Then one day a Clinton was honest...

In an excerpt from her new book, run by most news outlets on August 23rd 2017, Hillary Clinton revealed what she was thinking during the second presidential debate against Donald Trump. In many ways she also revealed much more than this, why liberalism is doomed; why suicide rates are always climbing; why modern 'leftists' are utterly ineffectual; the attraction of demagogues who 'say what everyone else is only thinking'.

"It was one of those moments when you wished you could hit pause & ask everyone watching, well, what would you do?
A. Do you stay calm, keep smiling, and carry on as if he weren't repeatedly invading your space?
B. Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly back up you creep, get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can't intimidate me, so back up.
I chose option A. I kept my cool aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off. I did however grip the microphone extra hard. I wonder though, whether I should have chosen option B. It certainly would have been better TV. Maybe I have overlearned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to the world."

The first thing that struck me was her use of the term chose.
Saying she "chose option A." seems to underplay the almost programmatic way in which even everyday people, those who haven't undergone PR training and public image consultations, act as though they are "determined to present a composed face to the world", and actually do seem to succeed a large part of the time. Furthermore, is this not an almost exact parallel of the distinction between small talk & authentic communication in everyday life? When asked how we are today by a smiling shop assistant don't we all tend to choose an equivalent to Mrs Clinton's A. regardless of how we may actually feel?

Herein lie some of the unwritten rules of communication in our society. Although the question "how are you?" implies a personability & conveys a sense of friendly interest, it is frequently deployed by absolute strangers, often in situations precluding a thorough or honest answer. Even among closest siblings this question how are you, has become a phrase of greeting, perhaps through habit more than choice, the depth of the question, (implying the respondent actually has a clue how they are, or spends any time thinking about that) lends itself to being flippantly dispatched. There's kind of an unspoken agreement that our emotional state can stay locked up, at least perhaps until the weekend, when we are both sufficiently inebriated to be unable to recall, any of what may escape our mouths while drinking.

Mrs Clinton describes this aversion to open & honest expression literally as a rule or "lesson", usually learnt in childhood, the repression of our impulsivity, creativity, curiosity etc,. She resorts to an almost Catholic self mortification, "digging her nails into a clenched fist", enacting the violence of her impulse upon herself, when in reality she would wish to project it upon Trump. To me it's striking how far she doesn't go in her description of B. Politically she seems like a realist, I expect she has authorized, cheered, and helped to achieve various executions of people considered enemies of America, I imagine she understands the reality of warfare & that we must fight for all that is good in the world.

If we take her at her word, that she did consciously make the choice of A. over B. the only explanation for this would be the influence of a consciousness that seeks to give what it thinks, or has through opinion polling, focus groups, consumer surveys, etc,. determined, the other person wants to hear.
So when describing B. later, her apparent methodology would suggest she is bound not to say what she thinks, but rather to reinforce an image of responsible, assertive, strong leadership, something favourable in her quest for political popularity.
Perhaps she didn't say in private to Bill: "I wanted to leap at him and start liberating his brains from his head with the microphone" at all, perhaps she never once even thought of subjecting her opponent to this level of violence, or of declaring him an enemy of the state, a curr & an abomination, of his colleagues as being a den of vipers, a virus that has plagued humanity for too long that she will stamp out for the good of Humanity if given the chance, but to me that merely suggests that this tendency towards "presenting a composed face to the world", but also a polite, well behaved, refined, virtuous persona, is a lot more deeply ingrained.

From the super-Ego of Hillary Clinton we proceed to the social antagonism that was her undoing, and will be the undoing of Liberal forms of Capitalism, if centrist candidates continue to appear less relatable, than a coalition of Religious fundamentalists & free market millionaires. The prevalence of advertising & susceptibility of people to it's numerous techniques is a worrying development in the societies governed by 'Centrists' for decades, which keep failing to raise the consciousness of large numbers of their population, enabling religious/free schools; 'freedom (to lie) of the press'; cult literature; unchecked proselytizing of religion etc,. through their esteem of compromise, tolerance & their hollow, egoistic concept of 'freedom'.

Trump in his ways and mannerisms, as well as his words did actually demonstrate a knowledge of the rules & customs of social etiquette surrounding public discourse, but only it seems in order to flagrantly flaunt them, & the media (representing the same social class as Hillary) in their outrage flocked to oppose him, publicizing & in effect popularizing his divisive message, to an audience already suspicious of the media, which was now in effect openly 'supporting' thus defining Hillary, as the establishment candidate.
He really channeled a degree of Id energy which set him apart from his opponents in the Republican primaries & eventually Hillary. By his frequent acts of transgression, of skirting around, touching upon, indulging that which should not be indulged, by being un-PC, or at least hinting towards harbouring politically incorrect views, Trump came to embody a spirit of rebellion that has been stoked for decades by one of his loudest supporters, Alex Jones & has existed for generations among descendants of Confederate soldiers, White Supremacists, & Cold Warriors.

Everything about his term in office so far, suggests he will continue to exploit the Id energies. His enemies are still struggling in a world based on neatly ordered definitions & classifications, to adequately deal with him; by the time the media makes a case against one of his many faux-pas', he just creates another, even worse one via Twitter, serving to distract from the media's narrative, to render inconsequential their concerns, & to divert the focus of their coverage away from his policies. The media's relation to Trump is akin to man's relation to Women described by Nietzsche in Twighlight of the Idols...

"Women are considered profound. Why?

Because we never fathom their depths. 

But women aren't even shallow." 

The association of the Id in Liberal capitalist societies with humour & the ridiculous, confines his most vocal critics to the role of public entertainers, while powerful opponents are constrained in dealing with him by the very rules & customs they are bound to uphold, though these in no way impede Trump. The implications of guilt in firing FBI staff investigating him, were less of a concern than the sheer egoic gratification of exercising power in that totally self absorbed way, the pleasure he derived in mocking a disabled reporter to obtain laughs from his audience, was more of a motivating factor than any hurt he may have caused, the latter likely not figuring too often in the psychic world of a powerful sociopath. Many of his behaviours, & particularly his statements come across as pre-rational, counter-intuitive, impulsive, chaotic, confusing, in the mold of all 'anti-establishment' Truth Fetishists. He says what everyone is thinking, or more accurately reflects some of the impulses that exist in everyone at a pre-cognitive level, abstract fears, instincts, insecurities etc,.



