Author: R J Adams

Springtime has come early to Britain. No, the birds haven’t started nest-building; the bees aren’t busy collecting nectar for their honey, and tulips aren’t yet in bloom, but for Prime Minister Theresa it’s truly May in January.

Note this BBC website report from earlier this month – the 6th to be precise:

Theresa May is to visit US President-elect Donald Trump in the spring, Downing Street has said.
In December the PM’s joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, travelled to the US to build links with the incoming president’s team.
A source said Mrs May “looks forward to visiting the new president in the spring”.
The meeting is expected to take place at the White House and could be as early as next month, it is understood.
The December trip by Mrs May’s closest aides was part of efforts to build a relationship with Mr Trump ahead of his inauguration on 20 January.
The president-elect first invited the prime minister to visit in a phone call shortly after his election victory in November.
It had been expected that she would visit Washington in the early months of 2017. ^[1]

And today, sixteen days later:

Prime Minister Theresa May will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington DC on Friday, the White House has said.
Mrs May will be the first foreign leader to meet the new president after his inauguration.
A post-Brexit free trade deal is thought likely to be high on her agenda as she travels to the US for talks.
Confirmation of the meeting came as hundreds of thousands of people around the world joined women’s marches to protest Mr Trump’s presidency.
Mr Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer gave details of Mrs May’s visit in his first briefing to journalists at the White House on Saturday.
Earlier, while visiting the CIA’s headquarters, President Trump said the PM “is coming over to our country very shortly”. ^[2]

It seems she couldn’t wait till spring and Donald’s already calling her “my Maggie”. It all conjures a certain reminiscence of Gilbert & Sullivan’s clownish figure Ko-Ko, portrayed by the Donald, when he learns he has to wed Katisha, a rather unattractive lady from the Mikado’s court:

(sung by the good people of Britain):
The flowers that bloom in the spring,
Tra la,
Breathe promise of merry sunshine –
As we merrily dance and we sing,
Tra la,
We welcome the hope that they bring,
Tra la.
Of a summer of roses and wine.
And that’s what we mean when we say that a thing
Is welcome as flowers that bloom in the spring.
Tra la la la la la, etc.
Tra la la la, etc.

TRUMP: The flowers that bloom in the spring,
Tra la,
Having nothing to do with the case.
I’ve got to take under my wing, Tra la,
A most unattractive old thing,
Tra la,
With a caricature of a face,
And that’s what I mean when I say, or I sing,
‘Oh, bother the flowers that bloom in the spring.’
Tra la la la la la, etc.
Tra la la la, Tra la la la, etc.

Trump’s only been president for a day but already his narcissism is ballooning out of control. “My Maggie” is an obvious reference to Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Margaret Thatcher. Presumably Trump sees himself as another Reagan. Anyone who’s studied the Reagan presidency knows he’s really not paying himself much of a compliment, though to many of the more ignorant Republicans, including most at the red side of Congress, Reagan’s been elevated to the level of a Republican god. Well, he was a ‘B’-movie star, after all.

May’s impending visit is to obtain a trade deal with the U.S. that’ll allow her to boot the E.U. to the touchline once and for all. Those pesky European ministers have cocked their snoots at her for the last time, or so she thinks. NOTE for Americans: in place of ‘cock a snoot’ please read, ‘the five-fingered salute’.

The Donald wants May to persuade NATO countries to pay more towards their defence. That’s likely to be the deal before any trade agreement is forthcoming. Whether May has sufficient clout to twist the arms of NATO ministers up their backs is a matter still open to debate. If not, she may find herself adrift in mid-Atlantic and denied landfall in either America or Europe.

Thatcher had a low opinion of Reagan’s intellect (she could sometimes be astute!), but May had better not underestimate the hard-boiled Trump, or she may well find her springtime rapidly reverting to winter.

^{[1] “Theresa May to visit Donald Trump ‘in the spring'” BBC, January 6th 2017.}

^{[2] “Theresa May to meet Donald Trump on Friday – White House” BBC, January 21st 2017}

Frankly, I’m not a great one for spectacle. At the tender age of six I found Queen Liz II’s coronation a total bore – mind, it was in black and white on a nine inch screen and our living room crowded with neighbours. We had the only set in the street!

Apart from America always needing to do everything bigger and (no, not necessarily better) than anyone else, I fail to see why it has to be such a long, drawn-out, bit of theatre. After all, no other country in the western world makes such a fuss whenever it’s government changes. Let’s be honest, in Britain it’s one out and one in, and all over. Even Mrs Thatcher only managed half a saintly ode before being whisked into No 10 and the door closed firmly behind her.

I suppose it’s all about stirring the patriotic fervour. Get ’em all going with a good rendering of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” a few hefty speeches on how the ‘Shining City on a Hill’ rules the world and is hellbent on spreading freedom and democracy, then they can go back to bombing the shit out of us all knowing the citizenry aren’t going to complain too much because now they’ve had the affirmation that it’s their God-given right.

Trump, Clinton, whoever…they’ll only cause more trouble and strife in the world. Obama, Bush Jnr, Clinton, Bush Snr, Reagan, Carter – have any of them managed four years without bombing some country to bits? That’s okay, you can take your time…

Let’s be honest, they’re all wannabe dictators. The only difference between the previous and the new is that this latest addition doesn’t care who knows it.

I hope I’m not coming across as too cynical?

