John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GUILLAUME DUROCHER IN UNZ REVIEW

 

“Brexit Happening: Charles de Gaulle, Noted Anglo-Skeptic, Vindicated Beyond the Grave”

“In short, De Gaulle accused the British of being a kind of American Trojan Horse . . . and who could blame him?”

 

In that particular view, De Gaulle was ahead of his time for sure. He was a man with a number of deep insights, including his views on NATO, views which unfortunately Europe has drifted away from.

British membership represented a great strengthening of the EU. But that was never allowed to develop as fully as it should have. Britain’s classic island-bound xenophobia and feelings of special stature owing to its past world empire always were burrs under the saddle.

I believe Britain’s xenophobes and those who still regard Britain as special owing to its history plus a government thoughtless enough to hold a referendum on so complex a matter, David Cameron’s, are directly responsible for BREXIT. I do think Cameron was regretful about his own blundering. After all, it was the Conservatives, under Edward Heath, who struggled to get Britain admitted. And who wants a legacy of having destroyed something important?

In general, the powerful positive effects of a large economic union are things Conservatives tend to value highly. But the “small island” and “great empire” attitudes and feelings always were in conflict with the economic vision.

Europe’s relative decline in the world’s economy – owing largely to the same causes as America’s relative decline, the strong emergence of new competitors – undoubtedly has encouraged Britain’s establishment to want to leave. The EU’s tendency to create elaborate regulations in many aspects of society also has very much played a role. It is an odd tendency given the EU’s lack of cohesiveness in many matters, such as the Euro. Perhaps in part, regulation represents a kind of substitute or ersatz unity.

I’m sure the Conservatives in Britain were quietly encouraged every step of the way by American officials with visions of “the special relationship” coming to a new prominence in the world. Some people in Britain are inordinately and foolishly proud of that ”relationship,” which in reality means little beyond American insider influence, something now likely to much increase as Britain seeks new trade arrangements and a new role in the world, in both of which America must feature large.

America’s own vision of itself has changed over forty years, and all pieces on the gameboard are now used somewhat differently than they were. America, recognizing its own relative decline, is now a decidedly more desperate and aggressive imperial power. And that reality, unfortunately, is what Britain is hitching itself up to. Conservatives in Britain likely view themselves as having a new world importance teamed up with America, but their ability to influence the team will be close to non-existent. They will have traded disliked EU regulation for America’s shameless and destructive bullying, as it now descends literally to terrorizing states it regards as opponents.

Of course, Britain has its own share of bullies, and indeed, it now is led by one. They are the people who see a new role for Britain in the world alongside the United States, playing Robin to America’s Batman.

America is on a tear worldwide to do whatever it can to bolster its imperial status and stop its relative economic decline. It has become frenetic at the effort. And dangerous.

So, Britain’s leaving the EU has, forty years later, become something De Gaulle feared. BREXIT does seem to open a path for other European states with fears and insecurities to launch “leave” movements. The EU is much weakened at a time it needs to be strengthened, and America’s establishment can only try hiding its smile.

The EU always has had the potential to rival and outshine America, but the EU has weakened itself over time by admitting too many countries, and certainly too many of limited economic consequence. There were a few too many visionary views of what the EU could be as it expanded and not enough practical ones.

After all, that’s what NATO is really about, keeping Europe effectively occupied and tied up with many obligations not in its own long-term interest, including obligations to buy American products and support American schemes in other parts of the world.

And the Europeans have for various reasons – from old WWII sentiments to Russo-phobia in former Eastern Bloc states – obligingly gone along. Europe still has some illusions about America, although Trump is certainly working hard to snuff them out. America’s narrow selfishness is entering Europe’s consciousness now, at least in the old and stronger parts of the EU. Some now see what De Gaulle saw.

Divide and conquer is always a principle used by empires abroad.

‘Anyway, Britain’s departure from the European Union opens the way for the Continentals to try, a bit more earnestly, to create a truly sovereign and independent “European Europe.”’

That is an encouraging thought, but there are so many things working against it, and those things certainly include the United States, which never wants to see a united, strong European state emerge as a competitor.

But I think the loss of Britain does represent at least one clear gain for Europe. It now should become easier for Europe to direct more attention towards Russia and China and Eurasia in general, and that is where the future lies.

The United States cannot realistically escape the prison it has constructed for itself with its massive military/security state required for empire, and that prison makes a far more unhappy place than Europe’s regulations.

There is too, unquestionably, a kind of smallness in the American vision to which Britain is attaching itself – ethical, moral, and inspirational smallness – and over the long term, small visions have no power.

ADDED NOTE REGARDING A STRONG STATEMENT MADE BY THE EU’S CHIEF NEGOTIATOR

“EU warns Boris Johnson that trying to use threat of US trade deal in ‘bidding war’ after Brexit will fail”
‘Michel Barnier [EU’s chief negotiator] also suggests UK will never earn the same ‘respect’ from US and China outside EU”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-us-trade-deal-brexit-trump-eu-michael-barnier-a9302571.htmlhttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-us-trade-deal-brexit-trump-eu-michael-barnier-a9302571.html

Michel Barnier’s statement is close to perfect.

I like his “plans for 10 negotiating tables for the huge task ahead,” the fact that ‘border checks on goods will “become the norm” after Brexit,’ and that ‘a no-deal Brexit remained a “risk” at the end of 2020.’

Johnson and some of his gang may well have had intentions here.

After all, Johnson, like Trump, has the personality of a bully, just expressed in the tones of an Eton accent.

Who knows, it ain’t over ’til it’s over. The EU might look a little more attractive after some grueling negotiations and no special gains.

Readers may enjoy some earlier thoughts on the subject:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/11/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-great-often-unseen-danger-of-brexit-a-comprehensive-trade-deal-with-trumps-america-that-would-destroy-many-aspects-of-british-society/

John Chuckman

FURTHER COMMENT ON THE TRUMP IMPEACHMENT

 

There many extreme claims on the Internet about the impeachment of Donald Trump.

The House investigation and official impeachment are even called a “coup.”

The rhetoric is unhelpful and divisive. At an extremely divisive time in American history, and I don’t mean divisive just because of the impeachment, the last thing the country needs is more volatile rhetoric and division, practices to which Trump has been especially devoted.

Trump has done a great deal to pollute the country’s political environment. He is responsible for a major dump of toxic sludge, though he cannot be impeached for doing that.

Division is part of Trump’s operating style. Divide and conquer, one measure of a really unprincipled leader. His ready aptitude for calling people names and laughing at them is right out of Archie Bunker.

Some of the impeachment rhetoric is just childish, as that from Senator Lindsey Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell telling everyone ahead of time how they will not carry out their duties with impartiality or proper procedure.

A Supreme Court justice of some distinction and standing, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has said that the Supreme Court could simply remove Senators who have declared prejudices beforehand. Going into the proceedings, which are a Constitutional obligation, with open prejudice and intent to torpedo a fair trial is not something to be tolerated.

Hardly desirable for Trump supporters, the Lindsey Graham approach represents flirting with the removal of pro-Trump votes from the Senate trial. Perhaps that is a good measure of the American Right’s extremely poor judgment. But ideologues do tend to be fanatics, and fanaticism is another factor contributing to America’s division.

Are there past public statements on virtually any topic by a politician like Lindsey Graham that stand up to scrutiny? I think not. He represents one of the best examples of establishment corruption and bias in American government.

Let me say that I very much believe Obama and Hillary Clinton did try to prevent or negate Trump’s. election. Given their backgrounds, it should surprise no one. Dark figures, both of them. The FBI and CIA at the highest level were used. That is, indeed, unconstitutional activity by people sworn to defend the American Constitution, an oath which today means remarkably little.

But the imperialists of America’s establishment, which include both parties, can hardly be blamed for bringing home ugly practices used for many decades against many other countries. Practices with which the privileged of both parties have become completely at-ease.

The Constitution gives little guidance on the matter of impeachment. The guidance it does give has been closely followed by the House in carrying out its duties of investigation and indictment.

People claim that the charges against Trump could have been laid against many other presidents. That may well be, but it represents an irrelevant accusation. Prosecutors in our legal system always have considerable latitude about those to be indicted for crimes. Just as police have considerable latitude about laying charges.

Indeed, a great many crimes never result in charges or indictments or trials, and there are many reasons for that. Plea-bargaining, for example, is a major tool of the criminal justice system. Without it, far fewer cases would be cleared.

No one is in a position to tell the House of Representatives what it should do in such matters or how it should carry out its Constitutional obligations. It assumes the political risks that its acts incur, and that’s about all you can say with any meaning.

The American Constitution is, in fact, a very flawed and incomplete document, despite fervent claims to the contrary by Patriot religious zealots. On the topic of impeachment of a president, it doesn’t say much more than the that House is responsible for investigation and indictment and the Senate for conducting a trial on the House’s indictment.

It makes cursory reference to “high crimes and misdemeanors,” that last term being especially vague. In today’s body of law, “misdemeanors” include such ordinary matters as public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and reckless driving.

Such an interpretation would indeed qualify almost every past president for trial. Maybe some of the earnest types who created the Constitution would have been satisfied with that, but it seems patently ridiculous in today’s terms.

Especially when we are talking about the operations of a global empire which could not even have been imagined by any Founding Father and would have been rejected by perhaps all of them. Virtually all the words they wrote apply to a country completely unlike the one America has become. The garments of long ago are outgrown.

The Constitution here, as in so many matters – including the anti-democratic Electoral College, the means for electing a number of minority presidents, including Trump – is badly flawed. Criticize it if you wish or start a political movement to amend it, but you cannot condemn, ipso facto, those acting according to its precepts.

Impeachment in America is essentially a political act and always has been. With impeachment, we have a procedure having little to do with the body of law. The modern era’s use of impeachment is a measure of how much the country has changed. Originally, there were no political parties. Today, they are the vehicles of power.

The political nature of impeachment is so for many reasons, including the selection of those to be investigated, the “jurors” in the Senate not being selected and being responsible for their trial votes only to the voters in their local constituencies, the lack of any detailed procedures or rules in the Constitution, and the lack of any court of appeal.

Trump’s call to a foreign leader requesting actions against a political opponent must be viewed as troubling by anyone. If Joe Biden committed inappropriate acts in Ukraine, and likely he did, there are proper avenues for investigating him. They don’t include a president calling another president, asking a favor, and delaying or withholding foreign aid as an incentive to act.

Trump opened himself to the charges. He didn’t have to, but he did. The recklessness and bravado are just part of his make-up, but they are qualities which can lead to bad outcomes, just as they very much have in almost all of America’s foreign relations. The divisions created there among both traditional friends and opponents and the coercive tactics used are just part of what is dividing America.

Given the entire context of an American-induced coup overthrowing an elected government in Ukraine (and remember, no American politician of either party admits to that) – just as Trump has done in Bolivia and attempted in Venezuela – Trump’s phone call may seem small, but I don’t think anyone can defend it.

 John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ANDRE VLTCHEK IN THE UNZ REVIEW

 

“I Never Saw a World So Fragmented!”

 “Still, they looked, but their brains were not capable of processing what they were being shown. Images and words; these people were conditioned not to comprehend certain types of information [said of some Hong Kong protesters to whom the author spoke, trying to explain to them some of the realities of events going on in other countries].”

https://www.unz.com/avltchek/i-never-saw-a-world-so-fragmented/

 

Fragmentation?

Well, we have several huge, dedicated, extremely well-financed organizations committed to keeping it so.

The State Department, CIA, the Pentagon, and America’s corporate press. They are assisted mightily by their “sister” organizations in American-dominated parts of Europe and Asia.

History does tend to support the view that when fragmented forces of any kind – in war, in politics, in business – are engaged against large, well-organized opposition, they lose.

Many old sayings, such as “Divide and conquer,” have this truth embedded in them. So, the servants and willing helpers of American dominance work hard to keep things fragmented.

I see little opportunity for change in the situation beyond the gradual, inexorable change now underway in the world, the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world, the result of many new competitors arising and the realigning of interests of many older ones in the face of new opportunities and challenges.

Also, there is the rise of new centers of opposition, notably China and Russia. New centers of leadership. Even new technologies play a role in this great transition in world affairs.

America’s own establishment is now unthinkingly contributing to increase the rate of change through its heavy-handed reactions to the emerging order.

Sanctions, tariffs, threats, ultimatums are not the stuff of which to build a brave new world. They confront and attempt to demolish the genuine interests of many others, something that is simply not possible over the long term.