Trump is Bringing the War Back Home

gallery-1462816039-donald-trump-1Having made the psychologically damaging error of listening to Trump’s Inauguration speech, like a good many others in the world, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. But what haunted my dreams wasn’t so much the lumbering menace of “America First!” or even the Casino owners’s wager that no matter how ill thought through and asinine the policy, God would always be there to cover the bet. No…I kept wondering to myself where I’d heard this language before? When and where was the last time I saw a government formed of people with a radical hatred of government, people animated by the belief that the corporate thuggery that works for them in the boardroom will work when it comes to the complexities of running a country? Who were the last people who dismissed the very idea of complexity as faggoty defeatism, who believed that a combination of their own divinely sanctioned crassness and the miraculous power of the market could magically and speedily “make America Great Again.”

And it hit me. Iraq 2003.

That was the last place where free market ideologues were let loose like this…where education was to be run by someone who doesn’t believe in schools, where health can be run by someone who wants to destroy public medicine, where foreign policy would consist solely in looking for unprincipled, uncaring, devil take the hindmost deals with whatever power hungry thug could be found who shared your lust for a buck, where the environment and energy departments could be run by people who have railed publicly that these agencies should be shut down.

Iraq. 2003. A defeated country…in exactly the state of dereliction that Trump depicts “the greatest country in the world” and thereby justifies the slashing and burning of the state created by Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson…and lately in the hands of that unspeakable monster of racial miscegenation and liberal conspiracy, Barack Obama.

To be fair, Trump probably was shocked by what he saw of the rust belt states on the campaign trail, just no doubt Paul Bremer’s people were genuinely personally distressed by what they found in Baghdad. And probably Trump genuinely believes his own propaganda…that every half baked, bigoted myth he’s heard on talk radio about welfare and immigration represents the “truth” that pointy headed liberals self-interestedly conceal with their unmanly talk of “complexity.”

And so, with exactly the same mixture of arrogance and ignorance as in Iraq, a colonial administration has just taken power in the United States. People without knowledge, sympathy or imagination who believe in simple minded myths they themselves have peddled, contemptuous of experts and understanding and the stuff you read in books…have arrived in a real country with real history and real cultures…and yes…real complexity. Over the next few weeks, Trump’s appointees and Trump himself will be bulling and grunting around government departments full of people who will try to explain to them reality, and who will be dismissed as feather-bedding obstructionists…as ornery, irritating natives insisting that actually knowing things about the country you’ve invaded might be a good place to start.

Trump – and Ryan , and all the President’s Rich Men are about to do what Bremer did in Iraq. And, when a handful of coal-mining jobs are “returned” (at huge government cost…and profit to the very same colonial corporations) to West Virginia, while the government programmes that actually make life possible there disappear in a bonfire of tax cutting hubris, and an already denuded economy descends into community destroying chaos, it will, of course, be the nay-sayers with their “complexity” who will be blamed. The coming to power of Trump’s colonial, conquering administration of the rich and invincibly stupid is the beginning of the American civil war, not the end.

So we don’t need to look to Fascist Europe in the 1930s for precedents for what is happening in the USA. What is happening is the natural sequel to what neo-liberal intervention did to the economies of Eastern Europe in the 90s and the Middle East in the last decade.

The colonial war, finally, has come home.

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  1. Ex Pat says:

    If true, GOOD.

    They deserve it. All of it. All those USan ‘Good Germans’ who averted their eyes from murder, from torture-to-death, from 27,000 missing ‘disappeared’ muslims, all arabs – “Are they alive or is Obama inheriting mass graves, in which case there will be a lot apologising to do.” – Robert Fisk 2008. After which silence. So mass graves then -, from illegal war, genocide and the supreme war crime, from which all others flow, Aggression. All those USans who have not yet publicly said “Why did I avert my eyes from Murder, from Torture, from Illegal War, Why did I not say “Not in my name”.

    To hell with all of them. And their UK catamite partners.

    27,000 Disappeared Muslims

    – See ‘27,000 Disappeared Muslims’ a comment to “Iraq War Logs: Secret Files Show How US Ignored Torture”, by Nick Davies, Jonathan Steele and David Leigh, October 22, 2010 –

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26671.htm

    Trump Will Fail

    – “Trump will fail” – George Soros in Davos @ 8.50 –

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-01-19/in-conversation-with-george-soros-at-davos-2017

    1. MBC says:

      Just remember Trump didn’t win the popular vote. The majority of good decent Americans rejected him. Support those folks. They are even more dismayed than we are.

      1. Jo says:

        “We” are not all dismayed. If you’re saying Clinton would have been a good option for the world then many Americans, who clearly could not bring themselves to vote for her, would disagree with you. A lot of others around the world would disagree as well.

