From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Tue Dec 1 00:16:06 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2020 18:16:06 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left? Message-ID: <002a01d6c777$2c92c460$85b84d20$@comcast.net> Neera Tanden was just appointed by Biden to be the head of the OMB ( Office of Management and Budget ) and instantly received an endorsement from Neo-Con Republican War Monger Bill Kristol. That should tell you everything. However, for those who are not familiar with the obnoxious Neo-Liberal Neera Tanden and her corporate funded think tank - "The Center for Corporate Progress ", oops, I mean " The Center For American Progress ", here is an article from two years ago ( Dec. 2018 ) that goes into a lot of good ( horrible ) detail.....From the article - " The Center for American Progress, however, is cozy with some of America?s largest and most controversial companies. Though it is quick to emphasize that corporate donations constitute only a small part of its funding, in 2013 alone CAP received support from Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, the American Beverage Association, Comcast, BlueCross BlueShield, weapons manufacturer Northrop Grumman, and Walmart. The government of the United Arab Emirates (which regularly carries out forced disappearances and torture) has given over $500,000. Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, in an important 2013 investigation of CAP?s funding, was told by multiple former staffers that when CAP was seeking support from Saudis it muted its criticism of the Saudi kingdom. (CAP continues to conceal the identities of many of its largest donors.) " Current Affairs Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left? As the left tries to fight against inequality and exploitation, the main ?progressive? think tank joins forces with right-wing free market capitalists * Nathan J. Robinson filed 13 December 2018 in Politics The Center for American Progress is one of the largest and most important think tanks in Washington, certainly the preeminent ?progressive? think tank. It describes its agenda as promoting ?bold, progressive ideas? and releases a number of extremely useful reports and fact sheets. In 2008, TIME branded it ? Obama?s idea factory.? CAP has strong ties with both Obama and the Clintons?it was founded by close Clinton confidante John Podesta and its president, Neera Tanden, previously worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. The New Republic has described it as ?stuffed to the gills with staffers who have either worked in previous Democratic administrations or will go on to work in future ones.? The phrase ?progressive? is often associated with the left wing of the Democratic Party, by contrast with its ?moderate? wing, and progressives are typically skeptical of corporate influence in politics. The Center for American Progress, however, is cozy with some of America?s largest and most controversial companies. Though it is quick to emphasize that corporate donations constitute only a small part of its funding, in 2013 alone CAP received support from Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, the American Beverage Association, Comcast, BlueCross BlueShield, weapons manufacturer Northrop Grumman, and Walmart. The government of the United Arab Emirates (which regularly carries out forced disappearances and torture) has given over $500,000. Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, in an important 2013 investigation of CAP?s funding, was told by multiple former staffers that when CAP was seeking support from Saudis it muted its criticism of the Saudi kingdom. (CAP continues to conceal the identities of many of its largest donors.) CAP president Neera Tanden has described herself as ? a loyal soldier? for Hillary Clinton and despite heading a ?nonpartisan? think tank, worked behind the scenes during the 2016 primary to try to erode Bernie Sanders? support. Leaked internal emails reveal Tanden?s own political instincts to depart from what is typically considered ?progressive.? She advised the Clinton campaign against a $15 minimum wage, and in one disturbing instance, as Glenn Greenwald has reported, argued ?that Libyans should be forced to turn over large portions of their oil revenues to repay the U.S. for the costs incurred in bombing Libya, on the grounds that Americans will support future wars only if they see that the countries attacked by the U.S. pay for the invasions.? The Center for American Progress does not just accept shady donations. It also gives them. Journalist Andrew Perez reported that according to financial disclosure forms, CAP donated $200,000 last year to the American Enterprise Institute. The AEI is a right-wing free-market think tank perhaps best known as the longtime home of racist social scientist Charles Murray. When Current Affairs challenged Tanden on Twitter about the donation, she replied: We have a joint program on defending democracy from the rise of authoritarianism. Here?s the press release from the CAP website. Welcome [Current Affairs] to cover the many papers we have jointly authored. This is a critical topic more media should focus on. Naturally, Current Affairs gladly accepts the invitation to focus on CAP?s collaboration with the AEI. I looked at two of the ?reports? that they have produced together so far. First, it is still unclear why CAP is giving AEI $200,000. The reports Tanden links to are a few pages each, more like extended op-eds than scholarly works, and involve no original research. They both focus not on ?authoritarianism? as Tanden says, but on what they call ?authoritarian populism.? This is important, because while Tanden suggests that nobody could object to ?defending democracy from the rise of authoritarianism,? we know that to the American Enterprise Institute, ?democracy? and ?authoritarianism? do not necessarily mean what they mean to you and me. When the AEI speaks of democracy, it means ?laissez-faire capitalism? and when it speaks of ?authoritarianism? it means ?minimum wage laws? or any mildly redistributive social policies that could threaten American Enterprise. Tanden wants to wave away concerns about the collaboration, because after all everyone agrees democracy is good. But the question is?what are we actually ?defending? here? The CAP/AEI report ? Drivers of Authoritarian Populism in the United States? defines what it means by ?populism?: ?political parties and leaders that are anti-establishment and that divide society into two groups: self-serving elites and good, ordinary people.? By that definition, Bernie Sanders clearly falls under the ?populist? umbrella?he is anti-establishment and believes that ordinary people are being fleeced by self-serving elites. The report says that populism is not inherently bad, and emphasizes that it is targeted against the bigoted form of populism. But in the CAP/AEI discussion of European ?authoritarian populism,? it?s clear that economic leftists are included in the category: A 2017 study, which looked at elections across Europe between 1980 and 2016, found that there is an asymmetry in drivers of support for right- and left-wing authoritarian populists. While the right wing seems unresponsive to changes in objective economic characteristics, the support for left-wing extreme populists, such as Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain, is sensitive both to rates of economic growth and to unemployment. The rise of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, can be viewed in a similar fashion. Podemos, Syriza, and Corbyn??authoritarians?? Why? What could possibly put them in a category alongside Viktor Orb?n? The CAP/AEI reports are actually extremely vague, saying they believe in ?a market economy with shared prosperity? and ?economic openness? but not making it particularly clear what that means. After all, who is against ?openness? and ?prosperity?? Who wants to be closed and poor? But it?s clear that what they?re actually talking about is free market capitalism. Corbyn, Syriza, and Podemos are only ?authoritarian? if you subscribe to the radical libertarian theory that wealth redistribution is totalitarian. CAP/AEI are cagey about saying that they?re teaming up to defend capitalism from leftists, but that?s precisely the implication of the reports? statement that left parties are ?authoritarian populism? that needs defeating in order to preserve ?democracy.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Tue Dec 1 00:21:24 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2020 18:21:24 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?iso8859-7?q?Biden=27s_cabinet_appointments_-__?= =?iso8859-7?q?1?= Message-ID: <003701d6c777$e76d1650$b64742f0$@comcast.net> Biden's cabinet appointments - First the WAR MONGER Anthony Blinken and now Bruce Reed, who helped develop the '94 Crime Bill, pushed broken windows policing & cuts to Social Security & Medicaid. Reed was the executive director of the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission during President Obama's first term. The Bowles-Simpson commission proposed getting Democrats and Republicans to work together to enact massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare, including raising the retirement age............. https://actionnetwork.org/user_files/user_files/000/042/607/original/jd-logo .svg Sign now: No Deficit Hawks in the Biden Administration! Target: The Biden-Harris Transition Team: Jd-bruce-reed-meta-2_(1) The Biden Administration is starting to roll out Executive Branch appointments, and one name being floated is extremely concerning: The American Prospect has reported that career deficit hawk Bruce Reed is being considered for a post in the administration. Putting someone in the administration who will prioritize paying down the deficit ahead of all other concerns in charge is a recipe for cutting our earned benefits and turning the COVID recession into a depression. Rejecting Reed will be a major test for the soul of the Biden presidency. Reed was the executive director of the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission during President Obama's first term. The Bowles-Simpson commission proposed getting Democrats and Republicans to work together to enact massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare, including raising the retirement age. Joe Biden must not repeat Obama's mistake. We need our government to spend money now?to ensure vaccines are distributed, to keep people in their homes, to prevent small businesses from closing permanently, and to make sure Americans can stay home until the vaccine arrives! Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ran on strong promises to protect and expand Social Security. Add your name now to demand that the Biden administration does not include Bruce Reed in their appointments. To: The Biden-Harris Transition Team: From: [Your Name] Bruce Reed has a history of putting deficit reduction ahead of economic recovery, including as Executive Director of the Bowles-Simpson commission. We are extremely concerned by the reports that Reed is being considered for an appointment under the Biden administration, given his history of antipathy towards economic security programs that working people rely on. We demand that the administration be staffed with people who will prioritize working people, not Wall Street deficit scaremongers. Sponsored by Jd-actionnetwork-banner-600x600-1_(2) Justice Democrats Additional Sponsors Dfp_block_logo Data for Progress Ssw_logo_web_color Social Security Works Untitled_design_(2) Ilhan for Congress Rashida_logo_tree-fullcolor Rashida Tlaib for Congress 64564272_403776006895255_5443729837745242112_n Jamaal Bowman for Congress Unnamed_(4) Cori Bush for Congress Ocasio2018_logo_purple_full_name___democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress Fb_pp_180x180_(1) Working Families Acre2small Action Center on Race and the Economy Cpda_logo_color CPD Action Apan Ayanna Pressley for Congress -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 174 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: image014.png Type: image/png Size: 4656 bytes Desc: not available URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Tue Dec 1 00:29:32 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2020 18:29:32 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Tony Blinken, Biden's new Secretary of State Message-ID: <004601d6c779$0a8a62e0$1f9f28a0$@comcast.net> Tony Blinken, Biden's new Secretary of State, pushed for clandestine weapons shipments to jihadist "moderate rebels" in Syria, Neo-Nazi so called "freedom fighters" in Ukraine, and praised Trump for bombing Syria. So much for "defeating fascism"! What You Need to Know About Tony Blinken Biden?s apparent choice for secretary of state most recently played the influence game in Washington. by Jonathan Guyer November 23, 2020 Expand Guyer-Blinken.jpg Official White House Photo by David Lienemann For nearly two decades, Tony Blinken has served as President-elect Joe Biden?s closest foreign-policy adviser, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the Obama White House. That Biden would choose him for a high-ranking position in his administration was never in doubt. On Sunday, we learned what that position would be: secretary of state. Blinken is already being greeted by soft profiles focusing on his diplomatic career, his youthful days spent in Europe, and his love of guitar. But for a better sense of how he might actually craft foreign policy, it is essential to look at his recent work as a strategic consultant, a brand of Washington influence-peddling that has gotten little scrutiny. Strategic consultants draw upon their contacts and knowledge of Washington to advise powerful corporations; they do everything but lobby. This summer, I interviewed 60 Washington insiders as I investigated how Blinken?s firm parlays connections into profit. The Biden transition team would like you to overlook Blinken?s corporate career, but it?s crucial to understand the most recent r?sum? item of America?s next top diplomat. FOR ARTICLES Cabinet Watch 1200x630.jpg 1. After Serving Obama, He Cashed In Blinken launched WestExec Advisors with fellow Obama national-security chiefs in 2018. WestExec?s very name?a reference to the avenue that runs along the White House?suggested that its founders were trading off of their recent experience in the Oval Office and were angling for positions in the next administration. Blinken became a partner at a private equity firm named Pine Island, too. It was quite a change for someone who spent most of his career in government and had served most recently as Vice President Biden?s national-security adviser (2009?2013) and as deputy secretary of state (2015?2017). He and Mich?le Flournoy, a former senior defense official, registered the firm in Delaware and had a party to open their downtown D.C. office suite with honchos from the Obama administration. Who was the firm advising? WestExec staffers cited nondisclosure agreements and declined to name clients. But in conversations with members of the firm, I learned that Blinken and Flournoy used their networks to build a large client base at the intersection of tech and defense. An Israeli surveillance startup turned to them. So did a major U.S. defense company. Google billionaire Eric Schmidt and Fortune 100 companies went to them, too. ?We are driven by helping companies who think they have a cool commercial capability, and they think that there?s a market for it in the federal space,? one WestExec employee told me. I found the lack of transparency troubling. One key thing to watch for is which clients Blinken will reveal in financial disclosures and Senate confirmation hearings. Blinken knew his gig at WestExec would be temporary. Indeed he was so confident that the firm arranged for an exceptional contingency in its lease that allowed it to be terminated without a penalty if a Democrat won the White House. Flournoy is now a top contender for secretary of defense, and several other WestExec staffers are likely to hold key roles in the administration. The firm?s strategic planning has paid off. Your donation keeps this site free and open for all to read. Give what you can... SUPPORT THE PROSPECT 2. He?ll Push Biden Toward the Middle Biden will become president at the time of a pandemic, an economic crisis, and a crisis of American leadership. With Blinken as secretary of state, we?re likely to see a return to an old guard of Democratic foreign policy. Blinken has a ?quite cautious, don?t-rock-the-boat approach,? one of his former colleagues told me. ?But we?re not at a risk-averse moment in our history. It?s time for bold ideas.? That Blinken took a leading role in guiding Biden?s mistaken approaches to Iraq does not bode well for a long-overdue withdrawal of America from conflicts in the Middle East. Another issue is that Blinken seems to be more comfortable working with neoconservatives than with progressives. When the Biden campaign attacked Women?s March organizer Linda Sarsour in a call this summer, activists raised concerns. The campaign walked it back, and Blinken later apologized to the Muslim and Arab American community. While some progressive foreign-policy experts have supported the Blinken pick, the Biden team only listens to progressives on foreign policy when they make noise. 3. He?s Going to Be Powerful Because There Is No Biden Doctrine As senator and vice president, Biden?s only consistent approach to the world has been an emphasis on personal relationships, especially with foreign leaders. This malleable worldview has given the national-security establishment influence in advancing their own agendas within Biden?s team, and it also means that key advisers have an outsized role in decision-making. Blinken recently offered a glimpse of Biden?s approach to statecraft on a CBS podcast. ?There is overreliance on the military tool and an under-reliance on, for example, on diplomacy. And that would change in a Biden administration,? Blinken said. The podcast was sponsored by a major weapons maker. ?At Lockheed Martin, your mission is ours,? read an announcer. The tagline threw everything Blinken had said into question. It makes it even more glaring that the paper of record notes on A1 that Blinken plays in a band, but neglects to mention his recent work for corporate and defense clients. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 35503 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 20475 bytes Desc: not available URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Tue Dec 1 05:07:44 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2020 05:07:44 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Truth vs. truthiness Message-ID: Most Republicans Say They Doubt the Election. How Many Really Mean It? Emily Badger NYT Mon, November 30, 2020 Since the election, surveys have consistently found that about 70% to 80% of Republicans don?t buy the results. They don?t agree that Joe Biden won fair and square. They say the election was rigged. And they say enough fraud occurred to tip the outcome. Those numbers sound alarmingly high, and they imply that the overwhelming majority of people in one political party in America doubt the legitimacy of a presidential election. But the reality is more complicated, political scientists say. Research has shown that the answers that partisans (on the left as well as on the right) give to political questions often reflect not what they know as fact, but what they wish were true. Or what they think they should say. It is incredibly hard to separate sincere belief from wishful thinking from what political scientists call partisan cheerleading. But on this topic especially, the distinctions matter a lot. Are Republican voters merely expressing support for the president by standing by his claims of fraud ? in effectively the same way Republicans in Congress have ? or have they accepted widespread fraud as true? Do these surveys suggest a real erosion in faith in American elections, or something more familiar, and temporary? ? ? [ I think "truthiness" means statements that sound as if they OUGHT to be true because they tend to reduce cognitive dissonance. ~ RSz. ] From r-szoke at illinois.edu Tue Dec 1 05:07:44 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2020 05:07:44 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Truth vs. truthiness Message-ID: Most Republicans Say They Doubt the Election. How Many Really Mean It? Emily Badger NYT Mon, November 30, 2020 Since the election, surveys have consistently found that about 70% to 80% of Republicans don?t buy the results. They don?t agree that Joe Biden won fair and square. They say the election was rigged. And they say enough fraud occurred to tip the outcome. Those numbers sound alarmingly high, and they imply that the overwhelming majority of people in one political party in America doubt the legitimacy of a presidential election. But the reality is more complicated, political scientists say. Research has shown that the answers that partisans (on the left as well as on the right) give to political questions often reflect not what they know as fact, but what they wish were true. Or what they think they should say. It is incredibly hard to separate sincere belief from wishful thinking from what political scientists call partisan cheerleading. But on this topic especially, the distinctions matter a lot. Are Republican voters merely expressing support for the president by standing by his claims of fraud ? in effectively the same way Republicans in Congress have ? or have they accepted widespread fraud as true? Do these surveys suggest a real erosion in faith in American elections, or something more familiar, and temporary? ? ? [ I think "truthiness" means statements that sound as if they OUGHT to be true because they tend to reduce cognitive dissonance. ~ RSz. ] From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Tue Dec 1 15:53:00 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2020 09:53:00 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] " The Left Versus Neo- Liberals " Message-ID: <004b01d6c7fa$0cb99a50$262ccef0$@comcast.net> A more accurate title IMO would be ? The Left Versus Neo-Liberals ? Motif Providence, Rhode Island News, Events, Music, Shows, Film, Art The Left Versus the Left Progressive media is filling the void By Mark Fogarty on January 8th, 2020 http://www.motifri.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Left-V-Left-1024x576.png It is commonly understood that there is a bias in the television news media with Fox News on the right and MSNBC and their ilk on the left, but the real conflict is between the corporate left broadcast media and the independent progressive left media ? a conversation many might not be aware is happening. What divides the two camps is simple: It comes down to where you get your news. Claiming that MSNBC and CNN, among others, represent the ideas of the left shows a misunderstanding that most people under 30 get their news online. More than 39 million people have cut the cord and no longer have access to cable. While left-leaning corporate broadcast media has been consumed with Russian conspiracies (albeit appropriate, given our corrupt commander-in-chief), a new independent left has emerged. Provided by podcasts, left-wing magazines and YouTube channels, this new left is less likely to be controlled by corporate interests and presents a world-view different from their corporate counterparts. If you get your news from MSNBC you might think that the Russiagate case was a slam dunk, Bernie Sanders has no shot of winning, the Ukraine investigation is the most important story of our time and Nancy Pelosi is the first line of defense against Donald Trump. Get your news online and you?d see the holes on the Russiagate story, learn that Bernie Sanders has been consistently second in the polls and has the best chance of beating Trump in the 2020 election. And you?d see that while the so-called #resistance pretends to fight Trump, the democratic leadership gave him $750 billion for his already bloated military budget, allowed a ban on trans soldiers to go through, gave him money for his wall and to create a Space Force and voted for the Patriot Act to be renewed. The emergence of the independent left exposes the limits of the corporate media. It isn?t that the corporate media reports a different take than the left; the corporate media simply refuses to report anything that does not support the agenda of their corporate overlords. One of the most glaring omissions by the mainstream media was the protest at Standing Rock. The protest arose in 2016 when Dakota Access LLC attempted to build a 1,172-mile oil pipeline adjacent to the Standing Rock Reservation. Worries that the proximity of the oil to the reservation?s water supply would cause environmental catastrophe created one of the longest protests in American history. While independent media began coverage right away, the mainstream media was months late to the story. Four years later, the media that came late to the party on Standing Rock continues to deny reality and refuses to cover one of the only presidential candidates courageous enough to join the protest at Standing Rock: Bernie Sanders (the only other to join the protest was Tulsi Gabbard). They leave outsider candidates like Bernie, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang out of graphics and keep their names out of headlines, while pushing the candidates (like Amy Klobuchar) who fit their agenda, no matter their floundering in the polls. CNN once reported the headline ?Buttigieg a strong fourth,? Leaving out what one might argue is the little detail that Bernie Sanders had emerged in second place. Whether the Bernie blackout is conspiracy to favor candidates who won?t come for the corporate media?s bottom line or unconscious bias is up for debate, but its existence is undeniable. Is MSNBC aware of the bias toward support of the military industrial complex or part of some vast conspiracy? Readers of Noam Chomsky?s Manufacturing Consent know this is not how it works. When Chomsky was asked by journalist Andrew Marr if he believed Marr was pushing a narrative he didn?t believe in to toe the party line Chomsky replied, ?I?m sure you believe everything you?re saying but if you believed something different, you wouldn?t be sitting where you are sitting.? The divide is growing right under the nose of those who believe they are informed. But the truth is, you can consume five newspapers a day and watch CNN, MSNBC and NBC daily and still miss a massive and essential conversation about what is happening in the world. Watch CNN and you will never hear about America?s complacency in the genocide in Yemen. You might not know that the Obama administration?s intervention in Libya has reduced the corrupt-yet-somewhat functioning dictatorship into a nightmare state where slaves are sold on the street. It would be easy to dismiss the YouTubers and podcasters as sad tin foil hat types, broadcasting from their momma?s basement ? and lord knows there?s plenty of that on YouTube, but this new left comes with its own set of credentials. Take, for example, Krystal Ball, Cenk Uygar and Dylan Ratigan. All used to work for MSNBC and left or were fired when it became obvious they wouldn?t play ball. Krystal Ball was given her walking papers from MSNBC when she dared suggest Hillary Clinton was not the best candidate to beat Donald Trump. Dylan Ratigan quit out of frustration and Cenk Uyger was pushed out of his time slot for being too hard on Barack Obama. He went on to grow his network, The Young Turks, into the largest political show in YouTube history. The progressive left plays the role of journalist no matter who is in power, leveling criticisms at left and right whenever they do wrong. This kind of journalism is desperately needed in our time. This new left caters to a news-hungry crowd of young voters who have never and will never own cable. They are pissed, they are politically active and they are the future of the country. Dismissing the significance of this audience and where they get their information is a mistake the Democrats make at their own risk, yet still it seems to go all but ignored by the Democratic party. There is a vital conversation to be had as to what it means to be left and what it means to resist, yet the participants seem to be having this conversation in two different bubbles: one paid for by the military industrial complex and one made for the people, by the people. Which one is more likely to tell the truth? If you want to get out of your bubble, but don?t know where to begin, check out a a sampling of some of the best of progressive media at motifri.com/leftvleft. WHERE TO CATCH PROGRESSIVE NEWS The Young Turks TYT network is the first major progressive news network on Youtube. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, TYT offers commentary and investigative journalism, pop culture news and more. Follow @cenkuygur, @AnaKasparian NOTE: Uygur is currently running for congress and mainstream media has done a ton to smear him for blogs he wrote and things he said over a decade ago. What they don?t tell you is ? he founded the Justice Democrats (the organization that gave us AOC), founded the Wolfpac to get money out of politics, fostered the career of many female journalists and has the most diverse cross-section of commentators than any other network, employing trans, LBQT, black & Latinx commentators. In other words, he has done more for progressive policies than anyone in media. Righteous anger level = Four middle fingers to the establishment The Jimmy Dore Show Jimmy Dore split off from The Young Turks over a disagreement on Russiagate. To his credit, Cenk Uygur let Jimmy remain on the show until Jimmy decided to leave. The two remain friends. Now Jimmy runs his own show and performs live comedy show all around the US. Self-described as a ?jagoff comedian,? Jimmy is one of the most effective debunkers of mainstream media lies. Follow @jimmy_dore Righteous anger level = = Five middle fingers and one for your momma. Jimmy is the angriest of them all, and possibly the most entertaining. Rolling Stone presents: Useful Idiots with Matt Taibbi & Katie Halper. Rolling Stone, continuing over a half a century tradition of being a voice for progressive media, recently began a podcast with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper. Taibbi is the guy who took over Hunter S. Thompson?s old gig, chronicling fear and loathing on the campaign trail. Paired up with the hilarious Katie Halper, each week they give us the four foodgroups: Democrats suck, Republicans suck, something weird, something funny and most stoned moment of the week. Follow @kthalps, @mtaibbi Chapo Trap House Chapo Trap House is one of the most popular progressive podcasts and part of ?The Dirtbag Left,? a term coined by Trap House?s female member, Amber A?Lee Frost. They are dirtbags because they refuse to moderate their anger to operate in polite society, and the result is a show that is brutally honest, filthy, hilarious and relentless in its criticism of American politics. Follow @CHAPOTRAPHOUSE Righteous anger level = Five middle fingers. The Gray Zone The Gray Zone created by Max Blumenthal is the home of Aaron Mat?, who won an award for his coverage of the Russiagate scandal. Blumenthal and Mat? do a great job of forcing American?s to confront hard truths about the country?s role on the world?s stage. Follow @MaxBlumenthal, @aaronjmate Righteous anger level = four middle fingers Kim Iversen Kim Iversen has carved a niche out for herself as one of the prime defenders of Tulsi Gabbard and Gabbard?s stance on ending America?s policy of regime change wars. While the mainstream media has painted Tulsi as everything from a Russian asset to a closet Republican, Iversen shows her for what she is ? one of the most principled people in congress. Righteous anger level = two middle fingers Ryan Grim Ryan Grim writes for The Intercept and works for The Young Turks as an investigative journalist. Grim has been called ?a left-wing populist attack dog? and he is, breaking stories that expose the DNC. Apparently, doing the job of exposing truth is ?attacking? ? I thought it was journalism. Follow him @ryangrim Glen Greenwald Glen Greenwald is no longer welcome on MSNBC after refuting their Russiagate narrative one too many times. Greenwald won the Pulitzer-Prize for his coverage of the secret surveillance program run by the NSA and remains one of the most unflinching critics of the American government Follow him @ggreenwald The Hill: Rising with Krystal and Saagar. The Hill is producing one of the most subversive and brilliant shows on the internet. It looks like a morning show, complete with a milquetoast theme music and brightly lit set, but the hosts ,former MSNBC anchor, Krystal Ball and (sort-of) Republican Saagar Enjeti offer unflinching commentary criticizing both sides of the aisle. Follow @krystalball, @esaagar Empire Files with Abby Martin Abby Martin has created a series of hard-hitting documentaries on American Imperialism. She?s as harsh a critic of US interventionism as they come, and it is hard to deny the evidence she presents ? that our country is still a bad actor on the world?s stage. Follow @AbbyMartin The Tim Black Show Self described as ?America?s most watched black independent media on the left? the Tim Black show is funny, provocative and tackles topics the mainstream press ignores. Follow @RealTimBlack Sam Seder and the Majority Report Former Air America anchor Sam Seder offers progressive commentary alongside Michael Brooks. Follow @ SamSeder, @ _michaelbrooks Secular Talk with Kyle Kulinski Founding member of the Justice Democrats, Kyle Kulinski, is one of the most entertaining and eviscerating commentators on the left. Follow at KyleKulinski This is by no means a comprehensive list, for HONORABLE MENTIONS check out: The Michael Brooks show , Redacted Tonight , The Rational National -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 87856 bytes Desc: not available URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Tue Dec 1 16:06:42 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2020 10:06:42 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left? In-Reply-To: References: <002a01d6c777$2c92c460$85b84d20$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <006001d6c7fb$f642a5d0$e2c7f170$@comcast.net> There is a Left David, But it does NOT include Neo-liberals or phony ? progressive ? Democrats. I wish it was larger, more coordinated, etc.. but I am hopeful for the future ( even though the short and medium term will be difficult ) if for no other reasons being the political inclination of a majority of younger people under 35 ( polls indicating their favorable view of ? Socialism ? ), the proliferation on YouTube of REAL Left news programs ( see my recent post ), and the fact the Neo-Liberals are becoming more arrogant and telling people to ? go fuck themselves if they don?t like how they are doing things ?., etc along with the coming storm of economic downturn ( foreclosures, evictions, no healthcare, unemployment with no UBI, etc. ). I hate to see the latter happen, but the Neo-Liberals and the Republicans created this problem and their policies are not going to help and there will be only the Neo-Liberals to blame. Of course that ? opportunity ? ( I hate to call it that ) is also a time of danger, in that it can just as easily be exploited and organized by the Fascists. We are living in interesting times, and it is going to get a lot more interesting. I just hope I live to see a revolutionary change for the better, both in the U.S. and the world. I hope you are doing well David. Stay safe. David J. From: David Green [mailto:davidgreen50 at gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2020 8:27 AM To: David Johnson Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left? >From Tanden to Robinson, they are all corporate neoliberal. Their differences are performative and aestheticized. The "left" is a phantom. It has no material interest in the working class. Tanden and Robinson are literally on the same team. The same club, as George Carlin would have said. On Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:16 PM David Johnson via Peace-discuss wrote: Neera Tanden was just appointed by Biden to be the head of the OMB ( Office of Management and Budget ) and instantly received an endorsement from Neo-Con Republican War Monger Bill Kristol. That should tell you everything. However, for those who are not familiar with the obnoxious Neo-Liberal Neera Tanden and her corporate funded think tank - "The Center for Corporate Progress ", oops, I mean " The Center For American Progress ", here is an article from two years ago ( Dec. 2018 ) that goes into a lot of good ( horrible ) detail.....From the article - " The Center for American Progress, however, is cozy with some of America?s largest and most controversial companies. Though it is quick to emphasize that corporate donations constitute only a small part of its funding, in 2013 alone CAP received support from Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, the American Beverage Association, Comcast, BlueCross BlueShield, weapons manufacturer Northrop Grumman, and Walmart. The government of the United Arab Emirates (which regularly carries out forced disappearances and torture) has given over $500,000. Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, in an important 2013 investigation of CAP?s funding, was told by multiple former staffers that when CAP was seeking support from Saudis it muted its criticism of the Saudi kingdom. (CAP continues to conceal the identities of many of its largest donors.) " Current Affairs Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left? As the left tries to fight against inequality and exploitation, the main ?progressive? think tank joins forces with right-wing free market capitalists? * Nathan J. Robinson filed 13 December 2018 in Politics The Center for American Progress is one of the largest and most important think tanks in Washington, certainly the preeminent ?progressive? think tank. It describes its agenda as promoting ?bold, progressive ideas? and releases a number of extremely useful reports and fact sheets . In 2008, TIME branded it ?Obama?s idea factory .? CAP has strong ties with both Obama and the Clintons?it was founded by close Clinton confidante John Podesta and its president, Neera Tanden, previously worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. The New Republic has described it as ?stuffed to the gills with staffers who have either worked in previous Democratic administrations or will go on to work in future ones.? The phrase ?progressive? is often associated with the left wing of the Democratic Party, by contrast with its ?moderate? wing, and progressives are typically skeptical of corporate influence in politics. The Center for American Progress, however, is cozy with some of America?s largest and most controversial companies. Though it is quick to emphasize that corporate donations constitute only a small part of its funding, in 2013 alone CAP received support from Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, the American Beverage Association, Comcast, BlueCross BlueShield, weapons manufacturer Northrop Grumman, and Walmart. The government of the United Arab Emirates (which regularly carries out forced disappearances and torture ) has given over $500,000 . Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, in an important 2013 investigation of CAP?s funding, was told by multiple former staffers that when CAP was seeking support from Saudis it muted its criticism of the Saudi kingdom. (CAP continues to conceal the identities of many of its largest donors.) CAP president Neera Tanden has described herself as ?a loyal soldier ? for Hillary Clinton and despite heading a ?nonpartisan? think tank, worked behind the scenes during the 2016 primary to try to erode Bernie Sanders? support. Leaked internal emails reveal Tanden?s own political instincts to depart from what is typically considered ?progressive.? She advised the Clinton campaign against a $15 minimum wage, and in one disturbing instance, as Glenn Greenwald has reported , argued ?that Libyans should be forced to turn over large portions of their oil revenues to repay the U.S. for the costs incurred in bombing Libya, on the grounds that Americans will support future wars only if they see that the countries attacked by the U.S. pay for the invasions.? The Center for American Progress does not just accept shady donations. It also gives them. Journalist Andrew Perez reported that according to financial disclosure forms, CAP donated $200,000 last year to the American Enterprise Institute . The AEI is a right-wing free-market think tank perhaps best known as the longtime home of racist social scientist Charles Murray. When Current Affairs challenged Tanden on Twitter about the donation, she replied : We have a joint program on defending democracy from the rise of authoritarianism. Here?s the press release from the CAP website. Welcome [Current Affairs] to cover the many papers we have jointly authored. This is a critical topic more media should focus on. Naturally, Current Affairs gladly accepts the invitation to focus on CAP?s collaboration with the AEI. I looked at two of the ?reports? that they have produced together so far. First, it is still unclear why CAP is giving AEI $200,000. The reports Tanden links to are a few pages each, more like extended op-eds than scholarly works, and involve no original research. They both focus not on ?authoritarianism? as Tanden says, but on what they call ?authoritarian populism.? This is important, because while Tanden suggests that nobody could object to ?defending democracy from the rise of authoritarianism,? we know that to the American Enterprise Institute, ?democracy? and ?authoritarianism? do not necessarily mean what they mean to you and me. When the AEI speaks of democracy, it means ?laissez-faire capitalism? and when it speaks of ?authoritarianism? it means ?minimum wage laws? or any mildly redistributive social policies that could threaten American Enterprise. Tanden wants to wave away concerns about the collaboration, because after all everyone agrees democracy is good. But the question is?what are we actually ?defending? here? The CAP/AEI report ?Drivers of Authoritarian Populism in the United States ? defines what it means by ?populism?: ?political parties and leaders that are anti-establishment and that divide society into two groups: self-serving elites and good, ordinary people.? By that definition, Bernie Sanders clearly falls under the ?populist? umbrella?he is anti-establishment and believes that ordinary people are being fleeced by self-serving elites. The report says that populism is not inherently bad, and emphasizes that it is targeted against the bigoted form of populism. But in the CAP/AEI discussion of European ?authoritarian populism,? it?s clear that economic leftists are included in the category : A 2017 study, which looked at elections across Europe between 1980 and 2016, found that there is an asymmetry in drivers of support for right- and left-wing authoritarian populists. While the right wing seems unresponsive to changes in objective economic characteristics, the support for left-wing extreme populists, such as Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain, is sensitive both to rates of economic growth and to unemployment. The rise of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, can be viewed in a similar fashion. Podemos, Syriza, and Corbyn??authoritarians?? Why? What could possibly put them in a category alongside Viktor Orb?n ? The CAP/AEI reports are actually extremely vague, saying they believe in ?a market economy with shared prosperity? and ?economic openness? but not making it particularly clear what that means. After all, who is against ?openness? and ?prosperity?? Who wants to be closed and poor? But it?s clear that what they?re actually talking about is free market capitalism. Corbyn, Syriza, and Podemos are only ?authoritarian? if you subscribe to the radical libertarian theory that wealth redistribution is totalitarian. CAP/AEI are cagey about saying that they?re teaming up to defend capitalism from leftists, but that?s precisely the implication of the reports? statement that left parties are ?authoritarian populism? that needs defeating in order to preserve ?democracy.? _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Tue Dec 1 16:51:43 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2020 10:51:43 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left? In-Reply-To: <006001d6c7fb$f642a5d0$e2c7f170$@comcast.net> References: <002a01d6c777$2c92c460$85b84d20$@comcast.net> <006001d6c7fb$f642a5d0$e2c7f170$@comcast.net> Message-ID: Thanks David, you too! On Tue, Dec 1, 2020, 10:06 AM David Johnson wrote: > There is a Left David, > > > > But it does NOT include Neo-liberals or phony ? progressive ? Democrats. > > > > I wish it was larger, more coordinated, etc.. but I am hopeful for the > future ( even though the short and medium term will be difficult ) if for > no other reasons being the political inclination of a majority of younger > people under 35 ( polls indicating their favorable view of ? Socialism ? > ), the proliferation on YouTube of REAL Left news programs ( see my recent > post ), and the fact the Neo-Liberals are becoming more arrogant and > telling people to ? go fuck themselves if they don?t like how they are > doing things ?., etc along with the coming storm of economic downturn ( > foreclosures, evictions, no healthcare, unemployment with no UBI, etc. ). > > I hate to see the latter happen, but the Neo-Liberals and the Republicans > created this problem and their policies are not going to help and there > will be only the Neo-Liberals to blame. > > Of course that ? opportunity ? ( I hate to call it that ) is also a time > of danger, in that it can just as easily be exploited and organized by the > Fascists. > > > > We are living in interesting times, and it is going to get a lot more > interesting. I just hope I live to see a revolutionary change for the > better, both in the U.S. and the world. > > > > I hope you are doing well David. Stay safe. > > > > David J. > > > > *From:* David Green [mailto:davidgreen50 at gmail.com] > *Sent:* Tuesday, December 01, 2020 8:27 AM > *To:* David Johnson > *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] Why Is The Center For American Progress > Betraying The Left? > > > > From Tanden to Robinson, they are all corporate neoliberal. Their > differences are performative and aestheticized. The "left" is a phantom. It > has no material interest in the working class. Tanden and Robinson are > literally on the same team. The same club, as George Carlin would have said. > > > > On Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:16 PM David Johnson via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > Neera Tanden was just appointed by Biden to be the head of the OMB ( > Office of Management and Budget ) and instantly received an endorsement > from Neo-Con Republican War Monger Bill Kristol. That should tell you > everything. However, for those who are not familiar with the obnoxious > Neo-Liberal Neera Tanden and her corporate funded think tank - "The Center > for Corporate Progress ", oops, I mean " The Center For American Progress > ", here is an article from two years ago ( Dec. 2018 ) that goes into a lot > of good ( horrible ) detail.....From the article - " The Center for > American Progress, however, is cozy with some of America?s largest and most > controversial companies. Though it is quick to emphasize that corporate > donations constitute only a small part of its funding, in 2013 alone CAP > received support from Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, the > American Beverage Association, Comcast, BlueCross BlueShield, weapons > manufacturer Northrop Grumman, and Walmart. The government of the United > Arab Emirates (which regularly carries out forced disappearances and > torture) has given over $500,000. Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, > in an important 2013 investigation of CAP?s funding, was told by multiple > former staffers that when CAP was seeking support from Saudis it muted its > criticism of the Saudi kingdom. (CAP continues to conceal the identities of > many of its largest donors.) " > > > > *Current Affairs * > > *Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left? * > > As the left tries to fight against inequality and exploitation, the main > ?progressive? think tank joins forces with right-wing free market > capitalists? > > - Nathan J. Robinson > > > filed 13 December 2018 in Politics > > > The Center for American Progress is one of the largest and most important > think tanks > in > Washington, certainly the preeminent ?progressive? think tank. It describes > its agenda as promoting ?bold, progressive ideas? and releases a number of > extremely useful reports and fact sheets > . In 2008, *TIME *branded > it ?Obama?s idea factory > .? > CAP has strong ties with both Obama and the Clintons?it was founded by > close Clinton confidante John Podesta and its president, Neera Tanden, > previously worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. The *New Republic *has > described it as ?stuffed to the gills with staffers who have either worked > in previous Democratic administrations or will go on to work in future > ones.? > > The phrase ?progressive? is often associated with the left wing of the > Democratic Party, by contrast with its ?moderate? wing, and progressives > are typically skeptical of corporate influence in politics. The Center for > American Progress, however, is cozy with some of America?s largest and most > controversial companies. Though it is quick to emphasize that corporate > donations constitute only a small part of its funding, in 2013 alone CAP received > support from > > Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, the American Beverage > Association, Comcast, BlueCross BlueShield, weapons manufacturer Northrop > Grumman, and Walmart. The government of the United Arab Emirates (which > regularly carries out forced disappearances and torture > ) > has given over $500,000 > . Investigative > journalist Ken Silverstein, in an important 2013 investigation > > of CAP?s funding, was told by multiple former staffers that when CAP was > seeking support from Saudis it muted its criticism of the Saudi kingdom. > (CAP continues to conceal the identities > of many of its > largest donors.) > > CAP president Neera Tanden has described herself as ?a loyal soldier > ? for Hillary Clinton > and despite heading a ?nonpartisan? think tank, worked behind the scenes > during the > 2016 primary to try to erode Bernie Sanders? support. Leaked internal > emails reveal Tanden?s own political instincts to depart from what is > typically considered ?progressive.? She advised > the Clinton campaign > against a $15 minimum wage, and in one disturbing instance, as Glenn > Greenwald has reported > , > argued ?that Libyans should be forced to turn over large portions of their > oil revenues to repay the U.S. for the costs incurred in bombing Libya, on > the grounds that Americans will support future wars only if they see that > the countries attacked by the U.S. pay for the invasions.? > > The Center for American Progress does not just accept shady donations. It > also gives them. Journalist Andrew Perez reported that > according > to financial disclosure forms, CAP donated $200,000 last year to the American > Enterprise Institute > . The AEI is > a right-wing free-market think tank perhaps best known as the longtime home > of racist > > social scientist Charles Murray. When *Current Affairs *challenged Tanden > on Twitter about the donation, she replied > : > > *We have a joint program on defending democracy from the rise of > authoritarianism. Here?s the press release from the CAP website. Welcome > [Current Affairs] to cover the many papers we have jointly authored. This > is a critical topic more media should focus on.* > > Naturally, *Current Affairs *gladly accepts the invitation to focus on > CAP?s collaboration with the AEI. I looked at two of the ?reports? that > they have produced together so far. First, it is still unclear why CAP is > giving AEI $200,000. The reports Tanden links to are a few pages each, more > like extended op-eds than scholarly works, and involve no original > research. They both focus not on ?authoritarianism? as Tanden says, but on > what they call ?authoritarian populism.? This is important, because while > Tanden suggests that nobody could object to ?defending democracy from the > rise of authoritarianism,? we know that to the American Enterprise > Institute, ?democracy? and ?authoritarianism? do not necessarily mean what > they mean to you and me. When the AEI speaks of democracy, it means > ?laissez-faire capitalism? and when it speaks of ?authoritarianism? it > means ?minimum wage laws? or any mildly redistributive social policies that > could threaten American Enterprise. Tanden wants to wave away concerns > about the collaboration, because after all *everyone agrees democracy is > good*. But the question is?what are we actually ?defending? here? > > The CAP/AEI report ?Drivers of Authoritarian Populism in the United States > ? > defines what it means by ?populism?: ?political parties and leaders that > are anti-establishment and that divide society into two groups: > self-serving elites and good, ordinary people.? By that definition, Bernie > Sanders clearly falls under the ?populist? umbrella?he is > anti-establishment and believes that ordinary people are being fleeced by > self-serving elites. The report says that populism is not *inherently *bad, > and emphasizes that it is targeted against the *bigoted *form of > populism. But in the CAP/AEI discussion of European ?authoritarian > populism,? it?s clear that economic leftists are included in the category > > : > > *A 2017 study, which looked at elections across Europe between 1980 and > 2016, found that there is an asymmetry in drivers of support for right- and > left-wing authoritarian populists. While the right wing seems unresponsive > to changes in objective economic characteristics, the support for left-wing > extreme populists, such as Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain, is > sensitive both to rates of economic growth and to unemployment. The rise of > the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, under the leadership of Jeremy > Corbyn, can be viewed in a similar fashion.* > > Podemos, Syriza, and Corbyn??authoritarians?? Why? What could possibly put > them in a category alongside Viktor Orb?n > ? The CAP/AEI reports > are actually extremely vague, saying they believe in ?a market economy with > shared prosperity? and ?economic openness? but not making it particularly > clear what that means. After all, who is against ?openness? and > ?prosperity?? Who wants to be closed and poor? But it?s clear that what > they?re actually talking about is free market capitalism. Corbyn, Syriza, > and Podemos are only ?authoritarian? if you subscribe to the radical > libertarian theory that wealth redistribution is totalitarian. CAP/AEI are > cagey about saying that they?re teaming up to defend capitalism from > leftists, but that?s precisely the implication of the reports? statement > that left parties are ?authoritarian populism? that needs defeating in > order to preserve ?democracy.? > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Tue Dec 1 23:27:30 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2020 17:27:30 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] " The Left Versus Neo- Liberals " In-Reply-To: <094211B8-5DF0-4920-BA39-7D416744909E@illinois.edu> References: <004b01d6c7fa$0cb99a50$262ccef0$@comcast.net> <094211B8-5DF0-4920-BA39-7D416744909E@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <001801d6c839$8a4ad760$9ee08620$@comcast.net> Mort, Those are all TV news programs on YouTube that are listed in the article. The media sites you mention are print and are all excellent. With the exception of the ? Intercept?. Although they do still have some decent journalists like Ryan Grimm, Lee Fang, and Jeremy Schahill. At least for now. David J. From: Brussel, Morton K [mailto:brussel at illinois.edu] Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2020 4:37 PM To: David Johnson Cc: Brussel, Morton K Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] " The Left Versus Neo- Liberals " The list of ?good? alternative sites omits some, for example, Consortium News (Why?), Roots Action, Truthout, CommonDreams, The Intercept(?), ?others. It is not ?good? to leave out ?good? alternative antiwar and peace sites. How about wikileaks? But a useful article, nonetheless. Mort On Dec 1, 2020, at 9:53 AM, David Johnson via Peace-discuss wrote: A more accurate title IMO would be ? The Left Versus Neo-Liberals ? Motif Providence, Rhode Island News, Events, Music, Shows, Film, Art The Left Versus the Left Progressive media is filling the void By Mark Fogarty on January 8th, 2020 It is commonly understood that there is a bias in the television news media with Fox News on the right and MSNBC and their ilk on the left, but the real conflict is between the corporate left broadcast media and the independent progressive left media ? a conversation many might not be aware is happening. What divides the two camps is simple: It comes down to where you get your news. Claiming that MSNBC and CNN, among others, represent the ideas of the left shows a misunderstanding that most people under 30 get their news online. More than 39 million peoplehave cut the cord and no longer have access to cable. While left-leaning corporate broadcast media has been consumed with Russian conspiracies (albeit appropriate, given our corrupt commander-in-chief), a new independent left has emerged. Provided by podcasts, left-wing magazines and YouTube channels, this new left is less likely to be controlled by corporate interests and presents a world-view different from their corporate counterparts. If you get your news from MSNBC you might think that the Russiagate case was a slam dunk, Bernie Sanders has no shot of winning, the Ukraine investigation is the most important story of our time and Nancy Pelosi is the first line of defense against Donald Trump. Get your news online and you?d see the holes on the Russiagate story, learn that Bernie Sanders has been consistently second in the polls and has the best chance of beating Trump in the 2020 election. And you?d see that while the so-called #resistance pretends to fight Trump, the democratic leadership gave him $750 billion for his already bloated military budget, allowed a ban on trans soldiers to go through, gave him money for his wall and to create a Space Force and voted for the Patriot Act to be renewed. The emergence of the independent left exposes the limits of the corporate media. It isn?t that the corporate media reports a different take than the left; the corporate media simply refuses to report anything that does not support the agenda of their corporate overlords. One of the most glaring omissions by the mainstream media was the protest at Standing Rock. The protest arose in 2016 when Dakota Access LLC attempted to build a 1,172-mile oil pipeline adjacent to the Standing Rock Reservation. Worries that the proximity of the oil to the reservation?s water supply would cause environmental catastrophe created one of the longest protests in American history. While independent media began coverage right away, the mainstream media was months late to the story. Four years later, the media that came late to the party on Standing Rock continues to deny reality and refuses to cover one of the only presidential candidates courageous enough to join the protest at Standing Rock: Bernie Sanders (the only other to join the protest was Tulsi Gabbard). They leave outsider candidates like Bernie, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang out of graphics and keep their names out of headlines, while pushing the candidates (like Amy Klobuchar) who fit their agenda, no matter their floundering in the polls. CNN once reported the headline ?Buttigieg a strong fourth,? Leaving out what one might argue is the little detail that Bernie Sanders had emerged in second place. Whether the Bernie blackout is conspiracy to favor candidates who won?t come for the corporate media?s bottom line or unconscious bias is up for debate, but its existence is undeniable. Is MSNBC aware of the bias toward support of the military industrial complex or part of some vast conspiracy? Readers of Noam Chomsky?s Manufacturing Consent know this is not how it works. When Chomsky was asked by journalist Andrew Marr if he believed Marr was pushing a narrative he didn?t believe in to toe the party line Chomsky replied, ?I?m sure you believe everything you?re saying? but if you believed something different, you wouldn?t be sitting where you are sitting.? The divide is growing right under the nose of those who believe they are informed. But the truth is, you can consume five newspapers a day and watch CNN, MSNBC and NBC daily and still miss a massive and essential conversation about what is happening in the world. Watch CNN and you will never hear about America?s complacency in the genocide in Yemen. You might not know that the Obama administration?s intervention in Libya has reduced the corrupt-yet-somewhat functioning dictatorship into a nightmare state where slaves are sold on the street. It would be easy to dismiss the YouTubers and podcasters as sad tin foil hat types, broadcasting from their momma?s basement ? and lord knows there?s plenty of that on YouTube, but this new left comes with its own set of credentials. Take, for example, Krystal Ball, Cenk Uygar and Dylan Ratigan. All used to work for MSNBC and left or were fired when it became obvious they wouldn?t play ball. Krystal Ball was given her walking papers from MSNBC when she dared suggest Hillary Clinton was not the best candidate to beat Donald Trump. Dylan Ratigan quit out of frustration and Cenk Uyger was pushed out of his time slot for being too hard on Barack Obama. He went on to grow his network, The Young Turks, into the largest political show in YouTube history. The progressive left plays the role of journalist no matter who is in power, leveling criticisms at left and right whenever they do wrong. This kind of journalism is desperately needed in our time. This new left caters to a news-hungry crowd of young voters who have never and will never own cable. They are pissed, they are politically active and they are the future of the country. Dismissing the significance of this audience and where they get their information is a mistake the Democrats make at their own risk, yet still it seems to go all but ignored by the Democratic party. There is a vital conversation to be had as to what it means to be left and what it means to resist, yet the participants seem to be having this conversation in two different bubbles: one paid for by the military industrial complex and one made for the people, by the people. Which one is more likely to tell the truth? If you want to get out of your bubble, but don?t know where to begin, check out a a sampling of some of the best of progressive media at motifri.com/leftvleft. WHERE TO CATCH PROGRESSIVE NEWS The Young Turks TYT network is the first major progressive news network on Youtube. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, TYT offers commentary and investigative journalism, pop culture news and more. Follow @cenkuygur, @AnaKasparian NOTE: Uygur is currently running for congress and mainstream media has done a ton to smear him for blogs he wrote and things he said over a decade ago. What they don?t tell you is ? he founded the Justice Democrats (the organization that gave us AOC), founded the Wolfpac to get money out of politics, fostered the career of many female journalists and has the most diverse cross-section of commentators than any other network, employing trans, LBQT, black & Latinx commentators. In other words, he has done more for progressive policies than anyone in media. Righteous anger level = Four middle fingers to the establishment The Jimmy Dore Show Jimmy Dore split off from The Young Turks over a disagreement on Russiagate. To his credit, Cenk Uygur let Jimmy remain on the show until Jimmy decided to leave. The two remain friends. Now Jimmy runs his own show and performs live comedy show all around the US. Self-described as a ?jagoff comedian,? Jimmy is one of the most effective debunkers of mainstream media lies. Follow @jimmy_dore Righteous anger level = = Five middle fingers and one for your momma. Jimmy is the angriest of them all, and possibly the most entertaining. Rolling Stone presents: Useful Idiots with Matt Taibbi & Katie Halper. Rolling Stone, continuing over a half a century tradition of being a voice for progressive media, recently began a podcast with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper. Taibbi is the guy who took over Hunter S. Thompson?s old gig, chronicling fear and loathing on the campaign trail. Paired up with the hilarious Katie Halper, each week they give us the four foodgroups: Democrats suck, Republicans suck, something weird, something funny and most stoned moment of the week. Follow @kthalps, @mtaibbi Chapo Trap House Chapo Trap House is one of the most popular progressive podcasts and part of ?The Dirtbag Left,? a term coined by Trap House?s female member, Amber A?Lee Frost. They are dirtbags because they refuse to moderate their anger to operate in polite society, and the result is a show that is brutally honest, filthy, hilarious and relentless in its criticism of American politics. Follow @CHAPOTRAPHOUSE Righteous anger level = Five middle fingers. The Gray Zone The Gray Zone created by Max Blumenthal is the home of Aaron Mat?, who won an award for his coverage of the Russiagate scandal. Blumenthal and Mat? do a great job of forcing American?s to confront hard truths about the country?s role on the world?s stage. Follow @MaxBlumenthal, @aaronjmate Righteous anger level = four middle fingers Kim Iversen Kim Iversen has carved a niche out for herself as one of the prime defenders of Tulsi Gabbard and Gabbard?s stance on ending America?s policy of regime change wars. While the mainstream media has painted Tulsi as everything from a Russian asset to a closet Republican, Iversen shows her for what she is ? one of the most principled people in congress. Righteous anger level = two middle fingers Ryan Grim Ryan Grim writes for The Intercept and works for The Young Turks as an investigative journalist. Grim has been called ?a left-wing populist attack dog? and he is, breaking stories that expose the DNC. Apparently, doing the job of exposing truth is ?attacking? ? I thought it was journalism. Follow him @ryangrim Glen Greenwald Glen Greenwald is no longer welcome on MSNBC after refuting their Russiagate narrative one too many times. Greenwald won the Pulitzer-Prize for his coverage of the secret surveillance program run by the NSA and remains one of the most unflinching critics of the American government Follow him @ggreenwald The Hill: Rising with Krystal and Saagar. The Hill is producing one of the most subversive and brilliant shows on the internet. It looks like a morning show, complete with a milquetoast theme music and brightly lit set, but the hosts ,former MSNBC anchor, Krystal Ball and (sort-of) Republican Saagar Enjeti offer unflinching commentary criticizing both sides of the aisle. Follow @krystalball, @esaagar Empire Files with Abby Martin Abby Martin has created a series of hard-hitting documentaries on American Imperialism. She?s as harsh a critic of US interventionism as they come, and it is hard to deny the evidence she presents ? that our country is still a bad actor on the world?s stage. Follow @AbbyMartin The Tim Black Show Self described as ?America?s most watched black independent media on the left? the Tim Black show is funny, provocative and tackles topics the mainstream press ignores. Follow @RealTimBlack Sam Seder and the Majority Report Former Air America anchor Sam Seder offers progressive commentary alongside Michael Brooks. Follow @SamSeder, @_michaelbrooks Secular Talk with Kyle Kulinski Founding member of the Justice Democrats, Kyle Kulinski, is one of the most entertaining and eviscerating commentators on the left. Follow at KyleKulinski This is by no means a comprehensive list, for HONORABLE MENTIONS check out: The Michael Brooks show, Redacted Tonight, The Rational National _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Wed Dec 2 20:10:40 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2020 14:10:40 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Possible HHS Pick Shielded Nursing Homes From Liability During COVID Outbreak Message-ID: <004501d6c8e7$3c048ca0$b40da5e0$@comcast.net> This article doesn?t mention Raimondo?s horrible dealings with Union Workers and her theft of Rhode Island State Employees? pension fund monies. David J. Possible HHS Pick Shielded Nursing Homes From Liability During COVID Outbreak Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo has presided over one of the deadliest COVID outbreaks and helped shield nursing home companies from accountability - and she could get the nation's top health care job Julia Rock and Andrew Perez 8 hr ago 27 5 https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr ogressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984 .s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7755d68e-042e-4df7-9175-42f3fbaa5b14_5 67x305.jpeg This report was written by Julia Rock and Andrew Perez. Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo has presided over one of the deadliest COVID outbreaks in the country - and new documents obtained by The Daily Poster detail how she helped nursing home lobbyists shield health care companies from coronavirus-related lawsuits. Now, Raimondo - a former Wall Street executive - is reportedly being considered for the nation?s top health care policy job in the incoming Biden administration. Politico reported last week that Raimondo, who made her name slashing state workers? pensions, is one of the finalists to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President-elect Joe Biden. Raimondo was also previously considered for Treasury Secretary, according to the American Prospect. As governor, Raimondo has slammed proposals to expand Medicare to cover everyone. Amid the pandemic in August, her administration approved health insurance companies? steep premium increases that were criticized by the state?s Democratic attorney general as ?unnecessary and ill-advised.? Health insurers have been raking in record profits, with fewer people seeking care because of the pandemic. Raimondo has also pushed for Medicaid cuts that nursing home workers warned would result in unsafe staffing levels - and in April, she issued an executive order sought by health care industry lobbyists that shielded nursing homes from lawsuits when their business decisions injure or kill people. The order was later expanded to shield nursing homes, hospitals, and other health care providers. While the Biden transition is reportedly considering Raimondo for HHS Secretary, residents and workers in Rhode Island?s nursing homes have faced deadly consequences. Documents obtained by The Daily Poster show that Raimondo quickly responded to lobbyists? demands for an executive order granting them legal immunity during the pandemic. ?What immunity has done is allow nursing homes to act unreasonably without accountability,? one personal injury lawyer told the Providence Journal last month. Rhode Island currently has one of the highest coronavirus death rates by population in the country, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). More than 70 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the state have been linked to long-term care facilities - only two other states have seen similar nursing home death rates, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The state?s hospitals are completely full. On Monday, patients were admitted to field hospitals for the first time in Rhode Island during the pandemic. Legal Liability On April 9, top officials from Rhode Island?s nursing home lobbying groups sent a letter to Raimondo?s office requesting she give nursing home facilities immunity from civil liability if their residents faced injury or death from COVID. The Daily Poster obtained a copy of the letter through a public records request. The letter - from the Rhode Island Health Care Association, the Rhode Island Assisted Living Association and LeadingAge RI - noted that nursing home facilities did not have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and were experiencing staffing shortages due to ?worker call-outs, quarantines and fear.? The organizations requested that the governor issue an executive order making nursing home facilities and workers "immune from civil liability for any injury or death alleged to have been sustained... in the course of providing medical or other health and personal care services in support of the state of Rhode Island's response to the COVID-19 outbreak.? One day later, the governor?s office issued an executive order granting the lobbyists what they had asked for: Facilities including hospitals and nursing homes were classified as emergency management facilities and granted immunity from civil liability, except in cases of gross negligence or willful misconduct. A subsequent order reauthorizing the provision said the immunity provision applied to ?health care entities, health care professionals and health care workers? at hospitals, nursing homes, and long-term care facilities. ?Reinventing Medicaid? In 2015, newly-elected Governor Raimondo announced her plans to ?reinvent Medicaid,? a proposal that would result in cuts to Medicaid in each of her proposed budgets for the next five years. At the time, nursing home administrators warned what the cuts would mean for their facilities - staffing cuts. One said in a subcommittee hearing: ?It?s keeping me up at night. It?s making me very nervous. We have a lot of sick, elderly frail people in these nursing homes and when you look at what you have to do to provide for them and for the people that care for them? Probably 90 percent of our employees are mothers, single mothers. Women.? Another administrator said, ?Have we lost sight of the individuals we have an obligation to protect and care for? These individuals? lives are literally hanging in the balance.? Raimondo?s plan also involved privatizing management of Medicaid in the state, outsourcing management to private insurers. By 2018, over 60 percent of the state?s Medicaid budget went to private health insurers. That year, hospital administrators called Raimondo?s round of cuts to Medicaid ?devastating.? The governor?s proposed budget for 2020, introduced before the pandemic broke out in the U.S., included nearly $60 million in Medicaid cuts. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 41464 bytes Desc: not available URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Wed Dec 2 21:13:41 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2020 21:13:41 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_=5Bwbw-discussion=5D_Biden?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=99s_Actions_So_Far_Would_Have_Ye_Olde_Resistance_in_the_?= =?utf-8?q?Streets_If_He_Were_Republican?= References: Message-ID: Not hopeful? Begin forwarded message: From: David Swanson > Subject: [wbw-discussion] Biden?s Actions So Far Would Have Ye Olde Resistance in the Streets If He Were Republican Date: December 2, 2020 at 2:16:38 PM CST To: David Swanson > Biden?s Actions So Far Would Have Ye Olde Resistance in the Streets If He Were Republican By David Swanson https://davidswanson.org/bidens-actions-so-far-would-have-ye-olde-resistance-in-the-streets-if-he-were-republican/ Take a gander, if you can stomach it, at buildbackbetter.gov. Now, be honest, if this were the work of a Republican would you be ready to protest? Not only did you not vote for anything new, as the vast majority of the nominees and the policy proposals are long-established moss-gathering Washingtonians, but the new additions here and there are the worst of the bunch. Biden, who had no foreign policy platform on his campaign website, and no foreign policy task force, has suddenly, post-election, prioritized empowering warmongers. This is a president elect openly nominating a group of revolving door war profiteers with shameless but secretive schemes for profiting from mass killing. There?s not a single nominee for anything who?s taken a stand for disarmament, peace, a green new deal, Medicare for all, or a serious shift to progressive taxation. Amidst all the hyped diversity, there?s not a single nominee for anything who?s opposed the waging of wars on nations full of men, women, and children with a little bit darker skin tone. There?s also not a single nominee who would stand for being called ?progressive? unless there was a paycheck in it. There?s a nominee for Secretary of State who wanted to chop Iraq up into three separate puppet states, thinks the U.S. should get more serious about belligerence toward Russia, and wants us to be clear that by ?ending wars? nobody means ending, you know, wars. The rumored nominee not yet added for Secretary of ?Defense? is itching for war with China. The nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget proposed attacking Libya to steal its oil ? but in a very feminist way. The rumored nominee for CIA is a torturer. The nominee for special envoy on climate is not anyone with any particular knowledge of climate, but someone with years of experience digging the hole we?re in: John Kerry. The nominee for director of national ?intelligence? helped multiply the drone murders 10-fold. The nominee for National Security Advisor has pushed war making in Libya and Syria. The rumored nominee for Housing and Human Services has just presided over one of the world?s worst COVID outbreaks, during which she approved huge health insurance premium increases and gave nursing home corporations legal immunity. The buildbackbetter.gov website doesn?t just list nominees, but also policy proposals. Here, of course, foreign policy disappears again. Poof! There?s no mention of the federal budget, how much should go where, what wars or bases or treaties or weapons customers or weapons purchases should be handled how. Nothing. Instead, there?s a pile of vague campaign platitudes about climate. There?s a long list of nice sounding commitments on race, such as ?Support second chances for economic success.? A few of them are more concrete and useful, such as ?Stopping the transfer of weapons of war to police forces.? What about ending mass incarceration? What about ending the death penalty? What about ending student debt, creating Medicare for All, making college part of public education, taxing billionaires, converting to peaceful industries, expanding Social Security, creating a Green New Deal? What about the good old Employee Free Choice Act? What about a living wage? There?s an economic plan with no mention of any of this. There?s a COVID plan that amounts to a half-assed duplication of what other nations have been doing for months ? so of course it seems good by U.S. standards. This is the problem: lowered standards. But for all the talk of ?believing science? there?s little recognition in U.S. politics that climate collapse, nuclear danger, environmental destruction, and war proliferation don?t grade on a curve. Disasters destroy whether or not you can imagine something even worse, whether or not you can imagine a more offensive presentation. Seriously, how is it that this buffoonish crowd of grifters and recycled corporate platforms is not generating massive protests? -- David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and was awarded the 2018 Peace Prize by the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. Longer bio and photos and videos here. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook, and sign up for: Activist alerts. Articles. David Swanson news. World Beyond War news. Charlottesville news. -- This is a listserve to discuss the building of a global nonviolent movement to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. Participants on this list must be respectful toward each other, not advocate violence, and not promote electoral candidates. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WBW discussion" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to wbw-discussion+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/wbw-discussion/CAF1z47Lhh8FwK_Kv9bA_1hB8s8LBEwjQw8%2Bu364E_6tR%2ByLZPw%40mail.gmail.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Dec 3 17:24:00 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2020 11:24:00 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?b?Rlc6IOKAmFJlYmVsIEdpcmzigJkgRWxpemFi?= =?utf-8?q?eth_Gurley_Flynn_terrified_Portland_political_leaders_in?= =?utf-8?q?_early_20th_century=2C_lives_on_in_imagination?= In-Reply-To: <0AF81D9A-694E-4DF0-98C5-DCBDFE233B4B@igc.org> References: <0AF81D9A-694E-4DF0-98C5-DCBDFE233B4B@igc.org> Message-ID: <005801d6c999$1ee016f0$5ca044d0$@comcast.net> From: national-workers-conference-committee at googlegroups.com [mailto:national-workers-conference-committee at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steve Zeltzer Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2020 11:16 AM To: Steve Zeltzer Subject: ?Rebel Girl? Elizabeth Gurley Flynn terrified Portland political leaders in early 20th century, lives on in imagination ?Rebel Girl? Elizabeth Gurley Flynn terrified Portland political leaders in early 20th century, lives on in imagination https://www.oregonlive.com/.../rebel-girl-elizabeth... Updated Dec 02, 10:06 AM; Posted Dec 02, 7:04 AM Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was one of the best-known -- and most militant -- labor organizers of the early 20th century. (Library of Congress) By Douglas Perry | The Oregonian/OregonLive Elizabeth Gurley Flynn never had much use for politicians. ?My, how terribly embarrassing it must be to each of you to say all those nice things about yourself,? she quipped at a 1915 candidates forum that had seen a phalanx of Portland City Council hopefuls speak. She then launched into a speech of her own, even though she wasn?t running for any office. ?Labor,? she exclaimed, ?is the foundation of society.? Flynn, who died in 1964 and quickly slipped into obscurity, is now having a pop-culture moment. Credit for the revival goes to author Jess Walter, whose well-received new novel ?The Cold Millions? adds Flynn to a bevy of memorable fictional characters during the 1909 free-speech battle in Spokane. I.W.W. An I.W.W. member wears a hat card at a free-speech rally. Many cities and states early in the 20th century passed speech-suppressing laws to prevent union organizing. (Library of Congress) Walter captures Flynn?s hard-charging charisma, showing the 19-year-old socialist storming onstage at a rally, ?purposefully striding toward the crowd like she might dive in, her toes stopping at the stage edge. She leaned forward. ?Listen,? took a few breaths, ?brothers and sisters, have we ever seen such trying times?? " Walter, who frequently sets his novels in his hometown of Spokane, told The Oregonian/OregonLive last month that the tension between labor and capital in the American economic system ?is very much in my bones, the unfairness. And to see the way much of the working class has been separated from building in their own interests breaks my heart.? Jess Walter's new novel is an exploration of 'unfairness' The author will speak at this year's Portland Book Festival. His sprawling novel's larger-than-life characters ? a mix of historical and fictional figures ? mingle amid Spokane?s heyday just after the turn of the 20th century. This viewpoint perhaps inevitably brought him to Flynn, known in her heyday as ?The Rebel Girl? and the ?East Side Joan of Arc.? The Bronx-raised Flynn was a central figure in the real-life contretemps Walter limns in ?The Cold Millions,? when the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World tried to overwhelm Spokane?s efforts to enforce an anti-union ordinance. Stewart Holbrook, the bard of the Northwest before Walter, wrote of Flynn ?shouting on a Trent Avenue corner for the workers to rise up, shake off their chains and do battle for free speech.? Her celebrity, Holbrook pointed out, was invaluable to the I.W.W. in Spokane: ?fairly sober reporters affirmed that a flash from the girl?s blue-gray eyes would serve to light a Sweet Caporal [cigarette].? The Lilac City battle would not be a Pacific Northwest one-off for Flynn -- or for the I.W.W., better known as the Wobblies. Flynn regularly made appearances around the region for the ?One Big Union? cause and to support various local strikes. I.W.W. The establishment viewed the I.W.W.'s call for "one big union" as dangerous and unAmerican. She especially liked Portland, coming through time and again to raise money and recruit workers. ?Either labor must rule or capital must rule,? she said in a speech at downtown?s Multnomah Hotel. ?It?s a war for control, and we are quite frank about it.? Four years after the Spokane upheaval, the I.W.W.?s fight for free speech reached the Rose City, when Mayor H. Russell Albee banned all ?street speaking except religious speeches? in an effort to squash a strike at the Oregon Packing Co. on Southeast 8th Avenue at Belmont Street. The police told the strikers, most of whom were women, to ?quit picketing, quit speaking, quit parading, or else face a jail sentence.? When the picketers still refused to disperse, a legion of mounted cops swooped in. Flynn wasn?t involved in the strike at the Portland fruit cannery -- she was back east leading silk-mill workers in New Jersey -- but her friend Dr. Marie Equi waded into the fight and kept her apprised. After helping to establish the American Civil Liberties Union, Flynn took up residence in Portland in the 1920s. By then she was suffering from persistent health problems. Long divorced from a Minnesota ore miner, she lived at Equi?s Southwest Portland home for years, too weak to rejoin the barricades. ?I always felt I was in jail here,? she later said. Flynn?s ill health ?was not just physical,? says Michael Munk, a longtime chronicler of local radical history and author of the 2007 book ?The Portland Red Guide.? ?The way I understood it, she was kind of depressed.? She had seen years of defeats, after all. Strikes that had petered out or been crushed, the conviction and execution of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Elizabeth Gurley Flynn addresses striking silk workers in Paterson, N.J., in 1913. (Photo courtesy of the Newark Public Library)Newark Public Library During the decade she spent living in the Rose City, Flynn, a dedicated socialist since her teens, moved further to the left. The Wobblies, Holbrook wrote, had dismissed the Communists as the ?Comicals,? but in 1937 Flynn joined the American Communist Party. In the 1950s she was convicted of conspiracy under the anti-communist Smith Act and sentenced to three years behind bars. It had been a long, winding road to federal prison for Flynn. Back in the days when she could spark a Sweet Caporal with a stern look, Flynn was considered a threat only to exploitative industrialists, not the entire U.S. political system. In her remarks that 1915 day at the Portland candidates? forum, she offered the office-seekers a suggestion on how they could improve their stump speeches. ?Not one of you, with all your reference to economy, businesslike methods and so on, has made any reference to labor,? she said. A late-arriving candidate, theatrical producer George Baker, spoke up. ?You didn?t wait to hear me,? he said. When his turn came, Baker abandoned his prepared remarks and, according to The Oregonian, insisted that his goal was to make Portland ?a better city for the workingman and all other good citizens.? Baker would win a council seat -- and in 1917 he became Portland?s mayor. Two years later, police raided the I.W.W.?s local headquarters on Southwest Second Ave., near Burnside. Mayor Baker, citing a new law designed to stop ?the circulation of inflammatory literature? that encouraged general strikes, demanded that the Wobblies be evicted from their building and run out of the city. -- Douglas Perry dperry at oregonian.com @douglasmperry -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "National Workers Conference Committee" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to national-workers-conference-committee+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/national-workers-conference-committee/0AF81D9A-694E-4DF0-98C5-DCBDFE233B4B%40igc.org . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Mon Dec 7 03:58:55 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2020 03:58:55 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Intent to execute Message-ID: The Lame-Duck Executioner: Trump Prepares to Execute Five Prisoners in Closing Days of Presidency ? from Democracy Now transcript with Amy Goodman, Nov. 30, 2020 We look at the unprecedented five federal executions President Trump?s Department of Justice has scheduled before Inauguration Day, starting with Brandon Bernard on International Human Rights Day* and ending with Dustin Higgs on January 15, Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Four of the people set to die are Black men, and the other is Lisa Montgomery, a severely mentally ill white woman who faced a lifetime of sexual abuse and would be the first woman executed in nearly 70 years. ?When you give absolute power over life and death to government officials, they can really do what they want,? responds Sister Helen Prejean, one of the world's most well-known anti-death-penalty activists. She also discusses the life and legacy of Bill Pelke, who co-founded the group Journey of Hope and partnered with Prejean to campaign against the death penalty and spare the life of the woman who was 15 years old when she killed his grandmother. ? -- * Human Rights Day is observed by the international community every year on 10 December. It commemorates the day in 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. From r-szoke at illinois.edu Mon Dec 7 03:58:55 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2020 03:58:55 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Intent to execute Message-ID: The Lame-Duck Executioner: Trump Prepares to Execute Five Prisoners in Closing Days of Presidency ? from Democracy Now transcript with Amy Goodman, Nov. 30, 2020 We look at the unprecedented five federal executions President Trump?s Department of Justice has scheduled before Inauguration Day, starting with Brandon Bernard on International Human Rights Day* and ending with Dustin Higgs on January 15, Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Four of the people set to die are Black men, and the other is Lisa Montgomery, a severely mentally ill white woman who faced a lifetime of sexual abuse and would be the first woman executed in nearly 70 years. ?When you give absolute power over life and death to government officials, they can really do what they want,? responds Sister Helen Prejean, one of the world's most well-known anti-death-penalty activists. She also discusses the life and legacy of Bill Pelke, who co-founded the group Journey of Hope and partnered with Prejean to campaign against the death penalty and spare the life of the woman who was 15 years old when she killed his grandmother. ? -- * Human Rights Day is observed by the international community every year on 10 December. It commemorates the day in 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. From r-szoke at illinois.edu Mon Dec 7 19:03:22 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2020 19:03:22 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Killing Agenda Message-ID: Pardons and Pentobarbitol: Trump?s Lame Duck Swan Song By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan, Democracy Now, Dec. 3, 2020 Pardons and pentobarbitol are defining the waning weeks of Donald Trump?s presidency. Speculation is rampant over whether Trump will grant himself a preemptive pardon, along with his three eldest children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, his son-in-law Jared Kushner; and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. If Trump does, he?ll be the first president in U.S. history to pardon himself. Meanwhile, the 54 people on federal death row can expect no such mercy from Trump. He has already executed eight federal prisoners, ending a 30-year hiatus in federal executions, and intends to kill five more before he leaves office on January 20th. Four of those scheduled to die are African American men and the other is the only woman on federal death row. She would be the first woman executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years. These will be the first federal executions to occur during an outgoing president?s ?lame duck? period in over 130 years, since President Grover Clevelend executed three men of color. Cleveland lost the election, but would be the only president to win again, four years later. The federal government?s only death chamber, at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, is only equipped to kill by lethal injection. In order to expedite the killing spree, the Trump administration has issued a rule change, authorizing federal executions to take place by firing squad, poison gas, or electrocution as well. The change was to take effect on Christmas Eve, highlighting how cruel and barbaric the death penalty is. The effective date was quietly shifted to December 28th. The next federal prisoner scheduled to die is Brandon Bernard, on December 10th ? International Human Rights Day. All but one of his jurors was white, and now, five of them say he should not be executed. The next day, December 11th, Alfred Bourgeois is set to be killed. Cory Johnson, whose attorneys say has an IQ of 69 and thus falls below the Supreme Court?s standard allowing the death penalty, has an execution date of January 14th. Dustin Higgs is the final of the four African American men Trump intends to execute just days before he leaves office. Higgs is slated to die on January 15th, Martin Luther King, Jr.?s birthday. Study after study has confirmed deep racial bias in the application of the death penalty, primarily targeting African American defendants in crimes with white victims. ?It?s a paroxysm of violence,? Cornell law professor Sandra Babcock said on the Democracy Now! news hour. She is an advocate for Lisa Montgomery, the sole woman on federal death row. Babcock described the horrific childhood that Montgomery suffered: ?She was a victim of incest, of gang rape, of child sex trafficking, of unimaginable violence for her entire life, before she committed the crime for which she was sentenced to death. She is profoundly mentally ill....her stepfather built her a special room off the side of their trailer so he and his buddies could go in and rape her. Her mother sold her to the plumber and to the electrician, told her that she had to earn her keep.? Babcock added, ?The jury never heard about the scope of her abuse or its impact. She is the most broken of the broken.? Lisa Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2008 for the murder of a pregnant woman named Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Montgomery lives, imprisoned, under constant sedation with powerful antipsychotic drugs to treat her severe mental illness. ?There are at least 16 women who have committed very similar crimes, and prosecutors in those cases recognized that these crimes are the product of trauma and mental illness,? Babcock explained. During a legal visit with Montgomery in November, her two principal attorneys contracted COVID-19. A federal judge granted a delay, but her execution date has now been reset for January 12th. The Pew Research Center recently reported that Trump has used the power of clemency far less than any president in modern history, granting only 28 pardons and 16 commutations, including several to his political allies ? less than one-half of one percent of clemency requests. President Barack Obama granted clemency 1,927 times, by comparison. ? ? # # # From r-szoke at illinois.edu Mon Dec 7 19:03:22 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2020 19:03:22 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Killing Agenda Message-ID: Pardons and Pentobarbitol: Trump?s Lame Duck Swan Song By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan, Democracy Now, Dec. 3, 2020 Pardons and pentobarbitol are defining the waning weeks of Donald Trump?s presidency. Speculation is rampant over whether Trump will grant himself a preemptive pardon, along with his three eldest children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, his son-in-law Jared Kushner; and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. If Trump does, he?ll be the first president in U.S. history to pardon himself. Meanwhile, the 54 people on federal death row can expect no such mercy from Trump. He has already executed eight federal prisoners, ending a 30-year hiatus in federal executions, and intends to kill five more before he leaves office on January 20th. Four of those scheduled to die are African American men and the other is the only woman on federal death row. She would be the first woman executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years. These will be the first federal executions to occur during an outgoing president?s ?lame duck? period in over 130 years, since President Grover Clevelend executed three men of color. Cleveland lost the election, but would be the only president to win again, four years later. The federal government?s only death chamber, at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, is only equipped to kill by lethal injection. In order to expedite the killing spree, the Trump administration has issued a rule change, authorizing federal executions to take place by firing squad, poison gas, or electrocution as well. The change was to take effect on Christmas Eve, highlighting how cruel and barbaric the death penalty is. The effective date was quietly shifted to December 28th. The next federal prisoner scheduled to die is Brandon Bernard, on December 10th ? International Human Rights Day. All but one of his jurors was white, and now, five of them say he should not be executed. The next day, December 11th, Alfred Bourgeois is set to be killed. Cory Johnson, whose attorneys say has an IQ of 69 and thus falls below the Supreme Court?s standard allowing the death penalty, has an execution date of January 14th. Dustin Higgs is the final of the four African American men Trump intends to execute just days before he leaves office. Higgs is slated to die on January 15th, Martin Luther King, Jr.?s birthday. Study after study has confirmed deep racial bias in the application of the death penalty, primarily targeting African American defendants in crimes with white victims. ?It?s a paroxysm of violence,? Cornell law professor Sandra Babcock said on the Democracy Now! news hour. She is an advocate for Lisa Montgomery, the sole woman on federal death row. Babcock described the horrific childhood that Montgomery suffered: ?She was a victim of incest, of gang rape, of child sex trafficking, of unimaginable violence for her entire life, before she committed the crime for which she was sentenced to death. She is profoundly mentally ill....her stepfather built her a special room off the side of their trailer so he and his buddies could go in and rape her. Her mother sold her to the plumber and to the electrician, told her that she had to earn her keep.? Babcock added, ?The jury never heard about the scope of her abuse or its impact. She is the most broken of the broken.? Lisa Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2008 for the murder of a pregnant woman named Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Montgomery lives, imprisoned, under constant sedation with powerful antipsychotic drugs to treat her severe mental illness. ?There are at least 16 women who have committed very similar crimes, and prosecutors in those cases recognized that these crimes are the product of trauma and mental illness,? Babcock explained. During a legal visit with Montgomery in November, her two principal attorneys contracted COVID-19. A federal judge granted a delay, but her execution date has now been reset for January 12th. The Pew Research Center recently reported that Trump has used the power of clemency far less than any president in modern history, granting only 28 pardons and 16 commutations, including several to his political allies ? less than one-half of one percent of clemency requests. President Barack Obama granted clemency 1,927 times, by comparison. ? ? # # # From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Dec 8 03:41:33 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2020 21:41:33 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Rachel Blevins commentary worth hearing/watching on "Mother of All Talkshows" -- https://youtube.com/watch?v=AD0RZJIrgm8 at 26m10s Message-ID: On George Galloway's "Mother of All Talkshows" episode 77 (https://youtube.com/watch?v=AD0RZJIrgm8) jump to 26m10s to hear/see RT journalist Rachel Blevins' commentary, she's got a good take on domestic and foreign policy including why we didn't hear much about foreign policy in the 2020 POTUS race so-called "debates" -- people would have quickly seen that there was not much difference between Trump and Biden. -J From carl at newsfromneptune.com Tue Dec 8 05:02:05 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2020 23:02:05 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Eleventh Circuit Rules Against NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner's Appeal For Compassionate Release References: <20201208004329.1.ir1qrff4klp@mg2.substack.com> Message-ID: <786393CF-651A-4616-8FAB-6E0143E946D7@newsfromneptune.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Kevin Gosztola > Subject: Eleventh Circuit Rules Against NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner's Appeal For Compassionate Release > Date: December 7, 2020 at 6:43:29 PM CST > To: cgestabrook at gmail.com > Reply-To: "Kevin Gosztola" > > If you would like to support journalism on whistleblowers, become a subscriber to The Dissenter newsletter today. > > Subscribe now > Eleventh Circuit Rules Against NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner's Appeal For Compassionate Release > Billie Winner-Davis, Winner's mother, says, "Even though I had tried not to get my hope up, I am still crushed by this denial." > Kevin Gosztola > Dec 8 > > Photo: Reality Winner (Used with permission from StandWithReality.org ) > > The 11th United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against NSA whistleblower Reality Winner's request for compassionate release from a federal prison, even though COVID-19 remains a pervasive threat. > > Narrowly, the appeals court decided [PDF ] a lower court did not "abuse its discretion" when it refused to grant Winner a hearing to present evidence about her specific medical conditions that put her at risk at Federal Medical Center Carswell. > > "It is true that the court ruled, without holding an evidentiary hearing, that Ms. Winner had not shown 'that her specific medical conditions under the particular conditions of confinement at FMC Carswell place her at a risk substantial enough to justify her early release' and that she 'is in a medical prison," the appeals court declared. > > The court added, "This ruling, while succinct, does not constitute a 'fail[ure] to apply the proper legal standard' or a failure 'to follow proper procedures in making its determination.'" > > "We are devastated," Billie Winner-Davis, Reality Winner's mother, stated. "It seems like there is so much bias against my daughter," and, "Even though I had tried not to get my hope up, I am still crushed by this denial." > > Winner filed the appeal on May 12. She urged the 11th Circuit to reverse a district court ruling and release her into home confinement. > > Her attorneys warned, ?The entire basis for Reality?s motion?and so many like hers?is that she cannot afford to wait until she is removed from FMC Carswell in a stretcher, or worse, before she is afforded relief.? > > Winner tested positive for COVID-19 in July, as confirmed cases in Carswell spiked over 500. However, the appeals court showed no sense of urgency as the virus spread in the facility. > > Finally, on November 17, the 11th Circuit convened a hearing and granted Winner's attorney an opportunity to make the case that a district court had wrongly ruled against her. > > The 11th Circuit has a notorious reputation when it comes to appeals from prisoners. In June, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated , ?The 11th Circuit is significantly out of step with other courts.? > > According to the New York Times, the appeals court tends to require that prisoners use a form that is so small one is lucky to fit 100 words. That submission can be the basis for rulings on appeals without ?even an individualized response from the government.? > > The 11th Circuit acknowledged that Winner "suffers from depression and an eating disorder, both of which affect her ability to 'cope with stress and uncertainty, such as incarceration and the invasion of a novel disease.'" > > "For Ms. Winner, her 'routines allow her to cope and hold the things she is unable to control together.' But as a result of the lockdown of the federal prison system on account of COVID-19, she cannot engage in her regular routine and is left with 'no way to exercise any coping mechanism for the stress of her own underlying conditions,'" the appeals court further noted. > > It did not dispute that Winner's eating disorder was likely exacerbated in "unhealthy and even dangerous ways," as a result of a lockdown at Carswell and "worries about COVID-19." > > "Ms. Winner says prison is 'a particularly dangerous place' for her during the pandemic because of the close living quarters, continual transfer of prisoners in and out, and the lack of supplies such as hand sanitizer," the appeals court recognized. > > But the 11th Circuit showed indifference to her complaint by ignoring confinement conditions during a pandemic. It did not contemplate whether conditions were "extraordinary and compelling" enough to warrant her release under the First Step Act and instead focused on a technical aspect of the judicial process. > > Earlier this year, Winner submitted an application for a pardon. It does not seem likely that Trump will pardon Winner, yet there is a campaign among her supporters to convince President-elect Joe Biden to free her. > > "My daughter continues to struggle with the reality of COVID-19 and total lockdown conditions within the prison. Everyday the prison staff find new ways to torment her, whether by restricting her ability to exercise or rejecting her mail," her mother shared. > > Winner is eligible for release in November 2021. She pled guilty in 2018 to one count of violating the Espionage Act when she disclosed an NSA report to The Intercept. She believed the report contained evidence that Russian hackers targeted United States voter registration systems during the 2016 election. > > She was detained after her arrest in 2017 and has served a majority of her 63-month sentence. > > You?re on the free list for The Dissenter . For the full experience, become a paying subscriber. > Subscribe > ? 