The Case for Opening Our Borders
Google "open borders" and you'll get hits at leftier sites like this one and even The Nation, just for starters.
So far as I know, the Democrats have not adopted this even as a long-term aspiration, though they are flirting with moves in that direction with their talk of decriminalization of illegal immigration.
CATO and other libertarians support this position, too.
Forget the wall already, it's time for the U.S. to have open borders
The left regards any consequent decline in the standard of living of American workers or Americans relying on Social Security, etc., as a price those Americans are morally obliged to pay in order to be fair, equitable, just, etc. to the people seeking entry.
The argument that American policy ought to serve the interests of Americans strikes cosmopolitan policy wonks whose own positions are not at risk as ignominiously selfish and deeply immoral.
The standard issue right regards all that as a feature, anyway, and not a bug.
Both sides try to downplay those risks, but neither bunch of partisans can be trusted.
Just another case in which powerful forces on both ends of the spectrum are prepared to undermine the position of the American working class in order to better serve the interests of others.
The cosmopolitan left and the Wall Street right agree: American workers are way overpaid and have it way too good.
Including working class retirees.
Showing posts with label cosmopolitanism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cosmopolitanism. Show all posts
Thursday, August 8, 2019
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Bernie on foreign policy
A clear presentation of some of his views.
On the whole, I see no objection to inequality per se and regard it as a natural and inevitable feature of capitalism, the "system of natural liberty" that is the best way to organize economic life.
In fact, I think the stop-at-nothing pursuit of equality motivated by hatred of the rich has brought about most of the political disasters of the 20th Century.
But I agree this is a shocker.
There is no moral or economic justification for the six wealthiest people in the world having as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people.
Is that even true, that "the six wealthiest people in the world" have "as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people"?
Wow.
Anyway, in a man suspect of being soft on communism, this in his speech, quoting a part of Churchill's Iron Curtain speech with approval, is adroit.
(Bernie later in the speech handles his "sister cities" problem with equal adroitness.)
Almost 70 years ago, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood on this stage and gave an historic address, known as the “Iron Curtain” speech, in which he framed a conception of world affairs that endured through the 20th century, until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In that speech, he defined his strategic concept as quote “nothing less than the safety and welfare, the freedom and progress, of all the homes and families of all the men and women in all the lands.”
“To give security to these countless homes,” he said, “they must be shielded from the two giant marauders, war and tyranny.”
How do we meet that challenge today?
How do we fight for the “freedom and progress” that Churchill talked about in the year 2017?
At a time of exploding technology and wealth, how do we move away from a world of war, terrorism and massive levels of poverty into a world of peace and economic security for all?
How do we move toward a global community in which people have the decent jobs, food, clean water, education, health care and housing they need?
. . . .
Today the Soviet Union no longer exists.
Today we face threats of a different sort.
We will never forget 9/11.
We are cognizant of the terrible attacks that have taken place in capitals all over the world.
We are more than aware of the brutality of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar groups.
We also face the threat of these groups obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and preventing that must be a priority.
. . . .
A great concern that I have today is that many in our country are losing faith in our common future and in our democratic values.
For far too many of our people, here in the United States and people all over the world, the promises of self-government -- of government by the people, for the people, and of the people -- have not been kept.
And people are losing faith.
In the United States and other countries, a majority of people are working longer hours for lower wages than they used to.
They see big money buying elections, and they see a political and economic elite growing wealthier, even as their own children’s future grows dimmer.
So when we talk about foreign policy, and our belief in democracy, at the very top of our list of concerns is the need to revitalize American democracy to ensure that governmental decisions reflect the interests of a majority of our people, and not just the few – whether that few is Wall Street, the military industrial complex, or the fossil fuel industry.
We cannot convincingly promote democracy abroad if we do not live it vigorously here at home.
It is true that liberals broadly favor the democratic features of modern states because they enable the people to defend and advance their interests against the rich.
But nothing guarantees they will do that, and democracy also enables demagogy, and has enabled popular support for anti-democratic political movements in the past such as fascism, Nazism, and Communism.
People famous for themselves playing the demagogue, vigorously denouncing "the system", the parties, and various features of our constitutional government as "rigged", are not in the best position to give lectures warning us about the people losing faith in democracy.
The effrontery of their doing so is more than a little offensive.
Still, though much else that Bernie says about the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism is good, he signs up quite explicitly for a too lefty version of globalism and immediately goes on to rehearse his sometimes wrong-headed, peacenik Cold War convictions.
Interestingly, while he deplores the Invasion of Iraq as the worst error of recent times, he never cites the earlier war to overthrow Taliban Afghanistan as an error.
And this is not only wrong but dangerous.
Inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable. They must be understood as part of the same system, and fought in the same way.
On the whole, I see no objection to inequality per se and regard it as a natural and inevitable feature of capitalism, the "system of natural liberty" that is the best way to organize economic life.
In fact, I think the stop-at-nothing pursuit of equality motivated by hatred of the rich has brought about most of the political disasters of the 20th Century.
But I agree this is a shocker.
There is no moral or economic justification for the six wealthiest people in the world having as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people.
Is that even true, that "the six wealthiest people in the world" have "as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people"?
Wow.
Anyway, in a man suspect of being soft on communism, this in his speech, quoting a part of Churchill's Iron Curtain speech with approval, is adroit.
