[Peace-discuss] By November, Let’s Make Biden the Harold Macmillan of Imperial Commitment Shedding

[Robert Naiman]

"I don't think you had to say that explicitly, it's implied in getting Joe
Biden to
have the power he'd need to carry out your plan. This means you're shifting
from an
explicit call to vote for Biden (which you can't afford particularly
posting to a
peace group) to an implicit call to vote for him."

What a hoot. Do you think I'm afraid to say what my views are, in this
venue or any other?

You must have me confused with somebody else.


On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 9:15 PM J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss wrote:
> > Note what I haven’t said here, anywhere. I have not encouraged anyone to
> > vote for Joe Biden. I have not encouraged anyone to vote against Joe
> Biden.
> > I have been Switzerland on that question here.
>
> I don't think you had to say that explicitly, it's implied in getting Joe
> Biden to
> have the power he'd need to carry out your plan. This means you're
> shifting from an
> explicit call to vote for Biden (which you can't afford particularly
> posting to a
> peace group) to an implicit call to vote for him.
>
> You're asking people to trade away the only thing they have -- their vote
> -- in
> exchange for doing things he's already pledged not to do like support
> Medicare for
> All (which Biden has already pledged to veto if it came to him as POTUS
> per
>
> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/biden-says-he-wouldd-veto-medicare-for-all-as-coronavirus-focuses-attention-on-health.html)
>
> which is also something the Democratic Party also apparently will fight to
> disallow.
>
> House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not brought any Medicare for All bill to
> the floor of
> the House. Other Democrats therefore get to carry on with their
> hypocrisies like AOC
> talking to the public and to shamefully uncritical journalists like Amy
> Goodman about
> how much we need individual payments from the government after she likely
> voted for
> the CARES Act (which was a big business bailout bill). Or Democrats taking
> HMO money
> and chatting up Medicare for All while depending on Pelosi to never call
> them to
> account for that.
>
> There's no real reason to think that we need Biden in office to effect the
> majoritarian changes we need to see. What we need isn't partisan calls to
> action
> benefiting one of the two 1% parties over the other. What we need is a
> practical
> strategy organizing around a specific set of actionable goals including
> (but not
> limited to) enacting Medicare for All. I don't have such a plan to hand,
> but I think
> the increased immiseration brought on by both 1% parties will help focus
> people's
> time and put aside such ridiculous distraction as wondering who is better,
> Trump or
> Biden.
>
> The Democrats don't care if Biden wins. It's likely that either Trump or
> Biden will
> be the next POTUS and either way the elites get what they want -- a
> reliable neocon &
> neolib in Biden (now with obviously decreased mental capacity) or Trump
> who has been
> (to borrow a phrase) brought to heel by years of Russiagate. An organized
> public will
> need to challenge whomever occupies the White House.
>
> > Even if we go hide in a cave for the next seven months, the odds are
> good that Joe
> > Biden will be the next President of the United States.
> This is an evidenceless claim. Polling on the election is almost
> meaningless right
> now but if one insists on reading something into such polling which
> currently puts
> Biden a few points ahead of Trump, it's worth noting that Hillary Clinton
> had higher
> poll ratings at this point than Biden does. What stands out to most voters
> is what
> happened in 2016 where most establishment-friendly news outlets gave
> Hillary Clinton
> odds on being the winner and yet Donald Trump was duly elected instead
> (for reasons
> the establishment-friendly media won't dare get into hence we get endless
> Russiagate
> lies). We've yet to see a proper reckoning and apology for such obviously
> shoddy
> reporting from so many outlets, or giving credit where credit is due to
> those few who
> accurately predicted that Trump would win (one exception is local News
> from Neptune
> guest Ed Mandel who accurately predicted Trump's win and has rightly
> received credit
> for his correct assessment on-air).
>
> > In the opening innings of the fight he led towards universal health
> insurance,
> > Barack Obama said: the health insurance companies have to be at the
> table.
> In other words, Obama did not fight for making our current single-payer
> Medicare
> system universal (covering all Americans). He fought for the HMOs and won
> with a
> healthcare plan written by the HMOs which was largely what RomneyCare
> offered
> (suggesting that as far as health care goes it wouldn't have mattered if
> Romney had
> won). Even when HR676 (the late John Conyers' Medicare for All bill) was
> ready to be
> brought to the floor of the House for a vote and when the Democrats had a
> majority in
> the House & Senate we didn't get Medicare for All. The situation we see
> with Medicare
> for All bills is indistinguishable from the HMOs recognizing that having
> such bills
> written and ready to bring to the floor is a prerequisite distraction for
> continuing
> to let HMOs dictate US healthcare delivery.
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>
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