwhile sovereign nations as Provinces of an Empire that is owned by the Oligarchs and operated by loyal retainers in finance and MIIC, a “managerial elite”. This is just more of the trying to undo the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 (sovereign Nations instead of warring, Imperial Provinces of competing Dynastic Oligarchies), and the Declaration of Independence(from the Empire of the Oligarchs) of 1776, to return to Empire (Globalization).
I’m with you. Don’t make the mistake of reflexively conflating the government with the country or its people. The government, and those individuals with most influence over it, should never be above criticism. And to condemn their policy is not to condemn the country or its people. It may be to save them.
Hell yes…agreed! I was doing a semester of abroad in Ireland in the fall of 2001. Most Irish were sympathetic to Americans after 9/11 however I would often get this question of “Don’t you all think you might’ve brought it upon yourselves a bit?” In those days I didn’t have the restraint I do now and it is amazing I didn’t get thrown in an Irish jail for punching a guy in the face for saying that. But that is the attitude many have. Meanwhile their government is a participator in American style global capitalism and therefore no innocent bystander…could be said about alot of countries in which these American bashing commenters live.
Brad Owen
July 20, 2017 at 10:43 am
They also need to separate THEIR government from the powerful
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Exactly…..the question is how to do that without a bloody revolution.
I don’t feel guilty because I cannot identify myself with the mean and heartless policies of the controlling deep state elites. We can love our country best by exposing its problems in government and doing our best to awaken other We-the-Peope to the corruption.
Mr. Crooke, your article is most encouraging. Thanks to you (and Pat Buchanan) for throwing a light on those important points Trump made in Poland. I believe we’re hearing some of Steve Bannon’s goals expressed there as well, which does go right along with what Putin (or any leader supposedly) wants for his country. Can’t we all get on this same page? Shouldn’t we all want to protect our own right of conscience and self-government, our own cultures and identities, and therefore desire the same for others? I don’t see how we can have it while undermining it across the globe.
Without national sovereignty and bi-lateral trade agreements based on fairness and shared interests, we are left with rule by multi-national corporations through outfits like the Bilderberg group. The whole model of the nation-state will become a hollowed out shell. It is already happening in the way they control the electoral process to give us a choice between corporate shill from column “A” or column “B”. Globalization is the path to tyranny and rule by the 1 pct.
Precisely. There are no perfect, enduring solutions to the world’s problems, but best way to avoid tyranny, oppression and violent revolution is to maintain the locus of power with the people. This is best effected through democratic governance constitutionally organized and geographically situated in nation states. The impetus should stem from the people (the citizens) as expressed through orderly, legal channels. When power shifts from the many to the few — as we have seen with a) broad trade agreements enacted in secrecy by and for private corporate interests, b) corporate media monopolies that limit and control access to information, and c) a globalism that consolidates power out of the reach of citizens, we are moving in an untenable and unsustainable direction.
Whether Trump has a clear understanding of these issues is unknown, but his impulse appears to be pro-national sovereignty and anti-globalism, and for the time being that is preferable to the alternative.
I was with you all the way till the end S.M. Sorry but implementing tax-cuts for the extremely wealthy, dramatically increasing an already bloated military budget, to fight wars for Israel, all while stripping funds at home from education and federal agencies ($149 billion) so that those soldiers fighting all the bullshit wars get second rate care at the VA…is not “putting America first” And sorry he is not bringing the jobs back, in fact all those jobs he “saved” when president elect…now gone. Other than that, Trump is nothing more than as Skip said another “cooporate shill” with a bit of a fascist stank to him.
Actually I think we’re arriving at a kind of unique moment where the internet has allowed a new perspective on world wide interests and differences and offered it in a way that individuals can interpret for themselves how they feel about their own self interest. In that sense, we’re way out front of our governments and that is what makes this time truly unique. In this environment, each country will have to accurately sort out its self interests and represent its people as honest brokers or they will fail. We will all have to better understand national sovereignty and its limitations. The way forward is parlous but possible.
