StephenKMackSD's Blog

Mr. Luce can’t let go of his credentials as a thoroughgoing establishmentarian. His look at the Democratic contest and his obvious choice of front runner Hillary makes that clear, she presents herself as Presidential. Which means that she and her team are adroit practitioners of effective Public Relations/Propaganda.

As for Mr. Biden, he is a New Democratic hack whose impending retirement from American politics is most welcome. With one important caution: it is reported that Biden acted as very important oppositional  voice to Clinton’s perpetual bellicosity: Ms. Clinton needs to prove that she is ‘tougher’ than any man in the room. This penchant is a dangerous one. If you need proof, the careers of both Victoria Nuland and foreign policy technocrat Anne-Marie Slaughter are the starkest of object lessons. And don’t forget the praise coming from Jeffrey Goldberg and William Kristol as indicative of what? These two Neo-Cons set a standard of political conduct that is prima facie suspect.

Sen. Sanders is the anti-Hillary: he is a ‘Populist’ , which is enough to give The Financial Times and it stable of commentators nightmares. Those bad dreams are then translated into perpetual political hysterics. He is by no means a perfect candidate, but he has enlivened the Democratic race, and made the stolid Neo-Liberal Ms. Clinton pay attention to that dreaded ‘Populism’. His ability to generate millions of dollars from small donors has been instructive of the power of Sen. Sanders’ message.

Political Reporter

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/de55c26e-782c-11e5-933d-efcdc3c11c89.html#axzz3pIlzb81s

One reads, in awe, of Mr. Ignatieff’s praise of the return to democratic values, of adversaries rather than enemies, to the political process of Canadian state. Good luck to Mr. Trudeau in his endeavor to restore a necessary civility. Yet a glaring object lesson exists, for the political realist, in the recent history of Europe, that Mr. Ignatieff and his R2P allies practiced with all the political dishonesty, even the self-serving mendacity that he criticizes in the political behavior of Mr. Harper: the Western sponsored Coup in Ukraine and the incitement of a New Cold War. His enthusiastic allies in the press were, to name but two, The New York Review of Books, home of the cult of Isaiah Berlin ( Mr. Ignatieff being one of its primary acolytes) and Eurozine. Born here was the myths of Russian revanchism and Putin as The New Stalin, repeated in all the respectable bourgeois publications, as a matter of received truth: it was as if all those publications, print and internet became, like the New York Times, propaganda conduits for the American National Security State.Perhaps, at this point, the reader should recall the Berlin apothegms regarding incommensurables, which at this point acts as a stand in for political hypocrisy and or the more complimentary notion of political pragmatism?

Political Realist

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/95d0cdf4-770a-11e5-a95a-27d368e1ddf7.html#axzz3pDdZNmS5

Mr. Ganesh demonstrates that the enemy of the political winner is the inability to conceive the possibility that the opposition can win. Call it the myopia of the winner.

Given the rise of Corbyn, or someone like him, Mr. Cameron puts his political capital behind Austerity, but an Austerity that only affects the poor. How perverse must your political judgement be, to attack the very people who can deliver political victory to the ‘un-electable’ Mr. Corbyn?

‘And David Cameron has an embarrassment of riches. Since renewing his premiership in May, he has already revised or delayed legislation to satisfy his own dissenting MPs. His plan to cut tax credits, income supplements for the low-paid, is being resisted by colleagues and newspapers, including proudly rightwing ones.’

What is relevant to the future of the Tories is to recognize that Neo-Liberalism is a spent force, and that the attack on the poor is an invitation to defeat. No amount of internal dissent can save a Party, that is still invested in Austerity exclusively aimed at the disadvantaged. Again the myopia of the winner!

‘…Conservative squabbles can deprive Labour of any relevance it has left after electing the unelectable Jeremy Corbyn as leader.’

‘There is such a thing as an optimal level of dissent: too little and the official opposition fills the vacuum, too much and things fall apart.

