How I Would Vote

This blog...it still exists ?  Any road...

So, yeah, I don't have a vote in US elections. The whys & wherefores, the (in)justice in denying the vast majority of the global population a say in the governance of a country that acts as defacto ruler of the entire planet, never mind those within the US itself denied a vote, aside...

Who would I vote for in the US general election for President ?

I previously (aeons ago now) discussed having to choose between that theocratic loon Ted Cruz & fascist clown Donald Trump. And, despite some (I think, deserved) criticism of Bernie Sanders, anyone who's read what I've written here, or on Twitter, probably wouldn't be surprised to know that I was leaning towards Bernie Sanders. But...he didn't win.*

Gun to my head, Donald versus Hillary, was always going to be Hillary, Hillary the inevitable one, Hillary 'Her Time Has Come' Clinton, Hillary 'Guess it's time we elected a woman President, so why not her?' Clinton...Vomit !

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I'd like to see more third-party options & support in the US generally (bring on AV voting & abolition of the electoral college), but given a) The US's ridiculously archaic first-past-the-post system, and b) what an utter incompetent maniac Trump is/would be, I'd go along with most Bernie-leaning pundits (Sam Seders of the world, say), and agree that any responsible liberal-leaning voter in a so-called 'swing state' has to vote for Hillary, painful & unpleasant as it may/would be. 'Has to' as in, it's what I would do, what I would advise, what I would expect from anyone with any concern for the continuation of the republic whatsoever; You want to just burn the whole system down to the ground, and gamble on starting over, well I get that too, but...I kinda think yer nuts...

I've only recently decided what I would do, if I were voting in a non-swing state, which is a far more common scenario in a country so politically polarised, and with such corrupt partisan dominance of statehouses (which control electoral boundaries) as the United States.  And...

I'd write in Bernie Sanders.

Why ?

Firstly, obviously, he came far closer to addressing the economic, and to a lesser degree, environmental concerns, that are way at the top of my list for what should be the priorities of this election.

No, I don't dismiss ISIS or Islamic Extremism generally, Yes, I have concerns about the rise & regional hegemony of the PRC, Yes, I even have some concerns about Russia under Putin, though I will maintain that that threat is far overstated, and has far more to do with the Russophobic attitude of Western politicians who grew up as children of the Cold War than anything else. But, after decades of Reaganomics, of Thatcherite hyper-capitalistic insanity, I consider wealth- & income-inequality far greater concerns**, never mind the fact that in our pursuit of infinite economic expansion, on a planet of very finite resources, we are destroying the ability of the planet to sustain human life !

Secondly, Yes it would be a protest-vote. Unfollow me or block me on Twitter if you must Hill-bots, but the way the DNC planned for an inevitable coronation of HRC far in advance of the primaries, and their obvious bias & manipulations against Bernie Sanders disgust me.

I obviously would consider (in any election) a third-party vote, but in this specific case, I feel that writing in Bernie's name would be the only option (for me), because it is the only unambiguous way to protest, the only way that cannot possibly be misinterpreted.

A vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, could just mean that you like the Libertarians, agree with the Greens, take seriously either of those (IMO) completely unserious candidates. A vote for Donald Trump could mean that you are protesting against a corrupt establishment, or equally, that you are one of the fringier alt-right contingent who identity with white nationalism, favouring swastika-themed avatars and Neo-Nazi numerical code (88, asf.) in social media, alongside jokes about gassing Jews... And, staying home, could just mean that you couldn't get time off work, or, and I'm sure this will be mentioned over and over again, that you're a lazy millennial, who just couldn't be arsed...

Writing in Bernie's name on the other hand says:

• This is a vote you otherwise could have had
• I reject utterly the DNC's handling of the primaries
• I reject the establishment candidate you foisted upon the party (in a year of anti-establishment frustration/desperation) and upon the country (despite her huge national unpopularity)
• I reject Bernie's endorsement of same (Yes, a middle finger, a direct FU to Bernie himself)
• I want to send a message that, if you somehow lose to Donald Trump...(to Don-ald f'ing TRUMP...) it is 100% on you. You being the DNC. You being Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. You being that lifelong Goldwater girl, Hillary Rodham Clinton herself.

