President Trump’s allies, both in Washington D.C. and across the country, are fuming after the funeral for the late Sen. John McCain turned into an anti-Trump rally.
Meghan McCain, along with former Presidents Obama and George W. Bush, used the somber event to take pot-shots at Trump – who was golfing during the ceremony while his daughter Ivanka sat through harsh criticism of her father – seated next to her husband, Jared Kushner.
McCain’s service was, on one level, a return to old Washington civility, with Republicans and Democrats, past presidents, friends and foes gathered in unity. But as its tributes echoed with overt criticism of the president, it only deepened the hostility between the city’s establishment and the outsider in the White House. –Politico
McCain was perhaps Trump’s most prominent nemesis in Washington D.C. – first withdrawing support for Trump during the 2016 election after the Access Hollywood “pussy tape” was leaked, and later hand delivering the infamous “Steele Dossier” to former FBI Director James Comey (who already had a copy). McCain would fly back to Washington D.C. in July of last year to a standing ovation on the Senate floor – only to cast the deciding vote against Trump’s repeal of Obamacare.
And after Meghan McCain said during her father’s eulogy that “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” and former Presidents Obama and Bush took similar veiled shots at the President – albeit without mentioning him by name, Trump’s allies across the country were left fuming.
Following the Saturday spectacle, Trump campaign adviser Katrina Pierson tweeted: “@realDonaldTrump ran for @POTUS ONE time and WON! Some people will never recover from that. #SorryNotSorry Yes, #MAGA”
American Conservative Union Chair Matt Schlapp tweeted: “I hope I have lots of time but if not: anyone can come, will be about God and not politics, and celebrate.”
Thinking about funerals: I hope I have lots of time but if not: anyone can come, will be about God and not politics, and celebrate.
Sadly, @MeghanMcCain seemed to do exactly what she slammed Trump for doing. What should have been reflection and celebration of a patriot’s life, has been turned into political theatrics and cheap shots. It’s embarrassing, and really disappointing. https://t.co/xVK1PxOkVf
The people who politicized John McCain’s funeral: Meghan McCain, Barack Obama, George Bush. The people who didn’t: Donald Trump. https://t.co/teU11bTOY7
6000 people die a day in the US. Only people with nefarious motives want to make you feel bad that POTUS was playing golf. Sick people politicized a funeral. Thats the facts.https://t.co/dZ6VcrQYEO
Swedish elections are usually fairly staid affairs and historically, have not been all that interesting from a market perspective. When it comes to economic policy, the differences between the mainstream centre-left and centre-right political blocks in Sweden are arguably not all that significant. The centre-left tends to favor welfare spending when in power while the centre-right is more likely to pursue tax-cuts, but both are committed to a sound budget underpinned by a fiscal rule.
Fiscal policy is constrained by a requirement to run a structural surplus of 0.33% of GDP over the economic cycle and keep government debt anchored around 35% of GDP. In practice, this means there is limited scope for any government to pursue radically different fiscal policies. And key long-term decisions (e.g. pension reform) have historically been agreed by consensus among the major parties.
But an unfamiliar situation
This election is unusual though, for two reasons. First, the rise of the far-right Swedish Democrat party has disrupted the traditional left vs right dynamic in Swedish politics, and is likely to make it difficult for anyone to form a stable government after the elections.
Second, this year the Swedish krona (SEK) has become a bellwether for global risk sentiment, depreciating at signs of escalating trade tensions or emerging market stress. The wobbly housing market, a peaking economy, and the ultra-dovish Riksbank have also undermined SEK.
The trade-weighted krona index has depreciated 10% since last autumn. We think that in this environment, domestic political uncertainty could easily become another factor driving SEK volatility.
No one is going to win a majority
Polls have been pretty clear for some time that neither the current centre-left government nor the centre-right opposition alliance is likely to win a majority in September. Both blocks are polling below 40%, and the leading parties on both sides (the Social Democrats and the Conservatives (Moderaterna) are headed for historically poor showings.
Neither government nor opposition looks likely to gain a majority
In contrast, the populist far-right Sweden Democrats have gone from strength to strength, and are polling around 20% (having only entered parliament in 2010). Some polls even show they could become the largest party, though there is a discrepancy between polls that use self-selecting online panels (which show the far-right winning the largest share) and the standard polls (which have the Social Democrats in first place).
Among the smaller parties, the Greens, the Liberals, and the Christian Democrats are all at risk of missing the 4% threshold for entering parliament. The Christian Democrats, in particular, look to be struggling, though this is a familiar pattern for them and in previous elections they’ve always managed to squeak past the 4% barrier. If one of the smaller parties drops out of parliament it would alter the balance between the two mainstream blocks, but would not leave either much closer to a majority.
Polls by party
Post-election confusion likely
It is hard to say how the post-election negotiations will go. The positions of the main parties during the campaign imply a deadlock: none of the mainstream parties want to work with the Swedish Democrats, the centre-right parties will not govern with the Social Democrats and the Social Democrats will not allow a centre-right government. If the result reflects current polls, these positions imply an impasse.
In 2014 and 2010, neither of the two main blocks had a majority either, but the mainstream parties agreed that the block with the larger vote-share would form a minority government – in effect ignoring the far-right vote.
That is one plausible outcome this time around as well and would result in either a continuation of the current government or a return to the previous centre-right coalition. But there appears to be less willingness on both sides to compromise in this way, and a realisation that ignoring the far-right has only served to strengthen its position.
So two other options are on the table. The Conservatives could chose to govern with support from the far-right. While they have consistently excluded this option, the temptation may become too great post-election (especially if the Conservatives, Christian Democrats and Swedish Democrats win a majority in Parliament).
The other alternative is a centrist coalition led by the Social Democrats with support from the Liberals, Centre Party, and the Greens (and probably implicit support from the Left). A grand coalition between the Social Democrats and the Conservatives is a more remote possibility, given the two parties have always defined themselves in opposition to the other.
