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Christmas Day, 1971 - 2016
So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let's hope it's a gone
Without any fear
And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong
And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let's stop all the fight
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
A new one just begun
And so happy Christmas
We hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over, if you want it
War is over now
- John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Did you catch a glimpse of Yoko in the audience?
What a thrill.
Christmas provides an ideal setting for stories featuring Americans holding other than Christian beliefs. In the essay below, we learn about the Deist beliefs of two of the founders and eventual presidents of the USA and what was deemed the role of Providence in their affairs.
Although some may disagree today.
Without any historical accuracy.
In the essays below we learn about the beliefs of the kleptocrats in their wake who have changed the rules so effectively that they now run America to the detriment of all.
December 25th Celebrate Trenton Night
By Bob Johnson on December 24, 2016
Many freethinkers and non-religious people feel somewhat left out during the Christmas season. We don’t feel right pretending we believe the Bible story of a virgin giving birth to the son of God in Israel. We strongly doubt, and many of us openly reject, this religious story.
Thankfully, there is something very real and very positive that did happen on Wednesday, December 25th and Thursday, December 26th in 1776 – the Deist George Washington and his army of rebels crossed the Delaware River on the night of the 25th and successfully fought the Battle of Trenton on the 26th.
This was much more than a military victory for the American rebels. The Continental Army had just been pushed out of New York and New Jersey by the most powerful military force on Earth at that time, the British army. The Americans in 1776 still saw themselves as British subjects, so the army they were fighting was really their own army. This is made evident by Paul Revere who during his famous ride to warn the rebels of the approaching army did NOT yell, “The British are coming!” but did instead yell, “The regulars are coming!”
General Washington knew the unsuccessful end of the American Revolution was very near. It had been a long time since the rebels had a victory on the battlefield. Their ranks were thinned out by soldiers killed in action, those who had been captured, those who died from illness, those who were wounded or too ill to fight and those who deserted. To make matters much worse and to put even more weight on Washington’s shoulders, at the end of December the enlistments of his remaining men would be up.
George Washington knew the only way to keep the American Revolution alive was to have a battlefield victory in this crucial hour. If he did not attack, his army would be gone at the end of the month and the American Revolution would be over. If he attacked and lost, the American Revolution would be over. But, if he and his men beat the odds and won, the American Revolution would survive to fight another day. That’s when he devised his plan to attack the Hessian outpost at Trenton, New Jersey.
On Wednesday, December 25th, the American rebel army began their dangerous crossing of the Delaware River into New Jersey at sunset.
. . . This rebel victory at Trenton helped greatly to inspire Washington’s men as well as inspire the discouraged supporters of the American Revolution to continue the fight. It also gave Washington and his men much needed food, supplies, weapons and ammunition they captured from the Hessians.
Deism does not have any man-made dogmas pretending to be directives from God. The only belief that is common to all Deists is belief in The Supreme Intelligence/God. Beyond this individual Deists are free to make up their own minds regarding such topics as life after death, God intervening in human affairs, etc. Regarding the latter, the Deist George Washington believed God did intervene in human affairs through Providence, but wrote that he believed Providence is “inscrutable.” The truth to this would seem evident regarding the Battle of Trenton. There were no Americans who were killed during the battle and only two officers and two privates were wounded. One of the wounded officers was the Deist James Monroe. James Monroe is the person responsible for freeing the Deist Thomas Paine from the French prison of the Luxembourg in 1794, which saved Paine’s life and allowed him to write part three of The Age of Reason and to work to promote Deism.
Celebrating Trenton night and Trenton day on the 25th and 26th of December is a very meaningful and real way of showing heartfelt appreciation for these heroes of free-thought and progress. Without their courage, dedication and sacrifice the world would still be living under the sickening belief in divine rights of kings and the ungodly combination of religion and government.
On Contact: A New McCarthyism with Ellen Schrecker
Dec 24, 2016
On this week’s episode of "On Contact," Chris Hedges explores the rise of a new McCarthyism with Professor Ellen Schrecker, author of “Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America”. They examine the role of President Elect Donald Trump and the impact the suppression of dissent has had on higher education. RT Correspondent Anya Parampil looks at a few recent examples of targets of this new McCarthyism.
And how about that Snowden embarrassment?
That national embarrassment?
Trump Is the Next Stage of the Disease
by Ian Welsh
2016 December 22
50 Comments
One of the more common mistakes regarding Trump is to see him as something that came out of the blue; unheralded and strange.
Trump is a kleptocrat. The US is a kleptocracy. It “formally” became a kleptocracy when the Supreme Court ruled in "Citizen’s United" that money was speech. (It is ironic that Trump won with less money, but it doesn’t change this fact.)
America was pragmatically a kleptocracy in 2009, when Obama entered office and continued his predecessor’s policy of bailing out bankers, taking houses away from little people and not prosecuting bankers for clear crimes.
Punish the people without money; let the people with money walk.
Trump is a walkimg emoluments violation: He should be impeached month two of his term for his refusal to sell his company.
