Since Harry Truman no American leader has ruled out using nuclear weapons nor indeed any of the other twenty + nuclear states on this planet. Trump in his comment said he has no objection to using nuclear weapons in Europe. Trump is an isolationalist who sees no point in America being a global policeman or woman. This is in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton seeking Cold War 2 with The Russian Federation as number one enemy. A simple solution to a complex problem that has no reality suits the Clinton outlook. Hillary like Donald is equally bland on the world beyond America.

To see Trump as "new" or "novel" is to forget Barry Goldwater from 1964 who was supported by Hillary Clinton. Mrs Clinton was happy to be "a Goldwater girl" and wore the outfit for Goldwater. A look at campaign propaganda by Goldwater evokes a nuclear war scenario in a graphic manner. 

What is new is the fact The Tea Party wing of the GOP can endure in an America more divided than it was in the Vietnam war years. The disenchantment of the white middle and working classes is as worrying as its counterparts on these islands. Not alone Britain and Ireland but all over Europe the right wing populists are on the rise under various guises and flags. The myth of "migrants" coming in huge numbers is swallowed by left and right who converge on many issues. The old notion that race is a non issue has been turned upside down by not just the old right but by most on the left. In the past any Labour leader would have Dover as their first port of call to welcome refugees from a civil war. Lily Allen and Nigel Farage have been there but no trade union leader has shown up. Few on the left have made any moral stance against racism in a serious way.

Some years ago trade unionists ( well heeled & paid) led a demo against "foreign workers" taking their jobs in SE England. This was at a major site where the "intruders" had equal skills to the local workforce. This did not incur any demos or verbal stances against these rich fatcats as Trump would get over his words if he came to London. The silence showed that it is ok to be anti East European just like Trumpist walls on the Mexican border. Also in Ireland the speed of the Turkish motorway builders surpassed our local building workers pace of work. They lived and worked on the sites but got no awards for the quality of work or their working pace.

So all in all let's not assume any U.S. leader will not use nuclear weapons or that Trump is "new". But let's also not assume we do not have Trumpist thinking in our own nations. In a doomsday situtation nuclear war is an option at all times for all the nuclear states. On the racial issue many on the modern left are closer to Oswald Mosley or Marine LePen than to Josef Stalin or Leon Trotsky. The chances of Donald Trump winning in November look remote but he has made an impact as an isolationalist. In any campaign many things promised should be taken with a grain of salt. Nobody keeps nuclear warheads to look at them or see them as keepsakes. 

But let us on these islands not assume we are saints compared to Trump or Clinton. We also cannot assume the current anti political mood will see changes for the better. Any change in human history is bound to cause panic as well as a lurch to the right. The recession combined with three key wars plus new methods of guerrilla combat have defined recent history. This century is still young with no clear pattern yet to emerge. An American decline and the rise of the BRIC bloc is to leave Europe as a place where things happened. We no longer matter all that much but America faces a similar fate if it destroys itself from within its borders. The overall military response to 9/11 was based on cold war tactical textbooks. 

sc
Turn that frown upside down

On Saturday, 22 October 2016, Pierre Joris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Trump has made it clear that h doesn’t see any problem in using nuclear weapons.

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On Oct 22, 2016, at 1:39 PM, David Lace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> Yes, Pilger and others on the left, have been saying this before Trump. This is why I give it credence, not because Trump agrees. As I said Trump would be bad for the US (for 4 years, mind) but not for world peace. Clinton would be good for the US but bad for world peace. 
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> Though CNN (Clinton News Network) support her sense of entitlement for the presidency to the hilt.
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> -----------------Original Message--------------------
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> Tim Allen wrote:
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> I haven't given my pennyworth on this not because it isn't poetry or Brexit but because either way I think America, and therefore everyone else, is on a cusp, but the details and speculations are beyond any oracle. I have a friend who sees it just the way David Lace sees it and i find that I do not know enough to argue with him about it. John Pilger has put forward this view for quite a while, even before Trump came on the scene. Another friend of mine (Canadian) has for ages been telling me about how untrustworthy and dangerous Clinton is, and again, I do not know enough to argue. I always thought Trump's campaign was just a joke he was principally playing with himself but then somehow he saw that his game had got quite big so why stop it - either way it points to something being very wrong with America. If those two are the only ones its political system can throw up it's not just America but the rest of us who are in trouble. Has the power hunger and hubris finally turned into decadence? Considering the state of the rest of the world this is very bad timing. 
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> Not feeling very cheery
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> Tim
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