Because of the perceivable growth of Germany's AfD of late, particularly as measured in last Sunday's elections in three German states — which had been dreaded but expected — much of the discussion I see & hear is similar to what's being written & said about the Republican Primary in the US — and particularly, in the case of the former, the voters' influence.
Most talk has had to do with how to stop the rise of fascism, and while I see this tact regarding the AfD as foolhardy, it's at least honest, as the verbiage includes by default of context how to go about changing the minds of the people in a movement. The corresponding discussion in the US seems largely focussed on Donald Trump himself. It expands beyond that only in how it objectifies his followers with something akin to a couplet of consequence:
What these discussions do not do is soberly acknowledge that all of these growing gatherers will exist tomorrow no matter what happens to Donald Trump or the AfD. In fact, the latter two grew bolder because of the former as much as the other way around, despite tales of the boogeyman's master-work of proprietorship told by anointed punditeers in a certain confusion of their confusing certainty so as to camouflage culpability for having laid the groundwork by killing in its crib any actual alternative.
There is a German party that's pro immigration and seriously anti-war, whose voting record against weapons exports is virtually spotless — which to my mind is the only sensible combination — but they have remained the, no pun intended, red-headed stepchildren, who also just happen to be on the Fed's constitutional watchlist, mainly for relentlessly questioning power relations. Like Bernie Sanders. Except they show up for the controversial votes. Neonazis are also on the list, but unlike the neos, The Left aren't murdering people of alien extraction on the watcher's watch. Ideologically speaking, the German reds are most like the American Greens. Who? Exactly.
Unfortunately, all public discourse on politics misses the mark via full-spectrum dominance by idiots & liars. The most thoughtful it gets is in the waxing of economic deprivation that fuels racial tensions, with lovingly crafted comparisons to history that are, if accurate, never quite complete. Specifically, it doesn't scrutinize the effect that coming of age in a representative republic undergirded by unconditionally deceptive practitioners of law- & warcraft and their shadow constituency has on a bitter and resentful people, let alone does it examine the quality of sickness of those who keep voting for the status quo, some of them swinging.
If you feel like democratic society has a problem to be dealt with as far as das Volk flocking to the likes of Trump, you should not ignore the character that's led lemmings to every major party nominee since... an awful long time ago.
In spite of his apparent lack of persuasive party-backing afforded to every nominee — which includes literally prohibiting ballot access or debate time to anyone the party apparatchiks, their corporate network sponsors, and previously appointed judges can deny — Trump's large support is easy to account for.
One, he's got every GOP voter for whom, say, candidacies like Pat Buchanan's in the '92 Primary, as well as the 2000 General, were in some manner a breath of fresh air vs. the Bushies.
In '92 Buchanan came after GHW Bush hard, but by the time he delivered his infamous culture war speech at the RNC, he had swung his criticism back toward Democrats, referring to the corresponding convention as a place "where 20,000 radicals and liberals came dressed up as moderates and centrists". Of course, that wasn't true. They were certainly costumed as moderates. What they really were requires wandering into a patch of cliché that I'll save for the paragraphs that follow.
Then, Don's captured these "independents" and first timers who fall into the same vague ideological spectrum. In addition, there is probably not an entirely insignificant number of ooh-rah American, Reagan-Democrat types and other generally not-to-be pinned down rebellious ne'r do wells, who, like everybody else who still hasn't abandoned USS Trump, are so tired of being told who to vote for, that this is a chance to tell everyone to fuck off, wilfully ignoring the fact that the dude is stirring & letting loose multiple generations of white supremacist sentiment.
Next, but by no means newest, he's got a very real xenophobic contingent, entrenched significantly if not primarily in– & because of an empire-long bipartisan War on The Enemy. (Only dyed-in-the-wool Democrats could tacitly approve good wars against bad Islam that accelerate immigration, yet, in theory, unquestioningly welcome potentially covert bad Islamist immigrants, because deep down they know the war is bullshit anyway.)
In other words, while it is true that the Republican Party is responsible for having allowed fascism to foment in their think tank incubators for over a generation, the Democratic Party as well shares responsibility for not providing an adequate alternative to all the same issues that have taken their claimed constituency for granted, which largely entails turning the other party's accusations against them to their advantage: How could they be militaristic when the Republicans say they're soft? How could they exploit the working class when the Republicans say they coddle welfare babies? How could they be crony corporatists when the Republicans say that their patented brand of big government socialism is ruining free enterprise? Who in their right mind would believe that anyone but Republicans are responsible for constructing a private school to wage slavery or prison network?
