The Glorious Dead

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

11 November 2012

LEST WE FORGET

Traditional annual memorial services attended by the British royal family and the military and civilian establishments were held in Britain today Sunday 11 November 2012 in remembrance of troops slaughtered on the battlefield, not least those cut down in World War One, which ended with the armistice of 11 November 1918.

Similar Rembrance Sunday services took place in France, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malta, the Falkland Islands (Las Malvinas) and elsewhere.

In London Queen Elizabeth II and her consort Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, attended the customary ceremony at the Cenotaph war memorial in Whitehall in remembrance of butchered British and Commonwealth soldiers.

Also in attendance were the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Princess Royal, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, the Duke of York and Prince Michael of Kent.

British Prime Minister David Cameron was there, accompanied by his Foreign Secretary William Hague,  as well as two former British Prime Ministers Anthony Blair and John Major.

The military top brass was represented by Field Marshal Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, a former chief of the British defence staff.

After wreath-laying at the Cenotaph, a monument specifically dedicated to “The Glorious Dead”, there was a march past by serving troops – Royal Marines, Gurkhas, Submariners and Gunners – as well as by thousands of veterans, including Chelsea Pensioners, their striking red uniforms resplendent with military medals and memorial poppies.

In a ceremony in Paris President François Hollande, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian reviewed French troops at the Arc de Triomphe in the Place de l’Étoile at the top of the Champs-Élysées.

There are no media reports of war memorial services today in Germany or Austria, the two Axis powers vanquished in the World War One.

Antigone1984:

The Glorious Dead? 

 

The dead are simply dead. There is no glory in being dead. Nor in having one’s brains blown out in the prime of one’s days in a water-logged trench on a mud-caked battlefield in some corner of a foreign field.

 

Moreover, if it is one thing for a government to deploy troops to defend its population against imminent foreign aggression, it is quite another to send the flower of its youth to die abroad in the invasion and occupation of foreign lands in wars of aggression which have no relevance to the defence of one’s country.

 

This is why it is particularly repugnant to find the London ceremony attended by former UK Prime Minister Antony Blair, who in 2003, alongside US President Bush and without the imprimatur of the United Nations, launched a war of aggression against Iraq that dragged on for eight years and resulted in the massacre of an estimated 600 000 people, mostly Iraqis but including large numbers of British soldiers.

 

It is likewise repugnant to find the ceremony attended by the current UK Prime Minister David Cameron who continues to send British troops to their deaths in a pointless war in Afghanistan now into its twelfth year. This war has achieved nothing. The designated enemy, the Taliban, are stronger than ever. The puppet government of Afghanistan is chafing under the boot of a western occupation that it constantly bewails. Corruption is rife. Opium production is the country’s main industry. Suicide bombings and gunfights rock the capital daily. No road outside Kabul is safe from attack. Meanwhile, troops from the allied invading forces are being picked off, one by one, day after day,  in a war that was lost from the start. To cap it all, the date for the final western retreat has already been announced – the end of 2014.

 

Why continue to send allied troops into battle to no avail in a losing war in a country – Afghanistan – which poses no threat whatsoever to western defences?

 

The answer is twofold.

 

 

In the interests of saving face, having occupied Afghanistan for so long to no avail, the Americans, the lead invader of the pack, need time to try to cobble together some semblance of success on the ground before they declare victory and then ignominiously pull out – as they did in Iraq last year and as they did in Vietnam in 1973. Their hapless allies, including Britain and France, whose foreign policies are immutably subservient to those of the United States, cannot pull out until the Americans give them permission to do so. That is why UK Prime Minister David Cameron is willing to continue sending British troops to die in Afghanistan. It is nothing to do with the defence of the United Kingdom.

 

It is for that reason that it is repugnant to find Cameron at the Cenotaph today weeping crocodile tears for fallen British troops, many of whom he himself sent into battle on behalf not of the United Kingdom but of a foreign power – the United States. 

