Dec 12th will henceforth be known as a sad day in the history of Britain. A day when the voters, having been agitated and stirred to the point of exasperation, finally said "Get Brexit Done" in accordance with the slogan of the Conservative Party led by the comical Boris Johnson. I support democracy and respect the outcome of free and fair elections so I'll not quibble with Britain's choice to self immolate, for even though we now see the end of the beginning for Brexit there is much that is left to be worked out. The Scottish National Party is resurgent and will not go quietly into isolation with the rest of Britain. Expect to see calls for a new referendum on Scottish Independence. Northern Ireland is now center stage in the next round of trade negotiations with the EU. The Good Friday Accords established an open border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. That open border and the Accords themselves are now in jeopardy as a hard border slams down between Britain, which includes Northern Ireland, and the EU, which includes Ireland.

Britain has torn itself away from the much larger EU market and will now have to negotiate with the rest of the world in order to get itself on equal trade footings with foreign markets. First up will be the EU, with its perhaps vengeful need to demonstrate that leaving the EU is painful but equally important will be the USA where Donald Trump and his army of flying monkeys will show no mercy to the newly isolated Isles. They both know desperation when they see it. Don't count on either of them to be kind.

To my British friends and relatives - I wish you all well on this foolish and unnecessary journey you have embarked upon. For your sake I hope I am wrong. 

Today the almost inevitable happened when the House Majority Leader announced that Articles of Impeachment will be drawn up against Donald Trump. He so richly deserves to be impeached that the Judiciary Committee has to be careful not to pile on so much that they are accused of zealotry. But Trump's presidency will be remembered for something far worse than the high crimes and misdemeanors that will be recorded in those articles. The Orange Buffoon sitting in the Oval Office has succeeded at defining the real world itself for his slavishly loyal followers in the Republican Party.  As if through some sort of Jedi Mind Trick he has replaced the facts that are with alternative narratives that suit him better while he shreds the US Constitution he swore to defend and uphold. His defenders over the last few weeks have accumulated exactly nothing to counter the mountain of evidence pointing to Trump's misdeeds. Of late they have taken to claiming that the holes in the evidence created by the President's Obstruction of Congress are reason to not proceed with impeachment. Never mind that Obstructing Congress is in itself an impeachable offence. Trump instructed his administration to defy 71 congressional subpoenas. All the Republicans can say to that is …….. nothing. They deflect and insist that the process is illegitimate. It is not. Even the Republican's witness to yesterday's judicial hearing admitted that the process is legitimate, his only concern being that it is too hasty and there are holes in the case created by the President's refusal to cooperate. Think about that, the best the Republicans could do was produce a constitutional expert who would quibble about the haste of the process. He told the Democratic Chairman that the proper course would be to let the White House's court challenges fail and then hear their sworn testimonies.  The Supreme Court has already ruled that Congressional Subpoenas are to be obeyed. They did so during the Nixon impeachment. There is no reason that decision will be overturned and no reason to wait to see it upheld. Yet here we are today with both the House Minority Leader and the Senate Majority Leader claiming that the Democrats have no case. At least within the Republican Party, Trump now defines the truth. It is whatever he says it is. Let's all hope that the rest of us can resist his Stalinist wizardry. 

David Cameron is the UK Prime Minister whom we can blame for the Brexit mess. Why? Because he set the referendum in motion and was so sure "remain" would win that he didn't consider the consequences of a "leave" vote. He didn't set provision for a second referendum to confirm Britons' desire for whatever deal the EU agreed to and laid the foundation for years of frustration and anxiety that might soon come to an end, only to lead to more uncertainty as the consequences of leaving kick in. For there was no plan for how to leave, and still isn't. Only an intent.

In the wake of Canada's October election, with no Federal Government representation in either Saskatchewan or Alberta, some western Canadians are feeling left out and abandoned by what they see as a Federal government hostile to their dire economic plight.  A few have even started talking about WEXIT. This sentiment is concentrated in Alberta where they believe that all four western provinces will want to separate with them. Most serious and sitting western politicians have not jumped on that bandwagon but Alberta's Premier, Jason Kenny, decided to be the first to fan the fires of separatism with a speech to his fellow conservatives. Opening with a remark about his democratic duty to defend Alberta he then listed a number of items that he thinks will do just that. An Alberta Pension Plan - separate from the Canadian Pension Plan. An Alberta Provincial Police Force - replacing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as the rural police force in the province. A Provincial Constitution - presumably different from the Canadian Constitution but he did not specify how. Enacting a law allowing Albertans to petition for and hold provincial referenda. Only the last two have any bearing on Alberta separating from Canada. The first two would just make it technically easier if they happened before any political rupture. What the four items will do is make Alberta superficially more like Quebec. Albertans will have to decide what sort of constitution they want, which may be contentious enough but the real potential for trouble lies in the ability to hold referendums. His argument that Alberta needs these things seems to be based on the flight of capital out of Alberta that he blames on Federal Government policies.

