No comment necessary.

This was the image projected onto the front of a Trump International Hotel yesterday.

What more do I need to say?

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilaithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Giving the finger should not be a crime.

This is the picture of Juli Briskman, who saw red last week when she was out cycling and got overtaken by Donald Trump's presidential convoy, on it's way to yet another golf course. As you can see - he got the finger!

Now, Briskman has lost her job - fired because she posted her photo on social media.

It's an outrage - Trump was in fact greeted by a series of rude gestures and people holding placards as he made his way towards the Golf Club. If people had known he was on his way he probably would have got more.

Briskman deserves to get her job back.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilaithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Trump is a cowardly Fascist.

After the events of the weekend in Charlottesville, where a far right demonstration in support of a Civil War Statue ended up with many injuries and one death amongst counter demonstrators, there was a reasonable expectation that the President of the United States of America would condemn this violent attack on democracy and equality.

Instead, Donald Trump has exposed himself for what he really is - a fascist and a cowardly one at that..

Up until now we knew that his father was arrested (but then released uncharged) taking part in a Ku Klux Klan demonstration in New York.

Both Trump and his father made their money developing apartments, especially in New York. Both father and son were prosecuted by the city for failing to let a sufficient proportion of their apartments to people from ethnic minorities.

But didn't Trump make a statement condemning the far right?

No, he read a statement from the autocue like an automaton.

The next day he repeated his off the cuff statements blaming anti- racist demonstrators as much as the right.

This was no accident - no President or Presidential candidate can afford to endorse racism. But Trump can give a nod and a wink to the Grand Wizards of the KKK, the shouty writers of Breitbart and the embittered and isolated people who describe themselves as 'Alt-Right'.

Even in America (where racism and fascism are protected under the constitution as some kind of 'Free Speech') very few people want to come out as openly racist.

The number of people in the Southern States who want to celebrate the supporters of slavery in the civil war is very small. Most people want the statues gone, the roads and parks renamed.

But the supporters of the Klan and the right in the South represent a feudal establishment which is still very powerful.

The number of white people who are prepared to go along with these landowners, their political apologists and their murderous underlings is much larger; white people can be scared, frightened of making a stand.

So when a President equates a racist lynch mob with the people who came out to demonstrate against them this moves the line of acceptability in the direction of the right. By a nod and a wink he is saying "I'm with you.....really I am but my hands are tied".

And that's good enough to move the centre of fear in favour of the right.

It says it's alright to invent obstacles that prevent black people from registering to vote.

It means it's alright to open far too few voting centres in black areas so that it takes people there hours longer to vote. It's quite OK that the vote shuts down too early for working people to have a chance to vote after work.

Southern states now know it's OK to force people to pay for expensive photo I/D which they wouldn't normally have.

All the lessons we learnt over the last forty years of antifascism are that fascism needs to be stopped in its tracks. It's demonstrations need to be countered, it's ideology needs to be challenged.

We need to move the line of fear away from our people, we need to put the right back into the position where it is too frightened to make a stand.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home; helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Borough Market.

It's exactly four months since we went up The Shard and had a wander around Borough Market, an area of London I once knew well.

At the top left of my picture of a fruit stall, you can just make out some of the bars and restaurants that were open on Saturday night when the attack took place.

I wouldn't normally post about something like this, but at this time there needs to be some comment about the repeated attack tweets coming from Donald Trump and his allies, and directed at Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London.

For the benefit of Donald Trump we aren't going to be panicking or changing our way of life.

Neither are we going to allow our Moslem neighbours to be blamed for these monstrous acts and nor will we allow divisions and hatred to be created - that's what these terrorists want us to do.

We're just going to keep on; being Christians or Moslems or Atheists.

We will go on having a drink or not as we see fit.

Some of us will smoke dope while others would be horrified at the very thought of it.

Some of us will go on being Gay, others will be straight.   

Above all, we are not going to be alarmed.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Hubris Syndrome.

 

 

I've been interested in reading about 'Hubris Syndrome', an acquired 'Personality Disorder', described by Dr David Owen and Jonathan Davidson in a book published in 2009.

