The world order is being rewritten by the President of USA and his billionaire mates. As we shake our heads and wonder when this madness will dry up let us pause and reflect on Franklin D Roosevelt’s re-election speech in 1936 when he said:
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace – business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism … They had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that government by organised money is just as dangerous as government by organised mob.”
This was in 1936 and now we’re back with “government by organised money is just as dangerous as government by organised mob.”
It seems that thoughtful observation by Roosevelt has been forgotten. Now we have Elon Musks making offensive gestures speaking at the inaugural parade
In a country which supposedly prides itself on “freedom of speech” and an “open society” when an award-winning cartoonist produced the cartoon below it was rejected by the Washington Post, owned by Geoff Bezos, she then resigned. So much for freedom of opinion.
The alarming issue is that political parties ignore the disaster that USA has become at their peril. In a fascinating article https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/youngstown-ohio-why-voters-are-supporting-trump-in-a-bellwether-city/ it reported:
Conversation at the Struthers cigarette shop reflected many of these complex, contradictory feelings. The retired blue-collar workers offered hints of the misogyny O’Hara mentioned – they said they didn’t like Harris’s “Hollywood girlboss” energy – and clearly responded to the Trump campaign’s aggressive but unsubstantiated charge that the Democrats were more interested in subsidising gender reassignment surgery than in helping working people.
None, though, were Trump ideologues. They spoke with contempt of two Maga true believers who came into the cigarette shop and started swinging fists at anyone who disagreed with them. Their worries were about the cost of living and taking care of friends they’ve loved for decades and what it means to be working class in an era that has either outsourced or mechanised the work they used to do.
“They are waiting for us older white guys to just die and get out of the way,” Paul the retired aluminium worker said. He did not say it forlornly, though. He and his friends are tough people, and nobody in Youngstown is going down without a fight.
Voters around the world are feeling left behind and misunderstood
Whilst political parties rule “this is what we feel” on various topics they ignore what these Ohio voters are basically saying. They want a job, a house to live in, access to affordable health services, free education for their kids and a drink at the end of the week. Any political party that starts promoting policy which covers these things will be voted in with a massive majority.
Perhaps we should stop selecting university graduate and political patsies and select candidates who better reflect the mix of our society.
The Labour Party needs to genuinely reflect on how it got its name and campaign on policies that benefit the ‘labourers’ of this economy, not the business elite.