StephenKMackSD's Blog

Place this under the category  schadenfreude: M. 37% is not just an utterly clueless enarque, but an authoritarian under the dull-witted propaganda of ‘Jupertarian Politics’! ‘The Paris Police’ are ,in fact, under the command of M.37%, is an attempt to remove the notion of political agency from M. 37%: a not very cunning move by the Financial Times writers/editors/propagandists/apologists.

I and many others saw the photos and videos of the Police holding students ‘as if’ they were the Palestinians, under the IDF’s violent thrall. ‘Bad Optics’ like this are the enemy of M.37% and his minions. Is that self-proclaimed  ‘Jupertarian Revolution’ reaching the point of an evolving series of political denouements, that signal that M.37% and his elite educated minions share in a folie à millions, to state it in the hyperbolic, not shared by the gilets jaunes? These dissidents exist with the tacit acceptance of the general populous, as reported in this essay! There is one other dread possibility: that M.37% and his Police will commit a horrendous crime of executing one or more of the gilets jaunes or students, in their zeal in pursuit of ‘Law and Order’! In American history Kent State and Nixon are inextricably linked. Is M.37% so lost in venal egotism …?       

Almost Marx

https://www.ft.com/content/21f84f9e-fadb-11e8-ac00-57a2a826423e

Replies to my comment, that were removed by the Financial Times’ censors :

Thank you for your comment. Aside from the self-congratulation that suffuses your reply, there isn’t anything like convincing argument in the face of the inconvenient evidence:

In Brazil, Major New Corruption Scandals Engulf the Faction that Impeached Dilma

In Brazil, Major New Corruption Scandals Engulf the Faction that Impeached Dilma

———————————————————————————————————-

Major New Brazil Events Expose the Fraud of Dilma’s Impeachment — and Temer’s Corruption

Major New Brazil Events Expose the Fraud of Dilma’s Impeachment — and Temer’s Corruption

Brazil Is Engulfed by Ruling Class Corruption — and a Dangerous Subversion of Democracy

Brazil Is Engulfed by Ruling Class Corruption — and a Dangerous Subversion of Democracy

———————————————————————————————————-

Brazil’s all-corrupt politics

https://mondediplo.com/2018/10/06brazil

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A Blow to Brazilian Democracy: The Illegitimate Removal of Dilma Rousseff from Power

http://cepr.net/publications/briefings/testimony/a-blow-to-brazilian-democracy-the-illegitimate-removal-of-dilma-rousseff-from-power

———————————————————————————————————-

Noam Chomsky – A “soft coup” in Brazil´s election will have global consequences – The Intercept – out 2018

———————————————————————————————————-

Your ‘experience’ of both Mexico and Brazil, of the strength of Brazil’s institutional safeguards against corruption, and your assertion of Mexico as a ‘failed state’ , as you present them, trumps the objective evidence? And Obrador as ‘Leftist Ideologue’ plays to an audience habituated to Anti-Left hysterics: the very bread and butter of  The Financial Times.

Regards,

StephenKMackSD

https://on.ft.com/2PpkwI4

Mr. Ganesh is a gifted stylist, in this paragraph that seems too steeped in the present rhetorical poverty, he still manages to almost ensorcell. It is the preamble to not just  a meditation on ‘Extremism’ but a homily.

Experience of trauma does not instil risk aversion as a matter of course. But having lived through the near ruin of civilisation, that cohort of westerners did not trifle with dangerous ideas after 1945. Obituaries that attribute Bush’s caution to high-born Waspery or the Episcopalian Church miss the formative effect of war.

That ‘high-born Waspery’ that Ganesh attributes to ‘others’ is not the territory that he wishes to explore. A history made to measure is the ‘sine qua non‘ of this essay.He moves his essay from porcine Robespierre Newt Gingrich: Bush The Elder is by implication the antidote to this populist.  Next is this telling observation, that places the utterly discredited Freud before Shakespeare as the ‘diviners’ of  human motivation.

The question is where such vigilance came from. It takes a Freud or a Shakespeare to divine human motivation.

Then the reader comes to this extended apologetic for what can only be called Bush The Elder’s  unapologetically racist Willie Horton advertisement. Not having the honesty to mention it by name. Lee Atwater was its creator, and quite pointedly asked Mr.  Dukakis, on his death bed for forgiveness! The words ‘foot-dragging’ , ‘tawdry’ and ‘uncharacteristic’ are the weakest form of apologetics.

