Chomsky on Trump

[Serial_Apologist]

Whatever you may think about the way Mugabe went about it, surely there is something disquieting about the writer's view that

Mugabe...whipped up national anger and hatred towards the land owning white minority (who happened to know how to run farms), and seized their land to redistribute to the people, in a great populist move which in the end unravelled the economy and farming industry and left the people in possession of land, but starving.

As though the status quo just needed to be left alone?

Gopnik's argument that the strength of bourgeois institutions through tacit popular support makes them bulwarks against dictatorship allows him to be rather "liberal" with the term "populist", I would say.

[jean]

But I'm not quoting Gopnik!

[Serial_Apologist]

But I'm not quoting Gopnik!

Oops! - sorry jean.

[french frank]

As though the status quo just needed to be left alone?

Since you ask :-), no, I don't think you can assume that he means that as he follows it up with comparable examples from the Soviet Union and the Chinese communists. He merely points out that what was done led to famine and death: he doesn't say nothing needed to be done. In Mugabe's case it was also a populist/popular policy. In the USSR and China is was perhaps more of an imposed, authoritarian revolution?

[Serial_Apologist]

Since you ask :-), no, I don't think you can assume that he means that as he follows it up with comparable examples from the Soviet Union and the Chinese communists. He merely points out that what was done led to famine and death: he doesn't say nothing needed to be done. In Mugabe's case it was also a populist/popular policy. In the USSR and China is was perhaps more of an imposed, authoritarian revolution?

All violent revolutions such as the three you cite are authoritarian in one way or another, because what is seized - white majority rule in the case of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, the landed aristocracy and industrial and commercial bourgeoisie and their control over the state in Russia, an occupying power and compliant "domestic" ruling class China - has to be defended by force by the victors.

[french frank]

All violent revolutions such as the three you cite are authoritarian in one way or another

Yes, that's true. Though, as yet, not the 'Trump uprising'.

[Lat-Literal]

I just wonder whether what has happened in 2016 merits academic theory. Arguably the rudest and most belligerent American candidate in living memory is so offended by milder rudeness and belligerence from members of the UK Government that the Prime Minister is the eleventh person he rings. Mr Farage as the one favoured is wholly unaccountable (Trump likes those who are unelected - see also The Queen) but under a fair system of proportional representation he would have been something in a Coalition Government. For years, parties with leftish traditions in both the US and Britain have been as much in cahoots with tax avoiders as those on the right who understand Atlantic Bridge and they have been as hawkish if not more so. They oversaw a big widening of the gap between the top and the bottom as the trickle down theory was proven to have a totally mythical status.

The US public have vented their anger on politicians who permitted corruption in big business by attempting to cut out the middle man and electing a big business man with questionable credentials. Only a few know "mainstream" Democrats and Republicans were hand in glove on Ukraine where the overthrowing of the President was prompted by an internet TV station set up by the Dutch within the EU under cross-party American instruction. Those parties share an opinion on Russia's arrival in Crimea that it was unprompted. Black Lives Matter UK was at one point being led by a privileged 19 year old middle class model who was hellbent on presenting British black experience as a direct extension of sporadic American black experience. On her website there were echoes of the Ku Klux Klan as she assessed when non whites would be in the majority here with the message "then we win". In these sorts of contexts, it is hard to apply any sort of theory other than to see a wide range of people as being on the make. It's partially why I am now post-political.

(I accept Farage is an MEP but that isn't relevant in the context in which he is being used)

[BBMmk2]

Doesn't comer under the "Political" banner?

[Lat-Literal]

Doesn't comer under the "Political" banner?

I am not going to say any more.

Nothing now makes any sense.

I prefer squirrels and sheep etc.

[BBMmk2]

I am not going to say any more.

Nothing now makes any sense.

I prefer squirrels and sheep etc.

Likewise

[french frank]

The US public have vented their anger on politicians who permitted corruption in big business by attempting to cut out the middle man and electing a big business man with questionable credentials.

This touches on the Tobias Stone article again. Often there are popular mass movements, fuelled by anger and led by demagogues, which manage to achieve the very thing which is against their own interests. Not necessarily 'mass destruction' in the extreme sense, but nevertheless with very painful consequences for individuals (yet somehow the leaders usually emerge unscathed).

[Beef Oven!]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38059623

[jean]

Often there are popular mass movements, fuelled by anger and led by demagogues, which manage to achieve the very thing which is against their own interests.

Let's hope that's the case with Trump's opposition to TTIP.

[french frank]

Let's hope that's the case with Trump's opposition to TTIP.

It seems to be the EU that's been losing interest in TTIP: Trump's threat is to TTP - the Asian free trade deal. This is the whole 'free trade treaty' problem: bilateral deals favour the stronger economy, which is why America quite likes the idea.

[jean]

He wasn't keen on TTIP eithr - though arguably it was already defeated before he got to it.

This is the whole 'free trade treaty' problem: bilateral deals favour the stronger economy, which is why America quite likes the idea.

It's a mistake to think in terms of 'the economy' as one and indivisible; these trade deals favour big corporations alone, which do not comprise the entirety of a country's economy.

Donald Trump’s victory should be a warning to those on the centre left pushing for more “market” in our lives. But early signs suggest that there is every danger of Europe’s leaders falling into an even deeper sleep.

The United States-European Union Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership trade agreement has become a hated modern symbol of the power of big business and the market over our societies. The TTIP deal has rightly been seen as less a traditional agreement on tariffs and more an attempt to give big business new powers over our laws and public services. All of this would be enforceable in special “corporate courts” only accessible to large foreign investors.

Trump cynically exploited working-class anger over these sorts of trade deals. He spoke of the devastation caused by TTIP’s forerunner, the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which radically speeded up the ability of corporations to “offshore” jobs to Mexico, leaving communities hollowed out and their voices silenced in the mainstream media. He also promised to halt TTIP’s sister deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.