I won't get to make even that meagre protest, even that pathetic act of resistance against the elites that are strangling our middle classes, killing our poor, destroying our entire planet in the name of putting infinite growth and the profit of billionaires ahead of all other concerns, all other actual humans...All I can do is, for the record, speak my mind here, on Twitter, elsewhere on social media. It's almost certainly all for nowt, but I somehow feel an obligation to exercise my voice in place of that vote where it's otherwise denied.



* Voter-rolls purged, polling-places closed, debates scheduled on holidays, against major sporting-events, efforts to limit independents registering as Democrats, proclaiming Hillary's victory whilst the single largest state had yet to vote.....I'm not going to go here into all the ways one could argue against whether Hillary actually...or fairly won...

** Plutocracy and concentration of wealth, also being inherent corrupting factors in a democracy, inherent threats to the sustainability or integrity of Democracy itself.

The Indy on the Madness that is TTIP

Not that it seems any amount of warning will interest or engage our citizenry over the outrageous extra-judicial anti-democractic monstrosities that are TTIP & TPP, and their related cohorts.  But, one can but try, futile as it may be.

Corporate vampires have tried to suck $4 billion out of Romania, and with TTIP the UK could be next

TTIP's opponents may be accused of speculation, but the impact of similar trade deals abroad is terrifyingly real

When it dared to halt the production of a gold mine, the government of Romania found itself facing a massive lawsuit from a corporate mining giant in a secret "court". There's nothing about the case that makes any sense – the corporation has said it may seek up to $4 billion in "compensation", which is half of Romania’s annual public healthcare budget.

How awful for Romania to be subject to such a corporate assault, you may think. However, under a controversial trade deal between the UK and America known as TTIP, such cases could become common in Britain. So why is our government one of the biggest cheerleaders of these "corporate courts"?*

What's happening in Romania is a terrifying sign of what could happen if TTIP is passed. The corporate vampires are out for blood, and won't rest until they've drained a sovereign state of its money, and destroyed large parts of its land. The mining giant Gabriel Resources originally wanted to develop an enormous gold mine that would involve flattening four mountain tops. There were fears that this would would leave behind a behind a toxic waste lake containing dammed water and cyanide. But in 2014 a critical environmental document that was required for the project to go-ahead was annulled in a Romanian court. In the face of mass protests inside and outside the country, Romania’s parliament decided not to push through a law that would have allowed the project to continue.

Gabriel Resources has recently admitted that they've lost hope of ever building their mine. But at the same time they submitted a request for arbitration at the World Bank, demanding compensation for all the gold and silver that they were unable to extract. The company is using a Jersey subsidiary to bring the case, so it can make use of a UK-Romania investment deal, even though it's based in Canada. The company claims they have spent nearly $500 million on the project, yet in an interview the company’s CEO claimed he was seeking up to $4 billion in "compensation".

This is exactly the kind of case which that TTIP would promote throughout Europe. Through something called the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, foreign corporations get access to a secret arbitration system to sue governments for "damaging" their profits. These cases are taking place with an alarming frequency using a variety of existing trade deals, but TTIP would massively expand the possibility of this taking place. It would do this by allowing all US corporations to sue EU member states and all EU corporations to sue the US government.

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Yet despite all of this, the British government is fully signed up to the corporate courts. Last year it signed a letter that made clear that the secret court system shouldn’t be removed from the trade deal under any circumstances.

Sovereignty, who needs it ?  Says a 'Conservative' government that rants and raves about the European Union, and, to a lesser degree, the UN, but is more than happy to put unaccountable multi-national corporations above the law or oversight of any government, itself very much included.  Are the UN-'New World Order' nuts paying attention ?


* As with the question of why Osborne is selling off the taxpayers' stake in RBS at a loss, the answer is simple.  Whether you are naïve enough to think otherwise, or even stupid enough to vote for the bastards (not that the same couldn't be said about many Labour-supporters), the fact is, they don't work for you.  If they ever did, they certainly haven't for the last few decades.  And the longer it takes for the general public to wake up to that fact, the less likely it is that our circumstances will ever change.

Maybe the GOP is Right about Obama's Foreign Policy

This is pathetic.

Obama team, military at odds over South China Sea

Some U.S. naval commanders are at odds with the Obama administration over whether to sail Navy ships right into a disputed area in the South China Sea — a debate that pits some military leaders who want to exercise their freedom of navigation against administration officials and diplomats trying to manage a delicate phase in U.S.-China relations.