________________
"Their origin in unconscious id processes is what gives Trump's remarks their undeniable sense of authenticity-- their truth-effect. It also explains their unpredictability, their forcefulness, and the way they disrupt and outrage common sense and decency. Trump's critics argue that he seems thoughtless and unreflective but that is precisely the source of his power."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eli-zaretsky/american-id-freud-on-trum_b_10105596.html

notes on the Alt-Right (incomplete)...

20/04/2017

The first thing that might have struck anyone acquainted with the alt-Right & their arguments, is that it's pretty futile trying to dispute the accuracy of their claims. Even those propagating many of the alt-Right's 'deplorable' racial & conspiracy theories, seem pretty unconcerned about their factual accuracy. In a long tradition of radical right wing propaganda, the emotional impact of sensationalist accusations emerging from a constant hum of self-reproducing 'anti-establishment' white-noise, seems to be what is important.

Jean-Paul Sartre had already written about the tendency to flaunt accepted standards of social discourse, prevalent among anti-Semites just after the liberation of Paris from Nazi forces around 1944.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. "[1]

Like the Radical Right of the past, not all alt-Right adherents are anti-Semitic, which is a major cause of disagreement between them, but the conceptual framework underpinning anti-Semitism, & tendency towards hysteric exaggeration is universal to them all. Sartre could have easily been describing any number of widely read, if not obscure online conspiracy forums, vlogs, blogs & news outlets, churning out sensationalist garbage every day, inculcating blame for predictable market failures & inadequacies, not to mention personal ones, to some nefarious conceptual figure.

From some alt-Right blog. On the left you can see the Ultra-Conservative, White Nationalist, contingent, pitted against the more ambiguous, more libertarian, apparently 'Jew controlled' arm of the alt-Right..

The obvious thing to say is that although they are all deeply conservative in one way or another, they differ on some fundamental issues, in much the same way as different elements within the Nazi party, the UK Conservative Party & the Radical Right of the 80's & 90's.

On one hand are those generally inhabiting a higher socio-economic sphere, who seek to conserve the power of the individual & private corporations which they see as being eroded by the State, who's various regulations, the result of the conflicts ongoing between various competing forms of power & influence: organized labour; scientific, ecological, international institutions; the institution of government itself, particularly in it's supra national emanations, etc,. threaten long established interests. Their ideological values are pretty irrelevant, besides signifying some brand of modern Capitalist objectivism derived from Randian 'principles'[2]. They largely identify as libertarian, against strong government, until in the case of Alex Jones their boyhood crush Donald Trump becomes commander in chief, then they excessively fawn over & align themselves to power wielded by the unholy alliance of Capital & Religion. They view the current wave of refugees, or potential influence of other cultures, & other ways of life with deep suspicion and animosity, they favor political isolationism, defense spending, home schooling & the zero to little state 'interference' in their liberty. They are fundamentally interested in businesses, conducting business and making money. In pre-Nazi Germany these were the likes of Fritz Thyssen, Hjalmar Schacht, Albert Voegler, Gustav & Alfried Krupp, industrial tycoons of huge wealth and influence who funded Hitler's Nationalist party, lobbied him to clamp down on Socialist groups & Trade Unions, and even eventually to purge the radical Strasserites within the Nazi party, during the infamous "Night of the Long Knives". The point here is not their ideological 'purity' or their Germanic values, but purely their wealth & financial interests, in that sense they are fundamentally conservative, & perfectly represented by the alignment of interests based around Donald Trump.

On the other hand, are the element from what Hegel had referred to previously as, the rabble[3]. Those who seek to halt what they define as, 'the negative effects of the decadent liberal Jewish conspiracy to undermine aryan nations', through greater state control and influence over the individual, meaning social imperialism, forging the race, ridding it's weak elements etc,. They are more often found online where they have exploited access to centuries of historical conspiracy literature, declassified CIA mind control literature & research to develop propaganda campaigns, & use some of the most advanced technological means of communication to resurrect some of the most regressive ideas in human history. These are people who have left the world to seek the answers as to why they failed or continue to fail in that world, they constitute not only the majority of infantry personnel, but the majority of members of extremist groups of all varieties. They are the victims of our inherently & increasingly alienated, technological societies, reaching for any means of escape, obtaining security or assuming an identity. They react to the vague awareness of social control of one group of people by another, more powerful group, & find demagogues ready to exploit this loss of personal control and responsibility, and their need to place blame for misfortune elsewhere.
In this particular social dynamic they represent the bondsmen to an ersatz Master, variously misrepresented by the upper echelons of the Capitalist class, as "Liberal Commies like Obama", "big Gubmint", "The Globalist conspiracy" etc,. through their huge multimedia networks, printing presses and propaganda campaigns.

Hitler was rabble, a failed painter & serviceman in WWI often living among the disenfranchised, criminals & betrayed veterans of his era. He was influenced by mystics, demagogues & the grand mythic narratives of upheaval & radical transformation prevalent in Germany at that time. The band of thugs he accumulated in the years prior to establishing dominion, emanated the raw assertive power being fetishized in Italy by Benito Mussolini, & with the support of influential interests they fast became became the fascist shock troops of a state run expansionist machine. Hitler was the talisman which bridged the two worlds of exploited German citizen & exploiting capitalist class. His religious cult besides being a tool of great use for the masters above him, and a deeply motivating ideology for the bondsmen beneath his command, was the matrix unifying 'Germany' in a false totality, giving a more global and historical sense to the events they lived directly, and learned to disavow with the disappearance of their neighbours, friends & relatives.

