Putin’s KOMBINAT is to the Soviet Union what the Nazi regime was to Imperial Germany

We don't have an official term yet for Putin's flavour of political regime. William Gibson saw it in 1993. It's the KOMBINAT.

William Gibson has a good record of anticipating the future. Famously he coined the term "cyberpunk"in his first novel in 1984 in which he set the popular perception of the internet. He is famous for that first trilogy of books, but his second trilogy, known as the Bridge trilogy, quickly fell victim to the law of "nothing dates as fast as yesterdays tomorrow".  Published in the early 1990s and set only a decade later, the Bridge books still read pretty cool noir but it's an alternate future with no phones or Web 2.0. Some might prefer this nightmare dystopia /s.

Admittedly he's only a decade away, but some things Gibson gets pretty on the nose. Pandemics, which seemed to begin with HIV, are now a regular occurrence. As per the first trilogy the middle class is shrinking fast and society is dividing into tech driven super rich and crime inflected everyone else. Crime is riddled with Russian money and it has a solid political origin. "Kombinat" is the name given by Gibson to an evolved Communist state which is now explicitly controlled by organised crime. It seems to be sanctioned by all the other states of Gibson's Bridge world so operatives are actively acquiring new technology from locations like San Francisco and Japan. 

You might respond immediately that for all it's issues Putin's Russia is not communist! It is extreme capitalism! Well, give it time, because the more Putin's state walks like the Soviet Union, and quacks like the Soviet Union, the more those weird years in the middle look like a Weimar daydream without the sexy dancers.

Having given the Kombinat a name suddenly it's place in history looks a lot less accidental, a lot more familiar. It is common currency now to compare Putin with Hitler ("Putler") but less so to compare his regime explicitly with the Nazi Party. Compare the timelines however - 1918-1933, and 1987-2000. The fall of the Kaiser's Germany without invasion. The fall of the Soviet Union without a hot war. Economic chaos follows alongside liberalism. Nationalism as a excuse to unify. Idolisation of the past. Hatred of the future. Staged terrorism events to justify crack downs.

Soviet Union like Imperial Germany has a once mighty proud empire lost in a war that barely touches the homeland, creating no sense of real defeat. The undefeated younger generation of the old regime uses gangsterism and brutality to return to power based on militarism nationalism. and unrestrained capitalism.
In its first form this state is highly confident and aggressively expansionist. Though Imperial Germany seemed to coming to its senses late in 1914 and the Soviets barely had the resources to invade a third world state at the end, their expansionist ambitions were baked into the political mindset for the rest of the world to see.

In its second form the Nazi/Kombinat is still expansionist but only as part of a self pitying litany of grievances for past injustices. Where Imperial Germany/Russia has actual plans for the territories it seeks to acquire, the Nazi/Kombinat barely has a plan beyond invade and then “watch the world burn". There is no self justified philosophy of "white man’s burden" here, just looting, rape and destruction that would shame the Mongols.

Though not explicitly anti Semitic in its earlier more intellectual form in Imperial Germany/Soviet Union, the more aggressive populist Nazi/Kombinat is bitter, narrow minded and obsessively anti-Jew.

Some of this analysis falls apart when you consider the chasm between the class background of Imperial Prussians and Soviet leaders, and perhaps there are less actual war vets in Putin’s regime than there were in Hitler's, but the patterns of behaviour and outlook do look remarkably similar to me, and if we are looking for a term for Putin’s flavour of Nazism - KOMBINAT is as good as any I’ve come across.

Notes

Readers of Gibson's most recent trilogy will be aware that 22nd century London is run by The Klept (derived from kleptocray), descendants of the Russian super elite which escaped to London from what I'm now suggesting we call the Kombinat.

Since writing this post I've become aware of a Russian documentary of the same name, reviewed positively here -
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jan/24/kombinat-review-dark-eerie-doc-on-russias-socialist-city-of-steel
It seems unconnected to the Gibson term.

HOW PRESIDENT TRUMP DEALT WITH THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

 

Lessons in wartime leadership

Now we can look back at the Zombie war as history, it's time to reassess the effectiveness of the last president of the United States

JANUARY

The outbreak as we know it began in Pittsburgh, thought at the time to be a result of returning samples from a NASA probe to Venus. The dead began rising from the graves and began to eat the flesh of the living.

Although briefed in private this was a major threat, in public, he urged US life and business to carry on as normal.

“Don’t be afraid of flesh eating ghouls. Don’t let them dominate your lives.”

FEBRUARY

In February, he said: “Zombie apocalypse? It’s going to disappear one day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

He also said in the same month: “A lot of people think that they go away in April, with the heat, as the heat comes in, typically they will go away in April. Maybe on holiday, in Florida"

MARCH

As the horde of undead overwhelmed Pennsylvania the President reassured the nation 

“I like this stuff. I really get it,” Trump boasted to reporters during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he met with actual doctors and scientists who were feverishly scrambling to contain and combat the plague of flesh eating undead. Citing a “great, super-genius uncle” who taught at MIT, Trump professed that it must run in the family genes.

“People are really surprised I understand this stuff,” he said. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”

Later in March he put aside his scientific credentials and accepted a suggestion he had become a Wartime President.  “I do, I actually do, I'm looking at it that way,” Trump told reporters during a press briefing at the White House when asked whether he considered the U.S. to be on a wartime footing. “I look at it, I view it as, in a sense, a wartime president. I mean, that's what we're fighting.“

His first, and only, direct action as a Wartime President to combat the zombie apocalypse was to completely restrict travel from Venus.

APRIL

In response to the mass outbreak of cannibalism in New York, President dismissed it as Venus Virus and withheld army and troops for use in states that supported him.

“It’s a two-way street,” Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. “They have to treat us well, also. They can’t say, ‘Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that.’”

After the disastrous Battle of Yonkers in which New York's military defenses were overwhelmed by the horde, the President questioned the motivation of the fallen heroes of the battle.