Some people think referenda are the ultimate expression of Democracy and promote them as the way to settle important questions of the day. Done properly perhaps they can be the fine instrument some believe they are. Problems creep in when fallible human beings acting as politicians write vague or even deliberately misleading questions. Results that are not clear become a Rorschach test for even more politicians to spin to their own ends. The referendum campaigns are ripe targets for foreign interference through social media. They are difficult to get right and the consequences of getting them wrong are serious.

JK's seeming desire to make Alberta more like Quebec  ignores the high price Quebec (and Canada) paid for the decades long flirtation with separation. Quebec's economy went from leading Canada to a laggard, as capital and people fled the province out of concern they would one day wake up in a different country. Canada's currency was consistently undervalued, making all imports more expensive. Canada's interest rates were higher due to the uncertainty of the integrity of the nation, making all loans more expensive for everyone. Quebec and Canada paid a high price for that existential debate even though separation never actually passed on a referendum and never actually occurred.

Quebec played with matches and all of Canada got burned for nothing. David Cameron played with matches and they blew up in Britain's face. Jason Kenny just pulled a box of matches out of his pocket and is inviting people to strike. He is irresponsible and small in his vision of his duty to Albertans.

Today is a good day to return to this forum after a long absence. I have simply been busy with other things these last few months and frankly developments in North America and Britain have been astoundingly confusing and hard to keep track of let alone formulate a coherent commentary. But today is perhaps the end of the beginning for both BREXIT and The Daily Horror Show that is the Trump Presidency.

Britain is on its way to a December election which will hopefully see the voters demand a clear stand on BREXIT from their local candidates. If they do that and their informed vote produces a viable majority in Parliament then Britains' BREXIT nightmare will end in some semblance of the will of the people. What that will be is either no BREXIT, BREXIT with the current deal offered from the EU or a no-deal BREXIT. I very much prefer that Britain remains within the EU but if one of the other two options can be credibly represented by a majority of MPs then so be it.

In the US, the House of Representatives has established the rules for the impeachment process as they seek to determine whether or not Trump abused his power in an effort to bully Ukraine into investigating a potential opponent for the 2020 election. This action has clearly re-established the oversight role that the US constitution says rest with the people's house of representatives. The House of Representatives embodies the people's oversight of their elected government. By the time the impeachment investigations are complete it should be known whether or not Trump is credibly guilty of high crimes or misdemeanors and the Senate will have to wrestle with their duty to convict or not. The next few weeks will lets us all see just how far the Republicans will go in their determination to put party over country.

In Canada, the recent election has returned a minority government with the Liberals under Justin Trudeau now dependent on obtaining support from another  party in order to get anything done. A resurgent, separatist Bloc Quebecois is going to discover that more seats, without actually holding the balance of power or being the official opposition is a very hollow "victory" indeed. More likely they will simply be ignored, their claim to being the voice of Quebec belied by the fact they hold less than half of Quebec's parliamentary seats. A recent uptick in separatist talk in the western provinces appears to be simply a social media enabled effort to get attention, no credible western Canadian politician is advocating separation from Canada. Minority governments can work very well if all parties collaborate toward the common good. Lets hope they do that. 

derKUEKeN - _{Kreis für Umwelt Erwachsene Kinder und ernsthafte Nachhaltigkeit}

The party is a vehicle for directing public discourse towards the relevant topic of society. The relevant issue that concerns us is the future, because this is the space that can be shaped by the present. Children are the clearest sign of the future. They are our children and they are always also children of society. It is in them that responsibility is most evident. This responsibility lies with us, the responsible citizens as parents, grandparents, educators and also politicians.

The starting point should be simple, it should lie with the question: How can our society be built and structured so that it offers our children a good society and community? A good society should be the ability to make our children more true, smarter and better people than we are, it is a joy to look at. The starting point of any political action is thus the question of expediency for our children. This is a radical change of perspective.


From this simple and basic idea of caring we deviate the main party principals

Basic Principles

The basic principles set out our essential values and set out the basic direction of our social and political ideas. All other ideas and measures must be measured against these basic principles and values.
Since the children of society are at the centre of all our efforts, this directly results in an effort to act sustainably. These two topmost values also provide us with the following basic principles:

pacifism

 Pacifism is the consistent consequence of responsibility for our children. It must be radical in the sense that we must understand that war can only take place with war material and that we must stop producing and using it.

