J.D.Says…..

J.D. Vance (Vice president) says it’s time to wake up (Europe) and get our act together.

Right at the start of this post i’d like to pose a bit of a question – “what state are we in (how do you perceive things) and how did we get here” ?

Note to readers…..I wrote my first attempt at this post subject just before the US Presidential election and my question then was more about what a second Trump presidency would be like – how would he act and what things would he do ?. As for me, I was hugely surprised and pleased that he did win back the presidency as I thought it much more likely that he, being the political maverick, would be the one to break the existing status quo (not the band btw !) compared to the other lot who seem to want things to stay just as they are including war at the eastern edge of Europe and terrorist war in the middle east.

What I did do was have a whole load of fun imagining what the left facing anti Trump and basically America hating ‘woke’ crowd would react if the Pres turned out to be the Sheriff and one that shoots from the hip. Well, in several ways I was right, at least one overseas TV channel has had a field day with their regular ‘lefties losing it‘ segment and the white house press briefings having been a bit sporting shall we say – how refreshing to listen to a press secretary that doesn’t take any nonsense from the mainstream media.

In my previous effort I finished with the thought that it was better not to second guess Donald Trump and rather sit back a bit and don’t make any judgement about what he might do until he’s actually in the hot seat. My other thought, slightly dark and cynical, was to wonder what his failures or weaknesses would be – I would say, again maybe cynically that every president and prime minister has a weakness and a failing – easy to see that with our current incumbent !

I did think that President Trump would make a push for peace given that it was really his original drive to get the Abrahamic accords fully in place in the middle east and as far as I can see that that particular idea was stymied by the former administration. What I wasn’t expecting is that Elon Musk would get on board so totally that he’s now running a new government agency that is going through several other, more established ones, continually exposing a combination of dodgy political and financial manipulation, and downright fraud, in other countries. I don’t know where the total sits this week although last time I looked it was claimed over there that several billion in USD of taxpayers money had disappeared into those things – to be honest the numbers are staggering !.

Musk aside, the context of my question is what vice president J.D.Vance said in a speech at a conference of European leaders in Munich (Germany), briefly that the real threats to Europe (and the UK) didn’t come from Russia and China but largely from within : in particular he commented on the slow erosion of free speech in the UK, citing as an example the case of British man Adam Smith-Connor for his act of silent prayer outside an abortion clinic. I’m sure that J.D.Vance could have called up multiple examples because even I can.

Where I disagree with J.D.Vance in his speech, quite fundamentally in fact, is that he started his address by talking about ‘shared values’ between the USA and Europe : it’s my contention that there are no shared values at the kind of level he is talking about and the people he was talking to. There might be some shared values down where most of us live as political ‘pond life’ but at the level of European leaders their values are in my opinion not the same as that of the people, the result of which is that the greater number have simply lost interest and checked out. While president Trump has a huge approval rating within the first few weeks in office the same kind of percentage in the UK were so disenfranchised that they simply couldn’t see the value in even voting.

Vance’s beef with Europe and the UK seems to be that he doesn’t like the way that both have ended up and that I would say has mostly been the EU way which is largely quasi liberal and socialist. I’m not particularly happy with that because the results I see as dire although I, in return, have some beef with the USA. My big issue with the USA, especially when it is being super confident, as it is right now, is that it seems to act as though the American Way is the right and only way (to run a country) and often it isn’t : I would quote as examples most of the Islamic countries plus China, North Korea and the former Soviet Union – now Russia of course. The Islamic countries don’t seem ,at least to me, to greatly favor democracy but rather conquest, conflict and ultimate submission – in this sense iv’e never seen the submission component as submission to god as much as it is directly to them themselves and their law. Anyway, that’s just my view and merely personal opinion.

I would like to push that point one more notch and then leave the subject alone….I would first suggest that when the USA starts to throw it’s weight around we get ‘boots on the ground’ and B52’s in the air that’s everywhere from a failed and ultimately costly attempt to effect regime change in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan -to name just a few. My last point is that the USA really needs to get it’s own house in order with education and health : I think that one of the first things that Elon Musk found out about his own country is that it’s the worst country in the world for basic literacy despite the highest per child spending. Lets not even go there with health !

As Vance said almost as a throwaway quip in his speech, the UK voted to leave the European Union and what he didn’t say is that despite leaving we are still stymied by their laws and I have to add by pro European lawyers. While the US President has a value and a voice on the world stage, and people listen to what he says our own incumbent – nothing much more than a party apparatchnik and low class lawyer – has zero relevance and even less impact on the same stage.

I did say in a previous post that I would stop ‘cursing the darkness’ and instead try ” lighting a candle’ and yet here I am again…….

Best wishes everyone.