This last pronouncement truly demonstrates the myopia of the winners. Look at the American election of 2008 as a telling counter example!

‘People do not vote for hope and vision, but for the lesser evil.’

I can say that what appears most puzzling about Mr. Ganesh’s style of argument is that he appears to be a student of Derrida!

Political Reporter

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2e14b53c-7416-11e5-bdb1-e6e4767162cc.html#axzz3p6wxwjBV

On top of the manufactured political melodrama of the President’s courage in his act of re-evaluation/self-repudiation of his past commitments, we are then subjected to Mr. Luce’s long and unconvincing apologia for the un-lamented ‘diplomatic’ career of Mr. Holbrooke. Mr. Luce must have been one of the elite who watched ‘The Diplomat’, in a preview for Washington taste makers, or should this cadre be called the followers of an ever evolving Political Orthodoxy ? Proving that movies are not about rational discussion, or anything like reason, but about the imperatives of propaganda. World War I and Hollywood are inextricably linked in their campaign against the Hun!

Holbrooke was a professional bully, not a diplomat. His successors are Susan Rice, Victoria Nuland and R2P zealot Samantha Power: not a very impressive legacy except to those whose eyes have been opened by the revelation of The Diplomat. Others have explored Vietnam with greater honesty and reliability: but for the reader that has found Mr. Luce comments of interest, or even compelling, the book for you is ‘The Georgetown Set, Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington’ by Gregg Herken. This is readable gossip masquerading as history. Available on November 24, 2015 in paper.

http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/78894/the-georgetown-set/

Although Mr. Holbrooke doesn’t appear in these pages, his political precursors, as deeply committed agents of The American Empire, provide an entertaining, if dispiriting , narrative that sets the stage for Mr. Holbrooke’s ‘diplomatic’ career.

President Obama’s ‘act of courage’ in his self-repudiation/re-evaluation becomes lost in Mr. Luce’s act of political adoration of Mr. Holbrooke. As others have cogently argued  ‘The War on Terror’ has evolved into a new 30 Years War, and can we then view Samuel P. Huntington’s ‘Clash’ as a prophecy of an American Policy technocrat?

Political Reporter

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a263021c-7421-11e5-bdb1-e6e4767162cc.html#axzz3ovrNSwXf

I’m writing my comment on October 18, 2015, and why that is germane is that The Intercept has published a series of related essay called The Drone Papers:

The Drone Papers

This is a collection of ten essays that map the abject failure of America’s Drone Policy. With 80 to 90 % killing of civilians and an unreliable practice of intelligence gathering , and it’s many euphemisms, for that unreliability/failure- the question arises: what will Mr. Cameron do that the American Hegemon could not do? The American Empire with it’s seemingly endless treasury, and it’s massive collection of technocrats, which can’t even come up with anything like ‘reliability’, in terms of that intelligence gathering! The civilian deaths associated with the utter failure of this policy, as judged by another set  of technocrats, who evaluate those policies, is a vicious circle of demonstrated incompetence!

Mr. Sands raises  the legal issue of British intervention, and what ever legal pretext Mr. Cameron and his advisers can cobble together: perhaps, Mr. Cameron needs a John Yoo, to confect, out of political need, something like the ‘Unitary Executive Theory’, that was the legal rationalization/blueprint for a complete abuse of  executive power in America?

Political Reporter

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/034508d4-6e8a-11e5-8171-ba1968cf791a.html#axzz3ovrNSwXf

The author of ‘The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson’ proves himself to be the most sophisticated political sycophant yet to appear in these pages, this is surely an accomplishment, when there are so many precursors. Mr. Harry Mount produces a ‘History’ made to measure, for the mayor of a city that is not a part of Great Britain, but utterly apart from ‘this sceptered isle‘! London is an historical singularity in the narrative confected with such public relations aplomb: a combination of hubris and political pandering, in praise to one of the most notorious creatures that the Neo-Liberal swindle produced since Mrs. Thatcher.

