Politics, politics, politics

[thfcsteff]

Are they really folks about who REALLY thing he was going to build a wall?

Yes mate.
Millions of them apparently.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

 

[scaramanga]

then its what goes with that - perhaps guaranteed minimum income - If globalization and automation is inevitable and leads to a richer economy then soften the blow.

That will just make those industries even less competitive with their overseas counterparts and accelerate job losses.

So instead of topping up their wages by 30%, we end up funding them 100% and lose their contribution.

 

[parklane1]

Yes mate.
Millions of them apparently.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

More fool them then.

 

[the dza]

I am of the left...the real left...the economic left and I agree wholeheartedly with DubaiSpurs. Once the left was all about raising people up economically. Now it's about whatever trendy social issue comes along. The rot started when parties of the left allowed themselves to be taken over my the elites. You are right in that the café dwellers commit to social causes that don't rock their economic boat. They spend sssooo much time discussing gay rights, issues pertaining to feminism etc., but really couldn't give a toss about factory closures and welfare cuts. These issues just aren't sexy enough for them. To put it into perspective, upper middle class woman sit around bemoaning the so called corporate glass ceiling and identify as 'radical' feminists and 'leftists', but are completely disconnected to exploited migrant women working in sweat shops doing piece work. Says it all really. I despise them as much as I despise the Tories, Trump and the rest of the elite.

Well phucking said. I am left wing in my views, but I can't abide these 'save the kale' w*nkers. Middle-class students telling the world how to think get right on my t1ts.

 

[r-u-s-x01]

That will just make those industries even less competitive with their overseas counterparts and accelerate job losses.

So instead of topping up their wages by 30%, we end up funding them 100% and lose their contribution.

In response to globalisation and atomisation being enviable, if that's the case (not agreeing that it is) this will be driven by profits. That profit can be used, if it is not increasing the wealth of the nation then why pursue globalisation and atomisation.

 

[milo]

Yes mate.
Millions of them apparently.

Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

The best way that I have seen this explained today has been from Peter Thiel who said:

"I think one thing that should be distinguished here is that the media is always taking Trump literally. It never takes him seriously, but it always takes him literally. ... I think a lot of voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously but not literally, so when they hear things like the Muslim comment or the wall comment, their question is not, 'Are you going to build a wall like the Great Wall of China?' or, you know, 'How exactly are you going to enforce these tests?' What they hear is we're going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy."

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/peter-thiel-perfectly-summed-up-donald-trump-in-one-paragraph.html

 

[parklane1]

What he will do is enforce the border crossings ( probably more of them), i know the world is full of idiots but you would have to be a real big one to ever believe he literally meant he was going to build a wall.

 

[r-u-s-x01]

What he will do is enforce the border crossings ( probably more of them), i know the world is full of idiots but you would have to be a real big one to ever believe he literally meant he was going to build a wall.

Think it's just rationalisation going on here. building a wall is so ridiculous there is no way he meant it.

Did he ever have proof from a pi that Obama was not born in the US? Man engages mouth without brain.

 

[parklane1]

Think it's just rationalisation going on here. building a wall is so ridiculous there is no way he meant it.

Did he ever have proof from a pi that Obama was not born in the US? Man engages mouth without brain.

The thing is Trump is not a politician and does not speak with forked tongue ( like most in politics), so as you say he says things without thinking how a politician would say it. He has to face that there are some people who are daft enough to believe everything they hear.

 

[Robspur12]

If you tell someone watching their life, their family heritage, their community disappear..if you tell them that they simply can't fight it, do you think they'll listen? Is that human nature, is that a part of human evolution? To accept death or decline without a fight?