2020 FDL Media Group Unsubscribe > PO Box 5087, Portland, ME 04101 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moboct1 at aim.com Tue Dec 8 15:21:19 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2020 15:21:19 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Eleventh Circuit Rules Against NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner's Appeal For Compassionate Release In-Reply-To: <786393CF-651A-4616-8FAB-6E0143E946D7@newsfromneptune.com> References: <20201208004329.1.ir1qrff4klp@mg2.substack.com> <786393CF-651A-4616-8FAB-6E0143E946D7@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <1852773182.4841601.1607440879833@mail.yahoo.com> Dear Carl:? Thanks for sending this.? Good to know you're back on the job; hope you're on the mend.?? Poor Reality; the system was stacked against her with a moniker like hers.? Reckon she got a taste of reality when she "messed" with the D.S.? "She musta been guilty or she wouldn't be locked up, right?"--shades of soon-to-be POTUS.? And who wouldn't have an eating disorder on daily prison fare of moldy baloney sandwiches? Maybe you? didn't get my email yesterday which I posted under the galligher name?? Will try again under? gmail. Midge -----Original Message----- From: C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net Sent: Mon, Dec 7, 2020 9:02 pm Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Eleventh Circuit Rules Against NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner's Appeal For Compassionate Release Begin forwarded message: From: Kevin Gosztola Subject: Eleventh Circuit Rules Against NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner's Appeal For Compassionate Release Date: December 7, 2020 at 6:43:29 PM CST To: cgestabrook at gmail.com Reply-To: "Kevin Gosztola" | | | | | | If you would like to support journalism on whistleblowers, become a subscriber to The Dissenter newsletter today. Subscribe now Eleventh Circuit Rules Against NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner's Appeal For Compassionate Release Billie Winner-Davis, Winner's mother, says, "Even though I had tried not to get my hope up, I am still crushed by this denial." | Kevin Gosztola | Dec 8 | | | | | | | | Photo: Reality Winner (Used with permission from?StandWithReality.org) The 11th United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against NSA whistleblower Reality Winner's request for compassionate release from a federal prison, even though COVID-19 remains a pervasive threat. Narrowly, the appeals court decided [PDF] a lower court did not "abuse its discretion" when it refused to grant Winner a hearing to present evidence about her specific medical conditions that put her at risk at Federal Medical Center Carswell. "It is true that the court ruled, without holding an evidentiary hearing, that Ms. Winner had not shown 'that her specific medical conditions under the particular conditions of confinement at FMC Carswell place her at a risk substantial enough to justify her early release' and that she 'is in a medical prison," the appeals court declared. The court added, "This ruling, while succinct, does not constitute a 'fail[ure] to apply the proper legal standard' or a failure 'to follow proper procedures in making its determination.'" "We are devastated," Billie Winner-Davis, Reality Winner's mother, stated. "It seems like there is so much bias against my daughter," and, "Even though I had tried not to get my hope up, I am still crushed by this denial." Winner filed the appeal on May 12. She urged the 11th Circuit to reverse a district court ruling and release her into home confinement.? Her attorneys warned, ?The entire basis for Reality?s motion?and so many like hers?is that she cannot afford to wait until she is removed from FMC Carswell in a stretcher, or worse, before she is afforded relief.? Winner tested positive for COVID-19 in July, as confirmed cases in Carswell spiked over 500. However, the appeals court showed no sense of urgency as the virus spread in the facility. Finally, on November 17, the 11th Circuit convened a hearing and granted Winner's attorney an opportunity to make the case that a district court had wrongly ruled against her. The 11th Circuit has a notorious reputation when it comes to appeals from prisoners. In June, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor?stated, ?The 11th Circuit is significantly out of step with other courts.? According to the New York Times, the appeals court tends to require that prisoners use a form that is so small one is lucky to fit 100 words. That submission can be the basis for rulings on appeals without ?even an individualized response from the government.?? The 11th Circuit acknowledged that Winner "suffers from depression and an eating disorder, both of which affect her ability to 'cope with stress and uncertainty, such as incarceration and the invasion of a novel disease.'" "For Ms. Winner, her 'routines allow her to cope and hold the things she is unable to control together.' But as a result of the lockdown of the federal prison system on account of COVID-19, she cannot engage in her regular routine and is left with 'no way to exercise any coping mechanism for the stress of her own underlying conditions,'" the appeals court further noted. It did not dispute that Winner's eating disorder was likely exacerbated in "unhealthy and even dangerous ways," as a result of a lockdown at Carswell and "worries about COVID-19." "Ms. Winner says prison is 'a particularly dangerous place' for her during the pandemic because of the close living quarters, continual transfer of prisoners in and out, and the lack of supplies such as hand sanitizer," the appeals court recognized. But the 11th Circuit showed indifference to her complaint by ignoring confinement conditions during a pandemic. It did not contemplate whether conditions were "extraordinary and compelling" enough to warrant her release under the First Step Act and instead focused on a technical aspect of the judicial process. Earlier this year, Winner?submitted an application?for a pardon. It does not seem likely that Trump will pardon Winner, yet there is a campaign among her supporters to convince President-elect Joe Biden to free her. "My daughter continues to struggle with the reality of COVID-19 and total lockdown conditions within the prison. Everyday the prison staff find new ways to torment her, whether by restricting her ability to exercise or rejecting her mail," her mother shared. Winner is eligible for release in November 2021. She pled guilty in 2018 to one count of violating the Espionage Act when she disclosed an NSA report to The Intercept. She believed the report contained evidence that Russian hackers targeted United States voter registration systems during the 2016 election. She was detained after her arrest in 2017 and has served a majority of her 63-month sentence. | | | | You?re on the free list for?The Dissenter. For the full experience,?become a paying subscriber. Subscribe ? 2020?FDL Media Group?Unsubscribe PO Box 5087, Portland, ME 04101 | | _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Tue Dec 8 23:41:17 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2020 17:41:17 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: The real Venezuela is not what you think In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006101d6cdbb$a07ec7d0$e17c5770$@comcast.net> Image removed by sender. Newly re-elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro 1 The real Venezuela is not what you think The U.S. press doesn't tell you what Maduro has done for the poor DANIEL KOVALIK https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2018/05/25/The-real-Venezuela-is-not-wh at-you-think/stories/201805240020 Image removed by sender. The real Venezuela is not what you think | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The U.S. press doesn't tell you what Maduro has done for the poor. www.post-gazette.com MAY 24, 2018 11:00 PM Daniel Kovalik teaches international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh Law School. His most recent book is "The Plot to Attack Iran." . I just returned from observing my fourth election in Venezuela in less than a year. Jimmy Carter has called Venezuela's electoral system "the best in the world," and what I witnessed was an inspiring process that guarantees one person, one vote, and includes multiple auditing procedures to ensure a free and fair election. I then came home to the United States to see the inevitable "news" coverage referring to Venezuela as a "dictatorship" and as a country in need of saving. This coverage not only ignores the reality of Venezuela, it ignores the fact that the U.S. is the greatest impediment to democracy in Venezuela, just as the U.S. has been an impediment to democracy throughout Latin America since the end of the 19th century. Prior to the Venezuelan presidential election on May 20 - an election which included an opposition candidate, Henri Falcon, from the business community - the U.S. government announced that it would not recognize the outcome, no matter who won. The U.S. had gone so far as to threaten Mr. Falcon with sanctions if he even ran in the election. The U.S. also threatened further economic sanctions on Venezuela if incumbent leftist Nicolas Maduro won - sanctions that even Mr. Falcon's economic adviser has said were leading to the collapse of the Venezuelan economy. President Donald Trump kept to his promise in this regard, announcing more onerous sanctions the day after the election, which will further immiserate the Venezuelan people. Meanwhile, while members of the more radical, right-wing opposition had themselves been calling for presidential elections and had agreed to hold them in May, the U.S. leaned on them to back out of this deal before it was signed. Following this, the radical opposition, backed by the U.S., called for people to boycott the vote. The result was that Mr. Maduro won in a landslide. But it was not only the boycott - observed mostly in wealthier communities, as I witnessed - that won the day for Mr. Maduro. There were other reasons you will never hear about in the U.S. press. First, the true patriots of Venezuela, not surprisingly, resent the United States' devastating economic sanctions as well its constant call for regime change. Some U.S. officials even talk of military intervention to overthrow Mr. Maduro. In part, the vote for Mr. Maduro was a vote against U.S. meddling in the affairs of Venezuela. In addition, despite the real hardships in Venezuela - for which the U.S. is largely to blame - most of Venezuela's poor are better off now than they were before the Bolivarian Revolution of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. For example, over the past 7 years, the government has built 2 million units of housing for low-income Venezuelans. In a country of only some 30 million people, these units are now home to a large proportion of the Venezuelan population. The current government also has provided free health care and subsidized food. Before Chavez, the sprawling poor barrios which ring the cities were literally not on any government maps, and they had no utilities and no election centers. After Chavez, the existence of these barrios was recognized for the first time, and they were provided with utilities, health service, election stations and, most important, dignity. Chavez even started a world-class music program which has now provided 1 million underprivileged children with music education. One graduate of this program, Gustavo Dudamel, is now considered one of the greatest conductors in the world! Grateful for a government on their side and flouting U.S. extortion, the poor came out to vote in large numbers for Mr. Maduro. These are the same poor, by the way, who came down from the mountains in 2002 to demand the return of Hugo Chavez to power after he was overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup and kidnapped. But you never hear the voices of these poor people in the U.S. press. You never hear their side of the story, how they have benefitted from the Bolivarian Revolution and how desperately they do not want to go back to how things were before. While they have been given a voice in Venezuela, it remains muzzled in this country, and by a press which passes off pro-intervention and pro-war propaganda as journalism. It is no wonder the United States continues to careen into one disastrous military adventure after another. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ~WRD209.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 823 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 804 bytes Desc: not available URL: From moboct1 at aim.com Wed Dec 9 03:15:25 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2020 03:15:25 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: The real Venezuela is not what you think In-Reply-To: <006101d6cdbb$a07ec7d0$e17c5770$@comcast.net> References: <006101d6cdbb$a07ec7d0$e17c5770$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <581861020.5062124.1607483725985@mail.yahoo.com> Yeah.? The real news seldom reported in the USA.? Thanks to you and Daniel Kovalik. Midge -----Original Message----- From: Did Johnson via Peace-discuss To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net Sent: Tue, Dec 8, 2020 3:41 pm Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: The real Venezuela is not what you think ? ? ? ? ? ? 1 The real Venezuela is not what you think The U.S. press doesn't tell you what Maduro has done for the poor ? DANIEL KOVALIK https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2018/05/25/The-real-Venezuela-is-not-what-you-think/stories/201805240020 | | The real Venezuela is not what you think | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The U.S. press doesn't tell you what Maduro has done for the poor. www.post-gazette.com | ? ? MAY 24, 2018 ? 11:00 PM Daniel Kovalik teaches international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh Law School. His most recent book is ?The Plot to Attack Iran.? ? I just returned from observing my fourth election in Venezuela in less than a year. Jimmy Carter has called Venezuela?s electoral system ?the best in the world,? and what I witnessed was an inspiring process that guarantees one person, one vote, and includes multiple auditing procedures to ensure a free and fair election.? ?I then came home to the United States to see the inevitable ?news? coverage referring to Venezuela as a ?dictatorship? and as a country in need of saving. This coverage not only ignores the reality of Venezuela, it ignores the fact that the U.S. is the greatest impediment to democracy in Venezuela, just as the U.S. has been an impediment to democracy throughout Latin America since the end of the 19th century. Prior to the Venezuelan presidential election on May 20 ? an election which included an opposition candidate, Henri Falcon, from the business community ??the U.S. government announced that it would not recognize the outcome, no matter who won. The U.S. had gone so far as to threaten Mr. Falcon with sanctions if he even ran in the election. The U.S. also threatened further economic sanctions on Venezuela if incumbent leftist Nicolas Maduro won ? sanctions that even Mr. Falcon?s economic adviser has said were leading to the collapse of the Venezuelan economy. President Donald Trump kept to his promise in this regard, announcing more onerous sanctions the day after the election, which will further immiserate the Venezuelan people. Meanwhile, while members of the more radical, right-wing opposition had themselves been calling for presidential elections and had agreed to hold them in May, the U.S. leaned on them to back out of this deal before it was signed. Following this, the radical opposition, backed by the U.S., called for people to boycott the vote. The result was that Mr. Maduro won in a landslide. But it was not only the boycott ? observed mostly in wealthier communities, as I witnessed ? that ?won the day for Mr. Maduro. There were other reasons you will never hear about in the U.S. press. First, the true patriots of Venezuela, not surprisingly, resent the United States? devastating economic sanctions as well its constant call for regime change. Some U.S. officials even talk of military intervention to overthrow Mr. Maduro. In part, the vote for Mr. Maduro was a vote against U.S. meddling in the affairs of Venezuela. In addition, despite the real hardships in Venezuela ? for which the U.S. is largely to blame ? most of Venezuela?s poor are better off now than they were before the Bolivarian Revolution of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. For example, over the past 7 years, the government has built 2 million units of housing for low-income Venezuelans. In a country of only some 30 million people, these units are now home to a large proportion of the Venezuelan population. The current government also has provided free health care and subsidized food. Before Chavez, the sprawling poor barrios which ring the cities were literally not on any government maps, and they had no utilities and no election centers. After Chavez, the existence of these barrios was recognized for the first time, and they were provided with utilities, health service, election stations and, most important, dignity. Chavez even started a world-class music program which has now provided 1 million underprivileged children with music education. One graduate of this program, Gustavo Dudamel, is now considered one of the greatest conductors in the world! Grateful for a government on their side and flouting U.S. extortion, the poor came out to vote in large numbers for Mr. Maduro. These are the same poor, by the way, who came down from the mountains in 2002 to demand the return of Hugo Chavez to power after he was overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup and kidnapped. But you never hear the voices of these poor people in the U.S. press. You never hear their side of the story, how they have benefitted from the Bolivarian Revolution and how desperately they do not want to go back to how things were before. While they have been given a voice in Venezuela, it remains muzzled in this country, and by a press which passes off pro-intervention and pro-war propaganda as journalism. It is no wonder the United States continues to careen into one disastrous military adventure after another. ? _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ~WRD209.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 823 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 804 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Dec 10 01:18:04 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2020 19:18:04 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Sources for better reporting on Venezuela In-Reply-To: <006101d6cdbb$a07ec7d0$e17c5770$@comcast.net> References: <006101d6cdbb$a07ec7d0$e17c5770$@comcast.net> Message-ID: Daniel Kovalik wrote: > The real Venezuela is not what you think > > The U.S. press doesn't tell you what Maduro has done for the poor Also consider The Grayzone: Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXR8pRTkE2vFeJePNe9UcQ/videos Website: https://thegrayzone.com/ Venezuela Analysis https://venezuelanalysis.com/ for news about Venezuela you won't find in establishment media. From r-szoke at illinois.edu Thu Dec 10 04:11:02 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2020 04:11:02 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Social status & prestige vs economic class ? Message-ID: Opinion The Resentment That Never Sleeps Rising anxiety over declining social status tells us a lot about how we got here and where we?re going. By Thomas B. Edsall Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C. on politics, demographics and inequality. NYT Dec. 9, 2020 More and more, politics determine which groups are favored and which are denigrated. Roughly speaking, Trump and the Republican Party have fought to enhance the status of white Christians and white people without college degrees: the white working and middle class. Biden and the Democrats have fought to elevate the standing of previously marginalized groups: women, minorities, the L.G.B.T.Q. community and others. The ferocity of this politicized status competition can be seen in the anger of white non-college voters over their disparagement by liberal elites, the attempt to flip traditional hierarchies and the emergence of identity politics on both sides of the chasm. Just over a decade ago, in their paper ?Hypotheses on Status Competition,? William C. Wohlforth and David C. Kang, professors of government at Dartmouth and the University of Southern California, wrote that ?social status is one of the most important motivators of human behavior? and yet ?over the past 35 years, no more than half dozen articles have appeared in top U.S. political science journals building on the proposition that the quest for status will affect patterns of interstate behavior.? Scholars are now rectifying that omission, with the recognition that in politics, status competition has become increasingly salient, prompting a collection of emotions including envy, jealousy and resentment that have spurred ever more intractable conflicts between left and right, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. ADVERTISEMENT Hierarchal ranking, the status classification of different groups ? the well-educated and the less-well educated, white people and Black people, the straight and L.G.B.T.Q. communities ? has the effect of consolidating and seeming to legitimize existing inequalities in resources and power. Diminished status has become a source of rage on both the left and right, sharpened by divisions over economic security and insecurity, geography and, ultimately, values. The stakes of status competition are real. Cecilia L. Ridgeway, a professor at Stanford, described the costs and benefits in her 2013 presidential address at the American Sociological Association. Understanding ?the effects of status ? inequality based on differences in esteem and respect? is crucial for those seeking to comprehend ?the mechanisms behind obdurate, durable patterns of inequality in society,? Ridgeway argued: Failing to understand the independent force of status processes has limited our ability to explain the persistence of such patterns of inequality in the face of remarkable socioeconomic change. ?As a basis for social inequality, status is a bit different from resources and power. It is based on cultural beliefs rather than directly on material arrangements,? Ridgeway said: We need to appreciate that status, like resources and power, is a basic source of human motivation that powerfully shapes the struggle for precedence out of which inequality emerges. Ridgeway elaborated on this argument in an essay, ?Why Status Matters for Inequality?: Status is as significant as money and power. At a macro level, status stabilizes resource and power inequality by transforming it into cultural status beliefs about group differences regarding who is ?better? (esteemed and competent). In an email, Ridgeway made the case that ?status is definitely important in contemporary political dynamics here and in Europe,? adding that << Status has always been part of American politics, but right now a variety of social changes have threatened the status of working class and rural whites who used to feel they had a secure, middle status position in American society ? not the glitzy top, but respectable, ?Main Street? core of America. The reduction of working-class wages and job security, growing demographic diversity, and increasing urbanization of the population have greatly undercut that sense and fueled political reaction. >> The political consequences cut across classes. ? ? From r-szoke at illinois.edu Thu Dec 10 04:11:02 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2020 04:11:02 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Social status & prestige vs economic class ? Message-ID: Opinion The Resentment That Never Sleeps Rising anxiety over declining social status tells us a lot about how we got here and where we?re going. By Thomas B. Edsall Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C. on politics, demographics and inequality. NYT Dec. 9, 2020 More and more, politics determine which groups are favored and which are denigrated. Roughly speaking, Trump and the Republican Party have fought to enhance the status of white Christians and white people without college degrees: the white working and middle class. Biden and the Democrats have fought to elevate the standing of previously marginalized groups: women, minorities, the L.G.B.T.Q. community and others. The ferocity of this politicized status competition can be seen in the anger of white non-college voters over their disparagement by liberal elites, the attempt to flip traditional hierarchies and the emergence of identity politics on both sides of the chasm. Just over a decade ago, in their paper ?Hypotheses on Status Competition,? William C. Wohlforth and David C. Kang, professors of government at Dartmouth and the University of Southern California, wrote that ?social status is one of the most important motivators of human behavior? and yet ?over the past 35 years, no more than half dozen articles have appeared in top U.S. political science journals building on the proposition that the quest for status will affect patterns of interstate behavior.? Scholars are now rectifying that omission, with the recognition that in politics, status competition has become increasingly salient, prompting a collection of emotions including envy, jealousy and resentment that have spurred ever more intractable conflicts between left and right, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. ADVERTISEMENT Hierarchal ranking, the status classification of different groups ? the well-educated and the less-well educated, white people and Black people, the straight and L.G.B.T.Q. communities ? has the effect of consolidating and seeming to legitimize existing inequalities in resources and power. Diminished status has become a source of rage on both the left and right, sharpened by divisions over economic security and insecurity, geography and, ultimately, values. The stakes of status competition are real. Cecilia L. Ridgeway, a professor at Stanford, described the costs and benefits in her 2013 presidential address at the American Sociological Association. Understanding ?the effects of status ? inequality based on differences in esteem and respect? is crucial for those seeking to comprehend ?the mechanisms behind obdurate, durable patterns of inequality in society,? Ridgeway argued: Failing to understand the independent force of status processes has limited our ability to explain the persistence of such patterns of inequality in the face of remarkable socioeconomic change. ?As a basis for social inequality, status is a bit different from resources and power. It is based on cultural beliefs rather than directly on material arrangements,? Ridgeway said: We need to appreciate that status, like resources and power, is a basic source of human motivation that powerfully shapes the struggle for precedence out of which inequality emerges. Ridgeway elaborated on this argument in an essay, ?Why Status Matters for Inequality?: Status is as significant as money and power. At a macro level, status stabilizes resource and power inequality by transforming it into cultural status beliefs about group differences regarding who is ?better? (esteemed and competent). In an email, Ridgeway made the case that ?status is definitely important in contemporary political dynamics here and in Europe,? adding that << Status has always been part of American politics, but right now a variety of social changes have threatened the status of working class and rural whites who used to feel they had a secure, middle status position in American society ? not the glitzy top, but respectable, ?Main Street? core of America. The reduction of working-class wages and job security, growing demographic diversity, and increasing urbanization of the population have greatly undercut that sense and fueled political reaction. >> The political consequences cut across classes. ? ? From jbn at forestfield.org Sun Dec 13 12:52:35 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2020 06:52:35 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Chris Hedges interviews Diana Johnstone Message-ID: <55f05f4c-102f-aa8d-36ad-310d0e299de4@forestfield.org> Chris Hedges interviews Diana Johnstone Video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=k_Th-25DLWc Video & Transcript: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/509471-social-justice-left-activism/ Highly recommended. From brussel at illinois.edu Sun Dec 13 20:10:49 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2020 20:10:49 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Chris Hedges interviews Diana Johnstone In-Reply-To: <55f05f4c-102f-aa8d-36ad-310d0e299de4@forestfield.org> References: <55f05f4c-102f-aa8d-36ad-310d0e299de4@forestfield.org> Message-ID: <0B6C7ACA-C824-4A6C-A854-F43899C61DD3@illinois.edu> It is too bad that she has some difficulty verbally expressing her worthwhile ideas. She is 76 years old, and iconoclastic. > On Dec 13, 2020, at 6:52 AM, J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Chris Hedges interviews Diana Johnstone > Video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=k_Th-25DLWc > Video & Transcript: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/509471-social-justice-left-activism/ > > Highly recommended. > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Mon Dec 14 00:26:55 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2020 18:26:55 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: PLEASE WATCH ! Forcing a vote on Medicare for all. Using our political leverage ! Message-ID: <007301d6d1af$d5cbbef0$81633cd0$@comcast.net> Time to take it to the next level and expose those who are gas lighting sell outs ! #TheJimmyDoreShow AOC Schooled By NFL's Justin Jackson On Forcing Med4all Vote Now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh6YOApFsRo -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Dec 14 19:17:21 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2020 13:17:21 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Statement of the U.S. Peace Council on 2020 U.S. Elections References: <5fd78baa34ab0_59f03ff5bb2cddc832679139@ip-10-0-0-127.mail> Message-ID: <6FF3C794-6AF4-4DAC-AB8E-3696D436E049@newsfromneptune.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "U.S. Peace Council U.S. Peace Council" > Subject: Statement of the U.S. Peace Council on 2020 U.S. Elections > Date: December 14, 2020 at 9:58:34 AM CST > To: cgestabrook at gmail.com > Reply-To: USPC at USPeaceCouncil.org > > > Statement of the U.S. Peace Council on 2020 U.S. Elections > > Our Struggle for Peace and Social Justice > Must Be Intensified! > > December 12, 2020 > > > November 3rd has passed and slightly more than a third of the eligible electorate chose the Democrat, slightly less than a third the Republican, and the remaining third chose none of the above by either not voting or casting a ballot for a third-party alternative. The threat of an October surprise did not materialize although Trump?s desperate attempts to nullify the results of the elections continue. > > > The important issues of war and peace facing humanity, especially for those of us in the belly of the beast with a special responsibility to address the actions of our own government, were non-issues in most if not all U.S. election campaigns. > > > Regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, the decadent trajectory of neoliberalism continues: imperialism abroad and austerity for working people at home. The permanent institutions of the state ? the Pentagon and the national security and surveillance apparatus ? endure. > > > Although Trump did not start any new wars, he did not end any of the now perpetual U.S. military engagements. The U.S. policy of sanctions against 39 countries, constituting a third of the world?s population, are a form of warfare that kills and maims similar to bombs. The wars abroad are increasingly mirrored by wars on the people at home, by the militarization of society ? in particular the police ? and by strangulation of the economy. The response by the major imperial powers to the pandemic of COVID-19, in particular in the U.S. and Europe, has exacerbated this war at home and exposed the social, political and economic cracks in late stage, monopoly capitalism. > > > Behind the ethnic and gender diversity of Joe Biden?s announced appointments is the continuity of the Obama-Biden administration?s engagement in permanent war and regime change and commitment to ?full spectrum dominance.? The promise of U.S. ?leadership? means, in fact, U.S. dominance of billions of people who did not choose the American state to rule them. These scourges will be not exorcized with the defeat of Donald Trump. > > > This fundamental continuity, beneath a fa?ade of bipartisan bickering, calls for an independent peace movement to promote these actions, among many others: > > > Drastically cut the military budget. > Return all troops from all war zones and close all the foreign military bases. > End all unilateral coercive measures (blockades and sanctions). > Stop supporting allied wars and stop U.S. and allied assassinations. > End the nuclear weapons escalation and sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) > Stop the cold war with China. > Reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba, end the blockade, and return Guant?namo. > Negotiate with Iran, not assassinate and threaten military attacks. > End the asphyxiating sanctions on Venezuela and reestablish diplomatic relations. > Recognize and respect the right of Palestinians to self-determination and end its financial and diplomatic support for the apartheid state of Israel. > Repeal the Nicaragua Investment Conditionality Act (NICA Act). > Fully abide by the UN Charter. > Demilitarize the police. > > Above all, we need to intensify our struggle for a just transition from a military to a peacetime economy to meet human and community needs and restore the environment, and join hands to build a world founded on cooperation, peace and respect for sovereignty of all nations. > > *** > > U.S. Peace Council ? P.O. Box 3105, New Haven, CT 06515 ? (203) 387-0370 ? USPC at USPeaceCouncil.org? > ? https://uspeacecouncil.org ? https://www.facebook.com/USPeaceCouncil/ ? @USPeaceCouncil > Sent via ActionNetwork.org . To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Coalition Agaisnt U.S. Foreign Military Bases, please click here . > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Dec 15 00:40:17 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2020 18:40:17 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Recommended videos for AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV Message-ID: Here are the video suggestions I've sent to Jason Liggett of UPTV to run during AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV's timeslots. As before, I've asked Jason to prioritize AWARE member suggested videos ahead of my suggestions for AOTA/NFN and to prioritize anything David Johnson prefers for Labor's World View TV. I've got some family events coming up which will require my attention so I might not be able to submit new videos for the next couple of weeks. -J RT Video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=k_Th-25DLWc -- (26m 4s) Chris Hedges interviews Diana Johnstone Transcript: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/509471-social-justice-left-activism/ https://youtube.com/watch?v=KqwCm1gCgUI -- (24m 38s) Watching the Hawks: "Congress Passes740 Billion For Pentagon While Millions Face New Years Evictions" and questioning identity politics as the upcoming Biden administration changes the rules to admit a new Secretary of Defense who otherwise wouldn't be allowed. Black Agenda Report https://youtube.com/watch?v=MEAiINH8Qys -- (1h 11m) Left Lens: Barack Obama's legacy of lies Matt Orfalea https://youtube.com/watch?v=OwOmSkzDiw4 -- (15m 16s) CIA Plots Against Dan Ellsberg & Julian Assange https://youtube.com/watch?v=fmiJ3SX2XuM -- (2m 42s) BRING THE RUCKUS! (contains one instance of swearing -- "bullshit" because this is a remix of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez clips and Jimmy Dore clips where Dore debunks AOC's previous position of standing for Medicare for All) Consortium News https://youtube.com/watch?v=r-0ZphOIRIM -- (1h) 'A Secret Australia' - As Revealed by Wikileaks Expos?s - with Jen Robinson & Peter Cronau https://youtube.com/watch?v=RAkIgzUt5Vk -- (1h 7m) Marking the 10th anniversary of WikiLeaks' Cablegate publication https://youtube.com/watch?v=O-E_W3-gOZQ -- (1h 18m) WAR CRIMES From moboct1 at aim.com Tue Dec 15 02:36:28 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2020 02:36:28 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Statement of the U.S. Peace Council on 2020 U.S. Elections In-Reply-To: <6FF3C794-6AF4-4DAC-AB8E-3696D436E049@newsfromneptune.com> References: <5fd78baa34ab0_59f03ff5bb2cddc832679139@ip-10-0-0-127.mail> <6FF3C794-6AF4-4DAC-AB8E-3696D436E049@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <213784177.596980.1607999788638@mail.yahoo.com> Brilliant!? I vote for this! Midge -----Original Message----- From: C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss To: Peace Cc: Peace Discuss Sent: Mon, Dec 14, 2020 11:18 am Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Statement of the U.S. Peace Council on 2020 U.S. Elections Begin forwarded message: From: "U.S. Peace Council U.S. Peace Council" Subject: Statement of the U.S. Peace Council on 2020 U.S. Elections Date: December 14, 2020 at 9:58:34 AM CST To: cgestabrook at gmail.com Reply-To: USPC at USPeaceCouncil.org | | | | Statement of the U.S. Peace Council on 2020 U.S. Elections Our Struggle for Peace and Social Justice? Must Be Intensified! December 12, 2020 November 3rd?has passed and slightly more than a third of the eligible electorate chose the Democrat, slightly less than a third the Republican, and the remaining third chose none of the above by either not voting or casting a ballot for a third-party alternative. The threat of an October surprise did not materialize although Trump?s desperate attempts to nullify the results of the elections continue.? The important issues of war and peace facing humanity, especially for those of us in the belly of the beast with a special responsibility to address the actions of our own government, were non-issues in most if not all U.S. election campaigns.? Regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, the decadent trajectory of neoliberalism continues: imperialism abroad and austerity for working people at home. The permanent institutions of the state ? the Pentagon and the national security and surveillance apparatus ? endure.? Although Trump did not start any new wars, he did not end any of the now perpetual U.S. military engagements. The U.S. policy of sanctions against 39 countries, constituting a third of the world?s population, are a form of warfare that kills and maims similar to bombs. The wars abroad are increasingly mirrored by wars on the people at home, by the militarization of society ? in particular the police ? and by strangulation of the economy. The response by the major imperial powers to the pandemic of COVID-19, in particular in the U.S. and Europe, has exacerbated this war at home and exposed the social, political and economic cracks in late stage, monopoly capitalism.? Behind the ethnic and gender diversity of Joe Biden?s announced appointments is the continuity of the Obama-Biden administration?s engagement in permanent war and regime change and commitment to ?full spectrum dominance.? The promise of U.S. ?leadership? means, in fact, U.S. dominance of billions of people who did not choose the American state to rule them. These scourges will be not exorcized with the defeat of Donald Trump.? This fundamental continuity, beneath a fa?ade of bipartisan bickering, calls for an independent peace movement to promote these actions, among many others: - Drastically cut the military budget.? - Return all troops from all war zones and close all the foreign military bases.? - End all unilateral coercive measures (blockades and sanctions).? - Stop supporting allied wars and stop U.S. and allied assassinations.? - End the nuclear weapons escalation and sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)? - Stop the cold war with China. - Reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba, end the blockade, and return Guant?namo. - Negotiate with Iran, not assassinate and threaten military attacks. - End the asphyxiating sanctions on Venezuela and reestablish diplomatic relations. - Recognize and respect the right of Palestinians to self-determination and end its financial and diplomatic support for the apartheid state of Israel. - Repeal the Nicaragua Investment Conditionality Act (NICA Act). - Fully abide by the UN Charter.? - Demilitarize the police.? Above all, we need to intensify our struggle for a just transition from a military to a peacetime economy to meet human and community needs and restore the environment, and join hands to build a world founded on cooperation, peace and respect for sovereignty of all nations. *** U.S. Peace Council ? P.O. Box 3105, New Haven, CT 06515 ? (203) 387-0370 ??USPC at USPeaceCouncil.org? ??https://uspeacecouncil.org???https://www.facebook.com/USPeaceCouncil/???