What comes round . .

I saw a question on the clickbait which wondered whether we should mourn the passing of the international order. This of course was an order that was defined by neo-liberalism and expressed in the one word ‘globalisation,’ something which Tony Blair said was no more possible to stop than Autumn following Summer (I may have the seasons misquoted here). Well, should the left welcome the much touted end of the so-called international order? Should it offer a backhanded compliment to Trump for achieving more in 12 months than Jeremy Corbyn did in a lifetime in politics (I’m using Corbyn’s name here more in a symbolic way, even though the two seem to have similar views on NATO)? What I wonder is the ‘left’ internationalism of today? No doubt the word solidarity will crop up, just as it did between those who saw a common enemy of the working class during the First World War. But even then such left luminaries as Victor Grayson became recruiting sergeants for the meat mangle. Now it seems that the war on Iran is solidifying Iranian patriotic fervour (as opposed to fervour for the regime) and as we know Trump hasn’t got the faintest idea about what to do next. In Iran, 90 million people will be left in limbo. So where does ‘left’ internationalism’ step in, aside from slogans? Answers on a postcard, please. Or maybe an indigestible tract.
 
I would like to offer my own solution, but I can’t. I am fatalistic. Perhaps I’ve been too closely involved in politics and dwell on the failures of our ‘democratic’ system too much. Those failures are manifest, and are rooted in the inescapable systemic dishonesty which underpins our fantasy world (motto: growth will save us). I do not look back with nostalgia to an innocent pre-imperial or industrial age, in that regard the ‘Enlightenment’ was something of chimera. The killing went on uninterrupted and there has never not been an excuse for humans to behave abominably towards each other, inspired by jealousy, greed, faith—whatever comes to mind. As has been said, the Devil has all the best tunes.
 
We are perhaps in a League of Nations moment. Despite U.S. involvement in the drafting of the League’s founding, the country did not ratify its membership. Nazi Germany withdrew. The contours of what is happening to international bodies today have been delineated in the past. In commercial terms what has been described as a country’s competitive advantage is being translated into a wider context which is to say you take advantage wherever and whenever you can, with military support where necessary.