[Peace-discuss] Discordant view on O-C phenomenon

[David Green]

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https://www.counterpunch.org <https://www.counterpunch.org> - * The Wisdom
of Serpents Posted By John Steppling On July 11, 2018 @ 2:01 am In articles
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“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore
wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

— Mathew 10:16

“While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal
element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

— Eugene Debs

“Last month I called Bernie Sanders’ Democratic party primary run
“sheepdogging” my term for a move the national Democratic party seems to
execute every presidential primary season when there’s no incumbent White
House Democrat. The job of the sheepdog candidate is to herd leftish voters
and activists back into the Democratic party one more time by giving
perhaps sincere but limited and ineffectual voice to some of their issues.”

— Bruce Dixon, 2015

I keep watching the ways in which people, left leaning liberals anyway, and
even some I thought were leftists, fall over themselves to believe in the
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez victory. Now, I don’t believe, I should make
clear. But I find what is interesting is the ways in which this story
became a kind of fairy tale and found traction. First, it’s New York. If
this occurs in Port Huron or Tampa or Bakersfield — there is no story.
Secondly, this woman came out of the Democratic Party machine, out of Ted
Kennedy’s office and Bernie Sanders campaign. Does that not tell you
something? But third, there is something curious about her whole story. And
her web page says her father was a small business owner and other places it
says he is an architect. None of this matters, mind you, except that she is
certainly not well known in the Bronx by activists or anyone else. She
strikes me, personally, as culturally a Westchester County product, not the
Bronx. And I guess I find her a bit too telegenic, too perfect an image.
Not to mention she is already parroting DNC rhetoric about Russiagate and
already making friendly with the fascist opposition against Venezuela. One
would think a Latina would know better, no? The U.S. is, after all, on the
verge of a possible military intervention in Venezuela — and house and
senate Democrats are perfectly aligned with this thinking. When did anyone
last hear a Democrat voice support for the Bolivarian revolution? Then
there is the fact that her most intense support came from white affluent
gentrifiers in her district. So a radical she is not.

Now this is not about Ocasio-Cortez. I think soon enough the reality will
set in. Or maybe it is. I will return to that. But my question has to do
with why anyone wants to believe in a Democrat in the first place? Now, the
very first presidential election I ever voted in, yay those many year ago,
was 1972. I voted for Democrat George McGovern of South Dakota. That was
the last time I voted Democrat as well. And it is an interesting side bar
note here that current Democratic Party shills like Rachel Maddow and
Jonathan Chait love to compare all left-leaning Democrats to McGovern. And
the truth is that Goldwater lost just as badly, but the Republicans
responded by doubling down on the extreme paleo-conservatism of Barry and
got themselves 8 years of The Gipper. But I digress.

Lets take a look at what the Democratic Party has been up to lately…

Here, from Forbes magazine:

“…the Senate on Monday voted in favor of a $716 billion military spending
bill for the 2019 federal fiscal year. The House had already passed it last
month.
This is $82 billion higher than the current budget, which itself was more
than the Trump administration requested.

Who says those in the Beltway can’t pull together for a common cause? This
year, 67.5% of House Democrats and 85% of Senate Democrats voted in favor.”

Ponder that a moment. Over $700 billion. I mean that is getting close to
double what it was under Bush or Obama. And yet people are living under
freeway overpasses, in packing crates, and in make shift encampments on the
edge of every city in America, literally. Over 42 million Americans, as of
2016, were listed as food insecure. 13 million children. Now the Democrats
also defeated a proposal put forth by Sanders surrogates that looked for
very tepid limited restrictions on fracking and an also mild statement on
Palestinian rights. Both were shot down by the Dems.. (per Lauren McCauley)

“Former U.S. Representative Howard Berman, American Federation of State,
County, and Muncipal Employees executive assistant to the president, Paul
Booth, former White House Energy and Climate Change Policy director Carol
Browner, Ohio State Representative Alicia Reece, former State Department
official Wendy Sherman, and Center for American Progress President Neera
Tanden…”.

In other words the Democrats want no change.

