This threat from the UK, i.e. to pull away from a deeper alliance with the US, complicates Boris Johnson's publicly stated plan to bring the UK closer to the US rather than Europe. If this threat is followed through, the UK may have to consider, um, China, or er, Russia.
The Putin plan, which includes using his compromised protege in the White House to undermine US alliances in Europe, Asia, and now the UK, sure is working well for Putin.
What I continue to note is how much I detest the American Empire, and find myself uncomfortable worrying about Trump's national security threat with the strange bedfellows such as Max Boot or other Cold Warriors. I also understand the complicated Russian-based history of the Crimean region in Ukraine, particularly after Stalin's genocide of the kulaks, and replacement with Russian nationals there. I understand the point made against US intervention against Assad, which is Assad at least is a secular oriented dictator, unlike the ISIS and Shi'ite Muslims who live in a world more akin to the 14th Century, except for their own version of Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition. Further, I have long wondered at what NATO has been doing once the Soviet Union collapsed, why Europe just doesn't pay 100% for its own militaries, and was a hawk about US intervention in the former Yugoslavia region starting in 1991 through 1996, but then, became more convinced by Chomsky's arguments in 1998, as Milosevic was falling already and the argument over intervention was whether there should be UN troops brought in (Serbian parliament position) or NATO troops brought in (US and European position). As it turned out, UN troops were eventually brought in after relentless US bombing of the region, and horrible casualties and destruction, and Kosovan reprisals were nearly as bad as the initial Serbian attacks. In short, a mess.
That mess is the usual fare for a foreign policy bent on Empire and continual interventions. The question remains whether a foreign policy based upon diplomacy and a true last resort use of force (such as the good our nation was actually doing with respect to the Kurds, and who Trump simply walked away from, to the benefit of Turkey, Iraqis who mean us no good, and ultimately Russia) can work. I continue to believe the climate change crisis provides the opportunity to lessen tensions as we move forward as a planet. I continue to believe we are at a point in the development of a global economy, one which I have long opposed on the basis of it being corporate-oriented and anti-people and anti-environmental, where we may be able to lift up people out of poverty in a way that is humane, and which provides strong birth control to people transitioning from subsistence farming to factory and other service worker statuses. However, within this belief is a concern that the US simply leaving the world affairs stage in internal chaos, and leaving a vacuum for Russian and Chinese oligarchs, combined with global corporate power, is an invitation to the worst sort of return to feudalism, and the potential for mass murder on a scale that would outdo the more limited geographical carnage of World War I and the post-World War I Bloodlands of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.
I don't control a thing. I write only to make sure I am not just raving at the Folks' television set, where they still watch corporate cable news (thankfully, they are watching more and more TCM and sports, which lessens the effect of corporate propaganda that limits the scope of debate, discourse, and deliberation). But these are dangerous political times, times where we are losing faith in open government (what we used to call small "d" democracy and small "r" republican values), and where I see our salvation in one person, this time Bernie Sanders. We lose him, and I see nobody who can truly carry his vision in the presidency--and with imperial presidencies reinvigorated after the 9/11/2001 attacks on the US, this is an extra dangerous moment. The majority of our nation's Boomers and addled Oldsters are in full "I've got mine/Get off my lawn" mode*, and would easily end open government, freedom of movement, and a culture that embraces pluralism, freedom of expression, and diversity in religion, genders, clothes worn, and music and the arts heard, seen, or created, all for "security" with as much white supremacy as can be gotten away with.
I have not felt this way about an American election year since 1968 when my near 11 year old self felt something change when RFK was gunned down in Los Angeles on June 5th of that year This is what I call a focal point year, a phrase I used in the original sci-fi opening to my novel about RFK surviving 1968. It means we are dependent on one person who can unite across the usual barriers and who has vision to move us forward in the best sense, and not backward in the worst sense. For those who argue against the hero in history, they are too focused on institutions. To those who affirmatively think institutions are the only way we evaluate a society or historical moment, they are missing the emotional and often very human ingredient of the right person at the right time. Both individuals and institutions matter. However, right now, what is doubly troublesome is our society is far more unequal and the institutions are far more geared away from workers than in 1968, even while the corporate Human Resources Departments are more sensitive to diversity of the social constructs of race, ethnicity, and gender that have often created independent "cultures" over millennia.
Meanwhile, I find I have to get into what are, to me, petty arguments on FB about other candidates, including Warren, who I continue to be disappointed with for not understanding precisely these issues and how to change direction in a manner that does not leave behind a significant number of working people and the poor.
I have not felt this way about an American election year since 1968 when my near 11 year old self felt something change when RFK was gunned down in Los Angeles on June 5th of that year This is what I call a focal point year, a phrase I used in the original sci-fi opening to my novel about RFK surviving 1968. It means we are dependent on one person who can unite across the usual barriers and who has vision to move us forward in the best sense, and not backward in the worst sense. For those who argue against the hero in history, they are too focused on institutions. To those who affirmatively think institutions are the only way we evaluate a society or historical moment, they are missing the emotional and often very human ingredient of the right person at the right time. Both individuals and institutions matter. However, right now, what is doubly troublesome is our society is far more unequal and the institutions are far more geared away from workers than in 1968, even while the corporate Human Resources Departments are more sensitive to diversity of the social constructs of race, ethnicity, and gender that have often created independent "cultures" over millennia.
Meanwhile, I find I have to get into what are, to me, petty arguments on FB about other candidates, including Warren, who I continue to be disappointed with for not understanding precisely these issues and how to change direction in a manner that does not leave behind a significant number of working people and the poor.
* Look at what happened in this small Connecticut town's Board of Education. An election turned on the removal of a Native American type of high school mascot. Nothing about people voting on questions of budgets, trauma-based learning, modes of learning, etc. All corporate media style of outrage and hurt feelings. The photo shows who showed up at a meeting where the more politically correct mascot name was removed. A later article showed a photograph of young people and Native Americans in the community came out to protest the reinstatement of Native American type of mascot, known as "The Redmen." One hates to see generations fight, as there are going to be so many exceptions to the "generalizing," but that is part of what may be coming in the chaos if we do not elect a person with vision of a more humane way. Worse, there is the "I've got mine" endemic in labor unions, where workers in Nevada are critical of single pay Medicare for All because they happen to have a good insurance plan for now--though I bet it does not allow them to travel outside the state for cancer, heart or other care; and they don't realize under the single payer system, they won't worry about losing their jobs and can actually bargain directly for better wages and work conditions. Sigh. We are then back to Michael Harrington's astute, and possibly too optimistic analysis, that we return to socialist principles with open government as a foundation and the respect for individuals rendered as important as community. Harrington's pleading hope was to look at the wreckage from corporate power and oligarchs and say, When all else fails, let's try to be nicer to each other and help each other.
