[Peace-discuss] A 'progressive' Democrat

Wed Jan 17 16:29:15 UTC 2018

Aren't you going to denounce Manning for impurely running as a Democrat
against Cardin?

Isn't she just legitimizing the hopelessly corrupt Democratic Party by
running in a Democratic Primary?

Surely the only morally pure way for her to challenge Cardin would be to
run as a Green?

;)

===

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1

Senate: Wield the Constitution to Stop Saudi Starvation of Yemeni Children
https://www.change.org/p/senate-invoke-war-powers-to-stop-saudi-from-starving-yemeni-kids

On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 9:48 AM, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> "Why Senator Cardin Is a Fitting Opponent for Chelsea Manning" –
> Consortiumnews
>
>
> *Chelsea Manning’s senatorial bid offers a contrast to the Russian
> fear-mongering of incumbent candidate Ben Cardin, says Norman Solomon.*
> By Norman Solomon
>
> The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ben Cardin
> [Md.], has become a big star in national media by routinely denouncing
> Russia as a dire threat to American democracy. The senior senator from
> Maryland personifies the highly dangerous opportunism that has set in among
> leading Democrats on the subject of Russia.
>
> Chelsea Manning confirmed on Sunday that she is challenging Senator
> Cardin’s re-election effort in the Democratic primary this June. Her
> campaign has real potential to raise key issues. One of them revolves
> around the kind of bellicose rhetoric that heightens the dangers of
> conflict between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.
>
>
> *Picture: Chelsea Manning on May 18, 2017 the day after her release from
> prison. (Twitter)*
> In a typical foray into reckless hyperbole, Cardin told a public forum in
> November: “When you use cyber in an affirmative way to compromise our
> democratic, free election system, that’s an attack against America. It’s an
> act of war. It is an act of war.”
>
> Cardin is far from the only member of Congress to use “act of war”
> rhetoric about alleged Russian cyber actions. Republican ultra-hawk Arizona
> Senator John McCain has hurled the phrase at Russia. But the most use of
> the phrase comes from a range of Democrats, such as Connecticut
> Senator Richard Blumenthal and the normally sensible Northern California
> Representative Jackie Speier.
>
> As his party’s ranking member of the key Senate committee on foreign
> policy, Cardin is at the tip of the anti-Russia propaganda spear. After
> three decades in Congress including nearly a dozen years in the Senate,
> he’s an old hand at spinning. No one has worked harder to get political
> mileage out of “Russiagate.”
>
> *A Distorted Report*
>
> Last week, Cardin upped the ante with the release of a report that he
> commissioned. In effect, it’s a declaration of red-white-and-blue jihad
> against Russia.
>
> The report — which accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of “a
> relentless assault to undermine democracy and the rule of law in Europe and
> the United States” — received massive coverage in U.S. news
> media. Conservative and liberal punditry voiced acclaim.
>
> “Never before in American history has so clear a threat to national
> security been so clearly ignored by a U.S. president,” a solo statement by
> Cardin declares on the opening page. With the truly repugnant President
> Trump in its crosshairs, the report’s most polemical claims — no matter how
> debatable or ahistorical — have predictably gotten a pass from mass media.
>
> But the much-ballyhooed report is a carefully selective and distorted
> version of history.
>
> The expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders, the U.S. interference in
> dozens of countries’ elections (including in Russia during the Clinton
> administration), Washington’s support for repressive regimes in the past
> and present — such realities didn’t merit consideration or mention. Nor did
> facts such as the USA’s role as the world’s biggest arms merchant. Or the
> aggressively deadly U.S. military interventions in the recent past and
> present, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya.
>
> Such omissions are essential to the self-righteous tone of the Russiagate
> frenzy. Only with silence about basic truths of U.S. foreign policy can
> officials in Washington pose as leaders of an angelic nation that must
> confront satanic Russia.
>
> In light of what is at stake for human survival — with the odds of nuclear
> war shifting ominously because of the agenda that he’s helping to push —
> Senator Cardin can be understood as someone who avidly fits into patterns
> of nationalistic and militaristic madness. The sad fact is that he has
> plenty of company on Capitol Hill.
>
> Democratic leadership used to be much saner. Five decades ago, it was the
> fanatical Republican standard bearer Barry Goldwater who scorned reaching
> out to the Kremlin – while Democratic President Lyndon Johnson wisely
> sought détente with Russian leaders on behalf of peaceful coexistence and
> reducing the risks of nuclear conflagration.
>
> Right after being sentenced to prison in August 2013 for heroic
> whistleblowing that exposed many U.S. war crimes, Chelsea Manning released
> a statement that quoted Howard Zinn: “There is not a flag large enough to
> cover the shame of killing innocent people.” A nuclear war between the
> United States and Russia would do more than kill vast numbers of innocent
> people. Scientific research tells us that a nuclear holocaust would make
> the Earth “virtually uninhabitable.”
>
> The extreme hostility toward Russia that makes such an outcome more
> likely must be rejected. Senator Ben Cardin is one of the loudest and
> most prominent voices for such hostility. He should be challenged.
>
> *Norman Solomon is the coordinator of the online activist group
> RootsAction.org <http://RootsAction.org> and the executive director of the
> Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of a dozen books including
> “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”*
>
> *###*
>
>
>
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