The Worldwide Anti-Corporatist Backlash Has Begun
By Thom Hartmann A...
The great international backlash against corporatism has officially begun.
On Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn, a Member of Parliament for a small North London district called Islington North, officially won election as leader of the UK Labour Party, Tony Blair's old party, taking almost 60 percent of the vote in a four way race.
A 200 to 1 longshot when he announced his candidacy just a few months ago, Corbyn shot to the top of the polls, and eventually the top of Britain’s main opposition party, by embracing real progressive economics and attacking the failed politics of austerity.
His victory speech, in which he took aim at the “the grotesque levels of inequality” in British society, was a perfect microcosm of what made his campaign so popular with voters.
Corbyn has an uphill battle ahead of him if he wants to become Prime Minister, but progressives here in America should still pay close attention to the direction he takes the Labour Party.
That’s because for all intents and purposes, “Jez,” as his supporters call him, is the British version of Bernie Sanders.
Like Bernie, he’s a veteran politician who’s stuck to his core progressive values no matter what.
Like Bernie, he’s a democratic socialist who wants to put right-wing austerity out to pasture for good.
And just like Bernie, he’s been the target of a media ignore-and-then-smear campaign that’s tried to make him out to be an unelectable “crazy radical.”
In a recent piece for the Guardian, for example, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair - a member of the same Labour Party as Corbyn - said that if Corbyn were elected, Labour would face “defeat” and “annihilation.”
That’s right, annihilation!
I don’t know why anyone would listen to the guy who helped lie Britain into Iraq, but anyways, on Saturday, Labour voters saw through all the media hysteria and picked Corbyn as their leader.
And they did that because we’re currently in the middle of a great trans-Atlantic backlash against corporatism.
To understand what this backlash is and why it’s happening, you first need to understand something about the past 30 plus years of Anglo-American politics.
Ever since Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan rose to power in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the British and American political systems have been dominated by an extreme right-wing ideology.
This ideology says that in order to make an economy work, we should put the interests of the rich before the interests of working people, that we need to give the banksters control over our economy, and that we need to cut welfare programs that help the poor and working poor make ends meet.
In America we call this ideology “Reaganism” and in Britain they call it “Thatcherism,” but those are just two different words for the same thing.
Now, what normally happens when an extremist ideology takes over a political system is that people on the opposite side of the political spectrum - that would be Democrats in the US and Labour in the UK - those folks criticize the new ideology and fight it.
But that didn’t happen with Reaganism and Thatcherism.
Instead, the people on the opposite side of the spectrum - the Labour Party in the UK and the Democratic Party in the US - largely adopted the extremist ideology and made it their own.
They took the core right-wing beliefs of Thatcherism and Reaganism, swapped out social conservatism for moderate social liberalism, and sold the whole package to the British and American people as a new kind of “centrist” politics.
In Britain, the result was Tony Blair’s “New” Labour; in America it was Bill Clinton’s “New” Democrats.
These “new” political parties told people that they were a “Third Way” between the left and the right, and for a few decades, the people bought it, electing both Clinton and Blair repeatedly.
But now, with the benefit of hindsight, voters are realizing that Blair and Clinton were really just pushing the same old right-wing corporatism under the cover of “moderation.”
It was Bill Clinton, after all, who “ended welfare as we know it” and set the stage for the financial crisis by signing into law the end of Glass-Steigel so banks could get bigger and bigger.
Tony Blair did pretty much the same thing in the United Kingdom.
Until recently, it looked like the centrists - who were really just corporatists - would maintain their stranglehold over the Democratic and Labour parties.
Third Way Democrat Hillary Clinton looked set to coast her way to the Democratic nomination and Labour, which has now lost two straight general elections, looked poised to tap yet another Tony Blair clone as its leader.
But now, to paraphrase the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats, all is changed, changed utterly.
The rise of Bernie Sanders and the election of Jeremy Corbyn shows that Americans and Brits are getting sick and tired of corporatists running the show.
They want real progressivism and real change, not Reaganism-lite.
Stay tuned - the best is yet to come.
Comments
#2
Reaganomania is an obvious failure, and he was merely a spokesman for Chicago Boys economics. As obvious as the failure is, the GOP is still pushing the formula. It's surreal what is happening in our red states as they follow the Friedman curricula. People don't know what is happening to them as governors and legislatures lead them over a cliff.
Since the days of Occupy Wall Street and before, I've been looking for a populist uprising like in the late 19th century. Maybe it's finally starting to gel.
#3
Progresssives, Liberals, and Democratic Socialists have ben shut out. Either voting for 3rd party candidates with little chance of gaining power or voting for a mainstream candidate in order to keep a hardline right winger out of office. In the US why vote for a someone who's only part Reaganite when you can vote for the real thing. With Bernie us commoners will have real representation instead of pragmatism and populist rhetoric meant to keep us in line.