        Clinton represents everything I’d already rejected here about Blair’s ideas, including illegal foreign wars, and she made it clear she was up for another one as soon as she got elected, if she got elected. Well, she didn’t get elected. If anyone got Trump elected it was Hillary so hell mend the Democrats for caving in to her vanity and even letting her stand!

    2. Ex Pat says:

      > Just remember Trump didn’t win the popular vote. The majority of good decent Americans rejected him. Support those folks. They are even more dismayed than we are.

      Voting for Hillary is better – the face of the US-Empire-business-as-usual – and that’s the plan? They can go to hell with knobs on.

      In 2001-3 – there were seven regular peace protesters on a street corner in Palo Alto. _Seven_. That was it. I saw them. I lived among those USan gutless swine.

      The rest of them than go to hell. 300 million plus ‘Good Germans’ who did F___ All. For fifteen years. And/or their entire lives.

      And Heimat Security infiltrated them. (Others, actually). –

      http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v15/3/infiltration.html

      More – See comment ‘You and the Sixteen Cointelpro Shills’, a comment to ‘Learn To Make Terror Your Friend’, by Doug Casey, January 08, 2012 – ICH –

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30185.htm

    3. Gaga Glasgow says:

      Ex Pat, I’m just wondering where you go from there? Doesn’t seem to be much room for moving on, or maybe you want an apology or something?

      The wealth and wellbeing of almost all first world countries derives from exploitation and misery. I can’t think of an exception.

      That’s the deal. Are we all to burn in hell?

      Whatever you want to call it, capitalism, exploitation, globalisation, it somehow sustains the lives of about 8 billion people.

    4. Ex Pat says:

      > I’m just wondering where you go from there?

      “The only redemption lies, as I have already indicated, in a complete admission of guilt. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! Out of honest contrition for sin comes divine grace. That is not only a religious but also a psychological truth.” – C.G. Jung – link below (*).

      > Are we all to burn in hell?

      For those who have murdered and tortured-to-death, hell is not ‘out there’, hell is not in ‘the future’ and hell is not in some imagined ‘afterlife’. Hell is right here, right now and nowhere else. Why do you think that veterans kill themselves at such a rate? As the revered father of peace studies Johan Galtung says “the decent ones kill themselves”.

      And as Jung said of the Germans after WW2, at some level US and UK people know what has been done in their names and they know what they have been a part of.

      And some other thinking, feeling people know these things and speak of it, while others pretend not to know and deny it.

      The US and UK peoples have been led by their Muppet Stream Media (MSM) half way down the path of the Germans in WW2, towards ‘mass psychosis’ – the belief that murder, torture-to-death, illegal war and genocide are all right because ‘we’ say so. Just. Like. The. German. Nazis.

      Luckily, we don’t have to work this out for ourselves. Others have been down this path before us and have given us the results of their decades of work and suffering. –

      (*) See comments ‘ ‘MASS PSYCHOSIS’ – ON _NOT_ GOING THE WAY OF THE GERMANS IN 1933 – 1′ and ‘FACING EVIL’, and _particularly_ Replies, to comments to ‘A Worse Record Than Saddam’s’, by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, 26th October, 2010 – ICH –

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26687.htm

      Lite version. By comparison to the above, certainly! ; ) –

      “It’s about the destruction of people’s morals. It comments about that way that America operated during the Vietnam war as well as the confused values that America pushed upon the world.” –

      – Apocalypse Now | Analsysis (Part One) – Channel Criswell – Youtube –

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r23wOiCHK5E

    5. Ex Pat says:

      JOHN PILGER

      JUST TURN OFF THE USUK REALITY DISTORTION FIELD

      John Pilger turns off the USUK Reality Distortion Field (™ Steve Jobs, marketing genius but truth? HA!) and thereby lets us to do the same.

      “Leave the rest of the world alone. Leave it alone!” – John Pilger’s message to Trump.

      – ‘John Pilger – Obama “Served the Power…He was Meant to Serve.”’ 17th January 2017 – RT video –

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46255.htm

      John Pilger captures perfectly the problem of the US and of the UK, where there is almost no organized effective opposition to rapacious fascist-minded governing elites. Elites who use the methods of the Nazis mostly on muslims and on the poor around the world.

      – ‘The Issue Is Not Trump, It’s Us’, by John Pilger, 16th January, 2017 – ICH -, or JohnPilger.com –

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46244.htm

      http://johnpilger.com/articles/this-week-the-issue-is-not-trump-it-is-ourselves-

      Just say “F___ YOU and the horse you rode in on” to the USUK Muppet Stream Media’s lies. Viva John Pilger! Viva RT!

