USA under presidency of a know-nothing, neo-fascist, racist, sexist, mobbed-up narcissist!!

[Cliff Varnell]

The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Ever watch "Game of Thrones"?

I haven't.

But I pick up things here and there -- there's a dwarf in GOT, a blonde lady, and some guy named Jon Snow who they don't know if he's dead or not.

And there was something called the Red Wedding.

What proper journal would hire me to do an in depth analysis of "Game of Thrones"?

...Please, right?

Well, there's all sorts of people opining about the 2016 election haven't watched The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Same thing.

I got 2000 hours, at least -- June 16, 2015 to Nov 8, 2016.

How can Johnson accuse me of being a troll when Johnson doesn't know dick about how 2016 was rigged?

I watched very little over the last 11 days.

If Trump were on, or one of his surrogates, or they were talking about e-mails -- I'd immediately shut it off.

And I'm checking 3 stations, mind you, CNN, MSNBC, Fox. Waiting thru commercial after commercial sometimes, just to see Kellyanne Conway or some other Trumpette or Agent Orange himself or somebody opining about e-mails -- just killed me. Like getting stabbed in the eye.

The American people were battered throughout the process by hateful rhetoric, and over the last two weeks a media barrage in favor of Trump.

I'd check every hour or two for days -- then one day it was on for a half hour before I had to shut it off!

That's how the 2016 election was rigged.

[Cliff Varnell]

The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Ever watch "Game of Thrones"?

I haven't.

But I pick up things here and there -- there's a dwarf in GOT, a blonde lady, and some guy named Jon Snow who they don't know if he's dead or not.

And there was something called the Red Wedding.

What proper journal would hire me to do an in depth analysis of "Game of Thrones"?

...Please, right?

Well, there's all sorts of people opining about the 2016 election haven't watched The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Same thing.

I got 2000 hours, at least -- June 16, 2015 to Nov 8, 2016.

How can Johnson accuse me of being a troll when Johnson doesn't know dick about how 2016 was rigged?

I watched very little over the last 11 days.

If Trump were on, or one of his surrogates, or they were talking about e-mails -- I'd immediately shut it off.

And I'm checking 3 stations, mind you, CNN, MSNBC, Fox. Waiting thru commercial after commercial sometimes to see Kellyanne Conway or some other Trumpette or Agent Orange himself or somebody opining about e-mails -- just killed me. Like getting stabbed in the eye.

The American people were battered throughout the process by hateful rhetoric, and over the last two weeks a media barrage in favor of Trump.

I'd check every hour or two for days -- then one day it was on for a half hour before I had to shut it off!

That's how the 2016 election was rigged.

Over the last 11 days three subjects received little attention:

Trump's withheld tax returns
Trump's serial sexual abuse
Hillary's plans for the future.

Oh, well, no use crying over spilt spittle -- onward!

Elizabeth Warren, Barbara Lee
Those are the two who speak for me!

Added on EDIT:

And Bernie makes three!

[Peter Lemkin]

Meet Team Trump



23 hours ago by corbettreport64 in trump

by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
November 12, 2016
The voting machines have decided who will be the next puppet figurehead of the Pax Americana deep state for the next four years. The circus is over and the peanut shells are being swept out of the stands. So what do we have to show for all of it?
Well, I have some good news, some bad news, and some not-so-good news for you. Let's start with the bad news.
Apparently some people voted for Trump in the belief that he was some sort of anti-establishment truth-telling hero of the working class. I hate to be the one to disabuse you of this notion, so let's just look at his transition team, his campaign team, the people who have already been tapped to be part of the new administration and the people who are being contacted for potential cabinet appointments. Warning: It's not a pretty picture.