Mr. Mount is an Oxbridger of impeccable educational credential, not to speak of his lineage as son of Ferdinand. Although Mount pere has been a bit more circumspect in his political apologetics. The Pericles/Johnson comparison, or parity, marks the ignominious end to this utter embarrassment. What follows is what W.H. Auden called curlicues: more Classical references, that will send you to your well worn copies of The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature by Sir Paul Harvey, and or The Oxford Classical Dictionary!

Political Reporter

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f948e1ec-7182-11e5-9b9e-690fdae72044.html#axzz3oUWoaumI

As usual Mr. Rachman faithfully conforms to the latest iteration of Political Orthodoxy: American Decline, American Retreat from World Dominance and other such locutions, favored by both Neo-Cons and their R2P political allies. The rise of the twin myths of Russian revanchism and Chinese Hegemony are now part of that Political Orthodoxy.  Mr. Rachman becomes bellicose when challenged by his readers. Those readers think that the price of a subscription entitles them to unfettered access to the comments section! Well, a Capitalism allied to the prerogatives of an American National Security State, and it’s running dogs, to use a Marxist, or is it  Maoist, cliche that definitely applies, are in charge,  so be forewarned this is not a Democracy!

Almost Marx

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cf420d44-70bd-11e5-ad6d-f4ed76f0900a.html#axzz3oNuy2naq

I hate to say this but Mr.Franzen sounds just like an American Provincial. No particular insights on any important issue political,historical,philosophical just petulant chit chat. Mailer was driven by egotism and being the self-appointed heir to Hemingway, a collection of bellicose poses. Vidal was America’s man of letters and a very witty polemicist and  consummate snob, but he managed to be insightful and funny. Bellow wrote the same novel again and again, with just the cast of characters being different: Herzog morphed, over time, into Ravelstein.

My favorite novelist is Graham Greene, he managed to write ‘entertainments’ as well as literary fiction, although not an American, he didn’t repeat himself. From Stamboul Train to Monsignor Quixote, each of his novels managed to compel the readers attention and respect. I’m sorry to say Mr.Franzen comports himself like an egoist with three best sellers to his credit. Ms. Kellaway did her homework, and seemed more like an admirer than an antagonist. She seemed congenial enough, but perhaps not enough to charm this boorish American literary lion.

American Litterateur

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/6a563a5a-6cde-11e5-8171-ba1968cf791a.html

The Corbyn Panic is now normalized by Cameron. One need only read The Financial Times, The Economist. Even the TLS gets into the spirit of the Witch Hunt, with  Peter Hennessy’s review of  Nick Robinson’s Election Notebook and The Times Guide To The House of Commons of September 25, 2015. One is struck by Mr. Hennessy’s political prescience as he predicts with an inspiring and or dotty confidence the defeat of Labour in 2020, with this astounding sentence, couched in a question:

Was the May 2020 general election won by the Conservatives at 11:45 on the morning of Saturday, September 12, in the QEII Centre at Westminister when Jeremy Corbyn was announced as the runaway winner securing nearly 60 per cent of the vote on the first ballet?

Mr. Hennessy does a bit of backtracking on this sentence in his next, yet the power of this question is retained in one’s memory, despite that qualification. The political prescience of Corbyn’s critics can only be called acts of clairvoyance or political metaphysics?

But wait the pièce de résistance is Tony Green’s rhetorical intervention that identifies ‘ultra left rhetoric’ and ‘out-of-touch marxists’ as the central concern of the reader of  Mr. Harry Leslie Smith’s essay. Green’s rhetoric/argument simply makes plain the fact that Mr. Smith has identified political hysterics as the central themes of the Corbyn Panic.

Political Reporter

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/camerons-attack-terrorist-sympathising-corbyn-resembles-mccarthyist-witch-hunt-1523212

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