That generation is already revered to the point of mawkishness. Bush should not be. A nuanced account must reckon with his initial foot-dragging on civil rights and his sometimes tawdry bid for the White House in 1988. But these trips to the darker edges of politics stand out precisely because they are uncharacteristic.

The remainder of Mr. Ganesh’s homily is devoted to the virtues of ‘Social Order’ and an  ‘aversion to wild ideas’ No need to insert the name of Bush The Elder, as a model of this kind of Enlightened Centrist Politics. It a question of belief, that in the Age of Trump even Bush the Elder represents an aspiration toward the Political Good. Such is the desperation of The Midwives of Trump! While ignoring the catastrophic  Foreign Policy of this ‘high-born Wasp’!

Old Socialist

https://www.ft.com/content/921f8b8c-f7b3-11e8-8b7c-6fa24bd5409c

Is this the beginning of the end of M.37%’s ersatz ‘Jupertarian Revolution‘?  He is NOT de Gaulle, although this Neo-Liberal poser, whose unslakable egotism is writing himself into French history!

The protagonists in this melodrama: the Sophisticated City Dwellers vs Country Folk , who need cheap gas as essential to their survival, are the culprits, who seek to sow civic unrest : in sum, an expression of the dread Populists, who now haunt the Macron Authoritarianism, with actual rebellion, in agonizing episodes.

The foundation of Neo-Liberalism is Austerity, yet M. 37% stumbles from crisis to crisis, an utterly clueless énarque, or just an egoist without a modicum of political experience?  Look to the erased comment,of yesterday, from La Bergerie, as described ,in part, by my erased comment for a possible beginning of the Party Line on the question :

But look to La Bergerie for the Party Line of the sophisticated City Dwellers vs Country-folk, but that is not all, she/he rehabilitates the Clinton slur against the victims of her and Bill’s Neo-Liberalism: the political cross-fertilization of American Neo-Liberal mythology that is utterly usable in a the production of a New Myth: a French iteration of a ‘basket of deplorables’ Brava/Bravo!

Is all that posing on the World Stage, with the other leaders of states, great and small,  interfering with M. 37%’s ability to govern? Or is the problem much deeper? Is my resort to analytical cliche indicative of my own wonder at M. 37%’s political incompetence? Which leads to a very uncomfortable thought that Fillon, Thatcherite extremist, would have been a more competent ‘Leader’?

Old Socialist

https://www.ft.com/content/3c448d04-f61c-11e8-8b7c-6fa24bd5409c

The Neo-Liberal ‘Formula’ is always the same Austerity ,cuts in Social Services, and onerous taxes on vital commodities! While M.37% is in Argentina , Paris is or will be burning?

From the good grey Times:

Headline :Paris braced for new riots as fuel protest spreads to Brussels

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/paris-braced-for-new-riots-as-fuel-protest-spreads-to-brussels-tkzn8cxvw

Or from RFI:

Headline:France braces for another round of ‘yellow vest’ protests

http://en.rfi.fr/france/20181201-france-braces-another-round-yellow-vest-protests

But look to La Bergerie for the Party Line of the sophisticated City Dwellers vs Country-folk, but that is not all, she/he rehabilitates the Clinton slur against the victims of her and Bill’s Neo-Liberalism: the political cross-fertilization of American Neo-Liberal mythology  that is utterly usable in a the production of a  New  Myth: a French iteration of a ‘basket of deplorables’ Brava/Bravo!

Old Socialist

https://www.ft.com/content/44935546-f566-11e8-af46-2022a0b02a6c

Headline: López Obrador is bigger threat to liberal democracy than Bolsonaro

Sub-headline: Mexico’s new president will be unconstrained by institutions, unlike his Brazilian counterpart

The opening descriptions of the winners in their respective elections , in which each is described as ‘maverick’:

On Saturday, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a maverick leftist, will become president of Mexico and launch what he has called the country’s “fourth transformation”.

…

A month later, Jair Bolsonaro, a maverick conservative, will become president of Brazil and begin what he claims will be a radical reforging of society and the economy. With his crudely misogynistic and racist comments, divisive nationalism and praise of the dictatorship, the former army captain is often labelled a “Tropical Trump”.