So who's leading this transition team that's helping to sort out the cabinet and move Team Trump into the White House? Oh, just the usual assortment of bankster-connected corporate lobbyists we would expect to be hanging around any president-elect. This time is no exception. From former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Eric Ueland to Koch Industries lobbyist Michael Catanzaro to Aetna / Verizon lobbyist William Palatucci, the gaggle of corporate cronies manning Trump for America Inc. (the actual nonprofit group set up to oversee the transition) are as establishment as they come. And the whole kit-and-kaboodle is being run by Chris Christie. Yes, that Chris Christie.
And who are they reaching out to for potential positions in the Trump White House?
Steven Mnuchin - The chief fundraiser for the Trump campaign was not featured in a lot of alt-right cheerleading for the Trump train, and for good reason: He is a 17-year Goldman Sachs veteran who went on to work for Soros Fund Management. Yes, that Soros. Oh, and he donated to Hillary Clinton. But other than that, I'm sure he's a great fundraiser. Which is why he is apparently a frontrunner to be Secretary of the Treasury in the Trump White House. That's right folks, yet another Goldman Sachs vampire squid alumni is within a hair's breadth of taking over the Treasury, just like Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin before him. But don't worry, because another person in consideration for the Treasury Secretary position is...
Jamie Dimon - I'm going to assume you know who Jamie Dimon is, but just to make sure everyone is aware, let me spell it out in black and white: Jamie Dimon is chairman, president and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, the monstrous banking offspring of JP Morgan & Co. and the Rockefellers' own Chase Manhattan. Other than Lloyd "God's work" Blankfein, it would be hard to find a more bankster-y bankster in the world of banksterism. To list Dimon's entire rap sheet would be an editorial unto itself, but let's just remind ourselves of his role in the 2008 bailout fiasco via my Federal Reserve documentary, Century of Enslavement:

A stunning 2011 Government Accountability Office report examined $16 trillion of bailout facilities extended by the Fed in the wake of the crisis and exposed numerous examples of blatant conflicts of interest. Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric served as a director on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the same time the Fed provided $16 billion in financing to General Electric. JP Morgan Chase chief executive, Jamie Dimon, meanwhile, was also a member of the board of the New York Fed during the period that saw $391 billion in Fed emergency lending directed to his own bank. In all, Federal Reserve board members were tied to $4 trillion in loans to their own banks. These funds were not simply used to keep these banks afloat, but actually to return these Fed-connected banks to a period of record profits in the same period that the average worker saw their real wages actually decrease and the economy on main street slow to a standstill.

If there's any ray of hope here, it's that (as I discussed with James Evan Pilato on a recent edition of New World Next Week), Dimon recently said he wouldn't want to become Treasury Secretary due to "Democrat-Republican bullshit." As Pearse Redmond points out, the Trump team may be floating Dimon's name right now to make it seem not so bad when they "only" appoint Goldman/Soros insider Mnuchin to the position,
John Bolton - John Bolton is a career Republican insider who served roles in both Bush White Houses, including most recently as UN Ambassador in 2005-2006. He's also the worst kind of crazed, bloodthirsty neocon who has literally never heard of a foreign invasion he didn't lust after. Don't take my word for it, listen to him explain Trump's foreign policy imperatives...for as many seconds as you can stomach it. And yes, he's commenting on Trump's foreign policy because he has been advising the Trump campaign and has been name-dropped for months as a possible Secretary of State in the Trump cabinet. So are all of those who voted Trump over Hillary because they didn't like her warmongering suitably upset now? Well if not there's always his picks for Secretary of Defense, like:
Stephen Hadley - Hadley is the man who, acting as Bush Jr.'s Deputy National Security Advisor, served as the conduit for the ridiculously fake yellowcake uranium forgeries that were used to help drum up the war in Iraq. He was also the guy who kept the bogus yellowcake story in Bush's October 2002 speech in Cincinnati laying out the case for the illegal bloody war of aggression in Iraq. A share of the million dead Iraqi's blood is on his hands. And he's in the running to be Trump's Secretary of Defense.
Reince Priebus - Nothing says "anti-establishment party outsider" like the current chairman of the Republican National Committee, right? Well, guess what: Reince Priebus is under consideration for Trump's chief of staff. You know, the highest ranking employee of the White House? Priebus is apparently competing against the likes of Stephen Bannon (Trump campaign C.E.O. and former head of Breitbart News) and Jared Kushner's (The Donald's own son-in-law who the Times of Israel takes great pains to point out is an Orthodox Jew, as is Ivanka Trump). Regardless of who gets the spot, the very fact that Priebus is in the running shows that Trump's feud with the Republican Party was about as real as Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania.
Rudy Giuliani - Rudy Giuliani is an unconvicted 9/11 criminal who illegally cleared the 9/11 crime scene, and who failed to pass on the prior warning that he received about the towers' destruction. He is also hated by the New York Fire Department for having kicked the firemen off the pile as soon as the gold was discovered. As Associate Attorney General in 1981 he was involved in the PROMIS software octopus. He oversaw New York's unconstitutional stop-and-frisk policing policy. He is a ghoul in every sense. So naturally the only question is which spot will he fill in the Trump cabinet: Attorney General, DHS chief, cybersecurity czar, or something else entirely?
Getting nauseated yet? You should be, but if not there are many many many more contemptible establishment insiders who are being vetted for potential cabinet positions at this very moment. But don't worry, this is why I saved the good news for last.
But first, the not-so-bad news: None of these positions have been filled yet. We don't know who is going to actually make it into the Trump cabinet at this point. Who knows, maybe it will be a bunch of swell, upstanding Beltway outsiders, non-banksters and populists who are committed to the principles of human freedom. Trump and Change 2016!
OK, alright. That's wishful thinking. But here's the really good news:

That's right, the electorate favored nobody at all by an almost 2-to-1 margin over either fake, controlled political puppet. Turnout was down from previous elections. Things are looking good.
For those who stayed home out of principle: I salute you.
For those who stayed home out of apathy: can I interest you in some reading?
For those who voted for Clinton: why are you on this website?
And for those who voted for Trump: will you commit to standing by the principles you thought you were voting for when you cast your ballot, or will you rally around the party flag as a new crew of neocons and banksters and establishment insiders step into their pre-ordained roles? And if so, will you re-examine what your vote actually did, or will you simply say "I'll show them! I'll vote them out next time!" Because if it's the latter, then you haven't learned anything at all.

[David Guyatt]

The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Ever watch "Game of Thrones"?

I haven't.

But I pick up things here and there -- there's a dwarf in GOT, a blonde lady, and some guy named Jon Snow who they don't know if he's dead or not.

And there was something called the Red Wedding.

What proper journal would hire me to do an in depth analysis of "Game of Thrones"?

...Please, right?

Well, there's all sorts of people opining about the 2016 election haven't watched The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Same thing.

I got 2000 hours, at least -- June 16, 2015 to Nov 8, 2016.

How can Johnson accuse me of being a troll when Johnson doesn't know dick about how 2016 was rigged?

Sigh.

You'd be amazed, but we founders and moderators talk regularly about forum matters.

Ergo: Lauren was reflecting a growing sense that you're approaching the precipice here.

This is a forum to discuss deep political subjects amongst members. It is not a forum to be hijacked by one member and littered with soap-box venting about everyday partisan politics. There are plenty of other political fora around that are ideal for that. Use Google to find them.

Regard this as a warning.

[Cliff Varnell]

The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Ever watch "Game of Thrones"?

I haven't.

But I pick up things here and there -- there's a dwarf in GOT, a blonde lady, and some guy named Jon Snow who they don't know if he's dead or not.

And there was something called the Red Wedding.

What proper journal would hire me to do an in depth analysis of "Game of Thrones"?

...Please, right?

Well, there's all sorts of people opining about the 2016 election haven't watched The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Same thing.

I got 2000 hours, at least -- June 16, 2015 to Nov 8, 2016.

How can Johnson accuse me of being a troll when Johnson doesn't know dick about how 2016 was rigged?

Sigh.

You'd be amazed, but we founders and moderators talk regularly about forum matters.

Ergo: Lauren was reflecting a growing sense that you're approaching the precipice here.

This is a forum to discuss deep political subjects amongst members. It is not a forum to be hijacked by one member and littered with soap-box venting about everyday partisan politics. There are plenty of other political fora around that are ideal for that. Use Google to find them.

Regard this as a warning.

Fine by me, David, but the subject was the rigging of the election.

Media exposure is manipulated, and the language itself is rigged.

"Liberty proponents" is an example of rigged language.

That's what I meant by -- "Fascist branding exercise."

But I can take a hint, and for reals take a powder.

[David Guyatt]

The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Ever watch "Game of Thrones"?

I haven't.

But I pick up things here and there -- there's a dwarf in GOT, a blonde lady, and some guy named Jon Snow who they don't know if he's dead or not.

And there was something called the Red Wedding.

What proper journal would hire me to do an in depth analysis of "Game of Thrones"?

...Please, right?

Well, there's all sorts of people opining about the 2016 election haven't watched The Donald J Trump Show starring Donald J Trump and featuring the lovely Ivanka!

Same thing.

I got 2000 hours, at least -- June 16, 2015 to Nov 8, 2016.

How can Johnson accuse me of being a troll when Johnson doesn't know dick about how 2016 was rigged?

