[Peace-discuss] Counterpunch: “Say It Ain’t So, Joe:” the Latest Neoliberal from the War and Wall Street Party

[Robert Naiman]

Look, even the Democrat-bashing hard left at Counterpunch has to concede
that we accomplished something on the Saudi war in Yemen.

[...]
It remains to be seen if Democrats, and especially the Wall Street and war
fans in the Democratic Party can muster anything like the pushback in
Congress to Saudi Arabia’s immoral and illegal war in Yemen. The history of
the two-party duopoly and their ties to the military-industrial-financial
complex do not bode well. The Democrats’ record on war predates the attacks
of September 2001.
[...]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/20/say-it-aint-so-joe-the-latest-neoliberal-from-the-war-and-wall-street-party/

MARCH 20, 2019“Say It Ain’t So, Joe:” the Latest Neoliberal from the War
and Wall Street Party
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/20/say-it-aint-so-joe-the-latest-neoliberal-from-the-war-and-wall-street-party/>
by HOWARD LISNOFF <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/howard-lisnoff/>

Like an annoying rash that could become dangerous, the Wall Street and war
wing of the Democratic Party is back for yet another reprise in its run in
the 2020 presidential primary and election. Think these representatives of
wealth and war and power went away with the mid-evening swing toward doom
of the New York Times polls on election night 2016? Think again… Hillary
Clinton has been supplanted by Joe Biden. Power and wealth will not give up
because those forces have an almost psychopathic hold on a wing of the
Democratic Party, like an out-of-control vehicle careening to certain doom
down a mountainside.

In the 1970s, Biden was a fierce opponent of school busing toward the end
of eliminating segregation in schools (”As Joe Biden Hints at presidential
Run, Andrew Cockburn Looks at His ‘Disastrous Legislative Legacy,’”
<https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/13/as_joe_biden_hints_at_presidential>
Democracy
Now, March 13, 2019).

During the 1980s and 1990s, Biden became a law and order legislator,
teaming up with none other than Strom Thurmond and Bill Clinton to put
people away and fueling the epidemic of mass jailing. Readers know the
result that those “crime” fighting sprees had on the black community.

Then, during the confirmation process of Clarence Thomas, Biden refused to
call witnesses that would have supported Anita Hill’s testimony about
Thomas.

Biden made it impossible for students to discharge student debt, a move
that saddles students with a lifelong burden of indebtedness as the price
of a college or technical education, especially if students have not struck
it rich in a global economy.

Biden loves the banks and credit card companies, many that make their
corporate homes in Biden’s tax-lenient state of Delaware. And in holding
those accountable, who tanked the economy in 2007-2008, Biden let them off
on a free ride while ordinary people suffered and the housing debacle
exploded.

In an opinion piece masquerading as fact, the Guardian reports in “Joe
Biden faces tough choices on fundraising for potential 2020 run,”
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/14/joe-biden-2020-elections-run-fundraising-questions?CMP=share_btn_link>(March
14, 2019), that “middle-class Joe” faces hurdles because of his ties to
Wall Street in an increasingly progressive Democratic Party.

And here’s Joe Biden on the war for regime change in Iraq in “Biden’s
votes, words on Iraq become hurdle in 2020,”
<https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/429031-bidens-votes-words-on-iraq-become-hurdle-in-2020>
(The Hill, February 8, 2019): “Biden backed the resolution giving former
President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq, and he also praised
the president in a Senate floor speech at the time for his handling of the
case for war.” For decades, Democrats in Congress (and in the presidency)
have almost universally supported war and the preparations for war. Whether
this policy position changes with the Congressional Progressive Caucus
remains to be seen, but the vast majority of Democrats have a really bad record
on war. Besides the nationalistic chauvinism involved in war, there is the
fealty to war industries among Democrats.

It remains to be seen if Democrats, and especially the Wall Street and war
fans in the Democratic Party can muster anything like the pushback in
Congress to Saudi Arabia’s immoral and illegal war in Yemen. The history of
the two-party duopoly and their ties to the military-industrial-financial
complex do not bode well. The Democrats’ record on war predates the attacks
of September 2001.

With Biden’s record on war, integration, “crime,” a woman’s right to work
unmolested, the Great Recession, and banks and credit card companies,
readers might think Joe Biden is a throwback to the worst tendencies of
neoliberal Democrats, and they’d be right on the money!

*Howard Lisnoff* is a freelance writer. He is the author of Against the
Wall: Memoir of a Vietnam-Era War Resister (2017).

===

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