Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – November 12, 2023
by Tony Wikrent
(anti)Republican Drive to Civil War
Trump will implement Martial Law, Shoot Protestors and Prosecute his enemies
Frank Vyan Walton, November 11, 2023 [DailyKos]
Reading
“We just want the government to function… we’re just tired of it” On the Sunday shows they’re still drooling over the polls showing that Biden is old and Trump is a vital young man with boundless energy sharp intelligence so they didn’t have much time to look at what happened on Tuesday. It’s too bad because there is a very interesting story that American who don’t follow the news closely but might tune in to Meet the Press would be interested to hear: Meghan Budden’s family was considering moving if their Pennsylvania school district didn’t change course. She normally isn’t politically active, she said, but felt compelled to volunteer when a slate of Democrats launched bids to take back their school board in Central Bucks School District, just north of Philadelphia.
Dan Pfeiffer talks about the public’s view of Trump’s mental acuity in his newsletter today: The fact that Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden in news reports from The New York Times and other sources is puzzling for many of us. How could a chaotic criminal who spews conspiracy theories be on the cusp of returning to the White House? There’s not just one simple answer to how we ended up in this situation; it’s a combination of Biden’s low approval rating, divisions in the democratic coalition, dissatisfaction with the economy, a historic level of cynicism and institutional distrust, and radicalization of the Republican Party. The polarization and demographic makeup of the Electoral College mean that upcoming elections will continue to be closely contested. However, one specific finding in The New York Times/Siena College poll explains Trump’s strength and offers a particular strategy for defeating him again in 2024. There is no sugarcoating it: Joe Biden’s age is a significant political obstacle.
Very few of the people briefing Anthony Albanese have much knowledge or experience of Asia. Many are Austral Americans as Paul Keating rightly calls them. In the briefing I prepared for PM Albanese’s visit to China I said Australian and Chinese histories, cultures and systems of government are different, so we must learn about each Continue reading »
As was to be expected, Israel is winning the battle for Gaza, albeit at an enormous cost in lives. But what are Israel’s and its backers’ plans for winning the peace, as without an enduring peace settlement the war can never be won. Is a US-led, UN mandated Trusteeship for Palestine the way forward? Many Continue reading »
While the US and its allies prioritise reducing supply chain risks, reshuffling away from China, repercussions from decoupling or de-risking might pose greater concerns than the risks themselves. Such actions could bifurcate the global economy, leading to fragmented supply chains and divergent technology standards. This could hinder global economic recovery, dampen investment flows, and impede Continue reading »
The good news from Katy Gallagher’s second progress report on APS Reform presented at ANU last week is that there will be a second Public Service Act Amendment Bill in the new year containing much more substantive reform than the disappointing Bill before the Parliament at the moment. There should be real comfort in her Continue reading »
Becoming an Elder in many societies is a process of active shared engagement across the generations, and holding a meaningful and honoured place in one’s community. Sadly, that time-honoured community cultural process has been pretty much eradicated in modern westernised, market-driven systems of ‘Aged Care,’ such as dominate the Australian ‘market.’ No wonder so many Continue reading »
Overhead, suddenly, there was a noisy helicopter. I didn’t look up. Then I noticed that I hadn’t looked up. If I was in a place of terror from the sky, I would have looked up. The next day a friend and I went for a walk by the beach in Point Lonsdale. He is just Continue reading »
Australian foreign policy makers seem not to realise that the demographic makeup of Australia means increasing numbers of us are connected to victims of wars instigated by the United States. Australians’ support for future US wars cannot be relied on from huge sections of the community. The problem of a divided country and divided loyalties Continue reading »
While Australia’s formal sovereignty resides with the British monarch as part of the Commonwealth, its real sovereignty is to be found somewhere in Washington. You need thick skin to be a politician. So Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, currently on a state visit to China, probably didn’t blush when he said Australia needed to pursue Continue reading »
Elections are about choices It’s said that Republicans don’t build anything. Except detention camps. They’re hell at detention camps. Joe Biden is running for president of the United States again to invest in this country. Infrastructure week was not a joke on his watch (Mike Lux): Joe Biden and the Democratic trifecta got more than 80% of Americans immunized from COVID despite the worst public health disinformation campaign ever. They revived our economy from the depths of the COVID recession faster than any other major country, got Americans much needed money to keep them going in the hardest times, and saved state and local governments from having to make massive cuts in police, fire, and desperately needed public services. They delivered the first gun safety bill in over 30 years. They delivered the biggest infrastructure bill since the interstate highway system was built in the 1950s. They revitalized American manufacturing with Buy in America policies, the CHIPs Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. They passed legislation to force Big Pharma to negotiate on drug prices and bring the cost of insulin down right away.
All they lacks are railcars The headline on Masha Gessen’s New Yorker conversation with psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and author Robert Jay Lifton promises to reveal how one maintains hope in an age of catastrophe. It is a fascinating conversation with a man who has studied human depravity, literal fallout from it, and what differentiates “the helpless victim and the survivor as agent of change.” As for how one maintains hope today, the headline is a tease. “Lifton is fascinated by the range and plasticity of the human mind, its ability to contort to the demands of totalitarian control, to find justification for the unimaginable—the Holocaust, war crimes, the atomic bomb—and yet recover, and reconjure hope,” Gessen writes. Amidst the bickering over the war in Gaza, less tease and more how-to would have been nice. Given the obvious trajectory of the Trump cult, what’s needed is a way both to avoid being a victim and needing to be change agents after the fact of a period of “psychic numbing” and “malignant normality” that leads to unspeakable evil by banal men and women.
Set for November 25th, will a lot of Disney+ viewers get the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary special "The Star Beast" before BBC viewers do?
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: My Adventures with Superman, Devil May Cry, Scott Pilgrim, Dead Boy Detectives, Gen V, Doctor Who, and more!
The U.S. military has neither compensated nor apologized to relatives of the woman and child it acknowledges killing in 2018.
The post Secret Pentagon Investigation Found No One at Fault in Drone Strike That Killed Woman and 4-Year-Old appeared first on The Intercept.
Indiscriminate airstrikes have been a U.S. hallmark from the “banana wars” to the forever wars.
The post For a Century, the American Way of War Has Meant Killing Civilians appeared first on The Intercept.
Expert advice on how to navigate the growing pitfalls of Medicare, Medicaid, and the health insurance marketplace.
. The recurring pattern in financial crises is more or less the same. For some reason, a shift occurs in the economic cycle (such as war, innovations, new regulations, etc.) that leads to changes in the profit opportunities for banks and companies. Demand and prices rise, pulling more and more parts of the economy into […]