Sigh.

You'd be amazed, but we founders and moderators talk regularly about forum matters.

Ergo: Lauren was reflecting a growing sense that you're approaching the precipice here.

This is a forum to discuss deep political subjects amongst members. It is not a forum to be hijacked by one member and littered with soap-box venting about everyday partisan politics. There are plenty of other political fora around that are ideal for that. Use Google to find them.

Regard this as a warning.

Fine by me, David, but the subject was the rigging of the election.

Media exposure is manipulated, and the language itself is rigged.

"Liberty proponents" is an example of rigged language.

That's what I meant by -- "Fascist branding exercise."

But I can take a hint, and for reals take a powder.

No need to take a powder. Cliff. Just take the hint.

[David Guyatt]

Btw, I agree that the media is manipulated, or rather the media manipulates -- it's an awful cacophony of pre-packaged neocon opinions and state propaganda and is no longer worth the time or effort to read it. There are far better options out there now for information and insight. I rarely read any mainstream media or watch mainstream news either.

Let me also add that I agree the election was rigged. In all sorts of ways. The DNC rigged it against Bernie and it increasingly appears that one tentacle of the oligarchy may well have rigged it for Trump to win. For me it's becoming ever clearer that the political class are simply paid actors to play the straight guy in what is a nation utterly controlled by perpetual gangster/mafia class.

Now a new Don has taken over the family and will be running things for the next 4 years.

Yet again the US purse will be picked clean.

[David Guyatt]

Former MI6 senior guy and diplomat, Alastair Crooke, on what underlies the Trump victory - alienation due to the blind arrogance and adherence of the elites to an unwanted agenda.

Trump's Win A Rebuke to the Elites

November 12, 2016

Donald Trump's unlikely election is a Brexit-like blow to the global elites who espoused an arrogant mix of neocon foreign policy and neoliberal economics that has hurt many common citizens, says ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.
By Alastair Crooke
So, there it is: Brexit, as I had earlier suggested, was no extraneous "flash in the pan," but a manifestation of wider and deeper discontents in Western society. Let us be clear: not only did 60 million Americans vote for Donald Trump, but a further 13 million, who voted for Bernie Sanders (in the primaries) similarly voted for strategic change albeit from within a different political orientation.
I do not intend, here, to attempt any post-mortem on the U.S. election, but rather to try to see what may stand hidden behind the Brexit and Trump events obscured for now by their overly prominent presence on the forestage of the media and politics.

Donald Trump and his vice-presidential running mate Mike Pence during the Republican National Convention. (Photo credit: Grant Miller/RNC)

The first concerns Donald Trump: Unsurprisingly, his personal foibles and his billionaire background have become the focus of a hostile media who question whether he has the ability to bring about strategic change, or not. This is an important question, but still it misses the point. The point here is that there are few very few opportunities for elected officials to challenge the status quo especially when Western centrist parties have patently conspired to offer voters mere nuanced variants of the same "progressive," liberal, globalized agenda.
In short, there evidently has been a constituency building up, so exasperated at the imperviousness of the elites to the true situation of this constituency, that they want the status quo gone, by whomsoever's hand is there. Whomsoever: that is the point. It was never some sort of chief executive beauty contest: Would Bernie Sanders have been an ideal President? Would Nigel Farage have been one? Will Trump be able to deliver a new era? we do not know (but should not foreclose on that possibility). The Whomsoever aspect rather speaks to the depth of alienation that lay latent in American society.
But the message that is in danger of being obscured by the outsize focus on the outsize personality of Mr. Trump is precisely that the "discontents" at democracy, at cultural "identity" politics, at globalization and its sufferings, will not simply disappear now. Mr. Trump will succeed or fail, but the uprising will persist in one form or another and is likely to spread to other parts of Europe, leaving the latter in turmoil and politically incapacitated.
Profound Alienation
It represents a profound alienation. We should not expect any early return of the liberal world, should Mr. Trump somehow fail.

