Category Archives: USA

New America? From the New Deal and the New Frontier to the Banality of “I Really Don’t Care Do U”…..

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First there was the real Western Frontier that shaped America.

Then there was the New Deal of FDR.

Then the Greatest Generation that helped save the world.

Then there was the New Frontier of JFK which ushered the graceful but brief era of Camelot.

Then the Great Society derailed by Vietnam and IndoChina….

Then the heroic era of NASA and space exploration culminating in the Apollo projects and what came later spanned a couple of generations.

Now we are on the eve of the Fourth of July 2018. Deep in the opportunistic age of MAGA which has ushered in the silly but very accurately expressive era of “I Really Don’t Care Do U“.

And That’s Not All, Folks……

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Fire and Fury of Steve Bannon and Hope Hicks and the Trumps ……….

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just finished reading the book Fire and Fury, about the dysfunction, internal squabbles, and mutual backstabbings of the first year of the Trump White House. The author is not exactly a Theodore White, but then these are not Teddy White days, and the book’s focus was on the post-election rather than the campaign.

It took me a few days because I usually read several books at the same time, a habit from undergraduate university days. Here is my brief take, succinctly put: 

Beyond all the headlines and the cacophony which focused on Donald Trump and his inadequacies and consequent insecurities. The picture drawn in the book, at least the picture I saw, was one of a bunch of  self-serving extremely disloyal players. Everyone of the White House staff seems to be in the game for themselves, everyone focuses on their own role and its continuation.

Nobody gave priority to “serving” Trump and what is good for his tenure. That includes his own immediate family who took offices in the West Wing. That includes his New York in-laws. Everyone seems to have forgotten political convictions and principles and what Trump promised the voters. One young lady who apparently had some ‘boy trouble’, Hope Hicks, was/is probably loyal to the Trumps.

But there was one more other significant exception: one person who did not seem, from the author’s depiction, to be looking after personal gain and the one who did not play the sycophant. Perhaps the most ideological, most zealous person among them all.

Oddly that is the one person whom much of the media focused on and incessantly reviled during his brief tenure in the West Wing: Steve Bannon.

(P.S.: funniest thing in the book? Was the part about NSC candidate General H R McMaster showing up in a large suit and Trump thinking he looked like a ‘beer salesman‘)

Cheers

M H Ghuloum

Trump Economics, Friedman Economics: the Oligarchy, the Swamp, and the Cesspool…….

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And the beat goes on……
This time I’ll keep my feet on solid ground
Now I understand myself when I’m down
Like the sweet sound of hip music
There’ll always be something new
To keep the tables turning
Hey, this super song
There’ll never be an ending…
And the beat goes on……”    
The Whispers

Betting Against Trump Was a Market-Beater. The companies the president disparaged have done much better than those he favored. Remember when President Donald Trump would call out a company by name, causing its stock price to gyrate madly, whacking a few billions off its market value with just one offhanded tweet? ……. Looking back on this one year later is revealing. From the November 2016 election until when we looked at it January 2017, the Oligarch Index was thoroughly trouncing the Drain the Swamp Index, 15.8 percent to 3.5 percent. Trump hadn’t even been sworn in, yet he was already making his heft felt in the marketplace. Things change…….”

So the famous bi-partisan, lobbyist-driven, Washington Swamp beat the Trump-favored Oligarchy in terms of market performance, at least for the first year. During the past year, the Oligarchy started quickly to morph into what it has always had the potential to be: a Cesspool……….

But still the Oligarchy is not done: it has at least three more years, potentially seven more years. The Swamp will expand and get more odorous for now, become more of a new oligarchy Cesspool. Until the next bubble created by deregulation and natural greed and hubris bursts. Then look out for all the flying “stuff“. Then the new need for “government” help and “regulation”. Back to 2008 and 2009, and……
Perhaps hopefully a more-lasting New Deal (after all, Milton Friedman is dead, along with his brilliant but misguided mind and his Nobel)……….

And the Beat Goes On…..

Cheers
M Haider Ghuloum

A Dichotomy of Protests: Streets of Iran, NFL Fields……..

