E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

what happens when the leader is a charismatic charlatan? I have been watching the dawning, infuriatingly slow wake-up call Covid-19 has been for many Americans these past few weeks... as the Washington Post editorial goes, this pandemic will strip the United States of any pretence to normalcy or capability. Trump is one man, but he represents something the land of the free has indulged for decades now - a willingness to ignore science, fact, and reality, for pure partisan ideology and bias. This emotive, irrational and blind behaviour, aided and abetted by the right-wing, often religious TV and radio media and latterly, the amoral nihilistic Silicon valley companies, literally recreated a biblical-level-event Babel. Since America is ludicrously rich and powerful, it has had much capital to spend, even waste. But it has been too intellectually and morally profligate, and now has a gutted and aberrant leadership, unable to form coherent, rational plans, and project determi...

Art has a touch of evil It has long been debated, in and out of aesthetic philosophy circles, whether art and the arts should also have a moral, or political, or even religious, function - and of course, throughout human history (and art appears to be a primarily human object, in the many sense of that word), art has been many things to many people and societies. It is only really, however, in our own recent time, of 'cancel culture', that the art object, and the artist, have become so conflated, as to become one, indissoluble and undivided. Even when Oscar Wilde was dismounted from his seat as the great playwright of his age, and wrecked in a brutish prison, his plays, books, stories, and poems, were not banned; and, conversely, even when Lady Chatterley's Lover was causing a great deal of legal and moral consternation, its author was not a total pariah. Even, albeit controversially, Wagner , the arch Jew-hater, is performed in Israel. We know the author of Ali...

much has changed... 18 YEARS AGO, like most everyone else, I watched the planes hit the twin towers on this day, on television, and was stunned. I felt instantly this was a different level of historic event I was witnessing - the world had changed. That gets said a lot, but 9/11 was a major shift - the start of the 21st century that has led, one way or another, to where we are today. IRONICALLY, the rise of the digital social media world, and the collapse of the banking system a decade ago, coul d not be foreseen then, nor Trump, Brexit, or the resurgence of Russia and China, and the relative decline of America, in the world. Nor that a Black President would be twice elected in a once slavery-owning nation. IN SOME WAYS, 9/11 feels like a much-more-distant event, now - like Pearl Harbour, or the Charge of the Light Brigade - because the 2003 illegal war in Iraq, and then the tragic destruction in Syria, as well as the enduring Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not to mentio...

For observers, it must seem incredible, but the UK is as close as it has now ever been, since Cromwell, to a civil war that could lead to a new sort of model of governance. Unless the EU blinks and gives in to PM Johnson's clear demand to remove the so-called Irish Backstop - which seems unlikely if not impossible - then the government will seek a No Deal crash-out from Europe. However, since the opposition MPs and fed-up backbench Tories actually have the majority numbers, they could easily vote no-confidence in the Boris leadership, and normally this would result in an election, and Johnson's resignation. This is not situation normal, though, and with Cummings onboard, the alleged sociopath, and acknowledged Brexit legislator who cunningly planned the Brexit win of 2016, there is now a grumbling sense that Johnson may simply ignore the parliament's votes and soldier on. This would create a unique constitutional crisis, and bring the Queen in, which is not a sol...

Americans have a uniquely terrible president currently and unless they are careful he may win a second election. Even 8 years of Trump is dispiriting and damaging but eventually and soonish he will be gone. He may yet be impeached. The UK is less lucky by far. Here we face a terrible disruption that is likely to last a generation or more. If we are fortunate we may recover by 2050. This disruption is the Hydra-headed Brexit dilemma. If it goes through the UK will be far poorer culturally, economically and politically. And the union may break up, with conflict again on a more divided Irish island. If it fails to go through there may well be a terminal decline in mainstream democracy and a further rise in more extreme forms of populism. This is because the middle ground has been hollowed out and the far Left and far Right stand by to fill the vacuum and exploit the claims that democracy died when Brexit was not delivered. At the most optimistic, Britain will become a low tax ha...

DARKNESS VISIBLE: THE RISING TIDE OF HATE IN MY TIME BY SARAH BURK, AMERICAN EDITOR AT EYEWEAR PUBLISHING   This past Saturday, a week ago (it seems longer) the quiet college town of Charlottesville, VA became the site of violence and vitriol as white supremacists and neo-Nazis rallied to “Unite the Right” against the removal of a statue of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee , clashing with counter-demonstrators. This scene turned tragic when a man drove a car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators, killing one and injuring 19. He had earlier been seen marching with the symbols of far-right extremist group Vanguard America, though according to the group, he was not an official member. As physical confrontations erupted between protesters, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and law enforcement officers attempted to stop the rally under orders that it was an unlawful assembly. However, the damage had already been done. ...

NOT ONE OF THESE BESPECTACLED MEN WOULD APPROVE OF TRUMP August was once (still is?) called the Silly Season, because less news happened then. Indeed, Malcolm Bradbury's classic novel of the 70s, The History Man , opens with a page on the subject. Ironic, because more than one war has started in August - no month is ahistorical, apolitical. Even the name August refers to an imperial figure. Our editor went away for a fortnight to relax, and like the rest of the world, has witnessed one of the least pleasant August's in living memory, in terms at any rate, of the news. No point in rehearsing the obvious: Donald Trump and his administration are the worst since Nixon' s, and may well be worse. Nixon himself toyed with using nukes in Asia, and harboured hard-hatted rednecks as allies. But the refusal over the weekend to properly condemn extreme-right actions is breathtakingly un-American and unsettling. America has not been as unwelcoming to non-whites since Reagan - p...

