USA Anger and politics - The violence in American cities reflects the fury of polarisation

The summer heat has its way of energising our political passions. The American and French revolutions both began in earnest with the sweltering June and July air stuck to each soldier’s skin. In 1967, a “long hot summer” of violence erupted throughout the United States as protesters against police brutality and racial injustice clashed with police and the national guard in most big cities. The following summer saw similar protests, and—like today—a hotly contested presidential election. The current unrest in America is similar in many ways to the riots of the 20th century, with young people and minorities expressing grievances over both racial inequality and the relationship with their government. But two recent developments serve both to worsen the tensions between protesters and their opponents and to decrease the chance that the government will find a solution: political polarisation and partisan rage.

The turmoil of 1968 is the most obvious parallel to today’s. Then, the Republican Party’s Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were the candidates of “law and order,” pledging to crack down on the violence and extend sentences for rioters. That year’s election was also a major catalyst for the marriage of race and political party in America. Nixon’s and Agnew’s electoral strategies probably helped them capitalise on the anger and anxiety of many white voters. In a new research article about the contest, Omar Wasow, a political scientist at Princeton University, finds that the year’s protests “likely caused a 1.5–7.9% shift among whites towards Republicans and tipped the election”. Since then, characterising protests as racial violence and and promoting to crack down on it has become the linchpin of the Republican party electorial playbook

Read more at:
Anger and politics - The violence in American cities reflects the fury of polarisation | United States | The Economist

EU under Attack: America’s Billionaires Battle Each Other for Political Control over Europe - by Eric Zuesse

A contest for political control of Europe is gearing up between two American teams, one headed by the long-established George Soros, and the other now being set up by the upstart Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s former campaign-manager. Soros has long led America’s liberal billionaires in controlling Europe, and Bannon is now organizing a team of America’s conservative billionaires to wrest that control from the liberal ones. 

Whereas Soros claims to represent the public’s interests, Bannon claims to represent the population’s interests — that’s the ‘populist’ side of America’s billionaires, versus the established ‘public-interest’ (Soros) side of them.

Two American brands of ‘philanthropists' will thus now be fighting for control over Europe's political markets (or institutions).

It’s a battle to serve either ’the public’ or else ’the people’, and each political brand will be struggling to keep Europe as an ally in American billionaires’ war against Russia (which all American billionaires want to defeat), but each team does this from a different ideological perspective, one being ‘liberal’, and the other being ‘conservative’. 

Just as there is liberal-conservative political polarization between billionaires domestically within a nation, there also is such political polarization between billionaires regarding their given nation’s foreign policies; and America’s billionaires are politically very highly polarized, both nationally and, increasingly, internationally as well. None of them is progressive, or left-populist. The only ‘populism’ that any billionaire currently promotes is right-‘populist', which is Bannon’s team. (Stalin was left-‘populist’; and Hitler was right-‘populist’; but neither dictator really was at all populist, which is simply democratic and against the aristocracy.) Both teams demonize each other within the United States for control over the US Government, but both are now competing against each other internationally for control over the entire world, by two different brands: liberal versus conservative. Both brands endorse ‘democracy’ or “the allies”; and both support spreading that ‘democracy’ by means of invading and occupying ‘dictatorships’ or “the enemies.” 

In Europe, this is called “imperialism”; in America, it is called “neo-conservatism” or “neoconservatism”; but no American billionaire actively opposes it (because to oppose it would be to oppose the aristocracy itself, the billionaires’ control over the Government — the very system that has been enormously successful for them, far more than the public itself recognizes)

For the complete report click on: America’s Billionaires Battle Each Other for Political Control over Europe

US Politics: Compromise a dirty word in polarized U.S. House - by Rebekah L. Sanders

U.S. Reps. David Schweikert and Ann Kirkpatrick, among other members of Arizona’s congressional delegation, last month opposed a multibillion-dollar federal lifeline to farmers at risk of crop failure and to families in need of help putting food on the table.

Without the support of those members and many others, the farm bill, normally renewed every five years with little fanfare, was defeated. Though leaders of both parties wanted to reach a deal, Republicans like Schweikert and Democrats like Kirkpatrick voted “no” to hold out for concessions.

The opposition to what was considered for years a non-controversial bill demonstrated just how little middle ground remains in the U.S. House of Representatives.

House members are less willing to compromise, experts say, as districts across the country have become more polarized and partisan primaries more important for most members’ re-elections.

Read more: Compromise a dirty word in polarized U.S. House

USA: Gabrielle Giffords shooting reignites row over rightwing rhetoric in US - by Ewen MacAskill

The US was tonight seized by a fierce debate over whether inflammatory rightwing rhetoric was to blame for a shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona, that targeted congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and left six dead, including a nine-year-old child.

Giffords, 40, who remains in critical condition in hospital after being shot through the head but is expected to recover, criticised Sarah Palin last year for putting her and 19 other Democrats on a hitlist, each shown as being in the crosshairs.

"When people do that, they have got to realise there are consequences to that action," Giffords said. Palin today distanced herself from the shooting, as did leading figures of the Tea Party movement. Conservative bloggers accused liberals of seeking to exploit the attack.

For more: Gabrielle Giffords shooting reignites row over rightwing rhetoric in US | World news | The Guardian