From Gush Shalom
I KNEW he reminded me of somebody, but I couldn't quite place it. Who was it who pounded his chest with such vigor?And then I remembered. It was the hero of a movie that was produced when I was 10 years old: King Kong.
King Kong, the giant primate with the heart of gold, who scaled huge buildings and downed airplanes with his little finger.
Wow. President Kong, the mightiest being on earth.
SOME OF us had hoped that Donald Trump would turn out to be quite a different person than his election persona. In an election campaign you say many kinds of inane things. To be forgotten the day after.
But the day after has come and gone, and the inane things have multiplied. The incredible Trump we believed didn't really exist is here to stay -- for four years, at least.
On his first day in office, we saw the absurd sight of two boys in the schoolyard arguing about who had the largest.
In this case, the largest inauguration crowd. He insisted that he had the greatest ever. As he should have expected, within minutes aerial photos appeared on TV, showing that Barack Obama's crowd was far larger.
So did he apologize? On the contrary, he insisted.
A spokeswoman appeared and explained that this was just a case of "alternative facts." A wonderful phrase. Pity I did not know it during my many years as a journalist. When I say at noon that it is midnight, it is just an alternative fact. (And is of course true -- in Hawaii or somewhere.)
I HAVE a very limited understanding of economics. But just a small amount of simple logic tells me that Trump's economic promises are baloney. One doesn't "bring back jobs" by talk.
Manual jobs are lost because of automation. The German and British textile workers destroyed the machines that took their jobs away. That was some 300 years ago, and it did not help them. Now Trump looks 100 years back, and wants things to revert.
A hundred years ago you needed a thousand workers to do the job done now by 10. This will remain so and intensify, even if you smash all the computers in the world.
Globalization is the spirit of the times. It is the natural outcome of a situation that allows me to react to Trump's words within a few seconds of his uttering them. When I can fly around the world in much less than 80 hours.
Trump can do very little about this. He cannot bring back the "protectionist" policies of the 18th century. If he slaps punitive duties on imports from China, China will impose duties on imports from the USA. Already, this week, a trade war has broken out between the US and Mexico.
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