´óÏó´«Ã½

'"Hillary is sharpening her knife," the source told me - and, believe me, that source was somebody in a position to know. '

In case one doesn't.. any more, care to amplify?

'It is one of the privileges of journalism that you get to do this.

One does so gather.

The more you do it, the more you realise... that the two sides live in separate bubbles.

Hmn, yes... 'bubbles'.

just let the tea party run amok...they will defeat themselves, have you heard them? They are hundred carrot whackos, Obama can take it easy, all he has to say that I am cleaning up George's mess, this is all your doing, it was the Republicans who got us to this place and we are trying to fix things....that is he has to say...

sorry, last sentence should have read...that is all he has to say......fool

People are concentrating on the Tea Party dividing the Republican vote but, in doing so, they appear to forget the millions of Americans who feel totally and utterly let-down by Obama.

All those African Americans, such as those in Gary, who went out and voted in record numbers for Obama - many of them voting for the first time in their life. How has Obama helped them? How has he improved their lot in life? What, if anything practical and real, has he done for them?

But it is not just African Americans - it is all Americans.

All those Americans who believed in 'Hope' and 'Change' and who still wanted to believe in, and live in, a America where there are cleanly-painted white picket fences in every street, apple pie left cooling on window-sills and a sense of their place in the World Order. Safe, secure, dominant and prosperous.

Millions of them simply will not vote for Obama again. Millions more will simply not bother voting. Obama needed them to get into the White House. Without them Obama will not get re-elected.

The issue now facing Clinton is whether she actually will want to run in 2012? What chance does she, or any Deomcrat, have of winning the Presidency in that year? Very little I suspect.

2016 would be Clinton's last stab at the White House. Even then age would be against her and none of us know how our health will fare as the years progress. By 2020 Clinton will simply look to be too old - 3 years older than Reagan when he first became President.

No, if Clinton wants to be President then 2012 is her best shot. That will mean civil war in the Democratic Party. It will mean having to destroy Obama, from within, in the second half of his first term. It will also mean having to fundamentally alter what this President does for jobs, for small business, for the voters in places like Gary and elsewhere, not just in the next 2 years but in the next 18 months.

Is Obama going to just stand-by and allow all the above to happen? No, of course not.

Much is talked about of the Tea Party and where it sits on the right of the Republican Party - and whether it should sit there at all. Liberal journalists, on both sides of the Atlantic, write endlessly about the Tea Party ripping the Republican Party apart from within. They hope that the Tea Party will be Obama's saviour.

Nope, the next 2 years will be one of growing internal strife within the US Deomcratic Party. Obama is already a lame duck. It is just a question of when the shooting season opens. Could be as early as Wednesday morning.

Interesting how great empires fall apart isn't it - like great oak trees, they weather countless storms from outside but slowly rot away from within.

Follow the money.

Who are backing the Tea Partyers with huge (discreet) donations and why are they doing it?

I think NN's Katty Kay managed to tracked one of them down on NN last week...and even tried to interview him - unsuccessfully alas.

Many of those who join a party can become unwitting 'useful idiots', be it the Tea party or any other!

"4. At 2:43pm on 01 Nov 2010, tawse57 wrote:
People are concentrating on the Tea Party dividing the Republican vote but, in doing so, they appear to forget the millions of Americans who feel totally and utterly let-down by Obama."

In the USA it doesn't make much difference WHO the President is, it isn't a dictatorship any more than China is. What matters is the nature of the political party in power, and in the USA, even the choice makes little real difference as they always have a Libertarian political system of one colour or another in contrast to China's Democratic Socialism.

Don't be so taken in by the theatrics. They crate the illusion of choice and change to keep their one system politics going just like here. The media thinks it clever to argue over angels on pins. It isn't. Meanwhile the real political issues are ignored or censored as politically incorrect.

#4

In the casino world of the liberal democracies you can, of course, back more than one horse in the race to the White House, even if they are from different stables.

Remember this story from a while back?...