The Pentagon has repeatedly maintained it reserves the right to sail or fly by a series of artificial islands that China is outfitting with military equipment. The Navy won’t say what it has or hasn’t done, but military officials and congressional hawks want the U.S. to make a major demonstration by sending warships within 12 miles of the artificial islands and make clear to China that the U.S. rejects its territorial claims.

By not doing so, they charge, Washington is tacitly accepting China’s destabilizing moves, which are seen by U.S. allies in the region such as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam as highly threatening.

“We continue to restrict our Navy from operating within a 12 nautical mile zone of China’s reclaimed islands, a dangerous mistake that grants de facto recognition of China’s man-made sovereignty claims,” Sen. John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told POLITICO.

I hate to agree with John McCain, but he's right here.

Sources in the military and within the administration acknowledge the difference of opinion privately, but would not go on the record to discuss the differences between Navy leaders and the administration.

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The dispute is more than just a naval territorial dispute — there are global economic implications if China claims ownership of this part of the sea, which sees trillions in goods shipped between Asia and the rest of the globe.

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China claims it has exclusive control over waters hundreds of miles off its coast, and U.S. officials say Beijing believes the man-made islands strengthen its claim to the disputed Spratly Islands chain, which China and several Southeast Asian countries claim as their own.

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The artificial islands have added to a broader disagreement between Washington and Beijing over freedom of navigation. The United States and most other countries, citing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, maintain that a coastal nation has the right to regulate economic activities such as fishing and oil exploration within a 200-mile economic exclusionary zone and that it cannot regulate foreign military forces except within 12 nautical miles off its shores. China, however, has insisted it can regulate economic and military activities out 200 nautical miles.

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More than $5 trillion worth of international trade, from Middle East oil bound for Asian markets to children’s toys bound for Wal-Mart stores in the U.S., pass through the South China Sea each year. If China can restrict the passage of ships through what today are considered international waters, that could cause shockwaves for the world economy, U.S. officials warn.

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The National Security Council also declined to discuss the dispute or outline the White House’s view, referring questions to the Pentagon.

But the Obama administration is increasingly seen as eager to avoid a confrontation by actually doing so — at least publicly — and Republicans are trying to pressure President Obama ahead of the Chinese leader’s visit to more aggressively assert himself in the face of China’s controversial behavior.

Just think back at the reaction of the US, when Russia annexed its own historical territory in Crimea, with the agreement of most of the Crimean population.  The PRC is, with its ridiculous EEZ-claims*, and creation of military outposts out of open ocean, effectively claiming exclusive ownership of and control over an entire sea !  At the expense of the actual territorial waters of the countries in the area, and at the expense of the entire international community's rights of navigation.  And the US response ?**  'Pretty please, don't do that, huh ?  What if we ask you really, really nicely ?'  Which is pretty much what I'd expect from a government that puts short-term corporate profits ahead of all other interests.

The US can't be counted on to stand by the Philippines or Viet Nam, here, can't be counted on by its Asian allies generally, if it allows this to stand without even attempting to assert its own legal right of navigation.  Sailing in international waters is an act of provocation towards a country a thousand kilometres away ?  Is that really a precedent you want to set ?  No-one's asking you to go to war with China.  Just assert your damn legal rights, and let the PRC take the first shot, if that's really where they want to go with this.  Shit !

Oh, but they left the best piece for last in that article:

But at the same time U.S. military leaders are advocating for something else — for the U.S. Senate to ratify the UN Law of the Sea treaty that it repeatedly cites as as the international framework for navigation of the high seas.

“We undermine our leverage by not signing up to the same rule book by which we are asking other countries to accept,” Gen. Joe Dunford, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate earlier this month.

That's right, as with so many other international agreements, the US signs up for something, then won't fucking ratify it, 'cos historically, the US has kinda not given a shit, figuring it will just do what it wants, regardless of the international community.  Which becomes somewhat problematic, when it comes up across another country with the same arrogant attitude, and the muscle to stand up to the US.

In the case of the UNCLOS, the US finds itself in a club that also includes the likes of North Korea & Iran.  But not the PRC, which ratified the agreement...but then just ignores it anyway.


* And absurd territorial claims based upon a bullshit made-up map from nineteen-forty-fuckin'-seven.