 “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

In late April, Mr Trump went back to his own scientific expertise. Backed by the White House's leading science advisor on the Zombie Virus, United States Marine Corps chiropodist Dr Ali Bongo, Trump wondered if Toilet Duck could be injected into humans to prevent the germs which return people from the dead as cannibals.

He said: “I see the Toilet Duck, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?

MAY

In May, he said: “This, Apocalypse, this is a flu. This is like a flu.

“It’s a little like a regular flu that we have flu shots for, and we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner. Or maybe we'll nuke some cities like I suggested with the hurricanes.”

Mr Trump said: “We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year.”

JUNE

After the Battle of Yonkers Mr Trump said he had found it difficult to socially distance while meeting members of the armed forces who had been exposed to the Army of The Undead.

He told Fox News : “It’s very hard when you’re with soldiers, when you’re with airmen, when you’re with the marines, and with the police officers, I’m with them so much.

“And when they come over to you it’s very hard to say ‘Stay back, stay back’, you know, it’s a tough kind of a situation. They could eat your face off at any minute. it’s a terrible thing.”

He added: “They come over to you and they want to hug you and they want to kiss you, and maybe bite you, because we really have done a good job for them and you get close and things happen.”

JULY

Following an early theory that the virus came from a NASA space probe which landed in Pittsburgh, in July Mr Trump claimed to have seen evidence that the zombie outbreak originated in a Venusian laboratory, and speculated that the virus was released by Venusian authorities.

He said: “It’s a terrible thing that happened.

“Whether they made a mistake or whether it started off as a mistake and then they made another one, or did somebody do something on purpose. Who knows. They are aliens, and I've heard, from a good person, pedophiles”

AUGUST

The US president speculated on the use of anti-flu drug Lemsip, which Oxford University researchers found to have no clinical benefit in the treatment of post mortem human flesh cravings.

Mr Trump said his doctor did not recommend Lemsip to him but he requested it from the White House physician. “I started taking it, because I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories,” Mr Trump said

SEPTEMBER

During a campaign rally in the swing state of Ohio on September 21, Mr Trump played down the scale of the virus.  He told supporters: “Now we know it. It affects elderly people. Elderly people with heart problems and other problems. Particularly tasty old people. But they have other problems, that’s what it really affects, that’s it.”

He added: “But being a zombie cannibal affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing.”

"Brain eating is not a problem for young people" he said later

Trump was able to demonstrate it's harmlessness, when at the end of September, he was bitten on his backside and infected with the zombie virus by celebrity carrier Ted Nugent. 24 hours later Walter Reed hospital brought the President back as first undead POTUS.

OCTOBER

White House finally embraced the idea of using Herd Immunuty to tackle the zombie outbreak.

"Current hiding from flesh eating zombie policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health,” stated a declaration with government backing, adding, “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives - or die and live again - normally, to build up immunity to the zombie virus through natural teeth based infection, while better protecting those who can afford private armies and fortified islands. We call this Focused Protection.”

"ZOMBIES.. ZOMBIES... ZOMBIES... ALL THE CROOKED MEDIA IS OBSESSED WITH" said the president as he gnawed the face off an ecstatic One America News Network reporter.

In his last statement Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said "We've given up handling the zombie outbreak", just before the boarded up windows of the Oval office caved in. Outside, the Trump supporters and the selfish, brain dead cold blooded creatures who only care about filling their stomach were now indistinguishable from each other.

Inspired by Keith Olberman

And remember, this weekend, spare a thought for the true spirit of the Samhain, and George Romero, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Wes Craven, Brian De Palma and John Landis

Don't blame Trump, blame these people

Once upon a time, a woman was picking up firewood. She came upon a poisonous snake frozen in the snow. She took the snake home and nursed it back to health. One day the snake bit her on the cheek. As she lay dying, she asked the snake, "Why have you done this to me?" 
And the snake answered, "Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake."

How did  the worlds most famous liar, a man who brags about sleeping with the wives of his friends, and who is described by the Secretary of State he appointed as a 'Fucking Moron' end up as the most powerful man in Earth?

You can't hold Trump responsible for Trump. He's really not that special.
What fills people with disgust more than anything else is not his exceptional qualities but how familiar we are with his 'type'. The Scumbag Boss.  A grandiose low-life who preys on women, has all the empathy of a pile of dog excrement and is out for only himself. He got where he is on the work of other people and stays were he his by exploiting the people around him. We all work for the Scumbag Boss some day and wonder how Homo Sapiens ever crawled out of the cave and built civilisation with these parasites riding along on the back of the real achievers who co-operate successfully.

But, as Trump apologists know, and there are a surprising number of them even in my country, the planet is full of people bashing Donald Trump (for some reason). So what's the point here?

It occurs to me blaming an obviously incompetent, despicable piece of shit for becoming the President of the united States really is a waste of time. He sure wouldn't care, and I'm not 100% sure he's even responsible for his actions. Is Trump responsible for his own rise? If you were offered a run at the Presidency of the United States would you turn it down because you were unfit?

The blame for Trump rests with his enablers, the ones we can really hold responsible in a few years when we are sitting in an economic and perhaps literal radioactive warzone.

And they are not all Republicans.
But lets start with them anyway.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP : The Republican Party

A mystical organisation, able to materialise an army, The Tea Party, out of nothing to wreck bi-partisan attempts to deal with the last financial crisis, only then to have it dissolve like ghosts into nothing when the same issues appeared when they were in charge. (Dear media : where are all the Tea Party budget fanatics you gave such attention to in 2012?)

And they are in charge. President. Congress and Senate. And they rigged the Supreme Court. For all the lectures we used to have here in the UK on the superiority of the US constitution it seems to have become a One Party State with great ease. And that's even before Trump really gets to work.  I'll get to how this was allowed to happen when I get to The Party Whose Job It Is To Fail, but for the moment these are the people who directly enabled Trump's rise to control of the worlds largest nuclear arsenal and largest economy, and who should hold direct responsibility for it.

Principally:

• Mitch McConnell
• Paul Ryan
• Jeff Sessions

but also including lickspittle creeps such as Devin Nunes and Trey now-conveniently-retired-as-if-all this-never-happened Gowdy, who have been bending over to accommodate their new Leader with no thought for the future stability, security or integrity of the country they have sworn to uphold.

