Black Lives Matter, but Black Politics may matter more

The founding principles of the US were based on Classical Liberalism: The idea that all individuals should be allowed equal status under the law, with equal rights, rather than rights based upon membership of a caste, which is what used to happen. From this came the impetus to abolish slavery and give everyone the vote, etc. It was a long fight, but it was in line with the founding philosophies of the nation.

Liberalism had the same fight in Europe, where it was a much more alien concept.

Classical Liberalism wanted to abolish the feudal boundaries of antiquity and treat every citizen as an individual with inalienable rights. For this reason, George Washington was against the creation of political parties, as he felt it would divide people again into tribes (he was concerned that it would weaken American politics and leave it open to manipulation from outside powers like Britain or the Pope). He didn't get his wish, and now parties are common in democratic polities all around the world.

A lot has happened since then, and I think it's safe to say that the US is no longer a Liberal State (not to be confused with the label of 'liberal' for anyone who is left-wing). Sectarianism has been rising for decades. Everyone is urged to be part of a group, community or identity. Everything is about attacking the 'other side'. Politics becomes more polarized, with a 'You're either with us or against us' vibe. Neutral ground is disappearing, and even to be neutral is seen as an offence (hence a new slogan, 'Silence is Violence', which effectively is the same as the with-us-or-against-us stance). Conversation between the different sides becomes harder, and straight-out conflict easier. Multiculturalism becomes Balkanization, and all talk is fighting talk.

Liberalism is dead. Sectarianism has won. Into this melting pot we have the plight of the black American. If Liberalism is dead, then so is the assimilation that the civil rights movement fought for. Blacks are urged everywhere now to consider themselves Black first, American second. But there's a problem with that. Blacks remain a minority. They can't secede to run their own affairs. There are no Reservations for them to plant their flags in, no Israel to create and emigrate to. If nobody is interested in everybody just getting along, then there is nowhere for them to turn. The current movements that purport to act in their interest (populated mostly by whites) will fail them. The Black Lives Matter movement remains obsessed with the idea of a neo-Marxist solution, but Marxism is as dead as Liberalism. The White Guilt movement offers only platitudes and hand-wringing. This is a therapeutic solution, not a political one, and is only designed to make a person feel better about themselves. The Democrats offer vague messages of support and empathy to blacks (when they say 'Persons of Color', they're only thinking of one color really) in order to win their votes, but black people continue to suffer the most in Democrat strongholds and cities. They receive very little in return for their vote with regards to security or wealth. Transplanted from Africa all those years ago, they remain a Lost People (like the Jews of Europe, who lived among Europeans but always felt separate). The hope of becoming fully integrated and accepted, voiced in the 50s and 60s, now crumbles before the face of the new Sectarianism, which pursues agendas that aren't always in their favor, either culturally or personally.

So what do we make of this mess? Does America just wait for things to calm down again, returning to the original mission of the civil rights movement? It doesn't look like things are moving in that direction. Past hopes and dreams are as dead as the past itself. These are not pleasant thoughts (to put it mildly), and there's no way to sweeten the pill, but Robert Johnson's solution below may be the only way forward: a party or caucus that focuses on the desires of its constituents and uses smart power to leverage concessions from mayors, governors and the major parties. Ending the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness (and of being used) among black people and giving them a voice that they own (and Obama didn't count) may balance out the conflicting desires in this sectarian battlescape. It will be resisted, of course, because, and let us be frank about this, it marks the end of the American Dream, and it will have to be admitted that the American Dream already died. That's going to be painful at a national level, and probably will never happen without a significant collapse. But it remains better than the current anti-racism education push. Changing the world through education (enlightenment) is a classic Liberal priority, but it's been about as successful as the Catholic Church's drive to stop young men masturbating and sinning. Against realpolitik, wishful thinking never stood a chance. Hard choices may be all that is left.

BET founder Robert Johnson suggests black Americans should form their own party

Ideology 101

Nationalism: Everything is the fault of Foreigners.

Feminism: Everything is the fault of Men.

Anarchism: Everything is the fault of the Government.

Socialism: Everything is the fault of the Rich.

Capitalism: Everything is the fault of the Lazy.

Liberalism: Everything is the fault of the Heartless.

Conservatism: Everything is the fault of the New.

Environmentalism: Everything is the fault of the People.


Because... like all good fiction, Ideology needs a Villain.