** Never mind the EU's silence on the matter.

Speaking of our Future Semi-Benevolent Dictator

Here's Hillary's super-duper Reality-driven plan for dealing with climate-change: More solar panels** and wind-turbines to power US homes.

That's it apparently.*  No mention of the need for more nuclear in the short term at least.  No mention of industry.  No mention of our destructive economic system that is inherently dependent on infinite growth in a world of finite resources.  No mention of globalisation & trade.  No mention of population-growth.  No mention of China, Russia, Canada, Brasil, Australia, etc., and that fact that nothing the US does will make a damn bit of difference without some sort of global agreement on action.

Just put a solar panel on your house, drive a Prius, and bye-bye climate-change.  And everybody gets a magical pony to boot.


This folksy aw-shucks shit made me want to vomit:

I'm just a grandmother with two eyes and a brain.

Uh, you're a Yale-educated lawyer, a millionaire, a former board-member of Walmart, the highly influential wife of a two-term president of the United States (who amongst other things did much to undermine existing efforts on climate change by outsourcing much of US industry to the far east and México), a former Senator of the United States, and a former Secretary of State.  This lil' ole' Gran'ma me shit is starting to grate.


* There is a line in the video that hints at a coming 'comprehensive agenda', but hey, I'm not the one who released this publicly as 'Hillary's plan to curb climate change'.  And if you seriously believe Hillary will take any bolder action than this, then I've got a bridge for sale.

** Just thought, hang on a minute, where are all these solar panels coming from, given that the PRC-subsidised manufacturers in China already put most US manufacturers out of business ?  On a heavily polluting container-ship over the Pacific Ocean ?

David Cameron: We Need More Invisible Unaccountable Wealth

Britain should not shy away from doing business with countries where corruption is a problem, according to David Cameron.

Writing in The Daily Mail ahead of a trade mission to South East Asia, the Prime Minister said the “wind of economic change is blowing east – and not just to China and India”.

He argued that Britain had concentrated too much on trading with Europe, rather than countries in Asia.

He wrote that people were wrong to argue that “we should avoid doing business with countries with barriers to trade including corruption”.

“Many in South East Asia have led the battle against corruption, which costs the global economy billions of pounds a year,” Mr Cameron said.

“Britain is joining them in that fight – I’ve put the issue at the top of the global agenda.

“Given a level playing field, British businesses can out-compete anyone in the world.” *

Sigh. This is an obvious candidate for 'posted without comment', but I will say this:

1. Cameron is interested in certain groups/individuals profiting here.
2. Those groups/individuals are mostly not in Asia.
3. Those groups/individuals are inherently corrupt.
4. Those groups/individuals are Cameron's friends or friends of friends.
5. Those groups/individuals are not you or anyone you are ever likely to know.
6. That offshored 'wealth' is never coming back.

* 'Level playing field' !  Classic !

So How Will Auntie Hill Come Down on that Trade Deal ?

I can't believe* that stupid non-troversy about Hillary Clinton and the rope between her and the media in some parade is still getting such attention in the US media.  It's utterly absurd, and of no interest to the average American at all.  Any more than for that matter BENGHAZI!!!! & E-mail-gate.

But, that said, she hasn't given many, if any, interviews since declaring her run for the presidency, and as such, until she does give her first major interview, she'll inevitably be judged by whatever does come out, via her, her people, her husband...

The former president described how Vietnam has going from being a country where people made barely a dollar a day twenty years ago, when we normalized relations with them, has seen explosive economic growth and how its children are now among the highest in the world in basic math, science and literature.

Finally, he spoke of how President Obama is trying to add to this record of economic cooperation with the TPP negotiations. He said he hoped “more than anything else that there will be as much bipartisan support for it as there was 20 years ago for the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam.” He said if our country can get good labor, human rights and environmental standards, the TPP will command the support of a broad swath of the American people.

'Good labor, human rights, and environmental standards'... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


* Who the fuck am I kidding ?  Of course, I can.



Update: Yeah, that CNN thing was a total softball puffpiece.  No hard questioning, no mention of TPP or trade generally.  And in so far as there was any approach at discussing anything remotely controversial, they just rehashed the same stupid nontroversies with which the US media is perpetually obsessed.  Basic takeaway: The Republicans are mean, nothing is Hillary's fault, and Hillary has a super-duper economic plan, but she can't tell you anything about it yet.

