The final result of the 2017 Election is a Labour gain in Kensington. Conservative candidate Victoria Borwick received 16,313 votes; while Emma Dent Coad, the Labour candidate received 16,333.
So occasionally we do get good, if almost unbelievable, news!
Most robberies are done and over quickly. Depending on the nature of the theft the timescale could be anything from a few moments for a spontaneous bag-snatch to the month or so it takes, with lawyers in tow, to rob a contractor who has, in good faith, refurbished one of your hotels and isn’t being paid.
Nobody has so far commented on this, but the election of Trump and his subsequent installation in the White House, complete with the damaging policies now being pursued, is the most sophisticated theft, maybe, in the history of the world.
Think of it: he is legally elected, and in this he has the support of law enforcement. Instead of a single robbery of, say, jewels, Trump and his oligarchs are there for four, maybe eight years, quite legally depriving poor Republican voters, and giving to the Mob (whoops! Excuse me) the rich, his close, like-minded cronies in particular. Support for this breath of fresh air is waning somewhat, but he retains the enthusiasm of a significant proportion of the population as he deprives people of healthcare and civil rights, and most things that make America liveable, and claims this is what he promised to do. Since he controls the right-wing media he can misrepresent his actions with impunity. And when (and if) his supporters wake up to the fact that they have been conned, he can blame the Democrats (who wouldn’t let him do this, that or the other) and the liberal media who have been “more unfair to him than any other U.S President in history”. And people believe him through it all! What an artist! His chances of ending up in jail are zero, too!
Five minutes research (more research than Trump has done in his life) shows that he and his fellow thieves, operating on an unprecedented scale, will have robbed the American people of one and a half trillion (you read it correctly) dollars by the end of eight years. No, this is not scientifically arrived at figure, but is presented in the spirit of Republican ethical thought. And in any case we now know that science is a scam, don’t we, and dreamt up to interfere with The Great Loser Robbery, 2016-2024.
Today the British go to the polls. Brexit hasn’t really been an election issue; it has been mentioned only in reference to Teresa May’s penchant for doing u-turns. Will she do a u-turn on Brexit as well? The authors of Brexit have been largely silent, the amazing reason being that Remainers are a dwindling minority, it seems, and it’s best to keep very quiet. Terrorism and what you can leave to your children if you have been dependent on public funds in your old age – these are the main issues. The British are sleep-walking into Brexit, (probably?) led by a woman who hasn’t a clue how to get what the nation needs, and who waffles about everything on auto-pilot (she has had a terrible campaign- the first time the public has seen her in action as leader has exposed her as sounding brass and an empty vessel).
Asked what I would vote if I could I had to sheepishly say the rapidly vanishing Liberal Democrats, who ineffectually campaigned for staying in the EU – a wasted vote. I am hoping for a dramatic upset. The British still don’t seem to understand the odds they face outside the EU. Meanwhile, Trump’s basic support is being maintained, despite the horrors he is daily inflicting on the nation. That is two nations sleep-walking simultaneously, manipulated by sinister rich people who want more “managed” democracies.
From Campbell Wallace, Redon, France
“Dave Levitan and Alice Klein rightly deplore politicians such as Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull, who disregard scientific evidence in favour of policies chosen for short-term electoral advantage or to further special interests. But the problem is a consequence of the electoral system itself, which repeatedly brings to power people unfit to use it.
“Since the 18th century we have assumed that elections are both necessary and sufficient for democracy, and that without them tyranny results. Yet the Greeks of Aristotle’s day knew that elections could lead to oligarchy, not democracy, and that a democratic alternative existed.
“Athenian democracy selected decision-makers by lot to get a statistically representative sample of the whole community: this is called “sortition”. It is perfectly feasible to design a system with the means to ensure that those chosen are well informed on each issue that comes before them.
“Sortition would end the reign of big money, greatly reduce corruption and allow intelligent decisions, taking into account the interests of all. It’s high time we abandoned the myth that elections equal democracy”.(published in The Week)
At the moment we have politicians beholden to somebody, usually rich somebodies, for their election, owing to the huge expense in America of simply getting yourself known to the public, name recognition being essential. In Britain the principal funders of the political parties have to kow-tow to their big funders, whether individuals or unions. It is no way to to maintain a democracy, and sure enough, we get the governments we deserve. On top of this we have constituencies that are gerrymandered or arranged in such a way to ensure a right- wing outcome, and legislators whose education, general knowledge and intelligence is often questionable. Then there is the lopsided bias in the media (in the U.K). Last night we walked psst a late-night convenience store with all the national papers displayed in full view. Most had anti-Corbyn headlines, despite the apparent public sentiment that appears to be running in an anti-May direction. The system is rotten and sortition seems an intelligent answer. Pray for it, but don’t expect it anytime soon!
During the Second World War some 5 million art objects were stolen by the Nazis. Just as important, between 100 and 200 million books, rare or otherwise, were stolen or burned.
While rare books and manuscripts can have a sale value rivaling artworks, most of the books stolen by the Nazis were not financially valuable. The Nazi art theft bureau, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter, had two main purposes: to ‘unarm’ their enemies by taking away the weapons of thought — books, libraries, archives. From the Nszi point of view Poles, for instanvce, were being reduced to slavery and needed neither education nor thought.
Secondly, by looting the libraries and archives of their enemies, the Nazis tried to take control of the memory and history of the victims. Fearful that even if the Nazis won the war, future generations would judge the Nazis for their crimes, the Jews had to be painted as an incarnation of evil for all future generations. The objective was to obliterate the libraries and re-write history according to Nazi ideology. “Real” history books lurking in libraries were like time bombs that could prompt people in the future to question the tailored version of reality.
While a minority of academics, editors, scientists, fact-checkers and students still use books in libraries, regarding them as being reasonably reliable, most people now go online for “facts” and read sites like Wikipedia, which anyone can alter (for better or worse). A contemporary version of the Nazi book theft would be if, say, some presidential candidate — in league with some superpower in opposition to the country where that candidate was running for office — were to somehow take over the entire internet and erase fact-based pages, in order to replace them later on with histories of their choosing. After a generation or so, the world might forget how history had been presented beforehand and learn only this newly imposed version of events. Logistically, a cyber-conspiracy of this sort would be easier to pull off than seizing every single book across an entire continent. (a precised version of a review of “The Book Thieves,” by Swedish journalist Anders Rydell, in the European Review.)
We now have an American Administration for whom the truth is suspect and alternative facts can reliably be promoted over 24 hour news channels thirsty for the next horror. If Trump can casually endanger the whole future of the human race by pulling out of the Paris climate change agreement, calling climate change a “hoax”, and propose to sell millions of acres of beautiful public lands and national parks created by successive Administrations since Theodore Roosevelt to his rich chums for their mineral deposits, what other horrors has he is store for us? A re- writing of history into the bargain?
We should be frightened, very frightened. There has to be a point when all this stops. We cannot wait until 2020.