(Bernie later in the speech handles his "sister cities" problem with equal adroitness.)
Almost 70 years ago, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood on this stage and gave an historic address, known as the “Iron Curtain” speech, in which he framed a conception of world affairs that endured through the 20th century, until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In that speech, he defined his strategic concept as quote “nothing less than the safety and welfare, the freedom and progress, of all the homes and families of all the men and women in all the lands.”
“To give security to these countless homes,” he said, “they must be shielded from the two giant marauders, war and tyranny.”
How do we meet that challenge today?
How do we fight for the “freedom and progress” that Churchill talked about in the year 2017?
At a time of exploding technology and wealth, how do we move away from a world of war, terrorism and massive levels of poverty into a world of peace and economic security for all?
How do we move toward a global community in which people have the decent jobs, food, clean water, education, health care and housing they need?
. . . .
Today the Soviet Union no longer exists.
Today we face threats of a different sort.
We will never forget 9/11.
We are cognizant of the terrible attacks that have taken place in capitals all over the world.
We are more than aware of the brutality of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar groups.
We also face the threat of these groups obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and preventing that must be a priority.
. . . .
A great concern that I have today is that many in our country are losing faith in our common future and in our democratic values.
For far too many of our people, here in the United States and people all over the world, the promises of self-government -- of government by the people, for the people, and of the people -- have not been kept.
And people are losing faith.
In the United States and other countries, a majority of people are working longer hours for lower wages than they used to.
They see big money buying elections, and they see a political and economic elite growing wealthier, even as their own children’s future grows dimmer.
So when we talk about foreign policy, and our belief in democracy, at the very top of our list of concerns is the need to revitalize American democracy to ensure that governmental decisions reflect the interests of a majority of our people, and not just the few – whether that few is Wall Street, the military industrial complex, or the fossil fuel industry.
We cannot convincingly promote democracy abroad if we do not live it vigorously here at home.
It is true that liberals broadly favor the democratic features of modern states because they enable the people to defend and advance their interests against the rich.
But nothing guarantees they will do that, and democracy also enables demagogy, and has enabled popular support for anti-democratic political movements in the past such as fascism, Nazism, and Communism.
People famous for themselves playing the demagogue, vigorously denouncing "the system", the parties, and various features of our constitutional government as "rigged", are not in the best position to give lectures warning us about the people losing faith in democracy.
The effrontery of their doing so is more than a little offensive.
Still, though much else that Bernie says about the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism is good, he signs up quite explicitly for a too lefty version of globalism and immediately goes on to rehearse his sometimes wrong-headed, peacenik Cold War convictions.
Interestingly, while he deplores the Invasion of Iraq as the worst error of recent times, he never cites the earlier war to overthrow Taliban Afghanistan as an error.
And this is not only wrong but dangerous.
Inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable. They must be understood as part of the same system, and fought in the same way.
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Is abandoning neoliberalism the same thing as adopting protectionism?
I think not.
The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics
Globalist, cosmopolitan critics of neoliberalism may note and celebrate, but do not share the aims of, the essentially protectionist and nationalist populist movements opposing free trade and/or free immigration on economic grounds.
These populisms favor the interests of the working classes and poor native to the nations that lose by free trade or open low-wage immigration over those of the workers of foreign nations that gain.
That is, they favor the interests of better off workers and poor over those of worse off.
Fair trading politicians and cosmopolitan global leftists merely pretend to support those native interests, while protectionist politicians actually do.
The populist right has taken over these issues in Europe and America because they are about competition of nations for advantage, and the left in general has, compared to the right, abandoned the notion that the people of a nation have any legitimate moral or political claim to special solicitude from each other or from their own leaders and government, when their economic or power interests clash with those of foreigners.
More particularly, the left in Europe is also more committed to the EU and everywhere is more committed to the UN and other transnational sources of power and legitimacy than to the nations, even their own nations.
Again more particularly, the left in America disapproves US national power per se in any case, as well as using it exclusively or even primarily to further American interests, even if through peaceful avenues of trade and the like.
And the American left expects the votes of immigrants, and wants besides to use immigration to alter the balance of power among the races in America.
The right, on the other hand, pretty much everywhere is using these same issues as bait, to lure working class votes to help undermine progressive economic and social policies and programs of advantage to those working folk, themselves.
They aren't really going to go in for trade and immigration protection of domestic labor all that much, anyway.
This is true both in Europe and in America, of the anti-EU and anti-immigration, populist right of the Old World and the Trumpism of the New.
Trump might personally be sincere in his protectionism, but the party he leads is dead set against it.
The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics
Globalist, cosmopolitan critics of neoliberalism may note and celebrate, but do not share the aims of, the essentially protectionist and nationalist populist movements opposing free trade and/or free immigration on economic grounds.
These populisms favor the interests of the working classes and poor native to the nations that lose by free trade or open low-wage immigration over those of the workers of foreign nations that gain.
That is, they favor the interests of better off workers and poor over those of worse off.
Fair trading politicians and cosmopolitan global leftists merely pretend to support those native interests, while protectionist politicians actually do.
The populist right has taken over these issues in Europe and America because they are about competition of nations for advantage, and the left in general has, compared to the right, abandoned the notion that the people of a nation have any legitimate moral or political claim to special solicitude from each other or from their own leaders and government, when their economic or power interests clash with those of foreigners.
More particularly, the left in Europe is also more committed to the EU and everywhere is more committed to the UN and other transnational sources of power and legitimacy than to the nations, even their own nations.
Again more particularly, the left in America disapproves US national power per se in any case, as well as using it exclusively or even primarily to further American interests, even if through peaceful avenues of trade and the like.
And the American left expects the votes of immigrants, and wants besides to use immigration to alter the balance of power among the races in America.
The right, on the other hand, pretty much everywhere is using these same issues as bait, to lure working class votes to help undermine progressive economic and social policies and programs of advantage to those working folk, themselves.
They aren't really going to go in for trade and immigration protection of domestic labor all that much, anyway.
This is true both in Europe and in America, of the anti-EU and anti-immigration, populist right of the Old World and the Trumpism of the New.
Trump might personally be sincere in his protectionism, but the party he leads is dead set against it.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Bernie shifts to global economic revolution
Bernie Sanders: Democrats Need to Wake Up
This is not Bernie using his hard won high profile to shift from seeking the Democratic nomination to supporting Hillary and the Democratic Party against Trump and the Republican Party.
This is Bernie the Seattle rioter, the global anti-capitalist revolutionary jumping up and down and angrily shouting in rage.
Rage at a human race born in naked poverty, a humanity that spent most of history as poor as the most desperate Chinese peasant of the 19th Century, a human world in which wealth remains exceptional and the erratic race between progress and poverty sees now one and now the other dash ahead.
Rage at the global poverty against which progress still races, and at the inequality that is in any case intrinsic to capitalism.
Rage at the global capitalism, itself, that Obama and Hillary support, endorse, and seek to ameliorate.
We so are not all socialists, now.
And then he pivots to briefly damning those who supported Brexit and those who support Trump while espousing the left wing fake version of economic nationalism, before with his usual hypocrisy pretending to take their side and share their rage, as he has done throughout his campaign.
We need to fundamentally reject our “free trade” policies and move to fair trade.
"Fair trade" is what cosmopolitans urge to steal votes from economic nationalists who urge tariffs or even bans on importing specified products.
It does not and cannot keep jobs in America and is not intended to, but only ensures that the foreigners who get our jobs are not too awfully exploited.
It is what Denis Kucinich and David Sirota used to talk about while pretending they wanted to stop factories moving to Mexico or China when what they really wanted to do was make those lost American jobs even more beneficial to the Mexican and Chinese workers who took them.
Americans should not have to compete against workers in low-wage countries who earn pennies an hour.
Absolutely not.
We need to insure those workers in low wage countries at least earn dimes and quarters.
That is what "fair trade" is all about.
We must defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
And then he ends pretending, as he has all along, that he wants to prioritize Americans while demanding policies that would harm Americans for the purpose of benefiting others around the world, as well as future owners of beach-front and shore level property.
We must help poor countries develop sustainable economic models.
. . . .
We need to create tens of millions of jobs worldwide by combating global climate change and by transforming the world’s energy system away from fossil fuels.
We need international efforts to cut military spending around the globe and address the causes of war: poverty, hatred, hopelessness and ignorance.
Those are the causes of war, huh?
My God, what awful left-wing twaddle.
The notion that Donald Trump could benefit from the same forces that gave the Leave proponents a majority in Britain should sound an alarm for the Democratic Party in the United States.
Millions of American voters, like the Leave supporters, are understandably angry and frustrated by the economic forces that are destroying the middle class.
In this pivotal moment, the Democratic Party and a new Democratic president need to make clear that we stand with those who are struggling and who have been left behind.
We must create national and global economies that work for all, not just a handful of billionaires.
So writes the global radical who has all along worn the sheep's clothing of faux economic nationalism, his crude redistributionism amiably attired as Scandinavian social democracy.
There is a lot more Chavez/Madero/Pope Francis in this fellow than he has clearly let on.
Had he been chosen as the Democrats' nominee Trump and the Republicans would have eaten him alive.
PS.
Yes, all this means that the establishment left and the establishment right actually agree that Americans are overpaid.
Raising the minimum wage in a context of free trade will not actually help American workers that much as it will mostly just drive factories out of America even faster, possibly at the cost of a rise in inflation putting a nasty ding in people's - and especially retirees - nesteggs.
But that will help make the globalizing plutes even richer (conservatives: Yay!) while pleasing cosmopolitan liberals and libertarians who think giving poor foreigners our jobs benefits the globally worst off, does the greatest good for the greatest number, and helps equalize the global playing field.
Ditto open borders and high-volume low-wage immigration.
In contrast to all of which Donald Trump, alone, stands for positions on trade and immigration that put America First.
This is not Bernie using his hard won high profile to shift from seeking the Democratic nomination to supporting Hillary and the Democratic Party against Trump and the Republican Party.
This is Bernie the Seattle rioter, the global anti-capitalist revolutionary jumping up and down and angrily shouting in rage.
Rage at a human race born in naked poverty, a humanity that spent most of history as poor as the most desperate Chinese peasant of the 19th Century, a human world in which wealth remains exceptional and the erratic race between progress and poverty sees now one and now the other dash ahead.
Rage at the global poverty against which progress still races, and at the inequality that is in any case intrinsic to capitalism.
Rage at the global capitalism, itself, that Obama and Hillary support, endorse, and seek to ameliorate.
