Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – November 10, 2024
by Tony Wikrent
Global power shift
Biden ‘rushing’ billions in aid to Ukraine as Trump win fuels uncertainty
[Al Jazeera, via Naked Capitalism 11-07-2024]
India
From historian Nicole Lee Schroeder It is a really jarring moment to be a historian. To know what might be coming is alarming. To realize that no one around you sees it or acknowledges it is a weird place to be in. Its like time traveling without time traveling. I study the 19th century and the 2020s look a lot like 1820s. Frequent epidemics? Check. Inflation? Check. Xenophobia and deportation schemes? Check. Womens rights losses? Check. Rampant backlash against womens economic freedoms and jobs outside the home? Check. Growth of carceral facilities? Check. Legislation to forcibly institutionalize disabled people? Check. Targeted attacks on Indigenous peoples? Check. Extreme religious fervor? Check. Efforts to shape public school curriculum with religious rhetoric? Check. Tariffs? Check. The antebellum era was a time of progress, but it was also a time fuelled by hate. Slavery fuelled the economy, and antislavery efforts were not very radical on the whole. Hatred against immigrants was widespread and poverty was extensive. Everything we are seeing right now happened in the early 1800s.
Sadly, I suspect most Trump voters agree with this, even the women: Elon Musk has used his large platform on X to promote a theory that a free-thinking “Republic” could only exist under the decision-making of “high status males” – and women or “low T men” would not be welcome in it. On Sunday, Musk re-posted a screenshot of the theory – which appears to have been conceived on 4chan in 2021– on the social media site. The theory, written by an anonymous user, suggests that the only people able to think freely are “high [testostrone] alpha males” and “aneurotypical people”, and that these “high status males” should run a “Republic” that is “only for those who are free to think.” “People who can’t defend themselves physically (women and low T men) parse information through a consensus filter as a safety mechanism,” the post reads. “Only high T alpha males and aneurotypical people (hey autists!) are actually free to parse new information with an objective ‘is this true?’ filter,” it adds.
He’s not alone Had dinner out with friends last night. There was a lot of half-serious “where can we move” banter. A gay couple in our party (men) are worried what could happen to them under an even uglier Trump 2.0 administration. They’re not alone in their concern by any means. ICYMI (reaction in Scotland): Patrick Harvie has condemned First Minister John Swinney’s decision to congratulate Donald Trump on winning the US presidential election. The co-leader of the Scottish Greens described the president-elect as a “misogynist, a climate denier, a fraudster, a conspiracy monger, a racist and a far-right politician”. Mr Harvie said Scotland must stand in solidarity with the communities he said are threatened by the incoming Trump administration in America. Speaking during First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood on Thursday, Mr Harvie said: “Yesterday the First Minister offered his congratulations to the convicted felon Donald Trump on his re-election.
“The spectacle of cruel laughter” It’s likely most of the Monday-morning quarterbacking on why Trump won last week is little more than speculation based on pundits’ existing biases. What novelist Joseph O’Neill offers The New York Time Review of Books is as good as any. Maybe better for being skeptical of conventional wisdom: The current prevailing theory about Trump’s victory is that most Americans, irked by an unpleasant encounter with inflation, cast an anti-incumbent vote without giving much thought to the consequences of that vote for US democracy. I don’t totally buy this whoops! theory. My sense is that, in this era of the Internet, there are millions more fascists in this country than people think, young men in particular. And I believe that many more millions are fascinated by Trump not for his supposed business prowess but for his transparent wish to hurt others. He is an evil guy, a villain—and many Americans are excited by it. Harris and the Democrats, by contrast, are boring, boring, boring.
The House is set to vote Tuesday on a bill that would let the administration destroy nonprofits it claims support terrorism.
The post Congress Is About to Gift Trump Sweeping Powers to Crush His Political Enemies appeared first on The Intercept.
I am re-posting this piece in observance of Veteran’s Day. -DH (Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 11, 2021) Dress me up for battleWhen all I want is peaceThose of us who pay the priceCome home with the least –from “Harvest for the World”, by the Isley Brothers Earlier today, my brother posted this on Facebook: While going through my father’s stuff after his passing we found a large stack of envelopes. They turned out to be letters from junior high students thanking him for the talk he gave the students on Veteran’s Day. It turned out there were over 14 packed envelopes. One for every Veteran’s Day he spoke with the students. My brothers and I were very close to throwing these out with many of the other miscellaneous papers in my Dad’s cabinets but, without even looking at the contents I decided to keep them. I finally opened them up today and started going through them. I used to kid my late father about being a pack rat but I am grateful that he was.