^{Image courtesy – The Economist}

With only days to go to the inauguration of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States, it’s now painfully obvious the man is severely flawed in his thinking, and the objectives he’s stated for his presidency.

This shouldn’t come as any great shock. What is shocking is the manner in which British politicians, including the Prime Minister, are rushing to lick his boots and tell him how wonderful he is. When images such as this…

…get flashed around the world’s media it shows British politicians for the mindless idiots they truly are. Just why the gormless twit Gove – no longer even a member of the British government – feels it necessary to embarrass his country by cavorting with America’s apology for a successful businessman isn’t clear, but perhaps it’s time Theresa May used a little of her authority to bring him and certain other members of her party into line.

There’s no doubt that Trump aims to do his best to break up the European Union. As the Guardian today reported:

Angela Merkel and François Hollande have responded curtly but defiantly after Donald Trump cast further doubt on his commitment to Nato and gave strong hints that he would not support EU cohesion once in office.

“We Europeans have our fate in our own hands,” the German chancellor said after the publication of the US president-elect’s interviews with the Times and German tabloid Bild. “He has presented his positions once more. They have been known for a while. My positions are also known.”

In the Times interview, Trump complained that Nato had become “obsolete” because it “hadn’t taken care of terror” – a comment later welcomed by the Kremlin. He suggested that other European countries would follow in Britain’s footsteps and leave the EU.

Hollande, the French president, retorted by saying Europe did not need to be told what to do by outsiders.

“Europe will be ready to pursue transatlantic cooperation, but it will based on its interests and values,” Hollande said on Monday. “It does not need outside advice to tell it what to do.”

Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said the criticism of Nato had caused concern in the political and military alliance. “I’ve spoken today not only with EU foreign ministers but Nato foreign ministers as well and can report that the signals are that there’s been no easing of tensions,” he said. ^[1]

It’s a known fact that for many years now NATO has been used by the U.S. as a cover for its own military actions both in the Middle East, Bosnia, and latterly, Africa. In all theatres the American military has been in the forefront of the action; other NATO countries utilized only to make it look more respectable as a combined effort. No surprise then that the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is always an American general.

Unlike presidents before him, Trump may not be bothered by the idea of U.S. unilateral military action whenever and wherever the mood might take him. Acting alone though, may prove even more embarrassing given that the U.S. military hasn’t managed to win anything since WWII. Sure, they eventually ousted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991, but only after they’d assembled a military force on the Arabian Peninsula equaling the number of U.S. troops serving in Vietnam when that war was at its height – over 533,000. Truly a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The comments of Germany’s deputy chancellor and minister for the economy, Sigmar Gabriel, were in stark contrast to the fawning rhetoric and Trump boot-licking of the British government:

Responding to Trump’s comments that Merkel had made an “utterly catastrophic mistake by letting all these illegals into the country”, the deputy chancellor and minister for the economy, Sigmar Gabriel, said the increase in the number of people fleeing the Middle East to seek asylum in Europe had partially been a result of US-led wars destabilising the region.

“There is a link between America’s flawed interventionist policy, especially the Iraq war, and the refugee crisis; that’s why my advice would be that we shouldn’t tell each other what we have done right or wrong, but that we look into establishing peace in that region and do everything to make sure people can find a home there again,” Gabriel said.

“In that area, Germany and Europe are already making enormous achievements – and that’s why I also thought it wasn’t right to talk about defence spending, where Mr Trump says we are spending too little to finance Nato. We are making gigantic financial contributions to refugee shelters in the region, and these are also the results of US interventionist policy.” ^[1]

I would disagree with Sigmar Gabriel on only one issue. The refugee crisis that has hit Europe was not partly due to US-led wars, it was ENTIRELY due to the catastrophic, interventionist, policies of the United States in the Middle East since the 1980s, culminating in the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 that birthed ISIS and blew apart Iraq and Syria.

America failed utterly in its responsibilities to the innocent victims of this crazed, bully-boy, militarism, leaving Europe to pick up the pieces. Trump is now not only threatening to prevent any Muslims from entering the U.S., but may well expel large numbers already there.

Having voted by a tiny margin to leave the E.U. the British people are finding themselves about to be cast adrift on an empty ocean, the only lifeboat in sight commanded by a bigoted, racist bully with delusions of grandeur. Theresa May and her cronies seem quite happy to be taken in tow by this narcissistic retard and follow wherever he chooses to lead them.

My own view is good riddance Britain. You pulled the plug; it’s nobody’s fault but your own if it sinks you. Americans have made their choice and now it seems you’re going to join them on the Donald Trump switchback ride.

I just hope the true Europeans have a little more sense and back those leaders prepared to stand up to Trump’s new America, keeping Europe strong and united. The E.U. has a population of over 500,000,000, that’s 174,000,000 more than the United States. It’s an awful lot of people power – but only if they make the right decisions at election time.

The British still live in the days of empire. They’d rather be British than European. Margaret Thatcher appealed to their imperial nature. She won her second term after the unnecessary Falklands War in 1982, seizing back a British possession that should never have belonged to the U.K. in the first place. Theresa May is intent on emulating her.

On January 20th Donald Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States of America. We should all, not just Americans, be asking how this once great nation could have sunk so low. There are lessons to be learned. It would appear the British government is not prepared to learn them.

One can only hope that Europeans are not so stupid.

^{[1] “‘Europe’s fate is in our hands’: Angela Merkel’s defiant reply to Trump” Guardian, 16th January 2017}