Hillary Clinton’s rich friend Lady de Rothschild ambushes Barack Obama


'Lynn Forester, Lady de Rothschild, one of Britain’s most influential political hostesses, will be contemplating treachery. She poured her heart and money into Hillary Clinton’s campaign and she is thinking of voting for John McCain, the Republican candidate, for president.'

Obama has a one-nation streak in his DNA. The bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility will throw him the life-line and narrative. His opportunity will come to look statesmanlike.

What interests me is what will the Federal Open Markets Committee do with QE 2 and how will Ben Bernanke fit with the new politics of government contraction and tighter regulation of markets.

Its the rest of the world which needs to take a deeper breath..

obama will be remembered for starting health care while bush and blair will be remembered for starting vexatious pointless never ending wars and overseeing financial collapse.

which is better? who has served their people better?

Another good blog post Paul.

I can't help but think that many Americans on the right wanted Obama's stimuli plan to fail. You quoted Keynes in your How could the deficit reduction plan 'work'? post saying that he famously said don't wish for the failure of the anti-crisis measures, even if you consider them imperfect. I wonder if the USA will now reap the benefits of this wish of wanting the anti-crisis measures to fail. They are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Are there any other anti-crisis measures that the GOP and Tea Baggers can use?

Obama's problem was that his election was second only to the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Jesus didn't do too well and neither has Obama not for what he has done but because he has not worked a miracle.

What is wrong with the USA? You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse however hard you try.

From day one Obama pursued the classic US political standard of studied compromise: he did not go out to kick tail. If he had his critics would be moaning about that instead. Obama has the right ideas, it is just the expectations were too high and too short-term. Political change aggregates and comes slowly.

As for the Tea Party; well, let them eat cake. Another here today, gone tomorrow populist movement. To my mind we don't need emotion but careful thought, considered action and the long view.

I think I will go and put the kettle on. I hope Obama gets a second term as there is nowt wrong with him but it is the Americans...oh dear. The people have spoken: the fools!

The ferocity and aggressiveness of the 'new' right has nothing to do with the fact that there is a black man in the Oval Officer? Metaphors for a prejudice that dare not speak its name.

Stan @ 11

I think I will go and put the kettle on. I hope Obama gets a second term as there is nowt wrong with him but it is the Americans...oh dear. The people have spoken: the fools!

I have no doubts that Obama is a great statesman, IMO the best since Churchill. Obama's failure will tell you more about America then it does about him. The Republicans opposed Obama right from the off and the Democrats in Congress just rolled over. The Democrats will deserve everything they get!

THOSE WHO LIVE BY THE BALLYHOO SHALL DIE BY THE BALLYHOO

Those who float overhead on a cloud of vacuous rhetoric, booming "YES WE CAN", look VERY small when they are brought down to say: "Yes we can - but" at ground level.

I think that 'but' goes neatly with 'kick', and it wasn't Dubya what done it, but Front Man Obama, who did it to himself.

America has the same problem with pledgers that we have.

Andrew Neil "Tea party America: This World" ´óÏó´«Ã½2. If anyone wants any further proof of America's demographic decline, and that the USA is the model system of economic anarchism where an elite does very well out of the majority by promoting freedom and equality in the face of overwhelming contrary empirical evidence, just watch the programme. Big Government (regulation) is, they say, evil.....

"Hillary is sharpening her knife,"

... and in so doing is merely proving that she is not fit to govern either...end of.

She comes out with some comments more right wing than the tea party..Hilary is not afraid to invoke the literal 'nuclear option' when discussing Iran for example.

Her condemnation of exposure over injustice in the face of the recent wikileaks episode was rather telling also. Other peoples dirty laundry is fair game for American rhetoric (be it China or 'Islamic terrorism'), but when accused of similar indefensible acts it becomes defensible in the name of 'safety' or 'public interest' no less.

The scary thing is by being that way she may be sucessful in doing a Macbeth to her king and take the nation with her using some of the attitude described above to tap into the dis-affected.

We shall see.

