It is reasonably cheap to buy a journalist and turn him into the attack dog on particular, inconvenient or dangerious for the
financial oligarchy candidate.
New article about Tulsi Gabbard being viciously attacked over religion during Christmas.
Angry Bernie Sanders supporters whom I guess forgot to take their meds over the holidaze
are viciously attacking Tulsi because of Jesus? LOL. This new article is specifically about
Mike Figueroa from The Humanist Report, a semi-popular vlogger, and also a fanatic atheist
type.
He used to be a Tulsi supporter, but since he is connected to the TYT network which is
funded by Hollywood Billionaire and major DNC Clinton funder Katzenberg, he must have
recently been told to toe the party line on smearing Tulsi if he wanted to reap the funding
benefits of TYT who are hardcore Tulsi haters, following the DNC line.
I guess Tulsi showing the Christmas spirit gave him a reason to look hardcore to his
fellow fanatics and appease TYT money folks. Anyways, here is the new article Like, In The
Year 2024
@earthling1
I honestly do believe that she thinks long term and, for whatever reason, her decision not to
run for her own congressional seat is a part of her long term plans. Despite her being
smeared over and over by the media, Tulsi has the unique ability to effectively expand the
electorate by appealing to rational people, regardless of party affiliation.
The establishment is terrified of her message. Otherwise, why would they be attacking her
so viciously despite her reported low polling numbers?
While Tulsi is a practicing Hindu, she was raised in a multi faith family with her father
being a still practicing Catholic. And she mentioned that they had attended a Baptist church
in South Carolina on Christmas Eve. I noticed that her parents were in attendance at the
dinner that her brother in law and his mother prepared.
is detonating.
Someone is gonna have to clean up the debri and make some kind of use of what is left
over. Recycle the trash. Make it green. Bernie is past his best by date.
This is what I have suspected all along. To save the Party, we must completely destroy
it.
Even if it means four more years of Trump. By then, climate change will be obvious to
even the dullest among us.
Tulsi is angling to be there to clean up the mess.
IMHO
@gulfgal98
She will not be campaigning as a Dem this cycle, unless perhaps Bernie gets the nomination.
The severance from Congress means de facto severance from the Democrat Party. The stink of
said party becomes more and more apparent daily as Shiftless, No-Nads, Nervous Nancy et. al.
continue their demeaning and angering stupidity. More Dems are getting turned off by the
House sham impeachment daily.
#2 I honestly do
believe that she thinks long term and, for whatever reason, her decision not to run for
her own congressional seat is a part of her long term plans. Despite her being smeared
over and over by the media, Tulsi has the unique ability to effectively expand the
electorate by appealing to rational people, regardless of party affiliation.
The establishment is terrified of her message. Otherwise, why would they be attacking
her so viciously despite her reported low polling numbers?
While Tulsi is a practicing Hindu, she was raised in a multi faith family with her
father being a still practicing Catholic. And she mentioned that they had attended a
Baptist church in South Carolina on Christmas Eve. I noticed that her parents were in
attendance at the dinner that her brother in law and his mother prepared.
@earthling1
that suggest that the Democratic Party is "detonating"?
It looks to me that the Democrats are settling in for a long period of existence as
America's Vichy party. The Democrats are that party that exists so that those Americans who
are afraid of Republican policymakers can vote for them so that, when elected, they can find
clever ways of giving away power to the Republicans.
As for destroying the Democratic Party, we are on the same page.
is detonating.
Someone is gonna have to clean up the debri and make some kind of use of what is left
over. Recycle the trash. Make it green. Bernie is past his best by date.
This is what I have suspected all along. To save the Party, we must completely destroy
it.
Even if it means four more years of Trump. By then, climate change will be obvious to
even the dullest among us.
Tulsi is angling to be there to clean up the mess.
IMHO
@Cassiodorus
friends and family demexiting even today. Many of my union buddies are still pissed that the
union bosses supported Her in 2016.
The teacher strikes last year and before showed the leadership out of step with the rack and
file.
Now, in France the union leadership is being ignored entirely by the membership and see them
as sell-outs to the labor movment.
Ditto in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and numerous other countries around the globe.
It's the same all over the world. Working people are seeing their representation being
deminished by union leaders.
IMHO
#2 that suggest that
the Democratic Party is "detonating"?
It looks to me that the Democrats are settling in for a long period of existence as
America's Vichy party. The Democrats are that party that exists so that those Americans
who are afraid of Republican policymakers can vote for them so that, when elected, they
can find clever ways of giving away power to the Republicans.
As for destroying the Democratic Party, we are on the same page.
@earthling1
Those French union bosses, btw, really like that lockstep marching. One of the primary
reasons for the current general strike is that the union bosses in France finally gave their
okay to the whole thing. Or at least this is what my source, who hails from Montpellier,
tells me.
As for your friends and family, Demexiting has one really big advantage -- they will no
longer be persecuted for not voting for Democrats. Can they still vote for Bernie
Sanders?
#2.5
friends and family demexiting even today. Many of my union buddies are still pissed that
the union bosses supported Her in 2016.
The teacher strikes last year and before showed the leadership out of step with the rack
and file.
Now, in France the union leadership is being ignored entirely by the membership and see
them as sell-outs to the labor movment.
Ditto in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and numerous other countries around the globe.
It's the same all over the world. Working people are seeing their representation being
deminished by union leaders.
IMHO
her chances will be much better in 2024 if Bernie wins in 2020. She will have a base to
lead in place rather than in the wilderness. In short, there will still be an America.
@doh1304
So maybe not should he win and hangs on for all four. (Two big hypotheticals). And unless he
picks her for VP, she will still be in the wilderness in 2024.
her chances will be much better in 2024 if Bernie wins in 2020. She will have a base
to lead in place rather than in the wilderness. In short, there will still be an
America.
Alligator Ed
on Wed, 12/25/2019 - 11:02pm After bravely contesting a nomination she knows she cannot
win, Tulsi Gabbard has and continues to exhibit a tenacious adherence to achievement of
purpose. What is that purpose? I believe it is evident if you only let your eyes see and your
ears hear. Listen to what she says. Looks at what she does.
What this does is obvious. However, please forgive me if I proceed to explain the meaning.
People see what apparently is her home milieu. I've been to Filipino homes for dinner as many
of my nurse friends were Filipino. Tulsi is so human. Despite Hindu belief, she is respectful
to the presence and perhaps the essence of Jesus, and does not sound pandering or
hypocritical.
Getting to know Tulsi at the beginning of her hoped-for (by me) political ascendancy. Get in
on almost the ground floor of what will become an extremely powerful force in future American
life.
Why? What's the hurry?
The more support and the earlier Tulsi receives it propel the campaign. That's what momentum
means: a self-generating growing strength.
One doesn't have to be a Tulsi supporter to hopefully receive some ideas which may not have
occurred to you. This essay does not concern any specific Gabbard policy. What I write here is
what I perceive of her character and thus her selected path. Mind-reading, perhaps. Arm-chair
speculation, possibly.
Tulsi has completed phase 2A in her career. The little that I know of her early life,
especially politically (such as how she voted in HI state legislature) limits a deep
understanding which such knowledge would provide. As the tree is bent, etc.
Phase 1A: youth, formative years, military
Phase 1B: state legislature
Phase 1C: Congress
Phase 2B and possibly subsequent: interim between Congress and Presidential campaigning with
realistic chance of victory.
We are in Phase 2B. Tulsi, as I wrote in another essay, is letting the tainted shroud of
Democrat corruption fall off her shoulders without any effort of her own. The Democrat party is
eating itself alive. It is all things to all people at once. That is a philosophy incapable of
satisfaction.
Omni Democraticorundum in tres partes est (pardon the reference to the opening of Caesar's
Gallic Wars, with liberal substitution by me).
The Dems trifurcate and the division will be neither pleasant nor reconcilable. Tribalism
will be reborn after Trump crushes whomever in 2020.
Tribe one: urban/techno/überkinden.
Tribe two: leftward bound to a place where no politician has ever ventured. Not socialism.
Not Communism. We could call it Fantasy Land, although I fear Disney owns that name.
Tribe three: progressive realists. By using such positive wording, you will correctly
suspect my bias as to which Tribe I belong to.