The following are extracts from a comment posted on the London Guardian’s website today 11 November 2012 by Peter Thompson:

“…despite having served in the army I can’t bring myself to support Remembrance Sunday because behind the facade of concern and mourning for the hundreds of thousands of dead, there is actually a militarisation and sanctification by church, state and monarchy which allows us to actually forget that war is a highly political act carried out for highly political aims not usually in the interests of those who suffer most from its consequences.

“Lest We Forget” [an inscription on the Cenotaph war memorial in London’s Whitehall] actually means precisely that we should forget about the causes of conflict – which are always apparently far too complex for mere mortals to fathom – and about the inter-imperialist rivalry which saw those lads taken from the countryside and towns across Europe and used as expendable cannon fodder against each other; about the fact that we still send those same working-class lads from unemployment black spots off to fight in unwinnable and even illegal wars in the interests of the rich and powerful. The parade of warmongering politicians in their Sunday best bowing their heads in prayer and wearing their poppies with pride this weekend should be enough to politicise anyone, I would have thought…..

If you are a Marxist atheist you will see the whole thing as a way of occluding the old adage from the First World War that a bayonet is simply a weapon with a worker at each end….”

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

Posted in Afghanistan, France, Iraq, UK, USA | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

That hopey, changey thing

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

10 November 2012

OBAMA HAS THE LAST LAUGH

We cannot resist re-circulating a smart-ass remark by a certain Sarah Palin that went viral a year or two ago when Barack Obama was bogged down in various political quagmires in the midst of his first term as US President.

“How’s that hopey, changey thing workin’ out for ya?” the great white hope of Tea Party-inclined Republicans taunted the president.

On 6 November 2012 she got her answer.  “Fine, Sarah, Fine. It’s just worked out real good.”

Come to think of it. Sarah Palin? Who she? Some kinda gun-totin’ moose-huntin’ hockey-sticks mom who briefly flashed in the pan across Alaska’s political skyline and was never heard of again?

Yep, that’s the one.

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

Posted in USA | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Clouds over Obama

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

9 November 2012

As what we imagine will be our last piece on the US election of 6 November 2012, we cite a reader’s letter which appeared in the online edition of the London Guardian on election day. This text amply demonstrates that Antigone1984 is not alone on the left in viewing with a certain scepticism Barack Obama’s achievements to date, the outcome of the election, and the prospects for the next four years. The letter also alludes to the seminal problem of  partitocracy, which is the key political message of this blog. For an in-depth review of the latter subject, please check out our post “Partitocracy v. Democracy” of 20 July 2012, which can be accessed in item 2 just below this current post. The letter to the Guardian to which we refer today is from Tony Greenstein of Brighton and reads as follows:

“I have yet to understand the fascination of the Guardian with the minutiae of US presidential elections. Obama was elected as the candidate of change. He promised to get rid of Guantánamo, introduce a comprehensive national health service, and establish a new relationship in the Middle East and in America’s informal empire. Instead Guantánamo and the dark prisons still function, healthcare is still under the control of the same companies, relationships with the Gulf autocracies are unchanged, along with support for Israel’s every move, and drone wars that are an affront to international law are bringing terror to Pakistan and the Horn of Africa. Time was when, at least domestically, there was some major difference of principle between the two major US parties, be it the question of civil rights (Kennedy v Nixon) or the Big Society (Johnson v Goldwater). Elections in which, whoever wins, nothing is guaranteed to change are the ultimate in capitalist democracy. We are fast moving to a similar situation in Britain. Would it be too much to ask that, instead of concentrating on the trivia and froth, you ponder deeper questions such as what kind of democracy it is where you have to raise a billion dollars to win?”

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

Posted in Politics, UK, USA | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

East is East and West is West

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

8 November 2012

Il y a aujourd’hui sur la terre deux grands peoples qui, partis de points différents, semblent s’avançer vers le même but: ce sont les Russes et les Anglo-Américains….leur point de départ est différent, leurs voies sont diverses: néanmoins chacun d’eux semble appelé par un dessein secret de la Providence à tenir un jour dans ses mains les destinées de la moitié du monde.