Interesting article, but aren't all ´óÏó´«Ã½ employees stuck in a political bubble? Does it matter who wins? America was a hegemony, now it "leads" through coercion. Americans have forgotten how you be the best. Hard work and education are lacking in too many of their spoiled young. The Obama vote was a vote for someone to come in and "make it all better". People who vote in a man with hardly any experience for that task aren't going to lead the world.

How many US companies employ outsiders for core technical jobs because the US doesn't produce enough quality at home? I know they've done this for years (like the UK), but if other countries become more attractive this could see a real knowledge gap open up, as these people are mobile and willing to relocate.

Finally, the alternative to Obama for the republicans is nepotism. It's sad to see that in a country of 260M, of the 130M women the most capable of leading amongst them is the wife of a former president. Following in the wake of the son of a former president, it makes America look like it has real problems with it's democracy.

I'd love for America to fill it's boots, and we will miss it when the sun sets on an uncertain world, but right now it's just a mess. Personally, I hope they get back on track, but I doubt they will.

Thanks for the moon landings Uncle Sam :-)

#17

For the USA to get back on track they would have to do something they are, historically, very reluctant to do to their own detriment and we do too much of (since the loss of empire anyway)to our own detriment.....self criticism.

I suggest, instead of 'celebrity wife swop' we should do a 'celebrity government swop'. We get our lot to run the USA for a year and they can run the UK (or maybe Europe) for a year, followed by a heart to heart over the table lessons learnt session aftyer the first year.

Think of the ratings!

#15

In the Andrew Neil film it was stated that ‘a well established conservative lobbying group’ [Freedomworks] is behind the Tea Party, in fact, Andrew Neil went on to say ‘think of it as the Tea Party’s brain’.

FREEDOMWORKS


On its board of directors are Dick Armey [Chairman], Steve Forbes and C. Boyden Gray

Dick Armey is a real Republican stalwart. On the economy, his Wikipedia page states...

‘As a free-market economist influenced by the ideas of Milton Friedman, Armey favored relatively open immigration and the elimination of barriers to the movement of goods and people across national boundaries.’



and regarding Israel it states...

‘On May 1, 2002, on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews", Armey, then the House Republican Majority Leader, called for Palestinians to be expelled from the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Armey repeatedly said that he would be "content" with Israel completely taking over all of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and transfer the native Palestinian population out. He further stated that the Palestinians could then build their state in the "many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land".




You don't have to look too hard for the libertarian (Wall Street sponsored) agenda!

I am intrigued by this post. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ has continually followed Obama like he is a messiah and seem uncomfortable with the fact that he has not proven to be one. I am afraid that politics and religion do not fit well...

The efforts to smear the Tea Party which continue in this blog do not do the ´óÏó´«Ã½ any credit. After all it is not even standing in the election as was pointed out on Newsnight to Emily Matlis this evening, the Republican party is.

The Tea Party is shaping US politics.

But lets be clear, they are the political expression of the 'suffering' middle class who's 'American Dream' has become a nightmare.

They scapegoat 'big government' & anyone who's not white or a christian.

They don't understand that their economic decline is part of the general decline of capitalism.
They don't understand how the rate of profit is constantly under pressure & that finance is an inherent part of capitalism to defend the rate of profit.

But what they can see clearly is they have no democracy - the people do not run the US, big business does.

Unfortunately, they think there was a golden era when this was not so.
Well, it's probably worse than it ever was, but those who control the means of production have always had the biggest say in government.
Remember those who govern are just the political expression of the underlying economic relations.

There can be no democracy without the people being in charge of the means of production.

"I'd love for America to fill it's boots, and we will miss it when the sun sets on an uncertain world, but right now it's just a mess.
Personally, I hope they get back on track, but I doubt they will"

"Because it is certain that not our princes, but the bankers and Philistines are nowadays our masters"

Truly, there's a Faustian lesson to be learned here, but sadly, history says it never has been. Why?

The Tea-Party, after Bush and the Neocons, is just another re-branding exercise, with Sarah Palin as

Only in the USA?