We so are not all socialists, now.
And then he pivots to briefly damning those who supported Brexit and those who support Trump while espousing the left wing fake version of economic nationalism, before with his usual hypocrisy pretending to take their side and share their rage, as he has done throughout his campaign.
We need to fundamentally reject our “free trade” policies and move to fair trade.
"Fair trade" is what cosmopolitans urge to steal votes from economic nationalists who urge tariffs or even bans on importing specified products.
It does not and cannot keep jobs in America and is not intended to, but only ensures that the foreigners who get our jobs are not too awfully exploited.
It is what Denis Kucinich and David Sirota used to talk about while pretending they wanted to stop factories moving to Mexico or China when what they really wanted to do was make those lost American jobs even more beneficial to the Mexican and Chinese workers who took them.
Americans should not have to compete against workers in low-wage countries who earn pennies an hour.
Absolutely not.
We need to insure those workers in low wage countries at least earn dimes and quarters.
That is what "fair trade" is all about.
We must defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
And then he ends pretending, as he has all along, that he wants to prioritize Americans while demanding policies that would harm Americans for the purpose of benefiting others around the world, as well as future owners of beach-front and shore level property.
We must help poor countries develop sustainable economic models.
. . . .
We need to create tens of millions of jobs worldwide by combating global climate change and by transforming the world’s energy system away from fossil fuels.
We need international efforts to cut military spending around the globe and address the causes of war: poverty, hatred, hopelessness and ignorance.
Those are the causes of war, huh?
My God, what awful left-wing twaddle.
The notion that Donald Trump could benefit from the same forces that gave the Leave proponents a majority in Britain should sound an alarm for the Democratic Party in the United States.
Millions of American voters, like the Leave supporters, are understandably angry and frustrated by the economic forces that are destroying the middle class.
In this pivotal moment, the Democratic Party and a new Democratic president need to make clear that we stand with those who are struggling and who have been left behind.
We must create national and global economies that work for all, not just a handful of billionaires.
So writes the global radical who has all along worn the sheep's clothing of faux economic nationalism, his crude redistributionism amiably attired as Scandinavian social democracy.
There is a lot more Chavez/Madero/Pope Francis in this fellow than he has clearly let on.
Had he been chosen as the Democrats' nominee Trump and the Republicans would have eaten him alive.
PS.
Yes, all this means that the establishment left and the establishment right actually agree that Americans are overpaid.
Raising the minimum wage in a context of free trade will not actually help American workers that much as it will mostly just drive factories out of America even faster, possibly at the cost of a rise in inflation putting a nasty ding in people's - and especially retirees - nesteggs.
But that will help make the globalizing plutes even richer (conservatives: Yay!) while pleasing cosmopolitan liberals and libertarians who think giving poor foreigners our jobs benefits the globally worst off, does the greatest good for the greatest number, and helps equalize the global playing field.
Ditto open borders and high-volume low-wage immigration.
In contrast to all of which Donald Trump, alone, stands for positions on trade and immigration that put America First.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Trump news today. A bit of Bernie and Hillary. Internationalism/cosmopolitanism vs isolationism/nationalism.
Trump rescinds pledge to back Republican nominee; Cruz, Kasich refuse to commit support
Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would no longer honor his pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee for president, while fellow candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich refused to say whether they would back the party's pick.
All three GOP contenders appeared at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee one week before Wisconsin's April 5 primary.
Trump: ‘I Hate Proliferation’ But It Would Be Better if Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea Had Nuclear Weapons
As usual, his syntax was a mess, but the points he made were that proliferation is irresistible and it would be better for America if Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea got their own nukes and so could take care of their own defense needs, without us.
We are getting financially soaked, he said in substance, providing for the defense of far too many rich countries from which we get little or nothing back, including (for example) Germany.
And anyway we are not going to use nukes to defend all these folks.
All this is of a piece with his previous remarks about NATO being obsolete and a gyp benefiting Europe at America's expense.
This is Pat Buchanan's foreign policy and, no matter what he might say, it most certainly isn't Ronald Reagan's or, for that matter, Richard Nixon's.
It is the policy Antiwar.com has been recommending for decades.
It is the policy of people like Ron Paul and, if I am not mistaken, Rand Paul.
Pat Buchanan and those same others, most definitely including The Donald, oppose not only NATO and (of course) the UN but the EU and most volubly Europe's continuing policy of allowing rapid, mass immigration of Muslims and black Africans.
They used the Greek financial crisis against the EU and now support Brexit.
They say they support a Europe of the Nations, but it's not far from being just a Europe of the Skinheads.
Internationalists like most of the GOP and a bigger most of the Democratic Party see Buchananism as a path to chaos driven by the emergence of so many additional nuclear flash-points at wholly independent and uncoordinated centers of power, able to make local conflicts much worse and more dangerous globally.
They remain committed to the UN, to NATO, to the EU, and to the system of US alliances in the Far East and Oceania as essential elements of peace and order in a very disorderly and unpeaceful world.
Not to mention that the more independent and uncoordinated centers of power there are with nukes in their hands, the greater the chance of genuine horrific WMDs getting into the hands of Jihaders or other crazies.
(For similar reasons, by the way, it would clearly be contrary to the public safety for ever larger numbers of ordinary civilians to routinely go about carrying loaded firearms, ready and probably far too many of them itching for a shootout.)