Once again, policy will not be discussed. Only strategy and reality. Can't have good
strategy without a good grasp of reality. This is why Establidems are bereft of thematic
variability. For the past 3.3 years, they have been singing from a hymn book containing but one
song. You know the title. Orange Man Bad. Yeah, that's it. If they don't like that
title, we establidems have another song for ya. It's called Orange Man Bad. Like that
one, huh? Wazzat, ya didn't like the song the first time. Hey, we thought the song would grown
on you.
Them Dems, noses up, can't see the sidewalk. Oops. Stepped in something there, huh? Oh, yeah
like the Impeachment.
But I digress: The latter part of Phase 2B is not clear. Tulsi will continue to accept small
donor contributions, even after not obtaining the nomination next year. Public appearances will
be important but should be low key with little press attention. Press attention is something
however that won't be available when most desirable. What else Tulsi will do may be to form a
nucleus of like-minded activists, thinkers, and other supporters to promote an agenda for a
more liberal, tolerant society.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be subjected to
the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches. That includes an
examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked well for anyone,"
Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only two
things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about a
month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye towards
Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point memos,
have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape survivors. Of
course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it ain't
Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have pretty much
completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable? Not for me.
Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last go round absent a
Bernie miracle.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be
subjected to the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches.
That includes an examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked
well for anyone," Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only
two things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
@Wally
She might back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about
a month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye
towards Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point
memos, have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape
survivors. Of course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it
ain't Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have
pretty much completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable?
Not for me. Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last
go round absent a Bernie miracle.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she never
and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy record
regarding domestic affairs.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she
never and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy
record regarding domestic affairs.
@Alligator
Ed@Alligator
Ed be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would feel
comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone but
Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a Neutral
Party.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
@wokkamile
Her dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
#2.1.1.1.1.1
#2.1.1.1.1.1 be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would
feel comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last
time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone
but Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a
Neutral Party.
Don't forget that 15% state threshold for eligibility to be awarded delegates.
#2.1.1.1.1.1.2 Her
dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
I will be surprised if Tulsi gets so much as one delegate.
More than a few knowledgeable people think he has a very good shot of winning California.
I am less optimistic about NYS but I think he will do well enough to get a good number of
delegates especially if he does well in the earlier primaries (NYS comes April 28).
I don't feel solidly about making any kind of predictions at this point but given the
nature of the Democratic Party, I don't see it as falling into oblivion anytime soon or in
our lifetimes.
As far as Bernie goes, I am not optimistic but I still have some hope. I still fervantly
believe that his candidacy is the best chance we will have in our lifetimes of bringing about
any substantial change -- and if he and his critical mass of supporters can't pull it off
this time around, we're all phluckled big time, even alligators, in terms of combating
climate change and putting a kabosh on endless wars. I wish you good future luck with Tulsi
though. I just don't see it. But I've been wrong on more than one occasion in my life.
There have been numerous smears of Tulsi Gabbard that have been repeated over and over the
last few years after she went to Syria. She started to give the foreign policy blob a lot of
grief for their support of the overthrow of Syria to install a theocratic jihadi government
controlled by the usual suspects.
One smear they like to use is to call Tulsi an Islamophobe. That began years ago when she
criticized Our Savior Obama (pbaj) for claiming ISIS was not a religious extremist
organization, that it was a criminal group and the US needed to give Iraqi men more to do and
then they wouldn't join those criminal gangs like...ISIS.
Anyways, this article goes into a deeper state (yup, deeper than usual) conspiracy by
various actors to smear Tulsi for a variety of reasons subservient to foreign interests, with
a surprise intro to another often unspoken of interest with a lot of hidden power in
Washington.
"I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment because I believe President Trump
is guilty of wrongdoing," she said. "I also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment
because removal of a sitting President must not be the culmination of a partisan process,
fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country."
A censure would "send a strong message to this president and future presidents that their
abuses of power will not go unchecked, while leaving the question of removing Trump from
office to the voters to decide," Gabbard said.
@ Posted by: jalp | Dec 19 2019 6:00 utc | 80 with the Green Party status....Thanks
If Tulsi is totally left out of the Democratic race, is it possible that she could be a
Green candidate? When is the "drop dead" date for that to occur? How is the VP pick
handled?
I see Tulsi Gabbard managed to distance herself from the affair and rise above it by
voting "present" instead of "yes" or "no". I sense she is purposely putting a lot of space
between herself and the DNC, and may even be positioning herself to run as an independent
come spring, despite saying that was not her objective only a couple of months ago. Given the
lack of wisdom and loss of sense of direction being shown by the Democrat leadership it would
be a very wise move.
Pres. Trump wants to go down in history for something other than the impeachment
charade.
He thinks outside the box, is afraid of nothing, can turn on a dime, and may be the only
person who can kick open a door that seems jammed, thereby healing half the nation.
"... But as we know it has become politically incorrect on the left to do anything but to put on your clown makeup and join the circus. ..."
"... But Tulsi Gabbard as usual doesn't play their game. And because of that, like Trump she is also a target of the deep state and not just the deep state of America--it is the deep state of the entire 5-Eyes security apparatus who together work overtime to overthrow Trump and any and all who resist their attempt to rule the world. ..."
"... Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring their power to bear on domestic policy as well. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard did the smart thing and abstained in the vote from the circus. But as we know
it has become politically incorrect on the left to do anything but to put on your clown
makeup and join the circus.
But Tulsi Gabbard as usual doesn't play their game. And because of that, like Trump she is
also a target of the deep state and not just the deep state of America--it is the deep state
of the entire 5-Eyes security apparatus who together work overtime to overthrow Trump and any
and all who resist their attempt to rule the world.
Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep
State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials,
often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and
incipient tyranny.
Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of
European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring
their power to bear on domestic policy as well.
Although both halves of the One-Party really want the effective tyranny of state and
corporate bureaucracies, it's not surprising that it's the Democrats (along with the MSM)
taking the lead in openly defending the tyrannical proposition that the CIA should be
running its own foreign (and implicitly domestic) policy, and that the president should be
just a figurehead which follows orders. That goes with the Democrats' more avowedly
technocratic style, and it goes with the ratchet effect whereby it's usually Democrats which
push the policy envelope toward ever greater inequality, ecocide and tyranny.
Now is a time of rising irredentism and the decline of all the ideas of
globalization and technocracy, though the reality is likely to hang on for awhile. The whole
Deep State-Zionist-Russia-Deranged-Trump-Deranged-MSM-social media censorship campaign is
globalization trying to maintain its monopoly of ideas by force, since it knows it can never
win in a free clash of ideas.
Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides its
more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the
culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees
with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too
damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think
they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest
of the world.
Since impeachment's going to fail, we can expect the system to try other ways.
But also may I compliment Kali@18 and Russ@19 for their terrific comments. I have just
finished reading the link provided by Kali, which is an outstanding essay by Pam Ho- a
paradigm shifter if ever there was one! I have been making a determined effort to liberate my
thinking from ideological partisanship and reading this essay was like pressing a refresh
button in my brain.
Despite the ra ra b. s.,Trump's letter will become an historical document, as it does
encapsulate all the manufactured tribulations that have been foisted on his presidency,
though I would have liked b to include all those words which were CAPITALIZED. He's quite a
personality, your president The best summation of the man is, curiosly enough, provided by
Syria's president Assad. There is an honesty about him even when he's uttering a bald-faced
lie!
Tulsi has been newsworthy for a number of years now and right from the getgo I said to
myself "she's my kind of gal"
Here is a woman of courage and presence. She's young and principled, even if she's a
member of a very corrupted party.
@ Posted by: Australian lady | Dec 19 2019 3:26 utc | 71 who ended her comment expressing
support for Tulsi Gabbard
When the impeachment vote was taken today, there were two Dems that voted against and
Tulsi voted Present
She will be ostracized for her non vote but I give her credit for distancing herself from
the impeachment circus. Given that she has stated that she won't run again for Congress, I
speculate that she may jump to the Green Party if given the chance to run ahead of or with
Jill Stein.....any barflies know how the Greens are shaping up for this coming election?
I read in a couple of places today that the strategy of the Dems is to not forward the
impeachment to the Senate for an indeterminate amount of time......let the stew, the Senate
and Trump simmer a bit.....more kabuki for the masses while the public continues to be
screwed economically.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), the outspoken, independent thinker from Hawaii running for the
loftiest perch in the land, has just said "no" to taking the next Democratic presidential
primary debate stage. This signals either a surrender or a strategic end-run around the field.
Yes, we've been down this road before. It is the same sentiment she expressed prior to the last
debate; although she threatened to boycott the circus, she did qualify, show up, and rebuke the
other candidates and the Democratic Party.