And since Hillary won't speak to TPP, I will on her behalf: She's for it.  Every bit of it.  Even the bits she may have criticised in the past.  Even the bit whereby the rightful constitutional authority of the government of the United States is made secondary to unaccountable tribunals run by multinational corporations.  Because she wants more wealth and power than she currently has, and the best way to ensure that happens is to suck up to and shill for her even-more powerful and wealthy friends on Wall Street.  But until the General Election at least, you get to enjoy folksy faux-populist Hillary.  As I hinted at in passing before, the woman knows how to act.

New Statesman: The retreat of social democracy

Leader: The retreat of social democracy

Throughout Europe, the populist right is becoming more acceptable to many. Meanwhile, social democrats are failing to adapt to globalisation.

...in Europe and throughout the west, social democracy is in crisis or retreat. The centre left is locked out of power in parliamentary systems in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and, of course, the United Kingdom. On the Continent, the experience is the same for the centre left in Germany, the Netherlands, Portu­gal, Spain, Hungary and now also Denmark, following the defeat of the centre-left bloc, which had been led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

The British left once looked to Scandinavia for inspiration and guidance. “If you want the American dream – go to Finland,” Ed Miliband observed. Yet Finland turfed out its centre-left coalition two months ago; three of the four Nordic countries now face being run by governments of the right. Only in Sweden is the centre left in power.

When Mr Miliband was elected as Labour leader in 2010, he was convinced that the world would turn left after the financial crisis. He gambled his entire leadership on this belief (and it was no more than that) – and he lost. Voters were certainly disturbed by widening inequality but just as important were desires for fiscal rectitude, balanced budgets and tighter controls on immigration.

The mainstream centre left has also produced an anaemic response to the rise of identity politics. It is true that parties of the radical left – such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain – have capitalised on a general mood of disenchantment but, significantly, both are Eurosceptic. More frequently, nationalism has been channelled by the mainstream centre right as well as populist insurgencies. Indeed, it was the rise of the right-wing Danish People’s Party – a Scandinavian version of the UK Independence Party – that contributed significantly to the defeat of the centre-left bloc in Denmark.

Throughout Europe, the populist right is becoming more acceptable to many. Meanwhile, social democrats are suffer­ing from what the political scientist Peter Mair termed “indifference on the part of both the citizenry and the ­political class: they are withdrawing and disengaging from one another”. To many voters, the feeling of solidarity between fellow citizens so crucial to social democracy has become increasingly meaningless in an age of globalised mass migration: parties of the centre left have failed to adapt to globalisation and the collapse in trade union membership. Most fundamentally, they have not convincingly answered the existential question of what the left is for when parties of both left and right are committed to cutting public spending.

Yah.  Which speaks to both the more left-leaning parties' failings on questions of immigration, and the perennial threat of nationalistic appeals against the vaguely defined 'other' undermining more progressive appeals to unite the have-nots against the haves.  Increasingly, Europe, if not the Western world generally, seems poised to re-live the 1930's.  And if you're not scared, you're probably not paying attention.

TISA !

Meant to link to this yesterday.


Another secretive trade-deal to go with TTIP & TPP.  Yay !

An enormous corporate-friendly treaty that many people haven’t heard of was thrust into the public limelight Wednesday when famed publisher of government and corporate secrets, WikiLeaks, released 17 documents from closed-door negotiations between countries that together comprise two-thirds of the word’s economy.

Analysts warn that preliminary review shows that the pact, known as the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), is aimed at further privatizing and deregulating vital services, from transportation to healthcare, with a potentially devastating impact for people of the countries involved in the deal, and the world more broadly.

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Under secret negotiation by 50 countries for roughly two years, the pact includes the United States, European Union, and 23 other countries—including Israel, Turkey, and Colombia. Notably, the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—are excluded from the talks.

...

Bypassing democratic regulations: “Preliminary analysis notes that the goal of domestic regulation texts is to remove domestic policies, laws and regulations that make it harder for transnational corporations to sell their services in other countries (actually or virtually), to dominate their local suppliers, and to maximize their profits and withdraw their investment, services and profits at will,” writes OWINFS. “Since this requires restricting the right of governments to regulate in the public interest, the corporate lobby is using TISA to bypass elected officials in order to apply a set of across-the-board rules that would never be approved on their own by democratic governments.”

