Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 46

Oh No! Not Again!

It seems scarcely possible that in the most advanced country in the world yet another mass shooting has occurred. Once again innocent families are cast into despair and sorrow because a gunman, this time a Marine vet, decides for whatever reason that it would be good to take a gun and shoot up fellow citizens.  He dies in the horror but so do a dozen others, including a first responder sheriff and several young students.

The question is asked again over and over, can this price be worth paying to support the notion that individual freedom should be measured by the right of citizens to own guns with little to no meaningful regulation and control? It is surely a priority for the agenda of the new Congress, yet it is difficult to see how anything will come of it, with the historic divisions in American society.

There is also a question which the President should put to himself. Is his rhetoric inflaming passions and giving licence by default to people who wish to make a personal statement by mass killing, which, like all rational citizens of the nation he leads, he deplores? Even the smallest thing is worth trying and might help and, as the President is constantly reminding the world, he is a very big thing.

 

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America: So What Now?

It was always the case that Trump would do better than his detractors wanted, because for many forgotten Americans he has brought hope and jobs and a better future. And he has done that in record time and on a pretty impressive scale. How long it will last and whether it is long term sustainable is not the point. The point is the here and now.

But it was also the other case that among the more fortunate, better educated Americans, especially in the suburbs of the coasts, the Trump Presidency is a living nightmare of everything America should not be. To them it is not just about jobs, mostly because they have them. But, because of Republican incompetence over the replacement of Obamacare, many were caught by rising healthcare costs and real issues about preexisting medical conditions, as well as uncertainties about the outcome of the President’s trade war and his fetish fort tearing up treaties. And, this was decisive, especially his perceived attitude towards women.

The outcome, as we all now know, is a President who declares a great victory, sacks his Attorney General and holds a very bad tempered news conference. The reality is that one arm of government, the House of Representatives, is now in the hands of those who oppose him and in the American system that changes if not everything, almost all of it.

Trump was really not elected to govern. He was elected to disrupt because a great mass of the American heartlands, most of territorial America in fact, was fed up with government after government of each party failing to deliver on its promises. So disrupt he has. Yet in so doing he has revealed what America always tries to hide. There are two Americas. There have always been and they cannot be reconciled.

The one America is pro life, socially conservative, white supremacist, anti-immigration, gun toting, evangelical christian (a form of christian theology which exactly matches their attitudes) and the other is liberal, permissive, multi-racial, multi-cultural, and celebrates diversity in everything from LGBT to acknowledging climate change is man made.

Because of these two Americas, upon the same continent and held together by Federal institutions (an attempt to separate finished in Civil War but did not finish the argument) the United States was the last of the developed countries to outlaw slavery, allowed racial segregation to follow on and it remains the only advanced country without some kind of universal healthcare system. It is also the country where the first airplane flew,which invented the production line, which put men on the moon, brought about the revolution of the PC, smart-phone, laptop, tablet, internet and the social media platforms which we recognize Facebook and Twitter plus plus plus. Apple, Microsoft, Google and Android, which dominate this new world order, are American. Moreover it is the most economically successful country in history.

So back to the beginning. What must change about these two Americas?

Perhaps nothing.

But fasten your seat belts for the next two years of Trump. At times it could be quite rough.

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Mid-Terms: First Thoughts

It looks like the Democrats have won the House but the Republicans have held the Senate, where as I write this they have lost one seat and gained three. The Democrats have also won governorships and seats in State Legislatures. That is big news in domestic US politics. So it is a win win. The Blue Wave was there but did not sweep all before it,  and Trump lost the House, but kept the Senate, which on issues like appointing judges it is the jewel in the crown. The potential effect of all this on America and the world will come in a later post, when all the results are known

What we do know is that there are a lot more women in Congress and that, as I have said before, is the most significant advance of all.

Brexit Referendum: A Devalued Mandate?

There is an increasingly strident debate developing over the question of a second referendum. Those who support this are accused of ignoring the democratic will of the people expressed in the first decisive referendum. But democracy is about choice not just once, but regularly. Above all the voters have the right to change their minds.

So it cannot be undemocratic to offer a second chance, once the terms of leaving are known. Because in 2016 nobody actually had a clue what leaving meant and on both sides a lot that was said in good faith was misleading.

In the case of Leave deliberate lies were told to garner support and it now appears not all was quite right about the way the two campaigns were financed and one is now being investigated by the SCA. This throws into question the legitimacy of the so called mandate to leave. Even if no charges are bought we are left with one unchallengeable fact. A minority voted to leave the EU no matter what the cost, but they alone could not ever carry the day. They were in 2016 supported by substantial numbers who believed they would be better off. Whether it is the catastrophe of a no deal Brexit, or a soft one, everybody now can see that in no circumstances can people be better off and very many, perhaps the most vulnerable among them will be worse off.

That alone invalidates the earlier mandate. It makes a second vote where all the conditions, upsides and downsides are known and made clear, mandatory.  In a true democracy.

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