I submit the above quote as much for the compromised, yet correct application of 'question begging' as for the message, which indeed exposes a pretty crucial omission in the recent think piece of crap by Nobel cum Shillary Paul Krugface, whose op-ed in priNtn't'fYT could be best summarized as a pseudo carefully measured view that concludes "If not this, then what?" Well done, short secretary. Still, it's about time Americans stopped basing the worthiness of trade deals upon solely whether or not Americans benefit. But if you insist on the selfish angle, let's just observe that blowback is not just for wars anymore.
What if we viewed the plutocrats' political playpen the way we do climate change? What if it doesn't matter that one side benefits as long as the whole gets wasted? What if existence is at stake and there is a deadline to get it right?
Just look at the shilling for Hillary crowd to see evidence of how they force getting it wrong down, in this case, the Democratic voter's throat. Krugman's piece — which makes comparisons between Trump and Sanders supporters but presents itself as an equitable analysis of the "both sides aren't telling the complete truth" variety — ignores the main issue about NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific deals, as well as obfuscates the established framework of trade agreements in general, pretending they are not rigged from the top-down to allow corporations to abuse people wherever they can get away with it.
Krugman is right that the "jobs lost in Detroit and Ohio" narrative is simplistic. But he is wrong when he says that these agreements have been about diplomacy. Irony... from someone who'd call standing up for international labor rights "self-righteously fussy".
For his part, his eventual Milquetoast opposition to Trans-Pacific is based mainly on its timing. Seriously. Be wary of anyone who wins the Nobel, 'cuz they're sure-fire bullshit merchants. This is a guy who way back in the wake of NAFTA had the gall to defend human rights violations with little more than a Whatareyagonnado!
So upon further consideration, I guess I'm wrong about his point; it's more brutal in its conviction, yet hidden in plain sight. If not there, where?! is the ground he's staking out, and his champions-at-large (the ones that wouldn't be immediate beneficiaries of his conclusion) imagine that he's the champion of rising wages because, well, he's Keynesian!
My nitpick with the opinions expressed more robustly against the TTP is that they trade heavy on "Americans are getting screwed" at the expense of the "you can't be fucking serious!" I mean, our beloved State Department, headed by John "bring it on" Kerry, took Malaysia off the human trafficking watchlist just to get them into the fold of the pacific rim.
US pols could protect foreign workers, like Albert Gore Jr. promised when he was debating Ross Perot on NAFTA. Remember that? A special debate dedicated to NAFTA with Gore carrying the poison water. And people still wonder why folks voted for Nader and bristle at the suppressed memory of the white riot that forestalled the Florida recount. Could you imagine a circumstance where Democrats were so genuinely passionate about, and believed so sincerely in a nominee that they'd go to the barriers for her when the vote was that close? I didn't think so.
But murder in Honduras continues unabated after Kerry's predecessor and soon to be Probably President sustained the long-standing US policy of gaming Central American governments, among others of course. So, yeah, like I said. The US could in theory back stronger protection for workers at home and abroad, but they not only do not have the will, the only will that they have is a will that kills such people.
And now you're gonna be privy to the spectacle that says this time it's for real. Why? Because people are shit-scared that the apocalypse delivered unto untold generations of those who didn't play by the unspoken rules might now turn into chaos in their own backyards. They'll say it's because he's the greater of two evils, but that's just the amateur pragmatist talking.
Make no mistake, though, before you get all anti-American for Americans' sake. This is a private enterprise and the nationality of the puppet masters is pretty much a moot point. It's just an unfortunate coincidence of time's long-standing dial of fate that places American poohbahs centre stage.
Also keep in mind that the general "is it good or bad for Americans" tone that Reich and Krugman foster is what has led to a country that would quibble over Trump or Clinton for President. The obsessive coverage Trump is getting all but buries Clinton's sickening resumé. This gal that gets things done has got it all. She counts as formative and ongoing influences everyone from Goldwater to Kissinger. Whatdayaknow, another Nobel winner with a strong history of blanket bombing and obstruction of justice. And she can write!
She has perfect war attendance, with the aforementioned Honduras demonstrating a laissez-faire, boomer approach, and her Caesarian triumph in Libya (you don't think they'll mention Libya, do ya?) as merely her bloodiest bulletpoints amidst the impressive misdirections of the candidate and Bubbya's Billionaires' Foundation. They're kinda curing AIDS for godsakes! (Nancy Reagan, eat your heart out.)
And seriously, like beginning this morning that's who the DNC and loads of people who were supporting Sanders just yesterday are gonna be telling anyone they think they own that they absolutely, positively must vote for... to stop the next... (fill in the blanks). THIS TIME IT'S FOR REAL!
The game doesn't change. They just keep telling you that it's the most important one. Always more crucial than the one before... yet now, who knows, it just might be too late.