Of course, this is The Financial Times, and the headline gives the game away, in the most  vulgar reductive term ‘Left is Bad’: especially since this newspaper and its hirelings have a penchant for swooning in the presence of a Right-Wing ‘Strong Man’. Although Mr. Rathbone does not shy away from Bolsonaro’s loudly proclaimed murderous intent, to those who fail to qualify as within the exclusive Family of Men! Women are in his World View submissive to male power, but on the question of race, Brazil’s population is a mixture of the Indigenous, Blacks and Europeans. Bolsonaro’s racism is antithetical to Brazil’s actuality. Mr. Rathbone then begins his essay with the observation that Obrador And Bolsonaro are ‘throwbacks’:

The two leaders are part of the epochal changes that are sweeping Latin America’s two biggest economies. Although from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both are also throwbacks to an age of caudillos, or populist strong men, that the region had seemingly left behind. Who though is the bigger threat to liberal democracy? Almost certainly “peace and love” Mr López Obrador rather than “lock ‘em up” Mr Bolsonaro.

The real threat, as Mr. Rathbone proclaims rather that argues it, is that Obrador will be  ‘institutionally unconstrained’ in his use of his presidential power, while Bolsonaro will be ‘institutionally constrained‘. The evidence offered by the impeachment of Rousseff , the appointment of the utterly corrupt Temer, barred from seeking elective office for eight years, and the jailing of  Lula make the notion of ‘constraint’ ring as hollow as it is! Given the utterly corrupt character of Brazil’s political class, as demonstrated by the events of Brazilian political history: the 1964 Coup is the most obvious historical lesson that ‘constraint‘ has been in the past subject to political violence! Mr. Rathbone’s surmise is that the reader of his essay does not have access to other sources of information on Brazil, like Glenn Greenwald’s first hand reports on Brazil at The Intercept!

In his final paragraphs of Mr. Rathbone’s near Bolsonaro apologetic and Obrador muted hysteric are nothing if not predictable:

On Obrador:

He has also said Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro is “welcome” at his inauguration, despite his regime’s record of human rights abuses and theft.

…

Mr López Obrador, by contrast, will be able to implement his vision of change. Arguably, he also needs to concentrate power in order to improve policy co-ordination and so rid Mexico of corruption and improve the lot of the poor. Yet success is only likely if this concentration is part of a new institutional approach of due process and increased transparency, rather than personalised discretion. Worryingly, it has been more of the latter, so far.

On Bolsonaro:

None of this is to gloss over the potential for reactionary illiberalism from Mr Bolsonaro. How he responds should protests erupt over painful economic reforms is vital. Yet if Mr Bolsonaro goes too far astray, Brazilian institutions such as markets, media and the military will hold him to account. His problem is a lack of political power, not a surfeit.

Call this paragraph what it is , in American Corporate jargon ‘Cover Your Ass’!

Political Observer

https://www.ft.com/content/7f2e0ae0-f235-11e8-ae55-df4bf40f9d0d

Headline: Petro Poroshenko sends message with Ukraine martial law plan

Sub-headline: Response to Russia boosts president ahead of election and draws west’s attention to conflict

What is the regular reader of this newspaper to think of the fact that Oleksandr Danylyuk is  a Libertarian, it does not raise any real question :

‘Oleksandr Danyliuk supports libertarian views. He was a personal friend of the Georgian reformer and libertarian Kakha Bendukidze. After the latter passed away, Danyliuk became one of the co-founders of Bendukidze Free Market Center. ‘
ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleksandr_Danylyuk

The fact that Anders Aslund is a member of The Atlantic Council , the propaganda arm of NATO, and one of the most active participants in the 2014 Ukrainian Coup does not surprise !

But then the reader come to the question regarding ‘Brian Mefford, a US political consultant based in Kiev’ . Just a cursory inquiry via Google offer this:

Brian Mefford, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Eurasia Center: Expertise,Topics:Civil society, Democracy, International Trade, Political Reform, Transatlantic Relations, US Policy towards democratic transitions.Regions: Ukraine

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/brian-mefford

What might the reader make of the fact that Mr. Mefford is also an employee of The Atlantic Council, not ‘a US political consultant based in Kiev’ ? This looks like serviceable obfuscation, or just  call it by its actual name journalistic  dishonesty!

https://www.ft.com/content/b957f820-f235-11e8-9623-d7f9881e729f

StephenKMackSD

@behcettin

Thank you for posing your comment in a more comprehensible form! My first observation is that the French, for want of more accurate descriptor, flirtation with Neo-Liberalism – I would suggest that you begin here, with The French Way: How France Embraced and Rejected American Values and Power by Richard F. Kuisel (The ‘as if’ is that somehow Neo-Liberalism reflects ‘American Values’ ,this almost comic!):

https://books.google.com/books?id=twvnsPj0IsQC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=mitterrand+and+his+flirtation+with+the+free+Market&source=bl&ots=gTzjRbF4lk&sig=qAFmKiYgfDZT3uXbHUCYUdQb4Bs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBjb7cpPLeAhWN7FMKHe1iBsMQ6AEwAXoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=mitterrand%20and%20his%20flirtation%20with%20the%20free%20Market&f=false