There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world, which seem to tend towards the same end, although they started from different points; I allude to the Russians and the Americans….Their starting point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.

This is an excerpt from “De la démocratie en Amérique” by French historian and politician Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859). It is taken from page 431 of volume 1 of the 1951 text edited by J.P.Mayer. The translation is an 1841 version by H. Reeve. De Tocqueville was briefly French Foreign Minister in 1849. The book was much quoted at the time by advocates of political liberalism.

Antigone1984:

At the time that de Tocqueville’s text was published (volume 1 in 1835 and volume 2 in 1840), Russia was the rising power in the East, China the sick man of the Orient. Today the relative significance of these two powers is reversed so that the text makes more sense, in a contemporary context, if one replaces “Russians” by “Chinese”.

That being so, it seems appropriate to recall de Tocqueville’s words on a day – a mere 30 hours after the election of the next American President and the US House of Representatives – on which the 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (founded in 1921) opens in Peking to rubber-stamp the party hierarchy’s nomination of the next generation of leaders at the apex of the dictatorship’s top political organs, the party apparatus (Central Committee, Poltiburo and Standing Committee) that wields supreme authority in the state and to which the Government is subordinate.

A blogger from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, commenting on the dramatic contrast between the passage of political power in these two mega-states, makes the following point on the Chinese microblog Weibo:

American election: you only find out at the last minute that Barack Obama has won and, what is more, that he has been congratulated on his win by the loser Mitt Romney. Chinese election: a year before the election, everyone knows who is going to win and who has lost, the family of the loser being thrown into prison.

The reference is to Xi Jinping, long time the anointed  successor to the incumbent Hu Jintao as the next President of China, and to the former party boss in the southwest Chinese megalopolis of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, Xi Jinping’s rival. A rising star in the party firmament until his wife was found guilty of ordering the murder of a British businessman, Bo Xilai was recently accused of corruption and expelled from the party. Since then he has disappeared from public view.

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat…

 

These are the  opening lines of “The Ballad of East and West” published in 1889 by the English author Rudyard Kipling  (1865-1936). Born in Bombay (now Mumbai), Kipling was a short-story writer, poet and novelist, much of whose work relates to India, then part of the British Empire.

 ——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

Posted in China, India, Politics, USA | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“The greatest nation on earth”

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

7 November 2012


THE AUDACITY OF HYPE

Here is our choice of extracts from the  victory speech made by US President Barack Obama to a Democratic rally in Chicago in the small hours of this morning after learning that, in yesterday’s presidential election, he had won the support of enough states to be re-elected president for a further four years.  The extracts speak for themselves. We have not commented on them, except to highlight in bold a number of passages which struck us as particularly interesting. There is no doubt that Obama can talk the talk. The question is whether over the coming four years he can also walk the walk. Today’s speech might usefully serve as a benchmark against which to determine to what extent the re-elected president lives up to his promises. For earlier comment on the presidential election, check out our posts “Et alors?” dated 6 November 2012 and “A plague o’ both your houses!” published on 2 November 2012.

“THE BEST IS YET TO COME”

“Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward.

 

It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.

Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come…..

 

…….despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future. We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers. A country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.

 

We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet. We want to pass on a country that’s safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this world has ever known. But also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war, to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being.

 

We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag. To the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner. To the furniture worker’s child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president – that’s the future we hope for. That’s the vision we share. That’s where we need to go – forward. That’s where we need to go.

 

Now, we will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path. By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won’t end all the gridlock or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. But that common bond is where we must begin.

Our economy is recovering. A decade of war is ending. A long campaign is now over..…..

Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We’ve got more work to do.

But that doesn’t mean your work is done. The role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government. That’s the principle we were founded on.

 

This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth. The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great.

 

I am hopeful tonight because I’ve seen the spirit at work in America. I’ve seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbours, and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job. I’ve seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back.

 

I’ve seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm….

 

And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

 

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.

 

America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.

 

I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.

And together with your help and God’s grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.

 

Thank you, America. God bless you. God bless these United States.”

