[Peace] @DK: Let’s Quit Smoking & Drinking the Day Congress Ends the Yemen War

[Robert Naiman]

Please vote in the poll. I promise you'll enjoy it.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/29/2066657/-Let-s-Quit-Smoking-Drinking-the-Day-Congress-Finally-Ends-the-Yemen-War

Let’s Quit Smoking & Drinking the Day Congress Finally Ends the Yemen War
<https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/29/2066657/-Let-s-Quit-Smoking-Drinking-the-Day-Congress-Finally-Ends-the-Yemen-War>

I’m sure you remember the movie “High Hopes” by the acclaimed British film
director Mike Leigh. The two central characters were a youngish British
working class leftist couple. The kind of people who ride their motorcycle
to Highgate Cemetery so they can put flowers on the grave of Karl Marx. And
then talk wistfully to each other about the Revolution. Could it ever
happen here?  Maybe. They try to look after the guy’s mom, who lives in
public housing - “council housing,” they call it there - who doesn’t seem
to appreciate their attention much, and doesn’t seem to respect her son at
all. She seems to see him as an unkempt, good for nothing, no account,
ne’er-do-well. She’s got some circumstantial evidence for her case.
Remember that iconic, canonical picture of Bernie being carried away by
Chicago’s Finest who “Serve and Protect” for protesting against school
segregation? Remember how thick and wild and unruly Bernie’s hair was in
that picture? That’s this guy’s hair, only blond. Remember how Abbie
Hoffman and Alan Ginsburg and Bob Dylan sported that big, bushy rabbinical
Yippie beard? That’s this guy’s beard, only blond. So his mother saw him as
unkempt. Go figure. No accounting for tastes.

So one day she says to him contemptuously: “Why don’t you smarten yourself
up?”

To which he replies, unfazed: “The day they machine gun the royal family,
I’ll comb me hair and put a tie on.”

I’m sure you remember the “Pledge of Resistance” against Reagan’s illegal
wars in Central America. When you signed the Pledge, you were agreeing to
commit civil disobedience and get arrested if Reagan invaded Nicaragua. If
you were an advanced student, if you were a high achiever, you got arrested
even before that, getting arrested every time Congress gave more money to
the CIA-organized terrorists who were killing civilians in Nicaragua for
Freedom so that Nicaraguan Communists wouldn’t sneak into Texas from
Nicaragua and fluoridate our water.

Let’s put peanut butter and chocolate together again. Let’s make a Pledge
that the day that Congress finally shuts down the unconstitutional Saudi
war and blockade on Yemen and makes it stick, we’re all going to quit
smoking and drinking. We’ll leave it up to the conscience of the individual
parishioner exactly what meaning the word “quit” should have in this
context at this time. Some congregants may choose to quit smoking and
drinking for the rest of their lives. Other congregants may choose to quit
smoking and drinking for a single day. It’s a group project. Nobody is “in
charge.” Everybody helps, doing what they can.

The Day of Atonement may be closer than you think. Representative Ilhan
Omar and Senator Dr. Rand Paul are teaming up to finally shut this
world-historical atrocity down, at long last. It’s the ultimate
crime-fighting Dynamic Duo. It’s the ultimate Dream Team. It’s the ultimate
Hollywood buddy movie. It’s Batman & Robin, it’s Morpheus & Neo, it’s
Thelma & Louise. It’s Speed Racer and Racer X. It’s Frodo and Sam, trudging
to Mordor to drop the Ring of Power in Mount Doom. It’s Ian Paisley and
Martin McGuinness, together at last. It’s Jake and Elwood Blues. “We’re
putting the Band back together.” They’re on a mission from God.

Omar & Paul have introduced “Resolutions of Disapproval”
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/31/text>
in
the House and Senate against the latest Biden-Saudi Bomb Deal.
Representatives standing with Omar in the House so far include
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-joint-resolution/63/cosponsors>Progressive
Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, Jim McGovern, Ro Khanna, Andy Levin, Earl
Blumenauer, Chuy Garcia, Rashida Tlaib, and Eleanor Holmes Norton. Senators
standing with Paul so far include
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/31>
Bernie
Sanders and Mike Lee.

These Senators and Representatives are Calling the Question on continued
U.S. participation in one of the greatest atrocities on Earth today. Now
every Senator is going to have to vote yes or no on whether they want to
continue U.S. participation in the atrocity. When 51 Senators vote to end
U.S. participation - it’s a privileged resolution pursuant to the Arms
Export Control Act, so it can’t be filibustered - then every Member of the
House is going to have to vote yes or no. The Omar-Paul Resolution of
Disapproval will pass through the House like a hot knife through butter.

Then the Omar-Paul Resolution will be on Biden’s desk, and Biden will have
to sign it or veto it. That’s win-win for War Powers Club and the Forces of
Progress. Either Biden ends the Saudi war in Yemen, like he promised in the
debates, like he promised in the Democratic Platform, like he promised in
his “America is back!” speech at the State Department in February. Or else
Biden owns the Saudi war and blockade in Yemen, lock, stock and barrel.

And that’s exactly as it should be. As a candidate for President, Biden
promised to end the war. If he reneges on his promise, the heavens should
cry out. Here’s the version of Biden’s promise in the Democratic Platform
<https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/renewing-american-leadership/>
:

Democrats will end support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen and help bring
the war to an end. This war is responsible for the world’s worst
humanitarian crisis, and it amplifies threats to the region and to our
interests.

If Biden vetoes the Omar-Paul Resolution of Disapproval, then let fall the
deluge. Let Justice Democrats roll down like waters. For the three
transgressions of Biden, and for four, we will not revoke the Arms Export
Control Act, nor the War Powers Resolution. The storm is up, and all is on
the hazard. The sea is behind us, and the enemy in front.
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