Such fun, fun, fun to live in the twenty-first century.  We will get those (more importantly driverless) flying cars soon enough, and maybe one-day the jetpacks.  But any regard for the economic wellbeing or basic rights of actual humans went out the window decades ago.

Oh well.  Back to Candy Crush or whatever the game du jour may be.

In Which the PRC is Totally Not Militarising the West Philippine Sea

Chinese Weapons Spotted on Disputed Island, U.S. Says

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG MAY 29, 2015

SINGAPORE — The United States has spotted a pair of mobile artillery vehicles on an artificial island that China is building in the South China Sea, a resource-rich stretch of ocean crossed by vital shipping lanes, American officials said.

China’s construction program on previously uninhabited atolls and reefs in the Spratly Islands has already raised alarm and drawn protests from other countries in the region, whose claims to parts of the South China Sea overlap China’s.

Unpossible.  The PRC's activities are purely peaceful after all, and for the benefit of their neighbours.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter called this week for China to halt the construction, saying that international law did not recognize Chinese claims of sovereignty over the new territories and that American warships and military aircraft would continue to operate in the area.

A violation of international law !  And we know how seriously the Americans take that !  Why any minute now, they'll be announcing sanctions, and...and...  Well no, of course not.

Psst, Vietnam...Philippines...Malaysia...Take a look at Ukraine.  That's what you get when the country on the other side is one upon whom the US is not massively economically dependent (as a result of insane past policy-decisions).  Think the US will be there when it counts ?  Might be time to make other plans...

Eurovision

It is appropriate in a way I suppose that the Eurovision 2015 Finals should have featured performances, over eighty percent of which were sung entirely in English, with many of those performers, including the UK entry, affecting American accents in the process.  What a perfect symbol for the increasingly corporatised monoculture sweeping our planet in what may well be man's last days.

Now, this is more like it.  Montenegro wuz robbed.

That Would be Just Terrible

Liverpool are stuck in the past and in danger of becoming a provincial club

It is no surprise Raheem Sterling wants bigger and better things elsewhere - a proud club is failing to think beyond the confines of its city

By Gary Neville

1:40PM BST 22 May 2015

If you compare Liverpool to Manchester United over the same period of time, I can think of only one player - Cristiano Ronaldo - who left when he wanted to go, rather than when Sir Alex Ferguson wanted it to happen.

The comparison with United is valid because, regardless of the recent successes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City, English football’s biggest, most historic, successful and best supported clubs are Liverpool and Manchester United.

If you travel to Ireland, Scandinavia, Malta, Thailand or wherever, the red shirts of Liverpool and United vastly outnumber those of every other club.
But while United have been happy to shout from the rooftops about how big they are and promote the legend and mythology of the club on a global scale for years Liverpool seem to have been stuck in their own mud.

Liverpool have begun to realise the commercial value of their brand on a worldwide basis, but they are years behind the biggest European clubs and, for me, their problems - which have been given a public face this week by the Sterling situation - are a direct result of that failure to think beyond the confines of their city.

Yes, it's true, Liverpool FC, the club from that jet-setting internationalist world-capital and centre of world-commerce and culture that is Liverpool is in danger of becoming a provincial club.  That would be tragic.

Far better that they should be more like Manchester United, with exponentially more fans outside the environs of their hometown than inside, with traditional fans unable to afford seats, and eventually attracting a hostile takeover from a foreign billionaire via a leveraged buyout that would leave the club with a massive debt.  What, they're already owned by a foreign billionaire ?  Shit.

Not that I care that much specifically about Liverpool or United, or football generally, but is there no-one in this world any more who doesn't value success and commercial profit over all other values ?  What's the point in Liverpool FC or Manchester United FC being dominant global teams if they no longer primarily represent the people of those cities ?  Just as I'd ask what the hell is the point of a Labour party that tries to win elections by simply adopting the platforms almost wholesale (minus support for the aristocracy and hunting) of the Conservative party.

Why not just sell off the naming for teams to the highest bidder, as the names clearly don't mean anything any more ?  We already have the Emirates FA Cup.  Why not Barclays FC or Qatar United ?  Fer fucks sake...

That Clinton Economic Legacy

For all the progressives & Hillary-fans out there talking up the economic legacy of Bill Clinton, a president who inherited an economic recovery from his predecessor, George Herbert Walker Bush, and whose presidency happened to coincide with the tech. bubble, how about a reminder of some of Bill's economic accomplishments while in office ?*  I've divided them into two groups, one subjectively 'good', one subjectively 'bad'.  Your guess which is which.

