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“There’s Anger Building Out There” – One Man’s Message To Davos Elites

January 29, 2018

“There’s Anger Building Out There” – One Man’s Message To Davos Elites

One man went to Davos and dared to say what Pepe Escobar thought no one would – that “it’s the inequality, stupid.”

Amid all the back-slapping exuberance of record high global stock markets and record high global net worth, John McDonnell, the U.K. opposition Labour Party’s spokesman on finance, came to the World Economic Forum in Davos with an uncomfortable message for the global elite…

“I just warn the Davos establishment: There’s an anger building out there that you need to recognize and deal with,”

As Bloomberg reports, most delegates in Davos have adopted an upbeat tone this week — reflected in the optimism of top bankers at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Deutsche Bank AG who told Bloomberg they see a continuation in a global boom in dealmaking.

But as McDonnell warns, there’s an “avalanche of discontent” out there among the masses.

But in the Swiss resort, “there’s almost a sense of euphoria, it is extraordinary, and I think there’s a sense of complacency.”

McDonnell’s warning carries weight because he would be chancellor of the exchequer if Labour came to power — something investors are preparing for.

“Out there, beyond the Davos compound, many people — we saw it in the Oxfam report — feel the markets have been rigged against them, not for them,” McDonnell said.

“When they’re told we’re coming out of that recession, growth is returning and they don’t feel they’re participating in the benefits of that growth, that’s when people become really alienated and angry.”

Bloomberg reports that McDonnell then laid out a recipe for regaining the trust of the masses, including:

  • Paying workers a “real living wage” and allowing them to share in the profits of the companies they work for.
  • Recognizing trade unions and appointing workers to company boards.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Free Stuff” Isn’t All That It’s Cracked Up to Be

April 8, 2016

“Free Stuff” Isn’t All That It’s Cracked Up to Be 

To my British and American friends who must deal with the socialist nonsense of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, I found this poem. It was written by Rudyard Kipling, the writer most hated by English Socialists in the 40s and an opponent to the interventionist policies implemented by the Labour Party after the second world war:

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “iƒ you don’t ‘work you die.

This poem is not an exaggeration. At the time, it was decreed by the Control of Engagement Order that “no man between the ages of 18 and 50, or woman between the ages of 18 and 40, can change occupations at will. The Minister of Labor has the power to direct such workers to the employment he considers best for the national interest.” This Order was abolished only in March 1950.

At the time, the consequences of “democratic socialism” were disastrous: no food, no housing, no clothing, no fuel. By 1948, rations had fallen well below the wartime average. At the same date, one could read in The New Statesman, which was by no means a virulent opponent of Planning: “You may have social security, but you cannot go into a store and buy two quarts of milk.” To which an English commentator replied: “You not only cannot buy two quarts of milk. You cannot buy one. You can only get two quarts of milk on your doorstep a week. If you try to get more you are apt to land in jail.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Democracy Has Departed The West

September 23, 2015

Democracy Has Departed The West

Before the West spreads democracy abroad maybe it could get some for itself. The US is an oligarchy in which government is answerable to six powerful private interest groups. In Europe governments are answerable to the EU, Washington, and private bankers and not to their peoples. In the UK the military brass has declared its hold on the reins of power.

Jeremy Corbyn is the first Labourite to lead the Labour Party in a long time. Considering the stupidity and immorality of the Tories, Corbyn could become prime minister of Britain. Should this occur, Corbyn would shift the budget priorities away from supporting Washington’s wars toward refurbishing the social welfare state that made life for ordinary Britishers more secure and less stressful.

A senior serving general of the British army said that the army would not allow the people to “put a maverick in charge of the country’s security. The Army just wouldn’t stand for it and would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that.”

In other words, a democratic outcome unacceptable to the English military will be overthrown. Just like in Egypt.

Here we have the incongruity of Washington and London bringing democracy to others through what Vladimir Putin calls “airstrike democracy,” while tolerating a democracy deficit themselves. The safest conclusion is that democracy is a cloak for an aggressive agenda, not a value in itself to the US and UK elites, who rule and who intend to continue to rule these countries for their personal benefit.