Their work was partly inspired by their personal experience of political leaders and business men (mainly but not exclusively men) they had met or read about. 

What they noticed was that excessively self confident and arrogant business or political leaders had the capacity to destroy the organisations they were leading as well as themselves.

Margaret Thatcher springs to mind.

In particular, Bush and Blair's manic and deranged pursuit of the war with Iraq (in defiance of the lack of any evidence of 'weapons of mass destruction' let alone any legal justification) exposed the dangers of leaders who show 'Hubris', which was defined by the ancient Greeks as  "excessive pride towards or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis."

Here's their definition of the syndrome;

"Hubris Syndrome is the presence in someone in a position of power of three or four of the 14 “excruciatingly unflattering”* symptoms summarised below:

• They seek self-glorification
• Act to enhance personal standing
• Are excessively conscious of their own image
• Display messianic tendencies
• Believe “I am the organisation”
• Use the royal “we”
• Have excessive confidence in their own judgements and are contemptuous of others’ opinions
• Display exaggerated self-belief
• Feel they’re accountable only to history
• Believe unshakably that they will be vindicated
• Are out of touch, isolated
• Are restless, reckless, impulsive
• Are impractical – overlooking detail and possible unwanted outcomes
• Implement incompetently – fail to attend to details through excessive self-confidence.

Individually, these are mostly narcissistic or hubristic behaviours, each potentially risky enough in their own right. But if several of them are being demonstrated by someone in an organisation you care about, something far more dangerous is at play: Hubris Syndrome."

‘Hubris Syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? ‘A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years’, David Owen and Jonathan Davidson, Brain 2009: 132; 1396-1406

Now there are two aspects of this I find really worrying - the first is that while the syndrome is present if an individual exhibits three or four of the behaviours, it's clear that Donald Trump has all of them.

Secondly, Dr David Owen was a Labour politician of the 1970's rising to be the youngest Foreign Secretary ever in the Callaghan cabinet.

In 1981 he was one of the four politicians who split away from Labour to launch The 'Social Democratic Party'. The effect of this was to prevent Labour from winning power which resulted in 18 years of Thatcher and Major.

When the project failed, he split the SDP and then was a fairly poisonous influence from outside on the merged Liberal Democrats that absorbed them.

By my estimate, Dr David Owen exhibited at least 7 of the behaviours and ultimately destroyed every political organisation he belonged to.

So, self awareness is not one of the features of this condition.

Nevertheless, it does give a valuable insight into the destructive nature of so many business and political leaders.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Here at the Western World.

I've become fixated by 'Here at the Western World', by Steely Dan, a band which specialised in making the simple seem ambiguous.

It's probably because there are so many parallels with Donald Trump; a politician who makes the ambiguous seem simple....and that's much more dangerous.

Here at the Western World.

Down at the Lido they welcome you
With sausage and beer,
Klaus and the Rooster have been there too,
But lately he spends his time here.

Hanging with the mayor and all his friends
And nobody cares,
Where the sailor shuts out the sunrise
Blacked out on the stairs

Knock twice, rap with your cane
Feels nice, you're out of the rain
We got your skinny girl
Here at the Western World

Ruthie will give you the silver key
To open the red door:
Lay down your Jackson and you will see
The sweetness you've been crying for

In the night you hide from the madman
You're longing to be
But it all comes out on the inside
Eventually

Knock twice, rap with your cane
Feels nice, you're out of the rain
We got your skinny girl
Here at the Western World

In the night you hide from the madman
You're longing to be
But it all comes out on the inside
Eventually

Knock twice, rap with your cane
Feels nice, you're out of the rain
We got your skinny girl
Here at the Western World

Songwriters: W. BECKER, D. FAGEN

No one can ever be 100% sure what a Steely Dan song is about, but to me this seems to be about a bar or a brothel called 'The Western World', where 'The Mayor' holds court with 'all his friends'.

And that seems to ring too true for comfort today.

You can check it out on YouTube here;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkIFE2sLmkM

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

No more thumbs up.

It is a remarkable situation when there is a Republican President and at the same time they control both Congress and The Senate.