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A Dichotomy of Protests:
Kaepernick, Kaepernick, Kaepernick……
NFL, NFL, NFL…..
Iran, Iran, Iran…….
Fire and Fury, Fire and Fury, Fire and Fury…..
Right of Protest and Freedom of Expression…..

(FYI: this political outrage in Washington, it is all about regional rivalry, stupid)

Cheers
M Haider Ghuloum

History: On Voter Fraud, Mike Pence, and a Roman Horse Named Incitatus……

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US Vice President Mike Pence will spend about three hours today with a shadowy group of conspiracy-theory people appointed by Trump ‘to prove’ that he actually won the popular vote . They are assigned to investigate “Voter Fraud”.
FYI: Mike Pence, like a good poodle puppy, calls President Trump “a Great Leader” or a “Great President” almost every other day of the week.

Historians tell us that the insane Roman emperor Gaius Caligula appointed his favorite horse Incitatus to the Senate (Roman Senate not US Senate). Incitatus was not from Kentucky, and he was one senator who was NOT afraid of Caligula.
I thought you might want to know….

Imperial WWE: Emperor Caligula and his GOP Roman Senators and Their Wives……

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Axis of Corruption: Happy Ramadan and Many Wahhabi Returns, Imam Trump, Haji Gauleiter Bannon, et al……..

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The Holy Muslim month of Ramadan may start on Friday (or maybe Saturday for some more ornery Muslims). Saudis claim they will start on Saturday because they can’t confirm seeing the moon crescent yet. So Ramadan will most likely start in most Muslim countries on Saturday (on Shabbat as our Jewish neighbors would say).

So in the spirit of Donald Trump’s recent initiation in and conversion into the joys of Wahhabi regional sectarian politics, and many billions of money, in Riyadh. He is now an honorary Wahhabi. All during that first meeting of his Axis of Corruption, so:


Happy Ramadan, Mr. Imam Shaikh Trump.

Happy Ramadan, Haji Gauleiter Bannon.

Happy Ramadan, Shaikh Herr Sturmbanfuhrer Miller.

Happy Ramadan, Melania and Ivanka for surviving the staged stag events of last week and withstanding the thick air of hypocrisy and corruption. Just scrub yourselves well, ladies, use disinfectant if you must.

Happy Ramadan, to whoever else is lurking in the Dark Side.

Donald, may those many billions of dollars stolen by the Arab potentates from the Persian Gulf peoples always be with you. You are now an Honorary Muslim, although of the Wahhabi Sect. A founding father of a new axis, your very own Axis of Corruption extending from the Persian Gulf to Africa and beyond.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

A Second American Century, But Trump Can’t Lead the Free World: Und Warum Nicht?…….

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The United States has been leading the “Free World” since the second week of December 1941. Seventy Six years of uninterrupted U.S. domination of the West and of the world. It has managed to do so through various presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama. All based on the strength of the US economy, US military, and the attractive American ideals.

But with this last election of 2016, the Shining City on the Hill looks less shiny to more in the world. Don’t get me wrong: the American ideal and its attraction still exist, its pull beckons both the needy and the persecuted and oppressed from across the world. Its freedom of speech and expression is unequaled, so far. But the new American ruling classes are not in sync with the rest of the Industrial World, with the rest of the Western World.

Some years ago in Paris, in my other carnation, I was at a lunch near Avenue Georges V with some French associates. They were curious what I thought the new 21st century would be like. They had doubts about another American Century. Europe was consolidating, asserting itself; China was grown, opening. I surprised and seemingly displeased them by asserting that this new century will also be an American Century, a Second American Century. I said that I can’t see any challenger in Europe or in Asia to the United States of America. The allure, the values, and openness of America continue.

I still do: I can’t see any challenger to America as the world’s dominant power. Nor as the world’s ideal destination, and as the main source of human innovation. Emma Lazarus endures……

But the new ruling classes that took power in January are small and mean by normal American standards. Possibly the worst in the past hundred years. The louder he praises his appointees, the smaller they look. They are not what the world is used to. They are not what most Americans are used to. And they are not nearly as honest as Americans are used to in their ruling classes.

Trump is no Roosevelt, and no Kennedy: a comparison would be an insult to both those dynasties. He has no vision of a New Deal type restructuring. He has no group of the Best and Brightest advising him. No “we are going to the moon” ideal. And he is no war hero, on the contrary…… Instead he has a gaggle of the meanest, greediest, and most selfish people advising him and running government departments. He appeals to some baser instincts in America (every nation in the world has them).

