[Peace-discuss] In reference to comments on yesterdays News from Neptune

Sun Jul 1 20:08:50 UTC 2018

At the risk of being irreverent, I don't know much about Khanna other than
the recent interviews on TRNN; but I hope he can develop some charisma and
personality, which might be necessary to effectively put forth a dissident
agenda, if that in fact is what he wants to do.

DG

On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 1:48 PM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> There are institutions to hold them to account on some of their domestic
> economic policy stances. There's the AFL-CIO, for example. If you look at
> the last House vote on raising the minimum wage, every Democrat voted for
> it. If you look at the House vote on fast track trade negotiating authority
> for the TPP, almost every House Democrat voted against it, even though that
> was a vote against Obama, even though they hadn't finished negotiating the
> deal yet and the text was not public. But everyone could see where it was
> going. Most House Democrats listen to the AFL-CIO on domestic economic
> policy, including on trade policy, even against a Democratic President.
>
> Bill Clinton broke free of the AFL-CIO on trade at the presidential level.
> And since then, up until the present, there hasn't been a Democratic
> presidential nominee who didn't accept the Bill Clinton framework on trade.
> This is a key reason that Trump got elected. A bunch of working class
> Democrats in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania didn't trust Hillary on
> trade so they voted for Trump to kill the TPP dead. I can't say I blame
> them for not trusting Hillary on trade. The AFL-CIO claimed after the
> election that they had the votes in the House to kill the TPP in the lame
> duck session after the election. I'm not sure that I believe that. It's not
> what the AFL-CIO was saying before the election. I'm pretty sure that was a
> lie to cover up the AFL-CIO's role in the debacle. The AFL-CIO could have
> killed the TPP at the Democratic Convention. The Sanders forces had an
> amendment to the platform against the TPP, which amendment was supported by
> the Hillary labor delegates. But Obama threatened the pro-Hillary labor
> delegates, saying: if you amend the platform to oppose the TPP, I won't
> campaign for Hillary. The pro-Hillary labor leaders blinked. And this left
> a lot of people with the impression that if Hillary was elected, Obama was
> going to push the TPP through in the lame duck and enough Democrats would
> go along to make it happen.
>
> But regardless of all that, regardless of the problems with the AFL-CIO,
> etc., we have nothing like the AFL-CIO on foreign policy, war and peace,
> nothing close, nothing in the same league, nothing organized at all. Just a
> collection of NGOs like Win Without War which are accountable to no-one
> except their funders and which are very close to the House Democratic
> leadership, especially Nancy Pelosi. And that's why we haven't been able to
> get a vote in the House so far on getting the U.S. out of the
> unconstitutional Saudi war in Yemen. That's why I'm trying to get Ro Khanna
> to challenge Nancy Pelosi for the House Democratic leadership. So we can
> get votes in the House on war and peace.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> (202) 448-2898 x1
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 12:51 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> > On Jul 1, 2018, at 12:40 PM, bjornsona--- via Peace-discuss <
>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > Carl, Your point is fantastic that there are no institutions to hold
>> so-called progressives or so-called liberals to any of their foreign or
>> domestic policy stances once elected. My Tea Party point, as I am sure you
>> understand,  is that there are no institutions to hold so-called
>> conservatives to their party policies either, once elected. If there were,
>> we would have a balanced budget and a decreasing deficit. Facts being
>> facts,  America has only One Party, no matter what label or geographic
>> direction it gives itself to attempt to gaslight the gullible.
>> >
>> > That old saying, that a problem cannot be solved at the level of the
>> mindset that created the problem in the first place, must be true here. The
>> One Party that serves its education-prison- military-industrial corporate
>> owners is the REAL master player of Identity Politics: splitting un-AWARE
>> Americans first into Republicans & Democrats, and then into Libertarians,
>> Conservatives, Christians, Deplorables, Liberals, the Left, Anti-.fa,
>> millenniels, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
>> >
>> > Conservative, liberal, left and right, as you and Counterpunch have
>> demonstrated, no longer mean what the words meant in years past. Those few
>> Americans who may believe any of the baloney being served us under those
>> labels are beyond convincing or worth discussing at this point. They will
>> just have to be dragged along as the rest of us change history.  A sports
>> "us" vs. "them" mentality will bury all of us if the "us" and "them" remain
>> fake Democrats & Republicans, liberals or conservatives. The only "us" that
>> means anything are the 99% and the only "them" that means anything are the
>> 8, 000 people in the world with half the world's wealth. The 1500
>> billionaires . The alphabet agencies & the oil companies. I may not know
>> all the "thems" - I sure know the "us".