Gabbard has been Public Enemy #1 in those
circles since. Instead of playing into the cemented narrative, Tulsi, who has not so far
reached the conditions imposed for participation in the next round, is not wasting her
time.
The Most Repetitive Show On Earth
As the sixth platform for national domination looms, Gabbard tweeted a different plan,
saying:
"For a number of reasons, I have decided not to attend the December 19th 'debate' --
regardless of whether or not there are qualifying polls. I instead choose to spend that
precious time directly meeting with and hearing from the people of New Hampshire and South
Carolina."
Whether her bold decision is based on not quite reaching the necessary baseline
requirements, or because she has had enough of the game playing, Tulsi seems indifferent to
striving
for inclusion . And we all know Gabbard is not one to tread water in the shallow end of the
pool when a good, strong crawl will cover more territory.
Tulsi Gabbard
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has upped the ante for primetime pandering by
requiring candidates to have a minimum of 4% support in selected national polls and 6% in two
state polls of the early primary states Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Nevada.
The deadline for polling qualification is Dec. 12 at the witching hour of 11:59 p.m. in the
Eastern time zone. How dramatic for what is likely to be a boring rehash of Trump-bashing, held
a scant week later.
Although Tulsi has the sheer donor numbers needed – the support of at least 200,000
unique donors – her national polling numbers haven't yet reached the threshold. Those on
the survey leaderboard are Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar
(D-MN), former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, billionaire Tom Steyer, and
businessman Andrew Yang.
A Diverse Or One-Note Race?
Tulsi has been tilting
at the DNC and its primary prerequisites since the get-go, claiming the surveyors they used
weren't "accurate" enough, or that the venues were biased. Gabbard's campaign released a
statement in August, which said:
"Many of the uncertified polls, including those conducted by highly reputable
organizations such as The Economist and the Boston Globe, are ranked by Real Clear Politics
and FiveThirtyEight as more accurate than some DNC 'certified' polls."
The DNC was insistent that its criteria for inclusion have been fair and balanced. Just ask
the committee's spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa, who responded:
"This has been the most inclusive debate process with more women and candidates of color
participating in more debates than billionaires. We are proud of this historic and diverse
field with 20 candidates participating in the first two debates and at least 10 candidates in
each debate after that."
What's ironic is that no people of color – because of the strident stipulations
imposed – will be at the Dec. 19 debate hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico at the Loyola
Marymount University in Los Angeles. PBS is set to broadcast the debate, and most likely, fewer
people will watch the event than Gabbard can reach by holding town halls or meet and greets.
Perhaps she's on to something, after all.
Don't be so sure. Note that Trump congratulated Tulsi on Kamala's demise. If she isn't the
nominee, her mere presence in the campaign is a boon to Trump because she exposes the rot in
the DNC and the Empire.
Dem Establishment can't control me and that scares the hell out of them
This list tells quite a story. It deserves a name such as "US History Written in Blood," but
more ironically and yet sufficient would be "An Inconvenient List." In any case, mass murder
for fun and profit has defined war throughout the entire history of humankind. That in the
modern era of late that the US has pioneered rentier capitalism as a means of extracting
profits from the industrial war machine is a matter of the natural evolution of state
sanctioned murder, far better at returning profits to investors than the mere slaughter of
stone age natives to steal their land.
OTOH, pacifism is indeed an aberration of political thought, not necessarily an unwarranted
aberration, yet one that should be subject to close inspection for its bona fides. My
Cherokee ancestors inform me to always be suspect of the good intentions of white men
claiming that they despise war.
Pacifism for me is individual. I was a cold warrior (pacifist not!) from '72 to '85 when I
went from supporting operating weapons to the "dark side" in weapons development, which a lot
was also nuclear related.
It's pretty obvious that Team Pelosi is more concerned with the affairs of the Empire,
even though she has no constitutional responsibility. than for the welfare of the American
people. The focus of the impeachment hearing on American policy in Ukraine is further
evidence.
Meanwhile, I have gotten no answer to my basic question: what are the top 5 pieces of
progressive legislation that Pelosi has passed--legislation that representations can brag
about to their constituents when running in 2020? It's pretty obvious that their have been
almost none.
Yet, I have been assured by others here at EV that our two party representative political
system is not merely engaging in so much Kabuki theatre in order to appear relevant. Who
knew?
Outside of the fact that this fellow is a liar of monumental proportion - for instance, this
post alone contains 3 different lies - it is fundamentally untrue that BOTH parties are just
engaged in theater. One actually passes legislation to help people and to reduce the
influence of $$$. The other - as former Republican party member Norm Orenstein has pointed
out - is anti-democracy, pro-despotism and a insurgent danger with a propaganda arm.
Huh... all team Pelosi/Schumer of is rant against the US constitution, demean the congress,
disdain the office of the President and make up things about the Donald.
See the continuing resolution good through 20 Dec because Pelosi who owns the House won't
face the responsibility to try and run the US government's purse.
More selective outrage from EMichael, the partisan hack.
Sure, it's horrendous that Trump pardoned a war criminal. But let's not forget that Obama
never even prosecuted torturers ... or closed Guantanamo as promised.
As usual for EMichael and his ilk, what's a horror when their party does something, it's
perfectly acceptable when his party does it.
All these years of being a almost pacifist and now I am seeing the error in my ways.
Sometimes - hopefully increasingly less often - good people must rise up and stomp out evil.
The pardons were not just condoning war crimes - it was telling the nazi ahs in the ranks
that they can do the same domestically. The right has an army within the US. Most of the
officers are okay - but that said, they are tolerating nazis, white supremacists, oathkeepers
and dominionists in their ranks. These exceptions are to let the other nazis know they can
mass murder if the want.
In my opinion, Tucker Carlson represents a very real and very active right-libertarian
view that has been consistently present within the Republican Party for decades. Anti-war,
anti-imperialist, anti-big business/pro-small business, and of course, anti-big union. Robert
Taft comes to mind. I don't share their "ideologies" but as a self-described socialist, I am
deeply attracted to their criticisms. And criticisms ARE important and necessary, even if the
solutions are left wanting. I dearly hope that his popularity is a sign of the realignment of
politics, where issues of class and war become commonplace and issues of "to impeach or not
to impeach" fall by the wayside. I recognize that my hopes may not turn to realities.
But for an employee it makes no difference if they work for a big or small business (only
big business on average is LESS exploitative if anything – if for no other reason but
they can afford to be – some of the worst exploitation out there is employees working
for small business owners).
Exactly, right libertarian. Within the libertarian spectrum there are real and then royal
libertarians, Tucker is of the latter. http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html
What are his immigration views? Are people motivated to come here because this global vulture
octopus thing has ruined their home market?
"... The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. ..."
"... I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out. ..."
Stephen Kinzer
comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and
non-interventionism:
Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank
harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence
Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom
and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy
based on that live-and-let-live principle.
The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats,
sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and
this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint
at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute
represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy
for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when
they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts
in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been
waging war without end
, there couldn't be a better time for this.
TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:
The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors
-- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its
takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million
budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway.
Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent
decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim;
and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.
"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized
approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore
the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent
years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made
by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my
posts here . Their involvement is a
very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing
what they do, and I wish them luck.
Good luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies
and his clones.
Once in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere
else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information.
I generally do not see those guests ever again.
The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing
our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest.
It is all about us.
I also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet
another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth.
It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the
block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.
Exciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding
competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function.
Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will
outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.
Re: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."
So do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken
advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful
Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get
along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.
I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long
as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will
change.
Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander
General General Kenneth McKenzie:
Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants
of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.
BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon
audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.
Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than
threats, sanctions, and bombing"
"... Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her. Recently, Hillary Clinton smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset, and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested (with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their priorities ..."
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is a
compelling choice for president in 2020. She's principled, she's against America's disastrous
regimen of regime-change wars, and she's got the guts to criticize her own party for being too
closely aligned with rich and powerful interests. She's also a military veteran who enlisted in
the Army National Guard in Hawaii after the 9/11 attacks (she currently serves as a major and
deployed overseas to Iraq during that war).
What's not to like about a female veteran who oozes intelligence and independence, a woman
who represents diversity (she's a practicing Hindu and a Samoan-American), an early supporter
of Bernie Sanders who called out the DNC for its favoritism toward Hillary Clinton
Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned
her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by
establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her.