As of yet the alt-Right lack this kind of talismanic figure, two of the forerunner's are pictured on the far left of the above picture, however Andre Anglin and Richard Spencer are particularly ridiculous, and not taken anywhere near as seriously as Milo or Alex Jones in the establishment discourse, the latter appearing, often favorably, among the likes of Piers Morgan & Bill Maher. The investigation of talismanic mass effect, such as that of Hitler, should proceed from the presupposition that a Fuhrer, or the champion of an idea, can be successful, only if their personal point of view, ideology or program, bears a resemblance to the average structure of a broad section of individuals in society.
What particular historical, economic, material situations contribute towards the development & determine the shape of these structures?


~What do you think will be the effect of them making reality even less comprehensible to themselves?
Will inserting these fraudulent, frequently paranoid narratives & ideas between themselves and reality, eventually sever what is apparently already a very tenuous link?~



___________

[1] Anti-Semite & Jew, J.P Sartre, 1944 

[2] "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, appendix 

 [3]"When the standard of living of a large mass of people falls below a certain subsistence level – a level regulated automatically as the one necessary for a member of the society – and when there is a consequent loss of the sense of right and wrong, of honesty and the self-respect which makes a man insist on maintaining himself by his own work and effort, the result is the creation of a rabble of paupers. At the same time this brings with it, at the other end of the social scale, conditions which greatly facilitate the concentration of disproportionate wealth in a few hands." GWF Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 244 Reading section 240-247 really reminds me of what little bits of Mein Kampf I can remember reading.



 The underlying mechanism driving a witch craze is the cycling of information through a closed system. Medieval witch crazes existed because the internal and external components of a feedback loop periodically occurred together, with deadly results. Internal components include the social control of one group of people by another, more powerful group, a prevalent feeling of loss of personal control and responsibility, and the need to place blame for misfortune elsewhere; external conditions include socioeconomic stresses, cultural and political crises, religious strife, and moral upheavals (see Macfarlane 1970; Trevor-Roper 1969).  pg101

The motive, like the movement, is repeated historically from century to century as a shunt for personal responsibility—fob off your problems on the nearest enemy, the more evil the better. And who fits the bill better than Satan himself, along with his female co-conspirator, the witch? As sociologist Kai Erikson observed, "Perhaps no other form of crime in history has been a better index to social disruption and change, for outbreaks of witchcraft mania have generally taken place in societies which are experiencing a shift of religious focus—societies, we would say, confronting a relocation of boundaries"  pg 107
Michael Shermer  

http://metro.co.uk/2017/05/17/convicted-paedophile-claims-he-killed-madeleine-mccann-6643018/ ‘There’s a difference between narcissistic behaviour and the truth. The reasons I lied was to service my own purposes. I’ve got no reason to lie about anything else.’
He added: ‘I’d rather people hate me than nothing at all. At least it’s an emotion. I want people to love me or hate me. I don’t want people to think I’m insignificant.’

The middle class, middle of the road, mediocre media fixation on Jeremy Corbyn...

Another day another hit piece on the Labour Party & it's elected leader, this time regular contributor to the white noise of hatred surrounding Jeremy Corbyn, & proud ex-member of the Labour Party Nick Cohen has unsheathed his pen (19/03), delivering a sensationalist prelude to Deputy leader Tom Watson's anti-Corbyn appearance on Sky News (20/03). This time, our bastion of centrist compromise, frequently writing to complain about 'the left' for the unapologetically right wing Spectator magazine, has graced the pages of the Guardian, to drive a stake into the heart of any remaining good will towards Jeremy Corbyn.

His issue is unequivocal, "get rid of Corbyn, the bearded old lefty has no chance! he lost us the EURef! He's a Russian Agent working for Iran to shake the hand's of Muslim terrorists! Corbyn is to blame for the rise of Trump & Pepe le Frog". Yes to quote Mr Cohen, "far from building a new consensus for previously unthinkable leftist ideas, Corbyn’s victory has allowed the right to run riot."[1] Who could have conceived of a Donald Trump presidency without the appointment of Jeremy Corbyn to Labour leader? Who could have imagined UKIP's success was possible, without Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour party at the end of their decades long campaign to move British Politics towards ultra nationalism? Who would buy the Daily Mail if it wasn't for the specter of a marginally socialist Labour leader?

"On current polling, Labour will get around a quarter of the vote. Imagine, though, how the Labour party will fare in an election campaign when its leaders are Corbyn, John McDonnell, Emily Thornberry and Diane Abbott, and its second XI consists of Clive Lewis, Angela Rayner, Richard Burgon and Rebecca Long-Bailey." [1]

They will surely not do very well if their second XI consists of IV people, but what exactly is the criticism of these individuals which Mr Cohen's intimates? None is apparent, and this is a recurring trend, we're asked to take everything at face value about Corbyn's electability, the competency of his team, the validity of the polls, shown to be redundant at predicting the outcome of not only the EURef & Trump victory, but also the 2015 General Election. Imagining all this is true, the polls are correct, etc,. still one is left in the dark as to a concrete reason for his unelectability. Far be it from me to decide, but surely the point of Journalism is to understand the why's and wherefore's of a situation, to analyze causes rather than continually assert one's own prejudicial conclusions?

"The Tories have gone easy on Corbyn and his comrades to date for the transparently obvious reason that they want to keep them in charge of Labour. In an election, they would tear them to pieces. They will expose the far left’s record of excusing the imperialism of Vladimir Putin’s gangster state , the oppressors of women and murderers of gays in Iran, the IRA, and every variety of inquisitorial and homicidal Islamist movement, while presenting itself with hypocritical piety as a moral force."