WE'D ALL BE BETTER OFF IF SHE WAS IN CHARGE A few days ago a person who was very angry at the state of the world, and who had determined to do something violent in the name of extreme views, went on a rampage outside of the British houses of parliament. A terror incident, and awfully, innocent people were injured, and killed, including an officer guarding the home of democracy in these isles. Images of an heroic MP bloodied and unbowed, and talk of the Blitz spirit, boomed across the globe.... Britain is strong, and unbeaten. Family members of the killer have apologised. Debates rage about his religious identity, and how someone "home grown" could end up so hate-filled - as if this was not also the country that gave us Cromwell and Jack The Ripper . Hate is often grown at home. The new PM, Mrs May , spoke eloquently, and in rather rhetorical fashion, about the greatness of democracy and Westminster. True, but painfully ironic. For, while the terrorist in Londo...

THE SHIT GOT REAL The Cavalry   As the early results curdle, I text my father three words - This Is Bad. Like thousands of others, I’ve spent the last year volunteering and working to elect Hillary Clinton. The long fight. The good fight. The first fight I’ve truly thrown myself into, again and again. Election Night finds me in southern Virginia, a ramshackle campaign office held together by duct tape, off-white cracked paint, and five other community organizers. Growing up, the evening news was my family’s sacred time. Six years old, I watch a Palestinian child dive behind wreckage as gunfire crackles. Peter Jennings’ lullaby voice informs us that the child is unaccounted for. My father responds to my text with two words - I know.             Hour ago a packed office, trusty volunteers using an auto-dialer to rapid fire call as many inconsistent voters as we can. After polls close in Virginia, volunteers shu...

Ironically, "Make America Great Again" will mark the end of American Exceptionalism.   NED HARTLEY, AMERICAN WRITER AND MUSICIAN President Obama gave a press conference at the White House on Monday, November 14, before leaving for a series of state visits overseas. His intelligence and grasp of the minute details of governance only highlighted the fact that Donald Trump is going to look like a complete buffoon at his first news conference. Maybe he'll get impeached for mental incompetence.   Growing up in the years following World War II, one of the persistent questions that was always just below the surface was, "How could good people allow the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust to happen?" Well, now we know. There's not a lot you can do to stop it. Not everyone is enlightened, and sometimes the mob underbelly wins. I hate to sound defeatist, but all I can come up with is that Germany survived it. It took a generation or two, but Germany'...

THE STORM-TRUMPERS CHEER THEIR MONSTROUS WIN The old adage that history repeats, the second time as farce, almost rhymes with this nasty nightmarish moment, the election of President Trump by a whitelash landslide, except the American Caligula now in our midst - the most dangerous and dishonest person to be democratically elected to such a powerful leadership role since WW2 - is no farcical figure.   Comedians might wryly note that Donald J Trump is very presidential - he has the moral compass of Nixo n, the sexual ethics of Bill Clinton , the intelligence of George W Bush , the cultural sophistication of Reagan , the political experience of Eisenhower , and the family-decency of Kennedy - but this approach lacks depth or clarity.  There has actually never been a president like Trump before. There may never be a presidency, again, after him.   There are two ways to treat this most horrible of events - and one is with cautious optimism; however, s...

TRUMP IS PART OF A HISTORY OF WHITE MALE RAGE Like a crazed killer clown, whether we are thrilled, horrified, shocked, or angered (or all of these) by Donald Trump , we cannot claim to be rid of him just yet. He bestrides the world stage like a silverback gorilla (according to one British thug), or a bad analogy, but he is there, a figure, no longer of fun, but grave concern. There has long been a history of misogynistic behaviour in American gangster culture - one thinks of the grapefruit in the face in The Public Enemy , or Sinatra throwing a woman out of his hotel room and later commenting he didn't realise there was a pool below to break her fall, or the polluted womb in Pacino's Scarface ... and of course, some gangsta rap is also sexist.  American culture has a difficult way with handling the combined aspects of male power, and male privilege, that, especially in heteronormative capitalist enclaves, where money/pussy both become grabbable, reified objects and obj...

the book you must read "Baby Bad: TRUMP'S FINAL FACE IS THAT OF INFANTILISM" If we were to imagine history as a electrocardiogram measuring heart rate over time, the heart beat falling on 2016 along with Trump , ISIS and Brexit would measure as a major systolic thump, one that sent ripples through every avenue of public discussion and deeply tailored - and for the most part, hardened - our collective world-view. Reports by finance ministers, business leaders and civilians indicate a sense of gloom at best, crisis at worst. Taking the cardiac analogy further, Trump may represent a major arterial blood clot, a cystic fat narrowing our communal capillaries or (perhaps most aptly) a medically archaic form of angried blood, one that elevates the heart rate and sends it thumping through the 21st century with hysterical, irregular rhythm. And after Trump was officially inaugurated as the Republican nominee, his act went from merely irregular to officially unhinged....

THE MOST TERRIFYING BOOK OF 2016 Rush Limbaugh - the John The Baptist for the current American Idiocy - predicts he will win the Presidency in 2016. He himself has beaten off 17 of the most powerful, well-funded, conservative, ruthless, and intelligent Republicans ever arranged against one man. He is a funny, canny, super-rich, fearless, and rude man of uncommon boldness. Here comes Donald Trump - by some measure the most narcissistic "textbook" megalomaniac to run for this modern office - but also the most populist (if not popular). Nixon did not like lots of people we presume, but he managed to get some of them to vote for him - Trump has never met a group he could not offend. His default position is satirical invective with slap in the face disregard for ceremony. A Trump presidency would be a revolt such as we last saw in America when they chucked out the King - so they do have form. Americans have a capacity for innovation, daring, surprise, and stupidity secon...