Meanwhile, the drinking water in Flint, Michigan is no better than it ever
was. Then we have the Democrats whole hearted support of arms sales to
Saudi Arabia, who, with U.S. approval and help and support have destroyed
Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world. Dan Glazebrook wrote last
year (its worse now):

“And on 23rd January, the UN reported that there are now 22.2 million
Yemenis in need of humanitarian assistance – 3.4 million more than the
previous year – with eight million on the brink of famine, an increase of
one million since 2017.”

The United States is directly helping a mass genocide of the Yemeni people.
And very few Americans care. No Democrats care. Well, let me clarify, for
this is a perfect example of the Democratic Party and its record. Mike Lee
(R-Utah) and Bernie Sanders introduced a bill to limit (sort of) U.S.
involvement in the aforementioned genocide. It was soft stuff. But 15
Democrats helped Republicans table the bill. Little discussion came out of
that. And it was bullshit legislation anyway.

Now, this is all sort of tweezing apart stuff that is so horrific and
nightmarish that its hard to know how to describe it. The war against
defenseless Yemen began under Obama. You remember him? That Democratic
President. Trump, of course, intensified support for the genocide. And
Democrats are not complaining. Children are starving and dying from famine
and cholera, but there is no coverage of this, really. Why is there no
outrage about Israel shooting down unarmed protestors? Well, Chuck Schumer
signed a bill with other Democrats to make criticism of Israel a crime.
Killing OK, criticizing NOT OK.

Now, ahead of Mike Pence’s (the Dominionist bat shit nuts VP) visit to
Ecuador, a number of Democrats signed a bill to bring Julian Assange back
to stand trial. James Cogan writes:

“The signatories are a roll-call of leading congressional Democrats: Robert
Menendez, Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, Edward J. Markey, Michael
Bennet, Christopher Coons, Joe Manchin, Jeanne Shaheen, Diane Feinstein and
Mark Warner.”

They went out of their way to get behind shutting up Assange and throwing
him in a dark cell in Leavenworth and then just forgetting about him.

Cogan adds:

“…in a sweeping conspiracy theory, the CIA, FBI and NSA portrayed the 2016
publication by WikiLeaks of emails and documents from the Democratic
National Committee (DNC), and then emails sent by top Democratic Party
figure John Podesta, as the product of a nefarious Russian plot to
undermine Hillary Clinton and assist the victory of Donald Trump.”

Many liberals, if not most, and certainly the majority of Democrats are all
on board to prosecute Assange. Trump very usefully serves that purpose, you
see. The hatred of Trump (who seems to work very hard to be hated) allows
for the Democrats (and their liberal enablers) to escalate the new
Russophobic propaganda and divert attention from things like the increased
defense budget, the private prison complex that profits hugely from the ICE
raids and illegal deportations, and the continuing (even growing) crimes of
mass incarceration. No, people are given to partisan fighting over issues
like gay marriage, or flag desecration, or gender neutral pronouns or
whatever. They do not have public fights about foreign policy because both
major parties are in total agreement. Trump is only carrying out policy
that Obama started, largely, and that Hillary would have continued as well
(only likely worse). For foreign policy is the black hole in American
consciousness.

The US has been in Afghanistan for sixteen years. Why do people not talk
about this? Sixteen years. That’s a permanent occupation. The U.S. under
Democratic leadership and under the direction of Obama and his Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, destroyed Libya and assassinated its leader Moammar
Qadaffi. Clinton then famously laughed about it on TV. Libya is now holding
outdoor slave sales. It is a failed state, where once it was one of the
most advanced and stable countries in the region. Or Syria. The targeting
of the Assad government was a unanimous decision of both parties. Or
sanctions against Iran…again both parties. Or militarizing Africa (or
support for war criminal Paul Kagame), both parties. In fact, Democratic
presidents Obama and Clinton were far worse than Republicans in terms of
protecting western Capital in Africa and building up AFRICOM.

Or take the recent Democratic Party attack on the Trump/Kim Jong Un summit.
Ajamu Baraka wrote:

“If more proof was needed to persuade anyone that the Democrats are indeed
a war party, it was provided when Senator Chuck Schumer and other Democrat
leaders in the Senate engaged in a cynical stunt to stake out a position to
the right of John Bolton on the summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un.”