NAFTA (North American Free Tree Agreement)
'Welfare-Reform'
The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)
Telecommunications Act of 1996
Permanent Most Favoured Nation status for the People's Republic of China
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (i.e. partial reform of Glass-Steagall)

Balanced the budget (Repubs. would probably dispute credit for this one)*
FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993)
Increased the Minimum Wage
Expanded EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit)
Expansion of Head-Start programme
Attempted (and failed miserably) to bring about universal healthcare-reform.

So, a record on balance to celebrate ?  Consider for one, what was/is the impact of these changes, short-term...and long...


*I am talking here about things Clinton actually did while in office, or was significantly involved in getting through Congress.  One of the things at least on my list (the one starred) is very debatable, and things like employment-figures and stock-market numbers are impossible to separate out between the multitudinous number of potential causal factors, most of which are probably outside of the control of any sitting president.

** Although I provided Wiki links for most of this stuff, I'm assuming a certain level of familiarity with this history and the politics thereof, which Wikipedia alone probably won't provide.

Press-release on TPP Fast-track Deal

Via Gaius Publius, more information on the fast-track deal for TPP (and other trade-deals ?) currently being rushed through Congress, from individuals far better informed and less sweary than myself: https://www.citizen.org/documents/press-release-fast-track-introduced-april-2015.pdf.

I skimmed it myself, but it does amongst other things seems to indicate that this abdication of responsibility by the US Congress on trade-deals could continue at least through the next presidency if not into the one after that, as indicated on her show recently by Rachel Maddow.  Hillary still seems oddly quiet on the whole thing, huh ?

Behold, the latest triumph of the 'free market'...

Chinese vehicle maker Ninebot has bought iconic US rival Segway, the company announced on Wednesday.

The Beijing-based firm did not disclose the amount of the acquisition, but did say that it received $80m (£54m) in funding from smartphone maker Xiaomi and investment firm Sequoia Capital.

Ninebot also makes two-wheeled electric vehicles, designed for standing riders, that resemble Segways.

Segway had sought an import ban against Ninebot in the US in September.

The Chinese company was one of several that Segway had accused of infringing on its patents.

Part of me just lives in hope of seeing the eventual downfall of companies like Apple & GM.

In Which The Telegraph Trolls Scotland

Oh goody, an editorial by Bruce Anderson in the Telegraph.  This the same 'duty to use Torture', 'Torture the wife and children' Bruce Anderson ?

Last Thursday’s debate will have little impact in England. Scotland is another matter. Nicola Sturgeon’s performance has made it inevitable that there will be a constitutional crisis in North Britain and that we will be arguing about Scottish independence for the foreseeable future. Even the French ambassador’s (disputed) account of her apparent attempts to manipulate the balance of power at Westminster will not damage her.

La Sturgeon was effective: clear, confident, combative without being shrill. One could add a fourth “c” word: cold. It is less a question of a splinter of ice in her heart, as a few scraps of heart tissue clinging to an icicle. She has all the human warmth of a tricoteuse waiting for a tumbril. But that was not so apparent during the debate. There is an irony. If she had given such a display as a Labour politician, she would now be the strong favourite to succeed Ed Miliband. As it is, she has expunged any prospect of a Labour recovery in Scotland.... 

 Not shrill you say.  Just a cold-hearted bitch, huh ?  And...' "c" word'...hilarious !

The Scottish public mood is extraordinary. Over the past few months, millions of Scots have been baying at the moon. The most bizarre fantasies have not only circulated; otherwise sane people have given them credence. There are supposed to be massively valuable oilfields whose existence the English are concealing. Though that is about as plausible as Enoch Powell belonging to a satanic cult, it is now part of everyday discourse.

Wait, WTF ?  So The Telegraph, the paper you are currently writing for, reported some bullshit about UKIP & Enoch Powell, and what ?  UKIP are a 'satanic cult' ?  Is that what you're saying ?

The Nat rumour machine also claims that there are large new oilfields to the west of Shetland. But there are three problems with that. First, oil companies have been prospecting in that area, without success. Second, if oil was found, it would be in rough seas. At anything like current oil prices, extraction would not be economic. Third, if Scotland were to secede, Shetland might try to opt out. Those are easy points to make. Scottish friends of mine have been doing so on the doorstep – and getting nowhere.