@USPeaceCouncil | | | | | | Sent via?ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Coalition Agaisnt U.S. Foreign Military Bases, please?click here. | | | | _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Tue Dec 15 19:53:45 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2020 19:53:45 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Pilger + Message-ID: <7B5CF6C2-D5CB-4161-8C05-E098045BC284@illinois.edu> Recommended, especially the short concluding chilling interview. https://consortiumnews.com/2020/12/14/john-pilger-the-most-lethal-virus-is-not-covid-19-it-is-war/ Merry xmas. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Dec 17 00:22:04 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2020 18:22:04 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: [New post] The Revolutionary Struggle Is A Fight Between Movement And Inertia In-Reply-To: References: <139971992.9280.0@wordpress.com> Message-ID: <9ec5d9c9-bcd6-0d39-62fa-cd35725a124b@forestfield.org> Karen Aram wrote: > Jimmy did a good job of uncloaking AOC as he did, as I?ve tried, as a tool nothing > more. > > A better Jimmy Dore VDO, less screaming and cursing, is his take down of Jacobin?s > David Sirota over Med4All. I will forward once and if I?m able to locate it > online. That video has not yet been uploaded but should show up on Jimmy Dore's channel https://youtube.com/channel/UC3M7l8ved_rYQ45AVzS0RGA and I'm okay with Dore's screaming and cursing, particularly on issues of massive immiseration and life & death policies including war and Medicare for All. https://on.rt.com/axfh is another chapter of AOC's apparently ongoing spinelessness. She said: > ?I do think that we need new leadership in the Democratic Party,? Ocasio-Cortez > said during an interview on the Intercept?s podcast on Wednesday. > > She added, however, that currently the party?s progressive wing would not be able > to fill the created power vacuum. ?If you create that vacuum, there are so many > nefarious forces at play to fill that vacuum with something even worse,? she > explained. > > Ocasio-Cortez lamented that the longtime Democratic leaders, Pelosi and Senate > Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, spent years concentrating power without any ?real > grooming of a next generation of leadership.? As Dore has pointed out, AOC is all vim and vigor when she wants her district to vote for her (telling people to "Bring the ruckus" and such as she said in https://youtube.com/watch?v=BKdsnZbWmYI [1]) but when it comes to challenging her or challenging specific people she depends on for funding, like Nancy Pelosi who redistributes money to compliant congresspeople, AOC is a front for the establishment. AOC took a very comparable tack on the widely underdiscussed CARES Act in which trillions were added to the economy and overwhelmingly given to the wealthiest people and wealthiest businesses while the Democrats caved and we got basically nothing (a single $1200 check is a joke that spared nobody's home or job). Therefore the public is better served with a clear opponent -- a wolf in wolf's clothing rather than a wolf in sheep's clothing -- because the latter apparently bamboozles progressives into supporting their campaigns. [1] While Matt Orfalea's videos are quite good, that video and Orfalea's other AOC/Jimmy Dore video https://youtube.com/watch?v=fmiJ3SX2XuM create a false impression that AOC and Dore share a mutual support for Medicare for All. They do not. Dore is a genuine champion of Medicare for All and he's powerless to do more than he's doing. AOC has given lip service to Medicare for All because she knows that so long as Pelosi is House Speaker AOC is unlikely to have to face voting for a Medicare for All bill. AOC shows no clear sign that she'll use her power to use her leverage compelling Pelosi to bring up Rep. Jayapal's Medicare for All bill up for a vote in the House. From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Dec 17 00:29:39 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2020 18:29:39 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: [New post] The Revolutionary Struggle Is A Fight Between Movement And Inertia In-Reply-To: <9ec5d9c9-bcd6-0d39-62fa-cd35725a124b@forestfield.org> References: <139971992.9280.0@wordpress.com> <9ec5d9c9-bcd6-0d39-62fa-cd35725a124b@forestfield.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > https://on.rt.com/axfh is another chapter of AOC's apparently ongoing spinelessness. It looks like Jimmy Dore is live tonight and will cover this. Watch https://youtube.com/watch?v=6Uk-TG4L7aE within an hour or so of the time/date stamp on this email for the live feed. From brussel at illinois.edu Thu Dec 17 18:08:00 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 18:08:00 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [New post] The Revolutionary Struggle Is A Fight Between Movement And Inertia In-Reply-To: <9ec5d9c9-bcd6-0d39-62fa-cd35725a124b@forestfield.org> References: <139971992.9280.0@wordpress.com> <9ec5d9c9-bcd6-0d39-62fa-cd35725a124b@forestfield.org> Message-ID: <90111D32-B013-4C87-9F20-611C3D022127@illinois.edu> AOC says things as a congressional representative that no, or few, others do. So I find the criticisms here self defeating, not to say annoying. Yes, she?s not ideal, but who is stepping forward in Congress more than her? What is her position of the military budget? > On Dec 16, 2020, at 6:22 PM, J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Karen Aram wrote: >> Jimmy did a good job of uncloaking AOC as he did, as I?ve tried, as a tool nothing >> more. >> A better Jimmy Dore VDO, less screaming and cursing, is his take down of Jacobin?s >> David Sirota over Med4All. I will forward once and if I?m able to locate it >> online. > > That video has not yet been uploaded but should show up on Jimmy Dore's channel https://youtube.com/channel/UC3M7l8ved_rYQ45AVzS0RGA and I'm okay with Dore's screaming and cursing, particularly on issues of massive immiseration and life & death policies including war and Medicare for All. > > https://on.rt.com/axfh is another chapter of AOC's apparently ongoing spinelessness. She said: > >> ?I do think that we need new leadership in the Democratic Party,? Ocasio-Cortez >> said during an interview on the Intercept?s podcast on Wednesday. >> She added, however, that currently the party?s progressive wing would not be able >> to fill the created power vacuum. ?If you create that vacuum, there are so many >> nefarious forces at play to fill that vacuum with something even worse,? she >> explained. >> Ocasio-Cortez lamented that the longtime Democratic leaders, Pelosi and Senate >> Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, spent years concentrating power without any ?real >> grooming of a next generation of leadership.? > > As Dore has pointed out, AOC is all vim and vigor when she wants her district to vote for her (telling people to "Bring the ruckus" and such as she said in https://youtube.com/watch?v=BKdsnZbWmYI [1]) but when it comes to challenging her or challenging specific people she depends on for funding, like Nancy Pelosi who redistributes money to compliant congresspeople, AOC is a front for the establishment. AOC took a very comparable tack on the widely underdiscussed CARES Act in which trillions were added to the economy and overwhelmingly given to the wealthiest people and wealthiest businesses while the Democrats caved and we got basically nothing (a single $1200 check is a joke that spared nobody's home or job). Therefore the public is better served with a clear opponent -- a wolf in wolf's clothing rather than a wolf in sheep's clothing -- because the latter apparently bamboozles progressives into supporting their campaigns. > > > > [1] While Matt Orfalea's videos are quite good, that video and Orfalea's other AOC/Jimmy Dore video https://youtube.com/watch?v=fmiJ3SX2XuM create a false impression that AOC and Dore share a mutual support for Medicare for All. They do not. Dore is a genuine champion of Medicare for All and he's powerless to do more than he's doing. AOC has given lip service to Medicare for All because she knows that so long as Pelosi is House Speaker AOC is unlikely to have to face voting for a Medicare for All bill. AOC shows no clear sign that she'll use her power to use her leverage compelling Pelosi to bring up Rep. Jayapal's Medicare for All bill up for a vote in the House. > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Dec 18 00:26:22 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 18:26:22 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Politican's talk vs. votes -- what's more important? In-Reply-To: <90111D32-B013-4C87-9F20-611C3D022127@illinois.edu> References: <139971992.9280.0@wordpress.com> <9ec5d9c9-bcd6-0d39-62fa-cd35725a124b@forestfield.org> <90111D32-B013-4C87-9F20-611C3D022127@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <511664e1-0bc7-ab8d-03b7-48e35ac93e5c@forestfield.org> Brussel, Morton K wrote: > AOC says things as a congressional representative that no, or few, others do. So > I find the criticisms here self defeating, not to say annoying. Yes, she?s not > ideal, but who is stepping forward in Congress more than her? Generally, a politician's talk doesn't interest me much because votes on policy are what affects people's lives. AOC spoke against the CARES Act, for example, in another arm-waving speech on the floor of the House which was sharply critical of the CARES Act. In that speech she pointed out how the general American public would get "crumbs" and she was right in that assessment. But AOC did not challenge Pelosi to get a roll-call vote for the CARES Act which would help us more clearly identify who was on our side in our collective time of need. There appears to have been no real negotiations on terms for paying the general public more money over a longer period (such as a UBI) to help us avoid insolvency during a pandemic. There was no apparent talk to a senator to convince them to use their power to put a hold on the bill while they drummed up public support for better terms. After listening to the audio of that vote it's clear that only a couple of men voted against it (as Jimmy Dore rightly pointed out at the time, saying something like "unless AOC suddenly sounds like Lou Rawls when she says 'no', she voted for that bill"). Fellow 'squad' member Rep. Ilhan Omar also rightly spoke against the CARES Act and wrongly voted for the CARES Act; Rep. Omar was slightly more honest than AOC about it admitting her vote. Even Pelosi knows that talk against something Pelosi wants to happen is far less important than voting against something Pelosi wants to happen. So Democrats go on and on about how we all deserve health care as a right and they'll cosponsor Medicare for All bills pretty widely. But as we've seen with HR676 (when the Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress) and as we're seeing now, bringing Medicare for All bills to the floor for a vote is a no-go. This is also the case in California, 5th largest economy in the world, which is run by Democrats. And on the CARES Act and on voting for Pelosi as speaker (which AOC initially said she wouldn't do but then did), AOC provides no challenge to party power on these important issues. This disincentivizes me to want AOC in Congress as I prefer someone who fights for our interests. AOC's words about "bringing the ruckus" turn out to be nothing but talk. Arguments against perfection ("she's not ideal") are a false dichotomy and unconvincing. As to who is better than her strikes me as a distraction because AOC has power now so her votes matter. When the rhetoric that got her into office is so diametrically opposed to where she's going now, it's right and proper to quote that and see if she's living up to her own values on the important issues of the day (which certainly includes Medicare for All). Claiming that such criticism is "self-defeating" is nonsense; the only thing that's self-defeating is not to try. And that's true on both AOC's end and ours as Americans who want Medicare for All. There's no good reason for AOC not to challenge Pelosi on Medicare for All in precisely the way that AOC is being told to do -- no vote for Pelosi without bringing Rep. Jayapal's Medicare for All bill to the floor for a vote. We are right and proper to demand things of our elected officials. Even if Medicare for All doesn't pass into law, AOC has a chance to be seen fighting for what we want in a substantive way. If she puts in that effort, that won't be forgotten and we can all tell her district to re-elect her because she has walked the walk. But if she caves into power-pleasing we can cite that too and push for replacing her with someone who will work for our interests. We stand to lose nothing by getting elected representatives to do their job in carrying out what we want and need. Jimmy Dore makes excellent points in https://youtube.com/watch?v=jbZFO-pmJMo and I explicitly include the yelling and swearing in that assessment. If one can't get excited over helping the American public face a lethal pandemic and a depression with a practical and widely-supported program that also saves us money (Medicare for All), one simply isn't paying attention. Tone policing and bogus arguments are no match. From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Dec 18 00:56:28 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 18:56:28 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Julian Assange/WikiLeaks news about August 26, 2011 Assange warning of unredacted cable release to USG Message-ID: Assange warned US of 2011 leaks in alleged call with State Department Project Veritas source: https://www.projectveritas.com/news/exclusive-project-veritas-releases-audio-of-assange-warning-u-s-government/ RT video extract: https://youtube.com/watch?v=eVHGqMhZNbA Full-length audio: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lfZQcV-frnY RT interview with Daniel Lazare https://youtube.com/watch?v=VhZg8T3Rj80 RT interview with WikiLeaks chief Kristinn Hrafnsson "Assange tape throws Justice Department's indictment out of the window ? Kristinn Hrafnsson" https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ca0pZpemSac I recommend watching all of these and reading the Project Veritas page. -J From moboct1 at aim.com Fri Dec 18 03:24:28 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2020 03:24:28 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Politican's talk vs. votes -- what's more important? In-Reply-To: <511664e1-0bc7-ab8d-03b7-48e35ac93e5c@forestfield.org> References: <139971992.9280.0@wordpress.com> <9ec5d9c9-bcd6-0d39-62fa-cd35725a124b@forestfield.org> <90111D32-B013-4C87-9F20-611C3D022127@illinois.edu> <511664e1-0bc7-ab8d-03b7-48e35ac93e5c@forestfield.org> Message-ID: <818520228.1587243.1608261868250@mail.yahoo.com> Well, so did I--warn about the CARES Act when I first learned of it: "The fat cats will be lined up at the feeding trough" were my exact words--but I'm not a member of the U.S. Congress, just a common cynic.?? Who couldn't see what would come down?? AOC should grow up and act in the capacity she was elected and?DO something about it--like vote NO & work to get other colleagues to--instead of doing The Speaker's bidding.? Remind anyone of a local politician on the end of the Illinois House Speaker's? string?? Midge? -----Original Message----- From: J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss To: Peace Discuss Sent: Thu, Dec 17, 2020 4:27 pm Subject: [Peace-discuss] Politican's talk vs. votes -- what's more important? Brussel, Morton K wrote: > AOC says things as a congressional representative that no, or few, others do.? So > I find the criticisms here self defeating, not to say annoying. Yes, she?s not > ideal, but who is stepping forward in Congress more than her? Generally, a politician's talk doesn't interest me much because votes on policy are what affects people's lives. AOC spoke against the CARES Act, for example, in another arm-waving speech on the floor of the House which was sharply critical of the CARES Act. In that speech she pointed out how the general American public would get "crumbs" and she was right in that assessment. But AOC did not challenge Pelosi to get a roll-call vote for the CARES Act which would help us more clearly identify who was on our side in our collective time of need. There appears to have been no real negotiations on terms for paying the general public more money over a longer period (such as a UBI) to help us avoid insolvency during a pandemic. There was no apparent talk to a senator to convince them to use their power to put a hold on the bill while they drummed up public support for better terms. After listening to the audio of that vote it's clear that only a couple of men voted against it (as Jimmy Dore rightly pointed out at the time, saying something like "unless AOC suddenly sounds like Lou Rawls when she says 'no', she voted for that bill"). Fellow 'squad' member Rep. Ilhan Omar also rightly spoke against the CARES Act and wrongly voted for the CARES Act; Rep. Omar was slightly more honest than AOC about it admitting her vote. Even Pelosi knows that talk against something Pelosi wants to happen is far less important than voting against something Pelosi wants to happen. So Democrats go on and on about how we all deserve health care as a right and they'll cosponsor Medicare for All bills pretty widely. But as we've seen with HR676 (when the Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress) and as we're seeing now, bringing Medicare for All bills to the floor for a vote is a no-go. This is also the case in California, 5th largest economy in the world, which is run by Democrats. And on the CARES Act and on voting for Pelosi as speaker (which AOC initially said she wouldn't do but then did), AOC provides no challenge to party power on these important issues. This disincentivizes me to want AOC in Congress as I prefer someone who fights for our interests. AOC's words about "bringing the ruckus" turn out to be nothing but talk. Arguments against perfection ("she's not ideal") are a false dichotomy and unconvincing. As to who is better than her strikes me as a distraction because AOC has power now so her votes matter. When the rhetoric that got her into office is so diametrically opposed to where she's going now, it's right and proper to quote that and see if she's living up to her own values on the important issues of the day (which certainly includes Medicare for All). Claiming that such criticism is "self-defeating" is nonsense; the only thing that's self-defeating is not to try. And that's true on both AOC's end and ours as Americans who want Medicare for All. There's no good reason for AOC not to challenge Pelosi on Medicare for All in precisely the way that AOC is being told to do -- no vote for Pelosi without bringing Rep. Jayapal's Medicare for All bill to the floor for a vote. We are right and proper to demand things of our elected officials. Even if Medicare for All doesn't pass into law, AOC has a chance to be seen fighting for what we want in a substantive way. If she puts in that effort, that won't be forgotten and we can all tell her district to re-elect her because she has walked the walk. But if she caves into power-pleasing we can cite that too and push for replacing her with someone who will work for our interests. We stand to lose nothing by getting elected representatives to do their job in carrying out what we want and need. Jimmy Dore makes excellent points in https://youtube.com/watch?v=jbZFO-pmJMo and I explicitly include the yelling and swearing in that assessment. If one can't get excited over helping the American public face a lethal pandemic and a depression with a practical and widely-supported program that also saves us money (Medicare for All), one simply isn't paying attention. Tone policing and bogus arguments are no match. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Fri Dec 18 03:58:22 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2020 03:58:22 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Politican's talk vs. votes -- what's more important? In-Reply-To: <511664e1-0bc7-ab8d-03b7-48e35ac93e5c@forestfield.org> References: <139971992.9280.0@wordpress.com> <9ec5d9c9-bcd6-0d39-62fa-cd35725a124b@forestfield.org> <90111D32-B013-4C87-9F20-611C3D022127@illinois.edu> <511664e1-0bc7-ab8d-03b7-48e35ac93e5c@forestfield.org> Message-ID: <56583DA2-5E61-43B8-B892-3E20CFEB8909@illinois.edu> Thanks for your comments, making me aware of what I didn?t know. A good review with important compelling links to the AOC - Pelosi controversy, related to Medicare for all, is at https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/12/16/the-revolutionary-struggle-is-a-fight-between-movement-and-inertia/ by Caitlin Johnstone. Is AOC is an progressive asset in Congress? Is she being corrupted by her position there? Possibly. Has she voted for the military budget, ?740B$ ? For me a crucial test. Does she take positions on foreign policy, esp. with now regard to China and Russia and Iran? Other crucial tests: The NDAA? Israel? Sanctions? Whistle blowers? NATO? Climate change? Education? Surveillance? Socialism??, ?. I suppose I should do some homework here. ?mkb On Dec 17, 2020, at 6:26 PM, J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss > wrote: Brussel, Morton K wrote: AOC says things as a congressional representative that no, or few, others do. So I find the criticisms here self defeating, not to say annoying. Yes, she?s not ideal, but who is stepping forward in Congress more than her? Generally, a politician's talk doesn't interest me much because votes on policy are what affects people's lives. AOC spoke against the CARES Act, for example, in another arm-waving speech on the floor of the House which was sharply critical of the CARES Act. In that speech she pointed out how the general American public would get "crumbs" and she was right in that assessment. But AOC did not challenge Pelosi to get a roll-call vote for the CARES Act which would help us more clearly identify who was on our side in our collective time of need. There appears to have been no real negotiations on terms for paying the general public more money over a longer period (such as a UBI) to help us avoid insolvency during a pandemic. There was no apparent talk to a senator to convince them to use their power to put a hold on the bill while they drummed up public support for better terms. After listening to the audio of that vote it's clear that only a couple of men voted against it (as Jimmy Dore rightly pointed out at the time, saying something like "unless AOC suddenly sounds like Lou Rawls when she says 'no', she voted for that bill"). Fellow 'squad' member Rep. Ilhan Omar also rightly spoke against the CARES Act and wrongly voted for the CARES Act; Rep. Omar was slightly more honest than AOC about it admitting her vote. Even Pelosi knows that talk against something Pelosi wants to happen is far less important than voting against something Pelosi wants to happen. So Democrats go on and on about how we all deserve health care as a right and they'll cosponsor Medicare for All bills pretty widely. But as we've seen with HR676 (when the Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress) and as we're seeing now, bringing Medicare for All bills to the floor for a vote is a no-go. This is also the case in California, 5th largest economy in the world, which is run by Democrats. And on the CARES Act and on voting for Pelosi as speaker (which AOC initially said she wouldn't do but then did), AOC provides no challenge to party power on these important issues. This disincentivizes me to want AOC in Congress as I prefer someone who fights for our interests. AOC's words about "bringing the ruckus" turn out to be nothing but talk. Arguments against perfection ("she's not ideal") are a false dichotomy and unconvincing. As to who is better than her strikes me as a distraction because AOC has power now so her votes matter. When the rhetoric that got her into office is so diametrically opposed to where she's going now, it's right and proper to quote that and see if she's living up to her own values on the important issues of the day (which certainly includes Medicare for All). Claiming that such criticism is "self-defeating" is nonsense; the only thing that's self-defeating is not to try. And that's true on both AOC's end and ours as Americans who want Medicare for All. There's no good reason for AOC not to challenge Pelosi on Medicare for All in precisely the way that AOC is being told to do -- no vote for Pelosi without bringing Rep. Jayapal's Medicare for All bill to the floor for a vote. We are right and proper to demand things of our elected officials. Even if Medicare for All doesn't pass into law, AOC has a chance to be seen fighting for what we want in a substantive way. If she puts in that effort, that won't be forgotten and we can all tell her district to re-elect her because she has walked the walk. But if she caves into power-pleasing we can cite that too and push for replacing her with someone who will work for our interests. We stand to lose nothing by getting elected representatives to do their job in carrying out what we want and need. Jimmy Dore makes excellent points in https://youtube.com/watch?v=jbZFO-pmJMo and I explicitly include the yelling and swearing in that assessment. If one can't get excited over helping the American public face a lethal pandemic and a depression with a practical and widely-supported program that also saves us money (Medicare for All), one simply isn't paying attention. Tone policing and bogus arguments are no match. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Fri Dec 18 15:27:40 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2020 09:27:40 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Briahna Joy Gray, Current Affairs. The Case For Forcing A Floor Vote On Medicare For All Message-ID: <006c01d6d552$544aa160$fcdfe420$@comcast.net> The Case For Forcing A Floor Vote On Medicare For All By Briahna Joy Gray, Current Affairs. December 17, 2020 | Strategize! On November 27th, YouTube pundit and comedian Jimmy Dore proposed a provocative plan to advance the Medicare for All movement: refuse to re-elect Rep. Nancy Pelosi D-CA as Speaker of the House until she brings Rep. Pramila Jayapal?s Medicare for All bill H.R. 1384 to a floor vote. Because last month?s elections whittled down the Democratic majority in the House, it would take only a handful of Democrats to hold Pelosi?s speakership hostage. The ?Squad,? composed of Reps. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), could theoretically find sufficient support from among the ranks of the nearly 100 members of the Progressive Caucus. And if successful, progressives could force an unprecedented public debate about the merits of an enormously popular policy that, because of the COVID crisis, Americans have never needed more. Without a majority of votes in the House, the only way to bring a bill out of committee onto the floor where it can be publicly debated is if the Speaker of the House agrees to do so. (When it comes to Medicare for All, Pelosi never has.) And progressives worry that without a significant pressure campaign, elected Democrats will never be made to answer for why they stand well to the right of the public on the need for universal health care. ?Now is the time for progressives to exercise their power, play hardball, and use their power for the benefit of their constituents,? Dore argued. Public interest in the scheme spiked on Friday night when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez weighed in via a Twitter reply to Chargers running back Justin Jackson, who has adopted Jimmy Dore?s call to action. ?If @AOC and the squad don?t do what @jimmy_dore has suggested and withhold their vote for Pelosi for speakership until Med 4 All gets brought to the floor for a vote they will be revealing themselves,? he wrote. ?Power concedes nothing without a demand.? AOC disagreed with the proffered scheme on the basis that Jayapal?s Medicare for All bill is unlikely to pass at this time. ?So you issue threats, hold your vote, and lose. Then what?? she asked. Instead of demanding a floor vote, AOC countered that progressives could ?use leverage to push for things that can happen and change lives.? As an example, she offered a $15 minimum wage in the first 100 days, and ?elevating longtime progressive champions to important positions in democratic leadership.? But progressives pointed out that a $15 minimum wage is part of the Democratic Party platform. ?Biden already supports a $15 min wage,? tweeted journalist Aaron Mat?. ?It won?t take progressive leverage to hold him/Pelosi to something Biden already supports. It?s the Senate that will decide it.? And unlike other progressive priorities such as student debt cancellation or the provision of stimulus checks, initiating a floor vote is wholly within Nancy Pelosi?s purview: it?s a power she can exercise unilaterally to protect her position without relying on Biden to modify his policy priorities to protect her. ( Recently leaked audio of a contentious meeting between Biden and the leadership of Civil Rights organizations exposed how unyielding Biden can be to any agenda not his own.) Comprehensive health care coverage is the most pressing political issue of the moment. Since the beginning of the pandemic, over 14 million Americans have been kicked off their employer-based health insurance as they lost their jobs to the shutdown. After a Democratic primary race in which nearly every candidate fought to protect the private health care industry on the grounds that voters deserved a ? choice,? millions of Americans are now experiencing the cruel caprice of a system that links health care access to one?s ability to work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, support for Medicare for All has reached historic highs during the pandemic. Even a Fox News exit poll showed that 72 percent of Americans support a single payer system, and impressively, about half of Republicans support Medicare for All. But importantly for the purposes of the Dore proposition, a whopping 88 percent of Democrats support the policy. A floor vote on Jayapal?s bill could capitalize on the public?s overwhelming approval for Medicare for All, and expose the chasm between the policies Democratic voters want and the positions their elected representatives are willing to take. It?s difficult to imagine a better historical context for this fight. Critics of the plan argue that demanding a floor vote for a bill that won?t pass the House, much less the Senate, wastes progressives? political capital. ?We already know who supports [Medicare for All],? argued Ryan Grim of the Intercept, ?and I can promise you it would get zero press coverage because the press doesn?t cover bills that can?t pass both chambers.? But recent history offers a counterpoint to Grim?s claim that the media won?t cover a standoff over health care. Just a week ago, the passage of the House bill decriminalizing marijuana was covered widely as ?historic,??perhaps because, like Medicare for All, it?s an enormously popular policy with bi-partisan support. (It?s also unlikely to pass the Senate.) And that was without the added drama of the most powerful Democrat in the House being bent over the proverbial barrel by a squad of progressive upstarts. Moreover, the Squad has a unique ability to attract media attention. Representatives Ocasio-Cortez, Katie Porter (D-CA), and other progressive members of Congress are famously adept at making viral moments out of congressional hearing testimony, and if they were to coordinate with the activists and protesters who helped to organize the historically large mass protests from this summer, it?s difficult to imagine they?d be ignored. (Leveraging organized labor and the threat of a general strike would make any effort to push Medicare for All impossible to brush off. And they should do exactly that.) Mass unemployment and the subsequent loss of employer-based coverage has stripped corporate Democrats of one of their most potent arguments against Medicare for All: that maintaining the for-profit health system offers much-desired stability. And commitments to cover COVID-related costs have exposed the hypocrisy inherent in defenses of our current system. The admission by party leadership that COVID treatment should be free for all is a slippery slope to universal coverage. After all, it?s not more inhumane to deny COVID treatment to those who can?t pay for it than to deny treatment to a cancer patient who can?t pay. (Cancer is a primary cause of bankruptcy in America.) Should progressives force a floor vote, they?d be well positioned to make a relatively unencumbered case for Medicare for All. A floor vote and the debate that comes with it could spark a referendum on our failing health care system at a moment when no other issue takes credible priority. ?Now is the time [progressives] have power,? Dore argued. ?In two years, the Democrats are going to get wiped out in the House. They will lose their majority and their speakership. The only time the progressives are going to have any power is right now at this moment,? before the Speaker is elected in the first week of January. Dore?s prediction that Democrats will lose seats during the 2022 midterms is far from guaranteed, but given the party?s recent losses there is a certain pragmatism to his urgency. Agitating for a floor vote also doesn?t foreclose making other demands at the same time. On his blog the Daily Poster, journalist David Sirota offered a number of alternative strategies to advance Medicare for All, including ousting Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), a Medicare for All opponent, from his position as Ways and Means Chair. This is the type of concession AOC alluded to in her response to Jackson, and it?s a meaningful one. But ousting Neal?an obscure figure to the average American voter?is unlikely to generate the kind of movement energy that a Medicare for All floor vote could potentially inspire. The argument is both and, not either or. But crucially, technocratic solutions must be wedded to the floor vote demand in order to spark the kind of public excitement that can galvanize labor, social movements and voters. Progressives are buzzing with excitement because Democrats might, for once, do something bold; they might fight for something not because the cost/benefit analysis demands it, but despite the potential political costs. And the threat of ousting Nancy Pelosi?who 3/4 of Americans believe should step down?practically guarantees breathless coverage from media figures on both sides of the aisle. In her response to Jackson, AOC argued that the ?opportunity cost? was too high to waste on a floor vote for a bill that wouldn?t ultimately pass. ?The Dem votes aren?t there yet,? she tweeted. Why risk negative press from a failed vote if a clean victory is in sight? But a lengthy delay risks wasting the leverage progressives get from a narrow house majority and the exigency of the pandemic. Progressives want to force a vote now precisely because they believe the chance they can secure the votes for Medicare for All in the near future is remote. If barely half of House Democrats are willing to cosponsor Medicare for All even while it has the support of 88 percent of Democratic voters during a global pandemic, what are the odds the holdouts will be more amenable once the vaccine is distributed and life begins to normalize? Importantly, even a failing floor vote would force Democrats to own their opposition to a life-saving, popular policy, and it would expose those Democratic House members who are thought to have cosponsored Medicare for All to burnish their progressive bonafides without ever intending to vote for the bill. For example, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker cosponsored the Senate version of the bill but reversed their positions during their presidential campaigns. Forcing a vote on H.R. 1384 would pressure House Democrats to either support the bill or defend their ?no? votes as single-payer?s popularity spikes. (Recall how her Iraq war vote dogged Hillary Clinton in both 2016 and 2008, or how both Biden and Bernie Sanders?s votes for the 1994 Crime Bill continue to follow them.) ?If [Jayapal?s bill] loses, then we know who is on our side and who is not,? Dore has argued. ?Then we can put a marker down.? ?No? voters would also be forced to justify their position to primary challengers in 2022. ?Would love for Democrats to be on the record denying their constituents healthcare during a pandemic,? tweeted Jackson. ?Sounds like good politics for the progressive movement and our goals.? Recall that although establishment Democrats attempted to blame Medicare for All for last month?s congressional losses, no swing district candidate who supported Medicare for All lost on November 3rd. Despite the hand-wringing of pharma-backed corporate Democrats, Medicare for All is a winning issue. The desire to push Pelosi into allowing a vote and to have hearings in the House on Medicare for All is born out of a longstanding frustration with the media, which historically shields Democrats from accountability to their constituents when it comes to health care. Mainstream outlets rarely challenge anti-Medicare for All Democrats on why they?re bearish on the policy their constituents overwhelmingly support. And pundits on liberal networks regularly adopt disproven right-wing talking points about the affordability of the program. Moreover, the relationship between candidates who oppose Medicare for All and their corporate-funded campaigns is rarely, if ever, examined, and voters are left to assume that their representatives decline to support Medicare for All because it?s not electorally viable, rather than because they?ve accepted significant sums from the pharmaceutical and private insurance industries to finance their campaigns. As COVID raged last spring, President-elect Biden said that he would veto Medicare for All even if it were to pass the House and the Senate. He also received more money from insurance and pharmaceutical industry employees than any other candidate in the race, and his senior advisor is a former health care lobbyist. During the primary, he received crucial ninth inning support from Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement is considered to have been critical to Biden?s victory after a string of disappointing primary finishes. Clyburn is firmly against Medicare for All despite the fact that Black voters support the policy more than any other ethnic group. He is also the single highest recipient of pharmaceutical money in Congress. These connections are rarely made by the press. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, health care companies spent just shy of $568 million on lobbying in 2018?more than any other industry. And as Bernie?s primary campaign ramped up in the first quarter of 2019, the number of organizations hiring lobbyists to oppose Medicare for All increased by a factor of seven. Record numbers of Americans still support a single-payer system, but positive polls alone aren?t enough to induce congressional support for the policy as long as elected officials are paid to vote the other way. The system needs a jolt. And Dore believes he?s identified the necessary spark. Ocasio-Cortez herself has alluded to the value of a floor vote on Medicare for All?regardless of whether it would pass. ?The Democratic Party is not a left party,? she lamented this past January. ? We can?t even get a floor vote on Medicare for All. Not even a floor vote that gets voted down. We can?t even get a vote on it.? At the end of the day, the moral case for action requires no strategic justification. As Kyle Kulinski, co-founder of Justice Democrats?the progressive PAC that backed AOC?s historic 2018 run? tweeted: ?If your politics comes from a place of principle then all the strategy talk is pretty silly anyway. If you believe in something you fight for it & dot every i & cross every t. If you lose ok but the act of doing everything in your power to achieve it is the definition of morality.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Dec 19 00:42:25 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2020 18:42:25 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Briahna Joy Gray, Current Affairs. The Case For Forcing A Floor Vote On Medicare For All In-Reply-To: <006c01d6d552$544aa160$fcdfe420$@comcast.net> References: <006c01d6d552$544aa160$fcdfe420$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <07c85b47-910a-4a81-86a4-94610b89fb2e@forestfield.org> David Johnson wrote: > The Case For Forcing A Floor Vote On Medicare For All > > By Briahna Joy Gray, Thanks for that, David. Adding to David's post: https://youtube.com/watch?v=W4CyduP4RxM has a Jimmy Dore interview with Briahna Joy Gray in which they talk about that article. In a followup comment (in a Jimmy Dore video which is not yet posted) he said that Gray was being too kind to the Democrats in that interview and I think he was right, but I also understand his unwillingness not to lean on that disagreement too much: it's not that important and it's not a good idea to lay into the people when they're joining you in your larger, more important effort -- https://forcethevote.org/ to "demand that every progressive in Congress refuse to vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House until she publicly pledges to bring Medicare for all to the floor of the House for a vote in January". -J From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sun Dec 20 16:43:26 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2020 10:43:26 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: A Pandemic of 'Russian Hacking' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004801d6d6ef$3de11fa0$b9a35ee0$@comcast.net> From: David Sladky [mailto:tanstl at hotmail.com] Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2020 9:59 AM To: David Johnson; Mike Schaefer Subject: A Pandemic of 'Russian Hacking' A Pandemic of 'Russian Hacking' December 19, 2020 https://consortiumnews.com/2020/12/19/a-pandemic-of-russian-hacking/ Image removed by sender. A Pandemic of 'Russian Hacking' - Consortiumnews The hyperbolic, evidence-free media reports on the "fresh outbreak" of the Russian-hacking disease seems an obvious attempt by intelligence to handcuff President-elect Joe Biden into a strong ... consortiumnews.com Neither the actor, nor the motive, nor the damage done is known for certain in this latest scare story, write Ray McGovern and Joe Lauria. Image removed by sender. Headquarters of the SVR, Russian foreign intelligence service, which is being blamed for the hack. (Alex Saveliev/Wikipedia) By Ray McGovern and Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News Image removed by sender. Image removed by sender.The hyperbolic, evidence-free media reports on the "fresh outbreak" of the Russian-hacking disease seems an obvious attempt by intelligence to handcuff President-elect Joe Biden into a strong anti-Russian posture as he prepares to enter the White House. Biden might well need to be inoculated against the Russophobe fever. There are obvious Biden intentions worrying the intelligence agencies, such as renewing the Iran nuclear deal and restarting talks on strategic arms limitation with Russia. Both carry the inherent "risk" of thawing the new Cold War. Instead, New Cold Warriors are bent on preventing any such rapprochement with strong support from the intelligence community's mouthpiece media. U.S. hardliners are clearly still on the rise. Interestingly, this latest hack story came out a day before the Electoral College formally elected Biden, and after the intelligence community, despite numerous previous warnings, said nothing about Russia interfering in the election. One wonders whether that would have been the assessment had Trump won. Instead Russia decided to hack the U.S. government. Except there is (typically) no hard evidence pinning it on Moscow. Uncertainties The official story is Russia hacked into U.S. "government networks, including in the Treasury and Commerce Departments," as David Sanger of The New York Times reported. But plenty of things are uncertain. First, Sanger wrote last Sunday that "hackers have had free rein for much of the year, though it is not clear how many email and other systems they chose to enter." The motive of the hack is uncertain, as well what damage may have been done. "The motive for the attack on the agency and the Treasury Department remains elusive, two people familiar with the matter said," Sanger reported. "One government official said it was too soon to tell how damaging the attacks were and how much material was lost." Image removed by sender. Sanger. (Wikimedia Commons) On Friday, five days after the story first broke, in an article misleadingly headlined, "Suspected Russian hack is much worse than first feared," NBC News admitted: "At this stage, it's not clear what the hackers have done beyond accessing top-secret government networks and monitoring data." Who conducted the hack is also not certain. NBC reported that the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency "has not said who it thinks is the 'advanced persistent threat actor' behind the 'significant and ongoing' campaign, but many experts are pointing to Russia." At first Sanger was certain in his piece that Russia was behind the attack. He refers to FireEye, "a computer security firm that first raised the alarm about the Russian campaign after its own systems were pierced." But later in the same piece, Sanger loses his certainty: "If the Russia connection is confirmed," he writes. In the absence of firm evidence that damage has been done, this may well be an intrusion into other governments' networks routinely carried out by intelligence agencies around the world, including, if not chiefly, by the United States. It is what spies do. So neither the actor, nor the motive, nor the damage done is known for certain. Yet across the vast networks of powerful U.S. media the story has been portrayed as a major crisis brought on by a sinister Russian attack putting the security of the American people at risk. In a second piece on Wednesday, Sanger added to the alarm by saying the hack "ranks among the greatest intelligence failures of modern times." And on Friday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed Russia was "pretty clearly" behind the cyber attacks. But he cautioned: ". we're still unpacking precisely what it is, and I'm sure some of it will remain classified." In other words, trust us. Ed Loomis, a former NSA technical director, believes the suspect list should extend beyond Russia to include China, Iran, and North Korea. Loomis also says the commercial cyber-security firms that have been studying the latest "attacks" have not been able to pinpoint the source. Image removed by sender. Tom Bossert (Office of U.S. Executive) In a New York Times op-ed, former Trump domestic security adviser Thomas Bossert on Wednesday called on Trump to "use whatever leverage he can muster to protect the United States and severely punish the Russians." And he said Biden "must begin his planning to take charge of this crisis." [On Friday, Biden talked tough. He promised there would be "costs" and said: "A good defense isn't enough; we need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyberattacks in the first place. I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber-assaults on our nation."] While asserting throughout his piece that, without question, Russia now "controls" U.S. government computer networks, Bossert's confidence suddenly evaporates by slipping in at one point, "If it is Russia." The analysis the corporate press has relied on came from the private cyber-security firm FireEye. This question should be raised: Why has a private contractor at extra taxpayer expense carried out this cyber analysis rather than the already publicly-funded National Security Agency? Similarly, why did the private firm CrowdStrike, rather than the FBI, analyze the Democratic National Committee servers in 2016? Could it be to give government agencies plausible deniability if these analyses, as in the case of CrowdStrike, and very likely in this latest case of Russian "hacking," turn out to be wrong? This is a question someone on the intelligence committees should be asking. Sanger is as active in blaming the Kremlin for hacking, as he and his erstwhile NYT colleague, neocon hero Judith Miller, were in insisting on the presence of (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, helping to facilitate a major invasion with mass loss of life. The Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-MEDIA-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT, for short) needs credible "enemies" to justify unprecedentedly huge expenditures for arms - the more so at a time when it is clearer than ever, that that the money would be far better spent at home. (MEDIA is in all caps because it is the sine-qua-non, the cornerstone to making the MICIMATT enterprise work.) Bad Flashback In this latest media flurry, Sanger and other intel leakers' favorites are including as "flat fact" what "everybody knows": namely, that Russia hacked the infamous Hillary Clinton-damaging emails from the Democratic National Committee in 2016. Sanger wrote: ".the same group of [Russian] hackers went on to invade the systems of the Democratic National Committee and top officials in Hillary Clinton's campaign, touching off investigations and fears that permeated both the 2016 and 2020 contests. Another, more disruptive Russian intelligence agency, the G.R.U., is believed to be responsible for then making public the hacked emails at the D.N.C." That accusation was devised as a magnificent distraction after the Clinton campaign learned that WikiLeaks was about to publish emails that showed how Clinton and the DNC had stacked the deck against Bernie Sanders. It was an emergency solution, but it had uncommon success. There was no denying the authenticity of those DNC emails published by WikiLeaks. So the Democrats mounted an artful campaign, very strongly supported by Establishment media, to divert attention from the content of the emails. How to do that? Blame Russian "hacking." And for good measure, persuade then Senator John McCain to call it an "act of war." One experienced observer, Consortium News columnist Patrick Lawrence, saw through the Democratic blame-Russia offensive from the start. Artful as the blame-Russia maneuver was, many voters apparently saw through this clever and widely successful diversion, learned enough about the emails' contents, and decided not to vote for Hillary Clinton. 4 Years & 7 Days Ago On Dec. 12, 2016, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) used sensitive intelligence revealed by Edward Snowden, the expertise of former NSA technical directors, and basic principles of physics to show that accusations that Russia hacked those embarrassing DNC emails were fraudulent. A year later, on Dec. 5, 2017, the head of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm hired by the DNC to do the forensics, testified under oath that there was no technical evidence that the emails had been "exfiltrated"; that is, hacked from the DNC. His testimony was kept hidden by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff until Schiff was forced to release it on May 7, 2020. That testimony is still being kept under wraps by Establishment media. What VIPS wrote four years ago is worth re-reading - particularly for those who still believe in science and have trusted the experienced intelligence professionals of VIPS with the group's unblemished, no-axes-to-grind record. Most of the Memorandum's embedded links are to TOP SECRET charts that Snowden made available - icing on the cake - and, as far as VIPS's former NSA technical directors were concerned, precisely what was to be demonstrated QED. Many Democrats unfortunately still believe-or profess to believe-the hacking and the Trump campaign-Russia conspiracy story, the former debunked by Henry's testimony and the latter by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Both were legally obligated to tell the truth, while the intelligence agencies were not. Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was a Russian specialist and presidential briefer during his 27 years as a CIA analyst. In retirement he co-created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former UN correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional career as a stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at joelauria at consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ~WRD127.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 823 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 714 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 8982 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2435 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2955 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Mon Dec 21 18:46:06 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 12:46:06 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Recommended videos for AOTA, NFN, Labor's World View TV Message-ID: <51a352e1-76ce-3f3e-4f6c-a79f697c9355@forestfield.org> Here are some suggested videos for upcoming timeslots which I just sent to UPTV's Jason Liggett. As per usual, I offered these videos with the recommendation to let other AWARE members have priority over my recommendations and for David Johnson to have priority over my recommendations for Labor's World View TV. Below you should find the name of the source for each video, the YouTube channels for that source, and the recommended videos from that source. RT English: https://youtube.com/channel/UCpwvZwUam-URkxB7g4USKpg America: https://youtube.com/channel/UCczrL-2b-gYK3l4yDld4XlQ UK: https://youtube.com/channel/UC_ab7FFA2ACk2yTHgNan8lQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=lJf_8yVzbz8 -- (26m 02s) CrossTalk: Free Assange, analysis of elites dismissing the poor (Joti Brar offers better class analysis than what you'll get in establishment media, but that's admittedly a very low bar) Empire Files https://youtube.com/channel/UCG29FnXZm4F5U8xpqs1cs1Q https://youtube.com/watch?v=c6wfnB1UMAc -- (10m 8s) "Biden's Scary Foreign Policy Picks: A Blast From War Crimes Past" with Abby Martin Mint Press https://youtube.com/channel/UCc9UUSOBWC6VCkJUqnh-CLw https://youtube.com/watch?v=t2O1zMpQApQ -- (42m 16s) Mnar Adley, Editor-in-Chief of Mint Press, interviews Chris Hedges on "Decline of US Empire, Liberal Class Suicide & Fascism" https://youtube.com/watch?v=E_9_UgCzKpI -- (4m 25s) "Propaganda Pandemic: Mainstream Media's Worst Hits From The Year Of COVID19" with Dan Cohen From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Dec 21 19:43:43 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 13:43:43 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Recommended videos for AOTA, NFN, Labor's World View TV In-Reply-To: <51a352e1-76ce-3f3e-4f6c-a79f697c9355@forestfield.org> References: <51a352e1-76ce-3f3e-4f6c-a79f697c9355@forestfield.org> Message-ID: J.B. You outdid yourself indeed, excellent choices. > On Dec 21, 2020, at 12:46, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: > > Here are some suggested videos for upcoming timeslots which I just sent > to UPTV's Jason Liggett. As per usual, I offered these videos with the > recommendation to let other AWARE members have priority over my > recommendations and for David Johnson to have priority over my recommendations for Labor's World View TV. > > Below you should find the name of the source for each video, the YouTube channels for that source, and the recommended videos from that source. > > > RT > English: https://youtube.com/channel/UCpwvZwUam-URkxB7g4USKpg > America: https://youtube.com/channel/UCczrL-2b-gYK3l4yDld4XlQ > UK: https://youtube.com/channel/UC_ab7FFA2ACk2yTHgNan8lQ > > https://youtube.com/watch?v=lJf_8yVzbz8 -- (26m 02s) CrossTalk: Free Assange, analysis of elites dismissing the poor (Joti Brar offers better class analysis than what you'll get in establishment media, but that's admittedly a very low bar) > > > > > Empire Files > https://youtube.com/channel/UCG29FnXZm4F5U8xpqs1cs1Q > > https://youtube.com/watch?v=c6wfnB1UMAc -- (10m 8s) "Biden's Scary Foreign Policy Picks: A Blast From War Crimes Past" with Abby Martin > > > > > > Mint Press > https://youtube.com/channel/UCc9UUSOBWC6VCkJUqnh-CLw > > https://youtube.com/watch?v=t2O1zMpQApQ -- (42m 16s) Mnar Adley, Editor-in-Chief of Mint Press, interviews Chris Hedges on "Decline of US Empire, Liberal Class Suicide & Fascism" > > > https://youtube.com/watch?v=E_9_UgCzKpI -- (4m 25s) "Propaganda Pandemic: Mainstream Media's Worst Hits From The Year Of COVID19" with Dan Cohen > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Dec 22 04:19:25 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 22:19:25 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Interesting and compelling Jimmy Dore shows are coming soon Message-ID: <934e44145c545959a13e097ec29807c1005cd9b2.camel@forestfield.org> Tonight's live show was remarkable: - Jimmy went into more detail about his personal experience with medical bankruptcy fighting a rare bone disease he has where he spent over a year being misdiagnosed before coming across one doctor who knew what he faced (but Dore couldn't pay because his insurance rejected his claim and he had maxed out his credit cards). I fully expect this segment to get a lot of views. Later in the chat we heard from "Wavypurple" whose mother is fighting a bone disease and can't afford the $750 payment to get her the meds she needs. This is directly in line with what we've been hearing about how so many Americans can't afford a $500 emergency. - There's going to be a March on Jeff Bezos' New York City 5th Avenue home at 6PM on Wednesday, December 23, 2020 at 212 5th Avenue, NYC. The essential workers are marching for better treatment by one of the wealthiest companies. They encourage you to bring your Amazon boxes and your masks. See attached image. - More people are coming out against Jimmy Dore & co. on his fight to push for Medicare for All. Now we see that Jimmy's former boss Cenk Uygur is on the wrong side of the issue having flip-flopped on this issue going from calling Dore's fight right-headed to saying it's now not the right time. Uygur, according to Dore, might well be seeking more funding from those who are friendly to the Clintons hence Uygur joins the effort against Medicare for All (even while an overwhelming majority is pro-Medicare for All). This also explains Uygur's Russiagating as well. I won't be surprised if this bites Uygur in the ass with individual "The Young Turks" funders (deservedly so). David Pakman continues to be useless as does most of so-called "progressive" YouTube. AOC continues to send clear signs that she's for her party and not for her earlier rhetoric even as her party schemed to deny her the committee positions she wants (see https://youtube.com/watch?v=0vT73zSBrM8 for more on this). - There's also a bit of talk in the live segment about properly prioritizing one's views: it's fine to yell and swear about something so important such as matters of life and death. -J -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: March on Bezos 2020-12.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 95188 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Dec 23 01:15:09 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2020 19:15:09 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Easily one of the most compelling Jimmy Dore shows Message-ID: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bPiHHQAkbmk -- (28m 53s) Jimmy Dore takes down Cenk Uyghur, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others who come up with new lies to tell us about why fighting for Medicare for All "made life harder" for "actual M4A grassroots organizers". AOC is full of shit so far on this issue; she's not standing up for Medicare for All in the midst of a pandemic, she's arguing against Medicare for All and doing so with lies that make no sense. She's also ignoring the rhetoric she used to get into power. How dare people like Jimmy Dore actually carry out the "bring the ruckus" AOC repeatedly endorsed, eh? This is easily one of the most compelling Jimmy Dore Show episodes, very much worth the time to watch it. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Dec 24 21:26:41 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2020 15:26:41 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Russiagate falls apart...again: Russians don't buy Navalny poisoning narrative, poll says Message-ID: https://on.rt.com/ay0g > Half of Russians believe alleged Navalny poisoning was faked or carried out by > Western intelligence, only 15% blame Kremlin ? poll > > A recent study has revealed that only a sixth of Russians believe Alexey Navalny?s > narrative that he was poisoned by the country?s authorities, with almost a third > (30%) suspecting that the opposition figure staged the event > > The survey, conducted by Levada, also revealed that 19 percent of respondents > believe that Western intelligence agencies are responsible for the poisoning ? > four percent more than blame the Kremlin. Last week, President Vladimir Putin > linked the activist to foreign states, specifically claiming he works alongside US > special services. > > The results come after a fortnight of twists and turns in the Navalny case, with > the opposition figure naming eight Federal Security Service (FSB) agents he > believes are responsible for being part of an operation to murder him. The > long-time Moscow protest leader also published a phone call with a man he said was > part of the FSB team, who appeared to confess to his role in the supposed plot. > > Of the other common answers, seven percent blamed the poisoning on ?personal > revenge? by someone implicated in one of Navalny?s many corruption investigations, > and another six percent blamed a struggle within the Russian opposition. > > Opinions about the alleged poisoning were strongly split along age group lines, > with 40 percent of over-55s believing it was faked, compared to just nine percent > of 18-24s. Those below 25 were much more likely to blame the Russian authorities > (34%). > > The survey also revealed that almost a fifth of respondents hadn?t ever heard > about the case, with 17 percent noting they are following it very closely. > > Named for its founder, the late Yuri Levada, the Levada Center polling company has > often been accused of liberal bias. In 2016, the pollsters were accused of > ?performing the functions of a foreign agent? by Russian authorities, and the > center has admitted to receiving Western funding in the past. So, Russians -- the people whose safety was allegedly most likely threatened by Alexy Navalny's alleged poisoning -- mostly don't buy the Western-serving narrative that Navalny was poisoned at all. I doubt that many Americans even know who Navalny is let alone know about this alleged poisoning. The available evidence also contradicts Navalny's version of the story. And like so many Russiagate stories, the story makes little sense on its face: we're supposed to believe that Navalny's minority political opposition to Vladimir Putin was such a threat to Putin that Putin ordered Navalny dead. But if Putin wanted Navalny dead, Navalny would be dead. Yet Navalny lives (we're told that he's another alleged victim of one of the allegedly very powerful 'novichok' -- Russian for 'newcomer' -- poisons). How the alleged poison was handled in Navalny's hotel room is very suspect (as was the handling of the Skripal home and pets by the UK government which killed Skripal's pets for no clear reason and bought his house and everything in it also for no clear reason). From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Dec 25 02:44:25 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2020 20:44:25 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Jimmy Dore headed for an 'own goal' (self-induced embarrassment) soon? Message-ID: Jimmy Dore's interview with Jordan Chariton is online (https://youtube.com/watch?v=PKB0H_SFoAg) and they cover Chariton's new Intercept article (https://theintercept.com/2020/12/23/dnc-iowa-caucus-app-shadow/) on how the DNC corporation rigged the 2020 Iowa DNC primary elections against Sen. Sanders and for Pete Buttigieg (soon to become Transportation Secretary under Pres. Joe Biden). But I suspect that Dore's support for "force the vote" and the People's Party will come to conflict with each other. The article details are, frankly, not that interesting to me because of the structural elements that prevent me from seeing how that party's candidates were cheated of anything when they ran in that party's so-called primary. Cutting to the chase: corporate parties don't owe us small-d democracy, so elaborately complex vote-counting rules (delegates, super-delegates, etc.) and voting app rigging strike me as details that ignore the elephant in the room. In that Jimmy Dore interview Chariton briefly mentions, but doesn't credit or quote, DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva in his response to the disaffected 2016 Sanders supporters (these Sanders supporters sued the DNC corporation after Sanders' campaign was allegedly cheated out of a fair shot at that party's primary in 2016). Here's what Spiva said to the court in that case: From http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf > Bruce Spiva: [...] We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we're > gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, > we could have ? and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go > into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that > way. That's not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would have > also been their right [...] This, as far as I can tell, is a right and proper read on the situation for all corporate-owned political parties which gets to the structural heart of the issue: corporations can choose their "standard bearer" (a.k.a., 'primary winner' or candidate) in any way they wish. None of these parties owes us small-d democracy. That any of these parties bother to put on the democracy theater of primary contests is a paean to democracy. To do what is within their power and their right to do in the most efficient way -- simply selecting and announcing their candidate -- those parties would be objected to, particularly a party that calls themselves the "Democrats". So corporate-owned parties don't do that. We end up with results that pit two neocons and neolibs against each other and a Green Party that missed their moment to offer a compelling alternative. But in the end the same goal is reached. The rules are rigged to always favor whomever the party bosses want and everyone knows this (there's even questions about how the Greens ran their primary including serious allegations of rigging). This is part of the reason why I say that Sanders was "allegedly cheated"; he knew what he was doing all along and he knew the structural power the DNC possesses. Sanders, for all I know, chose to work for the Democratic Party in 2020 like he did in 2016 in order to lower the odds that that party would run a competitor against him in his district. Sanders could serve that party's interests by being the "sheepdog candidate" as the late Bruce Dixon rightly called him back in May 2015 (see https://blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-sheepdog-4-hillary for that article). Therefore I disagree with Jimmy Dore on two points related to this: - Dore has previously advanced the argument that it's 'right-wing propaganda' to say that Sanders wasn't cheated in his DNC primary runs. Sanders himself doesn't behave as one who was cheated. In 2020 Sanders gave up his hallmark issue -- Medicare for All -- and Sanders continues his M4A silence today as Dore pushes for forcing a Medicare for All bill House floor vote (Dore has noticed this and pointed it out). Dore calls Sanders names for being so docile and compliant to the Dems but Dore doesn't clearly state the structural elements that are in place nor does Dore acknowledge that Sanders just another Democrat in all but name. - Dore is currently a firm backer of the People's Party (https://peoplesparty.org/) but it's not clear to me that this new party will offer us any processes for deciding on candidates that is any more small-d democratic than the Democrats. Nor is it clear to me that the People's Party will be owned in such a way that makes the People's Party structurally different than the Democrats. If there are no structural differences, why should I believe that People's Party candidates will behave differently than the Democrats whom they hope to supplant? On a related note: I'm also not too keen on a party that invites self-described Democratic Party loyalists (such as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Sen. Nina Turner, the former was shown on a banner image with a lot of headshots, the latter opened their 2020 convention in https://youtube.com/watch?v=O5bRItA2ziI and recently announced a Congressional run to replace Marcia Fudge who will become Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Biden/Harris administration; she also declined Jill Stein's offer to be her 2016 running mate in the Green Party telling Stein "I think the party is worth fighting for. I believe that the Democratic Party is worth fighting for."