>> >
>> > I had stopped watching "Real Time with Bill Maher" because he was such
>> a staunch Hillary supporter. However, if you had a chance to catch his show
>> last Friday, 6/29/18, it was interesting. Guest  Lawrence Wilkerson,
>> debunking Russiagate, and Bill and Michael Moore begging Americans to get
>> out in the streets against fascism. Michael Moore was nearly crying. There
>> was such a sense of urgency and that things have gone too far.
>> >
>> > Needless to say- not a Happy 4th .
>> > Sent from my LG Phoenix 2, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
>> >
>> > ------ Original message------
>> > From: Carl G. Estabrook
>> > Date: Sun, Jul 1, 2018 12:54 AM
>> > To: bjornsona at ameritech.net;
>> > Cc: Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss;Karen Aram;Robert
>> Naiman;peace-discuss at anti-war.net;
>> > Subject:Re: [Peace-discuss] In reference to comments on yesterdays News
>> from Neptune
>> >
>> >
>> https://www.blackagendareport.com/magical-thinking-vs-sober-analysis-ocasio-cortez-victory-ny
>> >
>> >
>> > "In my previous piece and Facebook posts I never touched on how
>> socialist Ocasio-Cortez is or isn't nor on her foreign policy stands if she
>> has any, which Berniecrats frequently don't, something that ought to make
>> us a little uneasy. Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist too, just with
>> an imperialist foreign policy. I did say that progressive candidates and
>> officeholders do sometimes flip, a little at a time or all at once, and
>> when they do we have no institutions with which to punish them. "Feet to
>> the fire" and "holding them accountable" are actually the phrases of
>> magical thinkers because no means have yet been devised which enable the
>> left to do those things.
>> >
>> > "I got in trouble for observing that while we can elect progressives
>> from time to time we cannot compel them to remain that way. Until we figure
>> out how to build institutions that can, we are at the mercy of their
>> individual moral and political compasses. The need to develop left
>> institutions to which progressive candidates can be held responsible is an
>> acute one, which the Nation in its slavish devotion to the Democratic party
>> predictably ignores. Noting this truth got me accused of being a petty,
>> lazy purist and ultraleftist. Oh well. Sober analysis may not be what some
>> people wanna hear at a victory party where everybody’s popping champagne
>> corks, dancing the electric slide and toasting the universal lessons of the
>> Ocasio-Cortez victory without the bother of real analysis…"
>> >
>> > —CGE
>> >
>> >
>> > > On Jun 30, 2018, at 9:04 PM, bjornsona--- via Peace-discuss
>> >  wrote:
>> > >
>> > > That Everyman article could be written exactly the same way 10 years
>> ago to Tea Party Republicans.  Change "Democrat- change it to R Republican.
>> > >
>> > > Sent from my LG Phoenix 2, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
>> > >
>> > > ------ Original message------
>> > > From: Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss
>> > > Date: Sat, Jun 30, 2018 6:11 PM
>> > > To: Karen Aram;
>> > > Cc: Robert Naiman
>> > ;peace-discuss at anti-war.net
>> > ;Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss;
>> > > Subject:Re: [Peace-discuss] In reference to comments on yesterdays
>> News from Neptune
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> https://americaneveryman.com/2018/06/30/ajamu-baraka-pushes-dementer-with-the-ocasio-cortez-placebo-my-position-statement-on-ocasio-cortez/
>> >
>> > >
>> > > It’s unclear where Ocasio is herself - but not the Democratic party.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >> On Jun 30, 2018, at 5:43 PM, Karen Aram
>> >  wrote:
>> > >>
>> > >> Very good, thank you Stuart. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that
>> she is able to stand by her declarations. Anything David Swanson has to say
>> is good enough for me.