'20. At 11:23pm on 01 Nov 2010, Amysmythe wrote:

After all it is not even standing in the election..'

A problem for a medium if one accepts the role of a de-facto opposition when seduced by the notion that those that should merely be reported upon are not doing a good enough job and need back-up, especially when justified by odd notions of impartiality.

This one* got closed:

/blogs/theeditors/2010/09/impartiality_is_in_our_genes.html

This may still inform:

/blogs/aboutthebbc/2010/10/new-bbc-editorial-guidelines-l.shtml

*I do note the latest editor to venture beyond broadcast only to tell folk that they are not up to understanding what is being given to them is already floundering. Expect plugs to be pulled soon.

Obama is not the radical he is dressed up to be - he's a consensus liberal who is trapped by his own desire to compromise - and there is no room for compromise in the economic meltdown that is going on in the USA - so his stance condemns Obama to being unable to deliver the "change we can all believe in."

Let's assume the Republicans aka Tea Party do recapture the House and end the Demoocrats' ability to pass bills and effect change.

Let's also assume Obama ends up a lame duck president, unable to make the fundamental changes in the US economy required to produce change on the ground for americans.

Let's also assume the Tea Party continues to infiltrate the Republicans and that there is a really radical libertarian presidential candidate - and he or she wins the White House.

If there is then a serious attempt to dismantle most of Federal Government and "roll back" the State, then we are into the realms of fantasy fiction where americans have finally got the anarchy that so many of them seem to want - and will then have to live with it.

Reality will then dawn - the experiment will have come to pass and people will find out what it is like to be on their own.

Meanwhile corporate america will have filled the vaccuum left by the government and those with economic power and therefore muscle will have moved to protect their interests.

Liberal America will find itself trapped between the libertarians who will fight to the last to defend their particular brand of lunacy, and the naked power of those with money.

Democracy will no longer be seen as legitimate - force will rule - and I forsee a decade of insurgency and civil war following, as those who have power fight to cling on to it, and the disenfranchised try to re-establish liberal democracy in a country whose economy will have imploded.

The dividing line between organised crime and corporate America will blur and Gary-type cities will be the norm.

This forecast has been brought to you by the Fox News Network - "committed to global fruitcake politics and social irresponsibility in the name of the owner's prejudices and dogma - Murdoch Mayhem and Murder Incorporated."

How long until Sky News goes the same way?

5-4-3-2-1 - cue Richard Littlejohn....

#20

'Useful idiot'...go look it up!


The Tea Partyers are being duped by some very clever people in New York/Wall Street.

However, never forget the Abraham Lincoln quotation...

"You can fool all the people some of the time..."



Or perhaps we should recall what George W. Bush once said...

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — [pauses] — shame on you. Fool me — [pauses] — You can't get fooled again."

From his speech in Nashville, Tennessee, (September 17, 2002), in which the president confused a centuries-old proverb ["Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me."]

21. At 07:00am on 02 Nov 2010, duvinrouge wrote:

"They scapegoat 'big government' & anyone who's not white or a christian.

They don't understand that their economic decline is part of the general decline of capitalism."

It isn't capitalism per se. Marx was wrong about this. It is 'simply' a function of . It is not about race either, that too is just a marker for what maters. Gene pool. The political and economic system anywhere is a response to this.

"They don't understand how the rate of profit is constantly under pressure & that finance is an inherent part of capitalism to defend the rate of profit."

That may be true, but it isn't what needs to be addressed as it's just window dressing.

"But what they can see clearly is they have no democracy - the people do not run the US, big business does."

True, but other people have no power to change this in the USA. Their system is designed to prevent this,

"Unfortunately, they think there was a golden era when this was not so."

There was. But that was when the USA attracted hard working migrants and when it was difficult to get on. People did not migrate with enormous families and the migrants were largely European. What has happened since is that travel has become cheap, immigration control lax (Mexico etc) and most of all, the slow process of differential fertility has lowered mean ability and conscientiousness in the USA.