Understand - I *am* a member of the liberal class. I agree wholeheartedly that globalisation and automation are going to be utterly inevitable facets of future human existence. To me, it is as plain as day. And I believe from the bottom of my heart that globalisation has done a lot of good for the world - I have travelled to countries that were miserable and poverty-stricken just a generation ago, but where young people are now growing up with full bellies, an education, opportunities and hope for the future. Hope, that they can provide a better life for themselves, their children and their parents; all brought about because of the globalisation of commerce. I consider myself blessed to have lived in both the United Kingdom and Canada, two open, welcoming societies filled with good people who looked at me not as an alien minority, but as a human being, and rarely treated me differently because of my status as a visible ethnicity. That is also something I attribute to globalisation - it would have been a different story a century ago. Globalisation and automation are intrinsic facets of life both today and in the near future, and I'll defend them with my dying breath.

But they have their downsides - and they are truly terrible to witness. In the rust belt towns of rural America, people have had *everything* taken from them - their chance at a livelihood was taken by the companies who sent their jobs overseas and shuttered the rusted factories that now blight the crumbling urban landscape that signifies every run-down American highway town. Their communities were destroyed by the socioeconomic forces that forced those that could to move away, and doomed the rest to stagnation and decay amid the buzzing neon motel signs, foreclosed houses and rusted telephone poles that signify the death of the American dream. Their family members and friends were lost to addiction, disease and death as an uncaring polity looked the other way. Their self-worth was stolen by being forced into government dependency that was then derided as undeserved welfare for losers who couldn't or wouldn't get ahead. And, finally, their status as empathetic human beings was stolen by a cafe-sipping urban elite that branded them racists and backwoods savages when they dared to voice their concerns about the crumbling of their way of life, and the loss of their status as participants in the American story to immigrants, offshoring and the urban ideal of globalized wealth for some, grinding poverty for others.

When you go up to a man who is watching all those downsides, and tell him that it's useless to fight it...do you think he'll listen?

The same story that caused what happened today happened in post-industrial Britain - in the north, in former coal towns and manufacturing hubs, now entering a third generation of dependency and joblessness. And it will happen in post-industrial towns across the West as globalisation and automation take further hold. The people left behind by the course that we're on as a species won't sit back and die while being labelled racists and backwards macarons for daring to disagree with the zeitgeist of globalisation and automation - to them, it's better to fight and burn down the system if they can't win, because at least they'll ensure that those that took their lives away lose as well. This is what happened in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan. This is what will happen elsewhere as well. The horrible racism, the anti-immigrant backlash - these are symptoms. The cause is the struggle that these people are now undertaking.

It might be too late to stop this happening, but it is incumbent upon urban liberals to realise what they are up against - because they've lost their way. When they should have been prioritising reaching out to these people, fighting for those in power to provide solutions to these problems, fighting for *real* causes that involve everyone in the crumbling working and middle classes standing up to these processes and saying 'enough - either you provide for those of us left behind, *all of us*, or we try to put an end to this'...they instead focused on calling these people racists, sexists, misogynists, xenophobes, Nazis and whatever else sprang to mind. They did not advocate for possible solutions to the issues created by globalisation and automation - solutions ranging from a basic income (as @r-u-s-x pointed out) for all to new infrastructural and retraining programs on scales that dwarf anything proposed by the fearful political class, afraid as they were of upsetting their donors and the wealthy by levying more taxes on them. Instead, they retreated into gender politics and identity politics, and used these noble pursuits as weapons against the very people whom they should have been out fighting for. In short, they created a liberal urban bubble of accepted social norms, and accused everyone outside of it of being a horrible person, and trusted, incredibly, that this would solve the growing problems of the day.

It did not. The media, and the chattering classes, must realise it by now. Because if they haven't, well, they have many, many more shocks coming.

I love your post Dubai but I think you need to be careful not to be over analytical- perhaps an obsession of the so called "liberal classes." I say that in the spirit of debate not to attack you btw as I probably fit into the latter depending on your definition.

I must admit I do not fully understand the American election system but Trump did not secure the popular vote. So if it was a referendum type vote, Clinton would be in the White House. When you compare his popular vote share with previous Republicans he did not show a surge in Support compared to previous candidates and it was significantly less than Obama's in 2012 and George W Bush's vote share in 2004.

