Brexit - A failure of Democracy?

Brexit – A Failure of Democracy?

Something quite amazing happened on last Thursday 23^rd of June 2016. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a national referendum. The result is unprecedented. Greenland did leave the EU's predecessor the EEC in 1985, but it was a small (in population) colonial possession which gained independence. No large state has ever voted itself out.

What is the European Union?

The EU was born after world war two of a desire to never allow the conditions for a global cataclysm like it to spring from western Europe. That's a goal only the insane can't get behind. And it's has been wildly successful in pursuit of said goal. Western european integration has proceeded so far that France and Germany have held joint parliamentary sittings.

The way that the European Union has tried to make the apocalypse unthinkable is to harmonise laws between nations. This promotes trade, because what is legal to sell in France is also legal to sell in Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands etc. Then trade tariffs are taken away, creating one market which goods can be bought and sold in with no government interference like import taxes or export duties. In short what was created was a COMMON MARKET for all Europeans.

However a common market needs a regulator. Since 1979 that has been the democratically elected European Parliament. This Parliament then elect a 28 member commission (one from each country) which serves as the executive cabinet of the EU. A President is then proposed by the council to the Parliament who vote on who will be the President of the EU. If this all sounds convoluted and slightly anti-democratic, you'd be right. But it's born out of 65 years of history and the evolving needs of the member states. No-one would propose this system for a clean slate European Union, but getting 28 member states to agree to a clean slate is probably a hopeless task now.

There is also another centre of power in the Council of the European Union, a body that represents the executive governments of the member states that kind of serves as a house of review like the Senate in the US and Australia or the House of Lords in the UK.

The end result is that the EU is clunky, sometimes anti democratic and can be a bureaucratic nightmare. But could a body that represents the interests of 28 nations ever be anything else?

Another Government

The reality of EU membership is that any nation that joins the EU has just added another layer of government on top of the national government. The EU has begun to resemble a super-state, the size and wealth of the United States, headed by an unelected, bureaucratic, anti democratic government.

Freedom of Movement

The EU was born of the idea that to increase prosperity government needs to get out of the way and let business trade unhindered with other businesses across Europe. To that end a freedom of movement and freedom of work was instituted. All EU citizens have the right to live and work in other EU nations. This is a signature policy of the EU. Borders should have no meaning. Like the States of the USA, borders are no obstacle to travel inside the EU. One nation that could not abide this borderless policy was the UK. Britain opted out the the Schengen Agreement which allows for this borderless block. This means EU citizens do have the right to live and work in the UK, but they will have to cross a border to do so.

Freedom of Capital

In a bid to allow capital to be as free as possible the European Union decided that it should implement one currency over the EU. Hence the Euro. This of course meant more bureaucracy in the name of ease of business. So the European Central Bank was created in Frankfurt. The Euro has been at best a mixed blessing and at worst a total disaster. The Greek financial collapse simply would not have happened or would have been orders of magnitude easier to deal with had they still been using drachma's. In short, when a nation can no longer afford to pay back it's debts (in it's currency) the value of it's currency collapses, severely lessening the real value of the money owed. With the Euro, this was not possible, because Greek debt, was in Euro's, which did not collapse. Ultimately the strength of the Euro was it's failing. For a time Portugal and Ireland also teetered on the edge. A domino effect was narrowly avoided. Which leads to the conclusion, that for the large highly developed economies such as France and Germany, the Euro might be a boon, but for the smaller nations, the risk is far higher. Britain of course was unhappy with the Euro and opted out. As a highly developed nation they might have been one of the great beneficiaries of the Euro, but Euroskepticism prevailed.

Brexit – A failure of Democracy?

David Cameron took a divided party to the last election in 2015. Cameron is an establishment backing conservative, who has pursued neo-liberal policies during his first term. His highlights included cutting the budget so far and so fast he sent the UK into a second unnecessary recession and backing the remain camp for the Scottish Independence Referendum. Back in 2015 David Cameron was looking to shore up support from the right of his party. He was worried about his own leadership and votes leaking to the Euroskeptic Nigel Farage. Farage's United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) platform was anti-immigration, anti-muslim and anti-europe. So Cameron pledged to hold this referendum in the search for votes. He was subsequently elected and was therefore duty bound to hold this referendum. Of course a stronger leader would never have needed to promise this referendum.

Labour Party Weakness?