Russian President Vladimir Putin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 10, 2015, at the Kremlin. (Photo from Russian government)

Nor should Mr. Trump be viewed as some sort of outlandish political freak. In fact, he fits quite closely to one of the mainstream orientations of American conservatism. It is an orientation that is, by instinct, doubtful of grandiose schemes of political or social re-engineering, preferring to take human nature as it is; it is more inclined to focus on domestic needs, rather than uncertain foreign adventures; is financially conservative; is not economically determinist; and tends to see the family as the indispensable building-block of society. It is a Zeitgeist that sees other countries (say Russia or China) as normal countries with whom one should talk, and to pursue common interests.
That Trump should be regarded as some bizarre oddity, rather than as being in the line of Burke and thrice Presidential contender Pat Buchanan (who admits to a certain paternity, as it were) speaks more to the success of the neoconservative hijack of American conservatism beginning in the 1960s than reflects the historic spectrum of this intellectual current.
One might say that the neoconservatives were never Conservative, in the sense that neoliberals were never Liberal, in the traditional understanding of these terms. What is new is that the President-elect seems to have put together a new Republican constituency of half the American electorate. And this new constituency is not just one of "red-necks" (white, blue-collar workers). It has cut across social classes and ethnic divisions. Even Wall Street traders (supposedly aligned with the Clintons) reportedly were enthusiastically yelling "lock her up" during Mrs. Clinton's concession speech and college-educated women only gave Mrs. Clinton a 6 percent edge over those who voted Trump.
It is possible "that this election [originally] was intended to facilitate the triumphant return of the neoconservative-neoliberal paradigm all wrapped up in new packaging.' For various reasons, the decision was made to assign this role to Hillary Clinton," according to the Oriental Review.
Perhaps this was because she was viewed as well placed to fuse the liberal-interventionist and the neoconservative trends to the Clintonite "cultural identity politics" base or possibly, simply because it was "her turn" at the Presidency. If so, it has failed spectacularly.
The Clinton Failure
Why did it fail? One aspect of the discontent (as I have outlined before see here) relates to the slow demise of our financialized, neoliberal, debt-driven growth model. For many in America and Europe, the reality has not been one of economic prosperity, but one of anxiety and for the first time in the post-World War II era a sense that the next generations' prospects will be much tougher, and worse, than ours were.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking at Planned Parenthood Action Fund membership event at the Washington Hilton on June 10, 2016. (Photo by Lorie Shaull, Wikipedia)

Here (no friend to Trump) is Naomi Klein's assessment: "They will blame James Comey and the FBI. They will blame voter suppression and racism. They will blame Bernie or bust' and misogyny. They will blame third parties and independent candidates. They will blame the corporate media for giving him the platform, social media for being a bullhorn, and WikiLeaks for airing the laundry.
"But this leaves out the force most responsible for creating the nightmare in which we now find ourselves … [financialized] neoliberalism. Here is what we need to understand: a hell of a lot of people are in pain. Under neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatization, austerity and corporate trade, their living standards have declined precipitously. They have lost jobs. They have lost pensions. They have lost much of the safety net that used to make these losses less frightening. They see a future for their kids even worse than their precarious present.
"At the same time, they have witnessed the rise of the Davos class, a hyper-connected network of banking and tech billionaires, elected leaders who are awfully cozy with those interests, and Hollywood celebrities who make the whole thing seem unbearably glamorous. Success is a party to which they were not invited, and they know in their hearts that this rising wealth and power is somehow directly connected to their growing debts and powerlessness.
"For the people who saw security and status as their birthright and that means white men most of all these losses are unbearable. Donald Trump speaks directly to that pain. The Brexit campaign spoke to that pain."
Here it is represented visually:

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-09...-dominance

Of course, this was not the case for the urban élites:

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-09...-dominance

Cultural Resistance
The second aspect to the present discontent has been cultural oppression (or, in the rhetoric of the Democratic Party, "identity politics" one of the mainstays of the Clintonite electoral base). Its roots are complex, and lie with philosophic currents emerging out of Germany during WWII that somehow fused with American Trotskyist intellectual thinking (which then migrated to the Right). But, in gist, this current of political thought borrowed from the emerging discipline of psychology the concept of clearing the human mind shocking it, or forcing it into becoming the "clean slate" on which a new mental program could be written by the psychiatric (or political) therapist respectively.
The political aim here was to eliminate totalitarian thinking, and fascist mental "programming," and to replace it with a liberal-democracy circuit board.
Indeed, the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was promoted by this intellectual group precisely in furtherance of the notion that concepts such as "national culture" would become meaningless as a result of immigrant cultural dilution. By the 1970s and 1980s, the objective had evolved to implant the idea that there was really no politics to modernity (Fukuyama's End of History) since all governance somehow had boiled down to technocracy: ensuring effective liberal market functioning a matter best left to experts.
In political terms, the "clearing" of the mind's inherited cultural clutter was to be achieved by cultural wars of political correctness. The class war had become discredited, but there were other "victims" on whose behalf war could be waged: the war on gender discrimination, on racism, on denial of gay rights and sexual orientation stereotyping, on verbal micro-aggressions, on sexist language, or any ideas or language which disturbed the individual's sense of "safe space" were used as tools to clear away old cultural "brush" of inherited national culture, and open the way for an American-led, globalized world.
The ostensible factor linking all these notions of victim "wars" was that their antonym amounted either to fascism or authoritarianism. The problem with this has been that any white American blue-collar worker who attended church, who believed in family life, and was patriotic, became potentially a fascist, a racist, a sexist or a bigot.
Many ordinary Americans (and Europeans) disdain this "cultural" war which places him or her (according to Hillary Clinton), in the "basket of deplorables' Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic, you name it," and who looked upon his or her community as representing nothing more than a "fly-over" state in the view of the U.S. coastal élites.
The deplorables have now risen up. Donald Trump's salty language was no liability it was an electoral asset by thumbing his nose at this correctness, and at so-called "snowflake" sensibilities. Trump's incorrectness' touched on a deep vein of resentment within American traditional society.
Not only does "flyover America" resent being termed "deplorables," they feel too clearly the disdain in which the American and European elites hold them and dislike their arrogance in suggesting that there is only one rational, sensible way of doing things, and that they the elites, being the experts and a part of the Davos set should tell the rest of us what it is: (despite their decades of failures).
High Emotions
Emotions are high on both sides. To gain a sense of how bitterly the cultural war will be fought, listen to this from the partly-Soros-funded populist mobilization movement Azaaz (linked to America's Move On organization): "Dear Mr. Trump: This is not what greatness looks like. The world rejects your fear, hate-mongering, and bigotry. We reject your support for torture, your calls for murdering civilians, and your general encouragement of violence. We reject your denigration of women, Muslims, Mexicans, and millions of others who don't look like you, talk like you, or pray to the same god as you. Facing your fear we choose compassion. Hearing your despair we choose hope. Seeing your ignorance we choose understanding. As citizens of the world, we stand united against your brand of division."

Billionaire currency speculator George Soros. (Photo credit: georgesoros.com)

In short, with Brexit and the Trump victory, we are witnessing an historic point of inflexion. As I noted in mid-October (quoting British political philosopher John Gray): "If the tension between [the globalization project on one hand] and the [sovereign] nation state, [on the other] was one of the contradictions of Thatcherism … From Bill Clinton and Tony Blair onwards, the center-left embraced the project of a global free market with an enthusiasm as ardent as any on the right. If globalization was at odds with social cohesion, society had to be re-engineered to become an adjunct of the market. The result was that large sections of the population were left to moulder in stagnation or poverty, some without any prospect of finding a productive place in society."
"If Gray is correct that when globalized economics strikes trouble, people will demand that the state must pay attention to their own parochial, national economic situation (and not to the utopian concerns of the centralizing elite), it suggests that just as globalization is over so too is centralization (in all its many manifestations)."
Well, the global trend does not seem to be going in the Avaaz direction. It seems rather to be heading toward prioritizing the recovery of the state, of state sovereignty, and of state engagement in the pursuit of economic policies appropriate to the particular circumstances of the state, and in the state's ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the community as a whole.
The question is what does this mean geo-strategically? And, secondly, can and will, Trump be able to deliver the new era? The short answer is that this new era seems to presage a period of political volatility, financial volatility and in Europe and the Middle East, the prospect of continued political "shock."
It is clear that Mr. Trump is not a globalist. It is also clear that he is aware of some of the dangers of the present global monetarist policy. He has spoken of the U.S. Federal Reserve creating "big ugly bubbles" and that the next economic and financial crisis has been "kicked down the road" by Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and clearly awaits whomsoever becomes U.S. President on Jan. 20, 2017.
Painted into a Corner
But three decades of debt-led, financialized "growth policies" leave the President-elect effectively painted into a corner: global debt has spiraled; the bubbles are there still (kept afloat by Central Bank coordinated intervention), and bubbles are infamously difficult to deflate gently; zero or negative interest rates are undermining many a business model, but cannot easily be foregone, without crashing the bond market; and QE (printing money) is systematically eating away at consumer purchasing power through the dilution of its newly created purchasing power, and the latter's re-direction from "main street" into the financial sector lifting nominal asset values but creating no tangible wealth.