Recently, Hillary Clinton
smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset,
and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested
(with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Think about that. Hillary Clinton and much of the mainstream media are accusing a serving
major in the U.S. military of being an asset to a foreign power. It's an accusation bordering
on a charge of treason -- a charge that is libelous and recklessly irresponsible.
A reminder: Tulsi Gabbard enlisted in the military to serve her country in the aftermath of
9/11. What did Hillary Clinton do? Can you imagine Hillary going through basic training as a
private, or serving in the military in a war zone? (Hillary did falsely claim that she came
under
sniper fire in Bosnia , but that's a story for another day.)
Tulsi Gabbard is her own person. She's willing to buck the system and has shown compassion
and commitment on the campaign trail. She may be a long shot, but she deserves a long look for
the presidency, especially when you consider the (low) quality of the enemies she's made.
Reply
Whenever I post anything remotely positive about Tulsi Gabbard on Facebook, the same few
people come out to denounce her. My response is below, though I know you can't reason with
haters:
That Tulsi has been on Fox News is an argument in her favor, i.e. her crossover appeal and
her willingness to engage with the "other side." That Tulsi met with Assad is, in my view,
reasonable; true leaders are always willing to meet with "bad" people, even ruthless
dictators, in the cause of averting war. My main point is how she's being smeared as some
kind of traitor, or at least a useful idiot. She's neither. Also, I've read the piece on
Tulsi in Jacobin, and I've heard about alleged cults. Is this really the best the media can
do? Guilt by association?
Some of our readers may have concerns about Tulsi, e.g. alleged Islamophobia, alleged
cults, etc. The main point is this: Does she deserve to be smeared as a Putin puppet? What
does this say about our media? And why are they doing this? I can tell you why. Trillions of
dollars are spent on wars and weapons, and Tulsi is calling for an end to regime-change wars
and a return to diplomacy. She also, like Bernie, is willing to call out the DNC as being
against the interests of ordinary Americans -- and she's right about this. She has a lot in
her favor. I'm a Bernie fan myself, but I'll take Tulsi over all those phony "centrists" like
Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Harris, and Biden.
I can't speak to the RSS/BJP connection; I've read about it, but I admit to ignorance on the
matter. Of course, every candidate has multiple connections, positions, donors, etc. All
politicians carry baggage. So far, from what I've read, Tulsi is more principled and more
courageous than most of her peers.
I'm still a Bernie fan -- his long record of helping the poor and vulnerable speaks for
itself. Of course, he once went to Moscow oh no! Run away! 🙂
Tulsi has now done four courageous, unusual, and very positive things while merely a
candidate:
1) Tulsi effectively took down a leading contender and DNC favorite, by demonstrating that
Senator Harris had been a corrupt prosecutor.
2) Tulsi defended democracy as she sued Google for at least $50 million, for playing
favorites in search-routing of candidates.
3) Tulsi called out Hillary Clinton for the monster she is.
4) Tulsi supported a process toward 911 truth by supporting 911-victims' families' right to
see FBI documents that have been denied to them.
Tulsi is the anti-war candidate. Tulsi Gabbard should be Commander-in-Chief. Yang should
be VP and in charge of the economy. Read his book. UBI is the way to go. Tulsi needs someone
she can trust as VP.
I consider the vicious persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning -- both
languishing in prison for having committed no crime whatsoever -- along with the exile of
Edward Snowden, among the greatest travesties of justice ever committed by the U.S. and U.K.
(dishonorable mention goes to Sweden and the latest Ecuadorian government, as well). I had
hoped for this subject to come up in the "debates," giving Tulsi yet another opportunity to
shine relative to her competitors, most of whom would soil their undergarments in panic at
the thought of "crossing" the absurdly named "intelligence community" and its entirely
co-opted corporate media outlets.
If Tulsi Gabbard had done no other principled thing than this, I would have considered her
heads and shoulders above anyone else campaigning for a position in the U.S. government
today.
I ought to dedicate this one to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for her principled defense of
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden (and no-doubt Chelsea Manning, as well):
Star Chamber, Incorporated
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
Jailed as twin examples for the proles:
"Look what happens if you publish secrets:
More totalitarian controls."
In Chinese: "Kill the Chicken scare the Monkey."
Rat-out your colleagues. Do not Power tempt.
Or otherwise the judges and grand juries
Will hold you in what lawyers call "contempt."
A strange word-choice, indeed, by Power's minions
Who spend careers perfecting rank abuse.
For them I'd have to feel respect much greater
Before that is the word that I would use.
I've nothing good to say for prosecutors.
Some say I wish to "damn them with faint praise."
But I reply: "You praise with faint damnation.
So which of us has coined the the better phrase?"
Despicable, the treatment of these heroes.
The US and UK have sunk so low.
Still, Julian and Chelsea have together
More balls than these two governments can grow.
No matter, they have passed into the ages.
Already they have earned a fair renown.
Each day they live defiant, undefeated,
They rise as jailers try to put them down.
As JFK once said of his elite class:
"The ship of state leaks mainly from the top."
But if some lowly, powerless, poor person
Tries that, they'll feel the lash. No truth. Now stop!
To scare a monkey, kill another monkey.
If not, the monkeys learn impunity.
While eating KFC they ask, obtusely:
"What has a chicken got to do with me?"
And so the Corporation-State must silence
Reports of its incompetence and crime.
If citizens knew what it did they'd order
Its dissolution. Now. And just in time.
Historically, they called it the Star Chamber
A secret court designed to thwart the king.
But power then perverted it to serve him.
Grand juries in the US, same damn thing.
They now indict ham sandwiches routinely
With no protection for the innocents.
Presumed as guilty, evidence not needed.
Conviction guaranteed. No court repents.
A judge may do whatever he determines
He can. So levy fines. Coerce. Demand
On penalty of prison, testimony
Against oneself, alone upon the stand.
"Democracy" is just a euphemism
If citizens allow this to proceed.
Orwellian: first Hate then Fear of Goldstein.
Two Minutes, daily. Really, all you need.
This is a good commentary. military experience is a good thing especially when we are dealing
with the fact that over half of the national budget is devoted to the military.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a thoughtful article on playing it safe, running out the clock,
prevent defense, etc., on your opponent as it would apply to politics.
Jabbar writes: Almost every poll showed her with a respectable lead over Trump just days
before the election. So, the Clinton campaign tried to run out the clock by not campaigning
much in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota,
all of which turned much redder than in the previous presidential election.
The tactic of trying to pick a "safe" candidate who can beat Trump by appealing to their
ideas about Middle America sends the wrong message to all of America. No team devise a game
strategy based on fear: they emphasize their strengths and exploit their opponents'
weaknesses. The Democratic candidate shouldn't be the least objectionable, but the one who
boldly forges ahead with clear and detailed plans for Making America America Again.
Democrats can't pander to voters by denigrating Trump but then promising them Trump-lite
with a wink. Promote progressive policies and plans worthy of a party that wants to lead this
country without fear of being called "socialists" or "the radical left" or whatever else your
opposing team chants.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/oct/15/how-sports-tactics-can-help-the-democrats-beat-donald-trump-in-2020
===================================
Jabbar is correct. The Corporate Democrats among them Biden, Buttigieg and Bloomberg are
fighting desperately to preserve a perceived lead aided and abetted by the McMega-Media.
Chicago Alderman, Paddy Bauler (1890-1977) said in 1955 on the election of Daley the
Elder, "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet", or "Chicago ain't ready for a reform mayor".
Today, the pundits employed by Corporate America, along with various Democratic Party
stooges for Wall Street tell us America ain't ready for Reform.
Yes, ML, so goes American 'Exceptionalism', after WW2 Victory. Today, so goes a Great
American City in violence, all so shortsighted. I'm still confused with our never-ending wars
overseas, as our cities rot in crime & violence, my main concern. I didn't grow up
– or party! -later on in today's disaster areas of Baltimore or Philadelphia, etc.It
was GREAT!
But somethings going on I don't know about, when the WORST cities have black Congresspeople
(Maxime Waters?) living in 6.5$Mil mansions as their "districts" die.
I have NO PROBLEM with black people! Such a smear an insult. But it's worth investigating why
these characters who have ruined their cities are supporters of Dems, & Billary! Oh! They
spend & vote lavishly on more money for our wars, but nothing for their own cities!
Finally starting to figure it out: They're traitors to their own race, for their personal
benefit. They make Dems "look proud", vs "REP's!" Yes, they too re dreadful maybe that's why
I feel: TULCI GO! She's neither dreadful party!