Maybe Mr Cohen thinks he's also been 'going easy' with his constant repetition of Corbyn's tenuous 'links' to the Russian Defense Dpt, Iranian theocracy & Irish republicanism, maybe he also thinks the right wing media, BBC's Laura Keunsberg, the Government benches, numerous Grauniad writers, other members of the liberal intelligentsia, and every two bit blogger who feels aligned to the cause of centrist capitulation, have also been "going easy on him"? With their constant echoing of the above accusations, & endless recitals of the unexplained, unsubstantiated unelectability mantra, since day one of his original leadership campaign.
They certainly seem to have had little effect, at least among those who's confidence in the frequently irrelevant, increasingly impotent and entirely un-self critical mainstream media, has understandably declined in recent years.


But since Mr Cohen has been gracious enough to at least hint to an explanation for Mr Corbyn's supposed unelectability, let us at least weigh the evidence meagre though it is, & decide if these claims really do set Mr Corbyn apart as a truly unelectable politician.

Not only has David Cameron enjoyed a close personal relationship with Putin's gangster state in recent years, but Tony Blair has publicly stated that despite numerous questionable political assassinations & his aggression towards Georgia in 2008 & Ukraine more recently, the UK and America have "a complete identity of interest" with Russia & also the authoritarian Capitalist State of China, against Islamic fundamentalism.[2] Despite believable testimony of war crimes occurring in Chechnya, South Ossetia & Ukraine, many G20 Nations have maintained cordial relations with Russia, & the UK government continued to allow the production & distribution of Russian State media on British airwaves. 
But hang on, we're not talking about shaking hands, and enjoying aperitifs with the Dictator of Russia, or as the Financial Times[3] suggests, selling off London's swankiest real estate to well-to-do Russians and Ukrainians who, "are trying to shift more cash into London property ... amid indications that eastern European oligarchs are using the capital’s housing market to conceal their assets from international sanctions", because of the Conservative government's generous tax 'enforcement' policies. 


Jeremy Corbyn's crime is having merely appeared a number of times on Russia Today, and though I am sympathetic to him, perhaps it's possible for us to entertain the idea, that offering alternative portrayals of British people & politicians on foreign media outlets, showing we don't all wear top hats, or sit on fortunes many global citizen's families were enslaved and exploited to create, is a productive thing to do?
Further it can't have escaped your notice just how stuffy British television actually is, particularly in regard to politics, compare ABC's excellent QandA to our own BBC's Question Time or Any Questions, there's something infinitely more free flowing and insightful about QandA, it feels like much more of a normal conversation than a reiteration of the last weeks newspaper headlines, there are frequently scientific advocates, religious thinkers, radical voices & a generally more inclusive feel. Russia Today despite many of it's obvious flaws, does offer a diversity of voice, opinion & agenda that is sadly lacking in the UK, and it's easy to see why somebody more or less reviled by the entire UK Media, would seek an outlet for what I personally think are important ideas, informing vitally important policies, elsewhere.

Not only is ex-Prime Minister Blair happy to cosy up to Russia in Syria, he's comfortable around a whole range of authoritarian dictators, he's met with Hamas, insists upon working with them to develop channels & bring about some kind of political process in the Israel Palestine conflict, he's a regular visitor in the gay hating and woman oppressing Kingdom of Saudi Arabia working at one point as an advisor for one of their State oil companies, he's known to be close to the dictator of Kazakhstan offering his services at $5million per year, the list goes on and on around the globe. He shook hands with the IRA, he was the face of the good friday agreement, but would any of his work there have been achievable without politicians like John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, keeping channels open & working to encourage IRA operators to deal with the Labour Party? I imagine without their contributions the Queen would never have met and shaken the hand of former IRA member Martin McGuinness.

Surely this is exactly what politics is about? Working to bring diverse, disparate and often antagonistic interests round a table to communicate in a civil manner? Mr Cohen's thinking appears to have become very polarized in his old age. Or perhaps it was ever thus? I have less time to waste finding out than may be apparent.

But apparently not, Mr Cohen informs us politics is really about slapping the wrists, if not punching your political opponents, and he doesn't even mean literally, just cheap symbolic talking points & point scoring for the media to fawn over, his argument seems to be that "Corbyn's just not theatrical enough daaahling".
There's also considerable double standards at work here, "he and his hopeless frontbench have not forced one Tory minister to resign or even endure a sleepless night", I don't know of any politician who was forced to resign because of a few snarky comments from the opposition, it's usually a combination of consistent failures on the part of an incumbent, exploited by a rival politician often in the same party, underpinned by a deep wellspring of animosity in the Media, or just simple old criminality that causes resignations.


The effect of media coverage in the way it produces a coherent narrative of an individual's public image, clearly has a tremendous effect on the way it's consumers respond to that image. Sadly many people's entire political worldview is constructed by bits and pieces assimilated from 24hr media coverage, why else would legions of self described "moderates" take to the media with calls for their democratically elected leader to stand down? Why else would more or less every political party or movement employ PR firms or at least their techniques?  This was particularly evident with the pre-Cameron Conservatives, when I.D.S & William Hague were chased out of office by a media establishment obsessed by appearances.

This obsession with the image & more or less symbolic role of leader has been and still is, in effect determining the parameters of political discussion. The standard of PR firms employed, the deceptive simplicity of policy soundbites and sloganeering, the ability to score cheap points, the way one eats a bacon sandwich, these have become the deciding factors in a political system almost entirely mediated by professionalized media, not the substance.

Perhaps we are edging towards an understanding of why exactly, the liberal intelligentsia are unable to explain their convictions about the unelectability of Corbyn. It has to do with the strange modern phenomena in which power is symbolically disavowed, not made a show of, occulted in pursuit of more power. In the case of Brexit we're told that Parliament has no control, that Brussels makes all our laws, we can't control our own borders etc. For Trump it was the "swamp of Washington" regulating all the power away from big business. In these two examples the winners portrayed themselves as challenging the power of a dominant ideological consensus, as powerless victims of the overreach of 'big government', of the lies of mainstream media, despite the very obvious reality of an increasing disparity between the actual power of business, & the ability of public regulation to contain it's worst aspects.