 ——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Politics, USA | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Et alors?

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

6 November 2012

The United States is voting today to elect a new president.

There are 310 million US citizens, of which roughly 215 million are eligible to vote.

The world population is 7 000 million.

One way or another, the result of the election in the United States will have an impact on the population of the world.

Yet only 215 million people – less than 3 per cent of the world’s population – are eligible to take part in this election.

Doesn’t seem right, somehow.

That said, however, marking our distance from the ongoing media frenzy, let us not exaggerate.

Whichever candidate – Obama or Romney – wins the US presidential election today, the world will go on, more or less, as it always has done.

Whatever, America thinks, the US is not the only pebble on the beach.

It will continue to have to moderate its realpolitik to take account of the wishes of the rest of the shingle (China, Russia, India, Brazil, etc).

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

We should also perhaps reflect on the fact that in five, ten years’ time this election and its outcome will be a dusty file in the annals of American politics.

By then the world will have moved on, new flashpoints will be the order of the day and many of today’s familiar faces will have faded into oblivion.

George McGovern died last month.

George McGovern, who he?

Well might you ask.

McGovern was the Democratic Party’s unsuccessful candidate against “Trickie Dickie” Richard Nixon in the 1972 US presidential election.

McGovern was big in America in his time – until he wasn’t.

So let’s not get too excited about these seemingly earth-shattering political armageddons.

In any case, at a personal level,  the outcome of the election will scarcely matter to anybody. Most of us will go on without interruption living the lives we have always led with hardly a change, if any. We shall get up in the morning, go to work, come home again, eat dinner and go to bed. None of this will alter.

So let us not exaggerate the importance of the vote that is taking place today in America.

It is, of course, of mega significance to the political groupies and wannabes that infest the body politic.

But it is of relative unimportance to the rest of us.

Let us keep things in perspective.

The universe was created with a Big Bang 13 billion years ago.

Thirteen, you may recall, is an unlucky number. Maybe it’s all been a bit of a mistake.

Within the universe, the Milky Way galaxy, which contains our sun, is roughly 100 000 light years in diameter and contains between 200 and 400 billion stars.

One only of those stars is our sun.

The sun is 1.4 million kilometres in diameter. Its heat comes from nuclear fusion reactions deep inside its interior, where the temperature is 15 million degrees C.  The surface temperature of the sun is just below 6 000 degrees C.

The earth, one of the planets that orbits the sun, is a mere 12 756 kilometres in diameter.

After splintering off  from the sun, the earth has existed for four and a half  billion years.

Homo sapiens herself/himself has existed for around a mere one million years.

Even taking into account the advances of modern medicine, the life of man is at best a hundred years, give or take a few.

Taking all this into account, therefore, I suggest  we put today’s US presidential election into perspective.

As the ancient Greek poet Pindar (518-438 BC) said in his Pythian Odes  (Book 8, line 135):

ἐπάμεροι. τί δέ τις; τί δ᾽ οὔ τις; σκιᾶς ὄναρ
 ἄνθρωπος. 

 Here today, gone tomorrow! What is anyone?
 What is he not? Man is but a dream of a shadow
.

The titans of today, like the rest of us, tomorrow will  be dust and ashes.

Here are lines 181 to 204 of a poem in Castilian – Coplas por la muerte de su padre Don Rodrigo (Stanzas on the death of his father, Don Rodrigo) – written by Jorge Manrique, who lived from 1440 to 1479. The prose translation, published in the 1960 edition of The Penguin Book of Spanish Verse (1960 edition), is by J.M. Cohen.

¿Qué se hizo el rey don Juan?

Los infantes de Aragón

¿qué se hicieron?

¿Qué fue de tanto galán,

qué fue de tanta invención

como trajeron?

Las justas y los torneos,

paramentos, bordaduras

y cimeras,

¿fueron sino devaneos?

¿qué fueron sino verduras

de las eras?

 

¿Qué se hicieron las damas,

sus tocados, sus vestidos,

sus olores?