China's President Xi Jinping.

America and Europe effectively are in debt-deflation. How then to grow incomes so that producers of goods and services can also afford then subsequently to purchase these goods and services? Trump's answer is to spend on domestic infrastructure projects. This may help a bit, but is unlikely in itself to lift and float the entire U.S. economy.
The reality is that there is no obvious global engine of growth (now that China's "industrial revolution" has stalled at best). Every nation now is in search of new engines of growth. And it is not easy to imagine that Europe or America will succeed in retrieving all those jobs lost through globalization. Indeed, the attempt so to do in, and of itself might just precipitate a further deceleration of world trade, and a consequent decline in output.
In brief, the global economy may see a brief "honeymoon period" thanks to a likely spurt of U.S. fiscal indulgence and a concomitant psychological lift, stemming from at least the U.S. construction sector enjoying something of a boom. But ultimately the very economic crisis which Mr. Trump anticipates may prove to be the only way to cut the Gordian knot in which three decades of unprecedented debt and money printing have fettered us.
And if he is to steer through the expected crisis, Mr. Trump will have to eschew the Siren voices of the present elites telling him "TINA" (there is no alternative, but to continue as before).
Where Mr Trump might look for an early (and relatively easy) success however, may be in foreign policy. As "Nixon went to China," so Trump can go to Russia and China, and begin to treat them as normal nations with whom it is possible to find an intersection of interests (as well as areas of disagreement).
This would be revolutionary. It could change the geo-strategical map. And as President Putin keeps repeating … the door is open (at least for now). Nothing is forever in politics.

Source

[Paul Rigby]

Btw, I agree that the media is manipulated, or rather the media manipulates -- it's an awful cacophony of pre-packaged neocon opinions and state propaganda and is no longer worth the time or effort to read it. There are far better options out there now for information and insight. I rarely read any mainstream media or watch mainstream news either.

Let me also add that I agree the election was rigged. In all sorts of ways. The DNC rigged it against Bernie and it increasingly appears that one tentacle of the oligarchy may well have rigged it for Trump to win. For me it's becoming ever clearer that the political class are simply paid actors to play the straight guy in what is a nation utterly controlled by perpetual gangster/mafia class.

Now a new Don has taken over the family and will be running things for the next 4 years.

Yet again the US purse will be picked clean.

The clear and present danger for those denouncing Trump's victory is the narrative, assiduously peddled both by Clintonistas and those who really should know better, of Rodham-as-innocent-victim. Nothing could be further from the truth:

Martin Armstrong Exposes "The Real Clinton Conspiracy" Which Backfired Dramatically

Posted Nov 12, 2016 by Martin Armstrong

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/inter...n-history/

Meanwhile, Hillary lost not merely because she misread the "real" people, she decided to run a very divisive and nasty negative campaign, which has fueled the violence ever since. According to WikiLeaks emails from campaign John Podesta, Clinton colluded with the DNC and the media to raise what they thought would be the extreme right among Republicans to then make her the middle of the road to hide her agenda.

Clinton called this her "pied piper" strategy, that intentionally cultivated extreme right-wing presidential candidates and that would turn the Republicans away from their more moderate candidates. This enlisted mainstream media who then focused to Trump and raise him above all others assuming that would help Hillary for who would vote for Trump. This was a deliberate strategy all designed to propel Hillary to the White House.

The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee along with mainstream media all called for using far-right candidates "as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right." Clinton's camp insisted that Trump should be "elevated" to "leaders of the pack" and media outlets should be told to "take them seriously."

If we look back on April 23, 2015, just two weeks after Hillary Clinton officially declared her presidential campaign, her staff sent out a message on straregy to manipulate the Republicans into selecting the worse candidate. They included this attachment a "memo for the DNC discussion."

The memo was addressed to the Democratic National Committee and stated bluntly, "the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field." Here we find that the real conspiracy was Clinton manipulating the Republicans. "Clearly most of what is contained in this memo is work the DNC is already doing. This exercise is intended to put those ideas to paper."

"Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one-in-the-same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate."

The Clinton strategy was all about manipulating the Republicans to nominate the worst candidate Clinton called for forcing "all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election."

