From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Nov 1 23:54:58 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2020 15:54:58 -0800 Subject: [Peace] After election event downtown Champaign Message-ID: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 at 5 PM PST 48?68?F Partly Cloudy Downtown Champaign, University and Neil Public ? Hosted by Party for Socialism and Liberation - Champaign-Urbana This election cycle has shown us, the poor, working, and oppressed people of this country, that for a real democracy that takes people's needs seriously, we need a whole new system. Neither party and neither candidate support any of the wildly popular measures that would benefit us: free and universal healthcare, a right to housing and utilities, free education, and saving the planet. Join us to build the serious alternative, power to the working and oppressed people of this country, socialism. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Nov 1 23:58:21 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2020 15:58:21 -0800 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: After election event downtown Champaign Correction/Central time References: Message-ID: > > Wednesday, November 4, 2020 at 5 PM Central time > 48?68?F Partly Cloudy > Downtown Champaign, University and Neil > Public ? Hosted by Party for Socialism and Liberation - Champaign-Urbana > This election cycle has shown us, the poor, working, and oppressed people of this country, that for a real democracy that takes people's needs seriously, we need a whole new system. Neither party and neither candidate support any of the wildly popular measures that would benefit us: free and universal healthcare, a right to housing and utilities, free education, and saving the planet. Join us to build the serious alternative, power to the working and oppressed people of this country, socialism. > _______________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 2 18:09:18 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2020 10:09:18 -0800 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Violence After The Election Will Only Benefit The Powerful: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix References: <139971992.9092.0@wordpress.com> Message-ID: > > New post on Caitlin Johnstone > > > Violence After The Election Will Only Benefit The Powerful: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative?Matrix by Caitlin Johnstone > Any violence arising from the US election or its aftermath will only benefit the powerful, will be used to justify authoritarian agendas which serve the powerful, and will in all probability have been initiated by the powerful. > > There are plenty of arguments to be made for situations in which intelligent application of force by the citizenry could have good results. Killing each other over which oligarch crony will be the president is not one of those situations about which such arguments can be made. > > Please everybody stay cool and live to fight another day. > > ~ > > Most of the Democratic establishment's arguments are basically "Vote Biden so we can stop deliberately psychologically brutalizing you with nonstop hysterical clickbait about Trump." It's just a more complicated version of "I'll stop hitting you when you give me what I want." > > ~ > > Russiagate is the largest clickbait operation in history. It's a clickbait operation conducted by the entire western political/media class upon the whole world. Only difference is instead of just making money it was designed to reignite the cold war and make money. > > ~ > > The probable next elected leader of the most powerful government on earth frequently exhibits signs that his brain is literally dying, and it ranks like twelfth on his list of flaws. > > ~ > > I don't know that the Hunter Biden October surprise shows anything more scandalous than you'd expect for any major US presidential nominee. I do know that the uniform conspiracy of silence from the mass media about it is uniquely scandalous and says bad things about the future. > > ~ > > All of the most influential anti-Trumpers support all of Trump's most evil policies. > > ~ > > The establishment is getting everything it wants out of the Trump administration and if you think you're sticking it to them by supporting him you're just as brainwashed as the people you criticize. > > ~ > > MSM isn't truthful. It isn't even partisan. At least if it were partisan it would've spent the last four years attacking Trump for his warmongering and persecution of Assange, which would have been very politically damaging to him. It's been lying by omission to Trump's benefit, because it isn't biased against Trump, it's biased for the oligarchic empire. > > ~ > > If you ever want to understand what the US power alliance is doing on the world stage, just think about what it would need to do in order to ensure continual unipolar global domination, then ignore all the excuses it makes up for doing those exact things. > > ~ > > The US empire is the creepiest thing in the world. This smiley faced serial killer monologuing about freedom and democracy and churning out movies about how fun and happy it is while butchering human beings all around the world. The more you think about it the creepier it gets. > > ~ > > Liberal media: Glenn Greenwald is an evil monster because he goes on Fox. > > Greenwald: Well can I go on your shows instead then? > > Liberal media: LOL no. > > ~ > > I can't believe there's still a debate about whether leftists should go on huge conservative platforms or just wait eternally for a call from the liberal platforms who hate them. Yes, getting leftist values into the mainstream by any means is better than being ignored. Duh. > > Letting leftist ideas and values remain marginalized under the notion that you're "legitimizing" people who already have audiences of millions is the absolute dumbest thing you can do. Get the ideas out there if for no other reason than to force the bastards to push back on them. > > The left will never have a meaningful movement as long as it's relegated to the unseen fringes, and there are people whose entire job is figuring out how to keep them there. Don't give them your marginalization for free; at least make them come out in the open and fight for it. > > Refusing to let leftist ideas and values be heard by conservative audiences just deprives conservatives of something they need, and it deprives liberal audiences as well since if you can get your point into the mainstream the liberal platforms have to talk about it too. > > ~ > > Antiwar journalists should never go on Fox to share urgent information with a large audience. They should instead wait until a respectable outlet like CNN will have them on, and keep waiting, and just keep waiting and waiting until we all die in the nuclear winter together. > > ~ > > Leftists are immature children who don't understand the importance of being practical and making compromises. The real adults are the ones who advocate strategies that never work, believe whatever the TV tells them, and support murderous power structures who constantly destroy lives at home and abroad in the name of an imaginary economic system. > > ~ > > If you were sent to a foreign civilization to report on what they do, you would slowly start absorbing their language, culture and customs, and gradually their strange ways would become the norm for you. Anyway, that's what goes wrong with journalists who report on politicians. > > ~ > > Anyone you ask will tell you they think world peace would be great, then as soon as you start talking about rolling back the worst disruptors of world peace they start experiencing cognitive dissonance. > > ~ > > In an empire that is held together by propaganda brainwashing, freeing your mind is literally an act of insurrection. That's why truth tellers are being increasingly treated like terrorists. > > ~ > > An entire globe-spanning empire depends on the ability of the ruling class to keep "unity" an impotent feel-good buzzword instead of something people do to remove their oppressors. > > ____________________ > > Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet merchandise , buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I?m trying to do with this platform, click here . Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I?ve written) in any way they like free of charge. > > > Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 > > #trump , #biden , #caitlin-johnstone , #election , #empire , #journalism , #media , #narrative-matrix , #politics > Caitlin Johnstone | November 2, 2020 at 2:57 am | Tags: #Trump , biden , caitlin johnstone , election , empire , journalism , media , narrative matrix , Politics | Categories: Article | URL: https://wp.me/p9tj6M-2mE > Comment See all comments > Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Caitlin Johnstone. > Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions . > > Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: > https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/11/02/violence-after-the-election-will-only-benefit-the-powerful-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Nov 3 00:08:27 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2020 18:08:27 -0600 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?Robert_Fisk_=2812_July_1946_=E2=80=93_30_Octob?= =?utf-8?q?er_2020=29_has_died?= Message-ID: <1401b624-234f-0ab5-6b5c-bce229ce643a@forestfield.org> From John Pilger's Twitter.com account at https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1323214193441603585 > Robert Fisk has died. I pay warmest tribute to one of the last great reporters. > The weasel word 'controversial' appears in even his own paper, The Independent, > whose pages he honoured. He went against the grain and told the truth, > spectacularly. Journalism has lost the bravest. He was 74 and he died in Dublin. From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Nov 3 17:01:45 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2020 11:01:45 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Recommended videos for AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV Message-ID: Here are the video suggestions I've sent to Jason Liggett of UPTV to run during AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and the final two are for playing in Labor's World View TV's timeslot. As before, I've asked Jason to prioritize AWARE member suggested videos ahead of my suggestions for AOTA/NFN and to prioritize anything David Johnson prefers for Labor's World View TV. Thanks. -J Consortium News https://youtube.com/watch?v=YGAL0GcaN5s -- (1h51m24s)"A Terrible Choice - Chris Hedges, Rick Wolff, Jill Stein, and Mike Gravel" on the presidential option before us. https://youtube.com/watch?v=JKMhf0CUd9o -- (59m56s) on voter suppression https://youtube.com/watch?v=s-mTqXP4bGw -- (14m01s) The Purged: The Vanished Voters of Trump's America (goes along with the voter suppression) -- report from Greg Palast on whose votes don't count, which voters are being disallowed from making a vote. RT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I2hqcOhmDE https://cdnv.rt.com/files/2020.10/5f9d3dbb203027154b630bea.mp4 -- (27m19s) Afshin Rattansi interviews comic and political commentator Jimmy Dore on "why Joe Biden?s record as vice president and as a senator is worse than Donald Trump?s. He also talks about Biden?s responsibility for the Crime Bill, leading to the US having the world?s biggest prison population; Kamala Harris? role in upholding the prison-industrial complex; whether Donald Trump is better than Joe Biden; the alleged smearing of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard during the primaries; why Biden won?t move to the left if he becomes president; and much more. Also, former senior adviser to Bernie Sanders, Phillip Agnew on the recent protests in Philadelphia after the police killing of another African American, Donald Trump?s ?bungled? response to the coronavirus pandemic, why black and poor people in the US have a poor choice on both sides, why he believes progressives and Americans should vote for Joe Biden despite his record, the shadow of McCarthyism over Joe Biden and the United States, what corporations and private banks can expect from a Biden presidency" (quote from Going Underground). https://cdnv.rt.com/files/2020.10/5f9d1c1685f54011604d8125.mp4 -- (27m32s) Afshin Rattansi interviews "President Donald Trump?s top coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, from the White House. He discusses President Trump?s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and criticisms of the response, his belief that lockdowns were a failure of public policy, Bill Gates calling him a ?pseudo-expert? and ?off the rails?, differences with Anthony Fauci who called him an ?outlier? on the task force, and why he believes the damage of lockdowns is greater than the benefits for Americans. He also details why he believes the economy should reopen, why models predicting 500,000+ more deaths in America are wrong, why South Asian nations handled the pandemic better than the United States" (quote from Going Underground). This contains the interview that Atlas later apologized for (https://twitter.com/SWAtlasHoover/status/1322962638012358657) saying: > I recently did an interview with RT and was unaware they are a registered foreign > agent. I regret doing the interview and apologize for allowing myself to be taken > advantage of. I especially apologize to the national security community who is > working hard to defend us. In https://on.rt.com/attn RT explained what the interview covered and gave their response to Atlas' apology. This article included: > No explanation was offered for how voicing opinions on a Russian-funded > television outlet might jeopardize US national security. None was needed. > > Democrats and mainstream media outlets have repeatedly squashed discussion of > undesirable information or viewpoints, by alleging a nefarious Russian plot behind > the report. Such tactics were used, for example, to dismiss damning information > about the Hillary Clinton campaign ? released by WikiLeaks in 2016 ? and recent > revelations about alleged influence-peddling by Democratic presidential candidate > Joe Biden's family. I thought it would be better to understand the interview by seeing the interview itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I2hqcOhmDE -- (27m 5s) Jordan Chariton interviews Chris Hedges on putting Joe Biden in context including a sharp review of Biden's record. Thanks to Karen Aram for this recommendation. https://youtube.com/watch?v=GxSN4ip_F6M -- (1h58m) Chris Hedges on "The Politics of Cultural Despair", a talk he gave to a mostly empty audience, on what comes when the political choices the establishment puts in front of us are horrible. https://youtube.com/watch?v=XOKhl75chaY -- (2h21m56s) "On the eve of the Civil War Election: The Breakdown of American Democracy and the Fight for Socialism" from the Socialist Equality Party and World Socialist Web Site which stresses how the capitalistic countries have fought COVID-19 and where that fight has gone horribly wrong when viewed from the perspective of the death count and the effect on the living workers in those countries. Regarding Amazon on unions and how Amazon treats workers amidst Coronavirus https://youtube.com/watch?v=uRpwVwFxyk4 -- (29m03s) Amazon's Union-busting Training Video (the anti-union propaganda which Amazon told Whole Foods management in 2018 which was leaked to the public). https://youtube.com/watch?v=V3MuVRza6qs -- (50m26s) Christian Smalls, fired Amazon worker, on how Coronavirus is being dealt with by Amazon and Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man. This is an audio interview with a still for the video. This should go together with the previous anti-unionization video as they both cover workers backing actions in an attempt to compel management to treat workers better. From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 20:27:50 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2020 15:27:50 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Let the Long-Delayed Democratic Party Leadership Accountability Conversation Begin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Let the Long-Delayed Democratic Party Leadership Accountability Conversation Begin Summary: Democrats in America need new leadership. It?s time for Nancy Pelosi to retire. Let?s have an open race for Speaker of the House, not another anointment and coronation of someone ?inevitable.? === After Hillary Clinton failed to defeat Trump in 2016 - following a primary in which we were told that Hillary was ?inevitable? and that we had to swallow our concerns about Hillary?s warmongering and corporate globalist trade policies that caused us to support Obama in 2008 against Hillary, because supposedly only Hillary could beat Trump and supposedly Hillary was guaranteed to beat Trump - there should have been a thoroughgoing, bottom-to-top, party-wide leadership accountability conversation in the Democratic Party. There wasn?t. The Clinton-Pelosi-megadonor oligarch forces who control the ?commanding heights? of the national Democratic Party, in order to maintain their power in the national Democratic Party without accountability, changed the channel of the conversation in the national Democratic Party from their own spectacular failures to ?Russia, Russia, Russia.? According to the ?Russia, Russia, Russia? narrative which was promoted by these forces, the reason that Trump won in 2016 was because of Russian interference in the election, not because of the systemic failures and corruption of the national Democratic Party leadership, exemplified by their failure to take a clear line against Obama?s wildly unpopular TPP trade agreement - which was opposed by all of labor and all enviro groups, two key Democratic base constituencies - in the campaign against Trump and by Obama?s spectacular failure to deliver on his 2008 campaign promise to ?not just end the Iraq War but end the mindset that got us into war in the first place,? which promise was a key reason that he defeated Hillary in the 2008 primary and thereby got to be President in the first place. Let us now begin the real, thorough, bottom-to-top party-wide Democratic Party Leadership Accountability Conversation that should have happened in 2016 when supposedly ?inevitable? and supposedly ?invincible? Hillary failed to defeat Trump. Once again the national Democratic Party leadership has spectacularly failed Democratic Party base activists - the small donors, the people who make phone calls and knock on doors. Biden may yet eke it out in the election for POTUS. But even if he does, it should never have been this close. If the stakes were as high as Democrats claimed - and indeed, I completely agree with other Democrats that the stakes were that high - it should never have been this close. And then there is the question of what happened and didn?t happen in the elections for the Senate and the House. The people who control the ?commanding heights? of the national Democratic Party are consistently making the wrong strategic calls from the point of view of the interests of base Democratic activists. Since, besides money, the interests of base Democratic activists are apparently the only things that the people who control the ?commanding heights? of the national Democratic Party can ever be made to care about, it?s the only vantage point of critique worth discussing now. Look what just happened in Maine. Why didn?t Biden have sufficient coattails to elect Sara Gideon? Why couldn?t Sara Gideon close the deal with Maine voters who were voting for Biden against Trump? According to the people who control the ?commanding heights? of the national Democratic Party, Susan Collins was supposed to be super-vulnerable because she voted to confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, supposedly lethal to her ?pro-choice Republican? brand, and because she voted to acquit Trump on the Ukraine impeachment allegations, supposedly lethal to her ?independent Republican? brand. How did the people who control the ?commanding heights? of the national Democratic Party get this so wrong? Why were they so certain that ?abortion rights plus Supreme Court plus Ukraine impeachment? was a winning electoral formula against Susan Collins in Maine when it so clearly wasn?t? Who called the play on Ukraine impeachment? Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. Why this play, and no other? What was accomplished for Democrats by this play, if anything? There were other choices available. There was the choice of not impeaching Trump at all, which Pelosi herself argued in favor of for a long time. Given the choice to impeach Trump, there were other things to impeach him on, like domestic corruption, domestic abuse of power, the unconstitutional Saudi war in Yemen, which every Democrat in Congress had voted to end. Why Ukraine? Why something that almost no Americans outside the Beltway care about? I have a theory: because Nancy Pelosi is fundamentally unaccountable to Democrats outside the Beltway who don?t give a lot of money to the Democratic Party. Given the choice to impeach Trump, her choice was to appeal to the moneyed interests inside the Beltway who want more aggressive foreign policies, not to the interests of base Democratic activists outside the Beltway, to whom she is fundamentally unaccountable. To be clear: I?m not criticizing the Ukraine impeachment on the merits. I watched the hearings. If I were a Senator, I would have voted to convict on the merits. I?m saying that given the decision to impeach, Pelosi had a strategic political choice to make for how to impeach Trump, and everybody in Washington who ever makes such a decision always tries to think through the political implications, whether they succeed in doing so or not, even when they?re doing the right thing for the right reasons. There?s no question that Pelosi thought she was thinking through the political implications at the time, she spoke about these issues openly at the time, as she often does, in speaking with inside the Beltway political actors and reporters, as other Washington actors often do. As a choice of political strategy, the Ukraine impeachment was a Big Fail in terms of the interests of base Democratic activists. It did not recruit significant Republican support, which Pelosi herself had correctly argued was a key criterion for effective use of the impeachment weapon. Democrats who impeached Nixon bent over backwards to attract Republican support, even though Democrats had big majorities in Congress at the time, so the impeachment wouldn?t appear ?partisan.? Ukraine impeachment attracted almost no Republican support. Why? Because Ukraine policy is something that almost no people outside the Beltway care about, so there was no serious pressure on Republicans from their constituents to support it. The only serious pressure that was coming on Republicans from constituents was from Trump supporters. So of course they went with Trump. Likewise, the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were a Big Fail in terms of the interests of base Democratic activists. They mobilized Republicans much more than they mobilized Democrats. You see Republicans complaining bitterly about how Kavanaugh was treated a thousand times more than you see Democrats celebrating how Democrats gave Kavanaugh a hard time. Did you notice how in the recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Democrats focused much more on the fate of Obamacare, an economic populist issue, than on abortion rights, an identity politics issue? Why do you think that was? Because there was a national election coming up. The economic populist issues are like type O blood. They work everywhere in the country. Abortion rights doesn?t work everywhere as an electoral issue. It doesn?t even work with Democrats in southern Illinois. When Dick Durbin was in the House, he was anti-choice. Do you know why? Because he?s from southern Illinois, where the Democrats are anti-choice. When Democrats are campaigning in southern Illinois, they?re not going out of their way to brag about being pro-choice. Since 1993, when President Bill Clinton crammed NAFTA down our throats after opposing NAFTA as a bad deal when he was running as a candidate against Bush the First, whose deal it was, base Democratic activists have been told that we have to suck it up for the people who control the ?commanding heights? of the national Democratic Party, people who have brought us terrible trade deals and terrible wars, because of abortion rights and the Supreme Court. Well, how did that strategy work out? How did that trade-off work out? We certainly got the terrible trade deals and the terrible wars. How are abortion rights and the Supreme Court doing now? Not so well, eh? What exactly did we get in exchange for the terrible trade deals and the terrible wars? >From the point of view of the interests of base Democratic activists, the small donors, the people who make phone calls and knock on doors, Nancy Pelosi?s top political priorities as Speaker of the House are electing House Democrats and electing Democratic Presidents. At long last, let us openly acknowledge to each other that Nancy Pelosi just isn?t very good at this. She?s very good at raising money from megadonor oligarchs and spreading it around, nobody disputes that. But Bernie proved that you don?t need megadonor oligarch money to win elections, and Bloomberg proved that you can throw a lot of megadonor oligarch money around and have nothing to show for it. Bloomberg just spent $100 million in Florida. What does he have to show for it? Biden under-performed Hillary against Trump with Latinos in Miami-Dade, which is why Biden lost Florida to Trump. How come Bloomberg?s $100 million didn?t do anything to help with that? The pollsters got it wrong again. Why? I have a theory. There is another name for Trump voters who are not ?traditional Republicans.? We used to call them ?working class Democrats.? We used to call people who don?t have college degrees ?workers? and ?working class people.? These are the former Democrats in the Midwest who the people who control the commanding heights of the national Democratic Party abandoned when they crammed NAFTA and the WTO down our throats and tried to cram the TPP down our throats. Union households in Ohio voted for Trump. Why? Because many of these people justly feel abandoned and betrayed by the people who control the commanding heights of the national Democratic Party. I?m from the Midwest. I lived in the Midwest most of my adult life. I was a Democratic elected official, I was a Democratic precinct captain, I was a union organizer. I was with the Staley workers in Decatur when they were locked out by Tate & Lyle for fighting to maintain an eight hour work day and a safe plant that they wouldn?t die in. I know these people. I walked on their picket lines, I got arrested with them. I drove two Staley workers from Decatur to New York City for the AFL-CIO convention that elected John Sweeney to replace the old guard. One of the grievances that drove Sweeney?s election was that the old guard hadn?t fought hard enough to stop Bill Clinton from cramming NAFTA down our throats. I tried to warn the national Democrats about Trump and Democratic trade policy and the Midwest. Others did too. AFL-CIO President Trumka did too. When Brexit happened in the UK, Trumka gave a speech: ?It could happen here.? Then CPC co-chair, later runner-up DNC Chair candidate Keith Ellison tried to warn national Democrats that Trump