Tag: Political Philosophy

Illiberal Democracy?

HUH?

Democracy is sacred, right?

Well it is until it isn’t!

On both sides of the Atlantic the regnant elites have launched a furious regime change campaign not all that different from the ones they started in the former Soviet republics. The formula seems to go like this: hold an election in which the full resources of the EU states and their upper classes are brought to bear on one side of the question. Vilify dissenters as more than likely agents of Vladimir Putin.

On the British side the government of Prime Minister Theresa May, which has been all along pretending to be in favor the people’s decision to leave the EU, has effectively sabotaged the process with so many exceptions, amendments, other concessions to Brussels that they might as well have stayed in.

https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2018/12/02/democracy-is-sacred-except-when-it-isnt/

Let’s start with the election of Donald Trump….some painted him as an “isolationist”…..not something that I say or heard from him in all his campaigning…..

Let’s go even further back say 15 years or so……Illiberal Democracy…….

The term “illiberal democracy,” advanced by some as an acceptable model for future change in many parts of the Middle East, is, in truth, an oxymoron. Real functioning democracies can never be illiberal. Nor can they be at peace with the rest of the world, a fact that makes their appearance quite problematic for many of their neighbors and for the world at large.

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-oxymoron-of-illiberal-democracy/

But that was before the rise of Sir Donald…….enter Our Dear Supreme Leader and the royal presidency begins…..

Donald Trump never expected to win the presidency. As Michael Wolff exposes in Fire and Fury, he hoped to use the campaign to build his personal company’s brand and secure a career in right-wing media. Trump’s inner circle was so shocked by their victory that his wife Melania purportedly broke down in tears not out of joy, but horror at the prospect of moving into the White House and subjecting their pathological family soap opera to even more public scrutiny. Unprepared to rule, Trump scrambled to cobble together a cabinet with an amalgam of establishment Republicans, Wall Street Democrats, and far-right nationalists.

The new administration struggled from day one to produce a coherent foreign policy based on Trump’s slogans “Make America Great Again” and “Putting America First.” Trump’s consigliere Steve Bannon and his co-thinkers called for the United States to withdraw from free trade deals like the North American Free Trade.

https://isreview.org/issue/109/illiberal-hegemony-trump-administration-strategy-us-imperialism

Two years into a presidency and many are starting to see the Illiberal Hegemony as it begins to wrap itself around our country……

Barry Posen, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the leading scholars of American grand strategy, has a fascinating essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. I want to write more later about some areas where I disagree with Posen’s argument (some of which I articulated in the paper I wrote last year on libertarian foreign policy). However, I want to highlight here an aspect of Posen’s argument that I think is spot on.

Since he first articulated his “America First” foreign policy agenda during the 2016 campaign, critics have argued that Donald Trump wanted to end American hegemony. Posen argues that, as president Trump, has not actually tried to end American leadership of the international system. If anything, he has accelerated. However, Posen claims that Trump has also transformed America’s strategy of “liberal hegemony” into an “illiberal hegemony.” He writes,

https://niskanencenter.org/blog/notes/donald-trumps-illiberal-hegemony/

Trump is striving to set up his own little imperial court……maybe now with a Dem majority in the House this country will and should return to its liberal roots…..

But will it?

Further Reading:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/trump-the-illiberal-hegemonist/

https://www.lawliberty.org/2019/01/04/homegrown-varieties-of-illiberal-democracy/

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Weekly Standard–End Of Days

The title does not imply that this will be some sort of religious rant…..have NO fear I leave those commentaries to those that feel it necessary to share……this post is about the impending doom of a pillar of neo-conservatism….the Weekly Standard.

Political magazines depend on the largesse of motivated patrons for their survival. When the patrons lose interest—or run short on cash—the magazines expire unless other moneybags can be located to cover the losses. Following that eternal script, the Weekly Standard appears close to folding because its current patron—and most important reader—billionaire conservative Philip Anschutz, has grown tired of it. He better favors his other conservative political publication, the Washington Examiner, which his company announced plans on Monday to “expand into a national distributed magazine with a broadened editorial focus.” In other words, the Standard is dying so the Examiner can live larger.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/12/06/weekly-standard-never-trump-magazine-222766

Since 1995 the Weekly Standard has been a driving force of neo-conservative thought…..from the mind of Bill Kristol sprang a magazine that became a go to source for just about everything neocon……Neocon?…….but just what is a Neocon?

