[Peace-discuss] [sf-core] The Party's Over

[C. G. Estabrook]

Mark Weisbrot is far too gentle. Clinton is not a liberal but a neoliberal, and a neocon as well. As president she would continue if not intensify the brutal war-making of the Bush and Obama administrations. As the anti-imperialist historian William Blum says, “Yes, [Trump]’s personally obnoxious. I’d have a very hard time being his friend. Who cares?”


> On Jul 27, 2016, at 5:11 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] <sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Attacking Trump for the Few Sensible Things He Says is Bad Politics and Bad Strategy  
> by Mark Weisbrot 
> This article was published by The Hill on July 26, 2016
> 
> ...Since last week Trump has come under heavy fire his response to a question as to whether he would “come to their immediate military aid,” if NATO members including Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia, were attacked by Russia. He said yes, but only “if they fulfill their obligations to us.” He asserted that he wants Europeans to pay for their own defense. Imagine that! I’m sure that the white working class voters who will, as in most of the presidential elections of the past half-century, make up the swing voters this year will recoil in horror at this idea. 
> 
> The European Union has a GDP that is bigger than that of the United States (on a purchasing power parity basis). Most of these countries also provide their citizens with benefits that Americans don’t have, like real universal health care, subsidized child care, paid vacations averaging more than five weeks, and free or low-cost college tuition. Part of the reason that they get so much more for their tax dollars than we do is that they are not spending nearly as much on trying to police the world; although their security problems have increased considerably since Washington (with a lot of help from EU countries) turned the Middle East and North Africa into a hellish mess that exports more terrorism and refugees than ever before. In any case, it’s a tough sell for working and middle class voters here that their tax dollars should pay for Europe’s defense. Or that we should risk a nuclear war with Russia if it were to invade Estonia — which is the principle for which Trump has been so reviled for lately, for not defending, by the (liberal/conservative) foreign policy establishment. 
> 
> Of course, if your opponent says something friendly or diplomatic about a demonized foreign leader, it is generally an easy score in US politics to tar them with that. The media can be counted on to help make this into a capital offense. But if we look at the substance of Trump’s proposal to reach a deal with Putin, it’s tough to see what’s wrong with the concept. Do we really want another Cold War and an indefinite arms race with Russia? There is a whole other side to this story that Trump probably doesn’t even know, and that the media isn’t going to talk about. Neoconservative US officials like Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, played a major role in fomenting the civil war in Ukraine in the first place. They want an arms buildup surrounding Russia that would make any people, not least the Russians who have suffered devastating invasions from the east, nervous. Nuland is a Hillary protégé who is likely to have an even higher position than at present in her administration. For these and related reasons a number of the most violence-prone neocons, the kind who loved the Iraq War and in fact never met a war that they didn’t like, have endorsed Hillary over Trump. On the other side, more serious scholars such as Stephen Cohen, John Mearsheimer, and even the former war criminal Henry Kissinger have criticized the Washington’s confrontational and destructive role, and the folly of pursuing a new Cold War.
> 
> Do liberals really want to trash Trump for taking positions that are less aggressively militaristic than the nation’s most war-mongering neoconservatives?
> 
> If there’s any way to lose an election to the most disliked candidate ever to run for president of the United States, attacking him for the things he says that make sense is a good start.
> 
> [Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. and president of Just Foreign Policy. He is also the author of the new book Failed: What the "Experts" Got Wrong About the Global Economy(Oxford University Press, 2015). CEPR is an independent, nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. CEPR's Advisory Board includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Janet Gornick, Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and Director of the Luxembourg Income Study; and Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University ...1611 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 400
> Washington, DC 20009 (202) 293-5380 <http://cepr.net • cepr at cepr.net>]
> 
> > On Jul 27, 2016, at 2:42 PM, 'David Johnson' davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net [sf-core] <sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> > 
> > July 27, 2016
> > The Party’s Over
> > by Richard Moser
> > •  
> > <image001.jpg>
> > Well, the party is over and the machine has prevailed. Our attempt to revive democracy in the electoral arena failed. Still, we owe Bernie so much. He has raised consciousness and expectations while others appealed to fear and told us there is no alternative to the corporate power. But, the struggle continues both within and outside the electoral arena.
> > The corporate elites and the Clinton machine have no idea how deep the divisions go. Trump not Clinton will most likely be the beneficiary of the election fraud, voter suppression and discontent. The DNC has made a historic blunder and it’s not going to be pretty either way. Fighting Fascism with the corporate power seems a doomed project since it is precisely the merger of the corporation and government that sets the conditions for the rise of fascism. That is the historical moment we are in and paradox we face.
> > There is already lots of suffering and there is going to be more; much more. We are just going to have to own up to what this country has become. The system is so rotten and dysfunctional that there is no easy way out. No amount of moralizing is going to change anything — that will take political action and organizing.
> > I plan on working for Jill Stein and I will count it a victory if we can get 5%. That will allow the Green Party to get federal funding for next time and maybe help to create a viable opposition party. But this is no 20th century election. The trend lines on war, class warfare, propaganda, the failure of democracy and the vast militarized penal system all point toward deep trouble. On environmental issues alone the crisis will deepen and most likely in a dramatic way. We are woefully unprepared for what lies ahead.
> > But at least millions more have learned that the political system and the economy is rigged. That the lesser of two evils argument or the spoiler are forms of social control that have led us to exactly the choices we now have. If we do not have serious social change it is likely the Trumps of the world will just keep coming right out of the social conditions the Clintons of the world have created. I hear a lot from Clinton supporters, reluctant or not, about how they will continuing the struggle. I hope they are serious. How hard you worked for Bernie or other social movements this past year might be one indication of the value of your claims.
> > No one said revolution was easy, if fact its the hardest thing in the world. I hope mother earth has the patience for us to learn.
> > And, if you decide to persist in building an opposition movement, brace for a fear campaign unlike any you have seen. It’s all they have left. “Fear,” Gandhi said, “is the enemy. We thought it was hate but it’s fear.”
> >  
>