In the wake of the 2015 election loss the Labour Party elected a new kind of man for the job. Jeremy Corbyn was an old fashioned socialist. The type of socialist Tony Blair had tried to eliminate when he reformed the party in the late 1990's. Corbyn rejected Labour's neo-liberal policy agenda to take the party "back to the future". This put Labour in a difficult position. Labour was lukewarm to the neo-liberal agenda laid out by the European Union but pro EU in that his supported tended to feel that they were better off in a flawed Europe than outside. Corbyn completely failed to convince his parties voters to vote remain. Probably because they sensed the conflict in him.

Farage Day?

Nigel Farage campaigned strongly to leave the EU. His argument was that he wanted to take his country back. Back from unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, back from polish plumbers in Sunderland, back from radical imams spreading hate in mosque's across the UK, back from the big banks who sold Britain down the road, but basically, most importantly (but never uttered)back from the young people.

Age-The Great Divide

The one most predictive factor on how a person would vote in Tuesday's referendum was this. How Old a person was. After the age of 26 years old, a person's chance of voting leave increased. The further from 26 years old you were. The more likely you were to vote leave.

Immigration Anger/Racism- What's the Difference? Is there a Difference?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36382199

Leave campaigners made great claims about immigration. They claimed that the UK had lost control of it's borders. Floods of migrants were coming into the country and either taking jobs Brit's could be doing or worse becoming dependent on welfare and stretching a welfare system to breaking point.

Actually Net migration into the UK was at 333,000 in 1015 which was a record. Of that 184,000 was net migration from the EU. That represents 1 migrant entering the country every year for every 192 people already in Britain. For context, a similar society outside the EU – Australia, the figure is 1 migrant for every 137 people. Australia's net migration per capita is higher.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3412.0/

Leave campaigners claimed that the EU was responsible for breaking down the UK's borders. The current Syrian refugee crisis fueled his fear driven rhetoric. But most could not fail to notice that Polish people (for an example) were emigrating to the UK at a high rate. The jobs they were taking were low to medium skill jobs. Jobs that were becoming harder to find for native born Brits. Older native born Brits were beginning to become resentful. They saw a future where they had been tossed aside and thrown on life's scrapheap. Farage and Johnson's claims gained great traction.

Boris Johnson for PM?

In other pieces I have argued that I was not really afraid of Donald Trump as US president, because I felt he was too stupid to be elected. Sooner or later he would be tested and found ignoramus. I still hold to that and I am please he is well behind Senator clinton in the polls now. However I also suggested that there was an intelligent man out there. Someone who was watching the trump campaign and learning how to manipulate the stupidity of the masses into power. I never expected that person to appear so quickly, and i never expected that person to be British.

Boris Johnson is a Conservative Party Member of Parliament who built has career as mayor of London and delivered the London 2012 Olympics to the world. During the Brexit campaign he toured Britain on a big red bus speaking everywhere and anywhere he could in favour of leaving. The greatest lie he told was literally written on the bus itself. It said "We send the EU 350 million pound a week. Lets fund our NHS instead." The 350 million pounds a week figure fails (deliberatly) to include the 190 million pounds a week the EU delivers back to Britain in forms of subsidies etc. To imagine the NHS would see a cent of the money no longer headed to Brussels is laughable.

Boris lied and bloviated his way through the campaign, his buffoonish manner and undeniable charm while saying nothing in particular is highly amusing and watchable, and very familiar to Trump watchers. Johnson promised to bring net migration per year back to the "tens of thousands" by taking back control. How he would do this was not clear. He provided the example of Australia and it's point system, but as we've seen Australia actually has a higher net migration per capita than the UK and of course that so many of the UK immigrants come from places outside the EU. I don't accept Britain has the power to do this without causing a massive recession in Britain and possibly around the world.

Johnson is as close to a Libertarian as Britain has produced in modern times. A man happy to talk of socially liberal policies, but economically in step with big business. So why did he side against business against free trade?

Power. There is one job Johnson clearly covets. Cameron's. With Cameron's resignation it's within Johnson's grasp. If Johnson has to weaken Britain to gain the job, he seems to have made the calculation that it's worth the pain.

Neo-Liberal Ideals

The EU is a remarkable institution, but it's also a bodge job. In itself it's founded on Capitalist-Neo-Liberal ideas, but in practice it's become a libertarian nightmare. An unnecessary layer of government coalescing into an economic superstate with ambitions to become a defacto one world government,setting standards and laws about business practices like working hours, paid leave, human rights, justice and other non-core business.