ML: Good citation of KA-J -- - although I've seen the same-sort of criticism of the Dems
elsewhere, Kareem's sports analogy is very helpful in understanding the concept.
(I have to say that I got sick of the Dems milquetoast approach to politics. Maybe it was
an understandable response to a frustrating right-wing zeitgeist, but DAMN, did they have to
be SO passive against the Reps?? Even when they briefly held majorities in Congress under
Obama, the wouldn't introduce/push bills that weren't 'filibuster-proof'!?!? I for one might
still be voting Dem POTUS IF they had pushed those progressive bills., then let the Reps
filibuster for weeks or months, meantime the Dems & Obama could've gone in front of the
public daily and said something like "We're trying to help you by passing Bill X, but the
Reps are filibustering and stopping Congress from getting any work done!" Let the government
shut-down for a few weeks because of it and keep hammering away at the Reps for being the
BLOCKERS, etc. Call their bluff, and use it against them during elections. Instead they tried
to be overly accommodating & conciliatory BEFORE debate had even begun!)
Yes. Eddie. The Democratic Party not only gets its ass kicked for breakfast, lunch, and
dinner, but it seems to have developed something of a masochistic taste for the Republican
abuse. Hence two of my verse compositions essentially agreeing with your observations:
(1) From eight years ago. From "Hope" and "Change" to despair and the status quo. And with
a Nobel Peace Prize for Endless War, too.
Congenital Stockholm Syndrome
He started by giving up quickly,
Surrendering early his case.
He offered to kiss their asses.
Replying, they pissed in his face.
Their urine, he thought, tasted strangely;
Yet not at all bad to his taste.
He'd gotten so used to it, plainly.
Why let such a drink go to waste?
The people who voted in favor
Of him and his promise of "change"
Now see in his many betrayals
A poodle afflicted with mange.
Each time that the surly and crazy
Republicans out for his skin
Condemn him for living and breathing,
He graciously helps them to win.
He'll turn on his base in an instant
With threats and disdain and neglect
While bombing some Muslims so Cheney
Might thrill to the lives that he's wrecked.
A black man in love with apartheid
He offers his stalwart support
To Zionists and their extortion
With "More, please!" his only retort.
A masochist begging for beatings
Obama takes joy in abuse
Receiving just what he has asked for
Which makes him of no earthly use
The little brown men that he's murdered
In homes far away from our land
Bring profits obscene to his backers
Who give him the back of their hand.
Obama seeks praise from the vicious
Republicans, no matter what.
He suffers, apparently, nothing
So much as his need to kiss butt.
Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2011
(2) From twelve years ago and on the Congressional side of the Surrender Monkey
Syndrome:
Nancy the Negotiator
Nancy the Negotiator
Gives up first; surrenders later;
Takes her cards from off the table,
Then recites her loser fable:
"We don't have the votes we need,"
Nancy says, in tones that bleed:
"Mean Republicans will whine
If we do not toe their line."
Nancy bows to George and Dick
While her skinny ass they kick;
Writes them checks both blank and rubber,
Then proceeds to lamely blubber:
"We don't like what Dubya's doing.
Still, we quite enjoy the screwing.
Masochism's what we offer,
Helping crooks to loot the coffer"
"Sure, the squandered blood and treasure
Goes to those we will not measure.
Still, we promise you'll adore us
If you mark your ballot for us."
"Choices you don't have assail you,
Leaving only us who fail you.
Nonetheless, we've gotten fatter.
Why, then, should we think you matter?"
After six years in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club (the last eighteen months of that in the
now-defunct Republic of South Vietnam) it didn't take me long to realize that the Republicans
get paid a lavish salary to do what the fabulously wealthy demand, while the Democrats get a
comparatively meager allowance to do what the Republicans tell them to do, also on behalf of
the fabulously wealthy: namely, betray their own working-class anti-war base so that the
Republicans will not have anything even remotely "leftist" to worry about. In truth, the
Democratic party crawled up its own ass and died so many years ago that I think I've lost
count.
Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the
wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their
priorities
"And how on earth did an ex comedian and MMA commentator become one of the better
political interviewers around?"
Dereliction of duty by the gatekeeper oligarch press, and discontent by the
ever-more-discerning consumer to be served cold lies? Baby Boomers and Silent Generation
dying off more by the day? People under 40 who have never experienced an economy that doesn't
suck for the non-rich?
I've started listening to Rogan interviews since Sanders's blockbuster interview a few
months ago.
The guy is actually a surprisingly good interviewer, for reasons that are hard to
understand. For one thing, he is invariably friendly and respectful, which I think draws the
subject out. His format also allows almost unlimited and uninterrupted time, (2-3 hours is
typical), which removes time pressure and allows extended and nuanced conversation. He also
has no particular agenda, and allows the conversation to go where it will, jumping in with
"questions" only when a particular topic seems to be exhausted.
The interesting thing is that anyone, either inside the media or outside it, could be
doing a similar program; it's not technically hard. But no one is.
If I didn't miss anything, then it is not 100% clear that USA will stop invading and
bombing other countries with Gabbard. She is slippery enough to continue the bombings. She
still mentions war as a last option. It is highly subjective to judge whether you have used
up all diplomatic channels to achieve your goal or not.
The wars and invasions has been about stealing natural resources, oil mainly but now
lithium too, feed the MIC-swamp creatures in general and selling out state resources to
American interests. In no way does she tackle the causes of the wars, only the
symptoms.
When have you tried all diplomatic channels to steal Iraq's, Venezuela's, Syria's and
Libya's oil fields? What do the diplomatic tools look like? Economic strangulation? IMF on
steroids?
She needs to talk about a society getting off of oil for a starter
It is amazing on how so many arguments against progressive policies coming from the
Democratic Party all seem to boil down to "Shut up and get back to work, peasants!"
Incrementalists do not even slowly improve things most of the time, as the neoliberal
Democratic Party "incrementally" follows the Republicans rightward with every broad shift to
the right on the GOP side. Today's deregulators and supply-side economic proponents are just
as likely to be Democrats as Republicans and many Democrats are probably cheering on
Kavanaugh's attacks on environmental standards as we speak.
Our aristocracy do not even pretend to adhere to any sort of sense of noblisse oblige,
unlike the feudal lords of old.
he Democratic establishment is increasingly irritated. Representative Tulsi Gabbard,
long-shot candidate for president, is attacking her own party for promoting the "deeply
destructive" policy of "regime change wars." Gabbard has even called Hillary Clinton "the queen
of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the
Democratic Party."
Senator Chris Murphy complained: "It's a little hard to figure out what itch she's trying to
scratch in the Democratic Party right now." Some conservatives seem equally confused. The
Washington Examiner 's Eddie Scarry asked: "where is Tulsi distinguishing herself when
it really matters?"
The answer is that foreign policy "really matters." Gabbard recognizes that George W. Bush
is not the only simpleton warmonger who's plunged the nation into conflict, causing enormous
harm. In the last Democratic presidential debate, she explained that the issue was "personal to
me" since she'd "served in a medical unit where every single day, I saw the terribly high,
human costs of war." Compare her perspective to that of the ivory tower warriors of Right and
Left, ever ready to send others off to fight not so grand crusades.
The best estimate of the costs of the post-9/11 wars comes from the Watson Institute for
International and Public Affairs at Brown University. The Institute says that $6.4 trillion
will be spent through 2020. They estimate that our wars have killed 801,000 directly and
resulted in a multiple of that number dead indirectly. More than 335,000 civilians have died --
and that's an extremely conservative guess. Some 21 million people have been forced from their
homes. Yet the terrorism risk has only grown, with the U.S. military involved in
counter-terrorism in 80 nations.
Obviously, without American involvement there would still be conflicts. Some
counter-terrorism activities would be necessary even if the U.S. was not constantly swatting
geopolitical wasps' nests. Nevertheless, it was Washington that started or joined these
unnecessary wars (e.g., Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen) and expanded necessary wars well beyond
their legitimate purposes (Afghanistan). As a result, American policymakers bear responsibility
for much of the carnage.
The Department of Defense is responsible for close to half of the estimated expenditures.
About $1.4 trillion goes to care for veterans. Homeland security and interest on security
expenditures take roughly $1 trillion each. And $131 million goes to the State Department and
the U.S. Agency for International Development, which have overspent on projects that have
delivered little.
More than 7,000 American military personnel and nearly 8,000 American contractors have died.
