I can't resist sharing this. I'm not even sure if I have to issue a language warning this time:
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Yes, he’s right, great fun and he’s a talented communicator. But listen with Yanis Varoufakis in Sunday’s Guardian. Does the progressive left have the balls to communicate in malls outside porn shops ….
“ Trump’s rudeness to his opponents, however disagreeable, might have even brought some relief to the forgotten Americans who associate Biden’s politeness with the gentle mercies that the former vice-president reserves for Wall Street and the super-rich who bankrolled his campaign. Not unreasonably, they see Biden as a polite emissary of the bankers who repossessed their homes and, at once, a member of an administration that bailed out — with public money — those same bankers.
They hear Biden’s sleek, well-mannered speeches about unity, respect, tolerance and bringing citizens together and they think “no, thanks, I don’t want to be united with, or tolerant of, those who got rich by shoving me in a hole”. To them, Trump’s behaviour is an ugly but welcome manifestation of solidarity with ordinary folks who feel empowered by the combination of the president’s vulgarity and his evocations of America’s irrepressible greatness — even if, deep down, they never expected their prospects to improve significantly when America becomes “great again”. “
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/08/hoping-for-a-return-to-normal-after-trump-thats-the-last-thing-we-need
I undertsand all that
Can I be clear? I expect to be deeply disappointed by the Biden Presidency, but not as scared as I might be by Trump’s
Biden’s administration is likely to be crap because all they will do is that same old same old, attempting to return to the way things were run before Trump – i.e. Centrist neo-lib stuff.
Trump, on the other hand, would have actively smashed up further bits of the government which were actually doing some good and would certainly have gotten rid of all of the Obamacare stuff.
Biden is certainly the lesser of two evils but it is unlikely he’ll change much and Harris, the heir apparent, is certainly cut from the same cloth. They will do little more than tweaks around the edges but you can guarantee that the Republicans will still dishonestly accuse them of no holds barred socialism.
Looking at the UK responses: Labour’s Starmer dog-whistles for a new Imperialism:
“The United Kingdom is at its best when the world knows we have the courage of our convictions and a clear moral purpose.
For the United States of America and for Britain, this is the time to return to the world stage. This is the time for us to lead.”
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1325524026928795649
-Last time we “lead” it was through dealing in slaves, tobacco and of course the splendid honour of being the worlds largest drug purveyor to the masses via opium. Wonder what he’s got in mind? Probably something to do with bombs…cos we still do bombs… and on that note the Lib Dems Vince Cable has the message:
“…Britain has been preoccupied with poisons when it comes to Russia, but internationally defence experts are more concerned about the impact of Putin’s lavish defence spending.”…
okay…
Russian defence spending 2018: $64,193 Million
US defence spending 2018: $649 Billion
-Millions v’s Billions? Yea. Those yanks better catch up…
Cable quotes Joan Robinson’s 1930s “economic analysis” approvingly:…“Hitler had already found how to cure unemployment before Keynes had finished explaining why it occurred”. He seemingly thinks its a good idea.
Shame he conveniently forgets what the Nazis subsequently did with all that nice shiny military tackle they had geared their economy to produce: the rest of us generally call it World War 2.
So… the consensus from the British “opposition” parties appears to be that the Americans should tool up big style and bomb foreigners to avoid recession.
– Welcome to the new old…
For heaven’s sake, stop being stupid
I can and will criticise Starmer and Biden but the logic in your comment is absurd
Ken, I am afraid you have made an error in your figures, the difference between US and Russian defence spending is not really billions vs millions. The amounts should read as follows:
Russian – $64 billion, or $64,000 million *
US – $649 billion, or $649,000 million
This difference is 10X which is a significant amount but is nothing like the much larger differences that billions vs millions suggests.
*
The first figure is short scale, where a billion is 1,000,000,000 (a thousand million) this is sometimes referred to as a US billion but has been used by the british govt since 1974 (and was in use in the UK even before then). The second figure is long scale, where a billion is 1,000,000,000,000 (a million million) this is sometimes called a UK Billion and was the original meaning of billion. The short scale billion is considered the standard in most English speaking countries now. There are countries (and languages) that use long scale, and countries that have their own very different naming system for numbers (a quick internet search of long and short scales is a good starting point if you want to know more)
Numbers, their use and misuse are important and my initial thought on reading your comment was that you you were being disingenuous in your use of figures but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt when I considered that there was a real, albeit unlikely, situation where you could have got those figures from separate sources that used the long scale for the russian figure and the short scale for the US figure. The result of that is this fairly pedantic comment.
Cathartic!
The Chris Hedges videos are good too, less un-puritanical language as well.
Am very happy that Trump lost but the euphoria over Biden’s win is maybe misplaced. According to Naked Capitalism the rumored choice for Penatagon chief is Michele Flournoy who has a bad war mongering right wing record. Also apparently much of the plans to deal with Covid on the campaign website has been removed (like paying for sick leave and sharing medical costs) and what remains is a promise to do more testing that maybe will not really work as so many are sick….don’t really want to rain on the parade but lets hope the Dems don’t do their usual disappointing compromise so that all we are left with is the fact that Trump is gone. Good interview with Matt Taibbi too!