Secularism

 Secularism is also a consequence of this responsibility. When we accept a higher being, a God, then this higher being in the end bears the responsibility, the responsibility for the state of the world. On the other hand, the responsibility, especially to human society and to our children, to take responsibility for oneself, seems natural. The central point is therefore self-determination, which is central to maturity.

Contemporaneity

 We must remain responsible to the existing people, the present is the space in which the future can be shaped, not the future. Concrete people can be the goal of our responsibility, not possible people.

Structural incompleteness

 We, as living humans, are structurally incomplete. This is precisely our possibility for development. Each of our social products resembles us in this: the party is structurally incomplete, we must constantly change the structures of the party, including those of society. It cannot be our aim to build a perfect society, it cannot exist under these conditions. Our goal can only be the positive and sustainable development of society.

Preserving the natural foundations of life

 Conserving - or restoring - a healthy and rich environment inevitably derives from responsibility for our children and all future generations and is closely linked to the concept of sustainability.

The natural foundations of life are our resource, which make human life on Planet Earth possible in the first place. To overexploit these resources for short-term profit is robbery of future generations, makes it even more difficult for them to survive and must therefore be seen as irresponsible action against our children and grandchildren.

We are committed to the Antropocene and the resulting responsibility. The effect of us humans on the earth is meanwhile so great that we must consider Hans Jonas extension of the Categorical Imperative, "Act in such a way that the effects of your actions are compatible with the permanence of real human life on earth"[1].

solidarity

 Man is a being of community. Therefore, our concern is for the community as it must be for the individual. Solidarity expresses, among other things, the intergenerational contract that binds us together.

 Justice

 Only in a society that compensates for structural disadvantages in the opportunities for individual participation and thus enables everyone to participate in society can children grow up in a culturally appropriate way and mature into mature and socially knowledgeable people.

Lifetime as treasure

 That lifetime is a decisive value follows from Hans Jonas' statement that life is a purpose for life[2]. The time of our life is irretrievable and passes, therefore it is a treasure. A treasure to share, with children, with people, with loved ones. As primates we are beings of community and lifetime, spent with other people, is a gift. We have to spend less money, consume less products - not only for sustainability reasons. If we spend less money, we have to earn less money and have more free time.

Cooperation instead of competition

 Competition is an enemy of the community. It promotes the isolation of people and disturbs their natural openness and cooperative abilities. With this he makes all people unhappy, because humans are beings of the community.

Commitment to universal human rights

Universal human rights form the basic basis for people's interaction with one another. To grant these rights to every human being and to create a corresponding social, legal and political environment is again the essential foundation on which mature, enlightened and independent personalities can develop responsibly. For generations, the education of our descendants has focused on these very attributes. Universal human rights protect the individual, like all citizens, from disproportionate interference in their own affairs and from state arbitrariness.

Therefore, a commitment to universal human rights is also a commitment to the rule of law and co-determination.


The KUEKeN party is devoted to enlightenment in the matter of Kant:

>Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

But since Ardorno/Horkheimer's "Dialectic of Enlightenment" we know reason need be related to some kind of human reality. Without such binding to the real needs of us humans, reason tends to have a logic of it's own and separates from the basic needs.
The simple example is economics. Where it is reasonable for the economic actor to boost their profits but for human kind it's the worst, as it destroys the foundation of our very basic living conditions.
To prevent reason from going rough in such a way, we use the care we have for our children to bind reason to the basic human existence.
"Without children there will be no future, without future there is no history, without history there is no meaning"

"Only in the context of a narration can the end appear as completion. Without any narrative, the end is always an absolute loss, an absolute deficiency." (Byung-Chul Han. Transparenzgesellschaft. Berlin 2012. Verlag Matthes & Seitz. 3. Auflage 2013. ISBN 978-3-88221-595-3. S.52)

All the German stuff can be looked up here: http://kueken-partei.de.

The imminent death of democracy seems to be a common theme in these days of populist right wing politicians taking up the mantle and pushing illiberal ideas. The two poster boys for this are Donald Trump and his British doppleganger Boris Johnson. Trump continues to jeopardize his re-election chances on a daily basis and Boris seems to be on a short road to the ash heap of history in the midst of one of the most confusing political crises in modern history.

Today the UK Parliament  narrowly voted to table a bill that if passed will prevent Boris Johnson from executing a no deal Brexit on Oct 31st. Johnson has threatened that if that bill passes he will call a snap election for mid-October, just two weeks before Britain is scheduled to leave the EU with or without a deal. This writer has written before that the proper way for Britain to proceed out of this mess is to hold a second referendum to clarify just what Britons want to do about their membership in the EU. A snap election is about as good as it gets for settling that matter. The biggest problem is that with only two weeks to do anything, a newly mandated government will have to hit the ground running.

