Monday, June 27, 2016

The Decline of the Anglo-American Empire

The revolt of the elites in the West and most notably in the English-speaking nations has been going on now for the last thirty-five years.  Essentially, the members of the moneyed class have decoupled their futures from those with whom they share a geographic and political community. 

In short, the Washington-Westminster consensus entails a neo-liberal agenda of cutting corporate and personal income tax, deregulating financial markets, reducing investments in social programs, moving manufacturing to where labor and environmental laws are lax, encouraging predatory lending to the disadvantaged, and extracting wealth from the real economy to be re-invested in off shore tax havens. 

In doing so, the elites have left the common folk in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) behind to fend for themselves in a beleaguered society that no longer has the sufficient resources and economic opportunities to maintain the quality of life that previous generations enjoyed.

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Before, throughout the post war period, there existed an inclusive social contract that embodied the belief "that we (those of Anglo-Saxon descent and their close cousins) were in this together."  No longer.  Now, there exists a "sink or swim" worldview in which those with the good luck of being born into well-off families are gliding quite well through the turbulence that incessant globalization has brought about, a middle-class struggling to keep their heads above water, while the poor are drowning in hopeless despair.

What has changed is that the callous treatment previously reserved for members of visible minorities has now been expanded to be applied to the vast majority of those who represent the racial bedrock from which the Anglo-American Empire drew its strength -- the English in the UK and white Americans in the US.  Both groups, having grown accustomed to preferential treatment, resent the decline in their living standards and are now pushing back, refusing to follow the leadership of their ruling elites.

Recently, much to the chagrin of Westminster and the City of London, those who felt very strongly they were being left behind (the English outside of London) and wanted to change Great Britain's trajectory voted to take the UK out of the European Union (EU), causing an immediate 10% devaluation of the national currency and a 120 billion dollar decline in the value of the companies listed in the national stock exchange. 

I think the Westminster crowd now realizes that what goes around comes around.  Because of the push back from the underclass, not only has the UK reduced its economic exchange with the largest trading block on the planet, it also now faces a very real threat that Scotland will leave the UK in order to maintain its ties with the EU.  Far from its imperial glory of ruling over the British Empire, Westminster might have its territorial reach reduced to the puny territorial expanse of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland -- a far cry from the sun never setting on the Empire.

The tectonic plates are also shifting is the US as the two-party political system seems to be coming to an end.  Most notably, in the run-up to the Presidential elections, white Americans have abandoned the leadership of the Republican Party to nominate the xenophobic, trash-talking, demagogue Donald Trump.  In doing so, they have repudiated the economic program that has left them behind as compared to the very well off, the upper 1% of the population.  Instead, they have embraced the vilification of those of different skin color, in particular Mexicans and Arab Muslims, who, apparently, are responsible for the hard times that many Americans are now experiencing as a result of the stealing jobs from white Americans by immigrants.

Things are almost as bad on the other side with the Democratic Party.  Coming into the Party's National Convention in July 2016, the favorite, the former Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, still has not secured the Party's nomination as Presidential candidate, in a campaign that has been marred by widespread electoral fraud and voter suppression.  Indeed, the vast majority of the under 40 electorate has turned its back to Hillary and would rather support the candidacy of the declared Democratic Socialist, Bernie Sanders.

Faced with unmanageable debt loads incurred while pursuing a post-secondary education, combined with limited economic opportunity in their immediate future, millions of millennials are now pushing for substantial change to America's political economy, including a living wage of $15 per hour, single-payer health care, free university education, and a substantial reduction of military expenditures.  They may not get their wishes granted in this election cycle; however, over the next twenty years, because of their demographic weight, they will inevitably change the trajectory of the American military-industrial-congressional complex.

How this will play out on the world stage remains to be determined.  Will the US remain as the world's only super power?  I doubt it.  Faced with growing divisions within, the US will be forced to turn its attention and more of its resources to domestic matters.  During this period of internal preoccupation, other world powers, military, political, and cultural will exert greater influence and bring to a close the hegemony of the Anglo-American Empire.

Unless, of course, the US decides to embark on yet another military campaign to rid the world once again of some regime accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction, supplied by the same elites who stand to gain financially by selling to the US government the arms necessary to neutralize the new perceived threat to global security.


Monday, June 20, 2016

The United States of Fear

It is extremely odd to come to the realization that the citizens of the most powerful nation humanity has ever seen, the United States of America, are very much afraid.  Indeed, fear permeates the lives of the vast majority of Americans at many levels.  They fear being attacked by terrorists.  They fear being attacked by crazed gunmen with automatic weapons.  They fear being shot by strangers.  They fear being shot by people they know.  They fear getting sick.  They fear being able to pay the medical bills.  They fear losing their jobs.  They fear growing old.  They fear their families falling apart.  They fear not being able to get a good education.  They fear not being able to pay off their student loans.  They fear immigrants speaking foreign languages.  They fear these immigrants taking their jobs.  They fear homosexuals living close by.  They fear giving up their guns.  They fear having to pay taxes.  They fear falling into poverty.  They fear their country losing its place in the world.  They fear going to hell.