I have myself from time to time been persuaded by the Buchananite view, but I have to admit that the presence in the race this year of somebody who seems, if genuinely committed to anything, genuinely committed to exactly that has, by making the thing more real, made it more stunning and even appalling.
[Update 12212016. I am far from agreeing with the above 3 paragraphs, now.]
MSNBC just now said Marco Rubio, officially out of the race, is making an unprecedented attempt to retain control of his delegates going into the convention.
Normally, his delegates would be redistributed among remaining candidates before the convention, so Trump would be helped toward getting a majority before the opening day.
It appears from the video that The Donald's campaign manager being charged with simple assault against a journalist is both bogus and politically motivated, and all his enemies are using that incident to raise the level of alarm in the public mind about Trump and his candidacy.
Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would no longer honor his pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee for president, while fellow candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich refused to say whether they would back the party's pick.
All three GOP contenders appeared at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee one week before Wisconsin's April 5 primary.
Trump: ‘I Hate Proliferation’ But It Would Be Better if Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea Had Nuclear Weapons
As usual, his syntax was a mess, but the points he made were that proliferation is irresistible and it would be better for America if Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea got their own nukes and so could take care of their own defense needs, without us.
We are getting financially soaked, he said in substance, providing for the defense of far too many rich countries from which we get little or nothing back, including (for example) Germany.
And anyway we are not going to use nukes to defend all these folks.
All this is of a piece with his previous remarks about NATO being obsolete and a gyp benefiting Europe at America's expense.
This is Pat Buchanan's foreign policy and, no matter what he might say, it most certainly isn't Ronald Reagan's or, for that matter, Richard Nixon's.
It is the policy Antiwar.com has been recommending for decades.
It is the policy of people like Ron Paul and, if I am not mistaken, Rand Paul.
Pat Buchanan and those same others, most definitely including The Donald, oppose not only NATO and (of course) the UN but the EU and most volubly Europe's continuing policy of allowing rapid, mass immigration of Muslims and black Africans.
They used the Greek financial crisis against the EU and now support Brexit.
They say they support a Europe of the Nations, but it's not far from being just a Europe of the Skinheads.
Internationalists like most of the GOP and a bigger most of the Democratic Party see Buchananism as a path to chaos driven by the emergence of so many additional nuclear flash-points at wholly independent and uncoordinated centers of power, able to make local conflicts much worse and more dangerous globally.
They remain committed to the UN, to NATO, to the EU, and to the system of US alliances in the Far East and Oceania as essential elements of peace and order in a very disorderly and unpeaceful world.
Not to mention that the more independent and uncoordinated centers of power there are with nukes in their hands, the greater the chance of genuine horrific WMDs getting into the hands of Jihaders or other crazies.
(For similar reasons, by the way, it would clearly be contrary to the public safety for ever larger numbers of ordinary civilians to routinely go about carrying loaded firearms, ready and probably far too many of them itching for a shootout.)
I have myself from time to time been persuaded by the Buchananite view, but I have to admit that the presence in the race this year of somebody who seems, if genuinely committed to anything, genuinely committed to exactly that has, by making the thing more real, made it more stunning and even appalling.
[Update 12212016. I am far from agreeing with the above 3 paragraphs, now.]
MSNBC just now said Marco Rubio, officially out of the race, is making an unprecedented attempt to retain control of his delegates going into the convention.
Normally, his delegates would be redistributed among remaining candidates before the convention, so Trump would be helped toward getting a majority before the opening day.
It appears from the video that The Donald's campaign manager being charged with simple assault against a journalist is both bogus and politically motivated, and all his enemies are using that incident to raise the level of alarm in the public mind about Trump and his candidacy.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Yet another piece about those "Reagan Democrats"
Nation First, Conservatism Second
Actually, conservatism not at all, to be blunt.
Sam Francis in 1996 thought the Wall Streeters and libertarians who dominate the conservative movement have ruined the word since they actually don't want to conserve anything but only serve the interests of the rootless American plutocracy.
Per Michael Brendan Dougherty at The Week,
[S]ooner or later, as the globalist elites seek to drag the country into conflicts and global commitments, preside over the economic pastoralization of the United States, manage the delegitimization of our own culture, and the dispossession of our people, and disregard or diminish our national interests and national sovereignty, a nationalist reaction is almost inevitable and will probably assume populist form when it arrives.
The sooner it comes, the better… [Samuel Francis in Chronicles]
And that's the Trump rebellion.
This is a brilliant article about Trump's supporters.
The only thing wrong with it is that it finds not just Trump but the anti-globalist ideology of his supporters frightening.
And is Dougherty really willing to concede that free trade all by itself, even apart from the impact of a flood of low-wage immigration, is good for the rich who profit big time and good for the poor for whom goods are cheaper but bad for the American working class in net and as a whole?
All the same, these renegade Democrats who have allowed themselves to be freaked out of the Democratic Party and into the anti-union, free-trade, open borders, party devoted to its last breath to abolishing Social Security, Medicare, and every jot and tittle of Big Government are idiots.
Even with Trump as their nominee, a Republican win would not be a win for white working class Americans but for their enemies.
Actually, conservatism not at all, to be blunt.