Schumer demanded terms that no nation anywhere on earth at any time in
history, could accept. Ergo he wanted this summit to fail. And that failure
then would make it easier to justify an invasion of the DPRK.

You see, the Democratic Party is the party of finance capital, of Wall
Street and the only difference from Republicans is that Democrats tend to
express themselves in the terms of identity politics. Trump’s presidency
expresses itself in the terms of nativist xenophobic racists. But honestly,
they all vote mostly the same.

“Obama’s electoral coalition was driven by the professional class that had
arisen to manage the various segments of the financialized economy. Since
they derive significant benefits from late capitalism, the professionals
eschew class-struggle based politics.”

–Peter Lavenia

Never mention class. Things that have some importance, such as marijuana
legalization were decidedly better under Democrats. And that certainly
matters. But remember, all those small incremental gains by Democrats did
little or nothing to change the staggering inequality of the system itself.
But people are terrorized. That is why Ocasio-Cortez is embraced so
uncritically. People are genuinely terrified. They are without protection
at work, and they are unprotected by any sort of comprehensive medical
program. They are unprotected from the militarized racist police forces of
every American city and town. A militarization it should be noted that
began in ernest under Obama.

But perhaps most important in any discussion of the Democratic Party are
their ties to the CIA.

Patrick Martin writes…

“An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives
from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department are
seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018
midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence personnel
into the legislature has no precedent in US political history. If the
Democrats capture a majority in the House of Representatives on November 6,
as widely predicted, candidates drawn from the military-intelligence
apparatus will comprise as many as half of the new Democratic members of
Congress.”

This is interesting for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that
the DNC does nothing to hide this but rather sees it a sure fire vote
getter.

Martin again:

“The total of such candidates for the Democratic nomination in the 102
districts is 221. Each has a website that gives biographical details, which
we have collected and reviewed for this report. It is notable that those
candidates with a record in the military-intelligence apparatus, as well as
civilian work for the State Department, Pentagon or National Security
Council, do not hide their involvement, particularly in the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. They clearly regard working as a CIA agent in Baghdad, an
Army special ops assassin in Afghanistan, or a planner for drone missile
warfare in the White House or Pentagon as a star on their résumé, rather
than something to conceal.”

Among these new candidates running as Democrats are former CIA operatives
(Abigail Spanberger), a military intelligence officer with two tours in
Iraq (Patrick Ryan), a naval intelligence officer, who also served in the
US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany (Jonathan Ebel), a deep cover op
for the CIA in Latin America ( Shelly Chauncey), a twenty three year Navy
Seal veteran with several tours in Iraq (Joel Butner), a Pentagon advisor
to David Petraeus (Andy Kim), a former member of the 82nd Airborne and part
of a Joint Special Operations Task Force on counter-terrorism in
Afghanistan (Jason Crow). This is just a sampling. There are also a host of
former State Department candidates, too…one example is (quoting Martin
again…)

“Sara Jacobs is another State Department official turned Clinton campaign
aide, working on “conflict zones in East and West Africa,” particularly the
campaign against Boko Haram in Nigeria, and helping to “spearhead President
Obama’s efforts to improve governance in the security sector of our
counterterrorism partners,” according to her campaign website. She was a
foreign policy adviser to the Clinton campaign and is now seeking the
Democratic nomination in California’s 49th District..”

But in fact there are forty some others. The Democratic Party is now the
party of the CIA and Pentagon, and in both cases with a heavy emphasis on
intelligence. Career military and CIA veterans make up the best financed of
Democratic Party candidates. Again, these bios are seen as a plus for the
DNC — and this in no small measure is the result of Hollywood film and TV.
The infiltration of Hollywood by the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI is now hardly
even a secret. Almost every show with anything to do with the military has
CIA advisors right there in the writers room. And if the story has to do
with cops, you can count on veteran law enforcement advisors, too.