The EU is not the same institution that Britain voted to stay in in 1975. It's evolved and changed. Some changes are for the better, some are not.

World War 3

A majority of Brits voted this week that the European Union was an institution that made their life more difficult. That's a frightening idea, given the core goal of the EU. To prevent a Europe wide war. It's growth and development into a nascent one world government appears to be at the heart of it's unpopularity in Britain. It's unswerving embrace of Neo-Liberal principles is frankly at the heart of it's problems. On the other hand. Neo-Liberal principles are being questioned all over the world right now. The Occupy movement in the United States and the Trump presidential candidacy point to a failure of Neo-Liberal principles in that nation as well.

Neo-Liberal principles benefit a great many and make the rich richer. But in developed countries they also lead to a disenfranchised older less educated poor class. It's these people who voted for Brexit and who vote for Donald Trump. On the whole, developed nations need to work out how to cater for the older, the unemployed and the uneducated. Because last Thursday, those people made enough noise to damage all of us. This is the next war. It wont be fought against Islamic extremism or Communism, it will be fought by us and against us. Unless we can find a way for these people to benefit from all the good things our society has produced.

These people are afraid. With good reason. They are grabbing their pitchforks. They will come again. They will have their champions, be they Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Marine LePen, Pauline Hanson or someone we haven't heard of yet. The next time they will come for us and burn down the whole farm.

Brexit. How did it come to this?

Brexit. People Slain in the Street Over a Bureaucracy?

How did it all come to this? A Labour MP shot in the street. Jo Cox was gunned down in her constituency by Thomas Mair, a 52 year old suspected of both mental health issues and far right political ties.

Every nation has its bizarre quirks. There are always issues in that country that make no sense to outsiders. Here in Australia it's indigenous affairs. Sensible thoughtful people abandon all reason and begin shouting at each other the moment aboriginal affairs are mentioned. For the USA its guns. The Americans can't even keep AR15 assault rifles out of the hands of known terrorist sympathizers. For the British it's Europe.

Separated by 20 miles of water, Britain is in Europe, but not of it. Or at least that's how Brits like to see it. That water has always signified danger to Britain. Invaders like the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings and the Normans all crossed the channel to plunder Britain's "Green and Pleasant Land."

Britain learned to defend that water, developing the greatest navy the world has ever seen. Napoleon learned to his detriment not to challenge the Royal Navy and Goring's Luftwaffe learnt that the the Royal Air force was adequate to the task of defending Britain in 1940.

This is how the British see Europe. Dangerous and other.

Britain and Continental Europe also tend to see their shared history differently to. For continental Europe the second world war was horrific and tragic. It was a war that raged across the European continent. The forefathers of modern Germans and Austrians started a war which shattered Poland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Norway, etc. To say nothing of the horrific destruction rained upon the USSR. Then there's the fact of the holocaust. 6 million Jews dead.

The German and Austrian nation were wholly culpable. France capitulated to the Axis and later began to transport French Jews to the death camps with a surprising fervor. Adults in those countries today were often reluctant to ask Grandpa exactly what they did in the war. They might not like the answers they received.

Contrast that with the British view of their role in WW2. At first they were the dutiful ally protecting France. Then the lone holdout against the personification of evil, Britain was challenged almost to breaking point, but held the line, allowing democracy to survive in the western hemisphere. This was truly "Their Finest Hour."

Britain then was able to take the war back to Europe with American assistance. Liberating western europe through devastating bombing campaigns and the D Day invasion. While casualties were enormous, both allied and axis, Britain never wavered in its feeling of moral superiority. Hitler had started this war, and by God Churchill was going to finish it.

In Continental Europe a consensus soon formed around the idea "never again." It's a wholly understandable formula born of a feeling of moral failure and guilt, with a great deal of practicality thrown in. Five short years after the war the European Coal and Steel Community united Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands and Luxembourg in a common market, synchronizing their laws to make trade simple and easy between those nations.

The philosophy behind the European Economic Community as the union became known after the 1957 treaty of Rome was to unite the nations in trade, creating wealth for all, but also an interdependence between nations so that a holocaust like World War Two could never again spring from a European well. It worked. Extremely well. The EEC continued to grow adding Ireland and Denmark in 1973. But the largest market added in '73 was Britain.

The campaign to join was fraught and a referendum to leave was held in 1975. You could consider it Brexit 1. The stay campaign won handily. This was a nine nation EEC composed of developed nations.