Don't blame Trump - THANK TRUMP - for at least now he gives us the spectacle of the Grand Old Party slowly morphing from history's most immoral opportunists to human history's most laughable political invertebrates.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP : Evangelical Christian voters

Centuries from now, when Religious Hypocrisy is mentioned, the Evangelical endorsement of Trump will surely be one of the first and finest examples of the type.

"everyone loves a sinner who has repented!" they whined in explanation, somehow able to apply this to three times wed serial adulterer, abuser, and seducer of married women but not to missing emails of Trumps opponent.

Evangelicals, know that in the short term you may have done Donald Trump a favour but in the long term you have done Richard Dawkins and the secularist movement a far bigger one. We all know that Hypocrisy and Religion go together like money and politics, but in this you've given us perfect example that will be remembered for all time.

Proverbs 1:32 “For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them."

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP : US Car workers

US voters in Michigan watched the car industry slide into crisis during the last Republican induced financial collapse in 2008. The Republican stance then was - "Market Forces! Let it fail!" Those Michigan voters were jubilant when Obama bailed their industry out at great expense. Some of the overconfidence in the disastrously complacent Democratic campaign of 2016 was down to the belief that Michigan would definitely go Democrat, because of the auto bailout.

When it came to it though, they voted for Trump in droves. The loss of Michigan was crucial in the Republican electoral college win.

That bail out might have been a temporary reprieve though.


Who do car industry workers think will be stupid enough to bail them out the next time?

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  American White Women voters

Next time you see a news item on the #METOO movement, remind yourself that most white women — 52 percent — voted for Trump.

I try and be sympathetic to the views of the Trump voters, particularly the older generations, but white women Trump voters seem to have a special level of utter spinelessness and transcendent airheaded stupidity that makes my jaw drop. 

They make masochism look bad.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  Julian Assange

“For what profits a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul”
What a strange tale this will be. Assange sets up an organisation which promotes the release of the truth, in Wikileaks. He then uses it as a weapon to strike back at an old foe in Hillary Clinton.
And by her defeat he puts the worlds most famous liar in the White House.

A year after Wikileaks started to expose the truth on the Clinton campaign, Trump's 'Fake News' has undermined the entire concept of  objective truth itself.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  Rupert Murdoch

After turning UK political debate into an ignorant nationalistic carnival, the Dirty Digger took his show across the Atlantic with even greater success. Fox News has been instrumental in the political careers of Trump and the previous Republican president, who for most of the last decade was widely regarded as one of the worst presidents in history. Bush Jnr, lets not forget, entered the US into two unwinnable wars while cutting taxes on the super rich. And only a few years later the shameless idiots on Fox News were blaming the next guy in the White House for the skyrocketing budget deficit.

That quote at the top is from Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS. It's a movie which still gets a lot of flak but in Robert Downey Jnr's insane character
W A Y N E   G A  L E 
you'll rarely see a more honest and accurate depiction of the Australian-American news machine.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP  : Bernie Bros and Jill Stein voters

Thanks guys. You made me see the light. I will be voting Labour in the next UK even if they put Piers Morgan in as leader. I would never want to explain why I put a bunch of dangerous incompetents in charge of the worlds largest nuclear arsenal because I voted with my 'conscience'.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  Putin

Putin, if there is any justice, will be blamed for turning the internet into a hate machine. The world wide communication tool which would bring us all together is hurtling us toward WW3. I can't see how that will be a positive for Russia.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP : Clinton campaign & the Democratic Party

Despite going into the 2016 election in a winning position, and outspending their opponents on the Trump campaign, who did not even 100% want or expect to win, the Democrats lost not only the Presidency but also both the Congress and Senate. I've been studying US politics since the mid 1980s and even I cannot fathom how this happened.

Trumps win, I can see now, is a long term consequence of the trauma of 9/11 and the crash of 2008. But.. "checks and balances" right? My A-Level history teacher drummed into us that the beauty of the system was that it could not be abused because one part could always hold the others in check. And if not that - you had the Electoral College as a final fail safe to prevent despotism.

This, I think, presumes that even when one party is not playing by the rules, the other one is at least doing it's job. I have no satisfactory explanation for 8 wasted years of fumbling attempts to do deals with people (like Mitch McConnell ) who patently didn't want to do anything but delay, or the rank incompetence of failing to appoint a Supreme Court judge when given the chance. What I do know is we can obviously see something seriously wrong with the Democratic Party merely by the fact that the people in charge of this historic ongoing display of incompetence are - amazingly - still there!

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, take a bow, you are almost as shameless as the reptiles in the party opposite. If you had an ounce of self awareness and responsibility you would have both resigned the morning of 09/11/16.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  ME

I worked on the Clinton campaign, No really. It was a fantastic experience with brilliant people, but I can't divorce myself from the outcome . Or the realisation that in four visits to the United States I've only been outside the coastal Blue states for one day, a trip to Reno.
I was as bought into the inevitability of Hillary's win as much as anyone, even when I had previously seen the serious possibility of a win for Leave in the Brexit vote.

I told worried friends in the UK that there was no way Trump would be elected as "Americans, really, honestly, are not that stupid". Elderly relatives were particularly worried but it was easier to reassure them as they remembered the country of Eisenhower and Kennedy still with enormous respect. Trump was to them frightening and surreal, like signs of dementia in one of their oldest and most reliable friends.

I told them all it would be OK.

JEREMY CORBYN CAMPAIGNING FOR REMAIN IN EU REFERENDUM

Seriously, if you think the current leader of the Labour Party is a solution to anything, get in your car and drive in any direction for an hour and talk to an ex Labour voter

Right now the UK needs 21stC Aneurin Bevan, not De-caff Neil Kinnock

Light at the end of the Brexit tunnel

Britain is not a rainy, fascist island – here's my plan for ProgrExit
by
Paul Mason


found at
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/25/britain-rainy-fascist-island-progrexit-brexit

HM The Queen could provide an escape route from Brexit UPDATED

Ultimately Britain is a constitutional monarchy as well as a democracy. This provides a potential escape route from the Brexit disaster which would break up UK and EU.