As the dominant political force Tories cannot explain his unelectability as that would imply revealing the numerous ways in which, through nudge theory; the false comparisons between national & home economics; fueling the SNP's rise; calculated appeals to base self interest; budget surplus laws; constituency boundary changes, etc,. they've been trying to make Labour in general unelectable. It would involve revealing the extent of power yielded by the interests they represent & who fund them, not to mention the ruthless machiavellian way in which they've used power to consolidate power & undermine democracy since 2010.

Those in the media who echo Nick Cohen's sentiments towards Jeremy, come under one of two designations, you have the manufacturer of right wing propaganda who simply doesn't have to explain Jeremy Corbyn's unelectability, merely assert it endlessly like a self fulfilling prophecy, claim he's best friends with Hizbollah etc,. & eventually bring about his rejection by osmosis. This is presumably who Nick has decided to imitate with his article & they constitute the majority, in terms of sympathetic outlets and potential reach.

The other are members of the Liberal intelligentsia, the reign of experts and technocrats the rise of populism is such an obvious rejection of. They are Labour members, ex-members, MP's, ex-MP's, journalists, academics & commentators, from Stephen Hawking to Owen Jones, they are Guardianistas & assorted yuppies. They supported Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham & Liz Kendall, also Owen Smith, all unsuccessful in elections against the apparently unelectable Jeremy Corbyn.

Despite the fact that this socio-economic sphere would never consider itself an institution of class power or force for class repression, it undoubtedly is, and this is part of the reason for, as well as the reason why it's members lack the ability to accurately explain Jeremy Corbyn's unelectability.
They recognize that not only do overtly and committed rightwing forces dominate the cultural and political landscape, which is to say they have been & continue to be an ineffective force for progress, for advancing knowledge and awareness, but also that they themselves & their frequent readers aren't ideologically too dissimilar from those very forces.

One senses they would be better accomodated inside the Liberal Democrats, if the lust for power which has seen them colonize the Labour Party over the decades, didn't preclude that. They are people who are quite comfortable with conservatism, having usually a great deal worth conserving, and who live quite comfortably under a Conservative government, in a Conservative constituency on a conservative Island. It's the drive to conserve a Liberal Democrat Labour Party that sees them revile in horror at the current leadership.
By echoing the sentiments of the right, and expanding the reach of right wing propaganda, they confirm the biases of an audience being told from all sides, almost everyday, on radio, tv and in print, "Corbyn's unelectable".

With his lofty insights & rigorously constructed arguments he tells anyone still supporting Corbyn, to "stop being a fucking fool by changing your fucking mind." All we who value Corbyn's alternative political platform are asking is, please give everyone a moments peace, or better yet inform them! Of the pain and hardship people are forced to endure in the name of Corporatism, welfare reform and 'balancing the budget', that we may all begin to think clearly for ourselves about the direction we want  to choose.



________

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/19/jeremy-corbyn-labour-threat-party-election-support?CMP=share_btn_tw

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2611735/Make-friends-Putin-fight-Islamic-extremists-says-Blair-Former-PM-accused-simple-minded-analysis-comments-annexation-Crimea-not-prevent-cooperation-issue.html

[3] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ddc9944-cbd3-11e3-a934-00144feabdc0.html#axzz312Ia6ZPp

On current events, people & their opiums...

The potential for knowledge, wisdom and understanding has never been greater than in today's world, where information is constantly being produced, recorded and consumed. Every home has at least a television screen if not also Internet access, through which global events are reported by numerous state owned, independent, amateur & professional media outlets. So why then are we witnessing an apparent decline in consciousness throughout Europe and America, a sort of regression to childlike simplicity, authoritarianism and an increase in the products of ignorance such as xenophobia, fear, irrationality & paranoia?

I.             The explanation apparently favoured by the liberal intelligentsia, is the idea of 'Post-Truth' media and politics. The Oxford Dictionaries named the adjective "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief,"[1] it's 'word of the year' for 2016, where political polarization & appeals to pathos were the defining characteristics of the EUref & US election. The phenomena is often attributed to the rise of 'independent' online media outlets, which are un-constrained by the running costs of professional media, being (overtly) usually only comprised of a small team for whom social media is a cheap, unregulated platform offering direct, intimate access to masses of people's lives, at any time, anywhere on the planet.

This is just the latest in a long line of self aggrandizing emanations, from an increasingly irrellevent political and media mainstream, in which they demonstrate a complete absence of self-reflection & their alienation from large swathes of the population. Adherents of the Fukuyamaist notion of 'History having ended' with the fall of the Berlin Wall, of this being a 'post-Ideological' world founded on the acceptance of the capitalist market, and liberal state as the foundational structures of a healthy economy, have had a rocky few years.

According to this pervasive ideology, liberal capitalist Democracy is the best of all possible worlds, only to be improved upon slightly by moderate reforms, implemented first by marginally Left of center Governments, favouring 'redistributive' social policies such as a 50% tax rate for the highest earners, to fund State run public services; investment in infrastructure; social welfare etc,.--- and then by marginally Right of center Governments, favouring 'free market' economic policies, such as a 40% tax rate for the highest earners; the introduction of the profit motive and competition into State run public services; selling off  infrastructure etc,. The pendulum swing of policy making produced by this situation, often referred to as 'consensus politics', offers not only the illusion of Democratic choice, but also various investors the confidence that any changes will be marginal, their effects entirely predictable and in no way irreversible.

Until a few years ago, this was the accepted, dominant model of politics in not only the British, European & American democratic system, but having been exported, shaped and instituted by those Nations, in more or less every Democratic state in the World. In large part it's failures have been the cause of growing populist counter movements, and basis of numerous sensationalist critiques from extremes of both the Left & Right Wing.

This way of doing things while superficially avoiding conflicts & ideological antagonisms, repressing them through moderate, symbolic concessions to all sides, is apparently leading to greater conflicts and antagonisms both internally, and with other Nations further along the path of rejecting the Liberal Democratic consensus. Particularly those manufacturing more extreme forms of Autocratic absolutism, such as Russia under Patriarch Kirill and Vladimir Putin, Libya under Ghaddafi, Assad's Syria & Saddam's Iraq.

