I was so impressed witbh Theresa May's speech to Republican lawmakers during her state visit to the US earlier this year. She hit all the right notes, and seemed to back them up with a grounding in principles.
But, boy, did she miscalculate the mood of the UK's voting populace by calling for a snap election. It badly eroded the Conservative position, which greatly weakens her as prime minister under the parliamentary system.
It did the West in general no favors, that's for sure. We have a new guy in France, Macron, who is the ultimate in pointy-headed center-left bureaucratic mush. Merkel, of course, seems indifferent, despite her occasional attempts to convince us otherwise, to the morphing of Europe into a rest home for aging natives - and a sharia enclave for a flood of newcomers. And in North America we have a Macron-eque figure, Trudeau, at the helm in Ottawa, and, of course, Squirrel-Hair holding forth in Washington.
Maybe May's current situation will serve as the crucible to temper her bona fides as a courageous visionary as no other circumstances could.
But she'll need to never lose sight of the fact that the Jeremy Corbin types will be wasting no time to fill the vacuum.
It did not take her long to appear to loathe Trump. Oh well, we were so weak and squirrely under Obama. Just saturation bomb the piss out of it all. That'll work, won't it? Seems to be the mood of a lot of Trumpsters I talk to. They don't know much history, or even much about current events, but, oh boy, their man Trump is going to get er all done. Beginning with insult bombs.
ReplyDeleteI myself have not heard anybody, Trump supporter or otherwise, advocate "bombing the piss out of it all." For starters, how are these people you're hearing from defining "it all"?
ReplyDeleteI must invite that response from people. Haven't you heard how it's time to get tough? America First! "It all" means the multiple fronts where I am often told today we have been weak and now need to be strong. Just let Trump tell you. You know darn well where we will saturation bomb again.
ReplyDeleteWest is best, right? Then why'd all those corporations offshore over the past 40 years? I know, I know. Cheap labor, lower taxes, makes more for the stock holders. Cool! And a mighty fine mess they left us here. Of course we know all that. Now we are expected to fall in line to bring it all back to our exceptional Western nation. Damage done. Too bad. So sad.
ReplyDeleteWest has been best, but in the last 40 years or so, when the regulation and tax burden ate into shareholder value, a number of companies have had to take particular operations offshore.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, does "it all" include the UK, which is, after all the topic of this post, or France or Germany, which are tangentially so?
Of course "it all" contains the countries whose leaders you disagree with and detest. West will only be best at your cocksure behest. And millions more of your enemies will die.
ReplyDeleteAnd robotics will pad the stockholder coffers more than anything, leaving the rest of us idle and of course jailed if we attempt to assuage the psychic pain. You cannot have patriotism for a country that has left you behind. Oh well, send in the drones...
ReplyDeleteThis has what to do with the topic of this post?
ReplyDeleteI honestly have never heard of any Trump supporter wanting to bomb Germany, France or Britain.
ReplyDeleteIt begins with pulling out of NATO. I have often heard the Trumpstera invoke a neo-isolationist policy. Admittedly I hear a lot of negative talk like this from workers that are still losing their jobs to consolidation and artificial intelligence. They're mad, but primarily they're scared. But they don't blame Trump. Yet. They still blame Obama.
ReplyDeleteHow about claiming responsibility for their own lives?
ReplyDeleteBTW, have you heard these people say, "If pulling out of NATO doesn't get us guaranteed employment, it will be time to bomb the U.K., France and Germany"?
No. But many motor mouths in this country are definitely waxing hawkish. Never worked before in my lifetime, but, hey, all we had before were milquetoasts.
ReplyDeleteKilling all the lawyers (and MBAs) hasn't been tried yet though.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they were taking responsibility for their own lives. Lots more people were doing that till the employment lights changed. Thanks movers and shakers, send some tricks down our way if you can.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteA new book out called The Golden Passport suggests that MBAs from HBS need to take more responsibility for everyone else here on Planet Earth. No man is an island unto his own prosperity.
ReplyDeleteThe last thing we need is HBS MBAs thinking they ought to "take more responsibility for everyone else on planet Earth." That was the Progressive formula of 100 years ago - pointy-headed "experts" in the administrative class managing society from the top down.
ReplyDeleteMemo to the individuals comprising the human race: Don't hand your fate over to these people.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNo, hand it over to the dudes and dudettes leveraging, swapping (credit defaults), creatively accounting, blowing bubbles (market),the off balance sheet riskers, the shadow bankers. Just wait for the next crash, it's surely coming. And when it comes again (and I hope and pray it is during Trump's term so we'll never ever allow another like him in power), they're the first to look for governmental bail-outs and of course, they avoid the jail-ins.