Sam Francis in 1996 thought the Wall Streeters and libertarians who dominate the conservative movement have ruined the word since they actually don't want to conserve anything but only serve the interests of the rootless American plutocracy.
Per Michael Brendan Dougherty at The Week,
[S]ooner or later, as the globalist elites seek to drag the country into conflicts and global commitments, preside over the economic pastoralization of the United States, manage the delegitimization of our own culture, and the dispossession of our people, and disregard or diminish our national interests and national sovereignty, a nationalist reaction is almost inevitable and will probably assume populist form when it arrives.
The sooner it comes, the better… [Samuel Francis in Chronicles]
And that's the Trump rebellion.
This is a brilliant article about Trump's supporters.
The only thing wrong with it is that it finds not just Trump but the anti-globalist ideology of his supporters frightening.
And is Dougherty really willing to concede that free trade all by itself, even apart from the impact of a flood of low-wage immigration, is good for the rich who profit big time and good for the poor for whom goods are cheaper but bad for the American working class in net and as a whole?
All the same, these renegade Democrats who have allowed themselves to be freaked out of the Democratic Party and into the anti-union, free-trade, open borders, party devoted to its last breath to abolishing Social Security, Medicare, and every jot and tittle of Big Government are idiots.
Even with Trump as their nominee, a Republican win would not be a win for white working class Americans but for their enemies.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
A set up. By whom?
Girl gets through Pope's security
Somebody colluding with the Vatican, or just relying on the pro-immigration Pope to exploit the opportunity?
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
The threat of the rest, against the West
The Guardian supports the left wing project to revamp the UN.
UN security council must be revamped or risk irrelevance, Kofi Annan warns
So does the Obama White House.
Russian vetoes are putting UN security council's legitimacy at risk, says US
Monday, September 21, 2015
Chickens coming home to roost
Beginning in Reagan's time, the bitterly anti-communist and anti-Soviet, Polish John Paul II's time, Republicans have made a big, big deal out of the Papacy.
Reagan created the American embassy to the Vatican in 1984, the better to cement the alliance of American conservatives with Catholicism at home and US policy with the Polish Pope's in Europe.
But the Papacy is now in the hands of a well-informed fan of Liberation Theology, a man who may well think of Obama as too right-wing not on social issues, about which he seems not particularly radical, but on economic ones and on the deft use of the climate issue as a lever for forcing upon the richer nations really costly economic moves for the advantage of poorer ones.
The Pope vs. the GOP
House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, both Catholics, extended the speaking invitation to Francis, who will become the first pontiff ever to address a joint session of Congress.
A move of unbelievable stupidity for the Republicans.
And a wholly inappropriate move for a secular republic, as was Reagan's creation of the US Embassy to the Vatican.
Reagan created the American embassy to the Vatican in 1984, the better to cement the alliance of American conservatives with Catholicism at home and US policy with the Polish Pope's in Europe.
But the Papacy is now in the hands of a well-informed fan of Liberation Theology, a man who may well think of Obama as too right-wing not on social issues, about which he seems not particularly radical, but on economic ones and on the deft use of the climate issue as a lever for forcing upon the richer nations really costly economic moves for the advantage of poorer ones.
The Pope vs. the GOP
House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, both Catholics, extended the speaking invitation to Francis, who will become the first pontiff ever to address a joint session of Congress.
A move of unbelievable stupidity for the Republicans.
And a wholly inappropriate move for a secular republic, as was Reagan's creation of the US Embassy to the Vatican.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Climate, schmimate
Environmentalists Will Lose
As always, the plans of Democrats and liberals are (a) inadequate to the alleged problem and (b) aimed mostly at furthering the economic rise of nonwhite tigers, especially China, at the expense of the nations already fairly well off, especially the white ones and especially the USA.
Jon Chait
As always, the plans of Democrats and liberals are (a) inadequate to the alleged problem and (b) aimed mostly at furthering the economic rise of nonwhite tigers, especially China, at the expense of the nations already fairly well off, especially the white ones and especially the USA.
Jon Chait
Friday, September 11, 2015
Plenty of room in Kazakhstan
Not to mention Turkey, the rich Gulf states, and the many other Muslim states that emerged when the Soviet Union broke up.
These refugees and, indeed, the waves of migrants from Libya and elsewhere on the Maghreb would all be so much more at home in these other Muslim lands than in London, Paris, Rome, Athens, or Berlin.
Why haven't Ms. Merkel and her numerous echoes publicly spoken of that possibility?
War has forced half of Syrians from their homes.
These refugees and, indeed, the waves of migrants from Libya and elsewhere on the Maghreb would all be so much more at home in these other Muslim lands than in London, Paris, Rome, Athens, or Berlin.
Why haven't Ms. Merkel and her numerous echoes publicly spoken of that possibility?
War has forced half of Syrians from their homes.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Sense8
This high quality and fascinating in-house Netflix production is, all by itself, a powerful salvo in the culture wars, standing up at once for feminism, cosmopolitanism, racial and cultural diversity, deviant sexuality, and straight sex only in its extramarital variations.
The photography is stunning and the script, acting, and direction are superb.
Did I mention the high porn content and, of it, the very high dosage of gay porn?
Not R rated, but X.
Monday, September 7, 2015
Refugees, "Migrants," and the submergence of whites in Europe and America
The Guardian and the left of the entire Occident are now conflating legal and illegal immigration, as well as refugees and other immigrants, all under the heading "migrants."
And demanding Europe, Canada, America, and even Israel open their borders.
The Guardian is running lots of comment in favor of such projects, and has even enlisted the Bible.
And demanding Europe, Canada, America, and even Israel open their borders.
The Guardian is running lots of comment in favor of such projects, and has even enlisted the Bible.
How does Trump win the White House?
The Democrats let their left paint them as the party of post-nationalism, cosmopolitanism, open borders, illegal immigration, crime, black radicalism, and hatred for whites, Christians, and anybody who isn't a sexual outlaw.
The Black Panthers
Crime Is Back
Polls are already showing that Clinton is barely getting little more than one-third of the white vote.
War On Police Sparks National Crime Wave
Barack Obama and the War on Cops
This year, 24 cops have been gunned down.
And the day after deputy Goforth’s execution, “Black Lives Matter!” showed up at the Minnesota state fair chanting, “Pigs in a blanket! Fry ’em like bacon!”
Last fall, when mobs blocked highways after the death of Eric Garner in an encounter with police on Staten Island, the hoodlum chant was: “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want ’em? Now!”
Soon after, two cops in Brooklyn were executed in their patrol car.
Time for Obama to ascend the bully pulpit and call out the racial demagogues in the fever swamps of his own radical left constituency.
For some of the evils of the last century we thought we left behind seem to be returning, as is the old indulgence of lawlessness when done by those claiming some “grievance” against society.
Violent crime is rising again, a direct result, many believe, of a new police reluctance to be aggressive in enforcing the law, to avoid violent clashes with criminals and suspects, the so-called “Ferguson effect.”
The lead story in the Sept. 1 New York Times reported a surge in murders in the city after the Eric Garner incident, and even greater surges in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
. . . .
In the 1960s, Vice President Hubert Humphrey declared that if he had to endure the conditions of the ghetto, he “could lead a pretty good riot” himself, while Nixon ridiculed the Kerner Commission report that blamed the riots on “white racism.”
Nixon and George Wallace got 57 percent of the vote in 1968.
And a strong stand for law and order helped to give the GOP a near quarter-century lock on the presidency.
The law and order issue is lying there again, waiting to be picked up.
Meanwhile we ought to hear from our president about who and what he thinks is responsible for all those wounded and dead cops.
Meanwhile, Trump keeps on ignoring the agenda of Wall Street - open borders, free trade, low wages, repeal of a century of Progressivism - in favor of nationalism and takes the Republican nomination away from the conservatives and the GOP establishment.
And then, remember how Nixon won in 1968 mostly because the Democrats threw the election away.
And then they did it again, only more so, in 1972.
The Black Panthers
Crime Is Back
Polls are already showing that Clinton is barely getting little more than one-third of the white vote.
War On Police Sparks National Crime Wave
Barack Obama and the War on Cops
This year, 24 cops have been gunned down.
And the day after deputy Goforth’s execution, “Black Lives Matter!” showed up at the Minnesota state fair chanting, “Pigs in a blanket! Fry ’em like bacon!”
Last fall, when mobs blocked highways after the death of Eric Garner in an encounter with police on Staten Island, the hoodlum chant was: “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want ’em? Now!”
Soon after, two cops in Brooklyn were executed in their patrol car.
Time for Obama to ascend the bully pulpit and call out the racial demagogues in the fever swamps of his own radical left constituency.
For some of the evils of the last century we thought we left behind seem to be returning, as is the old indulgence of lawlessness when done by those claiming some “grievance” against society.
Violent crime is rising again, a direct result, many believe, of a new police reluctance to be aggressive in enforcing the law, to avoid violent clashes with criminals and suspects, the so-called “Ferguson effect.”
The lead story in the Sept. 1 New York Times reported a surge in murders in the city after the Eric Garner incident, and even greater surges in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
. . . .
In the 1960s, Vice President Hubert Humphrey declared that if he had to endure the conditions of the ghetto, he “could lead a pretty good riot” himself, while Nixon ridiculed the Kerner Commission report that blamed the riots on “white racism.”
Nixon and George Wallace got 57 percent of the vote in 1968.
And a strong stand for law and order helped to give the GOP a near quarter-century lock on the presidency.
The law and order issue is lying there again, waiting to be picked up.
Meanwhile we ought to hear from our president about who and what he thinks is responsible for all those wounded and dead cops.
Meanwhile, Trump keeps on ignoring the agenda of Wall Street - open borders, free trade, low wages, repeal of a century of Progressivism - in favor of nationalism and takes the Republican nomination away from the conservatives and the GOP establishment.
And then, remember how Nixon won in 1968 mostly because the Democrats threw the election away.
And then they did it again, only more so, in 1972.
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Syrian refugee crisis
Merkel says it's a German and EU problem, as does The Guardian, staunchly pro-immigration.
Having noted the filthy rich Arabs refuse to accept Syrians it only remains to point out they refuse immigration from North Africa, too.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Maher, of all people, should know better
Bill Maher Smacks Media For Uncritical Coverage Of Trump's Racism
Maher has spent decades fending off accusations that his suspicions and criticisms of Islam are racist, but Karoli quotes him thus.
Note that Maher as quoted does not flatly accuse Trump of racism, despite Karoli's take.
Trump straight-up rants about how non-white foreigners are ruining the country.