II.            The explanation offered by those accused of employing these underhanded propaganda techniques, is surprisingly not too different. It runs something along the lines of: 'people are waking up to the lies and propaganda of mainstream media & politicians', we are asked to believe 'they support 'mavericks' who reject the mainstream narrative'. The President of the USA himself a supposed maverick, has accused many professional outlets of manufacturing "Fake-News", & consequently banned the likes of CNN & the BBC from White House press briefings. All it took were a few crowd pleasing slogans like "drain the swamp", & repetition ad-nauseum how 'anti-establishment' he is, for him to quickly assume the mantle of anti-establishment hero amongst his supporters, despite being very obviously a millionaire businessman more interested in his holiday privileges & personal advancement, than serving the interests of the American people, or upholding the Constitution. As he said during his election campaign; "I love poorly educated people."
 
It seems this rejection, the abstract, symbolic act in itself, whether of Hillary Clinton or the EU, is the motivating, determining factor in their apparent popularity, regardless of the alternative policies proposed, or lack thereof, potential repercussions etc,. In this sense as some have suggested, being based exclusively on action (the act of rejection) without any coherent theoretical aims or underpinnings, these movements do resemble fascism.

When the victors of the aforementioned popularity contests declare their respective campaigns as 'revolutions', or 'the people fighting back against the establishment', it is the bland, conformist Liberal democratic system of consensus politics they are encouraging the rejection of, in favour of a more radical conservatism. This terminology stolen from the Left obscures their radical counter-revolutionary, 'reactionary' nature, and is yet another example of the way in which Conservative forces have set about redefining the content & meaning of words, in order to weaponize political language for use in widescale psychological subversion. They bemoan the "state of the race" or Nation, & seek to 'repair the harm's' they perceive liberalism, Jews, Feminists, 'race-mixing', promiscuity, Homosexuals & Communists are doing. Roughly, the reversal of minimal progress they misrepresent variously as Marxist, Jewish, Feminist etc,. subversion, is what is meant by the empty slogan "make America great again".

So we see two diametrically opposed explanations, both seemingly designed to influence the thoughts and actions of what is treated as a passive, entirely impressionable mass, in relation to each group's general political opponents. While both generally agree that 'Leftists', assorted groups of feminists, radical activist networks & students or "SJW's", are to blame, in the case of centrists for the rise of the radical Right, & in the case of the radical Right for the effects of centrist policy over the last decade, the Liberal media is telling you the alt-media is lying, & vice versa, while Right Wing populists are telling you Liberal centrists are lying, & vice versa. Here at least, both appear to have a point.

III.           Though we're told we've entered a 'post-truth' era, has there ever actually been a time in the history of the world, when those with the power to manipulate human emotions, thoughts & actions haven't done so? When people haven't made use of other's ignorance, fears and desires in order to further their own agenda? Or where institutions of power and control haven't provided numerous 'opiums' to shield their followers from painful realities?

We can read from around the time of the founding of the United States, when Thomas Paine rightfully rebuked the tendency towards melodrama "where facts are manufactured for the sake of show, and accommodated to produce, through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping effect."; through the propaganda techniques elaborated by the Nazi party in WWII; to the recent exposure of "sexed up" 'truths' in the case made for the War in Iraq, that we've actually never reached a state of universal, widespread, or even general veracity in everyday life.

Despite the progress made during & since the rational enlightenment, the large majority of human beings are still denied, by material circumstances, social status and the proliferation of ideology, either a rational or enlightened perspective on the realities they endure. The political framework which has sustained our "post-ideological" world is collapsing, and with it the framework which sustains definitions of fetishized concepts such as Democracy, progress & truth, to name just a few. Even the term enlightenment in the 21st century, is more commonly attributed to the solipsism of a Siddhartha Gautama, or sought in an Indian ashram, rather than the radical inquiries of a David Hume or Francis Bacon.

It seems as though one of many antagonisms within the Capitalist economic system is coming to fruition, it is despite all assertions to the contrary, a division within the establishment, namely that between traditionalists and modernizers; nationalists & globalists; romanticists & rationalists; high capitalists & aristocrats; monetarists & social Imperialists. It manifested recentley within the UK Conservative party, leading to the EUref as a means of salving such irreconcilable divisions, & consequent resignation of David Cameron & George Osborne. It also upended Margaret Thatcher's reign under similar circumstances decades earlier. These are emissaries of what one of the Trump movement's ideological father's, religious demagogue Pat Robertson, referred to as "The New World Order". Modernizing, free-trade policies threatening traditional bonds of Nation, Race, Monarchy & Church, bonds which have been loosened in Europe & which were severed in the USA, but which will now be strengthened there & accross Europe, as Nations begin to close their borders, emulate the primitive accumulation, & ultra-capitalist reforms enacted in Russia since the fall of Socialism.

Perhaps what we're witnessing is less the dawning of a new idea, than it is the declining relevance of an old one? The human face is being ripped off our capitalist Democracy, the Liberal political establishment's greedy bigger brother Capital, has stolen the facade and thrown it on a rubbish heap, where imperialistic & aristocratic values are using it to enhance the appeal of their decayed visage.


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[1]  President Casper Grathwohl's statement.
[2] "As to the tragic paintings by which Mr. Burke has outraged his own imagination, and seeks to work upon that of his readers, they are very well calculated for theatrical representation, where facts are manufactured for the sake of show, and accommodated to produce, through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping effect. But Mr. Burke should recollect that he is writing history, and not plays, and that his readers will expect truth, and not the spouting rant of high-toned exclamation."
"As Mr. Burke has passed over the whole transaction of the Bastille (and his silence is nothing in his favour), and has entertained his readers with refections on supposed facts distorted into real falsehoods, I will give, since he has not, some account of the circumstances which preceded that transaction."
Rights of Man

Three questions about jobseeking...

