by William Skink
Liberals are lashing out over the Brexit vote, which would be amusing if the situation wasn’t so dire. Predictably they are scapegoating the intolerant right for the vote because they can’t see decades of failure from their own sellout to the neoliberal agenda as laying the groundwork now being taken advantage of by rightwing politicians in Europe.
Maybe they’re angry over their sad little hope that the Bernie insurgency would nudge Clinton and corporate Democrats back to the left. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen. But instead of attacking their Queen, they are attacking lowly bloggers who dare to try and understand the populism their party is assiduously ignoring, like when Democrats rejected a platform proposal opposing free trade:
Democrats on Friday voted down an amendment to the party’s platform that would have opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, avoiding an awkward scenario that would have put its statement of values at odds with President Barack Obama.
Members of a Democratic National Convention drafting committee defeated a proposal led by Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., that would have added language rejecting the Pacific Rim trade pact, which has been opposed by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
The panel, which is developing the party’s platform ahead of next month’s Philadelphia convention, instead backed a measure that said “there are a diversity of views in the party” on the TPP and reaffirmed that Democrats contend any trade deal “must protect workers and the environment.”
Hillary Clinton isn’t going to allow any of Bernie’s leftist contagion to infect what is already coded in her DNA. So now that the great capitulation has begun, with Bernie acknowledging he will vote for Clinton, what remains to be seen is how many will hold their nose and go along with the charade. With even platform battles being lost, look for the number of former Bernie supporters telling Democrats to fuck off to increase.
That is the sentiment I happily direct to wankers like Pete Talbot, who had this to say on the Brexit thread:
Always good to see you siding with Swede, Eric and the nationalists, Skink. The majority of those voting to remain in the EU were the educated young. Those voting against would be your Trump types. Spot on analysis as always.
This ignorant comment is indicative of the liberal state of mind trying desperately to calm itself by assuming everyone who voted for Brexit is an immigrant-hating white nationalist, then using the tactic of guilt by association to shame those linking this vote to a rejection of neoliberal globalization.
To help RD readers understand this warped worldview, there is always Counterpunch to the rescue. I suggest the article The Neoliberal Prison: Brexit Hysteria and the Neoliberal Mind. Here is a taste:
The enraged liberal reaction to the Brexit vote is in full flood. The anger is pathological – and helps to shed light on why a majority of Britons voted for leaving the European Union, just as earlier a majority of Labour party members voted for Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
A few years ago the American writer Chris Hedges wrote a book he titled the Death of the Liberal Class. His argument was not so much that liberals had disappeared, but that they had become so coopted by the right wing and its goals – from the subversion of progressive economic and social ideals by neoliberalism, to the enthusiastic embrace of neoconservative doctrine in prosecuting aggressive and expansionist wars overseas in the guise of “humanitarian intervention” – that liberalism had been hollowed out of all substance.
Liberal pundits sensitively agonise over, but invariably end up backing, policies designed to benefit the bankers and arms manufacturers, and ones that wreak havoc domestically and abroad. They are the “useful idiots” of modern western societies.
Yep, and now these useful idiots are trying to exploit Brexit to get rid of Corbyn, while in the states those educated young people Talbot admires in Britain for being “smart” enough to vote to remain in the anti-Democratic EU are getting a good education on how worthless American Democrats have become.
It didn’t have to be this way. In the late 90’s there was plenty of leftist opposition to globalization, which culminated in Seattle in 1999. But by that time the Clinton sellout of the Democratic party had been completed, so the only thing left to do was make sure nothing resembling the left could ever find a foothold with Democrats ever again.
And they did a good job when, ten years later, the Obama regime coordinated national and state resources to smash the Occupy movement. Now with immigrants flooding Europe from the chaos of the “humanitarian interventions” criminals like Hillary have championed, a different political sentiment is popping up to fill the vacuum left by Democrats shunning the left.
This shouldn’t be surprising. But for political somnambulists singing lesser-evil lullabies, maybe it is a rude shock that someone like Trump could break out of the Republican cage to outmaneuver Democrats on an issue like trade. While Democrats can’t even substantively impact their own platform on the issue of free trade, Trump has openly criticized deals like NAFTA and the new round of coming trade deals, like the TPP, that will once and for all kill national sovereignty and enshrine corporate interests for decades to come.
So what are spineless Democrats going to do about this? Keep shooting messengers like me for pointing out the obvious? What will they say to the educated youngsters when even the platform battles are lost? Sorry kids, now just do what you’re told and vote Clinton because the mangled apricot hellbeast is on the other side of the ticket.
The Brexit vote should be a tremendous wakeup call for Democrats, but it won’t be. They told the working class to fuck off decades ago, and now they are busy excluding any whiff of populism the party has left:
Despite its claims to want to unify voters ahead of November’s election, the Democratic party appears to be pushing for an agenda that critics say ignores basic progressive policies, “staying true” to their Corporate donors above all else.
During a 9-hour meeting in St. Louis, Missouri on Friday, members of the DNC’s platform drafting committee voted down a number of measures proposed by Bernie Sanders surrogates that would have come out against the contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), fracking, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. At the same time, proposals to support a carbon tax, Single Payer healthcare, and a $15 minimum wage tied to inflation were also disregarded.
In a statement, Sanders said he was “disappointed and dismayed” that representatives of Hillary Clinton and DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz rejected the proposal on trade put forth by Sanders appointee Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), despite the fact that the presumed nominee has herself come out against the 12-nation deal.
Disgusting, yet wholly predictable. I hope the kids see this and Dexit this pathetic political party.
JC
here is a nice list of some of the great people supporting Hillary Clinton:
*George Will, self proclaimed conservative.