From claiming unauthorized Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and "rapists," to saying he wants to deport 11 million people, to arguing that China is "killing us" on trade, Trump's political message is uncut xenophobia if not outright racism[.]
. . . .
With the exception of Bernie Sanders, Trump is now drawing bigger crowds than any other candidate.
That mass basis is a key foundation of fascism — without the delirious crowds, the fascist demagogue is little more than a deranged street preacher.
Many of those supporters are out-and-proud white nationalists, as documented in a fascinating "New Yorker" investigation.
Trump, far from a fascist by any stretch, while something of an economic nationalist (see his criticisms of the adverse impact on the US of free trade and too much low wage immigration, most of it illegal), has rejected the idea of American ethnic nationalism.
If Bernie's enthusiasts include radical socialists and even communists or communist sympathizers does that make Bernie personally either?
His enemies will say so.
What will Karoli (or Bill Maher) say to that?
Evan Osnos's story in The New Yorker is a silly hatchet-job, by the way.
Here's a snip.
In partisan terms, his ideas are riven by contradiction—he calls for mass deportations but opposes cuts to Medicare and Social Security; he vows to expand the military but criticizes free trade—and yet that is a reflection of voters’ often incoherent sets of convictions.
That was a contradiction?
Those are incoherent?
True, his agenda is not in line with the official view of either party, supposing Hollywood liberals speak for Democrats and Wall Street conservatives speak for Republicans.
But that just validates his supporters' - mostly white working and middle class, at a guess - political alienation, cited rather dismissively by Osnos.
Both Hollywood and Wall Street support big scale, low wage immigration and free trade, fair trade being just free trade, anyway, with riders to protect the foreign workers who get jobs producing for the American market.
Trump speaks to the concerns and insecurities of not just Republican but American Main Street by supporting both economic nationalism in defense of their jobs and those other key resources of ordinary Americans, Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.
Nowadays, many on the left have admitted - Bernie Sanders, for example - that decades of free trade have done billionaires and foreign workers good at the expense of the ordinary working people of America.
And some - Bernie Sanders again, for example - have dared to admit the obvious, that flooding the market with low wage workers, illegal or not, has done its part to hold down wages over that same period while the plutocracy has scooped up the gains of American economic expansion.
And while Osnos, Maher, and Karoli call Trump a racist for these views, open borders, Wall Street conservatives have done the same both to Trump and to Sanders.
Maher has spent decades fending off accusations that his suspicions and criticisms of Islam are racist, but Karoli quotes him thus.
Note that Maher as quoted does not flatly accuse Trump of racism, despite Karoli's take.
Trump straight-up rants about how non-white foreigners are ruining the country.
From claiming unauthorized Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and "rapists," to saying he wants to deport 11 million people, to arguing that China is "killing us" on trade, Trump's political message is uncut xenophobia if not outright racism[.]
. . . .
With the exception of Bernie Sanders, Trump is now drawing bigger crowds than any other candidate.
That mass basis is a key foundation of fascism — without the delirious crowds, the fascist demagogue is little more than a deranged street preacher.
Many of those supporters are out-and-proud white nationalists, as documented in a fascinating "New Yorker" investigation.
Trump, far from a fascist by any stretch, while something of an economic nationalist (see his criticisms of the adverse impact on the US of free trade and too much low wage immigration, most of it illegal), has rejected the idea of American ethnic nationalism.
If Bernie's enthusiasts include radical socialists and even communists or communist sympathizers does that make Bernie personally either?
His enemies will say so.
What will Karoli (or Bill Maher) say to that?
Evan Osnos's story in The New Yorker is a silly hatchet-job, by the way.
Here's a snip.
In partisan terms, his ideas are riven by contradiction—he calls for mass deportations but opposes cuts to Medicare and Social Security; he vows to expand the military but criticizes free trade—and yet that is a reflection of voters’ often incoherent sets of convictions.
That was a contradiction?
Those are incoherent?
True, his agenda is not in line with the official view of either party, supposing Hollywood liberals speak for Democrats and Wall Street conservatives speak for Republicans.
But that just validates his supporters' - mostly white working and middle class, at a guess - political alienation, cited rather dismissively by Osnos.
Both Hollywood and Wall Street support big scale, low wage immigration and free trade, fair trade being just free trade, anyway, with riders to protect the foreign workers who get jobs producing for the American market.
Trump speaks to the concerns and insecurities of not just Republican but American Main Street by supporting both economic nationalism in defense of their jobs and those other key resources of ordinary Americans, Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.
Nowadays, many on the left have admitted - Bernie Sanders, for example - that decades of free trade have done billionaires and foreign workers good at the expense of the ordinary working people of America.
And some - Bernie Sanders again, for example - have dared to admit the obvious, that flooding the market with low wage workers, illegal or not, has done its part to hold down wages over that same period while the plutocracy has scooped up the gains of American economic expansion.
And while Osnos, Maher, and Karoli call Trump a racist for these views, open borders, Wall Street conservatives have done the same both to Trump and to Sanders.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
The liberal global culture war
Gay and Marked for Death
Frank Bruni, LGBT, the UN, and Islam.
Guess what.
We are at war with Islam.
We are and we ought to be.
Ask Frank.
Frank Bruni, LGBT, the UN, and Islam.
Guess what.
We are at war with Islam.
We are and we ought to be.
Ask Frank.
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