Living in such a climate of fear, no wonder Americans call their country, "the land of the brave."  With all that fear, you have to be brave just to get through the day.  But, it doesn't have to be that way and that's something that most Americans simply just don't get.

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Yes, life is full of uncertainty.  At times, we can be dealt a bad hand.  We can fall sick, lose a job, be in an accident, have a marriage come to an abrupt end, or in other words, "to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

Given life's inherent risks, it makes sense to try to mitigate them -- for everyone.  It's not rocket science.  Progressive countries all over the world have figured it out some time ago: extract a portion of the money that circulates in the economy and use it to pay for health care, education, pensions, child care, periods of unemployment, a guaranteed income for those who cannot work, the public infrastructure (public buildings, roads, bridges, railways. airports) and pay civil servants to run the system effectively and efficiently. 

It's never perfect.  There are always things that can be improved.  However, for most of the people, most of the time, it works pretty good for those who are fortunate to be born in one of the nations that have chosen to go that route.  I consider myself extremely fortunate to live in Canada.

So, what's up in the United States?  How is it possible that with all that wealth. all that military power, they are unable to do something as simple as prohibiting people from owning automatic and semi-automatic weapons?  You know, the ones repeatedly used in the tragic mass shootings that regularly occur there.

Fundamentally, it is the fear factor, the fear of the slippery slope.  Starting with a ban on automatic weapons, other rights will surely be transgressed.  Indeed, all that talk about the necessity to protect and advance the common good might mean that wealthy individuals and corporations might be asked to contribute more to the common good.  Heaven forbid, at least the Heaven and the God that fundamental right wing Christians believe in.

Instead of calling it the American Dream, it should be called the American Nightmare.  Instead of pursuing the American version of the good life, most Americans are simply trying not to succumb to one of the fearful demons that lie in wait, lurking to heap misery on the poor, the sick, and the abandoned.

It's as if life in America has become a giant zero-sum game, with most of the wealth and the well being money can buy going to a very small number of players, while misery engulfs the increasing number of losers ill-equipped to compete in a game in which the rules are rigged against them. 

It doesn't have to be that way, but the rules of the game need to be changed.  Yet, those who control the corporate media would have you believe that any change to the status quo would be dangerous, embarking on a perilous route leading to an uncertain destination.  Better the devil we know.

Looking at how the Presidential election is shaping up, it appears to be nothing more than a campaign based on fear: the fear of the other, the immigrant, the terrorist, the homosexual as mongered by Donald Trump, or the fear of letting him assume power, as mongered by Hillary Clinton.  In the end, the status quo remains.

Looking from afar, I observe that Americans have become so paralyzed with fear they have become unable to extricate themselves collectively from the mess of things they have created.  America's trajectory is not about to change, and I fear that it will continue to drag down the rest of humanity.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

There Is Something Rotten in the State of California, New York, Arizona, Nevada . . .

William Shakespeare
Oh my God, what's that smell.  It stinks to high heaven.  Incredibly, the stench from what's now going on during the US primaries is making it's way all the way up to Canada.  Take a whiff.  Something is rotten to the core.  It is the smell of a corrupt society.  If Yogi Berra were still alive, he might say that it's Deja Moo all over again.  We have seen this bullshit before, in Arizona, in New York, in Nevada, and now on a massive scale in California.

You would have to be completely naïve not to believe that the Democratic primaries are being manipulated to produce a fraudulent result.  Blatant electoral fraud is going on at a massive scale.  Voter suppression is rampant.  Citizens are having their names purged from the voters list, are being given the wrong ballots so that they cannot vote in the presidential primary, and there is significant evidence that patches have been installed on many of the computers that tabulate the votes so to flip votes for Bernie Sanders into votes for his rival, Hillary Clinton.

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Moreover, the media is refusing to publish the results of the exit polls in the previous state primaries.  Exit polls serve as a measure of how people actually voted.  The media's refusal to publish the polling data indicates that the data called into the question the validity of the published electoral results.  Conveniently, there were no exit polls for the California, which is extremely odd since it send more delegates than any other state to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.  If that were not enough, the newswire, Associated Press, announced the day before the primaries were to be held that Hillary Clinton had already clinched the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, a clear attempt to lower the participation rate for Sanders' supporters.

Finally, what the fuck is up with President Obama endorsing Clinton before the results of the California primary have been declared official?  I guess he would know better than anyone else that the fix was on.  Most probably, the FBI investigation into the possibility of Hillary having engaged in illegal behavior with regard to her emails while she was Secretary of State has been derailed.  It would look very bad for Obama to endorse a candidate who has been charged with having committed a felony, which calls into question why would he be so quick to endorse her when she has not yet been cleared of the accusations of improper behavior.