This is not perfect but democracies are not perfect and never will be. Boris Johnson has never led his party through a general election yet seems to believe that simply by virtue pf winning a majority of conservative party member votes he has the authority to take deeply profound actions without even the consent of Parliament. Parliament is duty bound to push back against such despotism.

There are signs of people yearning to have more say over their governance in Moscow and Hong Kong as well as Paris, London and America. Perhaps we in the west had to be at the brink of losing what we have before we realized what we have got. Let's hope it is not too late.

Before embarking Marine 1 to fly to Air Force 1 on his way to Dayton Ohio, Trump engaged in a press scrum on the south lawn of the White House. He was asked if his hate filled, anti-immigrant rhetoric had inspired the shooter in El Paso and Dayton. His answer was that what he says doesn't have any impact on what people do.

We can only hope that is true. As usual, the thoughtless, reality-challenged drivel that pours out of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has only demonstrated the depth of this man's ignorance.

Trump's rhetoric got him elected President of the United States in 2016.

Trump's rhetoric moves stock markets around the globe, usually downward.

Trump's rhetoric inspires those marginalized by their own paranoia and hatred, to believe they serve a just cause while engaging in violent and deadly acts against those the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES identifies as "invaders", "rapists", "murderers" and "drug dealers".

Vile and disgraceful of the office from which it is broadcast? Yes, Inconsequential? - not on your life.  

Last week CNN reported that the Trump administration is considering adding 100 civics questions to the test to become a US citizen. I'm all for prospective citizens knowing what they are getting into. There is one condition that I would ask for before supporting this initiative. Require US politicians to answer them all correctly. I bet the Orange Buffoon in the Whitehouse would fail miserably.

There is nothing so blind as all consuming ambition, more so when combined with boundless and unwarranted self-confidence. Boris Johnson's ascension to the Prime Minister's Office is the product of a vote of confidence from less than 100,000 Britons. On that thin basis he says he is determined to take Britain out of the EU on October 31st even without a deal with the EU. The Leave side won the 2016 referendum by a slim margin. It is unknown how many of them intended to leave even if no deal could be reached. The MPs of the party now led by BJ does not support a no-deal Brexit. There is no Parliamentary majority that does support a no-deal Brexit. The Northern Ireland / Irish border will become a frontier of chaos under a no-deal Brexit. The British economy will be pitched into a deep well of uncertainty. British citizens now working in the EU (if any are left) will be in limbo, likely abruptly fired. Likewise any EU citizens working in the UK.

The sudden, un-regulated, re-establishment of a border between Northern Ireland and Ireland has the potential to re-ignite the "Troubles". The violence which plagued Northern Ireland for decades until The Good Friday Accords of 1998 essentially erased the border between the two Irelands. It was possible to do this because both Ireland and the UK were members of the EU.

Boris Johnson has ridden the Brexit issue to the Prime Minister's Office without a thought to the chaos he will unleash if he proceeds with his stated intent. Lives will be lost. Lives will be disrupted. Money will be lost. All because Boris wanted to be Prime Minister and was willing to do anything to achieve it. This foolish little man would be ashamed of himself if he understood the concept. Let's hope his term as Prime Minister ends abruptly  and soon with a non-confidence vote. The election that will follow can then serve as a second referendum on Brexit itself, something the UK desperately needs.

It seems only a matter of time before the Accidental President or his sycophants rename Independence Day. Cadet Bone Spurs' obscene infatuation with military hardware and Generals has produced the first July 4^th ever to feature tanks and fighter aircraft as part of the celebration of American Independence. Added in for good measure to ensure the proper amount of adulation of the President is a new ticket-admission-only VIP zone around the Lincoln Memorial where another new feature will be the President himself speaking to the assembled masses.

July 4^th, Independence Day is intended to be a celebration of the people asserting their inalienable rights in opposition to a Parliament that taxed but did not represent them, did not listen to their concerns and the King who allowed that indifference. In 2019 the people's celebration is hi-jacked by a would-be-King who is indifferent to all but his immediate, selfish needs with occasional pretense at caring about those who worship him like a god.

July 4^th in Washington is supposed to be special; the people peacefully assemble in celebration of the Declaration of Independence. American Ideals are honored in recognition that the true strength of America is not the size, power, or number of its tanks and aircraft, but the idea that people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that those rights are to be protected by a constitution, the rule of law, free speech, free press, free assembly, free petition of the government and free religion. It is those words, incorporated in the FIRST amendment, and the practice of those freedoms that make America great. It is sad that the Accidental President does not understand and cannot comprehend these self-evident truths.