The EU has of course developed massively since 1975. It has expanded from nine members to twenty eight. Herein lies the problem. The EU has developed a Parliament, and has started to look like a superstate coalescing from the disparate nations of Europe.

Also of concern is the freedom of movement granted to all European union citizens. This was fine when all member nations maintained a high standard of living, but the addition of former Warsaw Pact nations with substantially lower wages creates a serious issue. The fact that EU citizens from nations like Romania and Poland can now legally move to the UK is disconcerting to British people who are concerned that these people come to UK, either take British Jobs for lower wages, driving down wages for low paid work or end up on welfare, stretching an already tight budget tighter.

Those people displaced by low wage workers are mostly those who will vote for a brexit. Frankly these people are voting for their own interests. I completely understand why people in these circumstances would vote to leave.

Herein lies the problem. Right now the needs of the less educated and poorest of society are not being looked after. This is not just a British problem. In the USA those people who vote for Donald Trump look very familiar to those British political watchers. They are the poorly educated, the white poor who have been the losers in the new world ushered in by modern Neo-Liberal philosophy.

So here we come to the crux of the matter. Neo-Liberalism is causing a crisis in our society. It is leaving behind a large section of the population of developed western nations. The continued globalisation of our world means that the factory worker in the Birmingham England or Birmingham Alabama are both in competition with the worker in Guadalahara Mexico, Guangzau China, or indeed Poznan Poland.

In this wage competition between the developed world and the developing world there can only be one winner. The developing world. Of course they will make items cheaper than their counterparts in the west.

The "other" tends to be a whipping boy for all the problems (real or perceived) that poor disempowered people experience. Whether that be the recent immigrants or the Jewish people of Nazi Germany, in difficult economic times it's always the "other" who suffer.

Demagogues like Donald Trump or Nigel Farage are always waiting on the sidelines to whip the fear and hopelessness into anger and hatred. I think we can add a new name to this group. Boris Johnson. These types are the real villains of this piece. They are the exploiters of fear. They manipulate people for their own ends. For Trump and Johnson, the top job beckons to them and they intend to ride a wave of hatred to the Prime Ministership or the Presidency.

History provides the greatest warning possible about these types. One such Demagogue blamed Communists, Socialists and Jews in Germany during another economic crisis during the late 1920's. History records his ascension to Chancellor in January 1933. Soon he was not being called Chancellor, but Fuhrer.

What's wrong with US Democracy and How to Save it

What's Wrong With US Democracy?

Donald Trump's Presidential candidacy has been hilarious, but it's become quite terrifying. The Presumptive Nominee of the Republican Party for the Presidency of the United States of America, Donald Trump has attacked American Veterans, Mexican Americans, Mexicans and Mexico in general, Chinese businesses and lately Muslim Americans.

Sadly all this is quite predictable. During difficult economic times democracies usually turn to the radical far right for solutions. Of course this has a very low success rate.

Many of you I'm sure will be thinking that actually things are actually not that bad in the USA right now, and you have the figures to prove it. Lets go through them:

The unemployment rate is now at 5%. That's quite low and down from a high of 10% in October 2009. So why are we seeing this kind of political instability in the land of the free?

One factor is income inequality. I believe income inequality is the number one driver of political instability in the USA. Income inequality is a good and necessary part of the capitalist system. However when wages in real terms have not risen since 1975, but productivity has risen exponentially we are talking about the slow undermining of the American middle class. The non partisan Pew Research Center have studied this issue for a long time.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

The implications are bleak. In a world where your salary remains stagnant in buying power, but productivity increases exponentially, I think we need to ask where all the money is going. How is it that 40 year old mothers and fathers are forced to work in the fast food industry, where wages are eye-wateringly low and impossible to live on. How is it that full time Walmart employees cost the Government $6.2 Billion in food stamps, Medicaid and Public Housing?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/

The answer is of course that all the money has risen to the top. That the masters of the universe have never had it so good, while the ordinary people struggle to put food on the table. Indeed one study has rated America's inequality as higher than Ancient Rome.

http://persquaremile.com/2011/12/16/income-inequality-in-the-roman-empire/

My next question to ask, what was the outcome of the high inequality in the Roman times. The answer might sound depressingly familiar. The Senate became highly polarized between a political party of capital, the Optimates and a party of the common man, the Populares. (Not that they were parties in the modern sense of the word.)

The workings of the Government slowly ground to a halt as the constipated Senate failed to do it's job and instead focused merely on members careers and power. The Optimates rigged elections, and had reformers ultimately put to death to maintain the unequal status quo.