It was not Putin trying to rig the elections, it was Hillary. Clinton saw the Republican field as crowded and she viewed as "positive" for her. "Many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right." Clinton then took the strategic position saying "we don't want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more Pied Piper' candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party."

Her manipulative strategy was to have the press build up Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. "We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them seriously."

This conspiracy has emerged from the Podesta emails. It was Clinton conspiring with mainstream media to elevate Trump and then tear him down. We have to now look at all the media who endorsed Hillary as simply corrupt. Simultaneously, Hillary said that Bernie had to be ground down to the pulp. Further leaked emails showed how the Democratic National Committee sabotaged Sanders' presidential campaign. It was Hillary manipulating the entire media for her personal gain. She obviously did not want a fair election because she was too corrupt.

What is very clear putting all the emails together, the rise of Donald Trump was orchestrated by Hillary herself conspiring with mainstream media, and they they sought to burn him to the ground. Their strategy backfired and now this is why she has not come out to to speak against the violence she has manipulated and inspired.

This is by far the WORST campaign in history and it was all orchestrated by Hillary to be intentionally divisive for the nation all to win the presidency at all costs. She has torched the constitution and the country. No wonder Hillary could not go to the stage to thank her supporters. She never counted on them and saw the people as fools. The entire strategy was to take the White House with a manipulation of the entire election process. Just unbelievable. Any Democrat who is not angry at this is clearly just a biased fool. Wake up and smell the roses. You just got what you deserve.

Just how completely did the MSM swing behind Rodham? According to the odious Peter Preston, former editor of the far-right Grauniad, "no fewer than 229 American daily papers and 131 weeklies endorsed Clinton, as opposed to nine dailies and three weeklies for Trump." (Source: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/n...-know-why\ )

Will America's liberal elite learn anything from this debacle? Not a hope, for this would mean breaking bread with the great unwashed:

Think Trump is bad? Wait until you see what comes next...

Peter Hitchens

PUBLISHED: 01:23, 13 November 2016 | UPDATED: 04:14, 13 November 2016

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/articl...-next.html

I wish I thought our fashionably liberal ruling classes, throughout what remains of the free world, would learn from the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. But they won't. They are incapable of learning anything, ever.

After years of taunting, spiting, ignoring and scorning the rest of us and our opinions, they have now created a monster. President Trump is entirely their fault. But they blame others.

I have politely warned the liberal elite for years that they were taking this risk. I have many times said and written to such people: Please listen to me now. Or you will end up having to listen to someone much, much nastier in future.'

They paid no attention to my careful dissection of their wrong policies. With very few exceptions, they treated me as either mad or wicked, much as they treat your opinions and concerns.

On they ploughed with their mass immigration, their diversity and equality, their contempt for lifelong, stable marriage, their refusal to punish crime, their mad, idealistic foreign wars, their indulgence of drugs, their scorn for patriotism, their schools and universities, turning out graduates with certificates they can barely read.

And on they went with their destruction of real jobs, promising a new globalised prosperity that never came. Millions have just had too much of this.

Even now the liberals squawk and gibber in a state of disbelief. They hold daft placards saying Love Trumps Hate', as if they have not for years hated the secret, inarticulate people, living in parts of the country they never visit and barely know exist, who have finally let rip with a yell of resentment and rage.

This yahoo, this bully, this groper, a man who threatened his opponent with jail, he surely cannot be preparing to live in the White House? Yes, he is. Those pictures of Barack Obama treating him with polite respect, they cannot be true? Yes, they are.

These ridiculous people, who have never wondered how others have viewed their own side's billionaire-financed election victories in the past, are actually holding demonstrations against the result. I loathe Mr Trump for his coarseness, his crudity, and his scorn for morals, tradition and law. I am as sorry that he has won as they are, and fear that Britain will have its own Trump before long. But I can at least say that I tried to prevent it. They brought it about. We must all now wonder if he is what he claims to be, or just another politician prepared to say anything to win office, just a bit more shameless than the rest.

Neither of these possibilities is good. If he is what he says he is, and keeps his promises, then he is bound to do grave damage to the peace and stability of the USA.

[David Guyatt]

Peter Hitchins on point as usual. We really are run by a self-indulgent elite where stupidity is prized and prizes itself as a grand class of larceny.

And he is right; they never will learn because they lock themselves away in their isolated ivory towers.

Come 2020 (assuming it's not earlier) Corbyn might do very well indeed.