¿Qué se hicieron las llamas

de los fuegos encendidos

de amadores?

¿Qué se hizo aquel trovar,

las músicas acordadas

que tañían?

¿Qué se hizo aquel danzar,

aquellas ropas chapadas

que traían?

What has become of the King Don Juan? The princes of Aragon, where are they? What has become of all those gallants? What has become of the many innovations they brought? The jousts and tourneys, ornaments, embroideries, and crests, were they only an imagination? What were they but the grass of the threshing-floors?

What has become of the ladies, of their head-dresses, their robes and their scents? What has become of the flames of the fires the lovers lit? What of all that playing, and of the harmonious music that they made? What has become of that dancing, and of the beautiful dresses that they wore?

 

As for Romney or Obama, frankly, if one takes the long view, what does it matter?

 

Antigone1984:

For our brief assessment of the two main candidates in the US presidential election, check out our post “A plague o’ both your houses!” published on 2 November 2012.

 

——-

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

Posted in Spain, USA | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Manufacturing output plummets in Eurozone

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

5 November 2012

Manufacturing in the 17-state Eurozone fell for the eighth month in a row last month and at a faster rate than in September, according to a survey published on 2 November 2012 by Markit Economics, an independent provider of financial information.

Production fell across the consumer, intermediate and investment goods sectors.

According to the survey, “domestic market conditions remained subdued”, while trade flows into and out of the Eurozone deteriorated further.

Rates of contraction accelerated in Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and Greece. While the downturn eased slightly in France, the country still performed below the Eurozone average. The only Eurozone state to buck the trend was Ireland, which saw increases in both output and new orders.

Commenting on the survey on 3 November, the London Guardian said that the downturn in factory activity that began in smaller periphery countries of the Eurozone had now reached the core member states of Germany and France.

Ben May of Capital Economics is quoted in the paper as saying: “Rather than the strength in the core dragging the periphery out of recession, it appears more likely that the core will follow the periphery into recession.”

Antigone1984:

So much for the austerity-focused anti-Keynsian economic ideology foisted on the Eurozone by penny-pinching Germany, which currently calls the shots. By strangling growth instead of promoting it, this ideology, translated into an economic policy based on public sector cutbacks and debt repayment, is worsening the recession instead of counteracting it.

We venture to make a prediction. Once the downturn begins to hit hard in Germany, we shall see a U-turn in Eurozone policy, which will be redirected towards fostering growth as the zone’s main economic priority, the previous focus on austerity being conveniently forgotten.

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

 

Posted in Austria, Economics, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain | Tagged | Leave a comment

Sandy (2)

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

4 November 2012

DEPENDS WHERE YOU LIVE

The following letter from Peter McKenna in Liverpool was published in the London Guardian on 31 October 2012:

Is Sandy, the hurricane now threatening the US and at the forefront of our media, by any chance related to the hurricane, also called Sandy, which recently took 69 lives in Haiti, Cuba and other Caribbean countries, but which was not similarly newsworthy?

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

Posted in USA | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Sandy (1)

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

3 November 2012

LET’S HEAR IT FOR BIG GOVERNMENT

The following letter from Paul Hewitson in Berlin was published in the London Guardian on 31 October 2012:

Given that the consequences of Hurricane Sandy are being dealt with by firefighters, police, transport staff, soldiers and other public sector workers, will the Republicans still quote with approval Ronald Reagan’s witticism: “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

 

 

 

Posted in USA | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

A plague o’ both your houses!

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

2 November 2012

AMERICA DESERVES BETTER

Next Tuesday 6 November 2012 voters in the United States go to the polls to elect the next President of the United States.

There are two principal candidates: the incumbent Barack Obama of the Democratic Party and his challenger Mitt Romney of the Republican Party.

Antigone1984 is not a US citizen and consequently does not have the right to vote in this election.

The question the world is asking right now, however,  is this: how would Antigone1984 have voted if they had had the right to vote?

This is our answer.

Mitt Romney represents the billionaire class, Wall Street, small government, lower taxes for fat cats, and war on the poor.