#4
"British voters saw through all of the media hype" Let's hope voters here in the United States see through the same media bull regarding Donny Trumpet. Wasn't he on some goofy TV show called You're Fired....or something? I don't really know much about it, I don't watch TV, but I do know that part of his media hype probably comes from that connection with the TV watching public, same distorted, heads up their butts, view of reality as the FOXmerized viewers.
#5
If passed, President Obama's dishonestly promoted TPP, TTIP, and TiSA rigged "trade agreements" will make the US Supreme Court irrelevant (virtually powerless for most practical purposes), because any ruling it makes (or any lower-level judge makes) will be easily nullified by TPP/TTIP/TiSA-authorized billion-dollar corporate lawsuits adjudicated in corporately run international arbitration tribunals which will bypass and overrule our nation's entire executive, legislative, and judicial systems. Those so-called "trade agreements" will COMPLETE the corporate takeover of the United States Government, and corporate CEOs will no longer need to "bribe" US judges, legislators, or executive branch officials in order to nullify any law, regulation, or judicial decision made in the US which detracts from the "future expected profits" of any multinational corporation or investor.
And, by the way, US taxpayers will be "on the hook" for paying the billions of US Dollars in judgments rendered by those international corporate tribunals. The TPP/TTIP/TiSA will expose ALL states and municipalities to potentially being BANKRUPTED by TPP/TTIP/TiSA-authorized lawsuits in those international tribunals! This will adversely affect EVERYONE in the Untied States, even the wealthiest 1% of US income earners.
#6
There is NO political solution. The long term cycle of events that have altered society in the past is returning. If you want to understand the most influential cause for the climate, you will need to find the web site for Prof. James McCanney. He coined the term Electric Universe.
That...is why the globalist interests are deliberately destroying the environment, ( another seminar on advanced technologies you apparently seem unaware of ). as well as the global economy by means of fractional reserve fiat paper that can never be repaid. As of 1972 in Canada.
Under the law of the admiralty, the pope, in reality, is in charge of the money system. The law of the admiralty is going to be forced into a CHANGEOVER. People will mistake this to be a good thing, desparate for ANY solution to get food and basic needs.
This will be done to prepare for the cashless society, using QUANTUM parse syntax grammar mathematics code interface. This math code destroys all contracts, trusts, and treaties used for some 8,500 years in 5,000 languages. If you know law you understand articling. The pope will eventually announce his interaction with Alien life, prhaps at the UN and congress. In any case, this will be the reason used for the new quantum language, as already stated by the only man on earth that can write in quantum, which will then be combined with quantum computing.
The pope in asking for all manner of solutions, will back the green agenda as a part of the solution. The green agenda as in AGENDA 2030, Previously called Agenda 21 in the Report from Iron Mountain and other documents. You may know of these documents. If not I can direct you to these.
The new quantum language will be used in unison with the quantum cray five supercomputer array located underground at Falcon Colorado. These systems are connected to all data bases on the planet, and all communications systems and satellites, including foreign owned. You may have met with someone in your past who has had access to some of these facts, within their security clearance classification.
The interface to buy or sell upon eventual changeover, will be the RFID technology, as explained by several credable sources. This will be the cashless society, once enough people scream for ANY solution. Naturally this will require the biometric authentication for commerce. Given the alternative, populations will accept this in relative calm.
People will be paid from $500 to $1,00 per hour for writing without the use of adverb verb, depending on skill level. All populations will eventually not be given a choice if they want to buy or sell. Should you believe otherwise, you will have some studying to do in this area using a superior source I have available to provide. He also has proof, along with an IQ over 200 and a near photographic memory.
In any case, this is to introduce you to the worlds first credit based LBMA certified, vaulted gold backed currency. The framework already exists in 119 countries. Vendors seeking an online stable business model for commerce will not find it in one of the 11 type fiat Bitcoin solutions, as these are subject to a change in algorithm. Obviously those doing seminars for this are unaware of what I just told you.
Applications for acceptance of this new currency have begun. Suitable denominations for both small budget savings including an option for authmatic purchases and online commerce, has a serial number sealed inside. For triple security there is a non prime number unbreakable encryption being implemented.
The following are mutually exclusive. For web site owners as a method of payment to remain in business, or those simply wanting to save in a secure manner, and for business developers ( especially good in SEO ), will want to discover how they can use this as a means to get paid in gold, every Friday. Credit cards will also be used.
For more information on this now emerging parallel economy, simply send an email to techresult@hotmail.com
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Very well said and totally true. Neoliberalism needs to join neoconservatism in the dustbin of history. And I would add Corbyn is a big advocate for monetary reform, something Bernie has avoided getting into (that could be suicide for Bernie, as the Banksters would resort to any means necessary to terminate his campaign).
Best documentary on the failed British neoliberal economic policy:
97% owned - Economic Truth Documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcGh1Dex4Yo
Watch the Money As Debt Youtube videos by monetary theorist PAUL GRIGNON:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DhgpoHKtzk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3CmSBY3J8o
http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/intro_to_public_banking
http://positivemoney.org/our-proposals/sovereign-money-creation/