[Peace-discuss] The best account of the election that I've seen

[C. G. Estabrook]

Mort—

Here’s a rough outline of points Steppling makes. Which do you think are wrong?

[1] If Trump is the price we have to pay to defeat Clintonian neoliberalism – so be it. 

[2] Much of that corporate wealth that owns America turned, finally, on Clinton. 

[3] There was also a split in the military, owing to a growing fear of Clinton’s lack of judgement regarding war. 

[4] The smug elitism and myopic self interests of the white liberal class mirrored the Brexit vote (cf. Bill Clinton’s amazing remarks about Corbyn).

[5] Hillary Clinton’s contempt for most of humanity was simply impossible to disguise.

[6] People feared a war with Russia, were tired of conflict, and maybe tired, too, of billions handed over to an apartheid state, Israel, while growing numbers of Americans live week to week, and can barely feed their children. 

[7] Hillary was silent on Standing Rock, as Obama had been silent on so many things (police murder of unarmed black men for example).

[8] People have been homeless, addicted, without protection or help from government for thirty years now; the US population is drugged, desperate, and angry - but that America is invisible in media (which overwhelmingly supported Clinton).

[9] The liberals will blame racists and NASCAR rednecks, and more, they will blame leftists; and, they will blame Putin and Russia. (Who would have imagined they would revive McCarthyism?)

[10] Colin Powell and mobile bio weapons labs, or yellow cake from Niger, or babies torn from incubators, or the evil Milosevic butcher of Balkans - none of it true; the affluent supporters of Clinton bought all of it, but many others didn’t.

[11] To the militarists in Washington, the real problem with Trump is that  he wants to talk with the Russian president, not fight him; he says he wants to talk with the president of China.

[12] The Obama-Clinton administration has embarked on a trillion-dollar program to make nuclear weapons more usable, while Trump promised not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict. He said, “I would certainly not do first strike. Once the nuclear alternative happens, it’s over.”

Regards, CGE


> On Nov 20, 2016, at 2:34 PM, Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu> wrote:
> 
> This article indeed seems like theatre, not quite coherent, like bad poetry, or drama. Conflated with truths not always correlated to the reasons why Trump triumphed. So many gross assertions about why people rejected Hillary were more reflections of his own biases/ideas than with any verifiable analytical reasons why the poor whites (and others) turned to Trump and/or spurned Hillary. 
> 
> I don’t think its worth while parsing the whole piece. Its elements of truth (for me) are corrupted by incoherence, irrelevance, and exaggeration. 
> 
> —mkb
> 
> 
>> On Nov 20, 2016, at 12:19 PM, C. G. Estabrook <carl at newsfromneptune.com <mailto:carl at newsfromneptune.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> It's perhaps not an accident that it comes from a playwright. The poets often get there first (even if they sometimes don't know where they've got to).
>> 
>> The election enacted the surprising split between neoliberals and neoconservatives. (And Trump was the Agent of History because he is neither.)
>> 
>> http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/10/the-big-split/ <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.counterpunch.org_2016_11_10_the-2Dbig-2Dsplit_&d=DQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=RbDT1tYJGukRYhPt5oNtCeRe3p2Bp2sx7Qk4TWFvItM&m=gfsvkWAeedfTXsZUKLtAyCuRmdEWzVyqAqOrXMatBNM&s=2JnpZmBi-e7355m4iphDNigximQEYD0DHTvdKZH2gvI&e=>
>> 
>> —CGE
> 

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