Such legislative deadlock was ultimately unsustainable and ancient Rome fell into a period of turmoil known as the social war. This was a bloody civil war that set the stage for Julius Caesar to rise to power in his own civil war. The Roman Republic did not survive Julius Caesar.

Am I saying that the USA is going the way of the Roman Republic. Well no. Not yet. And it doesnt have to. However I would say that the American electoral system needs a great deal of reform to avoid the historical pitfalls of a great power with a massive and restless underclass.

It's very clear that the US Congress like the Roman Senate before it works for no-one but it's members and the mega rich. Here is what I propose:

A Non-Partisan Electoral Commission.

Most advanced democracies have one of these. They are impartial and draw the districts for the lower house. The reason that most of the US House of Representatives members are so batshit crazy is that they do not fear the voters. Both Republican and Democratic Party interests are served to have as few as possible seats in actual doubt. That way they don't have to spend money on the race and can keep it for the Presidential and Senate Elections. This is why although Barack Obama won the 2012 election by a large majority by popular vote, in the House of Representatives the Republicans were able to maintain power. In effect most candidates are more afraid of the Primary elections in their own party than that of the general election by the population at large. Of course the people voting in the primarys are mostly the most devoted and extreme. which is why we see government of the people, by the extremists, for the extremists.

This obviously won't remove the money from US politics, but maybe it won't have to. We've seen that massive amounts of money spent by the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Addleston have spectacularly failed to move the electorate one iota. In fact the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court has more successful at moving the electorate to the left than towards mainstream conservative ideas.

A political body that doesn't fear it's electorate won't respond to the needs of the people. The US district boundaries are broken due to a corrupt and craven system controlled by the two parties for their own needs, not the needs of the people.

A legislative body elected to serve the needs of the people, not the mega-rich would actually respond to the people on the street. The ones actually hurting. Not the uber-rich, but the millions left behind in a globalizing world.

Donald Trump is the inevitable manifestation of the fear and anger of the people. A people who have been ignored for too long by a political system who doesn't understand them, and doesn't have the time or will listen to them.

I think Trump will actually lose this election. But don't for a moment think that the issues he's tapping in to will magically solve themselves. Things are going well in the economy but people are still angry. They will remain angry until their issues are addressed.

I'm not actually that afraid of Trump. He's an idiot. A second rate narcissist-megalomaniac who has the gift of the gab. What terrifies me is the next Trump. I believe a highly intelligent man (or woman) is watching the freak show that is the 2016 Presidential election with great interest. He is learning from Trump how to manipulate the fear of the average American. He's the one I fear. The megolamaniacal despot who is absorbing the lessons of 2016 and will apply them in 2020 or 2024.

The way to prevent it is to reform Politics. Now. Don't wait, because we don't have the time.

Donald Trump and the GOP

The Fight for the Soul of Conservatism

Donald Trump. No name is more divisive in the 21^st century than his. He terrifies and titillates in equal measure. To the Ruling Elite Wall St Bankers he is a dangerous populist. To Social conservatives he is an immoral threat. To Neoconservatives he's a naive isolationist. How did it come to this?

The modern Republican Party consists of three main voting blocks governed by their different ideologies.

First are the real power behind the Republicans, Corporate America. Corporate America has one policy goal. To lower taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals. It's a goal they has been wildly successful at.

The second member of the triumvirate are Social Conservatives. These people are extremely concerned with issues such as Abortion and Same Sex Marriage. This group are willing to throw their not inconsiderable weight behind anyone who will back "Pro Life" positions.

Lastly we have the Foreign Policy Hawks or Neoconservatives. These militarists will back anyone who will assert American Power in the world. They are somewhat out of favour after the debacle of the Iraq war and there is a great deal of crossover between them and Corporate America, given that defense companies influence this group a great deal.

Any Republican Presidential candidate in the USA has to appease these three groups in order to be endorsed as the Republican nominee. Until now.

Inequality is rampant in the USA. Minimum wage in the USA is extremely low compared to other developed countries. The median wage has barely changed since 1973. All this has created a world where the vast majority of the population are doing worse than their parents and grandparents were.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/map-us-ranks-near-bottom-on-income-inequality/245315/

The 2007 Global Financial Crisis coming hard on the heals of a costly, lengthy war has created a deeply angry populace ready and willing to try something outside the box.