  2. w.b.robertson says:

    i trust Mr Arnott is keeping a safely preserved copy of all this…so that in four years time he can reprint and say “I told you so…”. Or maybe not.

  3. c rober says:

    Lets see how quiet he is on tariffs by this time next year , on the 35 percent on EU cars , and of course on the repatriation of Apple money and the other tech companies as assets for employment creation war chests – of course what tax rate is applicable will be kept secret.

    What about the Chicken truck tax , the insistence on Japanese car makers making cars in America?

    Theres a reason why not many yanks wanted to own their own cars – frankly they were , are , second rate.

    So what is Trump suggesting , socializing the car industry , after its cull , making the American version of the LADA ?

    Has America not then went towards a form of McCommunism and not noticed?

    But that would mean assuming that the Americans would want to go back to Yank Tanks and their unreliablity – well other than the 5 tonner twin axle chicken trucks…. fuelled by fracking killing their drinking water.

    Like it or lump it with enough thinking this may well see the rise of America as a employer – well at least internally , over the short term , but will the workers then be able to afford the END product? And as we know the export market , with the rejection of TTIP by the EU , just where will that export market be? Iraq , Afghanistan , Europe has rejected everything American other than fried chicken , burgers , pizza and Apple (not the foodstuff).

    Apple is biggest American manufacturer at present in theory , but made in China , at 600 quid for an iphone , meaning 200 percent profit without any import taxes when it comes back into the USA. Its profitable because of exporting jobs , and avoiding import taxes.

    Will the yanks pay that increased premium for moving Apple to made in the USA , or via applying import taxes , meaning apple allow its profit margins to suffer? Currently the people that make the apple product in China cant even afford to buy them , will it make any difference were the production be repatriated? I highly doubt it.

    I think therefore this will continue , despite the presidential promising , for using China as the manufacturer rather than Americans. That is until they are at the same pay grade , will your American accept such salaries? Nope.

    What about the dead American Chip makers , now usurped by the likes of Apples major supplier and competitor Samsung , and the rise of the Chinese as chip makers of their own right nieeping at both their heels as hardware developers and manufacturers ?

    Hell even the talk of Intel being the supplier for APPLE , as well as AMD , only supplies the processors and not the other chips like memory.

    So if this is just in the tech industry , then can the same be thought about the retooling of heavy industry , car industry , or of mining for the materials? If those rust belts died first time around for being uneconomical , then the only option is to make imports uneconomical? Thus increasing the end price – its Greek Economics page one.

    Its all been pie in the SKY , and the Americans so hungry foolishly believed it was low fat , gluten , sugar and nut free , but hey at least they got to vote for it…. even if they wont be able to afford it , but they havent figured that bit our yet.

    The post coital headache is just starting.

    1. Gaga Glasgow says:

      It’s interesting, c rober, everything critical you say about American cars and manufacturing sits quite comfortably amongst other reasons many Americans saw for electing Trump. In other words, it’s because of the deficiencies you point to that many considered radical change was necessary.

      The Americans have plenty of oil, btw, they wouldn’t rely on fracking for fuelling any big cars they build.

      One thing a lot of people misunderstand about Americans, speaking generally, and there’s a suggestion of it in your post, is their work ethic. I’ve worked with Americans, I wouldn’t describe any of them as being lazy or dumb or shoddy, quite the contrary.

      I dislike American culture on the whole, although there are some aspects of it I like, but when it comes to industry, capitalism, business, ingenuity and hard work, the only other country that comes close is Germany.

      1. c rober says:

        Really its well documented that Fracking is saving America from its oil imports from the Arab States. Or was the whole 70s oil thing a product of imagination?

        Manufacturing , well for cars they did what the french did and eventually dropped the flag of patriotism once they drove foriegn cars….other than the protectionism of chicken tax. And for any other foreign owned vehicle maker they had to put in factories , while America in the case of Japan used other routes as tarrifs like Rice , or with China in buying up bad debt bonds.

        For work ethic and pride in no way are they even close to 70s bad british never mind modern Jap or German. If they had been then 2/3 of industry that dissapeared over the last 30 years wouldnt have.

        For protectionism well they are all and above the rest of the World , seen happening now , but if you watch any american TV over the last 10 years you would see yank product placement – and even foriegn displacement , ie the removal of non American vehicles badges.

        You can also see the same Tv and media in promoting the Likes of Apple and Dell , while blurring out or putting stickers over other brand names like lenovo or samsung.

        But then I am a realist – not a fantasist.

        1. interpolar says:

          Protectionism aside, the battle Trump won’t win is against automation in the manufacturing industry unless he becomes an outspoken Luddite. Any company that buckles and repatriates its production is going to do it on its own terms. And that means employing robots instead of people.