[1]). It seems to me that now more than ever we're seeing that (as Jimmy Dore says) "the Democratic Party changes you, you don't change the Democratic Party" and Dore offers compelling evidence to drive this point home by showing that no so-called Democratic Party "progressives" in the House will take up the call to pressure Speaker Pelosi to bring a floor vote for Medicare for All in exchange for their vote to keep her as House Speaker. I support the single-issue pressure to get Pelosi to bring Rep. Jayapal's Medicare for All bill to the floor; I think that's a practical and easily-understood plan to increase the odds that we get Medicare for All. But that support compels me to ask what's the point in electing self-styled progressives if they won't use their Congressional power when we most need them to, even if those progressives come from some other party? -J [1] https://www.salon.com/2016/09/08/nina-turner-reflections-on-the-political-revolutions-past-and-future/ and archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20170327115314/http://www.salon.com/2016/09/08/nina-turner-reflections-on-the-political-revolutions-past-and-future/ From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Fri Dec 25 14:11:20 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2020 08:11:20 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Jimmy Dore headed for an 'own goal' (self-induced embarrassment) soon? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I like what Dore is doing, but this is indeed a red flag. I don't share your antipathy towards Tulsi, but I think Dore is naive in thinking that the Democrats, the left wing of capital, can ever pass "socialist" legislation. Merry Christmas! On Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 8:45 PM J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss < peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Jimmy Dore's interview with Jordan Chariton is online > (https://youtube.com/watch?v=PKB0H_SFoAg) and they cover Chariton's new > Intercept > article (https://theintercept.com/2020/12/23/dnc-iowa-caucus-app-shadow/) > on how the > DNC corporation rigged the 2020 Iowa DNC primary elections against Sen. > Sanders and > for Pete Buttigieg (soon to become Transportation Secretary under Pres. > Joe Biden). > But I suspect that Dore's support for "force the vote" and the People's > Party will > come to conflict with each other. > > The article details are, frankly, not that interesting to me because of > the > structural elements that prevent me from seeing how that party's > candidates were > cheated of anything when they ran in that party's so-called primary. > Cutting to the > chase: corporate parties don't owe us small-d democracy, so elaborately > complex > vote-counting rules (delegates, super-delegates, etc.) and voting app > rigging strike > me as details that ignore the elephant in the room. > > In that Jimmy Dore interview Chariton briefly mentions, but doesn't credit > or quote, > DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva in his response to the disaffected 2016 Sanders > supporters > (these Sanders supporters sued the DNC corporation after Sanders' campaign > was > allegedly cheated out of a fair shot at that party's primary in 2016). > Here's what > Spiva said to the court in that case: > > From http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf > > Bruce Spiva: [...] We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, > and we're > > gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily > deciding, > > we could have ? and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're > gonna go > > into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the > candidate that > > way. That's not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would > have > > also been their right [...] > > This, as far as I can tell, is a right and proper read on the situation > for all > corporate-owned political parties which gets to the structural heart of > the issue: > corporations can choose their "standard bearer" (a.k.a., 'primary winner' > or > candidate) in any way they wish. > > None of these parties owes us small-d democracy. That any of these parties > bother to > put on the democracy theater of primary contests is a paean to democracy. > To do what > is within their power and their right to do in the most efficient way -- > simply > selecting and announcing their candidate -- those parties would be > objected to, > particularly a party that calls themselves the "Democrats". So > corporate-owned > parties don't do that. We end up with results that pit two neocons and > neolibs > against each other and a Green Party that missed their moment to offer a > compelling > alternative. > > But in the end the same goal is reached. The rules are rigged to always > favor > whomever the party bosses want and everyone knows this (there's even > questions about > how the Greens ran their primary including serious allegations of > rigging). This is > part of the reason why I say that Sanders was "allegedly cheated"; he knew > what he > was doing all along and he knew the structural power the DNC possesses. > Sanders, for > all I know, chose to work for the Democratic Party in 2020 like he did in > 2016 in > order to lower the odds that that party would run a competitor against him > in his > district. Sanders could serve that party's interests by being the > "sheepdog > candidate" as the late Bruce Dixon rightly called him back in May 2015 > (see > https://blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-sheepdog-4-hillary for that > article). > > Therefore I disagree with Jimmy Dore on two points related to this: > > - Dore has previously advanced the argument that it's 'right-wing > propaganda' to say > that Sanders wasn't cheated in his DNC primary runs. Sanders himself > doesn't behave > as one who was cheated. In 2020 Sanders gave up his hallmark issue -- > Medicare for > All -- and Sanders continues his M4A silence today as Dore pushes for > forcing a > Medicare for All bill House floor vote (Dore has noticed this and pointed > it out). > Dore calls Sanders names for being so docile and compliant to the Dems but > Dore > doesn't clearly state the structural elements that are in place nor does > Dore > acknowledge that Sanders just another Democrat in all but name. > > - Dore is currently a firm backer of the People's Party ( > https://peoplesparty.org/) > but it's not clear to me that this new party will offer us any processes > for deciding > on candidates that is any more small-d democratic than the Democrats. Nor > is it clear > to me that the People's Party will be owned in such a way that makes the > People's > Party structurally different than the Democrats. If there are no > structural > differences, why should I believe that People's Party candidates will > behave > differently than the Democrats whom they hope to supplant? > > On a related note: I'm also not too keen on a party that invites > self-described > Democratic Party loyalists (such as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Sen. Nina > Turner, the > former was shown on a banner image with a lot of headshots, the latter > opened their > 2020 convention in https://youtube.com/watch?v=O5bRItA2ziI and recently > announced a > Congressional run to replace Marcia Fudge who will become Secretary of > Housing and > Urban Development in the Biden/Harris administration; she also declined > Jill Stein's > offer to be her 2016 running mate in the Green Party telling Stein "I > think the party > is worth fighting for. I believe that the Democratic Party is worth > fighting > for."[1]). It seems to me that now more than ever we're seeing that (as > Jimmy Dore > says) "the Democratic Party changes you, you don't change the Democratic > Party" and > Dore offers compelling evidence to drive this point home by showing that > no so-called > Democratic Party "progressives" in the House will take up the call to > pressure > Speaker Pelosi to bring a floor vote for Medicare for All in exchange for > their vote > to keep her as House Speaker. > > I support the single-issue pressure to get Pelosi to bring Rep. Jayapal's > Medicare > for All bill to the floor; I think that's a practical and > easily-understood plan to > increase the odds that we get Medicare for All. But that support compels > me to ask > what's the point in electing self-styled progressives if they won't use > their > Congressional power when we most need them to, even if those progressives > come from > some other party? > > -J > > > > [1] > > https://www.salon.com/2016/09/08/nina-turner-reflections-on-the-political-revolutions-past-and-future/ > and archived at > > https://web.archive.org/web/20170327115314/http://www.salon.com/2016/09/08/nina-turner-reflections-on-the-political-revolutions-past-and-future/ > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Mon Dec 28 02:35:18 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2020 20:35:18 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Dan Cohen's recent segments on Democratic Party supporters & anti-M4A imperialists are worth your time to watch Message-ID: <8e362859-03f6-02d6-92ab-34d546bb2340@forestfield.org> Two recent Dan Cohen segments focus on Democratic Party supporters and those who work to put down a push for Medicare for All by calling for so-called 'progressive' Democrats in the House to not vote for Speaker Pelosi without a promise to bring Rep. Jayapal's Medicare for All bill to the floor for a vote. Both videos are worth watching. The former has language that UPTV (sadly) won't air -- "fuck Donald Trump" -- shouted by people who appeared to be Biden supporters on the street. Some of the interviewees at this Biden/Harris rally are remarkably politically inarticulate and couldn't point to a single policy they hope to see a Biden/Harris administration pass. https://youtube.com/watch?v=lszDFL1wc4g -- (3m 12s) "?Decency? Over Substance - Elated Biden Revelers Struggle To Identify Policies They Support" https://youtube.com/watch?v=thL6vKH7AMo -- (14m 3s) "Meet The Pseudo-Left Imperialists Fighting Against Universal Healthcare" From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Mon Dec 28 17:57:28 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 12:57:28 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] How the Stupid Ultra-Left is Helping the Blob on SecDef Message-ID: How the Stupid Ultra-Left is Helping the Blob on SecDef The stupid ultra-left is pushing the Line that Austin = Flournoy because ?corporate ties.? Meanwhile, in our nation?s Fair Capital, the Blob is claiming that Austin isn?t qualified to be Secretary of Defense because he hasn?t signed up for new China arms race like Flournoy. Why doesn?t the stupid ultra-left try Home Delivery of the news from our nation?s Fair Capital before they run their mouths? Would it kill the stupid ultra-left to read something about this before they run their mouths? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Mon Dec 28 18:02:38 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 13:02:38 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Daniel Larison | The American Conservative: Lloyd Austin & The War On Yemen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ICYMI. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Robert Naiman Date: Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 1:32 PM Subject: Daniel Larison | The American Conservative: Lloyd Austin And The War On Yemen https://www.theamericanconservative.com/state-of-the-union/lloyd-austin-and-the-war-on-yemen/ DECEMBER 16, 2020|12:56 PM DANIEL LARISON Mark Perry has written an excellent report on Lloyd Austin?s policy views. Among other things, Perry finds that Austin was strongly opposed to the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen when he was in charge of Centcom: What?s crucial is what Austin did in the aftermath of these failures, particularly after the Saudi intervention in Yemen. ?Lloyd was enraged by the Saudi intervention,? a senior officer who worked with Austin at Centcom said, ?because we [the Americans] were quietly supporting the Houthi fight against AQAP [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] at the time.? Austin was so angered by the Saudi move, this now-retired officer said, that he considered formally requesting that the Obama administration denounce the intervention. ?We waved him off of that,? the officer with whom I spoke at the time said. But Austin also predicted the troubles the Saudis would face and made his views known to senior civilians at the Pentagon. ?He thought the Saudis would lose in Yemen and that, before it was all over, we would have to bail them out,? this same officer noted. Austin was right on both counts: The Saudis found themselves mired in Yemen and dependent on U.S. intelligence assets in their fight. The Obama administration?s support for the war on Yemen was one of its greatest and most destructive errors. If the president and the Secretary of Defense had listened to Austin?s advice and refused to support the war, that could have been avoided. It reflects very well on Austin?s judgment that he understood that the Saudi intervention wasn?t going to succeed. One of my concerns about Austin is that he would be too indulgent of the Saudis and the UAE because of his Centcom experience, just as Mattis had been when he was Defense Secretary, but this record suggests just the opposite. At the very least, that bodes well for how the Biden administration will act in Yemen. Austin?s view of the war on Yemen helps make sense of why Biden selected him. Perry?s report includes additional details about Austin and the Yemen debate that deserves more attention: As crucially, the Saudi intervention marked the first time that Austin would cross swords with then-Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who slammed the military for its failure to fully support the Saudi effort. The reason the Saudis didn?t notify Centcom of their plans ahead of time, McCain said, was because ?they believe we are siding with Iran.? The rebuke didn?t sit well with senior U.S. officers at Centcom or at the U.S. Special Operations Command, who had been quietly supporting the anti-AQAP effort. And it didn?t sit well with Lloyd Austin. A senior commander who served with Austin said that McCain purposely ?blindsided? Austin in order to make the Obama White House look bad. Siding with Iran? McCain, this officer suggested, knew better: ?The reason the Saudis didn?t inform us of their plans,? the officer told me at the time, ?is because they knew we would have told them exactly what we think?that it was a bad idea.? McCain was one of the most vocal supporters of U.S. involvement in the war until his death in 2018, and his eagerness for even greater involvement was part of a decades-long record of getting major foreign policy issues wrong. The fact that Austin kept being on the opposite side of these policy debates from McCain is a useful reminder of just how reckless McCain was and how sensible Austin apparently is. Austin?s nomination should receive careful scrutiny, and there are still more questions for him to answer at his confirmation hearing, but reports like this one suggest that Biden has made a good choice. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Mon Dec 28 18:03:40 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 13:03:40 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?QI=E2=80=99s_Mark_Perry_=40_FP=3A_Aust?= =?utf-8?q?in_Is_Escalation_Skeptic_Like_Biden=2E_Blob_Is_Pouting?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ICYMI. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Robert Naiman Date: Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 3:29 PM Subject: QI?s Mark Perry @ FP: Austin Is Escalation Skeptic Like Biden. Blob Is Pouting QI?s Mark Perry @ FP: Austin Is Escalation Skeptic Like Biden. Blob Is Pouting Summary: Biden is a skeptic of incessant Blob demands for escalation. Therefore, he wants a Secretary of Defense as his trusted lieutenant who is also a skeptic of incessant Blob demands for escalation. Therefore the Blob is very, very angry. But the Blob knows that eighty million Americans who just voted for Biden don?t give a hoot how unhappy the Blob is - if anything, eighty million Americans and more see Blob unhappiness as a feature, not a bug - so the Blob is trying to repackage its sour grapes into concern-trolling about the waiver in the hopes that they can fool someone who hasn?t been following the plot. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/16/lloyd-austin-isnt-who-you-think-he-is/ Lloyd Austin Isn?t Who You Think He Is The ?silent general? has never been very quiet on policy. That?s exactly why Biden picked him as defense secretary?and why Washington's foreign-policy establishment is wary. BY MARK PERRY | DECEMBER 16, 2020, 7:34 AM [Mark Perry is a senior analyst at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of ten books on foreign policy and military history.] It was in 2010, when General Lloyd Austin was head of U.S. Forces in Iraq, that he got to know then-Vice President Biden. Austin had already become friendly with Biden?s son Beau (they regularly attended Catholic services together in Iraq, where Beau Biden was also deployed, according to the Washington Post), but it was his unflappability in person that most impressed the vice president, according to a senior Pentagon official with contacts in the Biden transition team. Ten years later, those encounters in Iraq were one factor in president-elect Biden?s decision to select Austin as his secretary of defense. Austin has powerful Biden allies and political supporters, including retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who retains the president-elect?s admiration despite the embarrassing critiques McChrystal?s staff made of Biden back in 2010. (McChrystal did not respond to the author?s invitation to comment on his relationship with Austin.) But most crucially, it?s clear that Biden and Austin share common beliefs , including a healthy skepticism about America?s serial Middle East interventions, a deep-seated belief in the efficacy of diplomacy, and a nearly instinctive commitment to rebuilding U.S. alliances. These are the foreign-policy ideas that helped secure the White House for Biden?but have not always been as popular with the military as with the American public. Austin?s commitment to these themes is a testimony to the equanimity Biden first noticed in him in Iraq?and which was prominently reflected in a notorious disaster that could have curtailed Austin?s career before it started. On the afternoon of March 23, 1994, an F-16 Fighting Falcon collided with a C-130 Hercules troop transport over Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. The C-130 was able to land safely, but the F-16 barreled into the parking ramp of Pope?s east-west runway, where two battalions?about 500 soldiers?of the 82nd Airborne Division were lined up on the airfield?s ?green ramp? in preparation for a training mission. The resulting carnage was horrific: 23 paratroopers of the two battalions were killed, and more than 80 were injured. Many of the injured suffered life-threatening burns, and one died the following year. The commander of one of the battalions was then-Lt. Col. Stanley McChrystal; the commander of the other was then-Lt. Col. Lloyd Austin. The ?green ramp disaster? was a searing experience for both McChrystal and Austin, who had attended West Point together?McChrystal graduated in 1976, Austin the year before?but had never been particularly close. In the tragedy?s aftermath, both commanders received high marks for reshaping units scarred by the disaster, but Austin?s work stood out, marking him for higher command. Forged by the tragedy, McChrystal and Austin followed dissimilar but parallel tracks to high command?with McChrystal?s meteoric rise resulting in a five-year stint at the head of the Joint Special Operations Command (and a controversial, all-too-public stint as the U.S. commander in Afghanistan), while Austin?s more prosaic arc resulted in steady if unspectacular promotions until he became assistant commander of the 3rd Infantry Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was during the 3rd Infantry Division?s assault on Baghdad, in April 2003, that Austin made his reputation. With the division poised outside of Baghdad, Austin greenlit the 2nd Brigade Combat Team?s sprint into Baghdad. ?Austin was the brains behind the assault on Baghdad,? a senior military commander told me several years ago. ?He was always pushing. Pushing, pushing, pushing. He was one of the finest combat commanders I?ve ever seen.? The assault was a spectacular success, and the high command noticed. In the war?s aftermath, Austin received a now-celebrated Officer Evaluation Report written by then-Lt. Gen. Dan Kelly McNeill, one of the Army?s most respected, if under-the-radar, senior commanders. The McNeill report kicked Austin into the Army?s stratosphere?where he served as command general of U.S. Forces-Iraq, Army vice chief of staff, and then head of U.S. Central Command. While Austin remained predictably silent about the Obama administration?s 2008 surge of troops into Afghanistan, his doubts about implementing a counterinsurgency strategy (aimed at wresting control of Afghanistan from the hands of the Taliban) was well known among his fellow officers. Austin, his colleagues argue, believed the United States should adopt a more targeted counterterrorism strategy?aimed at disrupting and defeating al Qaeda. Biden, as it turns out, made the same argument to President Barack Obama. Austin was also a private, though outspoken, critic of how Obama shaped the anti-Islamic State coalition in Iraq, in 2014, when Austin was the head of the U.S. Central Command. Austin stewed when Obama appointed retired Marine Gen. John Allen as the administration?s special envoy to the coalition, preferring that the president appoint a veteran diplomat. Austin complained to aides that Allen?s appointment would lead to confusion about who was leading the anti-Islamic State effort. Austin wasn?t alone in his criticism, which extended to Allen?s former service. ?John Allen is a great guy,? retired U.S. Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni told one reporter , ?but does it take a retired general to coordinate a coalition? What is Centcom, chopped liver?? Austin was so angered by Allen?s appointment that when Allen requested that Centcom provide him with air transport to the region, Austin?s staff turned him down?which would not have happened without Austin?s approval. Since he now worked for the State Department, Allen was told, he should check with them. The incidents provide a counternarrative to what has been written about Biden?s ?quiet,? ?low-key,? and ?introverted? secretary of defense-designate. That is all true: Austin is known in military circles as ?the silent general,? a description that is often followed by one other description: that his reticence masks a deep competence?an ability to capably manage large organizations, like the Defense Department. ?There are very few people I can think of who are more competent than Lloyd Austin,? retired U.S. Army Col. David Johnson, a senior researcher at the Rand Corp., said. ?And if there?s one thing we need in a secretary of defense, it?s competence.? Then too, and for those who know him, the now-retired four-star general might be self-effacing in public, but he?s less reticent than is generally portrayed. It?s not that he doesn?t have opinions, it?s that ?he just doesn?t like talking to reporters,? as one of his colleagues said. Nor do Austin?s reputed command failures stand up to scrutiny. Austin is criticized for failing to predict the rise of the Islamic State and for failing to anticipate Saudi Arabia?s March 2015 intervention in Yemen. ?That?s all bullshit,? a senior retired Army officer who worked with Austin in Iraq told me. ?Why blame Austin? No one saw ISIS coming and no one predicted what the Saudis would do. In both cases, this was a J-2 [military intelligence] failure. If you know anything about the military that?s not exactly shocking.? What?s crucial is what Austin did in the aftermath of these failures, particularly after the Saudi intervention in Yemen. ?Lloyd was enraged by the Saudi intervention,? a senior officer who worked with Austin at Centcom said, ?because we [the Americans] were quietly supporting the Houthi fight against AQAP [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] at the time.? Austin was so angered by the Saudi move, this now-retired officer said, that he considered formally requesting that the Obama administration denounce the intervention. ?We waved him off of that,? the officer with whom I spoke at the time said. But Austin also predicted the troubles the Saudis would face and made his views known to senior civilians at the Pentagon. ?He thought the Saudis would lose in Yemen and that, before it was all over, we would have to bail them out,? this same officer noted. Austin was right on both counts: The Saudis found themselves mired in Yemen and dependent on U.S. intelligence assets in their fight. As crucially, the Saudi intervention marked the first time that Austin would cross swords with then-Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who slammed the military for its failure to fully support the Saudi effort. The reason the Saudis didn?t notify Centcom of their plans ahead of time, McCain said, was because ?they believe we are siding with Iran.? The rebuke didn?t sit well with senior U.S. officers at Centcom or at the U.S. Special Operations Command, who had been quietly supporting the anti-AQAP effort. And it didn?t sit well with Lloyd Austin. A senior commander who served with Austin said that McCain purposely ?blindsided? Austin in order to make the Obama White House look bad. Siding with Iran? McCain, this officer suggested, knew better: ?The reason the Saudis didn?t inform us of their plans,? the officer told me at the time, ?is because they knew we would have told them exactly what we think?that it was a bad idea.? Austin sparred publicly with McCain several months after the Saudi intervention when the Arizona senator slammed him for his lack of enthusiasm for a more intensive intervention against the Islamic State in Syria. ?Lloyd just sat there and took it,? the senior officer told me last week, ?and I have to say, I thought he looked bad. But after the confrontation Austin?s reputation grew. He could have told McCain to stuff it, that he was following the direction of the commander in chief. But he didn?t do it, and that was the right thing to do. He took one for the team.? Austin?s willingness to take one for the team impressed Obama, and it impressed Biden. But it was not only this willingness that impressed the now president-elect. As crucially, Biden was attracted to Austin?s oft-stated belief in ?strategic patience,? a phrase that Austin has regularly used in implying his skepticism of those who think the United States should take a harder line on foreign competitors?and particularly on China. And that, it appears, is the rub. For while Biden has been criticized for appointing yet another retired general to head up the Pentagon, there?s a growing suspicion that the opposition to Austin isn?t because official Washington is worried his tenure will replicate James Mattis?s notorious military mafia, or that he won?t speak his mind when dealing with a new president, or even that his presence at the top of the U.S. chain of command will wreak havoc on civilian-military relations. The real problem with Lloyd Austin is that he?s not seen as sufficiently willing to take on China, the enemy du jour among a host of Washington policymakers, many of whom would prefer the appointment of someone who reflects their own interventionist credentials, like Mich?le Flournoy. Indeed, the roster of anti-Austin and pro-Austin voices largely fall neatly into two categories: those who repeat the China-is-a-threat mantra and those who don?t. For Washington?s China-is-a-threat crowd, the appointment of Lloyd Austin looms as a counterpoint to their foreign-policy agenda: one of larger defense budgets, less reliance on diplomacy, and a greater willingness to use force?all reasons why Biden appointed Austin in the first place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Mon Dec 28 18:36:03 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 18:36:03 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] How the Stupid Ultra-Left is Helping the Blob on SecDef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3C23535A-FDC0-4859-976D-7341297D7D11@illinois.edu> A peculiar complaint. Are you for the revolving door of our war department personnel with the corporate weapons making complex? Oh, I guess it is your pragmatist instinct to attack the so-called "ultra-left?. Yes, he may be ?better? than Flournoy who is now, fortunately (because of ultra-left types!) out of the immediate running. > On Dec 28, 2020, at 11:57 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss wrote: > > How the Stupid Ultra-Left is Helping the Blob on SecDef > > The stupid ultra-left is pushing the Line that Austin = Flournoy because ?corporate ties.? > > Meanwhile, in our nation?s Fair Capital, the Blob is claiming that Austin isn?t qualified to be Secretary of Defense because he hasn?t signed up for new China arms race like Flournoy. > > Why doesn?t the stupid ultra-left try Home Delivery of the news from our nation?s Fair Capital before they run their mouths? > > Would it kill the stupid ultra-left to read something about this before they run their mouths? > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss__;!!DZ3fjg!qrNR2z48-B69LzROKOo4kDhTPeP3RrkFJhs5qKqMXAJgf92ubxGDWkf3eZhe1Yg$ From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Mon Dec 28 19:43:27 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 14:43:27 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] How the Stupid Ultra-Left is Helping the Blob on SecDef In-Reply-To: <3C23535A-FDC0-4859-976D-7341297D7D11@illinois.edu> References: <3C23535A-FDC0-4859-976D-7341297D7D11@illinois.edu> Message-ID: It's only peculiar to you because you haven't been following these issues and you have no idea what the hell you're talking about. Don't feel bad. Nobody has time to follow everything. Go back to whatever you were doing. On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 1:36 PM Brussel, Morton K wrote: > A peculiar complaint. Are you for the revolving door of our war department > personnel with the corporate weapons making complex? Oh, I guess it is > your pragmatist instinct to attack the so-called "ultra-left?. Yes, he may > be ?better? than Flournoy who is now, fortunately (because of ultra-left > types!) out of the immediate running. > > > On Dec 28, 2020, at 11:57 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > > > How the Stupid Ultra-Left is Helping the Blob on SecDef > > > > The stupid ultra-left is pushing the Line that Austin = Flournoy because > ?corporate ties.? > > > > Meanwhile, in our nation?s Fair Capital, the Blob is claiming that > Austin isn?t qualified to be Secretary of Defense because he hasn?t signed > up for new China arms race like Flournoy. > > > > Why doesn?t the stupid ultra-left try Home Delivery of the news from our > nation?s Fair Capital before they run their mouths? > > > > Would it kill the stupid ultra-left to read something about this before > they run their mouths? > > _______________________________________________ > > Peace-discuss mailing list > > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > > > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss__;!!DZ3fjg!qrNR2z48-B69LzROKOo4kDhTPeP3RrkFJhs5qKqMXAJgf92ubxGDWkf3eZhe1Yg$ > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Mon Dec 28 19:57:32 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 14:57:32 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?b?V2hvIElzIE1BIOKAnERJTk/igJ0gU2V0aCBN?= =?utf-8?q?oulton=3F_Why_Does_He_Hate_Biden=E2=80=99s_SecDef_Austin?= =?utf-8?q?=3F?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Who Is MA ?DINO? Seth Moulton? Why Does He Hate Biden?s SecDef Austin? MA-6 DINO [?Democrat In Name Only?] Seth Moulton [?D?