Begin on page 21 for some insights about pragmatic/opportunistic  embrace of the Free Market Mythology,  from Mitterrand, and other contemporary French politicians, as they adapted some of the ideas/features of the prevailing Thatcher/Reagan Free Marketism. This provides, at least to me, a necessary political context that renders the central conceit of his authoritarian  ‘Jupertarian Politics’  as not sui generis!

Unlike Macri, who offered the Argentines Neo-Liberalism Lite, Macron offer the shopworn Neo-Liberal Trinity: Austerity,cuts in Social Services, and onerous Taxes on indispensable commodities. None of this a surprise for this ideologue, énarque  and former Banker, whose rise to power was predicated on 36.5% spoiled/uncountable  ballots, celebrated in this and other Corporatist Newspapers, as a victory: that enshrined a licence to steal, not to say destroy the ‘Welfare State’.

Except for the escalating political intervention of ‘The Great Unwashed’ ! Next will come, in the respectable bourgeouise media, whose myopia is expressed in terms of anti-violence, of course, ignoring that the Neo-Liberal Trinity is about a political/ethical nihilism that expresses itself in institutional violence. Conducted by well credentialed , not to speak of well dressed, Technocrats like Macon, whose  non-existent ‘mandate’ is/was imagined by his Neo-Liberal confederates.

Regards,

StephenKMackSD

https://on.ft.com/2r6puzU

The political violence of Neo-Liberalism: Austerity, cuts in Social Services and Tax Increases, on indispensable commodities,  has reached the point of Crisis in France. The blundering, indeed politically myopic Énarque, not just advocated by M. 37%, but enacted into ‘Law’ via decree ,has  inspired a portion of French Civic Actors, to demonstrate that ‘Civic Peace’ and the Neo-Liberal Trinity, mentioned above, are not just antithetical, but has reached the untenable.

Let the keening  of ‘Centrist Hacks‘, the Midwives of Populism, begin their preachments against ‘Violence’! The institutional Nihilism/Violence of the Neo-Liberal Swindle is in evidence across the Globe: look to the utter failure of the Tories in Britain and its NHS crisis, and Macri’s resort to an IMF Bail-Out not more than 16 months after his election!

Look to the good ,grey Times for another ‘report’ on the latest French Crisis!

Headline: Fuel tax protests in France erupt in violence

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/police-fire-teargas-at-yellow-vest-protesters-in-paris-s5525zzx0

Is the Spirit of 1968 re-awakened?

Almost Marx

https://www.ft.com/content/7d0e1318-f09b-11e8-ae55-df4bf40f9d0d

@FT where are ‘you’ ? Reading your front page of the November 24,2018 edition, the ‘as if’ is that  ‘the yellow vest protestors’ are unworthy of your reportage ? Your Macron Propaganda excludes reporting the ‘bad news’ about the contempt some of that  36.5 % have for the ‘Jupertarian Politics’ of your énarque!? 

Headline: Paris police fire teargas at second wave of yellow vest protesters

Local official Bernard Gonzalez said: “There was a real risk, real danger, he had an explosive charge around his neck . . . This was not fake.”

The unrest, in which two people have died and 606 have been injured, were initially a response to Mr Macron’s fuel duty, but have gained further support from those critical of pressure being put on families’ spending power under the Macron administration.

“We know there are ultra-right and ultra-left infiltrators. You can also expect gangs from the suburbs and ‘black-blocks,’” he said, referring to a militant protest force.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/police-fire-teargas-at-yellow-vest-protesters-in-paris-s5525zzx0

The alliance of Ultra-Right , Ultra-Left and Black-blocks looks like the perfect opportunity to cast M. 37% as the answer to this benighted alliance that is, in your self-interested propaganda, an ersatz Hero of Political Rationalism.  Instead of the retrograde Neo-Liberal Counter-Revolutionary against the French State, as the last bastion of ‘Socialism’.  The Free Market Swindle has failed on a world wide scale, but that will not dampen your collective enthusiasm for your ersatz ‘Reformer’; his political sine qua non, rule by decree.

Almost Marx