The One Percent

The Rich getting richer and the Poor getting poorer, and it's about time the rich were made to pay - that's the usual refrain. But here's a fact for you: much is made of the 1% who own most of the wealth, and most of you reading this will imagine that you are one of the 99% who are being cheated. The truth, however, is that if you take the 1% stat and apply it GLOBALLY, (as it was meant to be), then anybody earning over £25,000 a year becomes one of the global elite. That's nurses, bus drivers, factory workers, etc. The fact is, compared to most of the world, most of us in Britain (and the rest of the West) are rich. See those migrants dying as they try to cross the mediterranean? That's how desperate they are to live the life you live. Now imagine that most of the world's poor had the political power to have your money redistributed to them, taken straight from your salary. Imagine that they were no longer happy with your charity offerings and public gestures. Imagine if they had the power to force you to hand over your house, your caravan, your clothes from Next and H&N, your Ford Mondeo and your football season ticket. How would it feel? Well, that's what this poster is promoting, if you think about it. It's great fun to bash the greed of the rich - but wait till it's your turn.

Anti-austerity

The Anti-Austerity movements are little more than nostalgic attempts to hang on to a past that has begun to wane.

The Truth About Immigration

It's election season in the UK, and the issue of immigration has crept reluctantly into the debates. It's not an issue that politicians like to discuss much, and there's a reason why. Here are some truths about immigration that many involved in the debate would rather you didn't know or think about. They are simple truths.

Small scale immigration is easy for a society to assimilate, and causes no problems. Large scale immigration causes problems for every society that experiences it.

When people complain about immigration, they are not complaining about immigration per se, but about large scale immigration.

The contemporary obsession with racism means that immigration is often treated as a moral issue, rather than an economic one. This is how it is taught in schools today: It's cool to be okay with immigration, and racist not to be okay with it, because the Nazis were racist and they're evil, and it's not cool to be evil.

Immigration before World War II was statistically insignificant. It rose significantly in the 50s and 60s. Immigration in the late 90s and after 2000 is two to three times higher than it was in the 50s and 60s. Immigration in the past twenty years is higher than at any time in UK history.

Population growth in the UK recently is entirely due to immigration. Without large scale immigration, the UK population would have shrunk.

In the southeast of England, schools are overcrowded, and councils have introduced arbitrary rules to cope with parental demand. In the rest of England, rural councils are closing small schools because there are not enough children to fill the necessary places.

The majority of recent immigrants live in the southeast of England.

Overcrowding in the southeast of England puts pressure on housing, raising the prices. It puts pressure on the NHS, increasing waiting times. It puts pressure on any infrastructure that has not been improved in time to cope with it.

The southeast of England is the economic powerhouse of the country. Whatever happens there affects the rest of the country. This is why house prices remain high, even after the 2007 credit crunch.

Indigenous UK born white people are not having enough babies to sustain their numbers. UK born black and Asian people whose parents arrived in the 60's are not having as many babies as their parents did.

The elderly population is growing, with more old people in the UK than ever before.

The majority of immigrants are young. The ones that stay will grow old some day.

Large scale immigration into cities creates enclaves of foreign born nationals who do not assimilate into UK society. They bring their home cultures with them instead.

Multicultural societies are not harmonious. The boundaries between the sub-cultures are a constant source of tension. When times are hard, these tensions easily become violent.

Austria used to be a multicultural empire. When it collapsed after World War I, it disintegrated into numerous nationalist and fascist states.

Yugoslavia used to be a multicultural country. When it collapsed, it disintegrated into numerous nationalist and fascist states.

Liberal society encourages immigration. Immigrant enclaves are socially conservative, and often suspicious of, if not hostile to, liberal norms.

Large scale immigration changes the nature of societies.

Most immigrants arrive as poorly paid manual workers and live in the poorest areas. They increase the number of poor people in a city, and compete with them for jobs, housing, school places and health care.

Liberal values are middle class values. Most immigrants do not live in middle class areas, nor take middle class jobs in sufficient numbers to drive down wages. This is why the middle classes are not threatened by the thought of immigration.

Most inner city teachers do not live in the same areas as their inner city pupils.

A nation's prosperity is entirely dependent on its population. A large, dense population is necessary for a thriving economy, even in the internet age.

An industrialised nation needs enough young people coming into the system to remain productive.

Elderly people in a society are a cost that is paid for by the work of the young.

The costs to the NHS of an aging society are huge. The costs to the country, with regard to pensions is huge. These costs are larger than at any time in UK history.

The indigenous population in the UK is growing older and is not having enough babies.

Among the middle classes, babies are seen as a lifestyle choice. Nobody sees them as vital to the nation's integrity. Nobody thinks like that anymore.

Mass immigration is a Capitalist phenomenon. Capitalism is about the liberal breaking down of boundaries. Money can now travel freely around the world, investing in whatever country it likes. Jobs can now travel freely around the world, with companies moving their offices and factories to where the wage level is cheaper. Now, with immigration, cheap workers can cross boundaries too.

Corporations love mass immigration, for the same reasons that they love other aspects of capitalism. Cheaper workers and lowered wages mean less cost and more profit. For managers of companies, it's simply a matter of economics.

The NHS needs immigrant nurses and doctors to cope with the aging, sicker society it serves.

Without a big influx of immigrant dentists in the last decade, NHS dentistry would have collapsed.

The UK has been in decline since the end of World War I. The two world wars bankrupted the country and destroyed its empire. The post-war influx of immigrants helped stave off a chronic shortage of workers for a while, but it could not prevent the economy from going into free fall during the seventies. Prosperity arrived in the eighties only because of the massive inflow of East Asian credit into the Western economies. It was a temporary solution.

In the nineties, the UK economy was still weak. Its industry was gone, its population continued to age, and its costs continued to rise. As did its debt, because it could only borrow its way out of trouble. This was unsustainable.

From the late nineties onwards, UK governments have quietly opened the door to mass immigration like never before, as a way of saving the economy.

Every nation in Europe suffers from an aging population. Only Germany has a strong industrial base. The rest are struggling to balance their books. Some seem stuck in permanent recession. Greece is bankrupt.

The only reason the UK seems to be doing so well economically compared to the rest of Europe is not because of the strength of its Pound, or its brilliant approach to business and innovation. These are fictions. The only reason it is doing so well is because of the number of young immigrants keeping our economy afloat and churning.

Immigrants travel the length of Europe to get to the UK. They pass through perfectly civilised nations to get to us. Clearly there is something about the UK they like.

It is illegal, under EU law, to discriminate against immigrants. Many EU countries, however, manage to circumvent these laws, placing administrative barriers to immigrants entering their health care systems, housing or welfare schemes. The UK is attractive to immigrants because these barriers are reduced or non-existent.

The UK is an island. Its borders are easily sealed, if the government really wanted that. Instead, our government quietly encourages that border's infiltration. They publicly posture against the issue of asylum seekers (a tiny number compared to other immigrants) to appease public unease, and pretend to be concerned about the UK working class's concerns.

But the truth is, if mass immigration were to be stopped now, then in less than a generation we would become like Greece. In other words, we would be in serious economic trouble.

Immigration is eroding and splintering UK society. It is also the only thing holding it up.

Behind the scenes, the UK economy has been in decline for a long time, and mass immigration is just one of the sticking plasters being used to hold it together.

Like all sticking plasters, it's a temporary solution that won't last.

Humanism

Humanism is just Christianity without the paganism.

"Yes we can!"

Link: Syriza Dumps Marx For Blair


The Blairite revolution is an increasingly common phenomenon in politics today. It involves secretly dumping the old affiliations of left and right whilst pretending to be an inclusive movement 'for the people'. Ideology is dead, and what is important now is to be seen to be young, fresh and populist. Politics is replaced by PR. Liberal pieties and collectivist slogans are waved as crowd pleasing flags, while behind the stage curtain, neo-liberalism is pursued with ever greater vengeance in order to desperately grab as much money as possible from the shrinking western economies. Obama represents the same trend in the US: a handsome, charismatic speaker who appeals to young student activists still in thrall to radical left-wing 60's ideals who then, once elected, does the opposite of what the idealists wanted. Syriza is another such party - a party that is actually just a small clique of PR men with no real political conviction. They have just returned from negotiations with the EU bankers with little to show for their apparent effort. They were filmed looking defiant and rebellious prior to this, yet they were also commited to staying in the Euro, and commited to the same European integration dream. As a result, their bargaining position was weak. They could have threatened to turn towards Russia and China for the money they needed, but instead they accepted US demands to maintain sanctions against Russia, and they begged the EU for more money. Everyone thought they would herald a revolution in European politics, changing the western capitalist landscape for ever, but the truth is they never wanted to leave that landscape at all. All they wanted was a bit more spare change. In Spain, the new political party of Podemos (We Can), which is also seen as fresh and revolutionary, will likely turn out to be the same - pretty boys with winning smiles, consultant-designed slogans and faded Karl Marx T-shirts underneath their smooth new suits. Politics is dead, and ideology is just a cloak to hide the fact that we have had no new ideas since the 19th Century. PRolitics is now the name of the game, funded by the same wealthy backers that these people pretend to despise.