Interesting essay that merits reading as these are the topics many have written diaries/comments about in recent months on this site.

    .. anti-capitalist, secular Jew from Brooklyn with no identifiable religious belief ..

What bothers me a lot is this remark about Bernie Sanders. Typical sterotyping a person. It’s ill-founded, framing him as a politician who could never be elected as president. Bernie Sanders is the visionary you call on later to approach the current problem of globalisation and jobs. Perhaps the “anti-capitalist” form of the German economy could be a lesson for many western countries. I would argue Western Europe is a capitalist economy with a social framework not to leave the masses outside the benefits of the wealthy and few. European nations (except the UK) have a policy of income equality the US is “searching” for. The history of the Jewish people and Israel is one based on social-economic principles pronounce by a Labour government for decades. Once the Jewish immigrants from East Europe and the former Soviet Union arrived, the nation turned to fascism. This had nothing to do with globalization. Don’t forget that fascism goes hand-in-hand with a military-industrial complex as we have witnessed in the last 100 years.

Today’s society and the times are more complex than to be defined from a “nationalist” or “globalist” view. The global community is experiencing an identity crisis, perhaps because of the explosive nature and growth of the overall population. Often the poorest nations of South America, Africa, Middle-East and South-East Asia have an expansion of its population that can’t be fed, clothe properly, offer basic education and jobs when the kids have grown up.

The rich nations have a problem of the inverted pyramid, too many elderly and too few to earn the income to sustain the economy and society: see Japan, Germany and Russia amongst many other nations. For Germany immigrants in a normal flow are quite welcome!

Most essays and corresponding theories are based and come forth from fear. Once there are too few jobs to go around and/or the salaries cannot provide a livable wage, cultural differences come under a magnifying glass. Ordinary people like to think they are better or deserve better than their neighbour, especially if that person has a different skin complexion, an accent or (spare me) another religion or from a foreign culture.

Reading the essay carefully, the author may have a view of American culture and society, he clearly lacks insight and understanding how the 9/11 attacks has changed politics and society in Europe. An important factor in the rise of right-wing parties started in the aftermath of these attacks on the U.S. and the call for a crusade or a War on Terror by President Bush and VP Cheney.

The Israeli link to call all enemy forces “terrorists” and the funding and support for Islamophobia left its deep marks in European society. The right-wing political parties in Europe are basically anti-Islam parties. Most likely is that what the author also focusses on in his essay …

    What on earth is going on in the Western democracies? From the rise of Donald Trump in the United States and an assortment of right-wing parties across Europe through the June 23 Brexit vote, many on the Left have the sense that something dangerous and ugly is spreading: right-wing populism, seen as the Zika virus of politics. Something has gotten into “those people” that makes them vote in ways that seem–to their critics–likely to harm their own material interests, at least if their leaders follow through in implementing isolationist policies that slow economic growth.

    Most analyses published since the Brexit vote focus on economic factors and some version of the “left behind” thesis–globalization has raised prosperity all over the world, with the striking exception of the working classes in Western societies. These less educated members of the richest countries lost access to well-paid but relatively low-skilled jobs, which were shipped overseas or given to immigrants willing to work for less. In communities where wages have stagnated or declined, the ever-rising opulence, rents, and confidence of London and other super-cities has bred resentment.

This opening is a bunch of crap … incoherent and putting all on a pile of the Brexit vote.  

The quote from Gordon Brown is misconceived by the author.

    “British jobs for British workers”

The British are part of the European Union which regulates by agreement a free flow of goods and workers across all borders. Gordon Brown expressed himself not as a racist but as a nationalist, a Blairite.  In the EU all citizens are equal and have an opportunity to move freely to the UK and find a job. Brexit was never about EU immigrants but about the refugees coming from a war-torn Syria via Turley – thanking the PNAC military options for regime change. UKIP was never about today’s immigration but about a multicultural society in Great Britain as a result of the British Empire and people from the Commonwealth in past decades. UKIP has racist undertones, so does Marine LePen in France, Geert Wilders in Holland and similar parties in Austria and Denmark. Germany has just recently seen the rise of right-wing parties, however in this week’s poll the refugee and immigration policy of Angela Merkel still receives a majority support.

PM Gordon Brown in 2007 – “British jobs for British workers”

CRITICISMS

Since June there have been a number of criticisms of “British jobs for British workers” in the press and Parliament. The main arguments may be summarised as follows:

  •  Employment discrimination based on nationality is covered by European law and the Race Relations Act 1976
  •  Some employers may interpret the phrase “British jobs for British workers” as general government encouragement for discriminatory employment policies designed to privilege British job seekers over other people entitled to seek work in this country
  • The phrase echoes the general employment policies of the British National Party and the National Front and may unintentionally benefit those parties

In the Debate on the Address on 6 November 2007, the Leader of the Opposition, The Rt Hon David Cameron MP criticised the Government’s policy and referred to further statements by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, The Rt Hon Peter Hain MP:

    If we want just one example of the absolute bankruptcy of this Government, let us take the slogan that the Prime Minister wheels out every week: British jobs for British workers. Yes, if only he could see how embarrassed his Labour MPs are, how they shudder when he utters those words. I have done a bit of work on this little slogan of the Prime Minister’s. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions told us that there should be no doubt. It is, he said, “explicitly a British jobs for British people campaign”.  

    We asked the House of Commons Library, and it said

    “There is apparently nothing in the detail of the proposals to suggest that foreign nationals will be excluded from any of the initiatives if they happen to live in the area where the locally based schemes operate.” So there we have it: the reality is that the Prime Minister has no intention of providing British jobs for British workers, because he knows that it would be illegal under EU law. His proposals will not help British people working in Britain any more than they will help Italian people working in Britain or Polish people working in Britain. That is the truth about British jobs for British workers. I did a bit more research to find out where he got his slogans from: he borrowed one off the National Front; he borrowed another off the British National Party. Where was his moral compass when he was doing that?
    [Source: House of Commons – Government policy on “British Jobs for British Workers” ]

I stopped reading Haidt’s essay, I can’t bear the ugliness and fascist undertones in his arguments. Especially where he described the moral dilemma of Europe to take in refugees from Syria. This is so morally corrupt, I can’t bear it. European law is based on universal and international law for refugees. Period! Stop the bloody wars in the greater Middle East!  Stop Erdogan, the fascist in Turkey who uses the refugees to bribe the EU to restart negotiations for membership.

Searching for Jonathan Haidt …

○ Sam Harris responds to Jonathan Haidt – Sept. 2007
○ Sam Harris – The Pleaure to Change My Mind – Feb. 2014

Tweet Jon Haidt – Oct. 2014 : “Sam Harris correctly calls out liberals for fearing to criticize muslims. Ben Affleck freaks out …”

So Haidt has gone full circle! Wow