See nothing to fault here.  And if I was...

How can this be happening? The Scottish Enlightenment represented the triumph of rationalism, always in a calm and restrained fashion. Its philosophers and economists believed in using reason to improve the human condition, not to reshape human nature. They virtually invented free enterprise; they elevated Scotland to the intellectual leadership of Europe. In a splendid setting, the Castle on one side, the sea on the other, their contemporaries laid out the New Town. Calm, rational and beautiful buildings: it is the Enlightenment as architecture.

While it would be absurd to claim that every Scot has read Adam Smith, there were grounds for believing that Enlightenment values had influenced the Scottish character...

Adam Smith.  Of course, Adam Smith, the famous free-market fundamentalist...  A man whose modern-day fictional avatar bears as much resemblance to the original as the Coca Cola Santa Claus to Nikolaos of Myra.

Scots came to think of themselves as shrewd, canny, hard-headed. They persuaded much of the world to accept them at that valuation: a nation of Dickson McCunns. Where is the canniness now?

It was undermined by three historical developments. First came the end of the British Empire. Not only was it often a job-creation scheme for Scots....

Trolling, trolling, trolling...

Once a Royal Duke lowered the final Union Flag, it was easier for malcontents to claim that Scotland was England’s last colony. (Those sentiments are expressed in characteristic language during the film Trainspotting, much the most depressing portrait of Scotland ever written or broadcast.)

There followed the inevitable decline of heavy industry. Two generations ago, most Scots lived within 50 miles of a steelworks, a shipyard, a coalfield – or all three. A lot of Scots regarded that as part of their economic birthright. This came to a rapid end. But it is unfortunate that Margaret Thatcher was prime minister in the final phase....

It was not her fault that globalisation had changed the terms of trade.

Wait, so Globalisation is a thing that...just happened ?  Spontaneously, out of thin air ?  An act of God ?  Something in which the political classes had no hand at all ?

Indeed, on any sensible audit of the Thatcher years, Scotland should regard her as a benefactor.

Still trolling...

Silicon glen, financial services, oil and gas: Thatcherism created the conditions in which the new industries could flourish. But no credit came her way. Her voice did not help; it set many Scottish teeth on edge. That was a childish reaction: there was a lot of childishness about, encouraged by both Labour and Nationalist politicians. It suited them to pour abuse on her and her party, to turn Toryism into political toxic waste.

How dare they ?!!

So there was a quarter of a century of demonisation, which drove economic common sense out of Scottish public debate.

More like a quarter-century of oil-revenues perhaps ?

By the end, many young Scots had come to believe that Scots’ values were superior. Scotland stood for social solidarity, and indeed socialism. It stood for the public sector, not for private enterprise. Mrs Thatcher and her English capitalist friends hated the Scottish ethos, which is why they had set out to destroy the Scottish economy. This brainwashing explains why Nicola Sturgeon will have earned huge applause in Scotland for attacking Ed Miliband from the Left. Scottish Labour helped to sow the dragons’ teeth, never expecting that the dragons would turn on them. They ken the noo.

And still trolling...

Not since the Thirties has a once great nation been in the grip of so many delusions. This is malign thraldom, and it is not clear how it can be ended. Nicola Sturgeon and her party are on the side of Trainspotting Scotland, not Enlightenment Scotland. Yet there is no sign of Scotland coming to its senses.

It's almost like the Tories want Scotland voting SNP, huh ?  And vice-versa ?  But I don't imagine the Telegraph would have any stories speculating upon that particular conspiracy-theory...

Earth Hour

As John Oliver might say, How is this still a thing ?

If it makes you feel good about yourself for participating in this ridiculous act of tokenism, then yeah, go ahead, knock yourself out.  But if you think this will convince your right-wing climate-change-denying neighbour, then you're delusional.  And if you needed this annual event to remind yourself personally of the reality of climate change, well...

Vote out the right-wing fuckers that keep kow-towing to their/our Big Energy overlords and pushing a Globalisation agenda that is simply relocating industrial production and all its attendant problems (i.e. including pollution) to third-world nations if you really want to make a difference.

Oh and can someone put this painfully dire video in a time-capsule ?  It'll give the aliens a laugh when they come across the rotting corpse of our civilisation.