In short, the weeks after the election are likely to be very messy. Forming a new government and passing a budget for 2019 could easily take up the rest of the year. New elections, if the deadlock cannot be resolved, are a clear possibility (this almost happened in 2014, and the current situation looks more difficult). That would prolong the period of uncertainty into the first half of 2019.
Economic policy implications
The Swedish economy is doing well. After several years of strong growth, government finances are in good shape (net government debt is below 30% of GDP). Though we see a slowdown ahead, and the potential for a rather nasty downturn if weakness in the domestic economy were to coincide with a global downturn, the immediate situation facing the new government is fairly benign.
Given the fiscal rule, regardless of what shape the next government comes in, fiscal policy will not change materially. Major reforms (a comprehensive tax reform and a new housing policy have been mooted) would likely be undertaken through cross-party consensus, which will be a slow-moving process and likely a story for 2019 or later.
Deliberate disruption (the Swedish Democrats have called for a referendum on EU membership, while the Liberals want Sweden to join the euro) looks unlikely. Neither is a realistic political proposition: polls suggest Swedes are content with the status quo – less than a quarter would support leaving the EU, and less than 20% want to join the euro.
Looking a bit further ahead, a weak minority government could lead to difficulties in some scenarios. If there was a sharp slowdown (for example, due to the housing market taking a turn for the worse, or the global trade war worsening) and difficult decisions had to be taken, a minority government may struggle to take decisive action.
Another day, another angry rant by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan aimed at the US, who on Sunday vowed Ankara would abandon the dollar in transactions with Russia and other countries, accusing the US of behaving like “wild wolves.”
“America behaves like wild wolves. Don’t believe them,” Erdogan told a business forum during a visit to Kyrgyzstan, in comments translated into Kyrgyz according to AFP.
Erdogan also echoed the dedollarization call from Russia’s deputy foreign minister Serkey Ryabkov, saying said that Turkey country was in negotiations with Russia over non-dollar trade.
“Using the dollar only damages us. We will not give up. We will be victorious,” Erdogan told the meeting, attended by Kyrgyz and Turkish businessmen as well as government officials.
On August 24, Moscow said it would respond to Washington’s latest sanctions by accelerating efforts to abandon the American currency in trade transactions: “The time has come when we need to go from words to actions, and get rid of the dollar as a means of mutual settlements, and look for other alternatives,” said Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov.
“Thank God, this is happening, and we will speed up this work,” Ryabkov said, explaining the move would come in addition to other “retaliatory measures” as a response to a growing list of US sanctions.
Ties between NATO members Washington and Ankara hit a new low last month as US President Donald Trump announced steep new tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminium in response to the detention of an American pastor in Turkey. As a result, the Turkish lira crashed, shedding a quarter of its value last month as the trade war with the US ratcheted up.
Russia meanwhile saw its ruble tumble to two-year lows in August after the US announced fresh sanctions in connection with a nerve agent poisoning incident in the British city of Salisbury.
Erdogan also used the visit to ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan to demand the Central Asian country of six million people relinquish all ties to Fethullah Gulen, a US-based cleric and educator Ankara accuses of fomenting a coup in 2016. Speaking Sunday, Erdogan said Turkish businesses should invest in Kyrgyzstan but “may face barriers from FETO,” the term Ankara uses to describe the network of people and institutions linked to Gulen.
The refusal of the United States to extradite 77-year-old Gulen whom Erdogan has accused of being behind the “failed” 2016 presidential coup attempt, to face trial in Turkey is one of several sore points that have plagued a once-strong bilateral relationship.
Gulen, whose Hizmet movement has led to the creation of schools in dozens of countries including Kyrgyzstan has always denied any links to the 2016 coup attempt, however, since July 2016, over 55,000 people from the so-called “shadow state” have been arrested over coup links in Turkey, while more than 140,000 public sector employees have been sacked or suspended.
Introductory Remarks: The “Anti-Politician” Godfrey Bloom
Most of our readers will probably remember former UKIP chief whip and European Parliament representative Godfrey Bloom. As far as we know, he is the only politician who ever raised the issue of the workings of the fractionally reserved central bank-directed monetary system in the EU parliament. This system is of course central to the phenomenon of the recurring boom-bust sequences plaguing the global economy.
Godfrey Bloom (left) and interviewer Claudio Grass
It is also a major means of redistributing wealth from the poor and the middle classes to those who are already rich and own most of the assets likely to appreciate in price due to monetary inflation (an unavoidable side-effect, irrespective of their wishes). Moreover, it creates an insidious, hidden “inflation tax” that benefits the State to the detriment of all those engaged in real wealth creation, from workers to entrepreneurs.
It is probably no wonder that the ruling caste is usually quite reluctant to discuss the issue openly. Besides, it seems likely that most of what Bloom said went right over the heads of most of his colleagues in Strasbourg anyway. On one occasion he also had a few choice words on the nature of the State and pointed out “who the real tax avoiders are” – which they surely didn’t want to hear, since he noted they were right in there in the room with him.
Godfrey Bloom on the scam of fractional reserve banking:
Bloom quotes Rothbard: “The State is an institution of theft”:
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For those of you who don’t know Godfrey Bloom or want to refresh their memory, we posted a brief portrait of him in 2015, shortly after he retired from politics (link follows below). In fact, he was sacked from his post as party whip after being accused of overstepping the bounds of political correctness. He quit the party shortly thereafter. This was quite ironic, all things considered – after all, UKIP is normally not really known for worrying about political correctness. Very likely he was booted for some other reason and his faux-pas was merely used as a pretext (see “Godfrey Bloom, Anti-Politician” for the details).
Godfrey Bloom is a libertarian, even though the leftist lamestream media have constantly tried to smear him as a “far right” quasi-Nazi. He continues to be a keen observer of the political landscape and his opinions are always interesting. Luckily our friend Claudio Grass has remained in touch with Bloom since his retirement. He recently interviewed him again, this time mainly on the looming “Brexit”, which the government of Theresa May seems to be in the process of botching royally.