ReplyDeleteOne of the smaller ironies in my life has been teaching Henry David Thoreau at an Ivy League school for half a century. Asking young people to read Thoreau can make me feel like Victor Frankenstein, waiting for a bolt of lightning: look, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive! Most students are indifferent—they memorize, regurgitate, and move serenely on, untouched. Those bound for Wall Street often yawn or snicker at his call to simplify, to refuse, to resist. Perhaps a third of them react with irritation, shading into hatred. How dare he question the point of property, the meaning of wealth? The smallest contingent, and the most gratifying, are those who wake to his message.
ReplyDeleteread more at https://theamericanscholar.org/reading-thoreau-at-200/?utm_content=bufferacff3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#
I fully realize this thread has again morphed off-topic, as the reality of threads almost always is. How shocking!
ReplyDeleteSo, to close, if Britain is a democracy, then, the people have spoken, and, well, what's wrong with that. I look forward to a mid-term election where somehow Trump gets whipped, and whipped badly, so badly, he becomes like Bush did after his ass whuppin' back in '06, rendering him largely ineffective, though he fired some key players in his Iraq War fiasco. And Bush was a million times the man that Trump is. Whateva, we will always hear the bloggie crying in the rain...
ReplyDeleteIn the UK miss May likely is best expressed by the crucible thought you may be out very soon.
ReplyDeleteTangentially,Entropy,Empathy,Tangibility, so confusing.
Re: "What's wrong with that?" Nothing, if the Conservatives can quickly regroup around a figure in Parliament that can lead rebuilding. But if it means strengthening the Corbyn camp, everything is wrong with it.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDon't know much about British politics, but I hear Jeremy Corbyn is a bit of a whacko bird, left of even the Bern
ReplyDeleteRe: the imminently laid-off Trumpstera being populist as the Obama mess continues to impact them negatively, being mad, and scared, and bloggie's retort that they should take responsibility for their own lives, I present another non-fictional offering for your perusal. My dad said he read it cover to cover in one sitting. He was raised in nearby Youngstown. This is a classic example of what happened when the vandals broke the handle:
ReplyDeletePrivate-equity vampires didn’t just suck all the value out of Anchor to line their own pockets. They also casually imposed changes that devastated Lancaster, such as moving the company headquarters out of state. Vice presidents no longer drank beer next to factory workers or paid municipal taxes, and their wives were no longer around to raise money for schools and the hospital. It was not lost on Lancastrians that the new overlords considered their once-celebrated home as a hickburg with third-rate shopping. The series of companies that owned Anchor exploited the town’s desperate desire to save the hundreds of jobs the plant provided, obtaining free land from the city as well as, in 2003, a 100 percent tax abatement that took $50,000 away from Lancaster’s public schools. All to appease a billion-dollar equity firm whose top executives bought multimillion-dollar apartments on Central Park West and traveled by private jet. Some of the biggest donors to Lancaster’s local politicians are the predatory lenders of the short-term loan industry, who make payday advances to poor Lancastrians at 636 percent interest.
More at http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2017/02/brian_alexander_s_glass_house_about_lancaster_ohio_reviewed.html
This post is about Britain's snap election. Therefore I have nothing to say about the situation in Lancaster Ohio
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteNot only that, but you have no real point in bringing it up, do you?
Sorry, my bad, thought you had an interest in replying when the post morphed into populism in America and you commented that people need to take responsibility for their own lives in the face of rapacious capitalism gone wrong in this country, which you blame on moral decline among the great unwashed. My point in bringing the new book out about Lancaster, OH's fate is that I thought it kind of fit the thread the way it had evolved. No worries, nothin's gonna change either of our minds as they too perhaps continue to evolve as we blog out our thinking. The one thing we do agree on is that things are messed up, whether it's truly that late in the day only time and circumstance will tell. I am not too hopeful that the virtue of selfishness will save the day.
ReplyDeleteSelfishness is hardly a virtue. But the free market - as practiced by people with God-inclined hearts - would have fast, amazing results in our society
ReplyDeleteJust citing Ayn Rand's title utlilizing that very phrase. We have met the enemy and he is us, but we cannot agree on who we all are. Every western nation, nay every nation is in the same predicament as the Brave New economic world arrives with humans being replaced at a rapid by technology. Let's hope something like love and understanding holds sway, but I sure doubt it now.
ReplyDeleteGod-inclined hearts? Peace, love & understanding? It's all in that free market of the heart, mind & soul. Yes, the river knows too.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete