Politics Blogs (942)

As witnessed by recent Supreme Court decisions, Senator McConnell failed to fully convert the courts to a pro Neo-Nationalistic stance.

Neo-nationalism or new nationalism is an ideology and movement built on the basic characteristics of the classical nationalism. It developed to its final form by applying elements with reactionary character generated as a reaction to the political, economic, and socio-cultural changes that came with globalization during the second wave of globalization in the late 1980. In its extreme forms, it could be associated with several positions, such as right-wing populism, anti-globalization, nativism, protectionism, opposition to immigration, Islamophobia, Sinophobia, and Euroscepticism where applicable. With the globalisation and the idea of one single nation, neo-nationalists see a problem of identification and threatened identities. They claim for the protection of the symbolic heritage such as art and folk traditions which is also common for the cultural nationalism. It is what constituted the collective identity of the nations, which is not necessarily exclusive according to the desire of people from different cultures to join that nation. Particularly notable expressions of new nationalism include the vote for Brexit in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum and the 2016 election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States.
-- Wikipedia

"Cornpop was a bad dude"



Add your Biden gaffes here

During his campaign Trump promises to eliminate the national debt, and instead almost immediately gives the rich a huge permanent tax cut, and proceeds over the next 3 years to drive up the national debt by $8.3 Trillion.

Have the voters learned from history, or is the US doomed to repeat it ?

The first paragraph of the US constitution reads :: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It does not read We the white people, certainly not the We the White Male People or We the Trump Supremacy . America is an immigrant nation. It is a land populated not just by Northern White Europeans, but the full spectrum of humanity the world around.

It is time the Trump Trumpeters got over themselves. Time for them to become lawful members of We the People - accept the US constitution in its entirety instead of picking and choosing the parts they like.

Forcing peaceful protesters aside - Trump strolls across the way, stands before a church, holds up a Bible and threatens city mayors with overwhelming military force. Kind of like Jesus carrying an AK47 for his sermon on the mount.

First it was coined for the pandemic. Now for racism. Guess what...WE are not IN it together. The wealthy can afford to sit in their homes and shelter with their kid, spouse and live in help. The middle class can try to avoid others and social distance while working from home. The poor can huddle in their crowded flats and if lucky, go to their "essential" job which is providing for others.
I have seen days of protests. Do the people even have an idea what change they want. Interview some and get nothing but cops are bad and racism is bad and it needs to change. How?
The only thing I heard on TV was a solution is the way cops are fired. Make it so they can't arbitrate and get their job back. Or move to another station. Then you will hear the unions scream and protest.
I hear people on TV saying their are grieving, they are heartbroken over the man who was murdered by the cops. Baloney! I am not. He was just one of many who are killed, black, white, yellow, brown. I am angry that bad cops get away with committing a crime by wearing a badge.
So protests are going on around the country and even world. Racism has to stop. Then let it stop in ALL races. Stop hating others that are not of your niche in the world. The protests will gain nothing. You can't stop hatred.
The protesters go home and after dark come the looters, vandals, malcontents. They march in the man's name and defile what appears to have been a decent fellow. They smash and destroy and steal from stores owned by people who had nothing to do with the murder. They crap in their own beds. And perpetrate the stereo types and make people even more racist. It is not just blacks. It includes white young people who have been spoiled and think the world should be handed to them. Will that person who looted that big screen TV take it home and show it to their children. See what I got for free and didn't have to work for it. And teach their children to hate and take.
I wonder how much the white looters even care or just take the excuse to go rouge and steal Nike shoes.
They go home to their nice homes and leave the blacks behind to suffer the consequences.

In the midst of the worst ever global depression which has seen unprecedented worldwide job losses, with the US alone notching over 40 million, a murder takes place in Minneapolis, Minnesota which triggered nationwide demonstrations, some riots, the deployment of the National Guard and curfews all bracketed by a deadly pandemic which calls for social distancing, no crowds or mass gatherings in the first instance.

But in America, racial injustice is boiling over once again. Had it ever been quelled?

Anger, frustration and pain following the tragic death of George Floyd – an African American who suffocated while in custody from having a police officer’s knee pressing on his neck. Floyd died pleading “don’t kill me” and “I cannot breathe”. The officer Derek Chauvin has since been charged with third degree murder and manslaughter, even as his wife is reportedly filing for a divorce.

Then we see the contrast to this ugliness with the elation created by Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which successfully launched at 20.10h GMT yesterday, putting two NASA astronauts and best friends – Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley – on their way to the International Space Station. A first by a private spaceship owned by a private company, watched by the world and by Donald Trump, who made the specific trip to the Kennedy Space Centre.

The US President needs a positive boost in this crucial election year given his handling of, and the misguiding tweets on, the coronavirus. But he's not helping himself with such tweets


Donald J. Trump
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@realDonaldTrump
· 17h
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
....got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard - didn’t know what hit them. The front line was replaced with fresh agents, like magic. Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would....

Donald J. Trump
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@realDonaldTrump
....have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. “We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and....


Not exactly a catalyst for unifying a USA looked upon as the leader of the free world. Political and commercial issues with several countries, the abandonment of the World Health Organisation during this unprecedented pandemic and the withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change are only some issues among others that has dropped Trump’s home and worldwide ratings to their lowest ever for a serving President.

The free world doesn’t need a narcissist for a leader, but one with empathy and extending a hand of friendship. Iron fists and power threats do not encourage anything but violence. Not for a 'united' States, not for a prosperous and peaceful people and certainly not for a global leadership’s role and an example. A pity.

Stay safe.

If We Had a Real Leader --Imagining Covid under a normal president.
By David Brooks Opinion Columnist

The conversation left me wondering what America’s experience of the pandemic would be like if we had a real leader in the White House.
If we had a real leader, he would have realized that tragedies like 100,000 Covid-19 deaths touch something deeper than politics: They touch our shared vulnerability and our profound and natural sympathy for one another.

In such moments, a real leader steps outside of his political role and reveals himself uncloaked and humbled, as someone who can draw on his own pains and simply be present with others as one sufferer among a common sea of sufferers.

If we had a real leader, she would speak of the dead not as a faceless mass but as individual persons, each seen in unique dignity. Such a leader would draw on the common sources of our civilization, the stores of wisdom that bring collective strength in hard times.

Lincoln went back to the old biblical cadences to comfort a nation. After the church shooting in Charleston, Barack Obama went to “Amazing Grace,” the old abolitionist anthem that has wafted down through the long history of African-American suffering and redemption.

In his impromptu remarks right after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy recalled the slaying of his own brother and quoted Aeschylus: “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

If we had a real leader, he would be bracingly honest about how bad things are, like Churchill after the fall of Europe. He would have stored in his upbringing the understanding that hard times are the making of character, a revelation of character and a test of character. He would offer up the reality that to be an American is both a gift and a task. Every generation faces its own apocalypse, and, of course, we will live up to our moment just as our ancestors did theirs.

If we had a real leader, she would remind us of our common covenants and our common purposes. America is a diverse country joined more by a common future than by common pasts. In times of hardships real leaders re-articulate the purpose of America, why we endure these hardships and what good we will make out of them.

After the Challenger explosion, Reagan reminded us that we are a nation of explorers and that the explorations at the frontiers of science would go on, thanks in part to those who “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”

At Gettysburg, Lincoln crisply described why the fallen had sacrificed their lives — to show that a nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal” can long endure and also to bring about “a new birth of freedom” for all the world.

Of course, right now we don’t have a real leader. We have Donald Trump, a man who can’t fathom empathy or express empathy, who can’t laugh or cry, love or be loved — a damaged narcissist who is unable to see the true existence of other human beings except insofar as they are good or bad for himself.

But it’s too easy to offload all blame on Trump. Trump’s problem is not only that he’s emotionally damaged; it is that he is unlettered. He has no literary, spiritual or historical resources to draw upon in a crisis.

All the leaders I have quoted above were educated under a curriculum that put character formation at the absolute center of education. They were trained by people who assumed that life would throw up hard and unexpected tests, and it was the job of a school, as one headmaster put it, to produce young people who would be “acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.”

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