Ms. May actually identified as a “remainer” prior to the referendum. One would think she is not exactly the most suitable person to lead the UK through the Brexit process. However, since the majority of the UK political elite is completely at odds with the electorate on the issue, we are inclined to believe that the worst possible deal is likely going to be put into place deliberately.
The aim of such a deliberate failure is to soften the public up for an eventual repeat of the referendum, in the hope that an outcome more to the liking of the political-bureaucratic establishment complex can be achieved. This is in keeping with EU tradition: every referendum the outcome of which the Brussels nomenklatura doesn’t like is usually repeated until the “correct” vote is delivered.
On to the interview:
Get Ready for a Fake Brexit That Will Fool No-One – The Mercantilist System and the Noble Dream
Claudio Grass:Godfrey, it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with you again to discuss capitalism, Brexit, the nature of the “EUSSR”, public education and free speech. Let me start with the first question. The UK basically asked the EU for free trade, meaning no customs or taxes on any goods traded among UK and EU. This sounds pretty reasonable especially for people like us, who believe in free markets and oppose government intervention.
This brings me to core of the question. In today’s media and by public consent our economy is called a free market economy, therefore it is operating under a capitalistic system. Can you give us your explanation of how you would describe a capitalistic system with free markets and its benefits and how you would characterize the actual system that is currently in place? Also, what is your opinion about the reaction of the EU refusing free trade with the argumentation that this would be cherry-picking and therefore such a deal has never been done before in the history of the EU – what does is say about the nature and character of the EU and the system we are living in?
“The European single market’s golden (if patchy) four freedoms of people, capital, services and goods are indivisible. “À la carte” access, as EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is fond of putting it, isn’t an option”.
Godfrey Bloom: Whenever I am asked about the rights and wrongs of capitalism, more often than not at universities the wrongs, I have to persuade people that there are almost no capitalist economies in the world today. Back in the 1960s, an economics exam response would expect a candidate to understand the difference between capitalism and mercantilism. The phrase today for mercantilism is often crony capitalism.
This is unfortunate because it hints that the two systems are the flip side of the same coin. They are not, they are quite distinctive economic systems. Most industrial democracies are mercantilist.
Trade is controlled very carefully by complicated agreements based on tariffs. Most of world trade is governed by the World Trade Organization, well over 95% in point of fact. There are many mutually beneficial sub agreements which work alongside that umbrella concept. Tariffs have one major raison d’être, which is to protect home industries. The European Union is a customs union, the last of its kind in the world.
Centrally controlled in Brussels, the method of operation is what the Americans call pork barrel politics. The EU customs union is a labyrinth of self-interest. Among many other things, it is designed to protect home industries, French farmers, the European wine industry, the Italian leather industry, French, German and Czech automobile manufacturers, textile and raw material companies. The list is endless and the threat largely from the Far East.
The conspiracy is to protect politically favored industries in one country against cheaper imports and the tariff is of course paid for by the consumer. Political propaganda persuades consumers that this is somehow in their interest. Somehow this absurdity persists with otherwise sensible people.
Emotive words appear such as “dumping”. Chinese steel is the classic current example. A home steel industry will suffer with Far East Steel delivered at rock bottom prices, so a Welsh or Northumbrian steel worker feels aggrieved, but his brother workers in Coventry building Jaguars or Land Rovers or Northumbrians building Nissans become globally competitive.
The Trump steel and aluminum tariffs helped 800,000 American steel workers at the expense of over six million white goods and auto workers, paradoxically encouraging manufacturers to relocate to Mexico. This is global mercantilism, protected industries are the ones with political clout.
The European customs union projects its image as a free trade area, as politicians and mainstream media endorse this great lie on a regular basis. They even persuade European electorates that prices will go up if the cartel is abandoned. Goebbels we will remember, a brilliant propagandist, taught us the bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be accepted.
British trade with this protectionist cartel has an £80 billion deficit. Great Britain buys 18% of French wine; imagine if the 20% tariffs on South American, Australasian & South African wines were abandoned. The UK is the world’s biggest BMW customer, yet Britain is preparing to pay £40 billion for a trade deal. Imagine being a top customer at Fortnum & Mason or Bloomingdales and being charged an entrance fee!
Hong Kong is probably the best post war example of capitalism, but examples are rare. Certainly, no major economy is capitalistic.
Why then is the Brexit debate about trade? Clearly that is absurd. A free trade deal is in everyone’s interest but particularly that of the European Union. The elephant in the room is that the goal of the EU is the fulfillment of a great noble dream, a centrally governed European Federation.
The current negotiations are not about trade in reality, but the pursuance of that dream. The political and bureaucratic class cannot speak that truth, because no matter how noble the great dream is, nobody actually wants it.
Claudio Grass:Another suggestion by the Brits was that they would restrict services, and the movement of capital and people under the sole responsibility of the British government. This also has been sold as a negative request by the mass media and establishment figures. My understanding is that with this step Britain would become sovereign again, self-responsible and increase its self-determination.
It is also a clear step toward decentralization and it goes of course against the will of Brussels. And as we both know, decentralization means more competition, which is the key for future prosperity. What is your perspective on this point and what are the consequences for the people as well as for the economy of Britain if they escape from Brussels’ oppression?
Godfrey Bloom:Libertarians true to their salt always endorse total free trade, and unrestricted capital and people movement. Unrestricted trade and capital movement are relatively easy to deliver given political will. The orthodox libertarian need not abandon this holy writ. Where libertarian dogma falls down is the failure of its advocates to understand that substantial changes to government remits are essential before this can take place.
The industrial democratic economies have far too much baggage to embrace free movement of labor. In Britain, the State has committed itself, quite dangerously, to guarantee far too much to far too many people at the expense of an ever-decreasing wealth creating sector. Health, education, pensions, social welfare, are all underwritten by the government. Its remit is simply too vast to sustain with the indigenous population, never mind significant immigration.
The cancer in the soul of the western democracies is welfarism. It fails to distinguish between those who make welfare dependency a lifestyle choice and those who need genuine help. All welfare economies started with an intention to underpin the unfortunate and unlucky. State sponsored social insurance was the concept, not a come one come all free hand out society at the expense of the working, thrifty and self-reliant.