"Well, it's probably worse than it ever was, but those who control the means of production have always had the biggest say in government.
Remember those who govern are just the political expression of the underlying economic relations.

There can be no democracy without the people being in charge of the means of production."

People do control it, a cognitive elite controls it. Why do you think there was a Cold War which threatened to go Hot against Democratic Socialism? Look at where most of the Federal Budget goes, it's on defence, that's defence against Democratic Socialism...

Dubya also said "you can fool some of the people all of the time, and it's those folks you want to concentrate on".



I don't like the man but I did find that funny. What I don't find funny is that the percentage of people who fall into the "some" bucket in both the US and the UK is a significant minority borne mostly of lazy thinking.

The same lazy thinking that sees liberal organizations such as the ´óÏó´«Ã½ tout a man running for president with no experience as the best thing since sliced bread.

it is a crucial time for America and I fear for their future as they could turn right...bigtime, not tea party right but fascist right and isolationist. It wouldn't take much. Manufacturing in the states is history, they do not make things anymore and they have exported all the jobs and the means of production to China or the third world. The total collapse of the housing market started in America and now the demise of manufacturing has completed the tragedy.....Obama cannot turn things around in TWO years....Jesus couldn't either!

tabblenabble - that link you provide under the words "changing demographics". Forgive me if I've misconstrued, but are you saying the increase in the percentage of non-europeans is making the US on average more lazy, which is in turn reducing academic achievement?

I can't speak for the US but in the UK most immigrant kids achieve excellent grades, in part because their parents appreciate how important education is.

I think the biggest problem for both the US and the UK is the natives. Several generations of success, one generation of coasting, followed by one generation of fake success built on a ponzi scheme, has created an expectation of wealth disconnected form the hard work required to achieve such an ascendency.

Finally, the Cold War was "defence against Democratic Socialism". How was a one party state democratic? Maybe that's socialist speak for a non-literal translation of the underlying words?

Again do forgive me if I've misconstrued your comments. If I haven't then please read "Guns, germs and steel" :-)

Stevie - sure not blaming Obama. Like Blair he was a blank canvas that anyone could project desires on to, however far-fetched.

On the US, surely the it still has a lot going for it at the hi-tech end. Intel etc. The plants might be offshore but the people who know how to manufacture it won't be wanting to live under a regime, I'd imagine. Technology will be at the forefront of manufacturing productivity for a long time to come, as robotics replace more and more tranches of semi-skilled jobs.

30. At 7:29pm on 02 Nov 2010, Ben wrote:

"I can't speak for the US but in the UK most immigrant kids achieve excellent grades, in part because their parents appreciate how important education is."

That's not true at all. Go and look at the SATs and GCSE data for the last 10 years as .

"Finally, the Cold War was "defence against Democratic Socialism". How was a one party state democratic? Maybe that's socialist speak for a non-literal translation of the underlying words?"

You don't understand what democracy is. The Soviet Union and China implemented Democratic Centralism. Look into how it works. Look up Fabian Socialism too. Then look into the choices you have between New Labour, Liberal-Democrats and Conservatives. Are they not the same political system with different coloured wrappers? In a socialist system everyone works for each other. The people elect their politicians and the dictatorship is one of the people. Read the PRC constitution and think.

Look up Diamond's genetic ethnicity. This is all group political, it isn't religious etc. He's an 'environmentalist' but there's no evidence for his ideology, he just writes plausible narrative. Nations and their economies are a function of their populations. That has nothing to do with skin colour etc, it's all about gene pools and behaviour..

You've misread a lot. Reading is an intensional verb of propositional attitude. You, and millions of others have been misled and you've been actively misled for generations, it's called propaganda. Read .

Well, our interpretation of both of these things is radically different.

The link to DoE is for loads of papers! At list give a specific link to back up your data. Or should I just work through the internet until I get to someone who agrees with you?

ps totally disagree about USSR and democracy. I see your point on the lack of different between uk parties but the point is if a party becomes popular that is different they won't all be murdered and/or imprisoned.