          Taking protectionism out again, the US will over time have greater trouble exporting its goods, because everyone else will have raised their tariffs too.
          But even that is the good-case scenario, because the global political system is likely to have fallen apart before we even get this far.

  4. Gaga Glasgow says:

    A sobering article, Mr Arnott, and compelling. There are, needless to say, gaping errors here though.

    Do you really think Iraq after its obliteration in the war, with its intense sectarian divisions, and all its inadequacies, bears any resemblance to the buzzing, vibrant economic powerhouse of the United States?

    The protagonists might look the same and use the same language but circumstances could hardly be more different.

    And, when you think about it, that same language has been getting used and abused by the same sort of people (politicians and the so called business class who are essentially one and the same) here, there, and everywhere for decades now.

    Hillary Clinton used identical language in her campaign, with talk of investing in communities etc., as did Obama and so many others before. The Labour Party in the U.K. has done likewise for decades and is paying the price for that deceit.

    If Trump is different and I think he is, it’s because he is starting with the premise that these so-called liberals and the leftists have been lying and pretending to care for ordinary people for decades. I have a thousand examples of left wing politicians demonstrating that they actually cared only for themselves.

    From the perspective of an ordinary American, Trump was a shot to nothing. They can’t lose with him because the alternative was more of the same old lies, excuses, and inaction.

    We are in an odd situation right now both here in the U.K. and in America. Left wing politicians have lost the trust of ordinary people but developments suggest that the left wing message (if not the messenger) still has huge appeal.

    Donald Trump’s emphasis on resurrecting US industry and the plight of the working man, May’s talk of a caring, sharing society, Brexit, and the success of the SNP, can all be explained in terms of a wholesale rejection of supposedly left-leaning politicians who not only failed but deceived ordinary people.

    It’s one thing to be robbed by a guy like Trump, you might sort of expect that, but it’s quite another to be robbed by the very people who said they were looking out for you. The left haven’t learned that lesson yet and probably never will.

  5. MBC says:

    The thing that scares me most about Trump is the people he has appointed, who are far smarter and more dangerous than he is. Trump is… intellectually lazy, that’s an understatement. He doesn’t read, he doesn’t do detail, he doesn’t have a clue what is really going on, he can be easily outwitted. He just shouts and bawls, and uses his money leverage and his bullying to get things done. But his systems are chaotic. He got where he is by cheating his customers, by not paying his creditors, by using his superior financial muscle to force them to accept less than they agreed, or nothing.

    You can’t run a country like that. A country has rules, laws. The US military for instance cannot carry out orders that contravene US law. The chain of command will refuse to carry out an illegal order within the country if given. (Abroad is different). Trump doesn’t understand this. In business there is little regulation, little legitimacy. Corporations routinely get away with murder. He is used to just using strong arm tactics to get his way.

    So he will delegate. He will just say to his billionaires in his cabinet – go and fix that son-of-bitch. They however are smarter than him. He won’t care how they fix stuff as long as they seem to be fixing it. So they will hush the press, and carry things out illegally, so that he never hears what’s really going on. There will be umpteen empires within his administration all undermining one another and all going about things without coherence. There will be madness, chaos.

    Civil society in America and elsewhere has to fight back. The political system, the party system, is broken, it no longer works to provide good government.

    Today I was thinking about immigration, and the fact that we in Scotland are very unlikely to be allowed controls over this after Brexit. May has said stuff it to the Scots. But we need control as 40,000 young people between 16-25 leave Scotlandevery year. Without immigration who is going to do the jobs and contribute to the tax base?

    So then I had the thought: what if we just ignored Border Control on this? What if the Prime Minister’s writ simply ceased to run in Scotland because all the UK government agencies based in Scotland just refused to follow her orders and followed those of the Scottish government, because they agreed with them and saw the whole point of it for Scotland? What if local authorities and those collecting Scottish income tax did the same? And the police? What if they failed to carry out actions ordered by Westminster that the Scottish Government had countermanded because it was simply not in Scotland’s interests?

    Already in the US we are seeing signs of this, as Democrat and liberal states and city authorities like California and LA have said point blank that they will refuse to co-operate with the Trump administration to round up illegal Mexicans for deportation because they do not believe it is in their economic interests as cities to do so.

    May is a weak leader in a weak position. Are we going to be cowed by her bluster and follow her orders if they are not in our interests?

  6. Ed says:

    We are heading for ww3, it,s in the human nature to have a war every 100 hundred years or so, crusades and all that,”old boy” don’t you know. nothing changes ,brace yourselves for the big one, coming to a country near you, you beter belive it !!!!! “duck and cover”.

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