About 1,500 Western allied troops and 11,000 Syrians fighting ISIS have been killed. The Watson
Institute figures that as many as 336,000 civilians have died, but that uses the very
conservative numbers provided by the Iraq Body Count. The IBC counts 207,000 documented
civilian deaths but admits that doubling the estimate would probably yield a more accurate
figure. Two other respected surveys put the number of deaths in Iraq alone at nearly 700,000
and more than a million, though those figures have been contested.
More than a thousand aid workers and journalists have died, as well as up to 260,000
opposition fighters. Iraq is the costliest conflict overall, with as many as 308,000 dead (or
515,000 from doubling the IBC count). Syria cost 180,000 lives, Afghanistan 157,000, Yemen
90,000, and Pakistan 66,000.
Roughly 32,000 American military personnel have been wounded; some 300,000 suffer from PTSD
or significant depression and even more have endured traumatic brain injuries. There are other
human costs -- 4.5 million Iraqi refugees and millions more in other nations, as well as the
destruction of Iraq's indigenous Christian community and persecution of other religious
minorities. There has been widespread rape and other sexual violence. Civilians, including
children, suffer from PTSD.
Even stopping the wars won't end the costs. Explained Nita Crawford of Boston University and
co-director of Brown's Cost of War Project: "the total budgetary burden of the post-9/11 wars
will continue to rise as the U.S. pays the on-going costs of veterans' care and for interest no
borrowing to pay for the wars."
People would continue to die. Unexploded shells and bombs still turn up in Europe from World
Wars I and II. In Afghanistan, virtually the entire country is a battlefield, filled with
landmines, shells, bombs, and improvised explosive devices. Between 2001 and 2018, 5,442
Afghans were killed and 14,693 were wounded from unexploded ordnance. Some of these explosives
predate American involvement, but the U.S. has contributed plenty over the last 18 years.
Moreover, the number of indirect deaths often exceeds battle-related casualties. Journalist
and activist David Swanson noted an "estimate that to 480,000 direct deaths in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Pakistan, one must add at least one million deaths in those countries indirectly
caused by the recent and ongoing wars. This is because the wars have caused illnesses,
injuries, malnutrition, homelessness, poverty, lack of social support, lack of healthcare,
trauma, depression, suicide, refugee crises, disease epidemics, the poisoning of the
environment, and the spread of small-scale violence." Consider Yemen, ravaged by famine and
cholera. Most civilian casualties have resulted not from Saudi and Emirati bombing, but from
the consequences of the bombing.
Only a naif would imagine that these wars will disappear absent a dramatic change in
national leadership. Wrote Crawford: "The mission of the post-9/11 wars, as originally defined,
was to defend the United States against future terrorist threats from al-Qaeda and affiliated
organizations. Since 2001, the wars have expanded from the fighting in Afghanistan, to wars and
smaller operations elsewhere, in more than 80 countries -- becoming a truly 'global war on
terror'."
Yet every expansion of conflict makes the American homeland more, not less, vulnerable.
Contrary to the nonsensical claim that if we don't occupy Afghanistan forever and overthrow
Syria's Bashar al-Assad, al-Qaeda and ISIS will turn Chicago and Omaha into terrorist
abattoirs, intervening in more conflicts and killing more foreigners creates additional
terrorists at home and abroad. In this regard, drone campaigns are little better than invasions
and occupations.
For instance, when questioned by the presiding judge in his trial, the failed 2010 Times
Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, a U.S. citizen, cited the drone campaign in Pakistan. His
colloquy with the judge was striking: "I'm going to plead guilty 100 times forward because
until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes
in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops Somalia
and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands, and stops killing the
Muslims."
Ajani Marwat, with the New York City Police Department's intelligence division, outlined
Shahzad's perspective to TheGuardian : "'It's American policies in his country.'
'We don't have to do anything to attract them,' a terrorist organizer in Lahore told me. 'The
Americans and the Pakistani government do our work for us. With the drone attacks targeting the
innocents who live in Waziristan and the media broadcasting this news all the time, the
sympathies of most of the nation are always with us. Then it's simply a case of converting
these sentiments into action'."
Washington does make an effort to avoid civilian casualties, but war will never be pristine.
Combatting insurgencies inevitably harms innocents. Air and drone strikes rely on often
unreliable informants. The U.S. employs "signature" strikes based on supposedly suspicious
behavior. And America's allies, most notably the Saudis and Emiratis -- supplied, armed,
guided, and until recently refueled by Washington -- make little if any effort to avoid killing
noncombatants and destroying civilian infrastructure.
Thus will the cycle of terrorism and war continue. Yet which leading Democrats have
expressed concern? Most complain that President Donald Trump is negotiating with North Korea,
leaving Syria, and reducing force levels in Afghanistan. Congressional Democrats care about
Yemen only because it has become Trump's war; there were few complaints under President Barack
Obama.
What has Washington achieved after years of combat? Even the capitals of its client states
are unsafe. The State Department warns travelers to Iraq that kidnapping is a risk and urges
businessmen to hire private security. In Kabul, embassy officials now travel to the airport via
helicopter rather than car.
Tulsi Gabbard is talking about what really matters. The bipartisan War Party has done its
best to wreck America and plenty of other nations too. Gabbard is courageously challenging the
Democrats in this coalition, who have become complicit in Washington's criminal wars.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global
Empire.
And, by the way, it's important to stress that Tulsi ain't picking at Her Majesty all of a
sudden. It was the said majesty who has recently started picking at Tulsi first out of no
reason, extrapolating that joke of Trump's "Russia's candidate" status on her as well.
Also, this:
People would continue to die. Unexploded shells and bombs still turn up in Europe from
World Wars I and II. In Afghanistan, virtually the entire country is a battlefield,
filled with
landmines, shells, bombs, and improvised explosive devices.
At least in Europe it is indeed shells and bombs, which are kind of big schmucks thus
easily noticed when approached and then disarmed by engineers. While all over the Middle
East it is first and foremost IEDs that can look like, virtually, anything starting from a
hand grenade's size.
On one hand, you're right. On the other hand, the average neocon/neolib commenter who will
come to enlighten us as to Russian agents behind the authorship of the article will be
utmostly unable to read the damn thing. For such a feller it ain't gonna be much different
from 5D21DBA0000.
Unfortunately, a lot of Americans in recent years were more concerned about gays getting
married and poor women terminating their pregnancies.
At Thanksgiving dinner today, the conversation eventually turned to politics and more
specifically, Ukraine. I asked the other diners if they knew who Victoria Nuland was and
got blank stares. Most didn't know that Crimea had been part of the Russian Empire going
back to 1783, which happens to be the year that the US was formally recognized as a
separate country under the Treaty of Paris.
How big is $6.4 trillion? Enough to cover outstanding student loans about 4 times. Or
enough to stabilize Social Security and Medicare for decades to come.
Mostly a very good article - but - what possible legitimate purpose was there invading
Afghanistan ? This was the biggest war crime of the lot and you're still there. Afghanistan
had nothing whatsoever to do with the New York plane attacks. It was a failed state and had
the misfortune to have bin Laden and co supposedly holed up in the mountains there and
unable to do much about it. Dealing with that required a specific police style action.
Instead you carpet bombed Kabul to start and unleashed a frenzy of killing across the
country. Unfortunately pretty much as a lot of us predicted around the middle of Sept 2001.
And where did you find Osama in the end ? Oh yeah, hiding in luxury in a Pakistan army
town.
In response to the plane attacks you murdered countless thousands in an immiserated land
and after another brain fart thought Iraq was a good idea because they had nothing to do
with it either.
The only civilian plane to fly out of the US on Sept 11 2001 was carrying the Saudi
Royal family back home. Almost all the plane terrorists were Saudi and Pakistan conspired
against you continually. But you didn't have the guts or brains to take either of them on
and instead picked in the weakest of the lot, Afghanistan followed by a nice flat country
you'd already half destroyed and without nukes.
I'm not sure if it was a "failed state" at that point. True, we did not like the brutal
Taliban to be in charge, but I don't think it had no effective central government. It did.
How clueless do you have to be to express antipathy towards Gabbard's stance and question
"what really matters"? What do these idiots think is more important than policies that send
our children to war?
"Senator Chris Murphy complained: "It's a little hard to figure out what itch she's
trying to scratch in the Democratic Party right now.""