Into this milieu steps Donald Trump. His promise is very specific. To "Make America Great Again". Pundits (myself included) massively underestimated the appeal of this message. But we shouldn't have. With hindsight the signs were there all along.

Trump gave voters something to grab a hold of. When he said "America doesn't win anymore." many people looked at their surroundings and agreed.

Furthermore Trump gave people a reason for their problems and a solution. If you are afraid of crime. It's because of Mexican immigrants. We'll fix it by building a wall. If you are afraid of terrorism, its Obama's softness on Foreign policy. Ill kill ISIS's families. (which would be a war-crime). Lost your job? It's because of China. I'll stand up for you.

It's no wonder Trump is popular. He has simply identified the problems ordinary Americans are facing and offered to solve them. That is something that mainstream Republicans can't do because they are beholden to Corporate America to lower wages and lower taxes. The policies of Corporate America in government (They own the Democrats just as much as the Republicans) have caused the very anxiety Trump is tapping into.

That's why Trump supporters when asked will usually site the fact that Trump is an outsider with an independent source of money for his campaign. He has perfected the art of separating himself from the New York Corporate Elite, while actually being part of the New York Corporate Elite.

It's also why sighting facts to Trump supporters won't work. There is a perception that the Corporate Elite fear a Trump presidency because he is on the average person's side and attack him mercilessly. Therefore any attack on Trump is viewed through this prism. The more people attack Trump, the more this perception is reinforced, the more popular he becomes.

This leads us to the Republican Convention. Trump is on track to win a majority of the 2472 Convention delegates. If he does I'm sure the Republican Party will nominate him, but if he does not win 1237 delegates the party will do a deal to ensure that all of the non Trump delegates vote for someone other than Trump. That will most likely be Ted Cruz, but it's by no means certain.

If the Republicans nominate anyone other than Trump, I expect riots. It will be viewed by Trump supporters as the Republican party keeping the good honest Americans down.

I feel sure that the Socially Conservative wing of the party could swallow it's pride and support Trump. They will side with him against Hillary Clinton.

The Neocon's have been somewhat dismayed by what they have heard from Trump. Trump has expressed skepticism over NATO, leading The Weekly Standard (The Neoconservative publication of Record) to publically muse about a third party candidate.

What does it all mean?

Let's be clear about Trump. The man is a charlatan. He incites people by stirring the baser elements of the human condition. Sexism, racism, fear, anger and xenophobia are all part of his shtick.

But Trump has tapped into something real. There are real issues here that are not being addressed. The Neoliberal market first approach has resulted in rising inequality and a decline in the standard of living for the average person on the street. There is a real risk of dangerous instability in the American political system which will continue until inequality returns to more reasonable levels for a first world nation.  

The Road To Ruin - What does it really say?

The Road to Ruin

By now most of you will have heard of and seen the media reaction to Nikky Savva's book The Road to Ruin. The media (of course) have focused on the salacious but unfounded thought of the Prime Minister and his Chief of Staff bonking away in the PM's office. This of course is to totally miss the point.

To be very clear the book never alleges an affair between Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin. There is simply no evidence for that. However the book does allege that the two of them (PM and Chief of Staff) were simply unsuitable for the job at hand.

It's important to recognise who Nikky Savva is. She's a successful columnist with the Australian. (the conservative broadsheet owned by Rupert Murdoch.) Her columns tend towards the sensible, with a clear right wing bias. She claims to have been more leftist in her youth, but has come more to the right wing with age. She is married to Malcolm Turnbull staffer Vincent Woolcock and it's through this prism that I tend to view this book.

One of the surprising things about this book is the amount of people who went on the record to talk about their time under the Abbott and Credlin regime. In my view such intimate access could only have come with Prime Ministerial approval. I'm not saying Savva wrote the book because Turnbull asked her to, but it's my guess that Turnbull felt that an explanation in the public sphere of why his coup was nessesary would benefit his Government.

The book paints a picture of Credlin as an emotional roller-coaster. A difficult person to work with for sure, but a master manipulator. Savva alleges that Credlin jealously guarded access to the Prime Minister, but also forced anyone she disliked to resign. There were two traits that seemed to get you on her list. First was intelligence. Anyone smarter than her was a threat, not an asset. The second was gender. She seemed to dislike powerful females.

The two (other) most powerful women in Abbott's life were of course his wife Margie and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party Julie Bishop. Both were subject to Credlin's wrath. Credlin sought to keep Margie as far from Abbott as possible, even going so far as to ask staff at Kiribilli House not to order food for Margie or to shop for the family.

