Above all, it is so satisfying to see how the election has exposed all the bigotry and extremism around issues of race, religion (Islam in this case), and immigration in this font of the Free World.
I applaud the victory, because now those non-white, non-Christian, non-liberal nations who have been accused of various malfeasances can heave a sigh of relief to know that they are not the only 'basket of deplorables' on this earth. My word! "Deplorables" also exist in the Free World and they are claiming and winning their ground. And true to form (just like the well tutored 'liberals' in the non-western countries) the Clintonistas (and Brexit Remainders) are very sore losers: they take to the streets to denounce the results, and they claim the electoral system which is enshrined in their Constitution is flawed and needed to be revamped. Does that sound familiar? Are we witnessing an American Spring? , a Squeaky Clean Demonstration?
It's just another scenario of saucy geese and ganders -"What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander")
On getting back to Leicester I snapped this photo when I was on my way to the Co-op.
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| The image indicates a parking lot for the disabled owners of the car. But it's so tempting to put another interpretation. Is it the car/driver that is disabled or the potholes, that symbolize the damaged and unrepaired surrounds of where the car is parked. Or maybe both! I suppose we could apply the same obfuscation to hurrah-words like 'democracy', 'freedom' and 'equality'. |
To me it's so symbolic of the state of the richest countries in the world. The election of Trump as the president of the most powerful country on this planet should teach Malaysians several lessons.
1. Debunk the myth that western liberal democracies - their lifestyle, and their culture - are worthy of imitation, to be transplanted into all nations. Western democracies have shown again and again that they will not spare the rod to turn other economies and culture to get tied up to their apron strings. Note most recently the fate of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria!
If they are capable of setting the dogs of globalisation and neoliberalism on their own working class (whites) and their poor, why should they lose sleep over the emaciated economies and societies of the rest of the non-white, non-Judaeo-Christian world?
George Monbiot has this to say about American democracy in general and Trump specifically.
...... the US ...... now suffers the worst of both worlds: a large electorate dominated by a tiny faction. Instead of republics being governed, as Madison (America's fourth president) feared, by "the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority", they are now beholden to the not-so-secret wishes of an unjust and interested minority. What Madison could not have foreseen was the extent to which unconstrained campaign finance and a sophisticated lobbying industry would come to dominate an entire nation, regardless of its size.
For every representative, Republican or Democrat, who retains a trace element of independence, there are three sitting in the breast pocket of corporate capital. Since the supreme court decided that there should be no effective limits on campaign finance, and, to a lesser extent, long before, candidates have been reduced to tongue-tied automata, incapable of responding to those in need of help, incapable of regulating those in need of restraint, for fear of upsetting their funders.
Read more in https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/26/donald-trump-outsider-system-elections
(Wannabe political fashionistas in Malaysia should beware of dipping their hands into donations boxes from abroad - they could turn into the 'tongue-tied automata ' of the American empire .... or is that what they actually desire?)
2. For many reasons, Trump has been demonised as a monster, succumbing to the lowest common denominator of all that American (and Western) civilisation holds dear. Trump, in the liberal perception, is a racist, a misogynist, a demagogue and an islamophobe.
But Donald J Trump did not invent Islamophobia, and neither is he its only purveyor and practitioner. In denouncing Trump's Islamophobic klaxon-call, 'educated' Muslims are losing the context of the theory and practice of Islamophobia.
Ash has, in the past, wrote several postings on this issue and here are several extracts to support my conviction. As I said earlier, anti-Islam sentiments did not begin with Trump or in the United States.
Extract 1
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| In the beginning - from the pre-Christian era : Arabs = Islam. Therefore Islam lies and deceives. |
Extract 2
From Roget's Thesaurus :
Extract 3
From some time ago ......
Extract 4
From not too long ago ......
3. Trump's Wall.
Two thousand years ago, Emperor Shih Huangti constructed The Great Wall of China to protect the people and territory of China from invasions.
In 122 AD Hadrian's Wall was constructed to keep out the native (and barbaric) Picts and Scots from invading the Roman province of Britannia.
Remember the Berlin Wall?
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And here's the Mother of all Walls in the 20th/21st century!
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| West Bank - Getty |
More from Ash's posting: http://anaksihamid.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/cull-of-2012-part-3c-finale.html
The Israeli Apartheid Wall is different from all other Walls. The Israeli Wall is a prison corralling people in the West Bank in the world's largest prison.
We don't hear any bleatings of anger and protests from the Republicans or Democrats or from the global Human Rights Industry over this wall.
So,what's so special about the wall to be built by the United States 45th President? As he also intends to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, he might as well pick up tips for his Wall from Israel. But just make sure it's cost- effective. Don't employ labour from Israel or the US - get the Mexicans to do it quick and cheap.
So Trump intends to expel 2-3 million illegals from Mexico. In this case he is simply continuing President Obama's legacy.
Readhttp://www.alternet.org/election-2016/mexican-wall-already-here
4. Tags for Trump and Gender : Women, misogyny, glass ceilings, Muslim women.
Nafs nafs. I shan't assault my readers with more renditions of the same song. But here's my favourite. A cartoon is worth a thousand articles.
This is taken from a brilliant book , The True and Barbaric History of the Benighted States of America by Jim Hughes - Quartet Books Limited, 1973. Great Britain. I bought it from a car boot sale at Saddington, Leicester sometime in the early 1990s.
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| Liberation theology for Hawaiian and all women. |
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| My grave oversight - I forgot to record the source of this image. All I can recall is, it came from a serious article on the internet. |
Finally, we (have to) look forward to the reign of the 45th President of the United States. The so-so 44th will move to greener pastures.
Long live Mr. President Donald J Trump - " the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and of the Militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States."
Hold on. I hear a little voice. Words referring to a sacred text that you know so well.
Please Mr President, could you find a way to correct a historical calumny - against the First People of this nation. If you can make laws to protect the dignity and human rights of Semites (of Judaic origin) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transexual citizens, perhaps you could erase the reference to us as "the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."
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| From the American Declaration of Independence - indicting the king of England for trampling Americans' rights and liberties. |
When you can grant us this dignity, we can truly and heartily roar your clarion call 'Glory Hallelujah' and Make America Great!
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