The National Theatre play starring Michael Sheen depicting how Nye Bevan introduced The National Health Service has many ties to Doctor Who.
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. (No election or Trump related comments.)
Oh great: Just hours after Donald Trump won the election, Elon Musk was already flexing his power over the new administration, joining a phone call with the man he helped elect to office and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Axios reported that the world’s richest man made a guest appearance on a phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy on Wednesday, even chiming in at several points during the discussion… Musk’s surprise addition to the call is a troubling sign, to say the least. Like Trump, the billionaire has a close relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. A bombshell report last month revealed that Musk is in regular contact with Putin, and the Kremlin may have even implicitly threatened him. That could explain his past refusal to let Ukraine use his Starlink internet network to carry out a surprise attack on Russian forces, or his public ridicule of Zelenskiy’s requests for aid. They report that Trump and Musk didn’t tell Zelensky to get ready to capitulate but it’s just a matter of time.
We spoke with Pennsylvania officials and experts to understand how the pivotal swing state went to Trump.
Are you OK? It seems an important question as the unhinged and unrestrained president Donald Trump is swept back into power and the world contemplates the implications for the climate, for civil discourse, for women, for minorities, for society as a whole, and for our children and their children. We have, of course, been here Continue reading »
I keep thinking Thinking about Palestinians People who have lost their lives Now tens if not hundreds of thousands In Gaza, in the West Bank Most simply ordinary people And the poets Writers, journalists Doctors, nurses, teachers Philosophers, Historians Children, wives, husbands Lives ended The loss, the loss The infinite loss The gifts, unknown infinite Continue reading »
Western media never tire of siting the atrocities of Hamas while diminishing and justifying the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank even when the majority of them are women and children. But how accurate is this portrayal of events? Continue reading »
Forty (40) years ago, the ALP ran its national conference at what was then called Noah’s Lakeside Hotel, with uranium, Timor, taxation, David Combe and south-west Tasmania prominent in discussions. But, who is this meeting up on the dancefloor after the day’s debates and double-crossings? It’s Albo, the louche Sydneysider chatting up the pink-painted Julia, Continue reading »
A new report contained “the bleakest news possible, especially with a climate denier U.S. president in office for the next four years,” said one climate scientist. A day after U.S. voters elected climate-denying Republican Donald Trump in the presidential race, soon ushering in an administration that is sure to expand fossil fuel drilling, the European Union’s Earth Continue reading »
Check out a very "timely" deleted scene from "73 Yards," with more deleted scenes being teased for Doctor Who Day later this month.
From Benjy Sarlin at Semafor: We’re deep in the “bargaining” phase now, as Democrats look for coalition members to blame, positions to dump, and language to police that will win them back the millions of voters they lost across the country on Tuesday. That’s a healthy part of any electoral loss, and it’s why we have free and fair elections — politicians only know when they touched the hot stove when voters tell them. But I’m also skeptical of almost every early explanation for Harris’ defeat I’ve seen so far that hinges on Democrats making a tweak or two and fixing their problems. It’s not that they aren’t smart recommendations in the mix, it’s that they’re far less relevant than the likeliest factor in any Democratic turnaround: Time. Democrats are smart to listen to the voters who rejected them and stay humble about what they might learn. But the emphasis here is “listen” — the actual answers as to what to do next will likely only reveal themselves once they see how Trump governs and how the public responds.
Together with many other academics in the Netherlands, I have been very busy in organizing a nation-wide demonstration next Thursday against the 1 billion budget cuts to higher education that our very-right-wing government has announced. (For background explanation, see this earlier post). Today, I have a long opinion piece in the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad […]
Planting a flag in red America If you don’t show up to play, you forfeit. Step into many fast food joints in rural America and the TV is likely tuned to Fox News. Drive across rural America east and west and radio is dominated by RW talk. Democrats have let this situation stand for years without responding. Will they this time? Ryan Cooper argues that so-called “liberal media” was in the tank for Donald Trump. A lot of factors contributed to Donald Trump’s win, he writes: But the information environment—the combination of traditional journalism, social media, party propaganda, and so on—is preposterously biased and inadequate. Trump brushed aside any of about a thousand scandals that would have sunk any previous politician. Democrats need to take a long, hard look at what their information strategy should be, and more importantly, how their messaging can be reliably and consistently put in front of voters. Cooper recommends that “Democrats need a party publication—something to bypass the traditional media and deliver progressive messaging directly.” Fine idea. Not going to happen.
Voters protected abortion rights, struck back at oligarchs, delivered public school funding, and ensured workers get their payday.