But he won’t be (though he may eventually be impeached if Republicans decide they’d rather have Pence as President, and that they don’t think Trump’s followers will personally visit their houses to discuss the issue).
Kleptocracies are run for the benefit of the rich. It is that simple. A monarchical kleptocracy like Putin runs, and like Trump seems interested in running, makes sure the peasants get something, which means it may feel slightly better than what came before it. (Putin is very, very popular and was so even before the recent wars for the simple reason that Yeltsin was far, far worse.)
But they are still kleptocracies. Trump’s first order of business is tax cuts, mostly for the rich. There is a report that his team has asked for information on funding of environmental groups, and Trump plans on shutting down NASA’s climate change group.
These things get in the way of making money; and because environmentalism was pushed during a period in which the economy was, for too many people, a negative sum game, it is also unpopular with his base.
But these things are extensions of the already-existing Republican party orthodoxy. Tax cuts and fuck-environmentalism is where Trump stands in solid agreement with the kleptocracy that already ran the country. These things are not what make Trump interesting, or unique, they are what make him simply another stage of the disease.
Understand that what we had in 2016 was a crisis point. There were three options. Clinton was for the status quo kleptocracy.
More or less the same, with a bit more help for those hurting the most, like students.
Trump was for monarchical kleptocracy, minus globalism: add tariffs and one-to-one trade deals to the mix, change up the foreign policy, make sure some more people get jobs, while gutting worker rights in general.
Sanders was an opportunity to actually change some of the key domestic policies away from kleptocracy: While not ideal, he was clearly a change from the status quo in a kinder direction, and he came fairly close to winning the Democratic primary, despite an active conspiracy by the DNC to stop him (no, no, it meets the actual definition of conspiracy).
Of those three options, Americans chose Trump: a new stage of the kleptocratic disease. Double down on transfers to the rich, but let’s give more scraps to the poor and fuck over some foreigners to get those scraps while burning up the world even faster. (Obama was not good on the environment; he was bad, but Trump will be much, much worse.)
I am not panicking, or running around screaming. I regarded something like Trump as nearly inevitable, with a small, but real, chance to avoid him by embracing the populist left (in this case, championed by Sanders).
In fact, Trump is not as bad as what I expected. His victory, a squeaker, may wind up precluding Trump 2.0, that is, the guy who would run next time, having learned from Trump what was possible, but far more disciplined, focused, and ideological than Trump.
Trump has the support of some powerful ideologues (most notably Bannon), and he has a world view, inchoate as it is, but he’s a very flawed man. Despite being very good at getting what he wants, it is undeniable that he lacks discipline, focus, and a broad base of understanding. Nor does he self-identify as being ideologically driven. Bannon may want to be the Lenin of the right, Trump does not.
More to the point, because the actions of US elites (and the world’s), along with the repeated votes of US voters, kept pushing America down this path, for decades, I regard running around screaming as pathetic. It’s like running full speed at an oncoming train for five minutes, with plenty of opportunities to veer off, then complaining when you get hit.
Many Americans, and the vast majority of their elites, affirmatively chose, repeatedly, to take actions and institute policies which were most likely to lead to Trump. Those who opposed those policies lost, and a huge chunk of the population sat on the sidelines doing nothing.
There were many, many opportunities to turn away from this path; the largest was to NOT bail out bankers in 2009.
In 2009, I wrote the US off. I knew that Obama had affirmatively made the choice to save oligarchy from itself (quite different from FDR saving capitalism, but not oligarchy). I knew then that something like Trump was the most likely outcome, but I expected worse than Trump, so far, seems to be.
So running around screaming is ridiculous. This was a choice, made affirmatively, repeatedly. If Trump had lost to Clinton, Trump 2.0 would have tried in 2020 and almost certainly won. The US is a kleptocracy, and eventually the disease would move to the next stage, if not reversed.
What I seek to do now, with regards to Trump, is two things. The first is simply to understand him and his movement. We’re going to be living in his America; it’s his world, for some time, so we’d best figure it out.
The second is to poke people who didn’t and still don’t get it, because until enough people do, we will keep losing to kleptocrats (whose number includes both Clintons) and people like Trump.
These two things are meant to support realistic assessment of Trump, the US, and the world so that effective action can be taken.
I have a friend who, as a result of Trump, is leaving the US with his two children. He has carefully looked at Trump, made his assessment of the US’s future and chosen a course of action. That is effective.
Make your assessment, take your action. Stop the hysterics. I strongly recommend that many people, who are most worked up, take two weeks off the internet, except for unavoidable work related tasks. Calm down, think, and decide what you need to do for yourself and your dependents. Heck, depending on who you are, you might even be one of the winners from Trump (they will exist).
Then decide what you’re going to do. Understand the consequences of your actions. Make your assessment. If you really think Trump = Hitler you should be getting the fuck out or preparing to fight, and I do mean fight. If you don’t, what do you think he is?
Get real.