We are not, nor should we be our brother’s keeper. We might volunteer to be so, but not at the point of a State bayonet. State charity (welfare) morally degrades its recipients as well as demotivates them. Welfare addiction is as rife and harmful as drug or alcohol addiction and should be treated as such.
The libertarian must pause and look at primary dogma, property rights. If the health and education system, together with parks, transport, libraries and all the other self-imposed State remits belong to tax payers from the wealth creating class, if State borrowing is a burden on the indigenous population, the incomer impinges his or her property rights.
One trip to a local British NHS hospital or school will drive home this point. To whom do these resources belong? Without the burden of welfare, free movement of labor becomes plausible, indeed desirable. Incomers post welfare state could then come to an economy not State-sponsored, but employer-sponsored. Job adverts could then be genuinely cross-border.
It is neither politically correct to speak of culture clashes, nor do libertarians feel comfortable with the subject, but if property rights under law are sacrosanct, the principles of law must be so. The immigrant to Dubai must accept Sharia law just as the immigrant to the United Kingdom must accept English Law.
Far too few immigrants from alien cultures actually work on arrival at their destination. To compare modern day immigration to welfare countries with immigration to nineteenth century America from Europe is disingenuous at best, fraudulent at worst.
Claudio Grass: From her actions, or rather lack thereof, we can see that Theresa May seems to be a true Bremainer still and is not willing to enforce the will of the people. What do you think of what is going on and will the politicians be able to ignore the majority of the people who voted to leave?
Godfrey Bloom: Americans with their genius for enriching the English language with contemporary phraseology coined the term “Deep State”. In my many TV & radio interviews over the last ten years I have warned a true Brexit will not be available. The political ideal of a federal Europe runs too deep and has been around too long.
Modern western industrial economies are run by bureaucrats who manipulate the levers of government. They enjoy salaries and pensions beyond the dreams of ordinary workers. Moreover, they are beholden to no higher accountability system. There are no shareholders, no performance monitoring of any significance, they are unsackable.
Their personal interest is maintenance of the status quo. Senior civil servants specifically made a decision at university to avoid the cut and thrust of commerce or relatively low pay of academic life. The system of government therefore can thwart even the most enthusiastic of ministers.
Politicians remain in office for relatively short periods of time. The bureaucrat can play the long game: stall, bluster, misinform. The wonderful British satire “Yes Minister” of the 1980s showed the game at its best; hilarious but frighteningly true.
The EU federal dream is shared by the civil servant. It is utopia for the bureaucrat. He becomes seriously important, far more so than his political master who is here today and gone tomorrow. For the last forty years, it has been impossible to climb the promotional ladder without a deep and sincere commitment to the European project.
Interestingly, the senior civil service is now largely recruited from the lower middle classes, the petit bourgeoisie, a class not used to power or how to exercise it pro bono publico, but effective in wielding it if the cause is negative. Their junior colleagues are drawn to the health and safety industry. There are no civil servants who voted Leave. All were horrified at the result and have schemed for two years to thwart the electorate.
They would probably have succeeded with hard line Brexiteer ministers, but with a prime minister, chancellor, Home Secretary who campaigned for Remain, Brexit was never going to happen. Add the sway of banks and big business, a Remain House of Lords and Commons, and it becomes obvious that it was never on the cards. The problem is the Remain camp thought with massive funding, big business and the MSM, the campaign would succeed. The political establishment is in denial.
There will be a fake Brexit, dressed up to look like Brexit, but it will fool nobody. Remain is a deeply held commitment by the London-based public sector and professional class. Brexiteers are the provincial artisan class, the butcher, baker, mechanic, hairdresser, cabbie, carpenter. People who do a real job, folk with patriotic traditional values laced with common sense.
They outnumber bureaucrats, politicians, bankers and the metropolitan chattering classes, but they do not have access to the levers of power. It will bring the prime minister down, but it won’t stop a fake Brexit. The EU project is doomed to failure however, as an empire that cannot control its borders and has devastatingly high youth unemployment must fail. When? Sooner than we might think.
Claudio Grass: I heard a number of voices in the past saying that Brexit needed to happen because the ongoing centralization agenda by Brussels, which is accelerating with new collectivist leaders such as Macron, could not have been done with the UK as an existing member. Do you believe there is some truth to that?
Godfrey Bloom:The proposed massive acceleration of the European Union project is doomed to failure. The main problem for all member countries, particularly Great Britain, is the increasing encroachment on national sovereignty. The British endorsed membership of a common market in 1975 in a referendum. The constitutional aspects were not a main part of the campaign. It was all about trade, as it is today.
Enoch Powell, Tony Benn and Peter Shore were the only senior politicians who told the truth about the true nature of the project, a Federal Europe. Powell forecast that when the British became aware of that we would vote to come out. We did. Still there was no honesty about the nature of the EU. Still the debate is all about trade, which is of course irrelevant.
The idea that political unity is necessary to trade is preposterous. No one believes it, except the same genre of middle-class Brits who visit Tate Modern in London to pretend they understand modern art and the whole charade is peer group pressure nonsense, something northern Brits won’t buy into.
Nothing but mass civil disobedience will change things, possibly even violent protest. But Leavers are middle England patriots, very slow to turn to such things. More likely the political process will be seen as ever more corrupt and the best people will continue to disengage from it.
Claudio Grass:How do you see the future of the UK and the fate of free speech in particular? I remember the champions of the enlightenment saying that people can only enlighten themselves if they are free to use their own reason and to freely debate different points of view. As we can witness all over the world, free speech is very much under siege. What kind of reaction do you expect in the UK – will the people comply with the rules of the thought police or will they resist?
Godfrey Bloom:Free speech is under significant threat and has been for thirty years. It crept up on an unsuspecting public in the guise of political correctness. It manifests itself in a fascinating way. There is a lexicon of words and phrases that are strictly taboo. It is led in the UK by public service broadcasting which is the high church of what may or may not be said.
