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

[David Green]

This assumes that Democrats are "distinguishing" themselves, or whether the
fix is already in on a measure like Yemen, and the problem is to designate
those who will be helped politically by voting yea vs. those by voting nay.

DG

On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 2:25 PM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

>
> No, the ultra-left is definitely not *THE* reason for those things.
>
> But it's weighing in on the wrong side of the equation. Its intervention
> is counterproductive to the goal of reducing the harm caused by the Empire.
>
> It's promoting passivity and inaction, when we need action and engagement.
>
> We have a window right now to end the Yemen war.
>
> People who adhere to Steppling's ideology are unlikely to bother trying to
> end the war.
>
> Our path to ending the war crucially involves agitating with Democrats to
> pressure them to oppose the war and insist on ending it.
>
> This requires distinguishing between Democrats who are helping us,
> Democrats who are not helping us, and Democrats who are getting in our way.
>
> People who adhere to Steppling's ideology are unlikely to help with that,
> because they reject on ideological grounds the project of distinguishing
> between Democrats who are helping us and Democrats who are getting in our
> way.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> (202) 448-2898 x1
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 3:06 PM, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>> Is the ultra-left the reason both parties (and both administrations) have
>> been killing people in Yemen (and elsewhere)?
>>
>> Steppling’s article is obviously hastily written, but I’m afraid the
>> argument is accurate.
>>
>>
>> > On Jul 11, 2018, at 1:38 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss <
>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Why is this lazy, dishonest moron being celebrated here as an authority
>> - someone who can't even be bothered to learn and accurately report basic
>> facts?
>> >
>> > "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."
>> >
>> > This person can't even be bothered to accurately report how many
>> Democrats voted to table. Why is this person being celebrated here as an
>> authority? Why should anyone believe anything this person says?
>> >
>> > This is a big problem with the U.S. ultra-left. It's fundamentally
>> anti-intellectual. It celebrates assertions without evidence, when it likes
>> the conclusion that follows the assertions. You can't believe anything the
>> ultra-left says. They are lazy, sloppy liars. They just make stuff up and
>> repeat it and they don't care. The U.S. ultra-left is as bad as Trump.
>> >
>> > Here are the Democrats who voted to table. Let's see if anyone here can
>> count better than the moron being celebrated here as an authority.
>> >
>> > 15 Years After the Invasion of Iraq, Here Are the Dems Who Just Voted
>> for Endless War in Yemen
>> > Senators voted today to table a measure that would withdraw U.S.
>> support for the Saudi-led onslaught.
>> > BY SARAH LAZARE
>> > MARCH 20, 2018
>> >
>> http://inthesetimes.com/article/21001/Yemen-war-iraq-democrats-saudi-arabia-senate-menendez
>> >
>> > ===
>> >
>> > Robert Naiman
>> > Policy Director
>> > Just Foreign Policy
>> > www.justforeignpolicy.org
>> > naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>> > (202) 448-2898 x1
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 1:11 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <
>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> > - www.counterpunch.org - https://www.counterpunch.org -
>> > The Wisdom of Serpents
>> > Posted By John Steppling On July 11, 2018 @ 2:01 am In articles
>> 2015,Leading Article | Comments Disabled
>> >
>> > Photo by P Bear | CC BY 2.0
>> >
>> > “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.
>> >
>> >
>> > Article printed from www.counterpunch.org: https://www.counterpunch.org
>> >
>> > URL to article:
>> https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/11/the-wisdom-of-serpents/
>> >
>> > Click here    to print.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> >
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