His first legislative act was to try and deprive millions of Americans of their health care coverage. With the goal of clearing up billions of dollars to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, like himself and his associates. That has failed spectacularly. By executive order he has sought to destroy the beautiful natural treasures of this country, turning the treasures over to developers. Making the United States into another Brazil.

I can go on and on. The Second American Century is here. Unfortunately Mr. Trump and his gaggle of extremist ideologues and small thinkers can’t lead it. They are not qualified, and the rest of the world will not follow. His administration is the only Industrial Country Government that denies Climate Change and Evolution and Healthcare as a human right.

America‘s best chance now is that Donald Trump will do something stupid that gets him impeached and convicted.

As he liked to yell during his noisy campaign rallies: Get Him out of Here!

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Healthcare: Trump Stunned by Complications of a Life and Death Issue……

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President Donald Trump seemed stunned after the defeat of the Republican, his, health care bill in Congress. He complained: “”Nobody knew could be this complicated”

Why? Because it is about life & death, Mr. President. Your Party sided with death when it chose to try to kill quickly after private deliberations in dark rooms.


More on this later, stay tuned.

Cheers
M. Haider Ghuloum

American Economic and Political Dilemma: Robots Replace Workers, Idiots Replace Political Leaders……..

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“U.S. workers face higher risk of being replaced by robots. Millions of workers around the world are at risk of losing their jobs to robots — but Americans should be particularly worried. Thirty-eight percent of jobs in the U.S. are at high risk of being replaced by robots and artificial intelligence over the next 15 years, according to a new report by PwC. Meanwhile, only 30% of jobs in the U.K. are similarly endangered. The same level of risk applies to only 21% of positions in Japan. The U.S. and U.K. labor markets are both dominated by services jobs, and roughly the same share of workers are employed in key sectors including finance, transportation, education, manufacturing and food services……..”

No real surprise here, and not only robots. If you have not been living on a faraway planet in another galaxy, you’d notice something happening, a trend, for several years. It is not only an issue of robots replacing workers.

Some of the most important jobs in the United States, the most important jobs, all the way to the top, have been taken over by idiots and fools, especially in Washington DC. Most of the political jobs and especially the jobs of their leaders in both the U.S. Congress and the White House have now been taken over, almost completely, by utter idiots. Or so it seems.

Thanks to its new generation of leaders and their backers and their owners, America may well be on its way to rejoin the Third World. In Congress, each side has been engaging in self-gratifying political ideological masturbation. Partner-less of course by definition. Class distinctions are already sharpening, ethnic and religious distinctions are being encouraged, and self-serving Think Tanks of Hate are rolling in dark money.

All this is probably a bit of an exaggeration: no country in the world, or in its history, has been or is as resilient as the United States of America. This shall pass. There is always hope, as long as there are free and “unfettered” elections coming. As long as the people remain educated. Politics is a series of experiments, an exercise in trial and error.

More on this later, stay tuned.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

An Illegal Martian in America: the Party of Russia vs the Party of China…….

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A Martian who has just arrived in the United States (either a legal or an illegal alien) would think American politics are divided into two major parties:

  • The Party of Russia. We are told across much of the media to believe that the Republican Party (GOP) is the Party of Putin and Russia (with all the unpleasant accoutrements: Gulag, KGB, other extremely un-American behavior like guzzling Vodka and eating Pirozhky). Suddenly the Democrats, big losers of this election year, have developed a strange zeal for fending off a Russian quasi-Bolshevik takeover of the USA.
  • The Party of China (Chi-Com, PLA, Robber Oligarchs, Generals snapping up US real estate, industrial espionage, job-stealers, unfair Trade Surplus, Cyber Espionage, North Korea, etc). That would be the Democrat Party, and not only by default.

To complicate matters, many people in the Middle East, and in the wider Islamic world have a different view on this. They also have their own notion about US politics. Many, nay actually most people in the region, believe that both major American political parties are the Party of Israel. Or, more precisely, the Party of Likud right-wingers.
Cheers

M Haider Ghuloum