Do people grow up dreaming about "processing payment information to tight deadlines using advanced excel knowledge and attention to detail"?

Do they wake up one day with an incredible urge to "give clients a positive experience as you work to minimise risk, manage data protection and ensure compliance"?

Or are they thrust by circumstances beyond their control & understanding, to sell the only thing they own, their time and energy, to people without the inclination or need to do these things themselves?

On anglocentrism in it's negative form....

Anglocentrism~ The practice of viewing the world from English or Anglo-American perspective, with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of English or Anglo-American culture.

Liberals, 'leftists' and naive 'anti-war' critics of the USA & other English speaking countries, appear to me to be one side -the negative detracting side- of anglocentrism.
There is no teary eyed, flag waving patriotism behind this antithetical, ideological position, nor any kind of self righteous chauvinism that can be easily discerned in anglocentrism proper, yet I don't think it can be denied that there is a likely unconscious, but nonetheless strong sense of Anglo-American culture's primacy on the global stage.

For instance, this rather varied subgroup within Western societies, usually found in universities or on social media echo chambers of righteous socialist views, are frequently the most vocal critics of any military operations considered by UK or US Governments. All of these planned operations, no matter how benevolent or well intentioned, are described by this subgroup as "Imperialist Wars", which is to say resource grabs to sustain a non-existent Angloamerican Empire. Of course this is patently stupid, the language they're using here is probably a century or more out of date and barely corresponds to the situations they attempt to describe, still, their opposition to "The West"[1] is clearly more important than a genuine appraisal or understanding of modern situations.

The reason I think there is a anglocentrist attitude at work here, is because I catch glimpses of it while in disputation among these people, I will show a few examples, my interest is not in the factual accuracy of the claims, the substance of the arguments or lack thereof, but in the hints each position gives of a stunted, atrophied, simplistically dualistic and myopic view of the world, which represents a flip side, a self flagellating version of anglocentrism.

Firstly Iraq.
I often hear that Saddam Hussein was "put in power" by the West, that he was armed by the West, and supported by the West during his war against Iran. This I think is patently anglocentric, although implicitly so, as though these dark skinned sorts from the desert have neither the capability or desire to establish and run totalitarian State systems on their own behalf, that they couldn't plan or fight a war for their own interests or by their own initiative.

If you ask any average repeater of words to this effect, they will generally be ignorant as to the participation of German and French Governments and private companies, of Soviet Imperialism in arming and supporting the regime of Saddam Hussein, but more tellingly they will 9times out of 10 demonstrate a very tangible ignorance of social and economic conditions within Saddam's Iraq. The typical ignorance expected of a consumer of exclusively English speaking Media information? Or the kind of naivety, comfort and lack of empathy expected from people who grow up coddled in developed and democratic societies, and who assume in typically anglocentric fashion that elsewhere must be more or less the same. Perhaps they should read Kanan Makiya's book "Republic of Fear", maybe they'd begin to understand that fiction has barely yet conceived of a State as brutally sadistic, and arbitrarily violent as that of Saddam's Iraq?

So why do they still so vehemently oppose his removal? Maybe to their mind all 'evil' must originate, all negativity must be attributable to "The West", all examples of the West acting must be a manifestation of this evil acting against the 'poor hapless victims' they portray totalitarian dictators like Assad, Hussein or Qaddafi as?

I accept the West is far from covered in past-glories, but have these people stopped to consider that actually there are worse places, and that some of these might be inhabited by people fundamentally opposed to Western ideals of Liberal Democracy rather than acting on it's behalf?

Syria.
This was the most recent case of the West planning to go to War, sadly for the Syrian people, coming post Iraq and Libya, UK participation was put to a vote and was met with cumulative and most widespread resistance. The situation is familiar, rebellion of an oppressed majority seeking change and democracy, met with brutal repression at the hands of an authoritarian dictatorship, while the UK sits and watches (Kosovo & Bosnia, Yemen), but in this case it was popular sentiment which swayed our non-participation rather than cynical real-politik. The British public decided, and spent much of the week of the vote, demonstrating that Syrian people's lives are less important than the lives of a few hundred underused British military personnel, that it was more important to subsidize Western consumers', than support global aspirations towards democracy. How can British isolationism be anything other than anglocentric, regardless of how well intentioned it's advocates claim they are?

But there is further and similar accusation here to the case of Iraq, perhaps originating in foreign countries or Syria itself but certainly willingly adopted here, namely that the mass uprising of Syrian people was a "Western" intelligence operation, that these rebels and warriors for freedom were merely automatons, acting under the influence of Western Media and various Western seductions proliferated through the digital commons. This view seems to discount the Arab Spring, that this came as part of a series of public uprisings in the region against authoritarian, family dictatorships, in favour of democracy. Why were people reluctant to believe Syrians wanted democracy, if they do believe the mass of Syrians wanted democracy, why were they reluctant for their Government's to support this struggle? I feel that beneath answers to both these questions lies a feeling that maintaining our peace here, is more important than facilitating their peace there, and perhaps the idea, though I've never heard it formulated as such, that Democracy is a European system, and any adoption of it in other lands is evidence of "Western Imperialism"?

ISIS.
A few years in to the conflict in Syria a new force began to distinguish itself by it's brutality and antipathy towards any forms of Western or non-Islamic culture, the now infamous Islamic State. Emerging from the post Ba'athist rubble in both countries IS could draw on a wide base of angry, experienced and driven, anti-Western Jihadists. The emergence of IS, incidentally shows the failure of a non-Imperialistic approach to invasion by the US and UK in Iraq and Libya which is still in a very chaotic state. By destroying the dictatorship and leaving everyone pretty much to their own devices, "the West" loosened the chains of oppression on destructive forces as well as the average freedom loving Iraqi, this inevitably gave rise to the conflicts, sectarianism, power struggles and divisions, which were prevalent throughout the Saddam regime, though strongly repressed by means disavowed in the emerging, western aligned democratic governments.