Julie Bishop however could not be dismissed so easily. She was Foreign Minister and Deputy. Credlin interfered deeply in the policy realm. It was Credlin who vetoed Bishops trip to Lima Peru for a climate summit, stating that Bishop couldn't be trusted to hold the party line. Bishop was able to prevail on that occasion.

So to sum up Credlin was unable to set up the kind of environment that uses employees strengths. So focused on her own inadequacies, she moved on all the best performers, making herself the smarted person in the room. Then without a hint of irony she complained about the loss of institutional knowledge.

As for the public face of the debacle, Tony Abbott. He's portrayed as a dullard, under Credlin's thumb and caught in an unreal bubble of his own (and Credlin's) creation. She felt she had to babysit him whenever he was in the media spotlight, not to do or say something stupid. (like eat an onion for example). That led to a massive backlog in her in-tray, meaning work just didn't get done.

She would brief against other ministers to the media and he did nothing. Famously she let it be known that she had tried to stop him from knighting Prince Phillip. When the Prime Minister's own Chief of Staff is briefing against her boss, it is a sign that their relationship has failed. Abbott stalwartly held her close.

Abbott's inability to override her forceful personality was his downfall. His inability to assert himself as the boss was negligent on his part. In fact he referred to her as "the boss" in private. He could not bring himself to fire her, or at least move her on.

So, What do we make of this book?

On the whole I believe it. Nothing printed here seems to contradict the experience of those two years.

I must admit I have always felt a deep personal loathing of Tony Abbott. He makes my skin crawl. He reminded me of the bullies I used to know at the selective boys high school I attended. These were often the children of middle class professionals with higher than average IQ's who seemed to carry deep insecurities and only found relief from their inner demons through violence. While their IQ's were high, their EQ's or emotional intelligence were pathetic.

Tony Abbott, a Rhodes Scholar seems to have had a high IQ at some time, however his EQ remains minuscule. He's a shell of a man at the moment muttering "I could have won" to anyone who will listen and blames Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison for his demise. The actual author of the downfall of Tony Abbott can be placed squarely on the shoulders on one man.

Tony Abbott.

Democratic Primary Season - The Big Test

Democratic Primary Season – The Big Test

So far the Democratic Race of the nomination has provided little of the rancor, tempestuousness or stupidity of the Republican race. This is to be expected. Democratic base voters tend to be better educated, far more mellow and closer to reality than the Republican base.

To explain what I mean by that, just listen to an hour of NPR then an hour of right wing talk radio. The difference is stark. Liberals tend to be attracted to candidates who are conciliatory in their approach and speak in quiet tones. That being said, the malaise that causes the right wing to be attracted to be attracted to candidates like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump is visible if you know where to look.

In 2008 Hillary Clinton held a large lead both in votes and money raised heading into the Iowa caucus', but was knocked off by the insurgent candidate, a fresh faced Senator from Illinois Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama was African American, born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father, he spent time as a child in Indonesia. He spoke in lofty ideals, articulated a far less arrogant foreign policy and seemed to offer an antidote to the backward, expansionist, intellectually stifled GW Bush years.

Voters flocked to the candidate in droves, testing the Clinton campaign in unexpected ways. The Obama campaign had learnt how to use the internet to drive the campaign. This dovetailed with his fresh face and masterful rhetoric. He rode a wave of hope all the way to the White House.

It seemed a new era had dawned in America. Fast forward to 2016 and Obama's hope seems to have been mugged by reality.

Obama provides a template for liberal candidates in America. Liberal voters want hope. They want to believe in something bigger than themselves. Obama provided them with this hope. That's how he won. That's what Bernie Sanders has to do to defeat Hillary Clinton.

Sanders is an interesting character to raise his head in US politics. A lifelong self proclaimed socialist, Sanders taps into the same malaise on the left, that pushes right wingers to follow Trump, Cruz et al.

Sanders' charm as the irritable Jewish grandfather is undeniable. His cut through style seems to say "I don't have time for all that political crap".

Millennials now outnumber baby boomers of voting age. They never experienced the cold war and the "red scare". They don't seem to fear the word "socialist" in quite the same way that baby boomers and gen xers do. Their life experience has been of a dysfunctional capitalist system pushing an expansionist foreign policy that has reaped a crop of massive social inequality, crumbling infrastructure, two wars, and precious little to show for it.