Most talk has had to do with how to stop the rise of fascism, and while I see this tact regarding the AfD as foolhardy, it's at least honest, as the verbiage includes by default of context how to go about changing the minds of the people in a movement. The corresponding discussion in the US seems largely focussed on Donald Trump himself. It expands beyond that only in how it objectifies his followers with something akin to a couplet of consequence:
"Look what he's letting them do!"
"Look what he's making them do!"
What these discussions do not do is soberly acknowledge that all of these growing gatherers will exist tomorrow no matter what happens to Donald Trump or the AfD. In fact, the latter two grew bolder because of the former as much as the other way around, despite tales of the boogeyman's master-work of proprietorship told by anointed punditeers in a certain confusion of their confusing certainty so as to camouflage culpability for having laid the groundwork by killing in its crib any actual alternative.
There is a German party that's pro immigration and seriously anti-war, whose voting record against weapons exports is virtually spotless — which to my mind is the only sensible combination — but they have remained the, no pun intended, red-headed stepchildren, who also just happen to be on the Fed's constitutional watchlist, mainly for relentlessly questioning power relations. Like Bernie Sanders. Except they show up for the controversial votes. Neonazis are also on the list, but unlike the neos, The Left aren't murdering people of alien extraction on the watcher's watch. Ideologically speaking, the German reds are most like the American Greens. Who? Exactly.
Unfortunately, all public discourse on politics misses the mark via full-spectrum dominance by idiots & liars. The most thoughtful it gets is in the waxing of economic deprivation that fuels racial tensions, with lovingly crafted comparisons to history that are, if accurate, never quite complete. Specifically, it doesn't scrutinize the effect that coming of age in a representative republic undergirded by unconditionally deceptive practitioners of law- & warcraft and their shadow constituency has on a bitter and resentful people, let alone does it examine the quality of sickness of those who keep voting for the status quo, some of them swinging.
If you feel like democratic society has a problem to be dealt with as far as das Volk flocking to the likes of Trump, you should not ignore the character that's led lemmings to every major party nominee since... an awful long time ago.
In spite of his apparent lack of persuasive party-backing afforded to every nominee — which includes literally prohibiting ballot access or debate time to anyone the party apparatchiks, their corporate network sponsors, and previously appointed judges can deny — Trump's large support is easy to account for.
One, he's got every GOP voter for whom, say, candidacies like Pat Buchanan's in the '92 Primary, as well as the 2000 General, were in some manner a breath of fresh air vs. the Bushies.
In '92 Buchanan came after GHW Bush hard, but by the time he delivered his infamous culture war speech at the RNC, he had swung his criticism back toward Democrats, referring to the corresponding convention as a place "where 20,000 radicals and liberals came dressed up as moderates and centrists". Of course, that wasn't true. They were certainly costumed as moderates. What they really were requires wandering into a patch of cliché that I'll save for the paragraphs that follow.
Then, Don's captured these "independents" and first timers who fall into the same vague ideological spectrum. In addition, there is probably not an entirely insignificant number of ooh-rah American, Reagan-Democrat types and other generally not-to-be pinned down rebellious ne'r do wells, who, like everybody else who still hasn't abandoned USS Trump, are so tired of being told who to vote for, that this is a chance to tell everyone to fuck off, wilfully ignoring the fact that the dude is stirring & letting loose multiple generations of white supremacist sentiment.
Next, but by no means newest, he's got a very real xenophobic contingent, entrenched significantly if not primarily in– & because of an empire-long bipartisan War on The Enemy. (Only dyed-in-the-wool Democrats could tacitly approve good wars against bad Islam that accelerate immigration, yet, in theory, unquestioningly welcome potentially covert bad Islamist immigrants, because deep down they know the war is bullshit anyway.)
In other words, while it is true that the Republican Party is responsible for having allowed fascism to foment in their think tank incubators for over a generation, the Democratic Party as well shares responsibility for not providing an adequate alternative to all the same issues that have taken their claimed constituency for granted, which largely entails turning the other party's accusations against them to their advantage: How could they be militaristic when the Republicans say they're soft? How could they exploit the working class when the Republicans say they coddle welfare babies? How could they be crony corporatists when the Republicans say that their patented brand of big government socialism is ruining free enterprise? Who in their right mind would believe that anyone but Republicans are responsible for constructing a private school to wage slavery or prison network?
__
"Proponents say giant deals like the TPP are good for the growth of the United States economy. But that argument begs the question of whose growth they're talking about."