Jonathan Cook reports that the use of “whatever means possible, fair or foul,” against Labour prime ministers who actually stood for the people rather than for the elites is not unique to Corbyn.
Labour Prime Minister Harald Wilson faced similar pressure and resigned. http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-09-20/army-plots-against-british-pms-are-not-new/

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

British General Threatens Military Coup If Corbyn Elected

September 22, 2015

British General Threatens Military Coup If Corbyn Elected

Late last week we brought you a collection of vivid images from a military coup in the West African nation of Burkina Faso where forces aligned with former President Blaise Compaoré arrested the acting President and Prime Minister ahead of democratic elections planned for October.

To be sure, most observers would argue that the idea of military coups like the one described above occurring with any sort of regularity in the context of the developed world is far-fetched at best, but a growing disaffection with what many see as endemic corruption and ineptitude has not only served to catapult two dark horse presidential candidates to the top of the polls in the US but apparently has some Americans convinced that a military takeover might be preferable to the current system of governance as the following poll (which admittedly suffers from selection bias) from YouGov shows:

Well, don’t look now but the ascension of Jeremy Corbyn to the head of Britain’s Labour party has led at least one senior serving general to predict that a Corbyn government would face the very real possibility of a military “mutiny”. Here’s more from The Independent:

The unnamed general said members of the armed forces would begin directly and publicly challenging the labour leader if he tried to scrap Trident, pull out of Nato or announce “any plans to emasculate and shrink the size of the armed forces.”

He told the Sunday Times: “The Army just wouldn’t stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that. You can’t put a maverick in charge of a country’s security.

“There would be mass resignations at all levels and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Another World is Inevitable

September 17, 2015

Another World is Inevitable

I don’t normally comment in these essays on the political affairs of other countries. As I’ve noted more than once here, the last thing the rest of the world needs is one more clueless American telling everyone else on the planet what to do.  What’s more, as the United States busies itself flailing blindly and ineffectually at the consequences that its own idiotically shortsighted decisions have brought down upon it, those of us who live here have our work cut out for us already.

That said, a sign I’ve been awaiting for quite some time has appeared on the horizon—the first rumble of a tectonic shift that will leave few things unchanged. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t happen in the United States, but I was somewhat startled to see where it did happen. That would be in Britain, where Jeremy Corbyn has just been elected head of Britain’s Labour Party.

Those of my readers who don’t follow British politics may not know just how spectacular a change Corbyn’s election marks. In the late1990s, under the leadership of Tony Blair, the Labour Party did what erstwhile left-wing parties were doing all over the industrial world: it ditched the egalitarian commitments that had guided it in prior decades, and instead embraced a set of policies that were indistinguishable from those of its conservative opponents—the same thing, for example, that the Democratic party did here in the US. As a result, voters going to the polls found that their supposed right to shape the destiny of their nations at the voting booth had been reduced to irrelevance, since every party with a shot at power embraced the same set of political and economic policies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Flustered Liz Truss Blames Civil Servants for Redacted Fracking Report Fiasco

January 30, 2015

Flustered Liz Truss Blames Civil Servants for Redacted Fracking Report Fiasco

Liz Truss, the environment secretary, turned on her own department yesterday as the Tory government came under increasing criticism for its heavy-handed redactions to a controversial report about fracking.

Truss, a Conservative member of the Cabinet, toldthe House of Commons there are “no plans” for the release of an unredacted version of the incedury Shale Gas: Rural Economy Impacts report and blamed her own officials at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

She complained that Defra should never have produced the report. “The economic impact of fracking is a matter for the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC),” she argued. She said the report “was not analytically robust and was not signed off by Ministers”.

This echoes statements made by Amber Rudd, the Under Secretary of State at DECC, on Monday during the Infrastructure Bill debate. The Tory told MPs that the report was prepared by a junior member in another department “and it was not appropriate for them to have done so”.

Labour were quick to attack the government. Maria Eagle, shadow environment secretary, said: “Ministers have responsibility for what is done in their Department. The report has been so heavily redacted that even the name of its author has been removed.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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