Author: R J Adams

^{Brit Poll Showing Racism Of Generations ~ The Economist, May 31st 2014}

It’s truly difficult to comprehend the sheer arrogance of the British government. They treat a very closely run referendum result as though it were overwhelmingly supportive of leaving the European Community, inform all concerned there will be no going back (“Brexit means Brexit,” quoth the new Prime Minister, who’d pretended throughout the campaign she was a ‘Remainer’, while actually sitting astride the political fence waiting to see which way it would go), then expect the E.U. to hand them all the trade advantages of being a member, while restraining the free movement of citizens into the U.K..

This week, Donald Tusk the European Council President, made it plain such would not be the case:

In his speech, Mr Tusk mocked a Brexit campaign promise that Britons could “have the EU cake and eat it too” – the idea that the UK might manage to keep trade benefits of EU membership while barring European immigrants and rejecting EU courts’ authority.
“To all who believe in it, I propose a simple experiment. Buy a cake, eat it, and see if it is still there on the plate.
“The brutal truth is that Brexit will be a loss for all of us. There will be no cakes on the table. For anyone. There will be only salt and vinegar.”
Mr Tusk also suggested that Britain might ultimately decide not to leave the EU “even if today hardly anyone believes in such a possibility”.^[1]

Who can blame him? The Brexit vote was a vote for racism. There are many British people who resent foreigners living in their country. There are many who support the United Kingdom Independence Party’s view that ‘Britain should be for the British’. It was they who tipped the referendum balance, allowing the far-right wing of the Tory Party to gain the ascendance and take control of the country – a political faction who see their future, not with Europe, but tagged onto the imperial power that is America today.

Theirs is the attitude that Britain no longer has an Empire so we’ll be a part of America’s instead. Unfortunately, even ignoring the arrogance and hypocrisy of such political ideals, they’ll undermine the living standards of everyone in Britain, except of course, the wealthy and powerful who’ll continue to benefit enormously.

Britain has always been a racist nation. The ‘pride of empire’ still lingers among the older community. Back in the 1950s, before the nations of empire won their independence, there was rarely a ‘foreigner’ to be seen anywhere in Britain. Black people numbered only about 20,000 and lived mostly around London, with a few settling in the port areas of Liverpool and Cardiff. They were considered inferior by their ‘British’ counterparts and could only work in the most menial of jobs.

This may seem a long time ago for many younger members of British society, but there are still ten million people alive in Britain who can remember those times. That older generation of Brits was responsible for tipping the balance of the Brexit vote.

Since the referendum result the U.K. pound has lost much of its value against foreign currencies. Many British airport currency exchanges are offering less than one euro to the pound, and while back in May 2016 it bought one U.S. dollar and forty-eight cents, today that figure has dropped so low that some exchanges are only giving one dollar eight cents per pound.

As oil is valued in U.S. dollars this means that petrol and diesel products are set to rise. According to the BBC:

…the Petrol Retailers’ Association (PRA) [has] forecast that vehicle owners will be paying an extra four or five pence per litre (ppl) for petrol by the end of October because retail prices have, so far, only reflected part of the recent rise in wholesale prices.
Petrol prices hinge on the value of oil, which is priced in dollars, and the falling pound against the US currency means that petrol automatically become more expensive at the pump.
“Wholesale costs to retailers have increased by over six ppl for petrol and seven ppl for diesel in the last few weeks, whereas the UK average pump prices have moved up by less than two ppl for both grades over the same time period,” said Brian Madderson, Chairman of the PRA.
“Thus motorists can expect increases by the end of the month unless there are favourable corrections to the exchange rate and to global oil prices.
“The double impact of the pound weakening against US dollar and global oil prices strengthening will cause pump prices to move sharply upwards,” he added.^[2]

Food prices are already on the rise and can only go up further given the pound’s lowly status.

Donald Tusk stated that Britain cannot have its cake and eat it. It seems likely the average Brit soon won’t be able to afford cake.

Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, was upbeat about the future when she spoke at her party’s conference recently. She could hardly appear pessimistic. Nevertheless, talk in Parliament now is of ‘Hard Brexit.’ No longer is there the optimism of blackmailing Europe into giving British politicians what they want – curtailing free movement, while maintaining free trade.

Why should Europe agree to this? If one resigned one’s membership from a club that served free beer to all its members, one could hardly expect to continue drinking there.

Donald Tusk was quite right. He still hopes that Britain may change its mind and stay in the European Community. It’s unlikely to happen. British pride doesn’t like to be dented. After all, they had an Empire – once!

^{[1] “‘Hard Brexit’ or ‘no Brexit’ for Britain – Tusk” BBC, October 13th 2016}

^{[2] “Less than one euro to the pound at many UK airports” BBC, October 10th 2016}

Donald Trump’s not the first lewd, brash, chauvinist with a foul mouth, slavering after the top job in the White House.

As Michael Shelden recounts in his review of Robert Caro’s, “The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume III”, there was at least one other before him:

Near the beginning of this 1,100-page biographical tome – which covers the 12 years that Lyndon Johnson spent in the US Senate (1949-61) – the reader is offered an unforgettable image of the big Texan giving dictation to a nervous female secretary while he urinates in a corner washbasin. Apparently, such moments at his Capitol Hill office were not uncommon and were observed by several people. The scene “was startling to those who witnessed it”, his earnest biographer blandly notes. Away from the spotlight, LBJ had the manners of a barnyard dog and enjoyed shocking his subordinates, whom he bullied mercilessly. Like most bullies, he was a coward at heart who used flattery and evasion to dominate more powerful foes, reserving his insults and tantrums for lesser folk. If one of his underlings did not jump fast enough or high enough, he shouted obscenities and threw things. He demanded absolute devotion, declaring, “I want someone who will kiss my ass in Macy’s window and stand up and say, ‘Boy, wasn’t that sweet!’ ”
Women were for sex and servitude. His shy, unglamorous wife, Lady Bird, was more of a maid than a mate, serving him breakfast in bed every morning and entertaining his cronies with huge meals prepared at short notice. At dinner parties he would say, “Bird, get me another piece of pie!”, and if she hesitated more than a few seconds, he would repeat his demand in a deafening roar.
At his Senate office, his female workers were fondled, ogled and overworked. Though his own figure was flabby, he was quick to berate any of his “girls” who put on weight. He wanted to make sure the view was good when they walked away from his desk. “I don’t want to look at an Aunt Minnie. I want to look at a good, trim back end.”
He boasted of his sexual prowess and had long affairs with at least two women, as well as casual flings with members of his staff. Robert Caro, who is a dogged researcher, has uncovered the story of LBJ’s previously secret relationship with Helen Gahagan Douglas, one of the few congresswomen in Washington during the 1940s. A former actress, she was an attractive blonde whose political career came to an abrupt halt after she failed to join her lover as a member of the Senate. In a dirty campaign for an open seat in California, she was defeated by a Republican newcomer who spread rumours that she was a Communist sympathiser. His name was Richard Nixon…
…he [LBJ] once informed a trembling subordinate, “You couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.”

Trump never could, even if he gains his ambition, be the president that Johnson was. For all his faults, and they were legion, Johnson got things done. He got the Civil Rights Bill passed, something even Kennedy couldn’t manage, and both as Leader of the House and later as President was able to work Congress in a way that no president has managed since.

Of course, there weren’t so many microphones around then.

^{“A lewd, crude Master” The Telegraph, August 10th 2002}

Donald Trump is a coarse, brash, chauvinist who likes to talk ‘dirty’ when he’s in the company of other men.

Is this really any great surprise? Didn’t we all know it already? He’s hardly the type of individual one expects as a prospective White House tenant, but then Richard Nixon wasn’t too far removed.