Examples are almost too many to document, but recent examples include a suspension of a British MP for letting slip a very old phrase, “nigger in the wood pile”. The poor woman was almost hounded from elected office for what was at worst a lapse of taste. No groveling apology was enough, the politically correct mob wanted blood.
My own reference to Bongo Bongo Land sent the MSM into a hysterical spiral, a suggestion that Goldman Sachs was a Jewish bank nearly set the twittering classes on fire and at the time of writing Boris Johnson is in hot water for suggesting the burka is like wearing a letter box on your head. Well it is, isn’t it? But you see, there are some things you can say and some you can’t. The rules are very obscure, nor is there a final arbiter of what is correct or not.
The concept though is carefully designed to suppress free speech. It is highly effective, as those in public life dread committing the great major sins, being racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic etc. Hair shirt is immediate public ally worn. Public figures pander to these prejudices by treating them seriously.
In a free society, it should be quite possible to be anti whatever you like as long as you are not inciting violence. But just try it. Even so-called libertarians succumb to this nonsense. It is of course yet another middle-class petit bourgeois affectation.
There is a misconception though that the encroachment on free speech is a new phenomenon, which is absurd. Criticism of Christianity carried heavy penalties in Europe for centuries, blasphemy laws so recently liberalized have returned in spades. Any criticism of lslam will possibly get you a prison sentence under the all-encompassing Hate Crime laws.
This new offense drives a coach and horses through the principles of both English law or the American Constitution. No matter, the more senior the judiciary, the more marinaded in political correctness they will be. Paradoxically, you can now say whatever you like against Christianity. Such is the crisis of faith in the Christian hierarchy.
Will there be any push back? Doubtful. As taxes grow, the pressure on families to make ends meet in an ever more difficult society means most folk will just keep their heads down. Nobody goes to the barricades with a full stomach and two cars in the garage.
Claudio Grass: What is your take on the current state of the education system in the UK? Do you see a decline in the quality and the spectrum of ideas that students are exposed to and do you think political correctness and politics in general have had a hand in this?
Godfrey Bloom:Education problems in Great Britain all originate from the same source: the system is designed for those who work in it rather than to those who are supposed to benefit from it. The dead hand of the State lies heavily upon it in the shape of a government-inspired curriculum.
At school level, this started with the reasonable assumption that reading and writing are paramount. At the age of seven, the government common sense starts to evaporate. Tried and tested teaching techniques are often abandoned and flawed experimental systems sponsored by politically motivated unions take their place.
These are slow to be reversed and weird paradoxes follow. For example, primary and junior schools in poor countries using old techniques outperform modern fashionable methods. Phonetic reading is still the most successful, chanting arithmetical tables stays with children throughout their lives, and there are many other examples.
As children reach middle and senior school, learning gives way to what is loosely referred to as education. Teachers now like to call themselves educators, sublimely pompous and arrogant, as well as being generally untruthful. Modern education is a form of giant long-term monkey puzzle. Ring the bell and get a banana. If a child gets enough bell rings, they move on to the next pathetic bit. Straight Three As are essential for a university place, essential now to enter any of the professions. Pressure on children to ding that bell is enormous, but in no way is that education.
Entry to university is the final level where government calls the shots. Arts subjects, perhaps excluding classics, have been dumbed down to a level that elderly graduates of yesteryear find astonishing. University lecturers with a few noble exceptions lack not only knowledge of their own subjects, but also the ability to motivate the younger generation.
Academe attracts pretty woeful candidates for lectureship outside the very top universities, and sometimes not even there. Universities supposedly pride themselves on giving an education to young minds, but they don’t, it is all just a continuation of the great monkey puzzle game.
Industry endorses this futile merry-go-round by only interviewing university graduates. Hence the failure to educate continues. The economics discipline is perhaps the most culpable. In twenty years of guest university lecturing, I have never met an undergraduate who has been taught Menger, Mises or Bastiat. They can of course quote Keynes until they turn blue in the face.
Criticism will meet with the response that undergraduates wanting to understand their theories should have read philosophy (Newcastle University 2013). Anglosphere countries will suffer from this in the long term. Undergraduates from the Warsaw School of Economics, for example, can probably speak three languages, quote most historical economists of any school and discuss Napoleon’s campaigns over beer in the evening.
Moreover, not only are British undergraduates being cheated out of an education with the pursuit of the monkey puzzle reward system, but they are also funneled into political channels by student’s unions and politicized university staff. The object is to hermetically seal the undergraduate mind to unorthodox thought. Safe spaces have nothing to do with protecting female undergraduates from rape, but from politically incorrect thought, or even non-manipulated statistics.
The State is always the problem, there is no need for it to involve itself in education, indeed in anything else. Schooling in Great Britain by the State costs £4,500 per year per capita. Give that money to parents in voucher form to spend at any private education establishment.
Remember the State gave you the Trabant motor car, the Soviet shop and potholes. Imagine Sainsbury, Tesco, BMW or Wetherspoon offering education. Competition drives excellence, there is no reason not to bring it into education.
Claudio Grass: Any final suggestions you can give our readers in terms of principles they should uphold, questions they should raise or different ways they can protect themselves by steering their ship through these stormy seas?
Godfrey Bloom:I hate to be a doom monger because I am a positive and optimistic individual, but the collapse of fiat currency and banks is now unavoidable. Gold held in specie, out of the reach of national governments can protect you and your family.
Claudio Grass: Godfrey, thank you very much for this interview.
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Godfrey Bloom in Brief:
Before becoming a politician, Godfrey Bloom worked in the City of London for forty years & won fixed interest investment prizes. Discontent with over-regulation of the financial sector, he entered the world of politics in 2004, as a Member of the European Parliament.
Bloom represented Yorkshire as an independent MEP for ten years. He is an Associate Member of the Royal College of Defense Studies, holds the Territorial Decoration, Sovereign’s Medal, European Parliamentary Medal & Westminster Armed Forces Parliamentary Medal. He is also an author with seven books to his credit. He is married to one of Europe’s leading equine physiotherapists.