It could justified by the fact that Leave won the vote with an extremely small margin

1. Reigning Monarch dissolves current government (whose sitting PM is about to resign anyway)and calls for a general election
2. New government after election refuses to invoke Article 50 kicking off the process
3. Brexit never happens (unlikely - see bottom)

CORRECTION

"The Queen previously wielded the power to dissolve Parliament and call a general election, but the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act put an end to that in 2011. Now a two-thirds vote in the commons is required to dissolve Parliament before a five-year fixed-term is up."

but

"While the overwhelming majority of the Queen's prerogative powers are devolved to her ministers, there is one exception that allows her to wield power herself. Only "in grave constitutional crisis," the Sovereign can "act contrary to or without Ministerial advice." With no precedent in modern times, it's not clear what would actually constitute this, but the possibility remains."

http://uk.businessinsider.com/weirdest-powers-queen-elizabeth-ii-british-sovereign-prerogative-swans-dolphins-2015-5

---

The Monarch functions as a major force for national cohesion. Not only does this give her the right to intervene on this extremely divisive issue, she would probably be the only voice that the Leave campaign would respect.

It would also be one in the eye for the tabloid newspapers which have falsely claimed she backed Brexit, and which have been the bane of the lives of the Royal Family for some time.

"A vote for Brexit will not be determinative of whether the UK will leave the EU. That potential outcome comes down to the political decisions which then follow before the Article 50 notification. The policy of the government (if not of all of its ministers) is to remain in the EU. The UK government may thereby seek to put off the Article 50 notification, regardless of political pressure and conventional wisdom."
FT.com

There is an incredible theory that a Brexit won't actually happen even if the public votes for it
BusinessInsider.com

---

UPDATE
After a nights sleep I can't see a way of avoiding Article 50. The way the vote was formulated, with a simple majority required rather than 60-70%, was a recipe for disaster and national division. Even if the vote had gone for Remain with this margin I think we could still have been looking at serious disaffection and trouble (but without the massive worldwide political and economic consequences).

I can see a case for having Article 50 implemented by a new government in a hugely changed situation. Not a new government formed by a treasonous political entity which has no mandate to govern whatsoever.

If you claim to stand for the United Kingdom but enact measures which you know will break up the United Kingdom (via Scottish independence) you are nothing but an English National Party in hiding.

The Engine Behind Brexit

I highly recommend this from Tuesday 24 March 2015 by Nicholas Watt and Patrick Wintour
to foreign readers bemused by the forces driving Brexit. It's a Long Read article from the Guardian, hardly a xenophobic tabloid. It would seem there are a large majority of Labour (and Conservative) people who have yet to read it.
I do still consider myself a Labour voter by the way.

Highlights

"In the wake of the party’s defeat in the 2010 election, there was a brief mass mea culpa about immigration, but even now Labour struggles to explain to a core part of its electorate the decisions that were taken on its watch."

"Between 1997 and 2010, net annual immigration quadrupled, and the UK population was boosted by more than 2.2 million"

" In the early years of the Blair government, income levels in most of the 15 member states were on a par with UK levels. Migration from the three poorer EU members at the time – Greece, Spain and Portugal, which joined in the “southern enlargement” of the 1980s – was relatively low, thanks in part to the generous EU funding of infrastructure projects in those countries."

"In 2004, 10 more countries – eight of which had been part of the eastern bloc during the cold war – became members of the EU."  ..." In anticipation of the enlargement of the EU, Blair’s government took the precaution of asking academics to assess the likely levels of immigration from countries in central and eastern Europe that were noticeably less well off. Per capita GDP, as measured in purchasing power parity, of the eight new member states was less than half the EU average.
The report that was produced by the Home Office, published in 2003, did not predict a dramatic increase in immigration from Europe."

"The projection of 13,000 net migrants per year over a decade"...." was based on the assumption that all 15 EU countries would open their labour markets to the newcomers, ensuring that the migrants would be reasonably evenly distributed across the EU. In the end, just Britain, Ireland and Sweden opened up. "

"Virtually all politicians now agree that the failure to impose transitional controls was a mistake."
"“The research looked well founded and evidence based,” ...(Former Minister John Denham)... "says of the Home Office predictions. “It is what government is supposed to do. The whole irony of this is that in some respects Tony Blair was obsessed by immigration, particularly about illegal immigration and abuse of the asylum system, but on EU migration there was a catastrophic failure of the civil service machine.”

"The response from the Whitehall machine to Denham’s memo was largely indifferent. “I sent a warning message to government about the impact of immigration in Southampton, saying Whitehall was not picking up quickly enough what was happening on the ground, or what the wider electorate were saying in response,” he recalls. “To be fair to government, it was probably true the impact at the time varied enormously from area to area, and there was real uncertainty about how long the impact would last. The reaction to migration was seen very differently in London, for instance, to other places.”

"Outlining the impact on the everyday lives of his constituents, Denham argued at the time that resentment of immigration would grow. “One of the problems was that people were supposed to register if they were employed but many came as self-employed,” Denham says. “The biggest impacts were in self-employed trades like construction, where you didn’t have to register.” In the memo, Denham stated that the daily rate for a builder in the city had fallen by 50% since 2004. He also noted that hospital accident and emergency services were under strain because migrants tended not to use GPs as a first port of call. It also turned out that the local further education college had to close its doors after 1,000 migrants attempted to sign up for an English-as-a-second-language course on one day. Whitehall, Denham argued, was wholly out of touch with the concerns of his constituents."

"Jacqui Smith, who was home secretary between 2007 and 2009, when the financial crisis began, agrees with Denham that Whitehall appeared out of touch. “I can remember seeing Treasury papers that said if we limit migration we will reduce our growth. There is a justification for that argument at a macro level, but if you say to people, ‘You may have seen some changes on your high street but it’s OK for macro-economic growth and there will be cultural benefits in London, you sound like you don’t get it,” says Smith."