The truth of it is that Sanders is a Democratic Socialist, basically on the same page as Tony Blair was in the UK. In any other nation he would be considered a centrist or centre left at the very most, but for America this is a radical departure from the centre right of Hillary Clinton or Obama and the far right of the warmongering Bush/Cheney years.

Americans appear ready to embrace a new political reality, but Sanders still has an uphill climb. His job as the insurgent candidate is to associate his cut-through style with hope. Eight years of Obama beating his head against the "scorched earth" style of Congress championed by Senator Cruz should have made America much more cynical about "Hope and Change".

Ultimately that's good for Hilary Clinton. Clinton will be viewed as a safe pair of hands to place the Presidency into because the Republicans can't win the presidency while spouting anti Hispanic, anti-immigrant sentiment. The demographics are clear on this point. They were made clear in 2012 by Obama's victory over Mitt Romney. Actually if you remove George Bush's 2000 victory (which you should, the popular vote was won by Al Gore and more people voted for Gore in Florida than Bush), the Republicans have only won one Presidential Election since 1988, that of 2004. That election was special because it happened during a time of war.

After Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are finished with inciting the right, the Republicans will be so toxic in 2016 that no Republican will have a chance.

I don't know who will win the Republican primary in 2016, but it won't matter. That nominee will fail because he/she will be so radioactive in dealing with Trump/Cruz et.al. If it is Trump or Cruz they still won't win.

That leaves Clinton or Sanders. Clinton has to be the favorite, by far, but Sanders can win. The thought of a Sanders win and what the right would make of a self proclaimed socialist in the White House is amusing, given that they went "Ape Shit" over a black man in the oval office.

Republican Primary Season - Like Watching a Train Wreck in Slow Motion

Republican Primary Season – Like watching a Train Wreck in Slow Motion

Something rather bizarre seems to be happening in Republican circles. While Donald Trump continues to suck up all the political oxygen, a couple of weeks out from the Iowa Caucus Ted Cruz is actually leading in Iowa.

Ted Cruz is a ratbag. But he just might be the Republican Party Nominee for President. In his time in the US Senate he has plotted a course to destroy the US Government. Having him in the White House would make for an interesting four years. Disastrous, but interesting.

Why people would vote for Senator Cruz, a man who doesn't seem to want the Federal Government to conduct any business is beyond me, but the thought processes of Republican voters are rarely logical. Despite his denials, Cruz was one of the movers and shakers behind the government shutdown in 2013.

Cruz was born in Canada, a situation which has Obama birthers rushing to explain why Cruz IS eligable to run. Cruz seems to want nothing more than to watch the world burn. He refuses to believe global warming and would bomb the middle east "until the sand glowed".

Cruz doesn't believe in the sciene of Global Warming and now oversees NASA's budget. He is a case of government of the people for the people by the stupid.

Enough words have been expended on Trump, so I won't say anything further here.

Ben Carson is a twit. He seems to think that the pyramids of Giza are grain silo's. He denies evolution for crying out loud. A Neurosurgeon who denies evolution is running some serious cognitive dissonance. He won't explain his thoughts on climate change, basically because he has none. Or at least thats what I infer from this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/ben-carson-climate-change_560d9b3fe4b0dd85030b5354?section=australia

Jeb Bush is still in the race. Those with long memories remember that it was the Supreme Court of Florida, stacked with his appointees that delivered the Presidency to his brother George in 2000. I think that the party feels it owes a debt to Jeb Bush and that for now he is their preffered candidate. However the Republican base don't agree. Do we really need another Bush in the White House? The Republican establishment thnk so, but can see that the Republican base won't vote for another Bush. Nor should they, quite frankly.

John Kasich could be the establishment candidate. Sober and sensible. Everything you need in an establishment candidate. If he can get some attention he could be the one to unite the party establishment with it's base. That's a big "If" though.

Carly Fiorina is a moderate in that she believes the science that climate change is real and believes in "decriminalizing drug addiction and drug use", an admirable position to me, but not to the Republican base. I also believe her gender works against her with the base. She's most likely an also-ran.

Rick Santorum will get the evangelical vote, but has a natural ceiling. I don't think he can be the nominee.

That leads us to Marco Rubio. He's a Jeb Bush acolyte, so you know the Republican establishment will rally around him if Jeb Bush falls. I think he's the man who will accept the nomination and lose to Hillary Clinton or possibly Bernie Sanders.

Tomorrow – The Democrats.