He is known as a firm opponent of government regulation and centralization. Bloom is also widely known as a euro-skeptic and was heavily involved in the Brexit “Leave Campaign” as an independent activist.
On Friday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement ahead of the imminent Syrian government and Russian campaign to liberate Idlib from jihadist control.
“The 3 million Syrians, who have already been forced out of their homes and are now in Idlib, will suffer from this aggression. Not good. The world is watching.”
But Washington officials often contradict their own past positions, and this is glaringly clear in the case of Idlib, where Brett McGurk — the White House appointed anti-ISIS envoy who essentially acts as the president’s personal diplomat in Iraq and Syria — previously described the true situation on the ground in unusually frank comments:
IMPORTANT message from The #US Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL- Brett McGurk- on the situation in #Idlib#Syria:
”Idlib Province is the largest ALQaeda safe haven since 9/11, tied directly to Ayman al Zawahri (current #ALQaeda leader) & this is a HUGE problem” pic.twitter.com/99ulOLpZwi
“Idlib provice is the largest al-Qaeda safe-have since 9/11, tied to directly to Ayman al Zawahiri, this is a huge problem.”
The rare, honest assessment was spoken a little over a year ago on July 27, 2017 at a Washington D.C. event in which McGurk was a panelist hosted by the Middle East Institute.
“But we have to ask a question; why and how is Ayman al-Zawahiri’s deputy finding his way to Idlib Province. Why is this happening? How are they getting there? They are not paratroopers…”
Yes, we’ve long wondered the same thing, especially when it was US intelligence directly assisting the al-Qaeda coalition Army of Islam (now morphed into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) from an “operations room” in Turkey.
At the time, McGurk’s comments were aimed at NATO ally Turkey, which he accused of facilitating jihadist entry into northern Syria to displace the US-backed Syrian Kurdish SDF.
“The approach by some of our partners to send in tens of thousands of tons of weapons, and look the other way as these foreign fighters come into Syria may not have been the best approach,” McGurk continued during his 2017 comments.
He added that al-Qaeda has taken “full advantage” of Turkey allowing for the free flow of arms and jihadists across its lengthy border with Syria.
Of course McGurk neglected to mention that the United States was a willing partner in all of this throughout most of the entirety of the Syrian war, which sought regime change in Damascus. The Turkish foreign ministry condemned his statements at the time.
The State Department would of course hope that the American public forgets these words were ever spoken.
Meanwhile Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned the West not to interfere in Syrian and Russian forces engaged in anti-terror actions in Idlib:
“I hope our Western partners will not give in to [rebel] provocations and will not obstruct an antiterror operation,” he said.
It appears that the State Department circa 2017 actually agreed with Lavrov’s calling the Idlib militants terrorists even in the State Department in 2018 does not. Or it’s also just Washington contradicting itself as usual for the sake of yet more nefarious foreign policy goals in the Middle East.
“We are close to a historic turning point at the continental level. I am astonished at the stupor of a political left that now exists only to challenge others and believes that Milan should not host the president of a European country, as if the left has the authority to decide who has the right to speak and who does not — and then they wonder why no one votes for them anymore.” — Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
“This is the first of a long series of meetings to change destinies, not only of Italy and of Hungary, but of the whole European continent.” — Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
“We need a new European Commission that is committed to the defense of Europe’s borders. We need a Commission after the European elections that does not punish those countries — like Hungary — that protect their borders.” — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini have pledged to create an “anti-immigration axis” aimed at countering the pro-migration policies of the European Union.
Meeting in Milan on August 28, Orbán and Salvini, vowed to work together with Austria and the Visegrad Group — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — to oppose a pro-migration group of EU countries led by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini meet in Milan, Italy on August 28. (Image source: RT France video screenshot)
Orbán and Salvini are seeking a coordinated strategy ahead of the March 2019 European Parliament elections to defeat the pro-immigration Party of European Socialists (PES), a pan-European party representing national-level socialist parties from all EU member states. The objective is to change the political composition of European institutions, including the European Parliament and the European Commission, to reverse the EU’s open-door migration policies.
“Today begins a journey that will continue in the coming months for a different Europe, for a change of the European Commission, of European policies, which puts at the center the right to life, work, health, safety, all that the European elites, financed by [billionaire Hungarian philanthropist George] Soros and represented by Macron, deny.
“We are close to a historic turning point at the continental level. I am astonished at the stupor of a political left that now exists only to challenge others and believes that Milan should not host the president of a European country, as if the left has the authority to decide who has the right to speak and who does not — and then they wonder why no one votes for them anymore.
“This is the first of a long series of meetings to change destinies, not only of Italy and of Hungary, but of the whole European continent.”
“European elections will be held soon, and many things must change. At the moment there are two sides in Europe: One is led by Macron, who supports mass migration. The other side is led by countries that want to protect their borders. Hungary and Italy belong to the latter.
“Hungary has shown that we can stop migrants on land. Salvini has shown that migrants can be stopped at sea. We thank him for protecting Europe’s borders.
“Migrants must be sent back to their countries. Brussels says we cannot do it. They also said it was impossible to stop migrants on land, but we did it.
“Salvini and I, we seem to share the same destiny. He is my hero.”
“If they wanted to see me as their main opponent, they were right to do so. It is clear that today a strong opposition is building up between nationalists and progressives and I will yield nothing to nationalists and those who advocate hate speech.”
“From the beginning of 2017 to the present day, the France of ‘do-good Macron’ has rejected more than 48,000 immigrants at the Italian border, including women and children. Is this the ‘welcoming and supportive’ Europe that Macron and the do-gooders are talking about?
“Instead of giving lessons to others, I would invite the hypocritical French president to reopen his borders and welcome the thousands of refugees he promised to take in.
“Italy is no longer the refugee camp of Europe. The party for smugglers and do-gooders is over!”