The strategy is straight forward.  Bury Bernie as quickly as possible, so the momentum of moving forward to confront the media clown, devil incarnate, Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump will make people forget about the electoral fraud and focus their attention on the media's melodramatic presentation of the US Presidential election.  Clearly, this is an instance of the tail wagging the dog, America's liberal elite aided by its financial and media friends controlling how the electoral process will unfold for the population at large.

However, the shit has yet to hit the fan.  Considering the number of Americans who know realize that they have been duped, building a security fence around the arena in which the Democratic National Convention might not be enough.  Maybe, they will need a moat, water cannons, and tons of tear gas to repel the peasants storming the Bastille with pitchforks in hand. 

Will cooler heads prevail?  I sincerely hope so.  Yet I can't help but feel that what's about to be played out will not be pretty.



Monday, June 6, 2016

Canada Is Cool Once Again

Our Prime Minister Justin.  Check out his tattoo.
Before coming out and saying so, I had to wait a bit.  I had to make sure that the Trudeau-led Liberals were the real thing.  There are times when electoral expectations are not met, and we find out that the new boss is not really much different from the old one.

By now, I think all Canadians realize our new government is much different from the previous one under Stephen Harper.  During Harper's majority government, I often found myself is some uncomfortable situations when travelling in Europe, having to explain what had happened to Canada.  It is difficult to put into words how we had lost our collective mojo.  We had become as cool as a cardigan sweater.

Of course, that's all changed.  Sunny ways have pushed back the dark days of Harper.  It all begins with our newly elected Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.  Is this guy cool or what?  Obama didn't have a choice but to invite Justin to join him for a State Dinner in Washington.  Obama knows cool when he sees it.

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Since then, we have seen Justin holding a couple of pandas in his arms, greeting Syrian refugees at the airport, and inadvertently bumping a female Member of Parliament when trying to rescue a member of the opposition when he had been surrounded by members of another party who were attempting to prevent this member from voting on an important piece of legislation.  Shortly thereafter, Justin, in the epitome of what it means to be Canadian, apologized for his "unruly" behavior, and promptly received a standing ovation.  Only Canadians can understand how his gesture captures who we are.

But I have a confession to make.  During the recent electoral campaign, I sent a photo of Trudeau after he was jumped upon by young woman (also porting a tattoo) during a Gay Pride Parade in Vancouver, and wrote to my Mexican-American friend that Justin was simply way too cool to become our Prime Minister.

Canadians proved my wrong.  (OK, it was our stupid electoral system that gave him a majority government but that's what it is designed to do.  I'll get to this in a bit.)

Now, we have the coolest leader in the G20, the only one who has a visible tattoo.  The Americans are drooling.  Poor devils, they are soon going to have to endure a Presidential campaign featuring a contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, which is like being forced to listen to a radio that has only two stations, one for polka, the other for Japanese speed metal.  These are the choices?

Now, don't get me wrong.  Canada is not cool because Justin is our Prime Minister.  No, Justin is our Prime Minister because Canada is cool.

Now that I am older and having traveled a bit, I realize the Great White North is a cool place to live, and not only during the winter.  We have it right, a balance between freedom and social measures to make the notion of freedom meaningful for everyone: single payer health care, decent public education, affordable post-secondary education, an advanced mixed economy, but, more importantly, a social milieu that respects the fundamental human rights articulated and defended by Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  I live in a place where prejudice in whatever form is not accepted, whether it be based on colour, race, gender, sexual orientation, or religious belief.  Moreover, we have moved as a society to realize that our cultural restrictions of our Judeo-Christian past are no longer applicable in the 21st century.  People can marry their same sex partners, smoke marijuana if they chose to, and, if of sound mind, end their days with the aid of physician.  In other words, we care for each other without imposing our beliefs upon others.  That's very cool.

In closing, I have another confession to make.  I had been thinking about this post for a couple of weeks and I was going to entitle it: "Canada Is Cool, Except When It Comes To Sharing Power".  The reason?  Well, after promising to change Canada's electoral system, it appeared that the Trudeau-led liberals were going to continue to the practice of stacking the important committee looking into electoral reform so to give themselves absolute control of this legislative process even though they had not won a majority of votes during the last election -- a glaring anomaly if one is sincere about democratic reform.  However, the representation on this committee was changed.  It now reflects in a much better way the diversity of political views in Canada.

Again, I was overly pessimistic.  Maybe, I had lost my cool.  Maybe, Canada had attained a level of cool and I hadn't noticed.  Maybe, it took a new leader to show us how cool we had become.

Sunny ways, Justin, sunny ways Canada.  I stand on guard for thee.