could win. Keith Ellison is, among other things, an economic populist and an organizer and a BernieBro from Minnesota. When Trump won the Republican nomination, Trump gave a victory speech in Indiana. The entire speech was about trade policy, none of the ?nasty stuff? personal attacks Democrats associate with Trump, all about NAFTA and the TPP and trade policy. I tried to warn national Democrats. National Democratic leaders didn?t listen. They didn?t listen because they care more about the megadonor oligarch money that funds them than they care about working people in the Midwest. Why do pollsters keep underestimating these Trump voters? I have a theory. Because they?re so disaffected and alienated, they?re only coming out for anti-establishment economic populist candidates like Trump and Bernie and Paul Wellstone and Jesse Jackson. So they don?t look to pollsters like ?likely voters.? It has always the dream of the electoral Left to ?expand the electorate,? get disaffected and alienated working class people to vote, use that to win elections, use the win to deliver stuff to the disaffected and alienated working class people to prove to them that their participation can matter so they keep participating. Trump the Grinch stole the electoral Left?s Holy Grail. He expanded the electorate by railing against the elites. We could get a lot of these people to vote for Democrats. But they?d have to be economic populist anti-establishment Democrats, not the elitist Clinton-Pelosi identity politics Democrats. The elitist Clinton-Pelosi identity politics Democrats don?t want the formerly Democratic Trump voters to participate in the Democratic Party, because they?d make demands that the elitist Clinton-Pelosi identity politics Democrats don?t want to deliver, because that would upset the megadonor oligarchs who fund the elitist Clinton-Pelosi identity politics Democrats. What is Trump?s basic message? ?The reason you?re struggling is that elites who don?t care about you are selling out the country to foreigners.? Look at the sweep of world history. That?s not intrinsically a right-wing message. How did the Communists come to power in Russia and China and Cuba? How did Mossadeq come to power in Iran? How did the Sandinistas come to power in Nicaragua, how did Lula come to power in Brazil, how did Evo come to power in Bolivia? ?The reason you?re struggling is that elites who don?t care about you are selling out the country to foreigners.? But of course that?s also how the Fascists came to power in Germany and Italy. Populism is a baseball bat that can be swung both lefty and righty. It doesn?t have to be racist. It doesn?t have to be xenophobic. Outrage can be focused like a laser beam on the domestic elites who want to sell the country out to foreigners. Those domestic elites are as American as apple pie. They look and talk just like me and most of the people I went to public school with. They?re just a lot richer and more powerful than we are. And mostly they live in the Eastern and Pacific time zones, not in the Central Time Zone. What did Harry Truman call it? ?God?s Time.? It?s easy to be a progressive economic populist without being racist or xenophobic. When Jesse Jackson was running for President, he liked to tell the following story. Two Iowa farmers are talking. One of them says, ?I like the things this guy Jesse Jackson is saying. He?s talking about saving our family farms. He?s talking about reining in and re-regulating the Wall Street banksters. He?s talking about making it easier for our little kids to see a doctor and for our high school kids to go to college.? The second Iowa farmer says, ?Yeah, I like what that guy Jesse Jackson is saying too. But that guy Jesse Jackson is Black.? ?That?s true,? the first farmer says. ?That guy Jesse Jackson IS Black. On the other hand, the banksters who foreclosed on our farms were White.? The core reason that the Clinton-Pelosi megadonor oligarchs don?t want Democrats to swing this bat is NOT because the Clinton-Pelosi megadonor oligarchs are anti-racist, NOT because the Clinton-Pelosi megadonor oligarchs are anti-xenophobic, but because the Clinton-Pelosi megadonor oligarchs are elites who want to sell the country out to foreigners. Their fake opposition to racism and their fake opposition to xenophobia are a subterfuge for their real agenda, which is to sell the country out to foreigners. Democrats in America need new leadership. It?s time for Nancy Pelosi to retire. Let?s have an open race for Speaker of the House, not another anointment and coronation of someone ?inevitable.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Fri Nov 6 15:43:51 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2020 10:43:51 -0500 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?Pelosi_Should_Retire_Gracefully_Like_Lowey=2E_?= =?utf-8?q?Let=E2=80=99s_Draft_Karen_Bass_for_Speaker_of_the_House?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Pelosi Should Retire Gracefully Like Lowey. Let?s Draft Karen Bass for Speaker of the House Looks like Joe Biden is going to be POTUS. The People Have Spoken. The Lesser of Two Evils, Back By Popular Demand. As a woman in Massachusetts put it: ?I already voted for Biden. Do I still have to watch the debate?? If we want to have a more just foreign policy in a Biden Administration, if we want to have less war and more peace, less guns and more butter, our next best opportunities for leverage are to stop Chris Coons from being Anointed as Secretary of State and to stop Nancy Pelosi from being re-Anointed as Speaker of the House. Biden has some good instincts. He was against the Libya War. He was against the ?surge? in Afghanistan. He hates the Saudi regime. He promised repeatedly to end the Saudi war in Yemen and agreed with Bernie to put that promise in the Democratic Platform. But if we want Biden?s good instincts to flourish in a Biden Administration, we have to block Chris Coons and retire Speaker Pelosi, who would try to thwart Biden's good instincts. I?ve been watching this front closely since 2006, ever since Nancy Pelosi was anointed Speaker of the House the first time. Here is the pattern: as Speaker, every time Nancy Pelosi has the opportunity to choose between more war and more peace, Nancy Pelosi chooses more war. Every time she has the opportunity to choose between more guns and more butter, Nancy Pelosi chooses more guns. A key factor in Nancy Pelosi?s rise to Speaker was her ability to raise money from megadonor oligarchs and spread that money around. Some of the megadonor oligarchs who fund Nancy Pelosi want more war and less peace, more guns and less butter. That?s a key reason that Nancy Pelosi is like this. Nancy Pelosi was born in 1940. When she was twenty, trying to understand the world, it was 1960. I strongly oppose the claim that anyone is too old to serve, as I strongly oppose the claim that anyone is too young to serve. But it?s good to have a mix. Our worldviews are strongly shaped by our life experiences when we were young. I was born in 1965. When I was twenty, it was 1985. I?ll always be strongly shaped by those experiences. I?ll always see the world differently from people who didn?t have those experiences, for both good and bad. Like many others of my generation, I was astonished by how quickly the country flipped on gay marriage, after the gays in the military thing took so long. That?s partly because I was born in 1965, and was 20 in 1985, when then-President Ronald Reagan refused to acknowledge the existence of his friend Rock Hudson as his friend Rock Hudson was dying of AIDS. My mother was born in 1933. She grew up in the Depression. She stood in soup lines. She never stopped being the person who had those experiences. When she told me about the experience many decades later, you could still taste the humiliation of the little girl who was forced to stand in soup lines if she wanted to eat. If we?re going to defeat Nancy Pelosi, if we?re going to push her into graceful retirement like Nita Lowey, we need a good candidate. You can?t defeat a candidate with nothing. You can only defeat a candidate with another candidate. I believe that the right candidate to defeat Nancy Pelosi is Karen Bass. The people who want more peace and less war, more butter and less guns can?t defeat Nancy Pelosi by ourselves. We don?t have that much leverage in the Democratic Party. We need Allies in the Democratic Party to defeat Nancy Pelosi. Labor, Black People, Women, Enviros, Liberal Jews. Karen Bass is the right candidate to attract support from all these groups of people. She?s a member in good standing of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is close to labor. She?s chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. She was vetted by Biden for VP. She was Speaker of the California State Assembly. She got along well with Republicans in California, which means she can get along well with the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats. Karen Bass has Liberal Jews in her district in LA. Karen Bass gets along with the Liberal Jews just fine. The Speaker in a Democratic controlled House has to get along well with all House Democrats. Karen Bass can do that. Karen Bass is the right candidate to defeat Nancy Pelosi. If Nancy Pelosi believes that Karen Bass is running, maybe Nancy Pelosi will just retire gracefully, just like Nita Lowey did. If we play our cards right, we can split the megadonor oligarchs who fund the Democratic Party. Not every megadonor oligarch who funds the Democratic Party wants more war and less peace, more guns and less butter. Some megadonor oligarchs who fund the Democratic Party want to address climate change. Some megadonor oligarchs who fund the Democratic Party care about democracy and human rights. Some megadonor oligarchs who fund the Democratic Party want to get the illegal guns off our city streets. These megadonor oligarchs who fund the Democratic Party can be recruited to support Karen Bass for Speaker. Some bad-faith Pelosi Apologists might try to concern-troll us by claiming that Karen Bass has insurmountable South Florida-Cuba Dem problems now. This is Donkey Doo. Look what just happened in Florida. The South Florida-Cuba Dems went to the Dustbin of History. These people have no juice in the Democratic Party now. To quote the Great Patriotic American James Baker, ?They don?t vote for us anyway.? If past is prologue, Karen Bass will be a reluctant candidate for Speaker. Some of the same qualities that make her a good candidate for Speaker are likely to make her a reluctant candidate. Like Bernie, Karen Bass is an institutionalist. She respects institutional precedents like seniority. She wouldn?t run for chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when we defeated Engel and blocked ?inevitable? Deutch because Meeks, who has more seniority on the committee and is also a member of the CBC, wanted to be chair. So she deferred to Meeks. Clyburn has made clear in the past his desire to be Speaker of the House one day. To reach the Speaker?s gavel now, Karen Bass would have to walk past Clyburn. There?s no way she?s going to walk past Clyburn without Clyburn?s blessing. Clyburn has to voluntarily give up his place in history to Karen Bass now for the good of humanity in order for Karen Bass to reach the Speaker?s gavel now and walk on the stage of history. That?s why we have to create a popular groundswell for Karen Bass as Speaker now without her explicit consent. She can?t give her explicit consent now because of Clyburn, so there?s no point in asking for it. We have to show Clyburn that there?s a popular groundswell for Karen Bass in order to move Clyburn. We have to tug at Clyburn?s heartstrings. We have to prick Clyburn?s conscience. We have to appeal to Clyburn?s sense of Patriotic Duty. Pelosi should retire gracefully like Lowey. Let?s draft Karen Bass for Speaker of the House. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Fri Nov 6 19:17:21 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2020 14:17:21 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Speaker Karen Bass Would Be a Better Bipartisan Partner for Biden Than Nancy Pelosi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Speaker Karen Bass Would Be a Better Bipartisan Partner for Biden Than Nancy Pelosi With the House and the Senate nearly evenly divided after the election, if Biden is POTUS, Biden is going to need Republican support in Congress to get anything done. Regardless of what anyone thought about Biden?s emphasis on bipartisanship before, objective reality is making that the only game in town now. As Speaker of the House, Karen Bass would be a much better partner for the Biden Administration in working with Congressional Republicans than Nancy Pelosi. Karen Bass has better relationships with Congressional Republicans than Nancy Pelosi does. Karen Bass has a better reputation with Congressional Republicans for being honest, candid, trustworthy, collegial and collaborative than Nancy Pelosi does. Karen Bass is results-oriented, a ?work horse, not a show horse.? Karen Bass would never tear up the President?s State of the Union Address. Karen Bass would never publicly refer to the Majority Leader of the Senate as ?Moscow Mitch.? That?s not how Karen Bass rolls. She?s not into the performative stuff. She?s into getting things done. If someone says to Karen Bass, ?we?re going to need the support of some Republicans to get this done,? Karen Bass says: ?Which Republicans do we need? Which Republicans can we get?? When she has the answers to that, Karen Bass says: ?Thank you. Please hand me the phone.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Fri Nov 6 20:39:32 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2020 15:39:32 -0500 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?Biden=E2=80=99s_Apparent_Victory_Proves_that_P?= =?utf-8?q?elosi_Democrats_Are_Wrong_to_Blame_the_Left?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Biden?s Apparent Victory Proves that Pelosi Democrats Are Wrong to Blame the Left There?s a finger-pointing blame game civil war going on now in the House Democratic Caucus. Yes, it looks like Biden might eke out the election for POTUS. But Republicans beat Democrats in the Congressional election. Democrats didn?t take the Senate. And Democrats lost seats in the House. In a presidential election year, with high Democratic turnout, with zillions spent on ads and mobilization, with the Democratic candidate for POTUS apparently eking it out, Dems lost seats in the House. Of course, the Pelosi Democrats are blaming the Left. That?s their go-to move, isn?t it? School children claim that the dog ate their homework. Pelosi Democrats blame the Left. We lost because the Left was too radical! With their wild claim that health care is a human right, not a privilege! With their Green Dream or whatever! With their wild promises that young people could go to public college for free, the same way that people in the Young At Heart generation did when they were young! Trump and the Republicans tied us to the wild ideas of the Radical Left! That?s why we lost! Not because of our own failures to inspire anyone to vote for us! Here?s why that story is Donkey Doo. Because apparently Biden won, even though Trump and the Republicans tried to use exactly the same tactics against Biden. Trump and the Republicans tried to tie Biden to the ?wild ideas? of the Radical Left. How come it worked against the Pelosi Democrats, but not against Biden? Here?s why. Because Biden had something to offer voters besides not being Trump. Because, to borrow a word from a dark chapter of American history, Biden ?triangulated.? He stood halfway between the Pelosi Democrats and the Left. Unlike the Pelosi Democrats, Biden is a real ?centrist.? A real ?centrist? doesn?t just trash the Left. A real ?centrist? listens to the Left, in case the Left might have any good ideas that might get more people more excited about voting for Democrats. That?s what Biden did. Unlike the Pelosi ?my way or the highway? Democrats, Biden listened. After he beat Bernie in the primary, Biden didn?t do scorched earth like the Pelosi Democrats do. He listened. He tried to figure out how he could get as many Bernie Democrats as possible on board the Biden train. After Jim Clyburn helped Dem Establishment stomp on us in the South Carolina primary, Jim Clyburn did something very righteous. When Bernie conceded to Biden, Jim Clyburn said: it would be great if Biden could adopt as much of the Bernie agenda as possible. That was pretty righteous. As a BernieBro, I noticed that. ?Good on your father,? as the Irish say. Clyburn had Big Chits with Biden after he helped Biden and Dem Establishment stomp on us. He used his Big Chits with Biden to push Biden to make peace with the BernieBros by trying to adopt as much of the Bernie agenda as possible. Biden listened. He listened to Clyburn. He went to his basement in Delaware with a copy of the Bernie Agenda and he locked the door. He pored over the Bernie Agenda, he scratched his head and he stroked his chin. And as he pored over the Maximum Agenda of the ?Radical Left,? he asked himself the reasonable question that any real ?centrist? would ask themselves: ?How much of this here Bernie Agenda can I do and still get elected POTUS? What will the market bear?? And Biden moved. No, he didn?t embrace ?Medicare for All.? But his health care plan is a BFD, as Biden himself might say. It?s a yuuuuge expansion and advance over Obamacare, see Krugman?s analysis in the NYT. He didn?t embrace ?Green New Deal.? But his climate plan is a BFD. He got it from Jay Inslee! For free! ?Can you patent the Sun?? So in fact, Biden WAS influenced by the ideas of the ?Radical Left?! The Trump/Republican accusation was MORE TRUE OF BIDEN than it was of the Pelosi Democrats! But apparently Biden won and the Pelosi Democrats lost! What does that prove? What it proves is that listening to the ideas of the ?Radical Left? is a better electoral strategy in America than stomping on the ?Radical Left.? Most of the ?Radical Left? prefers half a loaf to no bread and getting stomped on in terms of the embrace of their ideas by Democrats. This is another reason why Nancy Pelosi should retire as Speaker of the House. We need a Biden Democrat who listens to the ?Radical Left? instead of only stomping on us as Speaker of the House, not a Pelosi Democrat who only knows how to stomp on us. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Sat Nov 7 13:16:23 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2020 08:16:23 -0500 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?Let=E2=80=99s_Go_After_the_Death_Star=2E_Let?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=99s_Take_the_Speaker=E2=80=99s_Gavel_Away_From_Pe?= =?utf-8?q?losi?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Let?s Go After the Death Star. Let?s Take the Speaker?s Gavel Away From Pelosi Let?s be honest with each other. We?re never going to end the wars, we?re never going to bring our boys and girls home, we?re never going to cut the Pentagon budget and use the money to build and fix American things in America for Americans to use and enjoy, until we take the Speaker?s gavel away from Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi is pro-war. Nancy Pelosi is pro-Pentagon. Nancy Pelosi is pro-Saudi. Nancy Pelosi uses her power as Speaker to perpetuate war and steal our tax dollars for the Pentagon and its contractors to fatten themselves with. What else is there to say? We have no hope of any meaningful progress ever on this front unless we?re willing to fight the people who are always cramming Nancy Pelosi down our throats. When Nancy Pelosi impeached Trump for holding up the Javelins to Ukraine, somebody asked Nancy Pelosi why she hadn?t impeached Bush for the Iraq War. Nancy Pelosi answered without hesitation. She didn?t miss a beat. ?Because I didn?t see that as an impeachable offense.? That?s Nancy Pelosi in a nutshell. What else is there to say? She?s a tool of the Pentagon-industrial complex. She?s a tool of the people who always want more war. They used to say about John McCain that John McCain never met a war he didn?t like. That?s Nancy Pelosi, only wearing a Democratic jersey and moving in the shadows like Mack the Knife. She?s the Joe Lieberman of the House. Only more subtle, covering her tracks, publicly presenting as a scourge on Republicans while quietly collaborating with the Republicans who want endless war. Suppose that we fail now at taking down Pelosi as Speaker of the House. So what? Wouldn?t it be better to try, than to be so cowardly as to not even try? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Mon Nov 9 15:25:47 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2020 10:25:47 -0500 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?If_=E2=80=9CSaudi_Fan_Flournoy=E2=80=9D_Must_B?= =?utf-8?q?e_SecDef=2C_Give_Us_=E2=80=9CDiplomacy_Murphy=E2=80=9D_a?= =?utf-8?q?t_State?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If ?Saudi Fan Flournoy? Must Be SecDef, Give Us ?Diplomacy Murphy? as Secretary of State President-Elect Biden has promised us a diverse Cabinet that ?looks like America.? If this were to apply to views on diplomacy, war and peace and not only to gender and skin color, then it would follow that not every single member of the President?s National Security Cabinet should be such a fierce advocate for the Saudi government as Michele Flournoy, reportedly the ?inevitable? Biden nominee for Secretary of Defense. Not every American ?looks like that.? Not every American advocates on behalf of the Saudi government as passionately as ?inevitable? Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy does. Indeed, there are even some Americans who don?t advocate for the Saudi government at all. Ask a focus group of Yemeni-Americans how wonderful the Saudi government is. Then ?duck and cover? just in case any shoes come flying near your head. If ?personnel is policy? at Treasury, surely it follows that ?personnel is policy? at the Pentagon and State. Don?t the ?personnel is policy? people care anymore how many wars we have in the Middle East? It has been said that Flournoy at Pentagon is already baked into the cake. The marketing for the multitude is that this is about ?first woman Secretary of Defense.? Of course that?s not how Washington really works - you don?t hear anyone talking about Tulsi Gabbard as ?first woman Secretary of Defense? - but if it?s baked into the cake already, then there?s no point in fighting about it. Let?s assume for the purposes of this discussion that Flournoy at Pentagon is already baked into the cake. Then there should be some compensation for the peace and diplomacy people who supported Bernie in the primary in the form of having a pro-diplomacy person at the State Department, so it?s not only people who ?never met a war they didn?t like? all the way down. Four names have surfaced repeatedly in recent press speculation about Secretary of State: Chris Murphy, Chris Coons, Susan Rice, Tony Blinken. The problem with Rice right now for any post that requires Senate confirmation is that she has severe Republican lightning rod issues. Whether it?s true or not, whether it?s fair or not, many Congressional Republicans believe that Susan Rice lied to America about what the U.S. government knew and when they knew it about who did the armed jihadi attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and about what the armed jihadis? motivations for the attack were. Maybe Democrats will be able draw to the inside straight in the Georgia Senate races. But Biden?s not going to know that when he makes his pick for Secretary of State. He will have to assume that he might face a Senate with a Republican majority. Susan Rice will probably hold a national security post in the early Biden Administration. But it probably won?t be a post subject to Senate confirmation. Just as Senate Democrats told Obama no to John Brennan as CIA director in 2008 because he had CIA torture issues, so he had to go to the White House, Senate Republicans will likely say no to Biden on Susan Rice as Secretary of State because of their belief that she lied about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, so she?ll have to go to the White House. The problem with Blinken is that he?s such a close and trusted Biden adviser on foreign policy that press reports say Biden wants to keep Blinken close by, in the White House. The Secretary of State has to fly all over the world for international meetings. Sure, there are ?secure? phone lines back to the White House. But you have to go to a special place like the U.S. Embassy for the ?secure? phone line, and even that line is not necessarily 100% secure, plus now the SecState is in a totally different time zone from the POTUS, plus there?s no technology on Earth that can replace the quiet conversation of two people walking in the White House Rose Garden. That suggests that Blinken is likely to go to a national security slot in the White House rather than SecState, just like Susan Rice. That just leaves Chris ?Diplomacy? Murphy, who led efforts to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in the biblically catastrophic Saudi war and blockade on Yemen, and Chris ?I voted for Obama?s Iran deal before I helped AIPAC undermine Obama's Iran deal? Coons, who also voted for the Yemen war twice in opposition to Murphy and Bernie. If Flournoy is at the Pentagon and Coons is at State, it?s a Dream Team for the Joe Lieberman neocon Middle East warmongers. It?s Back to the Future. It?s de ja vu all over again. It?s the Clintonista Neocon All Stars. It?s a field day for the Clintonista Neocons who helped bring the world every biblical catastrophe in the Middle East since January 1993. ?The price is right,? Bill Clinton?s Secretary of State told Leslie Stahl of CBS News about the Bill Clinton blockade that killed half a million Iraqi children. That set the stage for Bush?s Iraq War. The Bill Clinton Administration teed up Bush?s Iraq war. That?s a key reason why the Clintons were such enthusiastic boosters for Bush's Iraq war. Their Clinton Administration teed it up. Of course, it could be argued, Biden won the primary. Elections matter. To the victor go the spoils. Woe to the vanquished. But the Obama Administration foreign policy crew was more diverse on military force and diplomacy than a Flournoy-Coons regime would be. Whatever happened to the people who brought us the Iran deal? John Kerry, Wendy Sherman, Ernie Moniz. Where are they now? How come we?re not seeing their names now? How come we?re only seeing the names of Clintonista neocons like Flournoy and Coons who never met a war they didn?t like? Say it ain?t so, Joe. Throw the peace and diplomacy Bernie people a bone. If we have to eat our spinach on Saudi fan Flournoy at the Pentagon, give us a little ?Diplomacy Murphy? sugar at the State Department to help the Saudi fan Flournoy Pentagon medicine go down. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 9 20:14:26 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2020 14:14:26 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: PSL Statement on the Defeat of Donald Trump References: <5fa9544a65de_5fd7970f54954b6@asgworker-qmb3-18.nbuild.prd.useast1.3dna.io.mail> Message-ID: > > > Home About Support > > Party for Socialism and Liberation Statement on the Defeat of Donald Trump > > Share the statement ! > > More than 70 million people voted to oust Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 election. This was not a vote for Joe Biden, a truly uninspiring candidate who only became the nominee when the Democratic Party ruling class establishment united to stop Bernie Sanders from getting the nomination in early March. Nor did the historic voter turnout for Biden signify support for his pro-Wall Street, pro-war positions and his role as an architect of the current system of policing and mass incarceration. > > In the last few minutes, the major corporate-owned media networks all announced that Joe Biden had sufficient electoral college votes to become the next president of the United States. > > It is noteworthy that Fox News, which has been so vociferously cheerleading for Donald Trump during the last four years, also called the election for Biden and dramatically changed the tone of its coverage to be very supportive of Biden and the campaign he ran. > > Donald Trump insists that he will fight on. He argues that he is the true winner of the election and the only reason that he might not be president is because of widespread election fraud. This is not true and as more and more of the mail-in vote arrived in Pennsylvania, Georgia and other states it became crystal clear that Trump in fact had lost the electoral college vote in a very narrow contest that almost exactly replicates the narrow outcome in 2016 but with the margins reversed. > > Trump broke the cardinal rule of U.S. capitalist politics when he denounced the election system as a fraud. Maintaining the image of a peaceful transfer of power between the two ruling class parties for more than a century has been considered a core element of American capitalist governance. The peaceful transfer of power bestows legitimacy upon the system. Every system requires either undiluted brute violence that is routinely dispensed on oppressed classes, or it relies on its legitimacy with a sector of the population which is then, of course, supplemented by the threat of violence and state coercion. ?Democracy? is the preferred form of class rule because achieving legitimacy with a significant sector of the working class and intermediate strata makes the system easier to maintain. It avoids the tension and conflict which makes class rule more complicated and unstable. > > Trump?s motivation is very narrow and personal. Once out of office, he and his family will be subject to multiple criminal prosecutions and civil legal cases in many states on issues related to tax evasion, financial fraud and other such crimes. If Trump becomes a civilian, he loses his immunities for state-based prosecutions on financial crimes. This will be Trump?s future and he knows it. The ruling class will not sacrifice the legitimacy of its political system to protect Donald Trump in his post-presidency civilian life. > > Trump has spent the last days trying to use ultra-right and fascist mobilizations to stop the vote count. But he has become increasingly isolated. His base of support within the capitalist establishment is crumbling and that will continue. The fact that Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial board have turned against him in his quest to condemn the election process is a clear indication that his fate has been sealed. > > The 2020 presidential election was a referendum on Trump. The Democrats did very badly in the rest of the election. They lost seats to the Republicans in the House and they failed to win the Senate. The fact that it was a close election at the presidential level at a time of the biggest healthcare catastrophe and mass unemployment in living memory shows how little the Democratic Party has to offer the masses of people. The Democratic Party ruling class establishment adopted a center-right orientation and refused to embrace the demands for Medicare for All; a cancellation of rents and mortgage payments during the pandemic; canceling student debt; or meaningful policing reforms. Ironically, the same Democratic Party establishment now blames the left for its failures in the down ballot contests during the election. > > The Party for Socialism and Liberation has argued since 2016 that Donald Trump is merely a symptom of a larger disease. Late stage capitalism is destroying not only the working class and poor but big sectors of the middle class. As the billionaires get ever richer and more powerful, the level of human suffering inside ?the richest country in the world? increases rapidly. The larger disease is capitalism, and the cure is to replace the system that fosters poverty amid plenty and destroys workers as a tiny class of the ultra rich concentrate wealth and power. The solution lies not with the Democratic Party but with the replacement of capitalism by a humane, rational and sustainable social system: socialism. > > The task at hand is to build a mass movement demanding that the Biden White House take immediate emergency measures to eradicate mass unemployment; provide a livable guaranteed income for all of those who have been made jobless; cancel rents, evictions and foreclosures; cancel student debt; and adopt a Medicare for all healthcare system. At the same time, we have to mobilize greater opposition to U.S. militarism and war, which is not even slightly diminished under a government led by Joe Biden. > > Questions? Comments? Contact us. > Created with NationBuilder , the essential toolkit for leaders. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Tue Nov 10 16:18:39 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2020 11:18:39 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Saeb Erekat Is Dead. Nancy Pelosi Is Still House Speaker, Blocking Palestinian Freedom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Saeb Erekat Is Dead. Nancy Pelosi Is Still House Speaker, Blocking Palestinian Freedom The passing of Palestinian diplomat Saeb Erekat is an opportunity to acknowledge how little has been accomplished by Palestinian diplomacy for Palestinian self-determination since Palestinian diplomacy became a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S.-Saudi diplomacy after the First Gulf War. I knew Saeb Erekat before he became a Palestinian diplomat, when he was a leading Palestinian public intellectual in the West Bank, when he taught at An-Najah and wrote for Al-Quds. Erekat?s passing is an opportunity to reflect, for those of us who still harbor hopes of accomplishing something on this front before we sail off to join Saeb Erekat in Elvenhome. Palestinians have their own discussions. Israelis have their own discussions. The primary reason for failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and achieve Palestinian freedom from a U.S. point of view has been the unchallenged relationship between AIPAC and the Democratic Congressional leadership, personified in the ?leadership? of Nancy Pelosi. AIPAC has never missed an opportunity to sabotage an opportunity to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict and achieve Palestinian freedom. AIPAC did the same thing to the Oslo Accords that they did to Obama?s Iran deal. They sandbagged. They sabotaged. They were able to do this because until now ?progressive? Democrats in DC have refused to engage on the question of the relationship between AIPAC and Nancy Pelosi. Until now, ?progressive? Democrats in DC drank the Kool-Aid that this issue is taboo. There?s no time like the present to smash this taboo into a thousand pieces. Here?s why. 1. Following the Congressional election, House Democrats are going to vote on their leadership for the next Congress. There is a bloc of Democrats in the House who care about Israeli-Palestinian peace and Palestinian freedom. It?s not a yuuuge bloc. But it does exist. The dynamics of the race for Speaker are such that even small blocs will have leverage if they decide to use it. The bloc of House Democrats who care about Israeli-Palestinian peace and Palestinian freedom will use their leverage for this issue if their constituents who care about this issue hold their feet to the fire. 2. Nancy Pelosi?s leadership of House Democrats is more vulnerable now than it was when it was challenged two years ago, because of the unprecedented fiasco of her spectacular failure to successfully lead House Democrats in the Congressional election, typified by her failure to successfully lead House Democrats in the negotiations with Trump and McConnell on the Covid-19 economic relief package. House Democrats just lost seats in the same election that Biden won. The address for accountability for this spectacular failure is Nancy Pelosi. 3. If a candidate like Congressional Black Caucus Chair and former California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass runs for Speaker, she can unite the House Democratic opposition to Pelosi, because Karen Bass has good relations with all the House Democrats who oppose Pelosi, including the ones who are not ?progressive.? 4. The broader issue of the relationship of AIPAC to the national Democratic Party leadership is no longer taboo for ?progressive? Democrats, even in DC. Only the Nancy Pelosi piece remains taboo until this moment. Consider: A. The progressive anti-AIPAC forces defeated AIPAC in the Jamaal Bowman primary against AIPAC?s man, now outgoing House Foreign Affairs Chair Eliot Engel. Of course, curbing AIPAC?s power in the House wasn?t the only issue in the race. So what? This is how the anti-AIPAC progressive Democrats make progress on this front, by picking and joining fights where our interests are aligned with the interests of other progressive Democrats. That?s a key reason why the progressive anti-AIPAC forces stand up and salute for Medicare for All and Green New Deal. One hand washes the other. Injury to one, injury to all. Victory for one, victory for all. B. In the race to succeed Eliot Engel as HFAC Chair, the progressive anti-AIPAC forces blocked AIPAC?s ?Ted Deutch is inevitable? play. What was Ted Deutch?s Achilles? Heel? He voted against Obama?s Iran deal. Why did Ted Deutch vote against Obama?s Iran deal? Because Ted Deutch is AIPAC?s man, just like Eliot Engel. C. In the Dem Primary for POTUS, the progressive anti-AIPAC forces defeated AIPAC in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. D. During the Dem Primary for POTUS, MoveOn led a successful boycott of the AIPAC policy conference by leading Dem candidates for POTUS. Even Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris didn?t go. [Biden hadn?t announced for POTUS yet.] But Nancy Pelosi was a keynote speaker at AIPAC. MoveOn said nothing about the fact that Nancy Pelosi was a keynote speaker at the AIPAC policy conference on which they were leading a successful boycott of leading candidates for Dem POTUS. But that was that political moment. This is this one. E. When Bibi, Trump and Jared were pushing towards formal Bibi annexation of the West Bank, before the US-Bibi-UAE deal, Murphy, Kaine, and Van Hollen led Senate Democrats in pushing for language on the Pentagon bill that would block any U.S. tax dollars from being used to recognize formal Bibi annexation of the West Bank. J Street supported Murphy-Kaine-Van Hollen, first privately, then publicly. This idea, the idea of negative public Congressional Democratic consequences for Bibi, was previously taboo. This was previously an AIPAC red line. The AIPAC line was that Congressional Democrats were allowed to oppose Bibi?s threatened formal annexation of the West Bank rhetorically, but they were not allowed to publicly support any negative consequences for Bibi if he went forward. Murphy, Kaine, Van Hollen and J Street sauntered right across the purported Rubicon of AIPAC?s red line. And they lived to tell the tale. The time is ripe to Call the Question on Nancy Pelosi?s relationship to AIPAC before she can be re-anointed by AIPAC as Speaker of the House. And to block Chris ?AIPAC forever? Coons from becoming Secretary of State for the extra point. The iron is hot. Strike. The sea is behind us and the enemy in front. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 11 02:49:26 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2020 20:49:26 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Empathy/Russia and China Message-ID: A friend posted the article below on FB, as offering hope and suggesting everyone should read it?.. given he is a Russian expert, and spent six years in the SU as a foreign service officer, I respect his opinion more than most, however?.. I quite like the last three paragraphs of this article as it articulates exactly what we did now having Nato on every border of Russia, but I don't for a moment think it was because "our leaders," are stupid, as one would think reading the article. They are quite smart, taking advantage of every opportunity to further enclose and harness Russia. Any suggestion of empathy, on the part of our ruling elites is a joke. The powers that be, have no empathy, as proven by our eight wars in less than twenty years, if not before. Add our sanctions and covert interventions and.....we are the most brutal nation on earth, ever and it has nothing to do with security or vital interests or humanitarian concerns. I?m always amused by those liberals who assume women in power will improve our humanity. People with empathy, don't strive for power, they attempt to enlighten those who don't see, that sociopaths like Hillary Clinton watching her handiwork destroy Libya, Madeline Albrecht, suggesting half a million children being starved was necessary and it's quite unlikely Kamal Harris will prove any better. Zbigniew Berezinski laid the framework for US foreign policy in The Grand Chess Board, 1997, control of all nations resources is the goal of US foreign policy. The Council on Foreign Relations, likely the most powerful of Think Tank advisors, uses soft power frequently but not out of empathy, they use it strategically as a preference to bombs. The author is likely attempting to soften the hardliners against Russia a worthy goal, given ?russiagate," created by the Democrats with their lies and propaganda, as we move onto ?chinagate" under the new administration. I see tactics and strategy, in the making only to sever the relationship between China and Russia. JMHO See Below: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/11/03/how-u-s-strategists-lost-simple-empathy-along-with-their-wars/?fbclid=IwAR1a5DRc4CodNR9WrD81F1YrZjb -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Wed Nov 11 21:11:03 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2020 21:11:03 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Empathy/Russia and China In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for this Karen. I find something naive and simplistic when Lievan talks about "state interests". The ?state" meaning what? The leaders of a particular powerful political component of that state? Certainly not necessarily the population of that state. Noting that, one can see some laziness in the whole argument, the compexity of state relations (the relations of the ruling, ownership class) is a nebulous thing. On the other hand, Lieven as a ?realist? of the Quincy Institute makes useful comments about ?vital interests? that it would be dangerous to ignore. On Nov 10, 2020, at 8:49 PM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: A friend posted the article below on FB, as offering hope and suggesting everyone should read it?.. given he is a Russian expert, and spent six years in the SU as a foreign service officer, I respect his opinion more than most, however?.. I quite like the last three paragraphs of this article as it articulates exactly what we did now having Nato on every border of Russia, but I don't for a moment think it was because "our leaders," are stupid, as one would think reading the article. They are quite smart, taking advantage of every opportunity to further enclose and harness Russia. Any suggestion of empathy, on the part of our ruling elites is a joke. The powers that be, have no empathy, as proven by our eight wars in less than twenty years, if not before. Add our sanctions and covert interventions and.....we are the most brutal nation on earth, ever and it has nothing to do with security or vital interests or humanitarian concerns. I?m always amused by those liberals who assume women in power will improve our humanity. People with empathy, don't strive for power, they attempt to enlighten those who don't see, that sociopaths like Hillary Clinton watching her handiwork destroy Libya, Madeline Albrecht, suggesting half a million children being starved was necessary and it's quite unlikely Kamal Harris will prove any better. Zbigniew Berezinski laid the framework for US foreign policy in The Grand Chess Board, 1997, control of all nations resources is the goal of US foreign policy. The Council on Foreign Relations, likely the most powerful of Think Tank advisors, uses soft power frequently but not out of empathy, they use it strategically as a preference to bombs. The author is likely attempting to soften the hardliners against Russia a worthy goal, given ?russiagate," created by the Democrats with their lies and propaganda, as we move onto ?chinagate" under the new administration. I see tactics and strategy, in the making only to sever the relationship between China and Russia. JMHO See Below: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/11/03/how-u-s-strategists-lost-simple-empathy-along-with-their-wars/?fbclid=IwAR1a5DRc4CodNR9WrD81F1YrZjb _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Thu Nov 12 15:33:13 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2020 10:33:13 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Moderate R SecDef Susan Collins Would Help Yemen More Than Saudi Fan Flournoy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Moderate R SecDef Susan Collins Would Help Yemen More Than Saudi Fan Flournoy Suppose that President-Elect Biden now asks moderate Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins [did you know that Maine has a Democratic governor?] to serve as his ?first woman? Secretary of Defense, instead of Hillary?s planned ?first woman? SecDef Michele Flournoy, who almost worked for Trump, who never met a war or a Saudi arms deal that she didn?t like. Are there any recent Democratic Presidential precedents we could point to in order to prove that this is ?not such a radical idea,? as Uncle Bernie might say? Indeed there are. President Bill Clinton and Republican Maine Senator and Bill Clinton?s Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Susan Collins? longtime boss, mentor and predecessor in that Maine Senate seat. President Barack Obama and Obama?s Republican Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. President Barack Obama and Republican Senator and Obama?s Republican Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. When Barack Obama became POTUS, instead of nominating a D SecDef, he kept Bush?s moderate R SecDef, Robert Gates. Some Democrats who don?t really follow and don?t really care about ending and preventing U.S. wars were like, ?Oh no! Katy bar the door! Members of Obama?s Cabinet must all be Democrats! Elections matter! To the victor go the spoils! Woe to the vanquished! We can?t have a Republican Secretary of Defense!? But me and my Chicago homeboy Barack calmly responded: ?Yes, we can!? No drama with Obama. I knew what Obama knew, that Robert Gates was cautious [by Washington, DC standards] about the use of military force. I knew what Obama knew, that Obama would have a much harder time getting a Democrat with the exact same cautious views on the use of military force as Robert Gates through Senate confirmation than he would keeping Robert Gates in place. I knew what Obama knew, that Robert Gates had been brought in by the Republican ?adults in the room? like Brent Scowcroft and James Baker to right the ship at the Pentagon after Bush finally fired neocon warhawk and principal Iraq war architect Donald Rumsfeld following the 2006 Congressional election where Democrats rode public opposition to the Iraq war to taking over Congress, making Nancy Pelosi Speaker for the first time, even though Pelosi wasn?t personally against the war, even though Pelosi and her DCCC chair Rahm Emmanuel did their level best to prevent Democrats from committing to end the war. My belief that keeping Robert Gates as SecDef would be good for the ?less war, more peace? movement was 100% vindicated when Robert Gates led the opposition in the Obama Administration to the unconstitutional and catastrophic war in Libya. Who was on the same side as Robert Gates, against the Libya war? Vice President Joe Biden. Who was on the other side, who were the cheerleaders for the unconstitutional and catastrophic war that destroyed Libya and set the table for the destruction of Syria? Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and the cheerleader for the Saudi war in Yemen at the UN, ?humanitarian warrior? Samantha Power. On December 5, 1996, President Bill Clinton announced his selection for Secretary of Defense of Republican Maine Senator William Cohen, who retired from the Senate, passing his seat on to his longtime staffer Susan Collins. William Cohen was confirmed as SecDef by the Senate by unanimous vote. Why did President Bill Clinton do this? ?It?s the economy, stupid.? President Bill Clinton wanted to focus on the U.S. economy. He didn?t want any new wars. He didn?t want a Secretary of Defense who would be pushing for new wars. He didn?t want a Secretary of Defense who would be pushing for big new foreign commitments and for big increases in the Pentagon budget. That?s why President Clinton didn?t want a ?Democrat? like Michele Flournoy [who almost worked for Trump! And loves Saudi arms deals! And loves bloated Pentagon spending!], and preferred a Republican like William Cohen or Susan Collins, who would manage the Pentagon without pushing for new wars or pushing for big new foreign commitments or pushing for big increases in the Pentagon budget. As Secretary of Defense, Republican William Cohen often clashed with Bill Clinton?s neocon warhawk ?Democratic? Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, whom Cohen, like others in the Pentagon, correctly saw as far too eager to use military force. The Iraq war that happened under Bush in March 2003 was a war that neocon warhawk ?Democrat? Madeleine Albright wanted very badly when she was Bill Clinton?s Secretary of State. But she couldn?t get it, because there was too much opposition inside the Bill Clinton Administration from people like Republican Secretary of Defense William Cohen, representing the more cautious views on military force of career people in the Pentagon. Madeleine Albright?s consolation prize was the U.S. blockade on Iraq that killed half a million Iraqi children. Which warhawk Madeleine Albright justified to Leslie Stahl of CBS? 60 Minutes by asserting that ?the price is right.? Why would any Democrat who claims to want less war and more peace have any objection to moderate Republican Susan Collins as Secretary of Defense rather than neocon warhawk Saudi fan Flournoy, who almost worked for Trump, who never met a war she didn?t like, who never met a Saudi arms deal that she didn?t like? Why would any Democrat who doesn?t really follow and doesn?t really care about ending and preventing war want to butt their noses into our turf on this? They say they want ?first woman Secretary of Defense.? Ain?t Susan Collins a woman? She?s the most senior Republican woman in the Senate. She led the successful effort to repeal the cruel and discriminatory ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly and proudly and bravely and patriotically and with honor and distinction in our Armed Forces. God bless America, and God bless our Armed Forces. They say they care about the partisan makeup of the Senate. Doesn?t Maine have a Democratic governor? Susan Collins voted with Sanders, Lee and Murphy to end the unconstitutional and biblically catastrophic Saudi war in Yemen. Wouldn?t SecDef Susan Collins be more likely to help us end the unconstitutional and biblically catastrophic Saudi war in Yemen than Saudi fan Flournoy, who almost worked for Trump, and never met a war she didn?t like, and never met a Saudi arms deal that she didn?t like? Susan Collins is on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Can?t get more Serious than that. She already knows all the secrets. She?s the only Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee who voted to end the Saudi war in Yemen. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Thu Nov 12 20:40:15 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2020 15:40:15 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Compared to Saudi Fan Flournoy, Tammy Duckworth Would Be a Great Biden SecDef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Compared to Saudi Fan Flournoy, Tammy Duckworth Would Be a Great Biden SecDef Recently I have found myself re-thinking my views of Illinois Democratic Senator, decorated combat veteran, veterans? health advocate, and Dick Durbin protege Tammy Duckworth. Ever since I found out that Tammy Duckworth might be our best hope for stopping Saudi arms deal advocate Michele Flournoy from becoming Biden?s Secretary of Defense. Like many peace activists in Illinois, I was often disappointed by Tammy Duckworth. She was no Dick Durbin. And Dick Durbin was often disappointing, so being like Dick Durbin didn?t seem like that high a bar. But if Tammy Duckworth is the alternative to Saudi arms deal advocate Michele Flournoy as Biden?s Secretary of Defense, then as Larry Summers would say, ?I read the data differently now.? Or as the British economist John Maynard Keynes famously said when someone accused him of flip-flopping: ?When I am given new information, I change my opinion. What, sir, do you do?? Let?s examine some things from the other side of the ledger. First of all, unlike Massachusetts and Vermont but like Connecticut and Maine, Illinois has a Democratic governor. So there?s no objection based on partisan balance of the Senate. The governor of Illinois will appoint a Democrat in her place without obstacle. And they will be re-elected. Illinois is blue. Second, let?s suppose that it?s a progressive Democratic goal to elevate more African-American women to the Senate. And suppose that we start with the idea that a typical move is to elevate people from the House. There?s Robin Kelly. There?s Lauren Underwood. Either could be elevated to the Senate by the governor of Illinois, whose Lieutenant Governor, Juliana Stratton, is African-American. The argument you see in the press all the time for Michele Flournoy as SecDef is that she?d be ?the first woman Secretary of Defense.? But so would Tammy Duckworth. So that?s a wash. But then on top of that, we could have another African-American Democratic woman in the Senate. Plus, Tammy Duckworth is Asian-American, a woman of color. So from an identity politics point of view, Tammy Duckworth is winning over Michele Flournoy, all the way around. Plus on top of that, Tammy Duckworth voted every time with Sanders, Lee, and Murphy against unconstitutional U.S. participation in the biblically catastrophic Saudi war in Yemen. Whereas Michele Flournoy advocated for Saudi arms deals. Plus on top of that, as a combat veteran serving as Secretary of Defense, Tammy Duckworth will be well-positioned to push back on demands for more wars all the time. Plus on top of that, in addition to being a decorated combat veteran, Tammy Duckworth is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. So there?s no question about her Seriousness credentials. A key talking point for Biden in the primary was that he was Obama?s VP. Obama got to be POTUS because he defeated Hillary in the 2008 primary. Which candidate for SecDef better represents the views of Democrats who supported Obama over Hillary in the 2008 primary, Tammy Duckworth or Michele Flournoy? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Thu Nov 12 22:30:06 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2020 17:30:06 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Axios: Republican control of the Senate is an argument for Coons at State In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Axios: Republican control of the Senate is an argument for Coons at State This is the kind of thing that irritates me. This is exactly what I was afraid of. This is exactly the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put. ====================== Nov 5, 2020 - Politics & Policy GOP Senate wins wreak havoc on Biden transition plans Hans Nichols, Mike Allen https://www.axios.com/gop-senate-biden-transition-50ebe6c8-e318-4fdb-b903-048908b3b954.html Republicans' likely hold on the Senate is forcing Joe Biden's transition team to consider limiting its prospective Cabinet nominees to those who Mitch McConnell can live with, according to people familiar with the matter. Why it matters: The new Senate political math could dash the ambitions of some Democrats, including those who have clashed with Republicans. It could push Biden to go with more centrist options, like Lael Brainard for Treasury or Tony Blinken for State, sources tell Axios. [_*NYT has Blinken as National Security Advisor, consistent with press reports that Biden wants Blinken close by.*_] Susan Rice and Stacey Abrams could be early casualties, depending on McConnell's posture. *_But it could also open paths for others, like Sen. Chris Coons, who could benefit from a tradition of senatorial courtesy for quick confirmations of nominees within its ranks._* A source close to McConnell tells Axios a Republican Senate would work with Biden on centrist nominees but no "radical progressives" or ones who are controversial with conservatives. [?] *Be smart*: Biden may end up leaning more on Democratic senators in blue states, or ex-senators. _*That could boost Coons' case for State._* And Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, who lost on Tuesday, may have an easier time than Yates at Justice. *_If Biden appoints Coons to State, Democrats wouldn't be down a seat in the Senate, as Delaware?s Democratic governor John Carney could quickly appoint Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester to the seat. That would ensure Senate Democrats have at least one Black woman in their ranks._* *=============* OK. Here?s why this is 100% horse manure. If it?s all about Senators, Chris Murphy and Tammy Duckworth and Susan Collins are Senators. Are you kidding me? Dems have at least 48. We can?t get three Senate Rs for Chris Murphy at State instead of Chris Coons? We can?t get three Senate Rs for Tammy Duckworth or Susan Collins at Defense instead of Saudi Fan Flournoy? Connecticut and Illinois are just as blue as Delaware. Connecticut and Illinois and Maine have Democratic governors, just like Delaware. This is horse manure. If it?s not all about Senators, what?s wrong with William Burns at State? He?s career Foreign Service. He was Deputy Secretary of State. What did he do to Republicans? What did he have to do with Benghazi? We can't get three Republicans to vote for William Burns? Oh and by the way, there are African-American women who can be in the Senate in Connecticut and Illinois, did you know? Did you get the memo? Jahana Hayes, a member of the Connecticut House delegation, can be in the Senate. Robin Kelly and Lauren Underwood, members of the Illinois House delegation, can be in the Senate. You?re really going to use identity politics as an excuse? You?re really going to use identity politics as an excuse to cram Saudi Flournoy and AIPAC Coons down our throats? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Nov 13 00:45:21 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2020 18:45:21 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Recommended videos for AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV Message-ID: Here are the video suggestions I've sent to Jason Liggett of UPTV to run during AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV's timeslots. As before, I've asked Jason to prioritize AWARE member suggested videos ahead of my suggestions for AOTA/NFN and to prioritize anything David Johnson prefers for Labor's World View TV. Thanks. -J The Grayzone https://youtube.com/watch?v=8_jnd3uXFMY -- (22m 56s) Red Lines from The Grayzone -- Anya Parampil interviews Leonardo Flores on what a Biden victory means for Venezuela (world's largest known reserve of oil). Black Agenda Report https://youtube.com/watch?v=S9Amdj9Y-UA -- (35m 16s) Black Agenda Report's Left Lens with Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley on what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' presumed victory means. Consortium News https://youtube.com/watch?v=KvnlcoYWAmM -- (1h 38m) Consortium News panel discussion on "The Targeted Campaign to Topple Jeremy Corbyn" RT Video: https://cdnv.rt.com/files/2020.11/5fa7ad1185f54030f77ad0be.mp4 Transcript: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/506002-american-discontent-ruling-parties/ -- (28m 11s) Chris Hedges interviews Professor Paul Street "about the outcome of the US presidential election, and how despite likely losing, Donald Trump has solidified an angry, dispossessed working class that cuts across racial lines and has embraced a right-wing populism.". I don't entirely agree with Prof. Street here but he has some interesting points to raise. https://youtube.com/watch?v=LYEbR3-bCkY -- (2m 36s) clip from Going Underground interview in which we get some analysis of the $15T spent on Middle East wars. Independently made https://youtube.com/watch?v=zyXffRtvwak -- (21m) "The Gaggle" with Peter Lavelle (host of RT's CrossTalk) and guest on the idea that "The 2020 election was a referendum on liberals and liberalism and the media". This offers a small bit of response to the interview with Prof. Street. From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Nov 13 23:24:51 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2020 17:24:51 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Ukraine's armed forces resumed combat operations in the Donbass References: Message-ID: > > > Share on FacebookF > > Share on TwitterL > > Share on LinkedInI > > Subscribe to RSSR > > Email > > November 11, 2020 Topic: Security Region: Europe Tags: Joe Biden Ukraine Russia Donbass Minsk Agreement > Within days of the U.S. presidential election being called for Joe Biden, Ukraine?s armed forces resumed combat operations in over a dozen hot zones across the breakaway region of eastern Donbass. > by Mark Episkopos > With a coming change of administration in the White House, Kiev is mounting a renewed and dangerously provocative push to retake the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People?s Republics. > > Within days of the U.S. presidential election being called for Joe Biden, Ukraine?s armed forces resumed combat operations in over a dozen hot zones across the breakaway region of eastern Donbass. Separatist positions came under fire by Ukrainian mortars, infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), grenade launchers, and small arms; at least two Donetsk People?s Republic (DNR) soldiers were killed, including one DNR commander . The DNR?s former Defense Minister Igor Strelkov predicted late last week that Ukrainian offensives will increase in scale and frequency following Joe Biden?s victory: ?It [the Ukrainian offensives] never stopped, though the intensity varied. But a decisive Ukrainian offensive is possible, unfortunately. It was possible all of these six years. Now it?s even more possible, especially after Joe Biden?s victory,? said Strelkov in an interview with Russian media. Former DNR Chairman Andrei Purgin added that, whereas the Trump administration pursued a policy of ?slow strangulation? against the Donbass separatist republics, Biden?s approach will be ?more aggressive and straightforward.? The renewed Ukrainian offensives are the latest flare-up in what has been an uneasy ceasefire negotiated in late July. > > > Biden has consistently espoused a policy of rollback against Russia, including further military aid to Ukraine. But previous military aid packages to Ukraine were intended to be used for purely defensive purposes; that is, helping Ukraine?s army to stave off the threat of westward Russian encroachment beyond the territories seized by the separatists in 2014. Neither Biden nor any U.S. government official has explicitly supported Ukrainian attempts at retaking their lost provinces by military force, which would be a violation of the Minsk Protocol agreement signed by Kiev, Moscow, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the two breakaway republics in 2014. Washington has formally supported? the Minsk Protocol?a peace agreement that outlines a path for the reintegration of the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics into Ukraine?under both the Obama and Trump administrations, and there is no indication that this policy will change under a Biden White House. > > But there is a growing appetite in Kiev to renegotiate some of the Minsk Protocol?s provisions, with an increasing number of Ukrainian commentators and politicians charging that the agreement is impossible to implement in its current form. The Minsk Protocol requires both Ukraine and Russia to withdraw their forces from the conflict?s borders so that an OSCE-observed ceasefire can be implemented, after which both Luhansk and Donetsk will hold local elections. The two republics will then return to Ukraine as autonomous zones, with their special status protected by an amended Ukrainian constitution. In addition, all separatists must be granted amnesty by Kiev. > > > Ukraine?s first president, Leonid Kravchuk, stated earlier this week that, while Kiev supports the spirit of the Minsk accords, the breakaway regions must come under Ukrainian control prior to local elections being held. ?We must take the territory under control and make ourselves accountable to the international community about conducting the elections, so that everything can be done lawfully.? Kravchuk also reiterated? a growing consensus in Kiev that there cannot be a blanket amnesty law and argued instead for a ?selective amnesty? that does not cover those accused of violent crimes. Ukraine?s current President Volodymyr Zelensky echoed Kravchuk?s sentiments in a recent interview, arguing that there cannot be free and fair elections in Donetsk and Luhansk until Ukraine fully controls its borders with Russia, as well as expressing ?dissatisfaction? with the wording of some of the agreement?s provisions. Still others in Kiev have advocated for more radical revisions to the Minsk Protocol; Ukrainian politician Yevhen Marchuk insisted that the separatist provinces must spend ?at least 4-5 peaceful years? under Ukrainian control before local elections can be held. > > Despite Kiev?s growing list of issues with the Minsk format, Ukraine is unlikely to withdraw from the Minsk format any time soon. Ukraine?s Deputy Prime Minister Aleksei Reznikov stated? late last month that the protocols are ?100 percent impossible? to implement as currently written, but added that Ukraine cannot unilaterally withdraw from them without grave international consequences. Instead, Reznikov suggested that the Minsk format can be revised: ?there is no problem with the leaders of the Normandy Format [Germany, Russia, Ukraine, and France] reviewing ?Minsk? and honestly saying: here is what works, here is what can works, here is what will never work.? > > The Kremlin, for its part, has not budged from its insistence that the Minsk Protocols must be implemented in their entirety. There is also little appetite in Berlin, and the broader EU security architecture, to meaningfully revise the Minsk protocol, with a recent joint statement by Germany, France, and Poland noting that the ?Minsk Agreements remain the sole basis for the resolution of the conflict in the East of Ukraine. They underline the need to fully implement the measures agreed by the parties on the occasion of the Normandy Summit in Paris in December 2019.? > > It remains to be seen how Washington (which is not a member of the Normandy Group or a party to the Minsk Format) under a Biden administration will address itself to concerns over the viability of the Minsk agreements, and to the ongoing Donbass conflict more broadly. > > Mark Episkopos is the new national security reporter for the National Interest. > > Image: Reuters. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Nov 13 23:49:10 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2020 17:49:10 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Michigan conspirators Message-ID: State Attorney General reports: Michigan conspirators planned to storm capitol, conduct livestream executions, lock legislators inside and burn building down Eric London 17 hours ago According to a legal brief recently filed by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, the fourteen militiamen who were arrested in October for plotting to kidnap and kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer also planned to storm the capitol, capture hostages, live stream a horrific series of executions, and target the entire elected state leadership and members of the state legislature. The revelations come as Michigan judges have quietly released three of the plotters, including Wolverine Watchmen cofounder Pete Musico. Men carry automatic rifles outside the Capitol Building in Lansing, Michigan on April 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) The attorney general?s office wrote: ?Plan A consisted of recruiting 200 men and then storm the Capitol building in Lansing while Congress was in session. [By congress, the plotters evidently meant the state legislature]. They were to take hostages, execute tyrants and have it televised. It would take about one week and that no one is coming out alive.? The brief reads, ?The secondary plan was to storm the Capitol building in Lansing when Congress was in session. They would then lock the entrances/exits to the structure. They would then set the building on fire.? As of the time of this writing, no national media outlet has reported these details, and the Democratic Party has maintained total silence beyond the state attorney general herself. According to prosecutors, the conspirators also planned to research the residential addresses of a number of unnamed political figures and execute them at their homes. Officials also released additional details of the military training conducted by the plotters, who wrote a schedule for one training session held in Wisconsin on June 14 on the property of a leading member of the fascist Oath Keepers organization there. According to the schedule, the plotters planned to address ?basic fundamentals for the new members,? ?driver down situation,? ?taking a (possible) hostile vehicle over,? ?planned ambushes,? ?L shape ambush? and ?when is the right time to screen for a medic?? The Wolverine Watchmen internally described themselves as a Boogaloo group. According to a private Facebook page used by the group, their purpose was ?to network and assemble and recruit like-minded individuals.? They used anti-lockdown demonstrations sponsored by Republican state legislators and promoted by Trump to discuss their plans and recruit new forces. The Attorney General?s office made these arguments in order to oppose a bond request by Pete Musico, the cofounder of the Wolverine Militia. But after reviewing this evidence, Michael Klaeren granted bond at an estimated $10,000, allowing Musico to walk out of jail. Klaeren had previously reduced Musico?s bond from $10 million. On Wednesday, prosecutors also announced that 38-year-old Shawn Fix was released on bond in Antrim County, Michigan Tuesday. Weeks ago, Wisconsin resident Brian Higgins was released from bail by county judge Todd Hepler after posting $10,000 in cash, well below the $1 million requested by the local district attorney?s office. These figures and the bail terms are lenient given the gravity of the crimes for which the conspirators stand accused. Musico was merely ordered to wear an ankle monitor, while Higgins was told he could not leave the state of Wisconsin. The plotters will be monitored by friendly police officers, including many who belong to extreme right-wing groups that have praised the plotters and defended their actions as lawful. MilitiaWatch founder Hampton Stall, who researches far-right groups and maintains a database of their activity, told the World Socialist Web Site: ?There?s often a lot of big talk among militia groups that can be dismissed as idle threats, but the specificity and extremely high level of violence included in the fantasies documented in the attorney general?s brief is a massive red flag, especially given how active this core of actors had been.? Stall said the October arrests of 14 militiamen ?have not slowed recruitment among militia groups I track, and it seems that leading up to the election recruitment has only continued to rise, both among leaders advertising their groups and new recruits seeking to connect to armed movements.? IN DEPTH The fascist coup plot in Michigan The exposure of a plot to assassinate Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has uncovered the existence of a nationwide underground far-right terror network. READ MORE Far-right networks continue to organize throughout the country in response to Trump?s baseless claims that Biden?s victory was only the product of electoral fraud. Media Matters reported Thursday that fascist Oath Keeper leader Steven Rhodes ?says he has men stationed outside of DC ready to engage in violence on Trump?s order.? Rhodes told fascist online personality Alex Jones that ?We?ll also be on the outside of D.C., armed, prepared to go in, if the president calls us up.? Rhodes made these comments on a YouTube program dedicated to promoting this weekend?s planned pro-Trump ?Stop the Steal? demonstrations aimed at overturning the result of the presidential election won by Joe Biden. Small demonstrations took place last weekend in various states and were far outnumbered by demonstrations celebrating Trump?s defeat. The presence of the Proud Boys at these demonstrations came after their leader Enrique Tarrio said, ?We?re rolling out. Standby order has been rescinded??a reference to Trump?s statement at the first presidential debate that the Proud Boys should ?stand back and stand by.? At one far-right rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania last weekend, armed Proud Boys gathered with signs that said, ?Standing Back and Standing By For My President? and ?Free Kyle,? a reference to Kyle Rittenhouse, the fascist who murdered two people protesting police violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August. The Harrisburg demonstration was held at the state capitol building and Republican state legislators were pictured visiting and supporting the armed fascist demonstrators. Pennsylvania and Michigan are two of four battleground states with a Republican legislature and Democratic governor, where Trump has focused on appeals to elect alternate slates of electors, overriding the popular vote. Joe Biden won in Michigan by roughly 150,000 votes, and in Pennsylvania by over 50,000 votes. Even though the evidence points to a far broader assault on Democratic officials and state legislators, the Democratic Party has also remained completely silent on the assault, effectively silencing the state attorney general?s office and its warnings that the plotters should not be released from jail. The Democrats greatest fear is that informing the public of the plans to carry out mass executions of elected officials will provoke mass opposition to Trump?s attempt to override the election by means of violence and police repression. WSWS.ORG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Nov 14 02:46:15 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2020 20:46:15 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Biden Is Already Loading His Pentagon Transition Team With Pro-War Think Tank Staffers Message-ID: 11.12.2020 UNITED STATES PARTY POLITICS WAR AND IMPERIALISM <> <> <> Biden Is Already Loading His Pentagon Transition Team With Pro-War Think Tank Staffers BY SARAH LAZARE It hasn?t taken long for Joe Biden to get down to the business of preparing to assume the presidency ? by drawing staff from hawkish think tanks financed by arms companies. Democratic presidential nominee and former vice president Joe Biden on September 9, 2020 in Warren, Michigan. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) Our new issue, ?Failure Is an Option,? is out soon. We discuss why the United States? institutional breakdown won?t stop after Trump leaves office and what can be done to improve things for working people. Get a discounted print subscription today ! We?re Celebrating Our 10th Anniversary. Help Us Stick Around for Many More. Bhaskar Sunkara Bernie Sanders?s Five-Year War Matt Karp Are You Reading Propaganda Right Now? Liza Featherstone Four Futures Peter Frase In July 2019, while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president, Joe Biden declared in a foreign policy speech, ?It?s past time to end the Forever Wars, which have cost us untold blood and treasure.? But the president-elect ? who, as vice president, oversaw wars in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, and more ? is already embracing personnel with strong ties to the military apparatus driving this endless combat. On November 10, Biden announced his agency review teams, which he says ?are responsible for understanding the operations of each agency, ensuring a smooth transfer of power, and preparing for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris and their cabinet to hit the ground running on Day One.? Of the twenty-three people who comprise the Department of Defense agency review team, eight of them ? or just over a third ? list their ?most recent employment? as organizations, think tanks, or companies that either directly receive money from the weapons industry, or are part of this industry. These figures may be an undercount, as the writer was not immediately able to exhaustively source the funding of every employer. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is listed as the ?most recent employment? of three individuals on Biden?s Department of Defense agency review team: Kathleen Hicks (a former defense official under President Barack Obama), Melissa Dalton, and Andrew Hunter. CSIS is a hawkish and influential foreign policy think tank that receives funding from General Dynamics Corporation, Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, and other weapons manufacturers and defense contractors, as well as oil companies. Raytheon is a key supplier of bombs to the US-Saudi war in Yemen, and has aggressively lobbied to prevent any curbs on arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition. Among the weapons that Northrop Grumman manufactures are drones, which have been used by the US military in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, among other locations. Notably, a New York Times investigation in 2016 found that, based on a cache of email leaks, CSIS was effectively doubling as a weapons industry lobbying firm, pushing for expanded drone sales. Lockheed Martin is a key contractor for the THAAD missile system in South Korea ? a system that CSIS has also advocated for without disclosing their conflict of interest. The company also manufactured the bomb that struck a school bus in Northern Yemen in August 2018, killing at least twenty-six children. CSIS also receives money from a host of governments, including the United States, as well as the United Arab Emirates, which has joined with the United States and Saudi Arabia to wage war on Yemen. CSIS, in addition, receives money from the state-run oil company Saudi Aramco, which effectively amounts to a donation from the Saudi government. Two of the individuals named for Biden?s Department of Defense agency review team ? Ely Ratner and Susanna Blume ? list the think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) as their most recent employer. CNAS takes a significant chunk of its money from Northrop Grumman, as well as the US State Department ($500,000 or more per year on both counts), and from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and a host of corporations, including oil companies. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris drew heavily from CNAS to advise her presidential primary campaign. The think tank is known for embracing conventional, pro-war foreign policy, as well as escalation toward Russia and China. Three people from the team ? Stacie Pettyjohn, Terri Tanielian, and Christine Wormuth (also a former defense official under Obama) ? hail from the RAND Corporation, a hawkish think tank that receives significant funding from the US Army and the Department of Homeland Security. (These individuals are not being included in the tally of people who work for organizations funded by the arms industry, but nonetheless, their involvement shows the political bent of Biden?s Department of Defense transition team.) ?It?s telling the think tanks represented here ? RAND, CSIS, and CNAS ? are among the top recipients of Department of Defense and Department of Defense contractor funding,? says Ben Freeman of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which recently authored a report on think tank funding. ?CNAS and CSIS are literally number one and number two in terms of donations received from US defense contractors in the last six years. RAND is, by far, the top recipient of Department of Defense funding of any think tank.? Sharon Burke, on Biden?s team, works for New America, which calls itself a ?national network of innovative problem-solvers.? The organization receives funding from Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, and US Army War College. Shawn Skelly?s most recent employer is listed by the Biden team as CACI International, which provides information technology for US military weapons systems. (Because Skelly?s LinkedIn page says she worked at CACI until November 2020, we are including her in the tally of people who receive money from or are employed by the weapons industry, given the relevance to her present finances.) Before Skelly started working there, CACI was sued by Iraqis formerly detained in the notorious US military prison Abu Ghraib, on the grounds that the contractor played a direct role in their torture. (The lawsuit is still ongoing.) Victor Garcia lists Rebellion Defense as his most recent employer. This software company says it helps ?our defense and national security agencies unlock the power of data across all domains.? It was founded by former defense officials and ?analyzes video gathered via drone,? according to the New York Times. Of those remaining, one team member works for JPMorgan Chase & Co., another is retired from the State Department, a few work for universities and other organizations, and one works for the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which says it strives to ?prevent catastrophic attacks with weapons of mass destruction and disruption ? nuclear, biological, radiological, chemical and cyber.? Lisa Coe, also on the team, lists as her most recent employer OtherSide Consulting, a defense industry consultant, according to Defense News. However, because we were unable to independently verify this, Coe is not being included in our count of team members funded by the military or weapons industry. Farooq Mitha, also a member of the Department of Defense team, is on the board of Emgage, which has garnered criticism for its affiliation with anti-Palestinian organizations. The news prompted disappointment from anti-war groups. ?Biden building a team of people with connections to weapons manufacturers and the military industrial complex is a prime example of how militarism and imperialism are bipartisan,? says Sidney Miralao, an organizer with Dissenters, a group of young people who oppose US militarism and the war industry. ?Democrats and Republicans alike perpetuate and profit off of war and violence in our communities at home and abroad. By continuing the legacy of the revolving door with the defense industry, Biden and his team are setting themselves up to be able to continue growing the military and strengthening the narrative that war is necessary to safety.? While campaigning, Biden made some overtures to the surging left wing that nearly catapulted Bernie Sanders to the Democratic nomination, forming a unity task force with Sanders backers that issued a series of recommendations , from climate to labor. Yet these efforts to reach out to the Left largely omitted issues of war and militarism, leaving critics of US aggression concerned that a Biden administration would bring a continuation of the wars he?s supported throughout his career. Biden played an influential role in backing the 2003 US invasion of Iraq , has been a career-long supporter of Israel?s aggression toward Palestinians, and has defended the open-ended occupation of Afghanistan, among other acts. Outgoing president Donald Trump, for his part, hoisted people with close ties to the arms industry into prominent Department of Defense positions, appointing Mark Esper, a former lobbyist for Raytheon, to the position of secretary of defense. (Trump fired Esper and a number of other senior military officials in recent days, in what appears to be a sign of Trump?s effort to stay in power despite losing the presidential election.) ?Has Biden already forgotten who put him in the position he?s in?? says Ram?n Mej?a, anti-militarism national organizer with the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, an alliance of community organizations. ?The only reason he?s president-elect is because Black, Brown, Indigenous youth mobilized to vote out Trump?s fascism. Biden shouldn?t make the mistake that Democrats are commonly known to make, which is to abandon the same people who put them there.? ?War-making and corporate profiteering is a non-starter,? Mej?a adds. ?We must divest the bulk of our budget from a war-fueling extractive economy, and prioritize investing in a life-sustaining regenerative economy.? Republished from In These Times . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Nov 15 14:25:46 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2020 08:25:46 -0600 Subject: [Peace] A must listen, especially if you identify as a liberal. Message-ID: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/anti-war-us-army-veteran-warns-hawks-in-biden-transition/id1267540234?i=1000498543221 From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Nov 15 14:29:10 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2020 08:29:10 -0600 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_=5BNew_post=5D_This_Isn=E2=80=99t_Femin?= =?utf-8?q?ism=2C_It=E2=80=99s_Imperialism_In_Pumps?= References: <139971992.9174.0@wordpress.com> Message-ID: > > New post on Caitlin Johnstone > > > This Isn?t Feminism, It?s Imperialism In?Pumps by Caitlin Johnstone > "President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a historic step and select a woman to head the Pentagon for the first time, shattering one of the few remaining barriers to women in the department and the presidential Cabinet," reads a new report from the AP . "Michele Flournoy, a politically moderate Pentagon veteran, is regarded by U.S. officials and political insiders as a top choice for the position." > > "Seen as a steady hand who favors strong military cooperation abroad, Flournoy, 59, has served multiple times in the Pentagon, starting in the 1990s and most recently as the undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012," says the AP. "She serves on the board of Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense contractor, which could raise concerns from some lawmakers. But her moderate views would likely ensure wide bipartisan support in a position that requires Senate confirmation." > > President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a historic step and select a woman to head the Pentagon for the first time. U.S. officials and political insiders regard Michele Flournoy as a top choice for the job. https://t.co/Zlvh3xL4yG > ? AP Politics (@AP_Politics) November 14, 2020 > This word "moderate" which the AP news agency keeps bleating is of course complete nonsense. Standing in the middle ground between two corporatist warmongering parties does not make you a moderate, it makes you a corporatist warmonger. Flournoy is no more "moderate" than the "moderate rebels" in Syria which mass media outlets like AP praised for years until it became undeniable that they were largely Al Qaeda affiliates ; the only reason such a position can be portrayed as mainstream and moderate is because vast fortunes have been poured into making it that way. > > As we discussed recently , Flournoy is a bloodthirsty imperialist and war profiteer who peace activists Medea Benjamin and Nicolas JS Davies?accurately labeled an "angel of death" for the American empire. As leader of the laughably titled Department of "Defense" she can be expected to oversee the same agendas of unipolar global domination at the expense of rivers of blood as her predecessors, in more or less exactly the same ways. > > There is nothing special or noteworthy about a murderous ghoul rising to the top of a war machine that can only be run by murderous ghouls. But because Michele Flournoy is a woman, we will see her appointment as "Defense" Secretary applauded and upheld as a major landmark for women by a political/media class which has never cared about women beyond their ability to turn the gears of the machine. > > And of course establishment narrative managers are already greasing the wheels for that applause. > > White progressives training their fire on women and women of color who are under consideration to lead the nat sec departments makes me deeply uncomfortable about their allyship for those communities. > > Especially when the nat sec community is dominated by white men. > > ? Mieke Eoyang (@MiekeEoyang) November 13, 2020 > "White progressives training their fire on women and women of color who are under consideration to lead the nat sec departments makes me deeply uncomfortable about their allyship for those communities," tweeted MSNBC contributor Mieke Eoyang. "Especially when the nat sec community is dominated by white men." > > It's only going to get dumber from here, folks. > > Let's clear this up before the girl power parade starts:the first woman to head the US war machine will not be a groundbreaking pioneer of feminist achievement. She will be a mass murderer who wears Spanx. Her appointment will not be an advancement for women, it will be imperialism in pumps. > > Modern mainstream feminism has abandoned women's interests so thoroughly and completely in almost all spheres of importance that it has largely become only superficially distinct from the patriarchy it purports to oppose. The plight of mothers, elderly women, young girls, caregivers and wives have been almost entirely shuffled out of popular discourse, with focus instead shifted onto discussions about whether women are being adequately rewarded for their service to the God of Capitalism, or how they're just as qualified as men to murder thousands of people at a time. > > Instead of fighting to correct the societal imbalances which have resulted from millennia of male domination of society, mainstream feminism now promotes and applauds the very worst aspects of those imbalances. Instead of fighting to help women out of the impossible situation where they're expected to simultaneously be successful capitalists and good mothers in an economic system where families can't survive on a single income and children and the elderly are being neglected, we're getting headlines about murderous warmongers "breaking barriers" and think pieces about how women should be allowed to inherit dukedoms . > > Why can't a girl inherit a dukedom? In Britain, there's a new frontier for feminism?the aristocracy. I met the campaigners trying to drag the peerage into the 21st century (and got to pet a horse). https://t.co/MyvOoNfu3w > ? Helen Lewis (@helenlewis) November 14, 2020 > In a system where dominant cultural narratives are always being deliberately twisted toward the advantage of the powerful, healthy collective impulses consistently wind up being diverted and corrupted until they find themselves unwittingly serving the very forces they set out to push back against. Movements toward racial equality have been twisted into support for the Democratic Party whose austerity policies and legal authoritarianism disproportionately hurt racial minorities worse than anyone else. Movements to elect a Democratic Socialist get funneled into support for the idiotic Russia conspiracies of the #Resistance . Movements to fight patriarchy wind up amplifying the most unhealthy aspects of patriarchy. > > A true feminism would work toward a reversal of all the unhealthy aspects of society which were put there by social engineers without any input from women. > > All around the world for thousands of years, wherever a civilization sprang up, the larger, stronger gender was naturally in a position to assert dominance over the way that civilization was run. Leadership systems were invented by men, social hierarchies were invented by men, marriage was invented by men, family structural norms were designed by men, money was invented by men, war was invented by men, and men invented religions which just so happened to have patriarchal gods who all agreed that the way men had set things up was indeed right and just. > > Women were essentially property throughout most of this, and thus had very little input into how any of it was set up. Generation after generation after generation of women were born into this male-engineered society, over thousands and thousands of years, into a system so deeply and extensively normalized that it?s almost impossible to imagine what our society might look like had it not been dominated entirely by men throughout its history. > > And then, very, very recently in the grand scheme of things, a healthy impulse emerged among women to cease being second-class citizens, and to instead stand as equals with their brothers. > > In response, after much whining and foot-dragging, the men who ran things said in effect, ?Right. Okay. You want equality? Fine. The jobs we invented are over there, the capitol building for the government we invented is over there, the bank for the economic system we invented is across the street, the Department of War is two blocks that way, and the Church of the Patriarchal God is around the corner. Welcome to equality!? > > And some rich guys standing by watching leaned in and whispered to each other, ?Sweet, double the workforce! We can halve their wages!? > > Biden Will Have The Most Diverse, Intersectional Cabinet Of Mass Murderers Ever Assembled > > "2021, here we come!"https://t.co/myInwAoFA7 > ? Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) November 9, 2020 > We should not be cheering for women rising to the top of a psychopathic war machine. We should be dismantling that war machine and rolling back all the conditions which led to it. True feminism, which is interested in guiding the world toward balance and heath in a way that benefits women and their children, would make this a priority. > > Push against the celebrations of women being elevated to positions which go directly against the interests of women. Do not let mass murder and psychopathy become the landmark for success in the kind of world we are creating for our daughters. Oppose this madness and push for the kind of world we all know deep down we ought to have. > > ____________________________ > > Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet merchandise , buying my new book Poems For Rebels or my old book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I?m trying to do with this platform, click here . Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I?ve written) in any way they like free of charge. > > > Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 > > #biden , #feminism , #imperialism , #michele-flournoy , #news , #politics , #war , #women > Caitlin Johnstone | November 15, 2020 at 3:28 am | Tags: biden , feminism , imperialism , michele flournoy , news , Politics , war , women | Categories: Article , News | URL: https://wp.me/p9tj6M-2nY > Comment See all comments > > Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: > https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/11/15/this-isnt-feminism-its-imperialism-in-pumps/ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 16 18:35:48 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2020 12:35:48 -0600 Subject: [Peace] BOOK REVIEW, CALEB MAUPIN, DEMOCRATS, FRANKFURT SCHOOL, POLITICS, RIGHT WING JERKS, TULSI GABBARD Message-ID: BOOK REVIEW , CALEB MAUPIN , DEMOCRATS , FRANKFURT SCHOOL , POLITICS , RIGHT WING JERKS , TULSI GABBARD A WARNING OF THE IMMINENT DANGER OF A KAMALA HARRIS PRESIDENCY OCTOBER 17, 2020 MAX PARRY With the 2020 U.S. presidential election less than a month away, there is widespread speculation concerning Democratic nominee Joe Biden?s mental and physical fitness at 77 years of age if he were to defeat incumbent Donald Trump on November 3rd. The former Vice President and Senator from Delaware would surpass his opponent as the oldest to ever hold the office of the presidency if victorious, while his generally acknowledged cognitive decline has led many to question whether he is even capable of serving a single term. Given the concerns about his health, the likelihood that Biden?s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, would become his successor has put the controversial former prosecutor and California Attorney General?s own politics under scrutiny, though not to a degree sufficient with the odds she could very well become commander-in-chief in the near future. Trump himself suggested it was the hidden motivation behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?s recent introduction of a 25th Amendment commission on removing a ?mentally unfit? president to enable the replacement of an incapacitated Biden with Harris after the election. Even Saturday Night Live recently joked about Biden?s poor first debate performance as a Harris term in-the-making ? but as journalist Caleb Maupin explains in his new book Kamala Harris and the Future of America: An Essay in Three Parts , the prospect of her becoming president is no laughing matter. Maupin?s ambitious essay surpasses the redundant analysis of the vice-presidential nominee by placing her political success in a broader historical context while forewarning the unique danger of a budding Harris administration waiting in the wings. The majority of the critical examinations of Harris during the campaign have critiqued her rebranding as an outwardly ?progressive? figure in stark contrast with the reality of her career as a ruthless criminal prosecutor turned establishment politician. While that is true, Maupin?s analysis takes an important step further by formulating the rise of Harris, who is the first Jamaican and South Asian-American nominee on a major party ticket, as the culmination of the U.S. left?s failures in the last several decades resulting in its present deteriorated state preoccupied with liberal identity politics. More specifically, a result of the defeats suffered by the so-called New Left of the 1960s and 70s which had long-term consequences for progressive politics in America today. Although not a biography, Maupin does link Harris?s psychological profile, personality traits and upbringing with her political career which he parallels with the life stories of previous presidents and other political figures. Born in 1964, Harris was raised in a hub of the organized left in the Bay Area by immigrant parents who were politically active during her early childhood in Northern California. While not a communist, her estranged Jamaican-American father, Donald Harris, is a Stanford University professor and Marxian economist whose work influenced the progressive domestic reforms in his native island country during the administration of Prime Minister Michael Manley, a democratic socialist who introduced land redistribution, socialized medicine and free education until Jamaica?s neocolonization by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decimated the Carribean nation with enormous debt, as explored in the documentary Life and Debt (2001). Young Kamala grew up attending civil rights protests in Berkeley with her parents until their bitter divorce which resulted in her Indian-American mother gaining sole custody. Maupin dares to ask ? is her chosen career path as a criminal prosecutor and top legal officer disproportionately locking up black men unconsciously motivated by a vendetta against her father? Could it even explain her thinly-veiled contempt for the progressive politics she now pretends to uphold as a politician? Maupin also argues that Harris was likely groomed for her present role as Biden?s running mate by the Clintonite wing of Democratic Party once it became apparent Hillary was not in a position to run again in 2020, citing a 2017 closed door meeting in the Hamptons with elite party donors and apparatchiks. Despite her own early exit from the primaries after a knockout blow in the debates delivered by Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii who sharply criticized her record as a prosecutor, Harris was already vetted by the party leadership to be Biden?s heir apparent. For the Democratic establishment, she is the perfect choice to derail the emerging progressive faction of the party led by Bernie Sanders which champions a similar brand of the social democratic politics championed by her father. This could also hold disastrous geopolitical implications, as the world is still reeling from the four years spent ravaged by the foreign policy of Hillary Clinton?s State Department which oversaw the wholesale destruction of several nations in the global south. We can only expect the same regime change policies from Harris if she is cut from the same cloth. Maupin then uses Harris and her Berkeley upbringing to explore the history of leftism in the United States, tracing the New Left?s ceding of leadership roles to students and marginal groups while discarding labor rights and the class struggle back to the influence of the Frankfurt School of Social Theory. The philosophical movement of intellectuals and academics associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, otherwise known as ?critical theory?, put forward that both capitalist societies and Marxist-Leninist states like the Soviet Union were equally rigid ?totalitarian? systems. The interdisciplinary sociological school viewed Marx?s prediction of revolutionary emancipation in the 20th century as an evident failure and rejected the historical materialism of orthodox Marxism, arguing that forces of economic change were undermined by the dominant ideology of the ruling class represented in mass media which produced false consciousness in the working class. Theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse attempted to reformulate Marxism with Freudian psychoanalysis and other disciplines while critiquing mass consumer culture and modern technology. As the impact of the Frankfurt School gave rise to the New Left in the U.S. and Western Europe, mass social movements became housed in the universities instead of the factories. This was favorable to the ruling class, as student-led counterculture revolts were much easier to control in comparison with a revolution organized by the workers. If any authentic revolutionary leaders did emerge, they were quickly neutralized. After the student protests of 1968, the New Left withdrew further to its comfort zone in the realm of ideas and out of the streets, which was perfectly alright with the powers that be since they were intellectuals who denounced Marxism-Leninism. Soon the academy would be dominated by an even more pessimistic and ?anti-authoritarian? ideology, postmodernism, which rejected the value of all universal truths and grand narratives. How did this all happen? Maupin emphasizes that the intelligentsia of the New Left were actively supported by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through its clandestine Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) program during the Cold War, which sought to subvert the sympathies of liberals and the non-communist left with the Soviet Union through the covert funding of prominent literary magazines , journals, international conferences, modern art exhibitions , and other cultural activities. The objective was to promote an intellectual consensus on the Western left that the Soviet Union was to be opposed as much as capitalism and it was indisputably successful. Meanwhile, the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commissions of the 1970s exposed how in the previous decade the CIA had played an enormous role in introducing drugs to the counterculture as part of its domestic espionage against the anti-war movement in Operation Midnight Climax, a sub-program of Project MK-Ultra, where the Bay Area became a petri dish for its human experimentation. With the drug culture came the popularization of eastern mysticism and eventually, the New Age movement. As it happens, the relationship between the CIA and the New Left?s intellectuals goes back to its origins. One of the most prominent idealogues of the Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse ? often referred to as the ?father of the New Left? ? spent almost a full decade during the 1940s working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, and as an anti-Soviet intelligence analyst in the U.S. State Department. This was not just during wartime but continued well after WWII was over in West Germany until 1951 when Marcuse immigrated to the United States to work as a professor at universities on the east coast, the same year that the CCF was founded. However, one interesting fact that Maupin overlooks is that while Kamala Harris was growing up in Oakland in the 1960s, Marcuse relocated his teaching career out to the west coast at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where his work continued to be cited as an influence by the middle-class student activists and radicals of the counterculture as the left drifted further away from the socialist countries and the working class. The documentary The documentary Herbert?s Hippopotamus: Marcuse and Revolution in Paradise examines Marcuse?s time in Southern California in the late 60s. Prior to his work in the OSS, in Weimar Germany the young Marcuse had been a pupil of philosopher Martin Heidegger even as his mentor infamously joined the ascendant Nazi Party, though the relationship came to an end once Marcuse?s own academic career was obstructed by the Third Reich in the early 1930s. One of the major thinkers associated with the New Left promoted by the CCF was a former lover of Heidegger?s, Hannah Arendt, who penned one of the most seminal and harmful works in equating the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany as twin pillars of authoritarianism in The Origins of Totalitarianism. In particular, Maupin takes aim at Arendt?s essay Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil where she famously observed Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann?s thoughtless conformism and ministerial disposition in his lack of remorse for his atrocities while covering his trial. Maupin interprets her notion as implicitly concluding that lurking underneath the surface of every ordinary hardworking person is a potential fascist, therefore anyone who would try to organize them for a collective cause is a threat to society. This cynical, psychoanalytic definition of fascism as rooted in what Adorno called the ?authoritarian personality? replaced the Marxist economic understanding. Yet in spite of her work, Arendt controversially participated in the shameful post-war apologia and rehabilitation of Heidegger?s reputation. Critics might say that Maupin?s diagnosis of the Western left as the manipulated brainchild of Western intelligence agencies is oversimplistic, conspiratorial or risks espousing a form of vulgar Marxism. Indeed, it is a touchy subject for those too personally connected to the artistic and intellectual milieu of the time to accept the undeniably significant role played by the CIA in subverting leftist politics, arts and culture in the second half of the twentieth century. Some on the left will inevitably try to dismiss his analysis by likening it to the right-wing canard of ?cultural Marxism? spoken of by paleoconservatives simply because of the overlap in mutual subjects of criticism. Nonetheless, there is a small kernel of truth at the heart the right?s mostly fictitious narrative of Western Marxism?s control of academia but unfortunately, what they misinterpret as a plot to ?subvert Western culture? was hatched at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia ? not the former Soviet Union. Today?s pseudo-left which recoils working people is truly an imposter generated by the CIA?s cultural cold war program to replace actual Marxism, the real casualty of the pervasiveness of Western Marxism in universities. Others may find Maupin?s assessment of the Frankfurt School and thinkers of the New Left to be too dismissive of their contributions. Ironically, Adorno?s worthwhile conception of ?actionism? applies to the left-wing anti-intellectualism and leaderless, spontaneous voluntarism of the very movement to which the Frankfurt School gave birth and is even more relevant per Maupin?s thorough description of what he calls the ?synthetic left? today. Look no further than the ?propaganda of the deed? which dominates Antifa and the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests this year. In Thesis on Feuerbach , Karl Marx articulated the predicament of revolutionary politics in his day being restrained by the gap between thought and action, or ?philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.? One could say the mantra of the Western left now seems to be taking action without any thought whatsoever. Or as Lenin wrote in What is to be Done? , ?without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.? If the idea that Kamala Harris represents an apotheosis of the New Left?s failures feels like a bit of a stretch, it is only because the examination warrants further inquiry which Maupin should continue in his work, regardless of the outcome of the 2020 election. Nevertheless, in just a little over 125 pages he manages to comprehensively piece together the trajectory of the Western left from the end of WWII to what can only be described as its ?stinking corpse? today, a term once used by Rosa Luxembourg to describe the treacherous Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) after it voted to support the imperialist bloodbath of WWI in 1914. Maupin?s use of Harris and the environment she grew up in as a springboard to investigate the shortcomings of the Western left generally is a formidable exploration that is desperately needed at a time where the American people are faced with the probability of enduring yet another destructive administration and no authentic left to represent it. The post A Warning of the Imminent Danger of a Kamala Harris Presidency first appeared on Dissident Voice . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 16 18:55:48 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2020 12:55:48 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Never Another Trump! Public Meeting/Socialist Alternative References: <1ee8c70695a68a45ed15267a3.f2549fa6b1.20201116181554.770b67e2ee.a8385889@mail249.atl101.mcdlv.net> Message-ID: > > View this email in your browser > > Never Another Trump! What's Next for the Fightback? > > Thursday, 11/19, at 6PM on Zoom > * Connection info will be updated on the Facebook event page here: www.tinyurl.com/NeverAnotherTrump > > To the relief of millions, Trump is finally on his way out. Credit for this victory should not go to the Democrats, but to ordinary people who turned out in historic numbers to deliver a resounding defeat to Trump?s racist, sexist, xenophobic, and anti-worker agenda. > > And yet, many workers and young people voted for Biden with gritted teeth. While Bernie Sanders? campaign inspired millions by speaking to the interests of the working class, few were excited to #SettleForBiden . We know that getting rid of Trump was just step one - but what comes next? > > From the moment he takes office, Biden will find himself presiding over an extreme crisis he is not equipped to solve - from COVID-19, to an economic crisis, to an escalating climate disaster. > > Biden will soon clash with the most energetic mass movements taking shape across society. Biden, who suggested police ?shoot ?em in the leg,? is no friend of the BLM movement fighting against rampant police killings. As wildfires devastate the western U.S., Biden is digging in his heels against a Green New Deal, and has said repeatedly he will not ban fracking. In a disastrous second outbreak of the pandemic that has killed over 225 million already, Biden promised to veto Medicare for All legislation if it came to his desk. > > We need #Medicare4All and a #GreenNewDeal , to #DefundthePolice , to #CancelRent to stop mass evictions, immediately pass robust COVID relief, and so much more. These are all policies Biden and the Democratic establishment will resist tooth and nail. > > It will take enormous pressure from a mass movement to win victories for working people under Biden, not to mention Trump?s hand-picked Supreme Court. > > Socialist Alternative is hosting meetings across the country to immediately prepare next steps for the fightback. > > Hope to see you there! > > In solidarity, > > Socialist Alternative CU > > > > Copyright ? 2020 Socialist Alternative CU, All rights reserved. > You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. > > Our mailing address is: > Socialist Alternative CU > P.O. Box 17121 > Urbana, Il 61803 > > Add us to your address book > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 16 19:19:36 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2020 13:19:36 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Liberals now out hawk conservatives on war and aggression Message-ID: Those of us who have been active in the anti-war movement during the Obama years are very well aware of the fact that liberals now out-hawk conservatives, but it wasn?t so very obvious until Trump was elected, and now it's an open book with no shame on the part of liberal Democrats who support Biden and US foreign policy of war and aggression. "Author Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the recently-released No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using ?Humanitarian? Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests." "You might have noticed something curious following Biden's apparent election win ? liberal politicians and media are sounding the alarm that Trump may use his remaining months in office to draw down our troops from Afghanistan. For example, the New York Times ran a piece on November 12 claiming that ?both in Kabul and Washington, officials with knowledge of security briefings said there was fear that President Trump might try to accelerate an all-out troop withdrawal in his final days in office? before the more ?responsible? Biden can take over and try to stop or at least slow this. It is clear now that it is the liberal establishment, and the Democratic Party, which is more wedded to war than their counterparts across the aisle, and that should be disturbing to people hoping for progressive change with the incoming Administration.? https://www.rt.com/op-ed/506864-liberals-war-conservatives-afghanistan/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 16 22:51:56 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2020 16:51:56 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Great explanation of De-dolarization-Toward the End of U.S. Monetary Hegemony by Michael Hudson Message-ID: https://youtu.be/IbWaNPAS39s From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Mon Nov 16 23:51:57 2020 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2020 18:51:57 -0500 Subject: [Peace] NPR is shocked that Trump's Afghanistan drawdown might be "political" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I know not what course others may take. But I am *shocked, shocked* to discover that there might be political considerations going on in this restaurant. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/16/935513762/white-house-orders-thousands-of-u-s-troops-withdrawn-from-afghanistan-and-iraq White House Orders Thousands Of U.S. Troops Withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq November 16, 20205:49 PM ET DUSTIN JONES The White House will bring home 2,500 troops from Afghanistan and Iraq by the end of the year against the guidance of top military officials, a drawdown order that reduces the American presence by about a third, from 4,500 to 2,500 in Afghanistan and 3,000 to 2,500 in Iraq, according to a U.S. official. NPR's Tom Bowman reported the move is opposed by senior military leaders [Cry me a river! How many votes did they get?] [...] Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, have advised the troop reduction be pushed to the spring, Bowman reported. [Of course! *Morgen, morgen, nur nicht heute, sagen alle faulen Leute*.] [...] Trump campaigned in 2016 on bringing the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end. [Monster!] Last month, the president tweeted, "We should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas!" The withdrawal will likely have little effect on the ground, Bowman reported, since U.S. forces will still be training elements of the Afghan military. U.S. airstrikes against Taliban forces will also continue since forces fly out of Kuwait and other countries in the region. [Oh, wait! It's a nothing burger! Which is it? Scandal or nothing burger? It cannot be both.] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Nov 17 02:17:05 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2020 20:17:05 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Recommended videos for AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV Message-ID: Here are the video suggestions I've sent to Jason Liggett of UPTV to run during AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV's timeslots. As before, I've asked Jason to prioritize AWARE member suggested videos ahead of my suggestions for AOTA/NFN and to prioritize anything David Johnson prefers for Labor's World View TV. Thanks. -J Shadowproof https://tube.cadence.moe/watch?v=z4m0KkiqDPo -- (44m 46s) Dissenter Weekly: Biden Transition Team Members Were Involved In Obama's War On Whistleblowers; Kevin Gosztola with Brian Sonenstein on the Biden-Harris transition agency review teams, and a Julian Assange update. https://tube.cadence.moe/watch?v=8PcC4Ymp_Ac -- (1h 30m 06s) Unauthorized Disclosure: Max Blumenthal Shares Reporting From Bolivia?Plus, US Election Results with Rania Khalek and Max Blumenthal. Bolivia recently democratically regained control of their country from US-backed coupsters by voting the coupsters out of office and reinstating the Mas party. acTIvism https://tube.cadence.moe/watch?v=zlyQ_j-jpYw -- (1h 4m) Taylor Hudak interviews Dr. Jill Biden on the 2020 election and US elections in general including the evidenceless allegations of fraud, RT: On Contact Video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=j4WEALCaOcg -- (25m 24s) Chris Hedges interviews Rev. Dr. Mel White on Christian fundamentalist threat to civil liberties. Transcript: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/506667-american-fascists-christian-right/ RT: Going Underground https://youtube.com/watch?v=iCRDvTEHPc8 -- (14m 49s) US and UK imprisonment: Are they fundamentally broken? Afshin Rattansi interview with Chris Daw, QC. https://youtube.com/watch?v=BgHm81oZsjg -- (13m 29s) Communist Cuba develops Coronavirus vaccine despite US sanctions. Cuba also has fewer COVID-19 deaths (both overall and per capita). What does this threat of a better example mean? Afshin Rattansi interview with Dr. Helen Yaffe. Dr. Yaffe's interview gives much cause for rethinking our economic model in which you get as much healthcare as you can afford. https://youtube.com/watch?v=XazRcWEzKvg -- (13m 27s) Afshin Rattansi interviews Matt Taibbi on Biden's past and foreseeable future. RT: Renegade, Inc. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Aow-mPXjrME -- (27m 58s) Two interviews: Doug Henwood (Left Business Observer) and Ariel Gold (CODEPINK National Co-Director) on a Biden/Harris presidency in separate interviews. Henwood's interview is fairly good but the latter interview is rather unfortunate both in that the subject, Gold, apparently holds evidenceless views that "we voted out fascism" by electing Joe Biden, repeating the evidenceless belief (that amounts to excuse-making for passivity) that people can push Biden into supporting their policies, and that progressive Congressmembers will do us a favor (even citing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, in that set). The interviewer gives no evidence that he knows that AOC voted for the CARES Act (where the alleged progressives never used their power to get us a UBI or Medicare for All but gave the wealthy trillions), Biden's previous administration was soundly pro-war (more bombing than GW Bush before him), threw 50+ million families out of their homes in a comparable economic circumstance to what we see now, and wrote the Crime Bill never once being pushed out of any of those things. I respect the anti-war activism CODEPINK has carried out, most notably with Medea Benjamin (who might have made a better interview here), and I appreciate that CODEPINK reps bring up anti-war points in their interviews even if I disagree with some of the liberal fictions one can hear on establishment media all day long. Grayzone https://tube.cadence.moe/watch?v=5H5P9Mewq6A -- (20m 27s) Biden "chief propagandist" opposes free press; Anya Parampil talks with Ben Norton on how US propaganda works and what the Clinton & Obama/Biden administrations did as a forecast for what's coming in a Biden/Harris administration. https://tube.cadence.moe/watch?v=0AWTYGZnkvk -- (43m 39s) As Trump rejects US election, Biden signals continued regime change abroad; Aaron Mat? talks with Max Blumenthal. https://tube.cadence.moe/watch?v=XcgS6Z8Arn0 -- (39m 10s) "The real 2020 election scandal: voter theft targeting Black people, youth"; Aaron Mat? interviews Greg Palast. From kmedina67 at gmail.com Tue Nov 17 16:29:20 2020 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (Karen Medina) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2020 10:29:20 -0600 Subject: [Peace] a teach-in about police unions / Tues Nov 17, 2020; 5:30pm (virtual) Message-ID: The Labor Movement & Police Unions: A Teach-in with Theresa Rocha Beardall & Defund UIPD Tuesday, November 17, 2020; 5:30pm "Did you know? The Urbana Police Department and the UIUC Police Department are negotiating their union contracts right now. These contracts work to embolden police power by shielding cops from accountability, transparency, and fairness and have been tied to increased violent ?misconduct.? We have the opportunity to demand community accountability and interrupt the power of these contracts. At this teach-in, we?ll learn about the overarching problems with cop unions and dig into the details of the current UPD and UIPD contracts. Let?s mobilize to win." Theresa Rocha Beardall is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, Criminology, and American Indian Studies at Virginia Tech whose research examines police and policing at the intersection of race, class, and labor law. This event is sponsored by HRI-Mellon Legal Humanities Initiative, GEO, and Abolition 2 Abundance! >From the Facebook event, there is a link to register. Upon registering, you will receive an email with the relevant meeting information: The Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/369358127510946/?acontext=%7B%22source%22%3A%2229%22%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3A%22event_aggregate%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22%7D¬if_id=1605621041728238¬if_t=event_aggregate&ref=notif -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 18 13:11:04 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2020 07:11:04 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Chilling, absolutely chilling.......China containment-state-department leak. Message-ID: https://www.rt.com/usa/507066-china-containment-state-department/ From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 18 13:35:19 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2020 07:35:19 -0600 Subject: [Peace] U.S. State Dept. leaked document related to China challange Message-ID: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20407448-elements_of_the_china_challenge-20201117?fbclid=IwAR3tuEzvCrQjdtv0hsBZK0FCXEW8psjvza52iRFdH From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Wed Nov 18 21:06:29 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2020 15:06:29 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Sunny 1 Bedroom in Crystal Lake Park; $450 includes ALL utilities Message-ID: Bedroom is in a Friendly 4 bedroom house in Crystal Lake Park. Available December 1 2020. $450 rent includes ALL utilities. Looking for rentals for at least 5 months. House is on a quiet street in Crystal Lake Park, with new hardwood floors, newly plastered walls, unique lay-out. Utilities include heat &AC, new furnace, dishwasher, Internet, trash & recycle, laundry machines -- offers ample free parking on street --is ? block from Crystal Lake?you can see it out your window. (what? See a body of water in ILLINOIS??) --sits in the middle of Crystal Lake Park, with huge Oak trees, plenty of picnic tables and barbecue pits --though it feels as if you are in the country, the house is 5 blocks away from Down Town Urbana --is located near the Gold Line for easy access, and is across the street from School for Designing a Society. --current residents are quiet, very friendly community-oriented artists and professional people. ---The home is a cat-friendly space with two lovable indoor cats currently living there. [image: B1AAB53D-68EF-42FA-8B8B-B22892497C15_1_105_c.jpeg] This bedroom is on the 2nd floor, east side of house. -- [image: 9F4DD712-8466-4327-8E69-496B5EACB550_1_105_c.jpeg]2nd *Susan Parenti* *Educational Coordinator * *The School for Designing a Society *www.designingasociety.net *Like us on Facebook !* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 9F4DD712-8466-4327-8E69-496B5EACB550_1_105_c.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 197761 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: B1AAB53D-68EF-42FA-8B8B-B22892497C15_1_105_c.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 182027 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 18 21:33:14 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2020 15:33:14 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Amid electoral coup plot, Trump threatens catastrophic war on Iran Message-ID: Amid electoral coup plot, Trump threatens catastrophic war on Iran Bill Van Auken 17 hours ago On November 14, the World Socialist Web Site asked the question, Is Trump plotting a war against Iran? The answer has not been long in coming. The New York Times has revealed in a November 16 article that the US president last Thursday convened an Oval Office meeting of his national security cabinet to discuss ?options to take action against Iran?s main nuclear site in the coming weeks.? Present at the meeting, convened as Trump waged his campaign to nullify the results of the presidential election, were Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, newly appointed acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley. The pretext for this ominous discussion was a report issued last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran?s stockpile of low-enriched uranium had reached 5,386 pounds, 12 times the limit set by the nuclear agreement reached in 2015 between Tehran and the world?s major powers. The accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, traded the lifting of United Nations sanctions for Iran?s agreement to sharply curtail its civilian nuclear program and submit to a rigorous inspection regime. Trump pulled out of the agreement in 2018, imposing an endless series of steadily escalating unilateral sanctions aimed at strangling Iran?s economy and starving its people into submission, while engaging in relentless military provocations. This culminated in the drone assassination last January of top Iranian leader Qassim Suleimani at Baghdad international airport, a criminal act that brought the two countries to the brink of all-out war. The size of Iran?s uranium stockpile?still far smaller than before the 2015 accord?is of no strategic significance and represents no violation of international law. Tehran has increased the stockpile and exceeded other limits of the treaty in response to Europe?s failure to resist Washington?s unilateral sanctions. Iran has taken no steps to enrich uranium to the over 90 percent level necessary to produce fissionable material, nor is there evidence that it has any intention of doing so. Iran has repeatedly insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, and has accepted international inspections that would reveal anything to the contrary. The Times article repeats the propaganda lie peddled by the US and Israeli governments that Iran could be ?close to a bomb? as early as next spring. It bears pointing out that the article?s authors include Eric Schmitt and David Sanger, both of whom contributed pieces to the Timescampaign in the service of the Bush administration?s fabrication of a ?weapons of mass destruction? pretext for the US war of aggression against Iraq in 2002-2003. According to the Times, ?Any strike?whether by missile or cyber?would almost certainly be focused on Natanz?, Iran's largest uranium enrichment facility located south of the capital Tehran. The Times report cited unnamed administration officials as stating that ?After Mr. Pompeo and General Milley described the potential risks of military escalation, officials left the meeting believing a missile attack inside Iran was off the table ... ? There is absolutely no reason to accept such assurances as good coin. Planning for a US strike is continuing apace, and definite measures are being taken for its execution. The Pentagon reported Monday the redeployment of an F-16 fighter squadron from Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany to Al-Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi in what an Air Force commander told the media was a demonstration of ?CENTCOM's commitment to allies and partners to bolster security and stability in the region.? The aircraft are equipped to deliver both conventional and nuclear bombs against targets. Meanwhile, the US Navy?s Nimitz Carrier Strike Group continues operations in the Persian Gulf, while the US has some 35,000 troops deployed in the region. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in Israel today for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, not unlike Trump, is threatened with being ousted from power to face multiple criminal charges. The principal issue to be discussed in Pompeo?s visit?as it will be in his subsequent stops in the Persian Gulf oil monarchies that are part of Washington?s anti-Tehran axis?will be war against Iran. The Israeli press is filled with speculation over whether the US will strike Iran before Trump is forced from office, or whether Washington will assist Netanyahu in doing so. One thing is certain. The bombing of Natanz or any other Iranian nuclear facility would be a war crime of world historic proportions, threatening to kill thousands?if not tens of thousands?outright, and subjecting many more to death and disease from the release of uranium hexafluoride gases and subsequent radioactive fallout. Behind the pretext of Iranian uranium stockpiles, the immediate driving force for such a war crime against Iran lies in the unprecedented political crisis gripping Washington in the face of Trump?s attempt to stage a post-election coup to remain in power. Trump has carried out a purge of the top Pentagon leadership, installing a cabal of fascistic loyalists in top positions, all of them fanatically anti-Iranian. Sacked acting Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, a former lobbyist for the arms industry, was removed both because of his reluctance to support an Iran strike and his public opposition to Trump?s proposal to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy regular Army troops in the streets to attack anti-police violence demonstrations. An attack on Iran, and the inevitable Iranian retaliation, with the potential deaths of large numbers of US troops, would provide Trump with the pretext for imposing martial law and refusing to surrender the White House. With 62 days remaining before the scheduled presidential inauguration, the danger of such a provocation is ever-present. Biden and the Democrats have ignored the threat of a catastrophic war against Iran. Instead, they warn of the supposed dangers of a ?precipitous? withdrawal of US troops from the nearly two-decade-long US war in Afghanistan and from Iraq, while proclaiming that Trump?s stonewalling of the transition process is a threat to ?national security,? leaving US imperialism vulnerable to its ?enemies.? The war threat against Iran and the danger of a new world war are fundamentally rooted not in the crisis of the Trump regime, but rather in its source, the historic crisis of US imperialism. In its merciless aggression against Iran, Washington is pursuing geo-strategic interests. It seeks to exert unfettered hegemony over the Persian Gulf and its vast energy resources, while denying them to its chief global rival, China. Should Biden succeed in being inaugurated on January 20, this threat of war will only continue to escalate. The Democratic Party has made this abundantly clear through a campaign attacking Trump from the right for being too ?soft? on Russia and China. The overriding concern of the Democratic Party is not to defeat Trump?s conspiracies, but rather to prevent popular opposition to them from threatening the interests of Wall Street and US imperialism. The fight against war and in defense of democratic rights?along with the sacrifice of workers? lives to the ruling class? ?herd immunity? response to the COVID-19 pandemic?can be waged only by the working class mobilizing in opposition to Trump and the Democrats and the capitalist system they both defend. The whole world is watching the extraordinary events that have followed the US elections, and if American workers initiate an independent political struggle, it will be backed by workers across the globe. The common interests of workers in the United States and every other country lie in breaking the grip of the financial-corporate oligarchy and taking power into their own hands in order to restructure economic life internationally on the basis of equality and socialism. WSWS.ORG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Nov 19 23:55:07 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2020 17:55:07 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Australian special forces involved in Afghanistan war crimes -- https://youtube.com/watch?v=sSsuKpUvKAI Message-ID: From RT: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sSsuKpUvKAI -- coverage of the story, quoting the Australian military describing the horrors carried out outside the heat of battle, and George Galloway rightly pointing out both the proper prioritization of said crimes and the related underreported police raid against ABC (Australian Broadcast Company, equivalent of the BBC) which looks like punishment of the journalists who told us about war criminality. Galloway points out that this is like punishing Julian Assange instead of subjecting US war leaders to war crimes trials. From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Sat Nov 21 03:03:20 2020 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2020 21:03:20 -0600 Subject: [Peace] State Dept. designates BDS as antisemitic -- Jewish Voice for Peace petition opposing this In-Reply-To: <19.AC.03308.93548BF5@asv11mtam003.ngpweb.com> References: <19.AC.03308.93548BF5@asv11mtam003.ngpweb.com> Message-ID: <312d97f2-361f-0ec5-c52c-6ab6c12586fb@gmail.com> It's not news that opponents of the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement have tried to label it as antisemitic. But now, the US State Dept is making that nonsensical and dangerous association be official US policy. Jewish Voice for Peace is opposing this.?? There's a petition -- see below.?? I signed it and hope you will too. -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Pompeo is escalating. So are we. Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2020 17:37:40 -0500 From: Beth Miller Reply-To: info at jvpaction.org To: Stuart Levy Dear Stuart, Yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the State Department will designate the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as antisemitic, and directed his office to create a blacklist of organizations that support BDS.? We saw this coming. Weeks ago, we launched a campaign to demand Pompeo stop using false allegations of antisemitism to attack Palestinians and the Palestinian rights movement. We ran an ad in The Hill to make sure everyone in Washington knows that this policy has nothing to do with Jewish safety. *But the Trump administration is continuing to escalate ??so we need to escalate too.* Our petition passed its original goal of 5,000 signatories, so we?re setting a new one. We need another 5,000 people to join us now to make it clear: *anti-Zionism is NOT antisemitism. BDS is not antisemitism. Criticizing Israel is not antisemitism. *And the U.S. government must not use false claims of antisemitism to silence Palestinians and criminalize free speech.?