"Jack Straw is frank about the failures, particularly the official projection of a mere 13,000 net migrants a year from the new EU member states. “It’s a case study of how good intentions and apparently good research can lead government in the wrong direction. But it was a very significant policy failure, done with the best of intentions and in a serious way because we’d got the research.”

It ends with this

"Ed Miliband knows immigration can be a potent issue. But he tends to lean towards dry policy solutions, such as ensuring that employment agencies cannot discriminate in favour of migrant workers. If Labour is to reconnect with its traditional supporters, it may have to think how to respond to those who, in the words of Jack Straw, feel they have not had a fair deal in life as the country changed around them after a series of largely accidental steps."

- Two months after this article was published, Ed Miliband resigned as leader of the Labour Party after it was crushed in the 2015 General Election.

Vote REMAIN to save the United Kingdom and stop the ongoing disaster of nationalism

All the potential benefits of British independence from the EU will be lost if it prompts another, successful vote for Scottish independence.

I was really hoping someone in the shamefully clueless Remain campaign would mention Scotland but they seem to be too busy with ideas like having the Mayor of London and its financial services industry try convince the rest of he country Brexit is bad for them.

I know lots of people, perhaps a majority, voting for Brexit. A lot are smart people, but when I mention this could easily lead to another Scottish vote they wave it off with

"oh let them go I'm sick of them as well!"

Which really is incredibly stupid and illustrates how dumb and emotional some of the arguments for Brexit are. There is a sensible progressive case for Brexit, but I've heard very little of it over the ravings and lies from the likes of people I'd never walk into a voting booth for.

Try arguing the case against Scottish nationalism when English nationalism has taken us from one of the largest trading blocks on Earth.

How effective will Brexit be when independent Scotland joins the EU and the Schengen area? Are we going to get Donald Trump to build a wall across the North of England?

Is Brexit worth losing a seat on the UN security council when the UK ceases to exist?

Are your children ready to put on a uniform and patrol the peace lines in Belfast when the fragile Irish peace process unravels?

It's like watching a gathering firestorm of nationalism that feeds on itself.

Look at UKIPs hideous poster of immigrants supposedly trying to get into Britain (actually they are on the frontier of Southern Europe). Look at the faces of those people.
What did nationalism do for their countries?

What did nationalism do for Africa and the Middle East? With Soviet backing, African and Arab nationalism drove out the forces and influences of the liberal, prosperous West and gave those young countries just enough independence to be now filled with poverty, corruption and war, Decades later the impoverished populations of those places have looked at the results of their own nationalist history are now voting with their feet.

The horrible self sustaining irony is that he very dumb nationalist thinking that drives the OUT campaign AND Scottish nationalism is exactly the same thinking that in the 1950s-60s held back the developing world and now drives migration to places like the EU.

LATEST : TRUMP SUPPORTERS RAPED BY LIBERAL TREES

Here's what happened to female Trump supporter when she became a fantasy propaganda image using a still from the Evil Dead.

Inspired by the shameful liars at CONSERVATIVE NATION

EU Referendum : choice is not IN or OUT but Europe or America

Question: So if it's so bad why did Britain join the EU in the first place?
Answer: To avoid becoming the 51st state of the United States.

For all the current debate on Brexit in the run up to the referendum there is very little covering the decisions and thought processes that caused the UK to join the European project in the first place.

Who were the great enthusiasts for joining what was then the Common Market? Well, only virtually all the British politicians of the 1950s and 60s. McMillian, Wilson, Heath, basically everyone in both major parties.
Why?

That Special Relationship was quite different in the 50s and 60s.

After 1945 Britain went from being a rock solid wartime ally of the United States, wiling to share every technological secret in her inventory (Tizard Mission) to being frozen out of the US Bomb project, forced to repay Lend Lease early ("Washington suddenly and unexpectedly terminated Lend-Lease on 21st August 1945"), leaned on and humiliated during the Suez Crisis - and virtually ignored during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It is no surprise then that the UK was at its most desperate to join  the EU when US president Lyndon B. Johnson was trying to use economic pressure, mainly threats not to support sterling, to force Prime Minister Harold Wilson to support the American War in Vietnam.

"The years 1964-68, when the Labour government of Harold Wilson and the Democratic administration of Lyndon B. Johnson were in power, saw pronounced strain at the highest levels of Anglo-American bonds, caused to a significant extent by differences over America’s war in Vietnam. Opposition to the war within the Labour Party and among the British general public meant that the Wilson government could not satisfy the United States’ desire for support; certainly, London had to reject the frequent American requests for combat troops."

Parliament in the 1960s and 1970s saw a stark choice between becoming a major part of the European project or becoming a small client state of a belligerent super power - and they quite sensibly chose Europe.

What I'm sure the politicians of the 50s and 60s didn't foresee is UK government 30 years later voluntarily handing foreign policy and security to the 2003 equivalents of Henry Kissinger.

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As I suggested in this post - the choice in the EU referendum is not between Europe, or sailing off into the distance as a powerful but small sovereign state in a world of massive trading blocks..
(The latter is just a daydream from somewhere back before 1914)

the referendum choice is between

the European sphere of influence, economics and politics
or
the North American version

And there are some smart Americans warning of exactly this

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and some Americans eagerly anticipating it

In fact he's flying over the day of the vote to visit the property he already has in what may be soon independent Scotland.

Trump is joined in his enthusiasm for Brexit by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who you can be sure have your interests at heart.

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Where am I on this? As demonstrated in my other post I'm conflicted but will vote to stay IN.

Truthfully I'm not massively optimistic either way in the Brexit vote but I'm prepared to make the best of it, (probably as an Englishman when the Scots vote to leave).

To our European friends if we do have a 'Trump vote' and leave via Brexit I hope we can be more supportive from outside than we ever were inside, and you know, look at the map - we're actually going nowhere.

More on EU Referendum

Britain must stay on to rescue the EU Bus

Britain could escape EU but can't escape a dangerously out of control Europe - or voracious American corporatism. 