Seems like dangling a little power in front of Elizabeth Warren, carrot stick-style, was enough to get her to hold hands with the presumptive dem nom.
I just finished a book on the history of France. It’s basically a book about war: from the Roman Empire, through the Hundred Years’ War, up through World War II. Europe hasn’t really known peace until this century. Much of that peace can be traced to the European Economic Community, which was followed by the European Union. Countries tend not to go to war with their trading partners.
The EU isn’t perfect but young people see it as an antidote to the nationalism that spurs wars. And these youngsters are much more international than we Americans. They speak a couple of languages and enjoy the “free movement of people, goods and services” that the EU provides.
Trade agreements aren’t necessarily bad. NAFTA was and the TPP is but if negotiated in the light of day with labor and environmental standards in place, trade agreements can benefit all parties.
I stand by my “ignorant comment” you refer to in your post. The demographics of the Brexit vote show that younger, better educated, urban voters wanted to remain and older, less educated, rural folks wanted to leave. I completely understand the concerns of the latter group but unlike Skink’s hypothesis, it was they who were sold a bill of goods, not the young people.
Finally, there are nationalist movements out there (often focusing on anti-immigration rhetoric): Le Pen in France, Austria’s Freedom Party, the Danish People’s Party, etc., and dare I say, Trump, in America. Is that the direction the world should follow?
Hi Pete,
Can you please point us to one example of a ‘free trade’ agreement that has benefited all parties?
“Trade agreements aren’t necessarily bad. NAFTA was and the TPP is but if negotiated in the light of day with labor and environmental standards in place, trade agreements can benefit all parties.”
There are hundreds of free trade agreements out there, Matt. I counted 75 bilateral or multilateral in Asia alone. There are Central American FTAs, Canada-Asia FTAs, there are East African, South Pacific and Arabic FTAs. Not all of these are bad. I will agree that the big ones in the news — TPP and TTIP, specifically — have serious flaws. It is not a reason to scrap the notion of FTAs. I would also argue that although the EU has problems, it is a work in progress and preferable to the warring nation states that preceded it.
Thanks Pete. You realize I worked with Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and under their director, Lori Wallach, easily one of the world’s leading experts on corporate ‘free trade’ pacts, right?
You also realize that the FTAs you referenced above have ‘serious flaws,’ were not negotiated in the light of day and fail to include strong labor and environmental standards, right?
Might I suggest the following information, all fully documented and cited. I think you’ll have a very difficult time finding one that was you to find one was “negotiated in the light of day with labor and environmental standards in place” and “benefits all parties.” I think you’ll find that all these corporate ‘free trade’ pacts follow (or expand) the same failed NAFTA model.
I’m not trying to be disagreeable here Pete, just trying to keep it real. Thanks.
Learn more about NAFTA, the WTO, CAFTA, Columbia and Panama FTAs, Korea FTA, and Other Trade Agreements
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=1014
Africa Trade Act (AGOA), Caribbean Basin Initiative, MAI – Multilateral Agreement on Investment, U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=3817
Prosperity Undermined: The Status Quo Trade Model’s 21-Year Record of Massive U.S. Trade Deficits, Job Loss and Wage Suppression
http://citizen.org/documents/prosperity-undermined.pdf
Alternatives to Corporate Globalization
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=1012
No, Matt, I did not realize you had worked for Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. And, as I mentioned, we are in agreement on the major FTAs — NAFTA, CAFTA,TPP — mostly those “negotiated” by the U.S. But is the FTA concept bad? Trade agreements between Malaysia and India, or Laos and Thailand, for example, seem to benefit the counties involved. What started this whole conversation was the EU. We’ll see if the Brexit hurts or helps countries on either side of the Channel. I have my doubts that it will help.
Pete read a book. Visualize, if you can, a gathering where men in red garb and fancy head dress lift their swords as the man of the moment enters the room. It is Pete. Pete read a book. He assumes it is all true, all that stuff in the book, as no one would make such efforts to write lies. Now he has ammunition as he needs. He is going to get some Democrats elected to solve things.
The history of France is pretty well documented and straight forward: wars, power struggles, land ceded and reclaimed, a revolution here and there. But you should do some of that facial recognition stuff on Napoleon, Mark. I think he faked his death.
The “facial recognition stuff” is nothing more than uncovering hidden truths. I stand by the math … If you have anything to offer in way if rebuttal other than ignorant taunts, I wait with bated breath. (PS: Tomorrow morning I am going to publish a piece on Mark David Chapman, claiming not only that he is not in jail, but that he is twins. I will,offer “evidence,” a word you do not know. Who else in this boring blogging world of pointless sniping at the other deluded side if the coin has anything going like that? Certainly not you, snooze man.)
Napoleon is interesting. For instance, his escape from Elba could not have been anything other than planned, and his death on St. Helen’s could easily have been faked. If you’ve read Quigley, who did a nice limited hangout on the matter, you would learn that the French Revolution was agitprop-enhanced by Protestant bankers, who turned to Napoleon when it got out of hand, and turned on him when he got out of hand. In other words, ordinary people being manipulated to advance other agendas, just like now. But that was Quigley, and he only let out enough to tantalize, hiding the really good stuff.
Pete, you don’t know enough to be doing this. Reading one book don’t get it done, and imagining that one book has uncontested truth is silliness.
Pete, did yor book speak to the Battle of Tours in 732?
There were so many battles over so many centuries. I can’t be sure, but was it between the Moors and the Franks? Roman and Muslim culture brought much to the Mediterranean but it’s a story of continual conflict, with a lot of religion in the mx.
Another success for NAFTA!
Trudeau claws back and gets the USA
to back away from pushing for cool county of origin meat labeling,
just as COOL started to finally gain political momentum.