In July, Salvini said that he wanted to create a pan-European network of like-minded, nationalist parties:
“To win [the Italian elections] we had to unite Italy, now we have to unite Europe. I am thinking about a ‘League of the Leagues of Europe,’ bringing together all the free and sovereign movements that want to defend their people and their borders.”
Salvini proposed that the network include Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders, France’s National Front leader Marine Le Pen, and Hungary’s Orbán, among others. He also said that the European Parliament elections in 2019 should be a referendum on “a Europe without borders” versus “a Europe that protects its citizens.”
Salvini has repeatedly criticized the European Union over mass migration, accusing the bloc of having abandoned Italy as it struggles to deal with the more than 600,000 migrants who have arrived in the country since 2014. The problem has been exacerbated by EU regulations.
Under an EU rule — known as the Dublin Regulation — migrants must seek asylum in the country where they first enter the European Union. This has placed an inordinate burden on Italy, given its geographical proximity to Africa.
Italy has long sought to overhaul the Dublin Regulation, but other EU member states, most notably Hungary, have opposed changing the agreement. The dispute highlights the challenges of forming a united anti-immigration axis at the EU level: the interests of many EU member states are diametrically opposed.
Although Italy and Hungary, for example, agree that mass migration should be completely stopped, they disagree on how to deal with the migrants who already are in the EU. While Italy wants the migrants redistributed to other EU countries, Hungary and the Visegrad states are adamantly opposed to accepting any migrants at all.
In an interview with the Czech newspaper DNES, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, ahead of his August 28 visit in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, said:
“I insist that we will not take any illegal migrants from Italy or elsewhere. This is nothing against Italy, to which we are sympathetic; it is a crucial strategy. It is, in my view, a key signal, a symbol and a message to migrants and smugglers that it makes no sense to sail to Europe….
Babiš added that the European Union must overcome its differences and agree on a common pan-European migration policy:
“If Italy does not accept migrants, if Malta does not accept them, then Spain will. We are sending a message that it is possible to get to Europe from Morocco through Spain. We must stop the migration stream. I want to talk about it with my partners in Italy, Malta, and, of course, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has now acted with Spain. We have to work very hard to work on the solution because we have needlessly lost three years with the absurd debate about quotas…
“We must protect what our ancestors built for more than a thousand years. It is not a slogan, it is a fact.”
Salvini’s embrace of Orbán has also exposed differences in Italy’s ruling coalition, comprised of Salvini’s League and the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) led by Luigi Di Maio.
On August 23, Di Maio threatened to withhold Italian payments to the European Union if a top-level EU meeting in Brussels scheduled for August 24 failed to produce pledges from other EU countries to accept migrants from Italy. In an interview on Italian TV, which he also posted on his Facebook account, Di Maio said:
“If tomorrow nothing comes out of the European Commission meeting, if they decide nothing regarding the … redistribution of the migrants, the whole Five Star Movement and I will no longer be prepared to give €20 billion euros ($23 billion) to the European Union every year.”
After the EU meeting failed to produce a solution, the leaders of M5S in Italy’s chamber of deputies and senate, Francesco D’Uva and Stefano Patuanelli, respectively, issued a statement:
“Countries that do not participate in relocation and which do not even deign to respond to Italy’s request for help, should no longer receive European funds from us, and among these at the moment, is Hungary.”
In an August 27 interview with the newspaper La Stampa, Di Maio again lashed out at Orbán:
“Orbán’s Hungary raises barbed-wire walls and refuses migrant allocations. For those who do not accept the allocation, they should not be entitled to European funding.”
Salvini defended Orbán: “I respect Hungary’s absolute right to defend the borders and the security of its people. The shared objective is the defense of external borders.”
Orbán replied: “We need a new European Commission that is committed to the defense of Europe’s borders. We need a Commission after the European elections that does not punish those countries — like Hungary — that protect their borders.”
The Trump Administration seems to be slipping into that same destructive set of priorities in Syria. The Washington Post this week quoted an unnamed Administration official as saying that “right now, our job is to help create quagmires [for Russia and the Syrian regime] until we get what we want.”
As ever, what the US really wants is to have a dominant position in post-war negotiations, so they can dictate the form that post-war Syria takes. This means ensuring that the Syrian government doesn’t win the war outright.
That’s not as realistic as it once was, with the Assad government, backed by Russia, having retaken virtually all of the rebel-held territory except for a far north bastion in Idlib, dominated by al-Qaeda. This means the US now has to save al-Qaeda to keep the war going, which if we’re being honest has been a recurring undercurrent in US policy in Syria for years.
It is this desire that has the US repeatedly threatening Syria and warning them not to attack Idlib. It is this desire that is sparking almost daily US threats to intervene militarily if the Idlib offensive involves chemical weapons. Most importantly, it is this desire that has Russia very much believing media reports that the rebels could “stage” a fake chemical attack just to suck the US into the war, and be fairly confident it would work.
The US is, after all, constantly talking about an imminent chemical attack despite there being no reason to think Syria is poised to launch one. At times, US officials have privately conceded that there is no sign Syria is making any moves to even ready such weapons for the offensive. Yet several times a week, the US issues statements with allegations of a chemical plot featuring prominently, setting the stage for a reaction.
The Syrian War has been nearing its endgame for months now, with Israeli officials conceding it is all but over as far as they are concerned (while vowing not to honor any post-war deals). When a war is lost and a plan has failed, however, the US government is often the last to know, and that has them determined to drag the war on as long as possible.
Hypersonic weapons, capable of striking Russia and China at Mach 5 or higher, could be the Pentagon’s answer in correcting American hegemony that is widely perceived to be in terminal decline.
Army Secretary Mark Esper told reporters at a Defense Writers Group conference in Washington, D.C. Wednesday that hypersonic missiles and directed energy weapons are critical to the service’s top modernization plan, said the Military.com.
“Long-range precision fires at the strategic level is the capability that we need to ensure we have overmatch in future conflicts, and I think that the way to get to it is through hypersonics,” said Esper.
Esper said he has communicated with cross-functional organizations responsible for advancing new technologies to expedite the next generation of long-range precision-guided hypersonic missiles.
“I am pushing them to go as fast as they can, move to the left,” he said, adding that the other services are also working on the technology.
“The services have been working together. We signed a joint agreement, if you will, in terms on how to proceed. The secretary of the Navy and the secretary of the Air Force and I meet constantly on this and other issues where we can work together. We all recognize that that is a key capability for all of us,” he said.
Esper then told journalist new information about the hypersonic rollout that even we have not heard before. He specifically mentioned that 2028 is the year when the missiles will be deployed on the modern battlefield.
“This is one where, clearly, technology is an issue,” he said. “It’s not like there is one out there right now that I am aware of. … This is one that is going to take some technology development. We are pushing hard because we’ve got to get there first.”
The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command conducted the first flight of the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) concept in November 2011 (Source/ Army/ Military.com)
In the last several months, the US Air Force has awarded nearly $1.5 billion to Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control to develop a hypersonic weapon prototype.
The contract will cover the critical design review, test, and production readiness support for the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), according to a US Air Force statement.
“We are going to go fast and leverage the best technology available to get hypersonic capability to the warfighter as soon as possible,” said Secretary of the Air Force Heather A. Wilson.
Officials from the Defense Department, Missile Defense Agency, Air Force, Navy, and Army signed a memorandum June 28 to work jointly on the development of “hypersonic boost-glide” technology, the release said.
“The Joint Team requires the right mix of agile capabilities to compete, deter and win across the spectrum of competition and conflict,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein. “We must push the boundaries of technology and own the high ground in this era of great power competition and beyond.”
Esper also said the Army is accelerating efforts to develop directed-energy weapons for use in air and missile defense.
“I think what’s most exciting, and where the Army is making a good deal of progress, is on directed energy, and I think that is the future for the most part because of the volume and speed of shots that it gives you,” Esper said, we have “put a lot of our investments” toward powerful lasers guns designed to be mounted on tanks and fighter jets.
In July, the Army awarded Raytheon a $10 million High Energy Laser Tactical Vehicle Demonstration (HEL TVD) contract for a mobile 100 kW laser weapon system. Raytheon said the 100 kW laser would be mounted on a Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles.
Our high-energy laser weapon system is designed to knock out rockets, artillery or mortar fire, and small drones. Read how we’re supporting the Army’s Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles here: https://t.co/NyNQWf9xnUpic.twitter.com/IJ1cyesSRA
“We have some things now, and I want to get them out in testing as soon as possible. Within a few years, I want to get something out there,” Esper said. “Initial fielding is something else, but in terms of prototyping, seeing what it can do, I want to get it out sooner rather than later.”
Directed energy weapons are a challenge because they can travel a great distance, depending on their Kilowatt, “so you have safety concerns you have to work through,” he said. “But like everything else, I am pushing folks to move left. Let’s get it out to the field. Let’s let soldiers experiment with it and see how they can best use it. … They will help shape how we think about the importance of lasers in terms of actually firing them, but also how do we integrate them as part of our formation against everything from small drones to cruise missiles to fast movers.”
The importance of the year 2028 is symbolic for its peak in the 53.5-Year War Cycle. So, it now makes sense why the Army wants to have hypersonics and other advanced weapons fielded within the next decade. War looms and it is likely to be against Russia and China.
The entire world reacted to the Senator’s death last weekend, with most of the Alt-Media Community wildly celebrating it while the Mainstream Media mourned the loss of what they described as an “American hero”.
Both sides shared a common ground in believing that his death represented something very significant, whether in a positive or negative way, but the reality is that it doesn’t change anything at all.
McCain voluntarily became one of the public faces of the Liberal-Globalist faction of the American “deep state” and is therefore easily replaceable, even if his cartoonish war-mongering rhetoric isn’t.
The world isn’t any more or less safe now that he died because the same network that he represented is still in place even if the messenger changes, which is exactly what will happen once Soros and other similar icons eventually pass away too.
McCain’s pathological hatred of Russia made him stand apart from his “deep state” peers, though the zeal with which he sought to advance his country’s interests as he subjectively understood them interestingly earned him the professional respect of President Putin.
Speaking to Oliver Stone last June, the Russian leader revealed that:
“Well, honestly, I like Senator McCain to a certain extent. And I’m not joking. I like him because of his patriotism, and I can relate to his consistency in fighting for the interests of his own country.”
However, he was quick to add that:
“People with such convictions, like the Senator you mentioned, they still live in the Old World. And they’re reluctant to look into the future, they are unwilling to recognize how fast the world is changing”, which shows that President Putin thought that McCain’s specific views were outdated.
Ultimately, McCain’s passing is symbolic because of just how gigantic of a figure he was in the American political and “deep state” scenes, though he was nevertheless just a representative of a particular ideological faction and no one too important in and of himself.
If you’ve ever sat in traffic doing wondering how much of your life is wasted commuting, or you’ve just taken a job across the country and want to know what you’ll be facing on the freeways, look no further.
Using Census Bureau data for average daily round-trip commute times for almost 1,000 cities, the good folks over at Educated Driver have created a highly depressing interactive map.
Highlights:
The average American worker spends 52.2 minutes a day commuting to and from work, or 4.35 hours a week.
This translates to an average of 408 days of one’s life commuting – and more in large cities
While residents of Jersey City spend 580 days of their lives commuting, those working in North Platte, Nebraska spend just 236 days in traffic – or nearly a year more of their lives with a difference of 344 days. Then again,
vs.
Of course, if you’re not really into Kansas, sunny San Diego’s average lifetime commute time is just 395 hours.
Methodology:
So, how did we calculate the number of days you can expect to spend commuting in your life in each city?
We then worked from the assumption that most people work about 250 days per year, which accounts for 2 weeks annual vacation and time off.
That’s 11,250 days of working/commuting over a career.
From here, we simply used data from the US Census Bureau on average daily roundtrip commute times for nearly 1,000 cities and towns across the country and then did the math. –EducatedDriver