The anti-Trump fervor is understandable, and justified, but the Democrats
are not the opposition. They are better spoken version of the same
Imperialist state. And domestically, these veteran CIA operatives and
military intel veterans are hardly going to embrace progressive causes.
They are hardly going to look to dismantle the racist militarized police
apparatus or challenge the racist judicial system. They are not going to
seek reforms for mass incarceration. Most of them have experience with
black sites and torture, with the pacification of entire populations, and
with all manner of counter insurgency tactics.

The Democratic Party is the party of affluence. And these candidates
reflect a growing hostility to the working class and a growing embrace of
conservative law and order values. And in that sense Ocasio-Cortez fits
right in.

Nick Pemberton wrote:

“The Democrats have engaged in the deregulation of the economy. They have
attacked unions. They have cut funding for public schools and replaced them
with prisons. They have promoted pipelines and wars for oil. They have
supported vicious trade deals that hurt workers and destroy the
environment. If the world was to run as is with Democrats in place of
Republicans we would still become extinct in the near future. If not by
nuclear annihilation, then by climate change.”

So, back to Ocasio-Cortez for a moment. Teodrose Fikre wrote:

*“*…year after year, election after election, we keep falling for the
latest fresh faces who promise to go to DC and drain the swamp of
corruption and nepotism. The results always end up the same way, hope being
paid back with hopelessness as the politicians we put our faith in sell
their souls in order to retain power and celebrity. This is how the
establishment remains fixed no matter who gets elected; the people in
charge are not the politicians we elect but the donors who fund their
campaigns and the insiders who determine rank and privileges within the
party infrastructure. ( ) No more voting for the lesser of two evils and no
more listening to people who try to convince you that supporting ideas
outside of the Democrat/Republican divide is wasted energy. Don’t fall for
the merry-go-round of personalities who keep being unleashed to sheepdog
voters back to this two-party racket.

PS. More than 90% of mainstream media is owned by six corporations (read
six people), they don’t allow true change agents to have access to the
airwaves. Be cautious and twice skeptical when unknown candidates are given
millions in free advertisement by the same interests they’re supposedly
fighting.”

Ocasio-Cortez was on Colbert, she was given a feature in Vogue. (Cynthia
McKinney, who has a good deal more integrity than almost anyone else in her
rotten party, was never invited on Cobert when she stood alone to call out
President Bush on his Carlyle Group links, Saudi connections, and illegal
the invasion of Iraq. Why? Not telegenic or perky enough?).

So let me summarize. The Democratic Party is now drawing heavily from
military intelligence, the CIA, Pentagon and State Department (with
specific emphasis on those with intelligence experience). These sorts of
backgrounds suggest most of these candidates have knowledge of propaganda
and psy-ops, as well as a basic value system that is consonant with
American exceptionalism. They know a lot, we presume, about marketing
strategies and about disinformation. So, is it not peculiar to anyone that
this new face of pseudo socialism pops up right now — literally out of
nowhere? See, to me it feels very Obama like. Its perception management
meets electoral long game strategic thinking. Honestly, all the talk of
keeping an eye on her (Ocasio-Cortez) and making sure she honors her
principles, etc…all of this feels wildly naive and almost delusional,
frankly. One has to learn to read the codes. And since it is a proven fact
that the Democrat Party is utterly corrupt, in bed with Wall Street and big
corporate entities in agriculture, telecoms, and pharmaceuticals, as well
as the military itself — why would one want to give a candidate FOR this
utterly corrupt party the benefit of the doubt?

Now on my bullshit meter (a term I don’t really like but whatever) the
needle went directly to red. In fact it broke and stuck in the red zone.
So, the subjective side is I just found everything about her fake. I
recoiled with that awful feeling of being faced with a fraud. Apparently
many did not have that response. But I did. Bernie was called a *sheepdog*.
The political slang for a left leaning candidate who cant and doesn’t want
to win but who will draw disaffected voters back into the party. Bernie
eventually endorsing Hillary Clinton, of course. I’m wondering why
Ocasio-Cortez is not so perceived? Except I suspect she does want to win
and to keep on winning. OC in 2024!!! That is what I think might well
happen. She ticks off all the boxes. She has to wait until she turns 35, if
I’m not mistaken, but this feels every bit a trial balloon. We shall see.

Meanwhile, here is something to support and make known
<https://incarceratedworkers.org/>.



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