You must also factor in that Hilary was never a popular candidate even amongst many in her own Party. In fact many who had nailed their colours to the Bernie Sanders mast refused to back her when she won the nomination. She was seen as enriching herself since her husbands' presidency, she was accused of facilitating his infidelities, and endangering National security.

It is also the case that Americans don't tend to vote the same party in 3 terms in a row (not since the 1940s anyway).

Without doubt some of the issues surrounding globalisation and disenchantment with the establishment played a part but I think we can give too much credit to their importance.

 

[r-u-s-x01]

The thing is Trump is not a politician and does not speak with forked tongue ( like most in politics), so as you say he says things without thinking how a politician would say it. He has to face that there are some people who are daft enough to believe everything they hear.

Did he have proof that Obama wasn't born in the US or should I have thought that when he said he did he actually meant he didn't and I am the fool.

Guy is a child nothing more sinister,

 

[r-u-s-x01]

The thing is Trump is not a politician and does not speak with forked tongue ( like most in politics), so as you say he says things without thinking how a politician would say it. He has to face that there are some people who are daft enough to believe everything they hear.

Am I biting here, you on a wind up? Quick Google http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...en-america-and-mexico-but-is-it-10396812.html

That seems pretty literal to me, direct quotes as well

 

[parklane1]

Did he have proof that Obama wasn't born in the US or should I have thought that when he said he did he actually meant he didn't and I am the fool.

Guy is a child nothing more sinister,

To be honest i never heard that about Obama, my point was more about the idiots who thought he REALLY meant he was going to build a REAL wall.

 

[parklane1]

Am I biting here, you on a wind up? Quick Google http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...en-america-and-mexico-but-is-it-10396812.html

That seems pretty literal to me, direct quotes as well

Of course he said it ( i have never said he did not) but i never thought ( and still do not) that he was actually going to build a wall. If people actually thought he would i really despair about the human race, as you say he does not always think before he speaks. He will learn to lie with a smile and a earnest look on his face like most politicians do before long though.

 

[r-u-s-x01]

Of course he said it ( i have never said he did not) but i never thought ( and still do not) that he was actually going to build a wall. If people actually thought he would i really despair about the human race, as you say he does not always think before he speaks. He will learn to lie with a smile and a earnest look on his face like most politicians do before long though.

No one thought he would build it except himself, seriously read his quotes and see anything deeper than what he said, at that moment in time Trump thought Trump would build that wall.

 

[parklane1]

No one thought he would build it except himself, seriously read his quotes and see anything deeper than what he said, at that moment in time Trump thought Trump would build that wall.

Maybe, but we will have to agree to disagree.

 

[r-u-s-x01]

Maybe, but we will have to agree to disagree.

OK but as per the constant insistence that he had proof that Obama wasn't born in the US there are plenty of other instances.

 

[Baleforce]

isn't the idea that he doesn't think before he speaks scarier?

from watching some of his stumps and debate performances i felt they were fully prepared, he was pushing buttons all over the place

 

[scaramanga]

In response to globalisation and atomisation being enviable, if that's the case (not agreeing that it is) this will be driven by profits. That profit can be used, if it is not increasing the wealth of the nation then why pursue globalisation and atomisation.

If those profits are used to prop up industries that are non-competitive then they won't last very long.

A far better use of our taxes would be free evening/weekend education for anyone who wants it. Those who are in those industries can learn new skills.

 

[milo]

One thing that I would take from this and Brexit is that simple oft repeated message and no detail whatsoever appears to be the way to cut through at the moment. If I was involved in election planning for Labour I would be working on "a Brexit better for Britain" message and have no policies on anything else other than say that we would do it better than the Tories and stop doing things that were unpopular. The only flaw in this is that you need a leader who can stick to a narrative for it to work.