Trump’s hardly made a secret of his male chauvinism. The very fact he’s been heavily involved in so many beauty pageants gives a hint, even if his own vociferousness on the campaign trail hadn’t made it obvious.

It’s schoolboyish, immature, and smacks of lacking intellect, but sadly it’s what many men do when they’re together and free from female company. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous, but it’s exactly what male politicians worldwide are now rushing to deny. So far, there’s only been one who’s admitted to the truth, and that’s Nigel Farage, the reinstated leader of UKIP, who called it for what it was – “alpha male boasting”.

At the moment, there’s no evidence to suggest it was any more than that. Immature men frequently lie to other males about their sexual prowess. It’s all part of the male hierarchy process. If, as was the case with DJ Jimmy Savile and others in Britain, evidence should emerge that Trump has been engaged in physical sexual assaults against women, that would be cause for further investigation and possible criminal charges. At this time such is not the case.

Perhaps it’s more important to highlight the political hypocrisy of the other male U.S. politicians, who in their droves are removing their support for Trump following disclosure of this tape. This writer doubts there’s one of them who, at some time in their past, hasn’t indulged in a similar all-male conversation, or had sexual imaginings that were not wholly respectful of the fairer sex. To publicly parade such pretended disgust at Trump is pure hypocrisy.

An even more important issue is how this tape surfaced just a few days before the crucial second nominee debate. Coincidence, or a political ploy by the Democratic Party machine?

All the evidence points to the latter.

It’s not known how the Washington Post got the story, but it was almost certainly an NBC employee who gave it to them. It all centred around an NBC progamme , ‘Access Hollywood’. Apparently, Trump has given interviews to this programme on numerous occasions. Back in 2005, he was on a bus with six other men waiting for an interview to begin when he made the comments, not realizing they were being taped. That tape ended up in the programme’s archives where it’s resided ever since.

Apparently, the host of the show, Billy Bush, to whom most of Trump’s unsavoury remarks were addressed, didn’t realise the tape was running either.

NBC “Today” show host Billy Bush is apologizing for comments he made in a video that surfaced on Friday showing him and Donald Trump speaking about women in vulgar terms.
“Obviously I’m embarrassed and ashamed. It’s no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago — I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I’m very sorry,” Bush said in a statement.
Trump makes most of the coarse remarks in the video, from 2005 when Bush was host of “Access Hollywood.” But Bush eggs on Trump and at one point says that an actress approaching them is “hot as shit, in the purple.” ^[1]

‘Access Hollywood’ ‘just happened to discover’ the tape while searching their archives. They intended to expose it on their next programme, but someone beat them to it and sold it to the Post.

‘Access Hollywood’ is part of the NBC network. NBC is owned by Comcast. The Chief Executive of Comcast is Brian L Roberts (annual salary $24,000,000). It’s no secret that Comcast virtually owns the Democratic Party. MSNBC is the Party’s mouthpiece thanks to the tireless efforts of Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, etc..

Brian Roberts plays golf with President Obama, donated a ton of cash to his presidential campaign, and has personally been involved in large-scale fund-raising for the Clinton campaign. (No references needed, this is common knowledge).

A Trump presidency could make life very difficult for the super-corporations. There can be little doubt that NBC and its associates would be told to ‘find dirt’ on Trump in order to discredit him. Why else would NBC employees be pouring through the archives of ‘Access Hollywood’ at this time?

Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States would be a disaster for America and the world. Nothing written here can alter that fact. It’s also a fact that the same will be true if Clinton is elected president. Both are liars, deceivers, and the lowest America has ever come in its choices for president.

Hillary Clinton is the champion of the corporations; Donald Trump is the champion of no-one but himself. Whichever way the vote goes on November 8th, we’ll all likely live to regret it.

^{[1] “Billy Bush apologizes for comments in Donald Trump video” Politico October 10th 2016}