I've been agonising over the EU vote and have already written a blog post saying I'm going to vote out.

For these reasons;

Anyone really pessimistic about the future finds the apparent complete uncontrolled chaos at the borders is pretty terrifying and I'm not just talking about refugees. I hear European anger at Britain's lack of enthusiasm for taking in Syrian refugees but thanks to a history of being a destination of migrants this island is already one of the most densely populated in Europe.

Do I want to take in 50,000 refugees from Syria  - absolutely YES
Do I want to take in 50,000 refugees from Syria + the annual influx of 330,000 economic migrants (and climbing) - NO

Those British people who don't care on this issue I would guess are either in comparatively depopulated Scotland, or spend most of their time in their second homes in France (or cycling around leafy bits of London).

They obviously don't spend much time on English motorways, NHS hospitals or comprehensive schools which are all creaking under the strain.

I also don't trust EU political structures, as they are incapable of dealing with a crisis. Just look at 2008 collapse, Greece, Migrants etc. God knows they would handle something really serious.
There need to be more decisiveness, perhaps from Germany and France, and Britain just seems to get in the way and be a distraction.

But despite all that, I've decided to vote IN

because I'm British and, like many of my countrymen going back centuries, I know the problems of Europe aren't solved by ignoring them. And Europe's problems more often than not quickly become the worlds problems.

This is all a bit dry so let me illustrate this.

Think of the movie 1994 movie SPEED.

• The EU government is a mad Dennis Hopper, probably schizoid, who has rigged a bus/European project to hurtle on and be destroyed with massive disaster and loss of life it ever slows down
• Sandra Bullock is the European population which now finds itself on the bus
• and Britain is Keanu Reeves

Now - we think we can just jump off the bus and save ourselves but the reality is the subsequent disaster for Sandra Bullock/continental Europeans will probably scar us for life at best.

What we should do is at least stay aboard and steer everyone to safety before the bus/project meets it's probably inevitable demise (in its current form anyway).

Most importantly we need to be aware of jumping off the EU bus would not be any actual escape, we would just find ourselves (to follow the analogy) leaping off the EU bus onto the harsh class divisions of the American nuclear train ....

Think of the 2015 movie SNOWPIERCER

I'll quickly summarise the benefits of that for you

• world records for wealth disparity
• minimal health care
• minimal holidays and work place rights
• minimal government health standards- would you like some lead with that drinking water? 
• politics courtesy of Fox news

on the plus side your kids will be able to take their handgun to school

We've actually all forgotten, avoiding becoming the 51st State is why Britain joined the EU in the first place. British politicians in the 1960s​ were so worried at being economically blackmailed into joining the Vietnam War they saw a close association with Europe as the only alternative.

And don't kid yourselves that the whole immigration debate will go away when we align ourselves West rather than East and South after Brexit. I'm sure the British nationalist dream of a new Anglo zone Big Business project will continue to get it's cheap labour from somewhere. How would we support the all important housing market without ever increasing demand?

So sadly though I don't trust the EU, I trust my own government even less.

In a wider sense, voting for Brexit might make sense if Britain were an island literally in the middle of the Atlantic. Since we can't move we need some form of EU or NATO and I think it is possible to lose both in the new world of Trump politics after Brexit.
After Brexit we in England may also find ourselves with an undefended land border to the European Schengen Area, when the Scots subsequently give themselves up to their own self serving nationalists.

 “Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.”
 Albert Einstein

Just for amusement I posted a Post Brexit Timeline.

Post Brexit timeline

2016 : Britain votes for Brexit, immediate run on the £, 4 year year recession starts.

Inward immigration to England stands at 330,000 over calendar year.

2017 : EU in crisis reconstitutes as a far more centralised, decisive federal state.

2018 : Scotland votes to leave UK.

Inward immigration to England stands at 230,000 over calendar year.

2019 : Scotland joins new EU and immediately loses nearly all independence gained from leaving UK.

2020 : UK dissolved as Wales and Northern Ireland leave UK to join new EU.

After 4 years of recession inward immigration to England stands at 200,000 over calendar year.

2022 : Australia becomes Republic.

2022 : Canada becomes Republic.

2023 : Far right Conservative government in London abolishes child benefit, housing benefit, privatizes NHS, slashes 'red tape for business', introduces lowest corporation tax rate in the developed world. Then signs trade deals with NAFTA, China and India, relaxing visa requirements across the board. Inward immigration to England stands at 330,000 over calendar year.

2022 : Scotland becomes Republic.

Inward immigration to England stands at 400,000 over calendar year.

2024 : New Republican Administration in United States leaves NATO, followed by England. NATO is dissolved. New EU signs border treaty with Russia still run by members of Putin family.

2025 : With the open land border with the EU to the North and the open border policy with North/SouthAmerica and Asia inward immigration to England stands at 450,000, is rising 50,000 per year and national border security has been abandoned.

2030 : England becomes Republic.

2021-2036 : 15 year Irish civil war ends in Irish re-unification.

2040 : New Zealand becomes Republic.

pic from Jarman's JUBILEE

Donald Trump's war hero wanted to start a nuclear war with China

Donald Trump's latest pronouncements on Korea, in which he almost laughs off the prospect of another devastating Korean war, come in the context of his previous remarks on military strategy.

“Within our military, I will find the General Patton, or I will find General MacArthur, I will find the right guy. I will find the guy that’s going to take that military and make it really work. Nobody, nobody will be pushing us around.”
Donald Trump

General  MacArthur's controversial military career was finally finished off by the Korean War, after MacArthur was sacked by President Truman for demanding the use of atomic weapons against China.

I won't cover Patton here, I don't have to I'm sure. MacArthur was a general known for self publicity (as was Patton) and was a strong focus for US Republican politics in an era dominated by the Democratic New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had - at best - a spotty military record before we get anywhere near diplomacy.

We should perhaps gloss over MacArthur's use of the US Army against demonstrators during the Great Depression.

In 1941 McArthur was gifted nine hours notice to defend the Philippines after the attack on Pearl Harbour - he did nothing and the entire air US defence was destroyed on the ground by the Japanese.

"It has been difficult for historians to establish the reason for MacArthur's fatal inaction during the crucial nine hours that elapsed in Manila following news of the Pearl Harbor attack. There was no American government inquiry into MacArthur's behaviour of the kind that addressed alleged failures of command at Pearl Harbor. When informally questioned after the war, the chief actors in the Philippines disaster appeared to be concerned to protect their own reputations by shifting blame to others."

But in 1941 Republican friends in Congress and the American press protected him from criticism when the Philippines was overrun. These friends were even powerful enough to endorse MacArthur's "I WILL RETURN" pledge when he abandoned his army to the Japanese. While the main American attack to Japan was carried out across the Pacific by the US Navy and Marines MacArthur was able to justify a parallel, completely pointless campaign using US Army across the Southern Pacific to allow his ego to re-take the Philippines and the South West Pacific against isolated Japanese forces far way from the main action.

“The Philippines campaign was a mistake,” says the present-day Japanese historian Kazutoshi Hando, who lived through the war. “MacArthur did it for his own reasons. Japan had lost the war once the Marianas were gone.” The Filipino people whom MacArthur professed to love paid the price for his egomania in lost lives—perhaps half a million, including those who perished from famine and disease—and wrecked homes. It was as great a misfortune for them as for the Allied war effort that neither President Roosevelt nor the U.S. chiefs of staff could contain MacArthur’s ambitions within a smaller compass of folly. In 1944, America’s advance to victory over Japan was inexorable, but the misjudgements of the Southwest Pacific supreme commander disfigured its achievement.”
 ― Max Hastings, Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945

But it is Korea for which MacArthur will be remembered.

With reluctant Russian material support the North Korean army of Kim Il Sung invaded South Korea in 1950, initially with great success. The South Korean army had been given no artillery and tanks by the US, who were justifiably concerned that the brutal dictator of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, would invade North Korea. To his credit it was MacArthur who initially saved the day, masterminding a brilliant seaborne invasion behind the North Korean lines which saved the retreating forces and turned the tide of the war. That wouldn't be the last time the tide turned however.

As MacArthur's forces pressed into North Korea and neared the Chinese border he remained unconvinced of the threat of the 5 million strong Peoples Liberation Army over Yalu river to the North. We know now that the Chinese, still reeling from their a Civil War against a Nationalist army backed by the US, were deeply worried about the prospect of US troops on their border.  Hard line US Republicans had been complaining about the lack of a hard stance against 'Red China' for years, continuing after the Chinese Civil war was lost to support the remains of the Nationalist Chinese government on the island of Taiwan. With American troops racing towards them Chinese intervention in the Korean war was an obvious possibility.

As US/UN* troops approached the tense northern border at the Yalu river British politicians suggested a buffer zone at the Yalu, jointly policed by UN and Chinese troops.

This was McArthur's response:

"The widely reported British desire to appease the Chinese Communists by giving them a strip of North Korea finds its historic precedent in the action taken at Munich on the 29th of September 1938. To give up any portion of North Korea to the aggression of the Chinese Communists would be the greatest defeat of the free world in recent times. Indeed to yield to so immoral a proposition would bankrupt our leadership and influence in Asia and render untenable out position both politically and morally"
(taken from Korean War by Max Hastings)

He then gave an order requesting "all concerned" to make a "maximum effort" in the advance to the border with China.

It was shortly after this that the Chinese crossed the Yalu river with a vast army motivated to defend its borders. US and UN* were forced back to the nightmarish border situation we have today in a war which dragged on for another 3 years with hundreds of thousands of casualties, especially among Korean civilians.

MacArthur's increasingly farcical role in the Korean war ended when his constant demands for the  use of atomic weapons against the Chinese mainland grew too loud to ignore. US President Truman, who had been reluctant to even question MacArthur up to this point because of his continued strong Republican backing, was now forced into action and the increasingly rogue and out of touch general was effectively dismissed by the US president.

At the time it was thought - or more accurately promoted by US Republicans - that the Korean War was part of the Soviet master plan for conquering the Earth and that the North Koreans and Chinese were just puppets in their hands. Emerging history since has proved that to be yet another blindly ignorant interpretation of Asian political realities. The Russians provided only material support to the initial North Korean aggression and the Chinese intervened without consulting Moscow only when an army known to be a threat to their own newly installed government rolled right up to their southern border without warning.

The leadership and influence in Asia policy was pretty much the main foreign policy concern of hard line US Republicans from the victory of the Communists, (aka ChiComs), start of the Civil War in China, through Korea and onto the disaster in Vietnam. After their success in bringing peace and capitalism to China, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos US Republicans turned their foreign leadership and influence to Israel, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan from the 1970 onwards.



*The United Nations fought in Korea! How, in the light of current Syria paralysis,  did that happen?
The Russians were not present in the UN to veto the vote..
US Republicans had refused to allow the new Chinese communist government into the UN - preferring to support the Nationalist survivors in Taiwan instead.  The Russians were absent from the UN in protest at this and so where unable to use their security council veto to block UN action in Korea.  It was the last time the Russians made this mistake and they have used their veto liberally since (as have the Americans, 90% of the time to block resolutions against Israel).

The End of Debt

Voters won't be debt slaves forever. This is how it could end.

You should know - I'm not an Economist. The other thing I'm posting today on this blog is an appreciation of DOWN WITH LOVE - so many would suggest my opinion of movies isn't to be relied on either.

I do feel qualified to comment however as most actual economists of my generation* have nil credibility at this stage. They are salesmen, able to sell a self serving, historically disastrous creed like Neoliberalism (aka monetarism aka supply side aka trickle down economics) to press and politicians as common sense. But I'll come to that later.

There is a lot politically which suggests there may be trouble ahead - Brexit. Migrant Crisis, ISIS but also quite a lot which suggests economically events are heading in a strange non-sustainable direction, and I'm not just talking about surreal negative interest rates.

Before I make a bad summary of the thoughts of three 'renegade' economic thinkers let me spin one idea past you.