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >>> On Jun 30, 2018, at 10:38, stuartnlevy
>> >  wrote:
>> > >>
>> > >>>
>> > >>> It is there right now.
>> > >>>
>> > >>> The
>> > antiwar.com
>> >  thread quotes Ocasio on June 27th that it hadn't been deliberately
>> removed, and she was looking into it.  So she did, and the statement is
>> there.
>> > >>>
>> > >>> I haven't compared it with the previous version, but David Swanson
>> says it is both lengthened and improved.  He supports it and urges his
>> readers to let her know they do too.
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>>  -- Stuart
>> > >>>
>> > >>> -------- Original message --------
>> > >>> From: "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss"
>> >
>> > >>> Date: 6/30/18 11:15 (GMT-06:00)
>> > >>> To: Robert Naiman
>> > , peace-discuss at anti-war.net
>> >
>> > >>> Cc: peace
>> > , "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss" , Karen Aram
>> >
>> > >>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] In reference to comments on yesterdays
>> News from Neptune
>> > >>>
>> > >>> This is the piece removed from her website, wasn’t it? Has it been
>> put back?
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>>> On Jun 30, 2018, at 9:30 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss
>> >  wrote:
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>>
>> > https://ocasio2018.com/issues
>> >
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> [...]
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> A Peace Economy
>> > >>>> Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has
>> entangled itself in war and occupation throughout the Middle East and North
>> Africa. As of 2018, we are currently involved in military action in Libya,
>> Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Hundreds of
>> thousands of civilians in these countries have been killed either as
>> collateral damage from American strikes or from the instability caused by
>> U.S. interventions. Millions more have fled their broken countries,
>> contributing to the global refugee crisis.
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> This continued action damages America’s legitimacy as a force for
>> good, creates new generations of potential terrorists, and erodes American
>> prosperity. In times when we’re told that there’s not enough money,
>> Republicans and corporate Democrats seem to find the cash to fund a $1.1
>> trillion fighter jet program or a $1.7 trillion-dollar nuclear weapon
>> “modernization” program. The costs are extreme: the Pentagon’s budget for
>> 2018 is $700 billion dollars: to continue fighting an endless War on Terror
>> and refighting the Cold War with a new arms race that nobody can win.
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> According to the Constitution, the right to declare war belongs to
>> the legislative body, and yet many of these global acts of aggression have
>> never once been voted on by Congress. In some cases, we've even acted
>> unilaterally, without the backing of the United Nations.
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> America should not be in the business of destabilizing countries.
>> While we may see ourselves as liberators, the world increasingly views us
>> as occupiers and aggressors. Alexandria believes that we must end the
>> "forever war" by bringing our troops home, and ending the air strikes that
>> perpetuate the cycle of terrorism throughout the world.
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> By bringing our troops home, we can begin to heal the wounds we're
>> opening by continuing military engagement. We can begin to repair our
>> image. We can reunite military families, separated by repeated deployments.
>> We can become stronger by building stronger diplomatic and economic ties,
>> and by saving our armed forces only for when they're truly needed.
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> [...]
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> Robert Naiman
>> > >>>> Policy Director
>> > >>>> Just Foreign Policy
>> > >>>>
>> > www.justforeignpolicy.org
>> >
>> > >>>>
>> >  naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>> >
>> > >>>>
>> > (202) 448-2898
>> >  x1
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> On Sat, Jun 30, 2018 at 8:32 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss
>> >  wrote:
>> > >>>>
>> >
>> https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2018/06/28/as-election-day-approached-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-removed-antiwar-foreign-policy-section-from-her-we
>> >
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> _______________________________________________
>> > >>>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>> > >>>>
>> >  Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>> >
>> > >>>>
>> > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>> >
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> _______________________________________________
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>> >
>> > >>>>
>> > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>> >
>> > >>>
>> > >>
>> > >
>> > > _______________________________________________
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>> >
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>> >
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