I've heard many theories, for instance that ISIS is a reasonable response to Western actions in Iraq, Libya and Syria; that ISIS is the inevitable response of a 'War against Islam'; that ISIS is a CIA and Mossad front conducting war games to destabilize Syria and establish "Greater Israel"; or that IS represent the most active force in a fight against "Western Imperialism" in their region.

The conduct genocide, they have conquered land putting it's people to the sword or worse forms of punishment, they have a flag, a currency, extremely vicious and sexually repressive laws, media outlets and are called "a state". They actively seek to cleanse the World of unbelievers, launching pogroms against Zoroastrian Yazidi tribes, Shi'ite Muslims and the Kurdish people of Norther Iraq,  yet the accusation of Imperialism is never directed at them? Infact many of the criticisms of them, besides those listed above, are dismissed as Islamophobia or predictable Western propaganda.

Nor is any criticism directed towards Putin's Russia, who's propaganda arm of the State Department; Russia Today, actively works to reinforce these kinds of inverted, self flagellating concepts among those seeking to escape the 'lies' of the Western Media, while the Russian military actively supports their client Dictator in Syria, destroying infrastructure that will require prolonged and extensive participation of Russia's State owned corporations to rebuild,

That many young people in the West are deeply suspicious of State owned media like the BBC, but deeply aligned with the terminology and perspectives offered by foreign State owned media like Iran's Press TV or RT, seems on it's surface very un-anglocentric, but it should be noted that neither of these outlets depart from English language presentations, nor the general format or subject matter of well established Anglo-American media outlets. They seem to operate in order to undermine the West in as most subtle a way as possible, and of course by basing all of their positions in opposition to the 'West', the negative anglocentric view within various political subgroups finds an echo of it's sentiment, and an ally in their productions.

The evidence is, that among those who use the term Imperialism as a slur, the word has lost more or less all value, and instead expresses, on one hand a code for them & those who would deceive them, used to refer to Western Foreign policy, no matter how un-Imperialistic, and on the other the delusion of anti-Imperialist's who watch Russia and ISIS conducting their respective operations, yet struggle to find the adequate word to describe what it is they are engaged in; namely the construction, or reconstruction of former Empires.


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1. This term "the West" when used in the West, tends to refer exclusively to the US and UK, rather than Mexico, Canada, Spain, Latvia, Italy or the whole of Europe, unlike the General term mid-East or Far-East.

A response to Jess Phillips...

It's clear now is not a great time to be a politician, particularly a Labour Politician, so I sympathize with Jess Phillip's current anxieties when attending to her role in public service, but surely she must recognize that now is also not a great time to be Labour member, despite her lack of sympathy for the many thousands of labour members who voted for Jeremy Corbyn to lead the party 10months ago?

Making good use of her public profile by writing a further explanation for the Huffington Post, as to why she decided to quit Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, Ms Phillips begins in surprisingly confrontational fashion (for somebody complaining about her anxieties over confrontation), ridiculing the object of her ire, and dismissing the general discontent I assume has been directed at her over the past week or two, as coming from; "people who, I can only assume, think that the moon landing was a hoax and that Lord Lucan is currently sunning himself in a mankini sat with Anastasia and Rasputin on at a hedonism resort in Jamaica...."

When arguing or attempting to defend a position, misrepresenting all criticism is a common tactic employed by a party who knows they are on weak ground, in-fact the range of public resignations by Labour Mp's who've quit the shadow cabinet in the last week, demonstrate various attempts to avoid giving any substantial or honest explanation for their actions, from playing for sympathy, to the argument from authority, to the argument ad populum. I doubt the majority of criticisms or critical questions received by Ms Phillips represent a fringe paranoiac mentality as she asserts,but this is what she chooses to focus on when defending her position and perhaps justify her own sense of persecution, and paranoia.

Incase this portrayal of her 'detractors' as paranoiac loons is not enough of an explanation, Ms Phillip's adds rather patronizingly; "It is so easy to think about this whole episode in the Labour Party as binary, where one side is good, another bad." , but is this not a complete misrepresentation of an actual concrete division within the Labour Party? I.e that between radical socialist innovators and radical liberal conformists, or Blairites and assorted Leftists behind Corbyn? And does she not to some extent attempt to institute such a dualistic view as those who have exercised their freedom of speech to her?

I think people can deal with things in a good or bad way, generally the way the PLP have responded to the left turn of the wider party is bad, the way they have dealt with the democratic election of Jeremy Corbyn less than a year ago is appalling, they've essentially broken a Labour leadership which for the first time in decades was seen as being "in touch with people" in this country.
She goes on to say about fighting for the NHS and securing funding for refuges; "you have no chance of achieving those things because the vehicle you are using to do it is faulty."

If this is so, it really begs the question as to whether Jeremy Corbyn has been able to drastically alter the operation of "the vehicle", while maintaining his public schedule over the past 10 months, or whether the vehicle she refers to is not the Labour party but the Parliamentary system itself, overseen by the type of liberal conformist, establishment MP's who currently make up the majority of the Labour back benches and participants in this rebellion.
The kind of people who lost Scotland to the SNP, oversaw the European project and Global banking industry in the decade prior to the last big crash, were wrong about European Union, and who failed in the period of New Labour to institute an attitude of civic pride that would have made defending the institutions currently under attack a lot easier.

If these "rebel's" from conformity insist upon establishing Jeremy Corbyn's unelectability as fact through repetition, at some point they are going to have to explain why it is so, perhaps Jess's "parliamentary democracy is broken" is the closest explanation as to his unelectability we've had yet. If only she had similar concerns about the ideologically charged media outlets that permeate and underpin public discourse, contributing to his unelectability, perhaps she wouldn't be seen as a mediocre, conformist irrelevance, and her resignation would be taken as more than what was expected of just another butthurt, self indulgent liberal.