When you say “we,” you are referring to a select few Americans (and Europeans, too) who have a genuine grasp of the immensity of power bankers, tech CEOs, the US military complex, etc, etc. That’s the tragedy of the Internet. It provides us every opportunity to learn the tragic state the US and the EU is in thanks to Neo-Liberalism. But the vast majority don’t want, or don’t care to learn.
You might appreciate Noam Chomsky’s Part II on RT’s.com “shows.” He explains fully to Chris Hedges how average minds have been bent as a result of decades of propoganda. After listening to that interview, I don’t think you’ll be quite as optomistic.
The issue that you bring up of wasted opportunity by the vast majority of people in high tech societies, like the United States, is something that really needs to be said but rarely is. Some might not want us to know, fearing it is something that might be fixed with a little application. Or maybe the chattering classes in charge of media are really no sharper or more conscientious than the great unwashed they probably disdain. In any case, a country wallowing in ignorance and totally entrained by the propaganda suits them just fine.
Thank you R. Mills, I will take your advice and watch that discussion, I have great respect for both of those individuals. As for my optimism, it is based upon a new generation that I find to be deeply intelligent and seemingly dismissive of pessimism. I would agree that those may be features of youth, but isn’t that what is always a feature of a paradigm shift? I’ll use for example, Naomi Klein, by writing “The Shock Doctrine”, she was able to sift through the muck and subterfuge of years of government corruption And explain in simple terms the crime committed. That was contemporary art in its highest form. She may not even know it, but she allowed hope. The Occupy movement illustrated that she isn’t alone, so It helps me be hopeful despite the odds.
The day governments truly represent the wishes of the people the sun will go out.
The facts bear this view out. We either control money or money controls us.
One of the neocons and Trump critic is now probably out of the fight. Wonder who will take his place on the Armed Forces Committee .
”Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, his office said Wednesday, throwing into doubt when and if he will return to Washington to resume his duties in the Senate.
The Mayo Clinic said doctors diagnosed a tumor called a glioblastoma following surgery to remove a blood clot above McCain’s left eye last week. The senator and his family are considering a variety of treatment options, including a combination of chemotherapy and radiation, according to the hospital.”
Glioblastoma is a very aggressive cancer and according to recent reports only has a survival r ate of around 4% in people over 50.
Chemotherapy and radiation treatments after 50 years only has survival rate of between and 3% and 5%.
It is doubtful that Senator McCain will survive such treatments given his age. If we take the standard cancer treatment survival rate of 3% to 5% and now make that a fraction of the expected 4% survival rate as predicted for people of Senator McCain’s age you would come out with a rate of approximately .0016%. Not very good odds…
Don’t count your chickens. Jimmy Carter was diagnosed with four malignant melanoma lesions (essentially always fatal) that had spread from his liver to his brain and was given four months to live a couple of years ago. He was treated with a new drug called Keytruda and seems to have made a full recovery, being declared cancer-free. The dark side of the force is strong in McCain, so anything is possible. I read the average survival time for patients with McCain’s condition is three years, so he could serve most of his senate term, even if they have to wheel him in for votes like they did Strom Thurmond.
The “average” survival time for patients with glioblastoma is six months, if they’re “lucky”.
Meh. Everyone’s got their own statistics and opinions.
The American Brain Tumor Association reports that “for adults with more aggressive glioblastoma, treated concurrently with temozolamide and radiation therapy, median survival is about 14.6 months and two-year survival is 30 percent.” A 2009 study found that “almost 10 percent of patients with glioblastoma may live five years or longer.”
Median means 50% on either side of the dead or alive line. This is the most common number I’ve seen cited. Three years was an outlier, maybe that study included “less aggressive” strains of the cancer (they don’t all share the same mutations). They guy still has enough time to make life hell for others in his role as a senator.
I can’t see that the passing of this war monger will be any loss to humanity!!!