It appears that the magazine that help spread misinformation about Iraq to help make the case for the invasion and occupation and a driving force in the opposition to Iran….is looking like it is dead in the water……

The rumored demise of the Weekly Standard is yet another of Donald J. Trump’s achievements that will go uncelebrated by his liberal enemies: indeed, they are even now mourning the death of the neoconservative flagship as they never did when it was at the height of its maleficent glory.

And of course neoconservatism’s many fellow-travelers are out there with panegyrics. It “stood up for conservative principle” in the age of Trump, writes Meghan McArdle. What principle this might be, Ms. McArdle somehow neglects to say: perhaps it’s a penchant for perpetual war, the only known characteristic this famously eccentric and variable band hold in common. Both McArdle and the editors of the Standard thrilled their readers with stories of the great danger posed by Saddam Hussein, who they told us had nukes hidden beneath his palace ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

Let’s take a look at the three important roles played by the Standard and its editors in the history of the post-9/11 era.

https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2018/12/09/the-end-of-the-weekly-standard/

Could this be the death of the rabid neocon philosophy?

I think not….maybe a rebrand….but these warmongering toads will be with us….for now.

What I Like

As we edge ever closer to the midterm elections I need to let some thoughts be known……

What I Like (Or If You Cannot Fight Facts Then Make Shit Up)…(The code of the conservs)

You know what I like about conservs?  Well……(pause here for thought)….. NOTHING!  I guess I need to be a bit more forthcoming (something the Righties have NO idea how to do)….I dislike conservs these days because they think that society owes them a deal and in return they owe nothing to society.  They want society to let them go wild and do as they see fit regardless of what it destroys or ruins…..as long as they can profit.

I guess I had better stop here and explain that when I am saying “society” I am talking about the government (hope that clears it up for those slower readers on the Right)

That was not fair was it?  Well buck up….when the mental midgets on the Right learn civility then I shall be glad to do so as well……until then I shall continue.

I have to admit that by using “conservs” I am lumping all on the Right into one category….that is a mistake the slugs on the Right these days are no more a conserv than Eugene Debs (do I really need to explain that?).  Sorry to say that because you can quote a Biblical passage does not make one a conserv….it does make one a hypocrite in the highest order. So I will apologize to true conservs for this but the others can if they think I will apologize to them can…..BITE ME!

If conservs had their way the state would not be political at all…..but then that would not be profitable now would it?  These tools need the government to make sure that they are free to rape the nation without interference.

I mean what can you expect when the leader of their party is handling world affairs as if it is his real  estate business…..he is making as many friends as he can before he leaves office for further and future business opportunities….

These so-called conservs are doing more damage to this country than anything and their attacks on the nation will take generations to repair…..not even the much feared communists could have done this much damage.

For years the conservs blamed the Dems for everything that happened in this country and yet once their butt boy gets elected nothing is unacceptable….I mean they still blame Dems for things that they themselves are doing…it is all so amusing to anyone with an IQ above say their shoe size.

I also like the way conservs cannot explain liberals so they demonize them because they cannot beat them with truth and facts.

Vote for progress not regression!

Turn The Page!

Is Neoliberalism Dead?

We live in the time of the neoliberal….not to be confused with a “liberal” not the same thing in today’s terms….how can we best describe neoliberalism?

A short video will help…..can you spare the 3 minutes?

I have let my

I have let my feelings about neoliberalism be known on several occasions…..

https://lobotero.com/2016/04/29/neoliberalism-is-destroying-almost-everybodys-lives/

https://lobotero.com/2016/08/18/neoliberalism-against-capitalism/

In recent days and years this country has been governed under the tenets of neoliberalism……and then we elected Our Dear Leader and he has set about destroying the system under which this country has embraced for decades, at least embraced by the politicians and their owners…..

Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot

The concept that rules the world……

….researchers at the International Monetary Fund settled a long and bitter debate over “neoliberalism”: they admitted it exists. Three senior economists at the IMF, an organisation not known for its incaution, published a paper questioning the benefits of neoliberalism. In so doing, they helped put to rest the idea that the word is nothing more than a political slur, or a term without any analytic power. The paper gently called out a “neoliberal agenda” for pushing deregulation on economies around the world, for forcing open national markets to trade and capital, and for demanding that governments shrink themselves via austerity or privatisation. The authors cited statistical evidence for the spread of neoliberal policies since 1980, and their correlation with anaemic growth, boom-and-bust cycles and inequality.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-the-idea-that-changed-the-world

Can Our Dear Leader,Trump, be successful in the destruction?  After all his supporters believe he is a genius…..

With the outrageous decision by the Trump White House to bar a CNN propagandist posing as a reporter, more people are now starting to make the connection between press freedom and the issue of the “right to know” and of unimpeded information. But we have to ask once again, where was this concern when democrats under Obama were using the espionage act to jail whistleblowers and prosecuting journalists? Why no outrage on the eve of the Ecuadorian government turning over Julian Assange to be prosecuted by Western intelligence for the crime of publishing accounts of their nefarious actions? Where were these objective defenders of the right to information when the state was collaborating with private corporations like Google, Twitter, and Facebook to alter and limit political speech and information?

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/01/trump-and-the-politics-of-neoliberal-destruction/

Is it possible that this person could actually destroy neoliberal hold on our government?

I have my doubts…..he , the president, may be the most powerful man in the world he has little hope of a defeat of the power brokers that rule the capital….

Happy Birthday (Belated)

I was writing and remembered that I should have posted something on 05May18……it was the birthday of Karl Marx.

Marx is an interesting individual….his thoughts with Engels had influenced so many activist and political tacticians that to ignore his contributions is just silly.  I know that there are many that do not like Marx because of his influence of Communist and to some Democrats…..but the truth is that NO self-respecting socialist/communist would every describe hi/her self as a Democrat…..and yet the mental midgets keep making the comparisons.  The funny thing I that Marx was right on many aspects of society and politics and yet the typical Rightie continues to ignore Marx’s contributions and blaming all liberal policies and ideas as somehow socialistic in nature+.

Like I said Saturday was the birthday of Karl Marx……

On May 5, 1818, in the southern German town of Trier, in the picturesque wine-growing region of the Moselle Valley, Karl Marx was born. At the time Trier was one-tenth the size it is today, with a population of around 12,000. According to one of Marx’s recent biographers, Jürgen Neffe, Trier is one of those towns where “although everyone doesn’t know everyone, many know a lot about many.”

Such provincial constraints were no match for Marx’s boundless intellectual enthusiasm. Rare were the radical thinkers of the major European capitals of his day that he either failed to meet or would fail to break with on theoretical grounds, including his German contemporaries Wilhelm Weitling and Bruno Bauer; the French “bourgeois socialist” Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, as Marx and Friedrich Engels would label him in their “Communist Manifesto”; and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin

In an op-ed in the The Week magazine there is a call to “normalize” Marx and his teachings…..I cannot wait for the freak out……

Happy birthday to Karl Marx, who was born 200 years ago on May 5. He was the most astute and influential critic of capitalism in history — and also the most misunderstood.

It is long since time that Marx re-joined the community of ordinary intellectuals, considered as neither the terrifying harbinger of social upheaval, nor a secular pope with the eternally correct description of all human society. He was a genius, but in the end, only another human scholar with a brilliant but incomplete perspective.

http://theweek.com/articles/770718/time-normalize-karl-marx

I await the debate.

Is There A Resurrection In Progress?

As Easter approached the term “resurrection” becomes more and more popular in our society and what better time to offer an political opinion than now?

The big news of the week is the election of a Dem in Western Pennsylvania a deep red district……..

It is still officially too close to call, but Conor Lamb has declared an against-the-odds Democratic victory in the special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th District. He was introduced as “Congressman-elect Lamb” at a Hilton Inn campaign party, even as officials were counting hundreds of absentee ballots, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. “It took a little longer than we thought, but we did it. You did it!” said Lamb, whose Republican opponent, Rick Saccone, has not conceded. Unofficial results put Lamb ahead by around 600 votes. The margin is narrow enough for supporters of either side to get a recount if they can find three voters in the same precinct who attest to error or fraud, the AP reports.