Couldn't agree more, Senator Chris. Most Democrats really like these pointless, endless,
trillion dollar wars. They want to keep them going strong as long as possible, because
there's nothing Democrats like better than staggeringly expensive government programs, and
when it comes down to a choice
between being more frugal and getting Americans out of the Middle East on the one hand, or
a big, juicy budget-busting festival of spending, refugee floods, and death on the other,
there's no question where Chris Murphy and the Democratic Party stand.
As for Tulsi Gabbard, who does she think she's kidding? An anti-war Democrat? A fiscal
restraint Democrat? A "focus on America not foreign wars" Democrat? Whoever heard of such a
thing? She needs a new party, one that isn't run by billionaire elites serving corporate or
foreign interests. Call it "the American Party", to distinguish it from the corrupt garbage
offered by the globalist elites and foreign interests who run the Democrats and GOP.
I appreciate your silly tirade against the Democrats, hate to rain on your biased parade
BUT it is BOTH corrupt political parties that perpetuate this senseless crusade! Both of
these parties should be dismantled and banned!
Tulsi would make the best of all presidents but I am afraid the CIA working for the owner
Oligarchs of the evil Military Industrial War Crime Complex would do the same thing they
did to Kennedy so they could put a stooge in office to do their bidding.
All these wars weren't against terrorists and such. For a good strategist, that was the
best opportunity to get in the Central Asia and plant your bases there under the belly of
Iran, Russia, and China and start making mischief and prepare for the next phases. At that
point, with the new man at helm in Moscow and China getting lift-off, it was clear that the
planned take over of the entire world economy was not happening, so action needed to be
taken.
As for the 6.4 trillion dollars and such, what should be clear to any with two brain
cells between their ears is that the US has no intention to ever repay those loans, or any,
at least not to foreigners. And is the duty of the American cogs to shed their blood for
their betters' ever expanding profits.
I could remind readers that Hillary Clinton is not now running for president and is not
ever going to be president, but I know the TAC target demographic uses snarls about Hillary
the way the rest of us use punctuation marks, so I guess I can let the gratuitous
first-paragraph sneer slide.
Your representation of the Sen. Murphy quote is upside down, inside out, and completely
obviates the rest of the article. He is not bemused that someone is trying to sell steaks
to vegetarians. He is asking why she is trying to sell refrigerators to eskimos.
Meanwhile, her fellow Democrats appear abysmally unconcerned about the human and
financial toll.
You... couldn't be bothered to spend even 15 seconds typing in a name of one of the
Democratic frontrunners and the words "foreign policy" or "endless wars" into google?
"From endless wars that strain military families to trade policies that crush our middle
class, Washington's foreign policy today serves the wealthy and well-connected at the
expense of everyone else... A strong military should act as a deterrent so that most of the
time, we won't have to use it. We must continue to be vigilant about the threat of
terrorism, but it's time to bring our troops home... That means cutting our bloated defense
budget and ending the stranglehold of defense contractors on our military policy."
I'm well to the left of center, and I donated to Tulsi early in her campaign. So many
conservatives have praised her that she's become suspect for people on the left. She's
allowed herself to become a one issue candidate, and that's unworkable in a presidential
campaign.
Her anti gay activities in the past are problematic, and although she identifies as a
Hindu, there are claims she's or was member of a cult like group. It's very clear to me
that the Evangelicals would attack her for her religion in any event. Tulsi will never be
president, but I hope she continues her battle to end the forever war.
There is blindness across the political spectrum about the perilous state of the world.
They do not see the similarities with 1914 and 1939. The situations are not identical, no
two situations are. But the pattern is clear.
https://www.ghostsofhistory...
"... Starting to remind me more and more of JFK. She's a natural at public speaking; I don't think I've ever seen her lost for words, and while she must have prepared herself for many of these questions. she launches immediately into her response and does not use recovery pauses like "Ummm " that break up the flow of her speech. She responds instantly and seemingly spontaneously, and delivers the whole message as a seamless package. ..."
Did she say she would not vote for impeachment? Up to recently, I thought that, while she was
the best of a bunch of fakers, clowns and idiots, her lack of experience and toughness were
fatal flaws..
However, her ongoing performances suggests to me that she is capable of being a
good president – the first in decades in my opinion.
Starting to remind me more and more of JFK. She's a natural at public speaking; I don't think
I've ever seen her lost for words, and while she must have prepared herself for many of these
questions. she launches immediately into her response and does not use recovery pauses like
"Ummm " that break up the flow of her speech. She responds instantly and seemingly
spontaneously, and delivers the whole message as a seamless package.
2:42
I find it funny that Kamala said that because if there is any candidate on that stage that
"can speak to all people" it's definitely Tulsi. Conservatives actually appreciate and
respect Tulsi Gabbard, even tho we disagree with her with just about everything, she actually
does a good job speaking to both sides. She's the only candidate that shows respect to
conservatives and isn't afraid to go on Fox News. Unlike Kamala. Conservatives do not like
her and we know she doesn't care about us.
Progressive journalist Michael Tracey claimed Tuesday that MSNBC is has dropped all
pretenses for their "contempt" towards Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).
The political news contributor said the left-leaning network has treated her fellow 2020
Democratic candidates, including businessman Andrew Yang , and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) unfairly, but he argued
that with Gabbard it, "crosses a certain threshold."
"Fundamentally they're beholden to whatever the market incentives are and right now it's
within their market interests to depict Tulsi as an infiltrator, as a Trojan horse in the
Democratic Party and not deal on the substance with what she's saying which is why over and
over again they tar her as a Russian plant essentially," Tracey told Hill.TV.
"There's nobody who can really offer any kind countervailing view because it's just not
economically advantageous for them at this point," he added.
MSNBC didn't immediately return Hill.TV's request for comment.
Tracey pointed to a fiery exchange between Gabbard and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) during last week's 2020
primary debate as a prime example.
During the debate, Harris accused Gabbard of being a conservative media darling and
consistently going on Fox News to bash President Obama during his tenure.
"I think that it's unfortunate that we have someone on this stage who is attempting to be
the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, who, during the Obama
administration, spent four years full-time on Fox News criticizing President Obama," Harris
said.
Gabbard dismissed the criticism, calling it "ridiculous."
The California senator also hit Gabbard over her meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
who U.S. officials have accused of being a war criminal. Harris concluded her attack by saying
that Democrats need a candidate who can take on President Trump as well as "bring the party and
the nation together."
The back-and-forth came after Gabbard criticized the Democratic Party of fashioning outdated
foreign policies "represented "by Hillary Clinton and others' foreign
policy."
"Our Democratic Party unfortunately is not the party that is of, by and for the people. It
is a party that has been and continues to be influenced by the foreign policy establishment in
Washington, represented by Hillary Clinton and others' foreign policy, by the military
industrial complex and other greedy, corporate interests," she said.
Leading up to the fifth Democratic debate, Gabbard engaged in a weeks-long feud with Clinton
after the former Democratic presidential nominee said the Hawaii lawmaker was "the favorite of
the Russians."
'thanks b.. looking at the theatre, it seems dems have backed themselves into a corner... meanwhile obama wants to ca-bosh
sanders... You know if Sanders had some character he would run as an independent with Tulsi.. but you all know that stands a snowball
chance in hell.. the problem with conformists, is they spend too much time conforming and that doesn't end up serving anyone..
and it is the reason trump got elected - he is not a conformist.. self centered narcissist, yes, but conformist - no.. too bad
about american leadership being persona non grata...
what i don't understand is why bernie doesn't run as an independent? if he is so great and would be great for the usa, why
can't he figure this basic picture out? this is why i give merit to jackrabbit sometimes - it is all political theatre and they
are all in it together raping the common people..
"... 38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another 31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night. Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to scale back U.S. involvement overall. ..."
"... The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more support for negotiations and non-intervention: ..."
"... With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons ..."
"... There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they want. It is long past time that Washington started listening. ..."
he Eurasia Group Foundation's new survey of public
opinion on U.S. foreign policy finds that support for greater restraint continues to rise:
Americans favor a less aggressive foreign policy. The findings are consistent across a
number of foreign policy issues, and across generations and party lines.
The 2019 survey results show that most Americans support a more restrained foreign policy,
and it also shows an increase in that support since last year. There is very little support for
continuing the war in Afghanistan indefinitely, there is virtually no appetite for war with
Iran, and there is a decline in support for a hawkish sort of American exceptionalism. There is
still very little support for unilateral U.S. intervention for ostensibly humanitarian reasons,
and support for non-intervention has increased slightly:
In 2018, 45 percent of Americans chose restraint as their first choice. In 2019, that has
increased to 47 percent. Only 19 percent opt for a U.S.-led military response and 34 percent
favor a multilateral, UN-led approach to stop humanitarian abuses overseas.