In 2006 I would wash my car using a machine, a car wash. A decade later, in the still futuristic sounding London of 2016, it is somehow cheaper to have three human beings do this. Does that suggest to you that the current economic model in the early 21st century  is working ok?

Paul Mason in his book
PostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future 
suggests this sort of example is one of the indicators that the current form of Capitalism is starting to creak. NeoLiberalism (and it's favourite tool Globalisation)  has destroyed the bargaining power of Labour to such an extent that the spur for technical innovation has gone. Soon the Neoliberals like Osbourne and Boris Johnson will find an economic justification to finally do the job of the Luddites and destroy all the (modern equivalent of) looms, because we will have moved back to the 17thC and there will be enough desperate people to do everything by hand.

Thomas Pikketty in Capital in the Twenty-First Century suggests vast increasing wealth disparity is inevitable, as only two world wars gave us the vaguely egalitarian world we have now.

But this is about debt right?

Renegade Economist Steve Keen, who predicted the crash of 2008, and the Greece collapse, has the fundamental cause of this problem as the attitude to debt. The Neoliberal excuse we are given for Austerity in the UK is that we have to balance the budget, as if it were running a household. As Keen points out however a government is not a house, it is more like a bank. It makes a profit by lending - a bank which ran at a surplus and had more deposits than lending would shrink, which coincidently is exactly what is happening to all the western economies as we stare at the next bank bailout.

Even more worrying for us all is our own Personal Debt, which has rocketed as costs have gone up and living standards and wages have not risen for 30 years. As economies continue to stagnate we will slide further into our role as debt slaves.. or..

A situation which absolutely cannot continue - won't. A correction will come eventually, as after a certain point ever increasing debt and the money behind it will become meaningless.

Keen's idea, People's QE, is effectively a debt write off, with funds given to debtors to clear debt and equivalent amounts given to savers to sell the bitter pill to them. Economically that might make sense to Keen but politically it is difficult to see how it happens. Certainly in this country anything like a debt write off in the current climate is silly. Bank of England gives me money? Really? How would you really carry that off in a way that would be accepted and wouldn't wreck confidence in the currency?

One way would be to take  the fine example of ... North Korea.. and just introduce a new currency.
Perhaps one of the least crimes against the North Korean people was the decision to completely scrap the currency overnight and introduce a new one, making all private savings worthless. It was a cruel disaster.
So lets not suggest that.

You could perhaps make a new currency voluntary or subject to a national referendum, as part of a slow economic and political union. Those transferring to new currency would see debt in the old one written off and those with savings could be offered a multiple of the value of their old savings in the new currency.

This kind of debt right-off would be a way to sell a new, probably international currency to populations which would otherwise be reluctant to lose some (or perhaps all) national sovereignty.

"Don't worry about your debt in that terrible old £ sterling - using the new EuroDollar you'll be starting at zero or at 2x your saved funds in the old currency"

I'm not saying I want this to happen, and I'm not speculating on how politically (I would hope they would learn some lessons from the mess that is the current EU) I'm just creating a scenario in which the inevitable could take place.

*As Steve Keen points out todays Economics students are like all modern students, in that they are massively and unfairly loaded with debt. I literally can't wait to see what their alternative to Neoliberalism is going to look like.

Best of Enemies (2015) is a great intro to the classic Medium Cool (1969)

The best documentary of 2015 nicely sets up a criminally neglected movie classic from 1968.

Best of Enemies a brilliant new documentary showing how the drama of 1960s American politics
and how it's treatment in the news media feeds right back into events today. Both show the central role the media had portraying and reacting to the apparent mass break down in law and order in the United States during the Vietnam era, particularly around the violent confrontations outside the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968.

Best of Enemies covers the red hot political confrontation taking place on TV screens as the two leading thinkers on the left and right of the political divide slowly lose their composure over a series of live televised debates. The documentary commendably stays politically neutral, further illustrating the gulf between debate then and the partisan shouting matches between intellectual pygmies we see today.

Amongst some of the footage shown in Best of Enemies are clips from a contemporary movie, almost a semi-documentary itself, Medium Cool.

Having just seen it Medium Cool has to be the best movie I'd never previously heard of.  I don't know what Medium Cool is comparing itself against but from here it looks a lot more than 'medium'.


Beautifully shot against the actual settings and events being reacted to in Best of Enemies it has a great non obtrusive soundtrack played into  hyper real locations. This movie is shot on the hoof, actually on location in the middle of history nearly half a century ago and yet still looks like Terence Malik's Days of Heaven (without the glacial pace). It's like standing on the street corners yourself - in fact hold your nose when your cameraman to gets tear gassed at about 1hour35. You will see blood, and it won't be fake.

It features a star performance from a young Robert Forster who I only know from The Black Hole, Jackie Brown and Breaking Bad. After Medium Cool I'm even more amazed he wasn't a major Hollywood star, here he looks like a young Brando. You'll also be able to pick out in the female lead the haunting face of Marianna Hill from her harrowing starring role in High Plans Drifter.

Negatives? If you've seen this era of movie you'll see the ending from a mile off but it oddly compliments similar material rather than detracts.

While I'm on the subject I really should have blogged my experience watching Two Lane Blacktop, a another ancient movie whose startling authenticity similarly blew me away.

You begin to wonder if all that time just watching Easy Rider over and over again was time well spent.

Will Scottish votes tip Britain out of the EU?

If Britain voting to leave the EU triggers another vote for Scottish independence - what incentive do the Scottish Nationalists have for voting to keep Britain in the EU?

Surely it makes sense for them to vote en mass for Brexit - and then get another vote to the leave the UK as a 'material change' in the Union will have taken place.

General Election 2015: Could the threat of Brexit trigger a second Scottish independence referendum?

For those keen on Scotland leaving the Union and England leaving the EU, consider the 'benefits' when we have an open land border with an enthusiastic EU member like post independence Scotland. How much control will there be over England's borders then?

What next then? Full border controls and a fence accross the north? Say hello to your English/Scottish nationalist future

Pic of fortified Scottish border from Neil Marshall's disappointing DOOMSDAY