The district voted for President Trump by 20 points in 2016 and has been so reliably Republican in recent years that Democrats didn’t field a candidate in the 2014 and 2016 House races, meaning the result will be a major worry for the GOP heading into the midterms even if it ends up as a narrow Republican win, the New York Times notes. Trump campaigned in the district and Republican-aligned outside groups spent more than $10 million on the race, even though the winner will only hold the seat for eight months. “The real impact of this race has to do more with the symbolism of the outcome as a harbinger of things to come, and as a reflection of President Trump’s popularity,” pollster Chris Borick tells the Post-Gazette.

And of course the media is painting it as a “blue wave” year coming in the November mid-terms…..but to me the humorous story to come pout of this election is that Lamb is a Repub….(I know…say what?)…..

the RNC and its supporters reversed course and seized on a false talking point that Lamb’s victory was unusual because he was “pro-life” and basically ran as a Republican.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) told reporters that the result was not a “big surprise” because both candidates “ran as a pro-life anti-Nancy Pelosi conservative.”

(think progress)

Brings a smile to my face and as moronic as his statement sounded……. deep down Ryan may have a point…..

WTF, Professsor?

Lamb sounds like a “Blue Dog Democrat”….(I will pause here for all the people that have NO idea what I am saying to hit the Google button)…..(Times up!)

A Blue Dog Democrat is a member of Congress who is moderate or more conservative in their voting record and political philosophy than other, more liberal, Democrats in the House and Senate. The Blue Dog Democrat, however, has become an increasingly rare breed in American politics as voters and elected officials become more partisan and polarized in their beliefs.

To make it easier to understand…..A Blue Dog Democrat is one who views himself/herself as being in the middle of the partisan spectrum and as an advocate for fiscal restraint at the federal level

The preamble to the Blue Dog Caucus in the House describes its members as being “dedicated to the financial stability and national security of the country, notwithstanding partisan political positions and personal fortune.” (sounds like a Repub to me)

Members of the Blue Dog Democrat coalition listed among their legislative priorities a “Pay-As-You-Go Act,” which require that any legislation that requires an outlay of taxpayer money cannot increase the deficit. (still smells like a Repub)

They also supported balancing the federal budget, closing tax loopholes, and cutting spending through the elimination of programs they feel don’t work.

For further information on Blue Dogs…..

http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1913057,00.html

I give all this information to my readers for I see a return of the Blue Dog Democrats……Dems finding  a way to win elections in an ever expanding conservative base….Clinton-esque crap of the Democratic Leadership Council……

Where Have You Gone, George McGovern?

It is no secret that I am no war hawk…..I am a staunch anti-war supporter and for decades I have watched the Dems go from opposing war to blindly authorizing one after another……I recall the year that George McGovern won the Dem support for the presidential run…..that was a time when we Vets that opposed the war and wars and hoped that there could be a change in the way the country moved forward….we were  disappointed and very wrong…..

Where have those Dems gone since the days of McGovern?

He knew war well—well enough to know he hated it.

George McGovern was a senator from South Dakota, and he was a Democrat true liberals could admire. Though remembered as a staunch liberal and foreign policy dove, McGovern was no stranger to combat. He flew 35 missions as a B-24 pilot in Italy during World War II. He even earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for executing a heroic emergency crash landing after his bomber was damaged by German anti-aircraft fire.

Still, George McGovern was a humble man who carried the burden, and honor, of his military service with grace. Though proud of his service, he was never constrained by it. When he saw a foolish war, an immoral war—like Vietnam—he stood ready to dissent. He was an unapologetic liberal and unwavering in his antiwar stance. These days, his kind is an endangered species on Capitol Hill and in the Democratic National Committee. McGovern died in 2012. His party, and the United States, are lesser for his absence.

https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2018/03/28/where-have-you-gone-george-mcgovern-2/

Americans need to find that voice that hates war and only wants what is best for the country……sadly those days are long gone replaced with the hordes of lobbyists that stand in line to own our politicians.

The result will be endless worthless wars that pervert everything in our society.