-Salem, Cook PVI D+6] has threatened to vote against the waiver for Lloyd Austin to serve as America?s Historic First Black Secretary of Defense, a waiver which is necessary under current law because Lloyd Austin has only been retired from the U.S. military for a mere four years rather than the statutory seven years. Since the waiver is necessary, Moulton?s threatened vote against the waiver would be a vote against Biden?s SecDef Lloyd Austin. Since the House is almost evenly divided after the election, Moulton?s vote against Speaker Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus would not be a freebie. Denying Speaker Pelosi a House Democratic majority for Lloyd Austin would be an invitation for mischief from the House Republican minority to undermine the leadership of President-elect Biden [eighty million votes!] and the Congressional Black Caucus. Elizabeth Warren, as a Senator from Massachusetts, by threatening to vote against the waiver, is giving cover to Seth Moulton. The math in the Senate is different. Senate Republicans, following Senate Armed Services Chair Inhofe, are expected to support the waiver. So if only the Senate exists, Elizabeth ?I proved I?m Native American with a DNA test? Warren can do performative opposition to Biden on the waiver, then turn around and support the confirmation, thereby obeying the First Rule of Washington, which is to never pass up an opportunity to vote for something before you vote against it. But because the House is in play, Warren?s opposition to the waiver is not a freebie. By giving Massachusetts cover to Seth Moulton, Elizabeth Warren is threatening our plans to end the Saudi war in Yemen with Lloyd Austin as Biden?s Secretary of Defense. *Politico* reported last week: ?Rep. Seth Moulton, an influential member of the House Armed Services Committee, on Wednesday became the most prominent House Democrat to say he will not vote to grant retired Gen. Lloyd Austin a waiver to the law barring recently retired military officers from serving as defense secretary.? OK, who is this Mr. Seth Moulton, who is giving us lectures now on ?civilian control of the military?? 1. He supported Flournoy for SecDef. Seth Moulton supported Warmonger Flournoy, the Queen of the Blob, who never met a war or an arms deal that she didn?t like. Now Mr. Seth Moulton is giving us lectures on ?civilian control of the military.? Excellent. 2. Seth Moulton is a ?Massachusetts Democrat.? So he must be pretty good on peace issues, right? I mean, it?s Massachusetts. It?s the only state in the Union that voted for George McGovern in 1972. So Seth Moulton must be pretty good on Peace. Right? Let?s check the scorecard from Peace Action on the Massachusetts delegation: Dist. Name Party Peace Action Lifetime Score 1st Neal, Richard E. D 84% 2nd McGovern, James D 95% 3rd Trahan, Lori D 92% 4th Kennedy, Joseph D 90% 5th Clark, Katherine D 96% *6th Moulton, Seth D 57%* 7th Pressley, Ayanna D 97% 8th Lynch, Stephen F. D 71% 9th Keating, William D 78% Sure does seem like Seth Moulton is an outlier in the Massachusetts delegation on war and peace, doesn?t it? Sure does seem like he ?hears a different drummer,? doesn?t it? 3. How did Seth Moulton get to Congress? By primarying John Tierney. According to Time magazine political columnist Joe Klein, Moulton "refused to distinguish himself from Tierney on most issues. He's running on freshness and dynamism.? The Boston Globe editorial board wrote: "Moulton and Tierney share nearly identical political views, but Moulton's background, and his approach to discussing the issues, suggests an openness to new perspectives.? Now Tierney is head of the Council for a Livable World, which is backing Biden?s SecDef Lloyd Austin. Did Seth Moulton lie to Massachusetts Democratic primary voters when he said there were no policy differences between him and John Tierney? Was Moulton ?hearing a different drummer?? 4. Well, whaddya know. Man, I sure do love that ?civilian control of the military,? don?t you? [image: image.png] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 63983 bytes Desc: not available URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Mon Dec 28 20:03:30 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 15:03:30 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] LTE: "A mistake for Moulton to travel with AIPAC" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Look what else I found on Seth Moulton. Man, I sure do love that "civilian control of the military," don't you? https://www.newburyportnews.com/opinion/a-mistake-for-moulton-to-travel-with-aipac/article_e9a94e60-740a-5cb8-8d7d-436494f91b1e.html A mistake for Moulton to travel with AIPAC Aug 19, 2015 To the editor: Congressman Seth Moulton recently traveled to Israel funded by a lobbying group ? this is not acceptable. I believe it is important for our congressional delegation to learn first-hand about the Middle East, but congressmen should not accept travel funds for any lobbying group. Moulton?s trip was under the auspices of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a lobbying group that was dead set against the nuclear deal with Iran. But, whatever its stance, this trip should have been taken without the agenda being set by any lobbying group. Moulton?s website should have been transparent by making it clear that his travel was paid for by AIPAC. If Moulton wants our trust, he should take such trips with congressional travel funds. Michael Prendergast Newburyport -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Mon Dec 28 20:26:38 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 15:26:38 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Let=E2=80=99s_Throw_Seth_Moulton_Off_A?= =?utf-8?q?rmed_Services_If_He_Votes_Against_Austin?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Let?s Throw Seth Moulton Off Armed Services If He Votes Against Austin for SecDef Do you remember when AIPAC tried to throw Ilhan Omar off of the House Foreign Affairs Committee? Wouldn?t it be satisfying to give AIPAC a taste of their own medicine? Let?s push Pelosi to throw Seth Moulton off of the House Armed Services Committee if he votes against Biden?s pick Lloyd Austin for SecDef. I mean, Pelosi controls who is on HASC, right? Technically, there?s a committee that makes recommendations, but Pelosi controls that committee. If Seth Moulton votes against President-elect Biden?s [eighty million votes!] nominee for Secretary of Defense, with the House so narrowly divided, it?s an extreme act of partisan disloyalty to the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, who was just elected unopposed as House Democratic Leader. ?The President gets his people,? remember? ?Elections matter,? remember? Such extreme acts of partisan disloyalty to the House Democratic leadership must not go unpunished. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Mon Dec 28 20:50:57 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 14:50:57 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Navalny poisoning reporting fails to acknowledge CIA, MI6, and discredited state-funded Bellingcat role in accusing Russia Message-ID: Aaron Mat?'s article for The Grayzone https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/27/navalny-poisoning-cia-mi6-discredited-state-funded-bellingcat-play-key-role-in-accusing-russia/ and video https://youtube.com/watch?v=vLsq1W-F4y4 cover reasons why there's plenty of room to be skeptical about establishment-serving media outlets (such as CNN and Democracy Now) in their claim that Russia poisoned opposition activist Alexei Navalny. A quote from the article: > Western media outlets have failed to disclose that Bellingcat is funded by NATO > member states, including the US via the National Endowment for Democracy, and that > Bellingcat has a dubious record. In a leaked assessment, the UK government?s > Integrity Initiative wrote: ?Bellingcat was somewhat discredited, both by > spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports for > anyone willing to pay.? > > And few have paid attention to reporting by the New York Times that shortly after > Navalny was flown to Germany for treatment, ?representatives from the Central > Intelligence Agency and Britain?s Secret Intelligence Service provided members of > the German government with details about the poisoning, including the identities > of the Federal Security Service officers involved, that directly implicated the > Russian government.? Russiagate apparently hasn't died, by the way. The quote from Democracy Now with Amy Goodman reading the headline story (https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/15/headlines/report_russian_intelligence_agents_poisoned_opposition_leader_alexei_navalny) is the only DN story featuring the word "bellingcat" (https://www.democracynow.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=bellingcat) and uncritically mentions "The probe was conducted by journalists at a number of outlets, including CNN and Der Spiegel, as well as the online investigative website Bellingcat.". DN apparently doesn't spend any time debunking Bellingcat's funding, reportage, or criticism from its own state funders. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Dec 29 06:49:27 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2020 00:49:27 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] #ForceTheVote Town Hall 2020-12-30 8:30PM ET (7:30PM Central) Message-ID: <2b26b1f2-fd79-1c70-2986-ca592d0446e7@forestfield.org> https://youtube.com/watch?v=pWnCEMPKxbQ (on Jimmy Dore's channel) has the canonical details. The live feed will be posted to Jimmy Dore's channel -- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M7l8ved_rYQ45AVzS0RGA so you can pick up the live show URL at 7:30PM Central time on 2020-12-30. Self-described progressive Democrats currently in or running for the House are invited (including AOC, Nina Turner, Ro Khanna, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Ilhan Omar, Pramila Jayapal, Ayanna Pressley, and Cori Bush). All the people you've heard of or seen on Jimmy Dore's show recently are featured (Cornel West, Jimmy Dore, Ryan Knight, Brie Joy Gray, Justin Jackson, Krystal Ball, Kyle Kulinski, Nick Brana). They're soliciting people to make short (1-3 minute) videos of themselves talking about why you're for #ForceTheVote to get Medicare for All. If you want to get your video to them, make such a video, post it to your social media account (most likely to be seen on the larger social media services such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook) and tag it with #forcethevote and #mystory. Related recent Graham Elwood posts from his YouTube channel https://youtube.com/channel/UCX1rle36wIlP9ry8uidnCsA https://youtube.com/watch?v=CXUIeAmNNtQ -- "Reasons why Nina Turner is running for Congress as a Democrat" with Ron Placone https://youtube.com/watch?v=7fjwU487U-Y -- "Nina Turner should NOT run as a Democrat" The former starts with a post from YouTube user Diane Bullock who summarizes much of what is in both posts: "As much as I love Nina Turner, I've now lost faith that she'll be any different than the squad once she's on the inside.". From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Dec 29 21:27:44 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2020 15:27:44 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Navalny poisoning reporting fails to acknowledge CIA, MI6, and discredited state-funded Bellingcat role in accusing Russia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I wrote: > Aaron Mat?'s article for The Grayzone > > https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/27/navalny-poisoning-cia-mi6-discredited-state-funded-bellingcat-play-key-role-in-accusing-russia/ > > cover reasons why there's plenty of room to be skeptical about > establishment-serving media outlets (such as CNN and Democracy Now) in their claim > that Russia poisoned opposition activist Alexei Navalny. https://youtube.com/watch?v=jMliTYf3X_4 is a discussion on The Gaggle (this episode is hosted by two of the show's co-hosts Peter Lavelle & George Szamuely). They raise a number of useful questions including: how did Navalny know who he was talking to? Is it possible Navalny was not speaking with the person he and the establishment media claim Navalny was speaking to? How did Navalny get this alleged FSB person's contact info? What are the real goals of these poisonings that all seem to involve one of the novichok poisons? The only person who has died from this alleged poison is Dawn Sterling who (as far as we know) might have been (according to one report) a heroin addict and thus may have had a precondition which made her easier to kill from many things. And with all of these poisonings, how much of a threat are they to us really? Is the goal to keep relations bad between the US and Russia which they choose to implement by maintaining a low-level threat? Something else (like a Russian organized crime involvement, as Seymour Hersh has said[1])? [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/seymour-hersh-interview-novichok-russian-hacking-9-11-nerve-agent-attack-a8459596.html -- Sy Hersh has not investigated the story but says the Russian mafia is involved in this: > Hersh is also on the record as stating that the official version of the Skripal > poisoning does not stand up to scrutiny. He tells me: ?The story of novichok > poisoning has not held up very well. He [Skripal] was most likely talking to > British intelligence services about Russian organised crime.? The unfortunate turn > of events with the contamination of other victims is suggestive, according to > Hersh, of organised crime elements rather than state-sponsored actions ? though > this files in the face of the UK government's position. Seymour Hersh told RT in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJgTiP6WBss > Sy Hersh: Those two [the two men interviewed on RT] were helping the British > intelligence services with information about the Russian mafia. That's what they > were doing here [in the UK]. In other words, the people that were high on the list > of people who would want to hurt him [Sergey Skripal] would be the Russian mafia. > Russians, but not the Russian government. > > Afshin Rattansi, RT host: Do you mean the Skripals? > > Sy Hersh: Yeah, I mean that was the understanding. There was also some reporting > out of Europe about that that's been pretty much widespread. [...] From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Dec 30 00:50:56 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2020 18:50:56 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] https://youtube.com/watch?v=W-UlsUs3hdI is the #ForceTheVote #MyStory live show In-Reply-To: <2b26b1f2-fd79-1c70-2986-ca592d0446e7@forestfield.org> References: <2b26b1f2-fd79-1c70-2986-ca592d0446e7@forestfield.org> Message-ID: https://youtube.com/watch?v=W-UlsUs3hdI is the URL for the live show which starts shortly. From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Wed Dec 30 03:21:04 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2020 21:21:04 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Tweet from Benjamin Studebaker (@BMStudebaker) Message-ID: Benjamin Studebaker (@BMStudebaker) tweeted at 7:01 PM on Tue, Dec 29, 2020: Now you can watch the Democrats literally hide behind woke stuff to avoid giving poor people money And woke defense spending, no less (https://twitter.com/BMStudebaker/status/1344086090257412097?s=03) Get the official Twitter app at https://twitter.com/download?s=13 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Wed Dec 30 03:21:42 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2020 21:21:42 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Tweet from Benjamin Studebaker (@BMStudebaker) Message-ID: Benjamin Studebaker (@BMStudebaker) tweeted at 7:06 PM on Tue, Dec 29, 2020: This is why many of us don't like identity politics In the hands of Dick Durbin it's just another tool to rationalize depriving poor people of money they need and deserve It's not only ineffective, it's a weapon of the elite against working people of all backgrounds (https://twitter.com/BMStudebaker/status/1344087315145175040?s=03) Get the official Twitter app at https://twitter.com/download?s=13 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Wed Dec 30 03:22:26 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2020 21:22:26 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Tweet from Benjamin Studebaker (@BMStudebaker) Message-ID: Benjamin Studebaker (@BMStudebaker) tweeted at 7:11 PM on Tue, Dec 29, 2020: The left, by teaching the woke discourse to the Democratic Party, armed Dick Durbin with the tools he's now using to deny poor and vulnerable people funds they badly need We haven't emancipated anybody, we've just given them the tools they need to rule for another 20 years (https://twitter.com/BMStudebaker/status/1344088723324080128?s=03) Get the official Twitter app at https://twitter.com/download?s=13 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Wed Dec 30 21:14:47 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2020 15:14:47 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Dick Durbin Message-ID: Just to clarify, the identity politics reference was to Durbin's using Confederate statues as part of his justification to authorize NDAA regardless of stimulus negotiations. https://twitter.com/kayrosef/status/1344016714187603971 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Dec 30 23:47:04 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2020 17:47:04 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] #ForceTheVote Town Hall 2020-12-30 8:30PM ET (7:30PM Central) In-Reply-To: <2b26b1f2-fd79-1c70-2986-ca592d0446e7@forestfield.org> References: <2b26b1f2-fd79-1c70-2986-ca592d0446e7@forestfield.org> Message-ID: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AIPXseBqQys is the URL for the live show. Currently Jimmy Dore is doing phony phone calls with impressionist Mike Macrae. Later tonight I believe there will be the advertised #ForceTheVote event. From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Dec 31 01:01:08 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2020 19:01:08 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] #ForceTheVote is going live soon -- https://youtube.com/channel/UC3M7l8ved_rYQ45AVzS0RGA should have the URL In-Reply-To: References: <2b26b1f2-fd79-1c70-2986-ca592d0446e7@forestfield.org> Message-ID: <9695b1cf-ad86-20db-5c52-7341b1b5ec47@forestfield.org> I wrote: > https://youtube.com/watch?v=W-UlsUs3hdI is the URL for the live show which starts > shortly. I didn't know this would happen, but apparently the #ForceTheVote show will be a separate segment (URL unknown as I write this). The show will feature Jimmy Dore and Steph Zamorano in the middle and at the end, telling their stories of their medical problems (what led to their need for Medicare for All in their own lives) and how their own medical bankruptcy went. Keep reloading https://youtube.com/channel/UC3M7l8ved_rYQ45AVzS0RGA for the URL. From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Dec 31 01:36:02 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2020 19:36:02 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] https://youtube.com/watch?v=2fP8JRdVHis is the #ForceTheVote town hall In-Reply-To: <9695b1cf-ad86-20db-5c52-7341b1b5ec47@forestfield.org> References: <2b26b1f2-fd79-1c70-2986-ca592d0446e7@forestfield.org> <9695b1cf-ad86-20db-5c52-7341b1b5ec47@forestfield.org> Message-ID: <584baf35-3030-9031-2d10-9f575b32c4a5@forestfield.org> https://youtube.com/watch?v=2fP8JRdVHis is the #ForceTheVote town hall which is live now. From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Dec 31 15:32:51 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 09:32:51 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: Medicare 4 All Force the Vote two hour live streamed segment from last night December 30th Message-ID: <00c301d6df8a$35351340$9f9f39c0$@comcast.net> Excellent two hour live streamed segment from last night December 30th with over one hundred thousand Americans participating, many with their personal healthcare nightmares and WHY we need to FORCE THE VOTE. Including ; Cornell West, Media Benjamin, Justin Jackson, Katie Halper, Krystal Ball, Brihana Joy Gray, Kyle Kulinski and of course JIMMY DORE. # FORCE THE VOTE ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fP8JRdVHis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Thu Dec 31 17:57:10 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 17:57:10 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] A neutral view(?) of the coming decades Message-ID: Hi all, First, a hope for a happier future and thus New Year. These articles by an Indian writer/diplomat is worth thinking about. https://indianpunchline.com/china-eu-deal-is-a-reality-check-for-india/ https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://indianpunchline.com/us-risks-confrontation-with-russia/__;!!DZ3fjg!vTEzhQ-BNO5aZIthTPEeK2M68IMhItCiMBNY_LeumSkzZxxmw62JsH16Ap6926liFA$ Best, Mort P.S. Ralph, I often think about how you are doing, missing our occasional meetings in our corridors. I hope you are OK. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Thu Dec 31 20:50:08 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 20:50:08 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Dreams of the leeches Message-ID: Why the wealthiest Americans should prepare for ?a revolt against the unprecedented inequality? Last Updated: Dec. 30, 2020 at 5:03 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 30, 2020 at 3:29 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois, WSJ 123020 ?When the top 10%?s bubble pops in 2021, the loss of illusions/delusions of security and wealth will be shattering to all those who believed artifice and illusory ?wealth? were real.? That?s Charles Hugh Smith, previously hailed by CNBC as one of the best alternative financial bloggers on the internet, offering up his unsettling outlook for the coming year. ?Those in America?s top 10% who have reaped virtually all the gains in income and wealth of the past 20 years live in a bubble that they view as unbreakable: no matter what problems arise, their personal income and wealth is secured by the government, central bank, etc,? he said. In other words, those at the top of the wealth-power pyramid are confident any financial pain will quickly be soothed by the Federal Reserve and its willingness to keep printing money. ?Any spot of bother in the gravy trains that fund the top 10% ? local and state government, universities, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Department of Defense, Wall Street, hedge funds, venture capital, etc. ? will be doused with trillions of dollars borrowed or printed into existence by the Treasury or Fed,? he wrote on his Of Two Minds blog. ?No matter what spot of bother arises, the solution ? more trillions ? is just a few keystrokes away.? While that has, indeed, been mostly true for years now, Smith pointed to the folly in that thinking. ?We cannot print wealth, or borrow it into existence,? he continued. ?All we can print/borrow is artifice, phantom representations of illusory ?wealth? that will vanish into thin air, in a reverse of how the ?money? was created ? out of thin air.? This will lead to assets of the elite getting ?crushed? without the backstop of liquidity. Stocks, he warned, ?will go bidless as phantom wealth dissipates.? Ultimately, Smith envisions a shake-up of the status quo in which the drying up of the Fed money flow is only one factor in a larger unwind. ?On top of this myopic belief that their success is all the result of their own endeavors rather than a tide of financialization, the top 10% are equally blind to the toxic consequences of the wealth/income inequality that has so richly benefited the few at the expense of the many,? he wrote. ?But tides do not run in one direction forever, and a revolt against the unprecedented inequality that heavily favors the top 10% is not ?impossible,? it?s a certainty.? Soon, he said, the bottom 90% will demand fairer distribution of wealth and a system that functions for the greater good, instead of ?parasites? and ?leeches? further lining their pockets. ?Not only will their lifeboats prove unstable, every level of government will come after whatever is left as taxes will soar on virtually every form of income and wealth,? Smith went on to explain in his blog post. ?The comfortable are about to experience some of the discomfort that is everyday life for the bottom 60% and an increasing percentage of the next 30% who still aspire to fantasies of middle-class security.? As it stands now, such a reckoning in the stock market will have to wait, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, 0.52% was up triple-digits on Wednesday in its penultimate trading session of 2020. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.02% and S&P 500 SPX, 0.47% were also higher. ? WSJ MarketWatch ? From r-szoke at illinois.edu Thu Dec 31 20:50:08 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 20:50:08 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Dreams of the leeches Message-ID: Why the wealthiest Americans should prepare for ?a revolt against the unprecedented inequality? Last Updated: Dec. 30, 2020 at 5:03 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 30, 2020 at 3:29 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois, WSJ 123020 ?When the top 10%?s bubble pops in 2021, the loss of illusions/delusions of security and wealth will be shattering to all those who believed artifice and illusory ?wealth? were real.? That?s Charles Hugh Smith, previously hailed by CNBC as one of the best alternative financial bloggers on the internet, offering up his unsettling outlook for the coming year. ?Those in America?s top 10% who have reaped virtually all the gains in income and wealth of the past 20 years live in a bubble that they view as unbreakable: no matter what problems arise, their personal income and wealth is secured by the government, central bank, etc,? he said. In other words, those at the top of the wealth-power pyramid are confident any financial pain will quickly be soothed by the Federal Reserve and its willingness to keep printing money. ?Any spot of bother in the gravy trains that fund the top 10% ? local and state government, universities, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Department of Defense, Wall Street, hedge funds, venture capital, etc. ? will be doused with trillions of dollars borrowed or printed into existence by the Treasury or Fed,? he wrote on his Of Two Minds blog. ?No matter what spot of bother arises, the solution ? more trillions ? is just a few keystrokes away.? While that has, indeed, been mostly true for years now, Smith pointed to the folly in that thinking. ?We cannot print wealth, or borrow it into existence,? he continued. ?All we can print/borrow is artifice, phantom representations of illusory ?wealth? that will vanish into thin air, in a reverse of how the ?money? was created ? out of thin air.? This will lead to assets of the elite getting ?crushed? without the backstop of liquidity. Stocks, he warned, ?will go bidless as phantom wealth dissipates.? Ultimately, Smith envisions a shake-up of the status quo in which the drying up of the Fed money flow is only one factor in a larger unwind. ?On top of this myopic belief that their success is all the result of their own endeavors rather than a tide of financialization, the top 10% are equally blind to the toxic consequences of the wealth/income inequality that has so richly benefited the few at the expense of the many,? he wrote. ?But tides do not run in one direction forever, and a revolt against the unprecedented inequality that heavily favors the top 10% is not ?impossible,? it?s a certainty.? Soon, he said, the bottom 90% will demand fairer distribution of wealth and a system that functions for the greater good, instead of ?parasites? and ?leeches? further lining their pockets. ?Not only will their lifeboats prove unstable, every level of government will come after whatever is left as taxes will soar on virtually every form of income and wealth,? Smith went on to explain in his blog post. ?The comfortable are about to experience some of the discomfort that is everyday life for the bottom 60% and an increasing percentage of the next 30% who still aspire to fantasies of middle-class security.? As it stands now, such a reckoning in the stock market will have to wait, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, 0.52% was up triple-digits on Wednesday in its penultimate trading session of 2020. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.02% and S&P 500 SPX, 0.47% were also higher. ? WSJ MarketWatch ? From brussel at illinois.edu Thu Dec 31 22:36:11 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 22:36:11 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Dreams of the leeches In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: But Smith doe not describe how this radical change, revolutionn if you will, will come about?. tens or more of millions in the streets? > On Dec 31, 2020, at 2:50 PM, Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > Why the wealthiest Americans should prepare for ?a revolt against the unprecedented inequality? > Last Updated: Dec. 30, 2020 at 5:03 p.m. ET > First Published: Dec. 30, 2020 at 3:29 p.m. ET > By Shawn Langlois, WSJ 123020 > > ?When the top 10%?s bubble pops in 2021, the loss of illusions/delusions of security and wealth will be shattering to all those who believed artifice and illusory ?wealth? were real.? > That?s Charles Hugh Smith, previously hailed by CNBC as one of the best alternative financial bloggers on the internet, offering up his unsettling outlook for the coming year. > > ?Those in America?s top 10% who have reaped virtually all the gains in income and wealth of the past 20 years live in a bubble that they view as unbreakable: no matter what problems arise, their personal income and wealth is secured by the government, central bank, etc,? he said. > > In other words, those at the top of the wealth-power pyramid are confident any financial pain will quickly be soothed by the Federal Reserve and its willingness to keep printing money. > > ?Any spot of bother in the gravy trains that fund the top 10% ? local and state government, universities, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Department of Defense, Wall Street, hedge funds, venture capital, etc. ? will be doused with trillions of dollars borrowed or printed into existence by the Treasury or Fed,? he wrote on his Of Two Minds blog. ?No matter what spot of bother arises, the solution ? more trillions ? is just a few keystrokes away.? > > While that has, indeed, been mostly true for years now, Smith pointed to the folly in that thinking. > > ?We cannot print wealth, or borrow it into existence,? he continued. ?All we can print/borrow is artifice, phantom representations of illusory ?wealth? that will vanish into thin air, in a reverse of how the ?money? was created ? out of thin air.? This will lead to assets of the elite getting ?crushed? without the backstop of liquidity. Stocks, he warned, ?will go bidless as phantom wealth dissipates.? > > Ultimately, Smith envisions a shake-up of the status quo in which the drying up of the Fed money flow is only one factor in a larger unwind. > > ?On top of this myopic belief that their success is all the result of their own endeavors rather than a tide of financialization, the top 10% are equally blind to the toxic consequences of the wealth/income inequality that has so richly benefited the few at the expense of the many,? he wrote. ?But tides do not run in one direction forever, and a revolt against the unprecedented inequality that heavily favors the top 10% is not ?impossible,? it?s a certainty.? > > Soon, he said, the bottom 90% will demand fairer distribution of wealth and a system that functions for the greater good, instead of ?parasites? and ?leeches? further lining their pockets. > > ?Not only will their lifeboats prove unstable, every level of government will come after whatever is left as taxes will soar on virtually every form of income and wealth,? Smith went on to explain in his blog post. ?The comfortable are about to experience some of the discomfort that is everyday life for the bottom 60% and an increasing percentage of the next 30% who still aspire to fantasies of middle-class security.? > > As it stands now, such a reckoning in the stock market will have to wait, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, 0.52% was up triple-digits on Wednesday in its penultimate trading session of 2020. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.02% and S&P 500 SPX, 0.47% were also higher. > > ? WSJ MarketWatch ? > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss__;!!DZ3fjg!v0jOeregFvQPdgx5jibxzt6xRaIRc67tvYDqR5lokE9PPLdjPlFjaS6yFYWmiHs$ From brussel at illinois.edu Thu Dec 31 22:36:11 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 22:36:11 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Dreams of the leeches In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: But Smith doe not describe how this radical change, revolutionn if you will, will come about?. tens or more of millions in the streets? > On Dec 31, 2020, at 2:50 PM, Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > Why the wealthiest Americans should prepare for ?a revolt against the unprecedented inequality? > Last Updated: Dec. 30, 2020 at 5:03 p.m. ET > First Published: Dec. 30, 2020 at 3:29 p.m. ET > By Shawn Langlois, WSJ 123020 > > ?When the top 10%?s bubble pops in 2021, the loss of illusions/delusions of security and wealth will be shattering to all those who believed artifice and illusory ?wealth? were real.? > That?s Charles Hugh Smith, previously hailed by CNBC as one of the best alternative financial bloggers on the internet, offering up his unsettling outlook for the coming year. > > ?Those in America?s top 10% who have reaped virtually all the gains in income and wealth of the past 20 years live in a bubble that they view as unbreakable: no matter what problems arise, their personal income and wealth is secured by the government, central bank, etc,? he said. > > In other words, those at the top of the wealth-power pyramid are confident any financial pain will quickly be soothed by the Federal Reserve and its willingness to keep printing money. > > ?Any spot of bother in the gravy trains that fund the top 10% ? local and state government, universities, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Department of Defense, Wall Street, hedge funds, venture capital, etc. ? will be doused with trillions of dollars borrowed or printed into existence by the Treasury or Fed,? he wrote on his Of Two Minds blog. ?No matter what spot of bother arises, the solution ? more trillions ? is just a few keystrokes away.? > > While that has, indeed, been mostly true for years now, Smith pointed to the folly in that thinking. > > ?We cannot print wealth, or borrow it into existence,? he continued. ?All we can print/borrow is artifice, phantom representations of illusory ?wealth? that will vanish into thin air, in a reverse of how the ?money? was created ? out of thin air.? This will lead to assets of the elite getting ?crushed? without the backstop of liquidity. Stocks, he warned, ?will go bidless as phantom wealth dissipates.? > > Ultimately, Smith envisions a shake-up of the status quo in which the drying up of the Fed money flow is only one factor in a larger unwind. > > ?On top of this myopic belief that their success is all the result of their own endeavors rather than a tide of financialization, the top 10% are equally blind to the toxic consequences of the wealth/income inequality that has so richly benefited the few at the expense of the many,? he wrote. ?But tides do not run in one direction forever, and a revolt against the unprecedented inequality that heavily favors the top 10% is not ?impossible,? it?s a certainty.? > > Soon, he said, the bottom 90% will demand fairer distribution of wealth and a system that functions for the greater good, instead of ?parasites? and ?leeches? further lining their pockets. > > ?Not only will their lifeboats prove unstable, every level of government will come after whatever is left as taxes will soar on virtually every form of income and wealth,? Smith went on to explain in his blog post. ?The comfortable are about to experience some of the discomfort that is everyday life for the bottom 60% and an increasing percentage of the next 30% who still aspire to fantasies of middle-class security.? > > As it stands now, such a reckoning in the stock market will have to wait, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, 0.52% was up triple-digits on Wednesday in its penultimate trading session of 2020. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.02% and S&P 500 SPX, 0.47% were also higher. > > ? WSJ MarketWatch ? > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss__;!!DZ3fjg!v0jOeregFvQPdgx5jibxzt6xRaIRc67tvYDqR5lokE9PPLdjPlFjaS6yFYWmiHs$