And yet Trump failed to replace Obama's Affordable Care Act, which is a really big deal for the millions of people who would have lost their health insurance, some of whom would have lost their lives as a result.

I've no doubt the Republicans will try again but that's for another day.

In the meantime, time to celebrate.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilaithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

It turns out my car is a Trump supporter.

On Saturday, after a lot of huffing and puffing, we got ready to go up to London to join the 'Womens march', in solidarity with the women marching against Trump in Washington D.C. and for equal rights.

Actually, I'm in no state to have done the march - we were going to join them at Trafalgar Square.

It has been bitterly cold and when I got into the car it gave a quiet weeze and a burp and all was quiet.

When the AA man came he did briefly argue with me that the battery was alright until he checked again.

I got charged up and made my way very gingerly to buy a new battery - which cost me a fortune!

So unfortunately and all because my car turns out to be a Trump supporter, we didn't make it to the march but watched it on T.V.

Hopefully, now a fightback begins.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Trump; Winter in America.

We have been freezing ourselves to death and it's been damp and miserable too.

In the end, I lit a fire.

We have loads of waste wood -which I've cut off the trees and bushes. For a brief moment it was dry too, so I cut some up into logs and we luxuriated in front of a real, live fire.

That involved cleaning out the fireplace which hasn't been touched in 6 years, cutting up wood and dragging it in and keeping a constant watch that nothing is burning.

It was a struggle but it was OK, although quite quickly my neat logs ended up about 5 feet long and balanced precariously on the fireplace to avoid any more sawing.

It was well worth it.

Lots of memories coming back.

And nice and warm.

And then we settled back to watch the U.S. Presidential election results, which turned out to be a long, hard night.

I staggered off to bed at about 3-30 in the morning, leaving Robyn to stick it out. When I gave up, Ohio had gone and Florida was going to follow soon.

I have no time for Hilary Clinton, a warmongering Imperialist.

But Trump and his supporters are a bunch of racist and sexist knuckleheads and that's dangerous.

Decades of reforms are in danger, millions of people are in danger.

So it turned out to be a long night in a very hard winter.

"Winter In America"
Gil Scott Heron

From the Indians who welcomed the pilgrims
And to the buffalo who once ruled the plains
Like the vultures circling beneath the dark clouds
Looking for the rain
Looking for the rain

Just like the cities staggered on the coastline
Living in a nation that just can't stand much more
Like the forest buried beneath the highway
Never had a chance to grow
Never had a chance to grow

And now it's winter
Winter in America
Yes and all of the healers have been killed
Or sent away, yeah
But the people know, the people know
It's winter
Winter in America
And ain't nobody fighting
'Cause nobody knows what to save
Save your soul, Lord knows
From Winter in America

The Constitution
A noble piece of paper
With free society
Struggled but it died in vain
And now Democracy is ragtime on the corner
Hoping for some rain
Looks like it's hoping
Hoping for some rain

And I see the robins
Perched in barren treetops
Watching last-ditch racists marching across the floor
But just like the peace sign that vanished in our dreams
Never had a chance to grow
Never had a chance to grow

And now it's winter
It's winter in America
And all of the healers have been killed
Or been betrayed
Yeah, but the people know, people know
It's winter, Lord knows
It's winter in America
And ain't nobody fighting
Cause nobody knows what to save
Save your souls
From Winter in America

 

 

 

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

We need a rainbow coalition to beat Trump.

It's hard to pick on what motivates Donald Trump - there's such a big choice.

How about money, fame, immunity from prosecution to start with.

But there is obviously something else and it isn't politics......because in the past he's been closer to the Democrats than he now is to the Republicans. At one time he was friends with the Clintons which probably says more about their bad judgement than about his politics.

Nothing about his personal life suggests that he really has much in common with his bible thumping, right wing, evangelist supporters.

The 'something else', is why Trump is still in the race for President and why he can't be written off yet.

Earlier this year, we went to see the movie 'Ghostbusters' and we had a lot of fun. It was witty, jokey, full of action and CGI effects; it was a real blockbuster.

Despite all that, it hasn't done so well at the box office. A movie like that needs to take about $500 million but it only cleared about £300 million. Sony corporation think they actually lost about $75 million on it but don't feel too sorry for them, they'll make it back on the DVD's.