There was once one aspect of Romney’s platform that we supported: his clarion call earlier this year for military intervention in Syria to stop the blood bath being visited on the people of that country by the butcher Bashar al-Assad. As might have been expected, however, no sooner had Romney  voiced that demand than he retracted it.

So it’s thumbs down for Romney from Antigone1984.

In terms of personality, from what an outsider can see, Obama appears to be the nicer character.

However, we are talking here not about niceness of character  but about the election of the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military machine in the history of the planet.

As US President since January 2009, Obama, has introduced a measure of medical insurance for the poorest Americans. This is clearly to his credit.

However, he has also been guilty, inter alia, of:

1. carrying on – nay, upscaling – the legacy of military aggression inherited from his predecessor George W. Bush by waging two unjustified wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – the latter still in progress – in which hundreds of thousands of people, most of them innocent civilians, have been slaughtered;

2. the flagrant and continuing abuse of human rights as a result of the imprisonment of suspects for years without trial outside the reach of US courts at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba in blatant repudiation of Habeas Corpus legislation outlawing arbitrary detention which has formed the bedrock of civil liberties in America and England since it was adopted by the English parliament in 1679;

3. the infringement of Pakistani sovereignty by sending pilotless drones into Pakistan, against the wishes of the Pakistan Government, to bomb suspected terrorists and in the process slaughtering numberless innocent civilians. Leaving aside the massacre of the innocents, we are talking here about the execution of suspects without their being tried in a court of law.

These are but three glaring examples of the way in which Obama, after talking the talk – symbolised in his pre-election campaign by high-sounding but vacuous slogans such as  “the audacity of hope” and  “Yes, we can!” –  failed egregiously to walk the walk once he had obtained the presidency.

Those slogans Obama shouted from the  rooftops when he wanted the American people to elect him president. They did so – and he let them down.

“No, he couldn’t!” is our verdict on the Obama presidency that is now drawing to a close.

Whatever his other achievements and merits, Antigone1984 would never vote for a mass-murderer and a chronic human rights abuser.

Consequently,  as far as we are concerned,  it’s thumbs down for Obama as well as for Romney.

If  Antigone1984 had the right to vote in America next Tuesday, we would vote for neither Obama nor Romney.  We would abstain.

America deserves better.

Antigone1984:

Ironically, even if we had the right to vote in these elections, our impact on the outcome, given our intention to abstain,  would have been  just the same – zilch. Hence, in practical terms, it is of no consequence whether we have the right to vote there or not.

Some may criticise us on the grounds that, of two bad candidates, one (Romney) is worse than the other (Obama). Hence, one should cast one’s vote for Obama, if need be clamping a clothes-peg on one’s nose as one does it.

However, if the less bad party is unremittingly assured that left-inclined voters, in the absence of a genuine left-wing candidate, will, by and large, vote for them rather than for the candidate who least represents their views, then a genuine left-wing alternative will never emerge.

Such a scenario enables essentially conservative parties, such as the Democratic Party in the United States or the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, to cajole voters into voting for them on the grounds that if they do not they will end up with something worse.

If we allow this state of affairs to continue, the we can be assured that no left-wing movement or candidates will ever see the light of day.

Those who support the left, if they want a leftward swing in politics, have no alternative but to ignore the siren calls of the less bad party and build up a genuine leftwing movement of their own with a view to obtaining electoral success in the medium to long-term, holding themselves ready to take advantage of times of crisis when the electorate, tired of the old two-party diarchy that has failed them, finally decides to look for something new.

That is in fact what has happened in Greece this year.  Shaken out of their chronic fatalism by the crisis in the Eurozone, former supporters of PASOK, a long-established party purporting to be socialist but which in reality for decades has been part-and-parcel of the political status quo, defected in droves to a tiny leftwing party, SYRIZA, which as a result, virtually overnight,  became the main opposition party in the Greek Parliament.

——-

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

Posted in Afghanistan, Greece, Iraq, Pakistan, Politics, Syria, UK, Uncategorized, USA | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment