Never in my lifetime have so many words been written about one man, nor news reports been dominated by one figure as I have witnessed since Donald Trump decided to run for the American Presidency, and its getting worse. Just today I counted twelve news articles about him on the Guardian website and eight comment articles on the Opinion page. There are as many on the Independent and Huffington Post has its fair share as well. What is heartening about it is that America is not a European country and appears to be reacting in a way that suggests that his presidency may not last too long as a goodly number of Americans look as though they are horrified by the man and prepared to do something about him. The downside is the grovelling and fawning of the British who are doing everything except kiss his backside. The Tories are indeed the epitome of a moral sewer. I have been warning you in this blog since I first started about our slow but seemingly inexorable slide into fascism. Our press and media are awash with articles and reports from commentators of all sorts warning us of the dangers of Britain and the US descending into an authoritarian crypto-fascist political system and likening today's political climate to the darkest days of the 1930's. We even have the Chinese warning that Trump is threatening a military conflict and he has only been in the job a week and a half. I am glad that people are finally wakening up to this environment, but it is quite incorrect to blame this on Donald Trump. I have been warning of this for many years, long before Trump even thought about standing for office. Trump may be capitalising on it and expressing it in a manner that is now ripping the veil from undercurrents that have been lurking for many years, but those developments have indeed been long in the making, simply waiting for Trump or someone like him. The real culprit is the free market economic ideology that has been laying the foundations for the toxic political and economic climate we find ourselves in. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis told us as early as the 1930's
"We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
As I have mentioned before, I saw this developing with Thatcher's class war approach, her exclusivity and her dismissal of all who disagreed with her. In particular, I saw it developing through her determination to transfer the wealth of the nation upwards which necessitated a ferocious centralisation of power. It was manifest in her attacks on working people and her destruction of the trades union movement. This resulted in the emergence of the managerial bullies and authoritarians within the British middle class managerial ranks as they waged war on workers and their rights. Like a stone thrown into a pool, this rippled out until it became legitimate to bully and express hatred for those who you consider to be of a lesser class than yourself, or who you consider unworthy of your consideration. What we are witnessing is the logical result of exclusivity, elitism and class warfare. If we add to this witches brew a malignant racism we see, laid bare before us, the scapegoat mentality that supports the elite narrative and deflects the blame for our ills onto those whom our elite hold in utter contempt, the disadvantaged, the poor, but particularly 'the others'.
Thatcher was a ferocious bully, and established a political culture of bullying and lying that has resulted in Trump. At last we are seeing a significant reaction to this. The difficulty lies in the fact that ordinary people turn to strong leaders who will support them in the face of forces they cannot really understand, let alone combat. What is so unfortunate is that they have turned to the biggest bullies of them all, both in this sorry country and in the United States. This present Tory Party and the Donald are even bigger bullies than Thatcher and so they cannot even begin to understand the problem, because the problem is the very culture that they support so stoutly. The solution to this problem is an economic solution, but must begin with the political and intellectual rejection of the ideological poison that lies at its root. There must be a serious redistribution of wealth and resources, but as importantly, of opportunity. The real battle is a battle of ideas. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
No comments:
Post a Comment