Their real problem is that they planned sequels and merchandising and all the rest that goes with a popular movie franchise.

Essentially it was a remake of the much loved 1980's movie and that was the problem.

They took the original characters and turned them into women.

Even before it was released there was an internet campaign attacking the script; afterwards at least one of the cast was subjected to abuse and attacks on social media, such that she closed down her Twitter account.

To put it simply, the dads and granddads who saw the original movie in the 1980's didn't take their sons or grandsons to see the remake. It was a distinctly American phenomena but it was very real and you can see the result on the bottom line.

To men who saw the movie when they were young, when all the heroes were men - it was unthinkable that they could now be women.

And (although it's fairly low on the list) sexism is one of the things that motivates Trump - he just can't accept the possibility that a women could be president of the United States.

If you don't believe me - he has a record. When Obama was elected President in 2008, Trump and those who think like him were unable to accept that a black man could be President.

It wasn't meant as a joke and it certainly wasn't funny; he didn't accept that Obama was an American. Trump was the public face of the 'Birther' movement, who claimed that Obama hadn't been born in the U.S.A. and wasn't, therefore, qualified to be President.

Right now, Trump and those who support him, don't accept that a women is qualified to be President either. Which is why he is so rude and contemptuous and why he claims (when he hasn't actually lost yet) that the election is rigged against a poor billionaire like him.

It's why he constantly claims that Clinton "lacks stamina", and claims that she's using "performance enhancing drugs"; because he can't accept that any women could possibly beat him.

Unfortunately, you can see the effect of this in the opinion polls; it's why his support amongst men is much higher than amongst women. 

And it's why Americans need to build a rainbow coalition to beat Trump.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Donald Trump.

Tom Lehrer, the Harvard Professor who had a sideline in performing amusing satirical songs in the 1960's, famously said that satire had become obsolete when the warmonger Henry Kissinger was awarded The Nobel Peace prize.

I realized exactly how he felt today.

I'd intended to do one of my satirical pictures of Donald Trump - what I had in mind was superimposing a picture of him onto a background of missiles, primed and ready to fire. I was having problems finding the right shot and decided to do  something similar but with a backdrop of some giant guns from a battleship.

When I hit Google search I was both amazed and horrified to find that Trump had got there first - of course he had.

You actually can't make fun of the man; his supporters wouldn't get it, he wouldn't get it. He thinks it's OK.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like Hilary Clinton and if I was American I'd be voting for her grudgingly. She isn't going to help working people, she won't stand up for minorities, she will go to war on third world countries and she's the voice of Wall Street.

The problem is Trump - he really is dangerous. He actually means what he says.

If he becomes President he will hurt the poor, benefit the rich.

He will attack Unions, he will put back minorities 50 years to the days of segregation.

I don't think he's really going to build an effective wall between the U.S.A and Mexico but he will encourage prejudice and discrimination against Hispanics and that's even worse.  

He will chose Supreme Court judges who will turn back time.

Where Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama failed to do enough to extend healthcare to the poor, Trump will wipe it out completely.

He is a racist, sexist, bragging, whining, bullying excuse of a man.

He actually has to defend a civil suit alleging statutory rape with a pre-trial review coming up in December.

He is facing allegations of fraud and improper business practise.

He inherited vast wealth and has still been through bankruptcy proceedings. 

I am convinced that one of the reasons he is standing for President is to gain immunity from prosecution.

Above all, as an outsider looking in to America; he is really, really dangerous. He will go to war on a whim.

Most importantly of all, whenever Trump is rude or bullying or disparaging of Clinton, remember this; he doesn't have any problem getting his supporters out to vote they are voting for him anyway, whatever he does. 

His only hope is to persuade his opponents that there is no point in turning out to vote for Clinton.

That's his game plan.

So, to anyone in America who is reading this I'm asking you to hold your nose and vote for Hilary.

Don't let him get away with it.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Donald Trump.

I couldn't resist doing this.........

                                                                    Copyright Neil Harris 2016

....because if Donald trump is elected to the presidency of the United States, the world is in serious trouble.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com