*Please sign our petition if you haven?t already. If you have already signed, please share widely. * Pompeo?s attack on BDS comes alongside his visit to an illegal Israeli settlement and announcement that all goods made in illegal settlements will now be labeled as products of Israel, reversing longstanding U.S. policy. Taken together, Pompeo?s actions paint a very clear picture of the U.S. and Israel?s unified position: Israel has full impunity to uphold a one-state, apartheid reality in which rights are afforded only to Jewish Israelis ??and any movement to oppose that injustice will be smeared as antisemitic. His opaque blacklist is designed to terrify organizations critical of Israel into silence*. Every person who believes in free speech should be speaking out against this authoritarian move by the Trump administration.* *We can?t ignore these policy shifts in the hopes that President-elect Biden will reverse them come January ??we know better. *Every time the Trump administration moves further to the right, it becomes that much harder to reverse the damage, and*declarations like these cause immediate and direct harm against Palestinians and this movement.?* *We have to show our outrage RIGHT NOW, and make it loud enough that it cuts through the chaos of this moment. When we reach our goal, we?re going to make sure Pompeo ??and the incoming Biden administration ??can?t ignore us. Please sign and share widely now.* *Make no mistake, this policy is not about Jewish safety ??in fact, it?s dangerous for Jews.* Pompeo?s false charge of antisemitism is particularly harmful and contemptible at a time when actual antisemitism is a real and growing threat in America and the world. And it?s especially disingenuous coming from an administration that has openly embraced white nationalists, evangelical antisemitism, and outright neo-Nazis.? As a Jewish and proudly pro-BDS organization, we know that using our grassroots power to fight for equality, justice, and freedom for Palestinians is a powerful expression of our own Jewish tradition. *Join us in saying: Working towards Palestinian freedom is not ? and never has been ? antisemitic.* head shot ? Beth Miller Government Affairs Manager ? You are receiving this email because you are a core supporter of JVP Action,?a multiracial, intergenerational movement of Jews and allies?working toward justice and equality in Israel/Palestine by transforming U.S. policy. We are an independent, nonpartisan, 501(c)(4)?organization formed as the political and advocacy arm of Jewish Voice for Peace . If you are receiving this email in error, you can unsubscribe anytime. * DONATE * FACEBOOK * TWITTER www.jvpaction.org 712 H Street NE, Suite 1363 Washington, D.C. 20002 This email was sent to stuartnlevy at gmail.com We use email to build our grassroots power - don't hesitate to share your feedback and campaign suggestions . You can change your subscription options anytime. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Nov 21 13:09:20 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2020 07:09:20 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Crosstalk Message-ID: Only thirty minutes discussion, Brian Becker?s final statement sums it up??.. From jbn at forestfield.org Sun Nov 22 18:07:56 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2020 12:07:56 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Recommended videos for AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV Message-ID: <9afe368f-cf8a-19f2-f56c-2650fa41ec2c@forestfield.org> Here are the video suggestions I've sent to Jason Liggett of UPTV to run during AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV's timeslots. As before, I've asked Jason to prioritize AWARE member suggested videos ahead of my suggestions for AOTA/NFN and to prioritize anything David Johnson prefers for Labor's World View TV. I've got some family events coming up which will require my attention so I might not be able to submit new videos next week. There should be enough here and what I submitted as suggestions previously to keep the timeslots filled with like-minded content for a couple of weeks. David Johnson also told UPTV about "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Killed_Kennedy) which will run on UPTV on Thursday, November 26 from 7-9 PM: Thanks. -J acTVism https://youtube.com/watch?v=OxJ9eVF-c2w -- (1h 4m) Australian whistleblower David McBride exposes war crimes in Afghanistan. Grayzone https://youtube.com/watch?v=GmZhz-0Ds2Y -- (50m 34s) Key Mueller witness exposes key Russiagate lies in interview with Aaron Mat?. https://youtube.com/watch?v=SstDuYVbPY8 -- (22m 10s) Biggest trade deal in history excludes U.S. https://youtube.com/watch?v=5H5P9Mewq6A -- (20m 27s) Biden "chief propagandist" opposes free press. https://youtube.com/watch?v=l4ZmeyF6tRA -- (16m 3s) How Pompeo bulled Sudan into Israel normalization. Shadowproof https://youtube.com/watch?v=0js62L2ohYs -- (57m 2s) "Unauthorized Disclosure: Interview With Danny Haiphong On US Foreign Policy Under President Biden" Mint Press News https://youtube.com/watch?v=o4g1PPGCfuQ -- (17m 13s) "How Joe Biden Plans to Make The American Empire Great Again" -- Dan Cohen on who will likely head up high-ranking positions in the upcoming Biden/Harris administration, focusing on Michele Flournoy & Anthony Blinken. Old names are coming back, continuing illegal and unethical wars from the Clinton/Gore, Bush/Cheney, Obama/Biden, and Trump/Pence administrations. In other words, all available evidence shows that Biden/Harris will be no antidote to Trump/Pence because the policies will remain overwhelmingly the same (perhaps only changing by increasing their lethality). The next administration looks to merely continue the aggression the US is widely known for. Cohen's report is an excellent summary of recent wars, the lies that launched & sustained these wars, carried out all with the cooperation of the establishment media. Consortium News https://youtube.com/watch?v=m6qHto3D0xE -- (1h 21m 50s) "FREE PRESS = PRESS ASSANGE, with Dan Ellsberg, Marjorie Cohn & Joe Lauria" explaining the threat of Julian Assange's detention (even beyond that which can be explained by his purposefully skipping bail), his torture in prison (which was called torture by a special UN rapporteur on torture), his risk of exposure to COVID-19 even as other prisoners are let go, and questionable UK sovereignty because the UK government is doing this at the behest of the US government. RT https://youtube.com/watch?v=-4eQYffAnYc -- (27m 18s) Dr. Margaret Flowers on COVID-19 and America's health care crisis in interview with Chris Hedges. Transcript: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/507334-covid19-america-health-crisis/ should show up at this URL shortly. From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 23 03:06:41 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2020 21:06:41 -0600 Subject: [Peace] A Washington Echo Chamber for a New Cold War References: Message-ID: > > > A Washington Echo Chamber for a New Cold War > > A Rising China Lifts All Boats (Submarines, Aircraft Carriers, and Surface Ships), Not to Speak of Fighter Planes, in the Military-Industrial Complex > > By Cassandra Stimpson and Holly Zhang > > November 20, 2020 "Information Clearing House " - "Tom Dispatch " - War: what is it good for? Apparently, in Washington?s world of think tanks, the answer is: the bottom line. > > In fact, as the Biden presidency approaches, an era of great-power competition between the United States and China is already taken for granted inside the Washington Beltway. Much less well known are the financial incentives that lurk behind so many of the voices clamoring for an ever-more-militarized response to China in the Pacific. We?re talking about groups that carefully avoid the problems such an approach will provoke when it comes to the real security of the United States or the planet. A new cold war is likely to be dangerous and costly in an America gripped by a pandemic, its infrastructure weakened, and so many of its citizens in dire economic straits. Still, for foreign lobbyists, Pentagon contractors, and Washington?s many influential think tanks, a ?rising China? means only one thing: rising profits. > > Defense contractors and foreign governments are spending millions of dollars annually funding establishment think tanks (sometimes in secret ) in ways that will help set the foreign-policy agenda in the Biden years. In doing so, they gain a distinctly unfair advantage when it comes to influencing that policy, especially which future tools of war this country should invest in and how it should use them. > > Not surprisingly, many of the top think-tank recipients of foreign funding are also toprecipients of funding from this country?s major weapons makers. The result: an ecosystem in which those giant outfits and some of the countries that will use their weaponry now play major roles in bankrolling the creation of the very rationales for those future sales. It?s a remarkably closed system that works like a dream if you happen to be a giant weapons firm or a major think tank. Right now, that system is helping accelerate the further militarization of the whole Indo-Pacific region. > > In the Pacific, Japan finds itself facing an increasingly tough set of choices when it comes to its most significant military alliance (with the United States) and its most important economic partnership (with China). A growing U.S. presence in the region aimed at counterbalancing China will allow Japan to remain officially neutral, even as it reaps the benefits of both partnerships. > > To walk that tightrope (along with the defense contractors that will benefit financially from the further militarization of the region), Japan spends heavily to influence thinking in Washington. Recent reports from the Center for International Policy?s Foreign Influence Initiative (FITI), where the authors of this piece work, reveal just how countries like Japan and giant arms firms like Lockheed Martin and Boeing functionally purchase an inside track on a think-tank market that?s hard at work creating future foreign-policy options for this country?s elite. > > How to Make a Think Tank Think > > Take the prominent think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which houses programs focused on the ?China threat? and East Asian ?security.? Its Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, which gets funding from the governments of Japan and the Philippines, welcomes contributions "from all governments in Asia, as well as corporate and foundation support.? > > Unsurprisingly, the program also paints a picture of Japan as central ?to preserving the liberal international order? in the face of the dangers of an ?increasingly assertive China.? It also highlights that country?s role as Washington?s maritime security partner in the region. There?s no question that Japan is indeed an important ally of Washington. Still, positioning its government as a lynchpin in the international peace (or war) process seems a dubious proposition at best. > > CSIS is anything but alone when it comes to the moneyed interests pushing Washington to invest ever more in what now passes for ?security? in the Pacific region. A FITI report on Japanese operations in the U.S., for instance, reveals at least 3,209 lobbying activities in 2019 alone, as various lobbyists hired by that country and registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act targeted both Congress and think tanks like CSIS on behalf of the Japanese government. Such firms, in fact, raked in more than $30 million from that government last year alone. From 2014 to 2019, Japan was also thelargest East Asian donor to the top 50 most influential U.S. think tanks. The results of such investments have been obvious when it comes to both the products of those think tanks and congressional policies . > > Think-tank recipients of Japanese funding are numerous and, because that country is such a staunch ally of Washington, its government can be more open about its activities than is typical . Projects like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace?s ?China Risk and China Opportunity for the U.S.-Japan Alliance,? funded by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are now the norm inside the Beltway. You won?t be surprised to learn that the think-tank scholars working on such projects almost inevitably end up highlighting Japan?s integral role in countering ?the China threat? in the influential studies they produce. That threat itself, of course, is rarely questioned. Instead, its dangers and the need to confront them are invariably reinforced. > > Another Carnegie Endowment study , ?Bolstering the Alliance Amid China?s Military Resurgence,? is typical in that regard. It?s filled with warnings about China?s growing military power -- never mind that, in 2019, the United States spent nearly triple what China did on its military, according? to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Like so many similarly funded projects inside the Beltway, this one recommended further growth in military cooperation between the U.S. and Japan. Important as well, it claimed, was developing ?the capability to wage combined multidomain joint operations? which ?would require accelerating operational response times to enhance firepower.? > > The Carnegie project lists its funding and, as it turns out, that foundation has taken in at least $825,000 from Japan and approximately the same amount from defense contractors and U.S. government sources over the past six years. And Carnegie?s recommendations recently came to fruition when the Trump administration announced the second-largest sale of U.S. weaponry to Japan, worth more than $23 billion worth. > > If the Japanese government has a stake in funding such think tanks to get what it wants, so does the defense industry. The top 50 think tanks have received more than $1 billion from the U.S. government and defense contractors over those same six years. Such contractors alone lobby Congress to the tune of more than $20 million each election cycle. Combine such sums with Japanese funding (not to speak of the money spent byother governments that desire policy influence in Washington) and you have a confluence of interests that propels U.S. military expenditures and the sale of weapons globally on a mind-boggling scale . > > A Defense Build-Up Is the Order of the Day > > An April 2020 report on the ?Future of US-Japan Defense Collaboration? by the Atlantic Council?s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security offers a typical example of how such pro-militarization interests are promoted. That report , produced in partnership with the Japanese embassy, begins with the premise that ?the United States and Japan must accelerate and intensify their long-standing military and defense-focused coordination and collaboration.? > > Specifically, it urges the United States to "take measures to incentivize Japan to work with Lockheed Martin on the F-2 replacement program,? known as the F-3. (The F-2 Support Fighter is the jet Lockheed developed and produced in partnership with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the Japanese Defense Forces.) While the report does acknowledge its partnership with the embassy of Japan, it fails to acknowledge that Lockheed donated? three quarters of a million dollars to the influential Atlantic Council between 2014 and 2019 and that Japan generally prefers to produce its own military equipment domestically. > > The Atlantic Council report continues to recommend the F-3 as the proper replacement for the F-2, ?despite political challenges, technology-transfer concerns,? and ?frustration from all parties? involved. This recommendation comes at a time when Japan has increasingly sought to develop its own defense industry. Generally speaking, no matter the Japanese embassy?s support for the Atlantic Council, that country?s military is eager to develop a new stealth fighter of its own without the help of either Lockheed Martin or Boeing. While both companies wish to stay involved in the behemoth project, the Atlantic Council specifically advocates only for Lockheed, which just happens to have contributed more than three times what Boeing did to that think tank?s coffers. > > A 2019 report by the Hudson Institute on the Japan-U.S. alliance echoed similar sentiments, outlining a security context in which Japan and the United States should focus continually on deterring ?aggression by China.? To do so, the report suggested, American-made ground-launched missiles (GCLMs) were one of several potential weapons Japan would need in order to prepare a robust ?defense? strategy against China. Notably, the first American GCLM test since the United States withdrew from the Cold War era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 used a Lockheed Martin Mark 41 Launch System and Raytheon?s Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missile. The Hudson Institute had not only received at least $270,000 from Japan between 2014 and 2018, but also a minimum of $100,000 from Lockheed Martin. > > In 2020, CSIS organized an unofficial working group for industry professionals and government officials that it called the CSIS Alliance Interoperability Series to discuss the development of the future F-3 fighter jet. While Japanese and American defense contractors fight for the revenue that will come from its production, the think tank claims that American, Japanese, and Australian industry representatives and officials will ?consider the political-military and technical issues that the F-3 debate raises.? Such working groups are far from rare and offer think tanks incredible access to key decision-makers who often happen to be their benefactors as well. > > All told, between 2014 and 2019, CSIS received at least $5 million from the U.S. government and Pentagon contractors, including at least $400,000 from Lockheed Martin and more than $200,000 from Boeing. In this fashion, a privileged think-tank elite has cajoled its way into the inner circles of policy formation (and it matters little whether we?re talking about the Trump administration or the future Biden one). Think about it for a moment: possibly the most crucial relationship on the planet between what looks like a rising and a falling great power (in a world that desperately needs their cooperation) is being significantly influenced by experts and officials invested in the industry guaranteed to militarize that very relationship and create a twenty-first-century version of the Cold War. > > Any administration, in other words, lives in something like an echo chamber that continually affirms the need for a yet greater defense build-up led by those who would gain most from it. > > Profiting from Great Power Competition > > Japan is singled out in this analysis because the Center for International Policy?s Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, where we work, had striking access to its influence data. There are, however, many other nations with defense agendas in the Indo-Pacific region who act similarly. As a Norwegian think-tank document put it, ?Funding powerful think tanks is one way to gain such access, and some think tanks in Washington are openly conveying that they can service only those foreign governments that provide funding.? A Japanese official publicly noted that such funding of U.S. think tanks ?is an investment.? You can?t put it much more bluntly or accurately than that. > > Foreign governments and the defense industry debate the nitty-gritty of how best to arm a region whose continued militarization is accepted as a given. The need to stand up to the Chinese ?aggressor? is a foregone conclusion of most thought leaders in Washington. They ought, of course, to be weighing and debating the entire security picture, including the potential future devastation of climate change, rather than simply piling yet more weaponry atop the outdated tools of war. > > To be sure, think tanks don?t make U.S. foreign policy, nor do foreign lobbyists and defense contractors. But their money, distributed in copious amounts, does buy them crucial seats at that policymaking table, while dissenters are generally left out in the cold. > > What?s the solution? For starters, a little transparency in Washington foreign-policy-making circles would be useful so that the public can be made more aware of the conflicts of interest that rule the roost when it comes to China policy. All think tanks should be required to publicly disclose their donors and funders. At least the Atlantic Council and CSIS report their funders by levels of donations and note certain sponsors of events or reports (a basic level of transparency that makes a piece like this possible). Such a standard of transparency should minimally be practiced by all think tanks, including prominent organizations like the American Enterprise Institute and the Earth Institute, neither of which releases any information about its funders, to highlight potential conflicts of interests. > > Without transparency, the defense contractors and foreign governments that donate to think tanks help create foreign-policy thinking in which this world is, above all, in constant need of more weapons systems. This only increases military tensions globally, while helping to perpetuate the interests and profits of a defense industry that is, in truth, antithetical to the interests of most Americans, so many of whom would prefer diplomatic, peaceful, and coordinated solutions to the challenges of a rising China. > > Unfortunately, as foreign policy is now made, a rising China is also guaranteed to lift all boats (submarines, aircraft carriers, and surface ships) as well as fighter planes aiding the military-industrial complex on a planet increasingly at war with itself. > > Cassandra Stimpson is a research project director with the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative (FITI) at the Center for International Policy (CIP). Holly Zhang is a researcher with FITI at CIP. > > Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook . Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer?s new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands , Beverly Gologorsky's novel Every Body Has a Story , and Tom Engelhardt's A Nation Unmade by War , as well as Alfred McCoy's In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower's The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II . > > Copyright 2020 Cassandra Stimpson and Holly Zhang > > > No Advertising - No Government Grants - No Algorithm - This Is Independent Media > > Get Our Free Newsletter > You can't buy your way onto these pages > Post your comment below > > See also > > New US Indo-Pacific fleet ?would be akin to grabbing China by the throat?, analyst says? > U.S. Bombed Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia in 2016: The U.S. dropped an average of 72 bombs every day ? the equivalent of three an hour ? in 2016 > > > > > > > The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. > > Click Here To Support Information Clearing House > Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. > > Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 23 03:12:25 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2020 21:12:25 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Popular Resistance References: <33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413.299fea6351.20201122105947.a727a9c618.f562825d@mail114.atl111.rsgsv.net> Message-ID: > > View this email in your browser > > Be the people's resistance media! > Forward this email to a?friend and share the articles on social media. > > > > The Nation?s New Crime Boss By John Davis, Counterpunch. The current president has done nothing to correct this underlying criminality. Indeed, he has exacerbated it by his personal corruption, his fostering of the inhumane treatment of migrants at the country?s southern border, his explicit support of racist, white nationalism and, arguably, his criminal mismanagement of the federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The incoming president, however, is deeply enmeshed in the vicious turpitude of Empire, a condition to which he has either actively contributed or passively countenanced during his thirty-six years in the Senate and his eight years as vice president. -more- > > Protest Marks One Month Anniversary Of Lekki Massacre In Nigeria By Pan African Community Action, Popular Resistance. Washington, DC - The End SAR Solidarity Network is mobilized DC area based activists to protest in front of the Embassy of Nigeria to demand justice for peaceful protestors in Nigeria who were massacred by the Nigerian army at Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020 and demand an end to the continued repression of other activists. On the 20th of October, 2020, the Nigerian army opened fire on peaceful protesters singing the Nigerian anthem and waving the Nigerian flag at Lekki tollgate, Alausa and other parts of Lagos. -more- > > Ten Foreign Policy Fiascos Biden Can Fix On Day One By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Popular Resistance. Donald Trump loves executive orders as a tool of dictatorial power, avoiding the need to work through Congress. But that works both ways, making it relatively easy for President Biden to reverse many of Trump?s most disastrous decisions. Here are ten things Biden can do as soon as he takes office. Each one can set the stage for broader progressive foreign policy initiatives, which we have also outlined. 1)End the U.S. role in the Saudi-led war on Yemen and restore U.S. humanitarian aid to Yemen. -more- > > Destabilized By US Imperialism, Central America Faces Climate Catastrophes By Giovanni Batz, The Red Nation. At the moment, Central America is suffering from the acceleration of climate change fueled natural disasters. On the heels of the recent Hurricane Eta and a raging pandemic, Hurricane Iota has hit the region, predominantly impacting Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and black communities. The situation has been made worse by violent and corrupt governments supported by the United States. Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in Central America have long warned against climate change and environmental destruction caused by foreign-owned and operated extractivist projects. -more- > > Shocking New Figures Show How Much US Is Fueling Violence In Yemen By Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. Despite presenting itself as a force for good and peace in the Middle East, the United States sells at least five times as much weaponry to Saudi Arabia than aid it donates to Yemen. The State Department constantly portrays itself as a humanitarian superpower with the welfare of the Yemeni people as its highest priority, yet figures released from the United Nations and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) show that since the war in Yemen began, the U.S. government has given $2.56 billion in aid to the country, but sold over $13 billion in high-tech weapons to Saudi Arabia... -more- > > > On War, Trump Has Largely Been An Appeaser By W. J. Astore, Bracing Views. Yes, it?s good news that Trump is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, though roughly 2500 troops will remain in each country when Joe Biden takes office in January. In short, Trump isn?t ending these wars; he?s merely reducing the number of boots on the ground. His Acting Defense Secretary, Chris Miller, described it as a ?repositioning of forces from those two countries.? Repositioning! Perish the thought that the U.S. military might retreat or even withdraw. The answer is to ?reposition? those deck chairs on the USS Titanic and its imperial wars, never mind the sinking feeling you may be... -more- > > Nurse Survey Exposes Hospitals? Failure To Prepare For Covid-19 Surge By National Nurses United. National Nurses United?s new nationwide survey of more than 15,000 registered nurses reveals that 11 months into the pandemic, hospitals are failing to prepare for a surge of Covid-19 cases during flu season and that basic infection control and prevention measures are still lacking. Nurses cite the health care industry?s inappropriate pursuit of profit during this public health crisis as the main reason for its failure to follow the proper infection control measures that nurses have been demanding since the beginning of the pandemic. -more- > > Over 100 Rebellions In Jails And Prisons Over COVID19 Conditions By Ella Fassler, Truthout. U.S jails and prisons, already death traps, have been completely ravaged by COVID-19. Crowded quarters, a lack of PPE, inadequate medical care, an aging population, and unsanitary conditions have contributed to an infection rate 5.5 times higher than the already ballooned average in the U.S. As of this writing, over 252,000 people in jails and prisons have been infected and at least 1,450 incarcerated people and officers have died from the novel coronavirus. Evidence suggests these figures are underreported, however. -more- > > Bags And Balloons: Plastic Pollution Choking Sea Life By Terra Daily. A dead manatee in Florida was found to have swallowed so many plastic bags they formed a cantaloupe-sized ball in its stomach, while a baby turtle had its intestines perforated by tiny plastic fragments. They are some of 1,800 marine mammals and turtles found to have ingested or been entangled by plastic along American coastlines since 2009, according to a report from conservation NGO Oceana published Thursday. The group's report attempts to describe the cumulative impact of plastic pollution on marine fauna in the United States in the last decade, despite growing recycling practices. -more- > > As an independent media source free of advertising, we rely on your support. > > > > > > > Our mailing address is: > Popular Resistance > 402 East Lake Ave. > Baltimore, MD 21212 > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 23 04:06:56 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2020 22:06:56 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Pentagon shakeup aimed at paving path to Trump coup? Message-ID: I frankly find this article beyond belief as I tend to focus on structures, and systems rather than the sociopathic personalities of our ruling Oligarchs. If true, and the final two paragraphs are plausible??.please see below: Pentagon shakeup aimed at paving path to Trump coup Bill Van Auken 21 November 2020 In the midst of the attempt by US President Donald Trump to nullify the 2020 election by means of an extra-constitutional coup, neither Biden and the Democrats, nor the US corporate media, have seen fit to alert the American and world public to ominous developments within the US military and its Pentagon command. President Donald Trump on a phone call with leaders of Sudan and Israel in the Oval Office of the White House, Oct. 23, 2020, in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/Alex Brandon] The outlines of this coup have come into sharp focus in the past few days. This is not a matter merely of Trump?s intentions, but rather of actions aimed at executing this coup that are being carried out in real time. Trump?s invitation to the White House Friday of Michigan Republican state legislators has laid bare a definite strategy for establishing a presidential dictatorship. Trump and his supporters are carrying out an aggressive propaganda campaign to delegitimize the election with lying allegations of ballot fraud and increasingly fascistic conspiracy theories in order to provide a pretext for Republican-controlled statehouses in states like Michigan to repudiate the popular vote and select slates of pro-Trump electors. They are counting on this extralegal operation ending up in the US Supreme Court, where fully one-third of the justices are Trump appointees, and a precedent has already been established by the 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore, which stopped the popular vote count in Florida and awarded the presidency to Republican George W. Bush, with no opposition from the Democratic Party. Such a brazen attempt to overturn an election will inevitably provoke explosive resistance, particularly in the heavily working-class urban areas where millions cast their ballots to drive Trump from office. Such an assault on core democratic rights and the last vestiges of constitutional forms of rule cannot be executed without a resort to overwhelming repression. It is in this context that a ceremony held Wednesday at the Fort Bragg, North Carolina headquarters of the US military?s Special Operations Command?comprised of the Army?s Green Berets, the Navy?s SEALs and other elite killing squads?serves as a deadly warning. The new ?acting? Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller announced the elevation of the Special Operations Command to a status on a par with the existing branches of the armed forces, the Army, Navy, Air Force, etc. As the well-connected military website breakingdefense.com explained the shakeup: ?The crux of the transformation will ensure that the top special operations official at the Pentagon can go directly to the Defense Secretary on ... operational matters, including secret raids against high-value targets. The office will no longer have to move through the larger DoD Policy apparatus to reach the secretary.? Miller, who has refused to answer any questions from the media since being installed as Pentagon chief, told an audience of assembled troops, ?I am here today to announce that I have directed the Special Operations civilian leadership to report directly to me, instead of through the current bureaucratic channels.? Miller has not been confirmed, and will not be confirmed, by the US Senate to an office he has held for little more than a week. A retired colonel and 30-year Special Forces officer, he has no qualifications to hold the post outside of his unswerving loyalty to Trump. Under normal circumstances, Miller would be surrendering his office to a Biden appointee in barely two months and, in the interregnum, would be collaborating closely with his incoming replacement. Instead, he is announcing the most far-reaching change in the military chain of command in recent memory. Miller?s installation as defense secretary is the result of a wholesale purge of the top civilian leadership at the Pentagon that Trump initiated with the firing-by-tweet of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Trump?s determination to oust Esper dates back to last June, when the US president deployed federal security forces and US troops to suppress anti-police-violence demonstrations near the White House and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to send troops into the streets across the country to put down the mass protests provoked by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Esper, a former lobbyist for the arms industry, voiced his opposition, saying that such a domestic deployment of the US military to suppress the American population could be ordered only as a ?last resort.? His position, shared by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, expressed fears that such a use of US troops would provoke uncontrollable resistance and tear the military apart. Since his ouster, Esper, Milley and the fired number-three official at the Pentagon have all issued statements pointedly reminding US military personnel that they have sworn an oath to the Constitution. Such invocations will have no effect on the cabal of Trump loyalists and semi-fascists that have been placed in charge at the Pentagon since the election. Miller made it clear in a confirmation hearing for another national security post that he had no compunction against using federal intelligence resources to pursue protesters at the order of the White House. The new civilian head of Special Operations, who will now enjoy direct and secret collaboration with the defense secretary, unencumbered by ?bureaucratic channels,? is one Ezra Cohen-Watnick, 34, an extreme right-wing operative. He was brought onto the National Security Council by virtue of his political connections to the likes of Trump?s fascistic former adviser Steve Bannon, the fanatically anti-Iranian and indicted ex-National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn and the president?s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Named to the number-three post at the Pentagon, undersecretary for policy, is retired general and frequent Fox News commentator Anthony Tata, whose previous nomination for the post had to be withdrawn after it emerged that he has denounced Obama as a ?terrorist leader,? a ?Manchurian candidate? and a Muslim. A similar figure has been named as Miller?s chief adviser, retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, another Fox News commentator known for denouncing European countries for admitting ?unwanted Muslim invaders? bent on ?turning Europe into an Islamic state.? He has also condemned attempts in Germany to come to terms with the Holocaust as a ?sick mentality? and called for martial law and the summary execution of migrants on the US-Mexican border. Trump has made a particular appeal to the Special Operations forces that have now been elevated in status within the chain of command. He aggressively intervened last year in the court martial of Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher for war crimes in Iraq, protesting, ?We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!? At the close of his campaign, just five days before the election, Trump flew to Fort Bragg for closed-door meetings with Special Forces troops and their commanders. Given subsequent developments, there is every reason to believe that the purpose of this trip was to assess the level of his support within the military units stationed there, and among their commanders, and to discuss plans for an armed response to an explosion of resistance to his plans to steal the election and establish a presidential dictatorship. The tactics being employed by the Trump White House have been rehearsed countless times abroad under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Fabricated claims of election fraud have been used to justify US-backed coups, oust presidents and foment ?color revolutions? from Honduras, Bolivia and Venezuela to Ukraine and Georgia. Now these same methods are being brought ?home? under conditions of an insoluble economic and social crisis, characterized above all by staggering levels of social inequality and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the homicidal ?herd immunity,? back-to-work policy of the capitalist ruling class. The Democratic Party is well aware of Trump?s maneuvers and threats. There has been a stream of contacts between Biden's transition team and the Pentagon, no doubt to assess the attitude of the military to Trump?s coup plotting. The widely reported discussions between the Biden camp and former Trump defense secretary James Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general with wide contacts throughout the officer corps, are only the tip of the iceberg. Former president Barack Obama said Wednesday night that in response to Trump?s intransigent refusal to concede the election, ?I think we can always send the Navy SEALs in there to dig them out.? While presented by the media as a joke, this remark confirms that, in the final analysis, the Democrats rely on the military, rather than popular opposition, to remove Trump from office. Such an outcome would make the military the arbiter of American politics. Far more than the threat of a coup and dictatorship, Biden and the Democratic Party fear an eruption of popular protest and mass resistance from below against Trump and his co-conspirators. Whatever their tactical differences with Trump, they represent the interests of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus. The working class must intervene in this unprecedented crisis as an independent social and political force, opposing the conspiracies of the Trump White House and its military allies through the methods of class struggle and the fight for the socialist transformation of society. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Nov 24 02:21:28 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2020 20:21:28 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Michael Hudson's book "Super Imperialism" Message-ID: My book ?Super Imperialism ? was about how the United States has gained a free lunch by establishing the dollar as international reserve currency by replacing gold. I also showed that the U.S. balance of payments deficit is almost entirely military related to support its 800 bases around the world. Ending the gold-exchange standard in 1971 created a situation in which the excess U.S. dollars thrown of by the U.S. payments deficit end up in foreign central banks. For these central banks, the inflow of surplus dollars poses the problem of what do we do with them. Central banks don?t buy stocks and bonds, or control of corporations, because that is risky and also does not directly help their own economy. So central banks buy US Treasury bonds and bills ? IOUs of the U.S. Government. For the United States, the money that is spent on running a balance-of-payments deficit on account of the military and on American investors buying Chinese stocks and Chinese companies, dollars are recycled back to the United States to buy US Treasury bonds. That is how the U.S. balance of payments deficit serves to finance the domestic government budget deficit. The larger the U.S. balance of payments deficit grows as the U.S. spends more militarily and politically around the world, the more foreign central banks end up financing the domestic budget deficit. That frees the United States Treasury from having to balance its budget to avoid having to borrow from US investors. More and more of the U.S. federal debt has been owed to foreign central banks. That means that foreign countries are, in effect, financing the costs of surrounding them(selves) with the 800 U.S. military bases. This enables the United States to make military threats, in case they cannot conquer you intellectually by making you follow the University of Chicago and IMF financialization policy. Another reason not to use the dollar is to avoid taking the risk of being victimized in the way that the United States has treated Iran and other countries. U.S. strategists have threatened to isolate foreign banks from using the Swift bank-clearing system. They have imposed sanctions on European investors in the Nordstream gas pipeline, and had imposed unilateral penalties on other governments that do not favor U.S. investors. The U.S. strategy is to control your economy in order to force you to sell your most profitable industrial sectors to US investors, to force you to invest in your industry only by borrowing from the United States. So the question is, how do China, Russia, Iran and other countries break free of this U.S. dollarization strategy? As now constituted, dollarization creates a circular flow that finances American military spending by forcing the costs onto foreign central banks holding dollars. The solution obviously is to avoid using dollars in order to break free of American control of your economy. To do this, you have to have a non-Dollar currency. This currency alternative has to be large enough to have a critical mass, so that it can be used internationally. That?s why China, Russia, Iran and their allies are trying to create their own currency area, incorporating largely the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The aim is denominate your foreign trade, investment and government spending in your own currency. It is necessary to break away not only from the U.S. dollar, but also from the International Monetary Fund. The objective of U.S. and IMF monetary policy is basically to make your economy much more expensive and inefficient than that of the United States. Its government runs a budget deficit and balance-of-payments deficit by creating its own money. It does not expect or intend to repay its debt. Other countries are to treat it as their own monetary backing, in place of gold. But outside the United States, countries are told to finance their budget deficits by selling off whatever is in their public domain ? namely, their land, real estate and natural resources, their commanding heights in the form of basic infrastructure and electric utilities. The ideal the United States would like China to do is to let U.S. investors do to it what they did to Russia after 1991. They told Russia that it needed to back its domestic Ruble issues by holding an equivalent amount of U.S. dollars, in the form of private dollar loans or dollar-denominated U.S. Treasury securities. This involved borrowing dollars from the United States instead of simply issuing domestic rubles. Russia paid 100 percent interest a year to U.S. investors in 1993-1994. Yet Russia did not have enough foreign exchange to pay domestic ruble-wages or to pay for domestic goods and services. But neoliberal advisors convinced Russia to back all Ruble money or domestic currency credit it created by backing it with U.S. dollars. Obtaining these dollars involved paying enormous interest to the United States for this needless backing. There was no need for such backing. At the end of this road the United States convinced Russia to sell off its raw materials, its nickel mines, its electric utilities, its oil reserves, and ultimately tried to pry Crimea away from Russia. Suppose China would follow the U.S. plan. At a certain point it will be asked to sell off Macau and Hong Kong as a US military base. It will be advised to sell its information technology to the United States. And politically, U.S. diplomacy would like China to divide itself into three or four countries, starting with Xinjiang as a separate country. This divide-and-conquer strategy aims at carving up China, and it uses financial policy to do this. The U.S. has discovered that it does not have to militarily invade China. It does not have to conquer China. It does not have to use military weapons, because it has the intellectual weapon of financialization, convincing you that you need to do this in order to have a balanced economy. So, when China sends its students to the United States, especially when it sends central bankers and planners to the United States to study (and be recruited), they are told by the U.S. ?Do as we say, not as we have done.? The United States is not telling China or Russia or third world countries or Europe how to get rich in the way that it did, by protective tariffs, by creating its own money and by making other countries dependent on it. The United States does not want you to be independent and self-reliant. The United States wants China to let itself become dependent on U.S. finance in order to invest in its own industry. It wants Chinese corporations to borrow from the United States, and to sell its stocks to US investors just like Khodorkovsky in Russia was trying to sell Yukos oil to Standard Oil, and essentially turn Russia?s oil reserves to U.S. investors. The United States is trying to convince China that its tax system should be based on raising your cost of labour. The objective of the United States is to injure China, to make it a high-cost economy by imposing the value-added tax, a VAT, which will increase the cost of consumer goods. The aim of this anti-industrial tax policy is to make you pay your labor a high enough wage to afford to pay the taxes on consumer goods. The United States could never pass such a tax domestically. There would be a revolution. The amazing thing is that there is no revolution in China. It and other countries have been gullible in accepting the logic of U.S. economists teaching the students you send over, hoping that they will draw up a plan for China along neoliberal lines. The neoliberal plan is not to make you independent, and not to help you grow except to the extent that your growth will be paid to US investors or used to finance U.S. military spending around the world to encircle you and trying to destabilize you in Sichuan to try to pry China apart. Look at what the United States has done in Russia, and at what the International Monetary Fund in Europe has done to Greece, Latvia and the Baltic states. It is a dress rehearsal for what U.S. diplomacy would like to do to you, if it can convince you to follow the neoliberal US economic policy of financialization and privatization. De-dollarization is the alternative to privatization and financialization. Sam Beasley -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Nov 27 20:35:27 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2020 14:35:27 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: BREAKING: Israel Just Assassinated Iran's Top Scientist References: <5fc15c7b6453d_5603c8af509178e@asgworker-qmb3-17.nbuild.prd.useast1.3dna.io.mail> Message-ID: > > > > A vile assault on diplomacy. CODEPINK calls on world leaders, including U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, to condemn Israel's illegal execution of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. > > SIGN OUR CALL NOW! > > Make no mistake about it: Israel is doing everything that it can to stoke a war with Iran before Donald Trump leaves office. Today, in an act of flagrant disregard for international law, Iran?s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated outside of Tehran by Israel with the possible assistance of the Iranian terror group the MEK. > > We are worried about an escalation to an all-out U.S.-Iran war and you should be too. Join our call to world leaders, asking them to publicly condemn this outrageous and provocative assassination . Joe Biden, who has stated that he will be seeking to return to the Iran Nuclear Deal, should speak out against this attempt to further inflame the Middle East conflict and destroy any chances of reestablishing diplomacy with Iran. > > The illegal execution of Fakhrizadeh took place in the city of Absard outside Tehran, Iran, by a bombing followed by a gunfight. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?s identified Fakhrizadeh as a target for his administration, and in the past, Israel has assassinated other Iranian nuclear scientists. Moreover, reports over the past week indicated that the Israeli government instructed its senior military officials to prepare for a possible U.S. strike on Iran. The assassination also follows recent reports that Donald Trump contemplated bombing Iran?s nuclear facility, before being talked out of it by Pentagon leaders. > > Iran has been acting with extreme patience these past few years.Since Donald Trump tore up the JCPOA agreement in 2018, showing Iran that the U.S. is not to be trusted to make good on its word, Iran has endured much in the past four years, including brutal sanctions affecting everything from the price of food and housing to the ability to obtain life-saving medicines, the U.S.?s illegal assassination of General Qasim Solemani, sabotage at one of their nuclear facilities (likely also committed by Israel), and attacks on other industries. Despite all this, Iran has not yet taken overt retaliation significant enough to lead to war. But whether or not they overtly and quickly retaliate this time, grave damage has been done and the world must respond with strong condemnation. The assassination of Fakhrizadeh has sent a clear message that Israel was given a green light by the U.S. to act illegally and with impunity against Iran. This will likely harden positions inside Iran, making it far more difficult for Joe Biden to revive diplomacy. Add your name now to our call to world leaders, including Biden, to condemn this outrageous and provocative act of war and assault on diplomacy . > > Towards diplomacy, > Ariel, Leila, Medea, and the entire CODEPINK team: Angela, Ann, Carley, Caty, Cody, Danaka, Emily, Farida, Jodie, Kelsey, Leonardo, Maxine, Mary, Michelle, Nancy, Paki, Teri, and Yousef > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Nov 28 21:16:28 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2020 15:16:28 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Gareth Porter, Prof. Morandi, Max Blumenthal with Anya on the Israeli/US attack on Iran Message-ID: https://youtu.be/z68ikVeVtcQ From brussel at illinois.edu Sun Nov 29 05:33:02 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2020 05:33:02 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Gareth Porter, Prof. Morandi, Max Blumenthal with Anya on the Israeli/US attack on Iran In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Useful program! Aside from audio problems, which should have been anticipated, I would have been interested in knowing in their discussion how Russia and or China are factors, or not, in the survival of Iran. Have they have in fact been helpful significantly in opposing U.S.-Israel-European actions against Iran? > On Nov 28, 2020, at 3:16 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > https://youtu.be/z68ikVeVtcQ > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Nov 29 13:08:22 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2020 07:08:22 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Gareth Porter, Prof. Morandi, Max Blumenthal with Anya on the Israeli/US attack on Iran In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Mort I agree, the intermittent audio problems in the beginning were awful, but it was nonetheless worth a listen. In answer to your question, all are experts on the middle east, and though Morandi may know how Russia and China fit into the equation I can appreciate his not wishing to comment or speculate as to what they may or may not do in future. My humble opinion on China and Russia in relation to Iran: Based upon the fact that both still do business with Iran, and as Wm. Blum, author of ?Killing Hope? and other books, before the 2016 election stated, if Trump is elected the military neocons behind him will insist on taking over Iran, as it?s the stepping stone to Russia. Not in those exact words but if one views everything from a geostrategic perspective based upon Zbig?s plan, then it makes sense and Russia knows this, as does China. Russia, China, and Iran, know very well the US can not be trusted, as has been proven time and time again so I don?t see either one allowing a severing of relations between them, or the destruction of either one, based upon mutual interest of economics and survival. The US is playing a very dangerous game, with their provocations of both Russia and China, and while I don?t believe anyone wants WW3, anything can happen. K. Aram > On Nov 28, 2020, at 23:33, Brussel, Morton K wrote: > > Useful program! Aside from audio problems, which should have been anticipated, I would have been interested in knowing in their discussion how Russia and or China are factors, or not, in the survival of Iran. Have they have in fact been helpful significantly in opposing U.S.-Israel-European actions against Iran? > >> On Nov 28, 2020, at 3:16 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> https://youtu.be/z68ikVeVtcQ >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Nov 29 20:12:43 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2020 14:12:43 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Chris Hedges interview with Gabriel Rockhill on fascism Message-ID: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/508038-rockhill-fascism-america-dna/