—Robert Reich
I submit the above quote as much for the compromised, yet correct application of 'question begging' as for the message, which indeed exposes a pretty crucial omission in the recent think piece of crap by Nobel cum Shillary Paul Krugface, whose op-ed in priNtn't'fYT could be best summarized as a pseudo carefully measured view that concludes "If not this, then what?" Well done, short secretary. Still, it's about time Americans stopped basing the worthiness of trade deals upon solely whether or not Americans benefit. But if you insist on the selfish angle, let's just observe that blowback is not just for wars anymore.
What if we viewed the plutocrats' political playpen the way we do climate change? What if it doesn't matter that one side benefits as long as the whole gets wasted? What if existence is at stake and there is a deadline to get it right?
Just look at the shilling for Hillary crowd to see evidence of how they force getting it wrong down, in this case, the Democratic voter's throat. Krugman's piece — which makes comparisons between Trump and Sanders supporters but presents itself as an equitable analysis of the "both sides aren't telling the complete truth" variety — ignores the main issue about NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific deals, as well as obfuscates the established framework of trade agreements in general, pretending they are not rigged from the top-down to allow corporations to abuse people wherever they can get away with it.
Krugman is right that the "jobs lost in Detroit and Ohio" narrative is simplistic. But he is wrong when he says that these agreements have been about diplomacy. Irony... from someone who'd call standing up for international labor rights "self-righteously fussy".
For his part, his eventual Milquetoast opposition to Trans-Pacific is based mainly on its timing. Seriously. Be wary of anyone who wins the Nobel, 'cuz they're sure-fire bullshit merchants. This is a guy who way back in the wake of NAFTA had the gall to defend human rights violations with little more than a Whatareyagonnado!
So upon further consideration, I guess I'm wrong about his point; it's more brutal in its conviction, yet hidden in plain sight. If not there, where?! is the ground he's staking out, and his champions-at-large (the ones that wouldn't be immediate beneficiaries of his conclusion) imagine that he's the champion of rising wages because, well, he's Keynesian!
My nitpick with the opinions expressed more robustly against the TTP is that they trade heavy on "Americans are getting screwed" at the expense of the "you can't be fucking serious!" I mean, our beloved State Department, headed by John "bring it on" Kerry, took Malaysia off the human trafficking watchlist just to get them into the fold of the pacific rim.
US pols could protect foreign workers, like Albert Gore Jr. promised when he was debating Ross Perot on NAFTA. Remember that? A special debate dedicated to NAFTA with Gore carrying the poison water. And people still wonder why folks voted for Nader and bristle at the suppressed memory of the white riot that forestalled the Florida recount. Could you imagine a circumstance where Democrats were so genuinely passionate about, and believed so sincerely in a nominee that they'd go to the barriers for her when the vote was that close? I didn't think so.
But murder in Honduras continues unabated after Kerry's predecessor and soon to be Probably President sustained the long-standing US policy of gaming Central American governments, among others of course. So, yeah, like I said. The US could in theory back stronger protection for workers at home and abroad, but they not only do not have the will, the only will that they have is a will that kills such people.
And now you're gonna be privy to the spectacle that says this time it's for real. Why? Because people are shit-scared that the apocalypse delivered unto untold generations of those who didn't play by the unspoken rules might now turn into chaos in their own backyards. They'll say it's because he's the greater of two evils, but that's just the amateur pragmatist talking.
Make no mistake, though, before you get all anti-American for Americans' sake. This is a private enterprise and the nationality of the puppet masters is pretty much a moot point. It's just an unfortunate coincidence of time's long-standing dial of fate that places American poohbahs centre stage.
Also keep in mind that the general "is it good or bad for Americans" tone that Reich and Krugman foster is what has led to a country that would quibble over Trump or Clinton for President. The obsessive coverage Trump is getting all but buries Clinton's sickening resumé. This gal that gets things done has got it all. She counts as formative and ongoing influences everyone from Goldwater to Kissinger. Whatdayaknow, another Nobel winner with a strong history of blanket bombing and obstruction of justice. And she can write!
She has perfect war attendance, with the aforementioned Honduras demonstrating a laissez-faire, boomer approach, and her Caesarian triumph in Libya (you don't think they'll mention Libya, do ya?) as merely her bloodiest bulletpoints amidst the impressive misdirections of the candidate and Bubbya's Billionaires' Foundation. They're kinda curing AIDS for godsakes! (Nancy Reagan, eat your heart out.)
And seriously, like beginning this morning that's who the DNC and loads of people who were supporting Sanders just yesterday are gonna be telling anyone they think they own that they absolutely, positively must vote for... to stop the next... (fill in the blanks). THIS TIME IT'S FOR REAL!
The game doesn't change. They just keep telling you that it's the most important one. Always more crucial than the one before... yet now, who knows, it just might be too late.
__