. . . But it will be vastly harder to fix this if people keep pretending it wasn’t affirmatively chosen, and not just by people who voted for Trump this time, but by everyone who supported the previous status quo, starting around 1980. Kleptocracy is neoliberalism’s child, its logical end-result, and Trump is just a new stage in kleptocracy, and yes, many people worked hard for this including most people who voted against Trump.
Understanding how and why you got here is necessary to get out of here – not in one piece (it’s too late for that), but without losing any body parts you’ll really miss (always choose to lose a leg – the prosthetics are great).
Trump: Just another stage in the disease of kleptocracy, made inevitable by neoliberalism and affirmatively chosen by modern “liberal” hero, Barack Obama.Own it.
Yes. Get real and own it by reading the entire essay here.
And even more Ian here:
Trump and the Taming of the Oligarchs
38 Comments
Some years ago, I read an article about a Russian oligarch who had wanted to close a factory in a Russian town in which the factory provided the only real jobs.
The people complained to Putin, and some time later Putin appeared on stage in the town with the oligarch. With an eye on the oligarch, Putin explained that the jobs would be kept in the town.
Putin’s speech was described as being cold and contemptuous towards the oligarch.
When Trump convinced Carrier to keep some, not all, jobs, in America, he did so largely through bribes.
What will be interesting, however, is to see how much he makes people bow.
Putin broke some oligarchs and allied with others, but the important thing to understand about Putin’s relationship with Russian oligarchs is that Putin is the senior partner. He is in charge. They can do well, even very well, but if they challenge him, he will force them to bow – or break them.
(For the record, I have less than zero sympathy for the oligarchs; I know how they made their money.)
We all, I presume, remember the picture of Romney meeting Trump, begging for the Secretary of State job (which he didn’t get). I suspect Trump really did want to give the job to Romney, simply so he could force Romney to bow on a regular basis, but Trump’s loyalists hated Romney too much.
Meanwhile, the tech oligarchs have all also met with Trump. He was gracious, but they came to him, despite their clear opposition of him.
One of the issues in the US is that its oligarchs think they don’t have to serve the public good. Apple and other companies have billions stored overseas, they dodge taxes, and they move jobs overseas at the drop of a hat.
They also think they don’t have to bow to the President.
Now Trump cares somewhat about Issue #1 (by which I mean jobs, not tax dodging), but he’s going to care a lot about Issue #2 (bowing to the President). And Bannon cares a lot about both, because Bannon despises America’s oligarchs and wants to see them humbled.
Trump, well, Trump likes power. He wants to be loved by the mob, oh yes, but he values loyalty greatly, and, if crossed, he likes breaking people.
So I expect to see a number of oligarchs and other powerful people made examples of, forced to bow–indeed, forced to kneel.
If Trump wants to get his way, this is necessary. He needs these people to do some things they don’t want to do (make less money by bringing jobs back to the US), and they’ll need to be scared of him.
They need to be personally scared. They need to believe they personally aren’t immune from his power.
Trump will enjoy this. Bannon, if I read him correctly, will enjoy it even more.
Under Trump, oligarchs will do well, even very well. But not if they don’t bow. He wants some crumbs for ordinary Americans, and he needs the oligarchs to give them.
So one of the ways I will know if Trump is going to be successful (i.e., get his people enough goodies to get his second term, and the accompanying adulation) will be by watching the “kneeling to bribes” ratio, and seeing what Trump does to those companies who refuse to cooperate.
Be very clear on this, folks. This is something about which most people are complete idiots.
There is nowhere to go.
The rich cannot actually move their companies overseas. Where are they going to go? Europe will regulate them even harder (see all the problems Google is having). They don’t want to live in China or Russia, and China and Russia are the only countries strong enough to tell America to bugger off. Plus, of course, Putin and the Chinese Communist party won’t just make them kneel, they’ll make them get down on their bellies and grovel like worms.
No one else can stand up to America. Oh, Europe could, if it had its act together, but it doesn’t; and it wants regulation that repel oligarchs. Tax havens are a joke; they exist because the great powers want them to exist, and the second the Treasury cracks down on them, they will go away.
So if Trump wants to put the screws on, he can – especially if he’s smart about it. You make an example of a few people, you reward the others for cooperating, and soon they’re all bowing and scraping.
That’s how it works.
Let’s see if Trump knows how to play the game. (And, for the record, no, this isn’t good. But the financial crisis proved we already have rule of men, and that this rule is to be used solely to enrich the few and immiserate the many. Rule of law will continue to disappear. I have no sympathy for most of the US’s oligarchs, because, while not as outright nasty as Russia’s oligarchs (on average – some of them are just as bad), they are almost all truly bad people who have strangled the US, and the world, to get where they are.)
he games are on, Caesarism continues its rise. It’s what Americans voted for and elites worked hard to create the conditions for it. Crying over it is like crying over physics.
Throw a contribution Ian's way here. He'll really appreciate it too.
We have not even come close to achieving John and Yoko's wish.
Wonder why?
And to end on the usual American (in this case, British) fool's note:
And as a nice Christmas extra ~
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