38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another
31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of
Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that
there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night.
Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to
scale back U.S. involvement overall.
The report's working definition of American exceptionalism is a useful one: "American
exceptionalism is the belief that the foreign policy of the United States should be
unconstrained by the parochial interests or international rules which govern other countries."
This is not the only definition one might use, but it gets at the heart of what a lot of hawks
really mean when they use this phrase. While most Americans still say they subscribe to
American exceptionalism either because of what the U.S. represents or what it has done, there
is less support for these views than before. Among the youngest respondents (age 18-29), there
is now a clear majority that rejects this idea.
The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with
its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran
has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been
nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to
elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this
year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more
support for negotiations and non-intervention:
A strong majority of both Republicans and Democrats continue to seek a diplomatic
resolution involving either sanctions or the resumption of nuclear negotiations. This year,
there was an increase in the number of respondents across party lines who would want
negotiations to resume even if Iran is a nuclear power in the short term, and a bipartisan
increase in those who believe outright that Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons to
defend itself. So while Republicans might be more likely than Democrats to believe Iran
threatens peace in the Middle East, voters in neither party are eager to take a belligerent
stand against it.
With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against
Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons, and it
isn't doing that. It may be that the failure of the "maximum pressure" campaign has also
weakened support for sanctions. Support for the sanctions option dropped by almost 10 points
overall and plunged by more than 20 points among Republicans. In 2018, respondents were evenly
split between war and sanctions on one side or negotiations and non-intervention on the other.
This year, support for diplomacy and non-intervention in response to this imaginary nuclear
weapons program has grown to make up almost 60% of the total. If most Americans favor diplomacy
and non-intervention in this improbable scenario, it is safe to assume that there is even more
support for those options with the real Iranian government that isn't pursuing nuclear
weapons.
There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and
avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant
constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right
now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they
want. It is long past time that Washington started listening.
This message is brought to you thanks to the efforts of the combined staffs of the History and Sociology Departments of Alligator
University.
This year of our Lord, the holy Flying Spaghetti Monster 2019, we have discovered a legend--a living, fire-breathing legend at
that. Not since the days of Boudica , a warrior Queen, has the
earth seen such a warrior. Not surpassed by Jean d Árc nor Katherine the Great. This warrior of the wireless age has not only exhibited
compassion on the battlefield, as befits a person of high honor, but has the uncanny ability to perform as the best of Generals (not
just Majors) throughout recorded history have done. Know wherein lies the enemy. Know your own strengths. Know your own weaknesses.
When engaging the enemy, do not hold back. Fight to win! Win as big as you can, while sparing needless damage.
Tulsi, our subject (and [bias apparent here] champion), has arisen, almost from the sea. Far to the West across the Great Water,
from islands spewed from the mouths of living volcanoes, emerged, almost as an eruption, our Warrior Princess Tulsi. She fought to
defend her tribe by joining a council of the advisers, then abandoning such sedentary life and chosing battle instead. Fighting with
distinction, Tulsi saved the lives of many fellow soldiers. Her counsel proved both wise and humane. Troops and others recognized
Tulsi's emerging greatness, coupled with compassion.
To the delight of her cadre, Tulsi sallied forth to the land known today as The Great Swamp. Chauvinistically however, I believe
my south Florida estuary is the true Great Swamp. But we shall leave that debate to a later time.
She joined a regiment called the DNC. At first it seemed to Tulsi this to be a desirable posting, surrounded by fields and rivers
with pleasing structures in which to live. Continuing her steady progress up the ranks, our Warrior Princess, as yet untested by
actual combat, joined others to high councils of War and of Foreign trysts.
But only a few years had yet to pass during her service, Tulsi sensed some problems in the command chain. Plans seemed to favor
neither Nation nor Military, but instead the commanders themselves. Upon thus learning, Tulsi resigned her position, abandoning the
ill-disposed regiment, seeking mission achievement over promotion.
A loosely knit Brigade, called the Democratic Party, united by the power of money and of power itself, was to become the default
posting of TWP. Unfortunately the chain of command was rent asunder by internal factions, an unholy tug of war resulting. This war
is still actively contested--we are in a state of war.
[Injection of unpaid political endorsement, not approved by TWP] Folks, we need this brave general to lead.
Contesting amongst others for the ultimate Brigade command was Tulsi and 21 22 (23?) others. The concept grew either
too tiresome or expensive for many contestants, who either became sick or perished from fatigue and/or loneliness. The field of battle
was becoming clarified, gaining Tulsi progressively improving evaluation and appropriate planning for future campaigns.
The First Slain Enemy, Olaf the Oaf
From the gentle hills and scattered forests of Ohionia came Olaf. Initially he was known as Olaf the Ogre; until he was slain
by sword blows from Warrior Tulsi. Description of her foe is warranted. Her foe was a giant, tall and strong. But Olaf was neither
quick of wit nor of foot. Large he was, as said. The ground would rumble beneath his foot steps. Trees were bent aside as he strode
unstoppably through the woods. Local dwellers both feared and respected Olaf, the mighty.
The battle: the setting is on a level plain under illumination of many cell phones torches soon after sunset.
Other contestants on the field have agreed that only two contestants combat each other. Female referees would enforce rules of combat.
Tulsi and Olaf faced each other. In his ponderous way, Olaf declared his desire to engage. With that, Warrior Tulsi swiftly smote
his pate with a mighty broadsword blow. Owing to the thickness of Olaf's cranium, the sound of the resultant impact was heard for
miles. Yea, more than a thousand miles some say. Rending Olaf's pulsating brain irreversibly damaged, the Oaf staggered from battleground,
only to succumbing to his wounds months later.
Not being particularly fond of Olaf, I did not check the source of the following: it is estimated that 30 people attended his
internment, including undertakers.
Yet the Campaign had only just begun. More foes to conquer.
Second Casualty: Klammer the Camel
Venturing forth from the Kingdom of Kalifornication comes (but not for very long) the former Lord High Executioner, Klammer the
Camel. Since Klammer is of mixed parentage, it is unsure whether Klammer is a Dromedary (one hump camel) or a two hump Bactrian camel.
It is recorded that an expert on Klammer's humping is retired statesman Willie Brown.
It is said said that Klammer's exhalations could kill enemies at 10 paces. Yet Klammer's best weapon was heaving heavy Criminal
Code books at her victims. Strangely, Klammer looked reasonably fit in her drab clothing. Foes who faced her in battle have noted
how white Klammer's teeth are as she gnashes at them. She had a strange reaction to cannabis. When others utilized the substance,
she raged and destroyed them, if she could reach them. Yet when she herself inhaled the aroma of such burning vegetation, she became
as if in a trance.
The battlefield: very much like the field upon which brave Tulsi slew the Oaf, at night with many candles burning held
by acolytes of various contestants. Once again, only two were allowed combat at a time. Supremely self-confident of victory, flush
with self-satisfaction after inflicting a minor wound on former vice-king JoJo the Far Gone. Klammer first engaged other contestants,
smirking from her presumed victories. Now brimming with confidence bordering on hubris, Klammer stood her ground. Then, in a well-planned
straight ahead frontal attack, delivered with swiftness and ferocity, Tulsi struck her foe. And struck her. While Klammer lay quivering
on the ground, TWP demanded an apology of her for her past sins. When none was evinced, Tulsi stuck the tip of her blade into Klammer's
seeming impenetrable armor. This wound, though not immediately fatal, nevertheless is proving fatal to the now debilitated Klammer.
Klammer attempted a counter-attack at another field before falling slack-jawed after a mere glare from Tulsi. Not yet dead, but soon.
Third Casualty: Boots the Jiggler
Wandering from a land not far from the home of Olaf, proceeds the Stolid Boots. He sets his sights on new lands to conquer. The
city he leaves is burning and being plundered by wandering Mnuchkins from the neighboring fiefdom of Illinois. Unconcerned with the
plight of the subjects of the Boots' prior management, Boots bravely strides forth, still not battle-tested. He gathers with him
followers, some of whom are loyal, while others need financial encouragement to participate in his campaign.
Boots has been gifted with the ability to speak so eloquently and at such length that those auditioners of his monologues are
both amazed and yet unable to understand the essence of Boots' message.
The battlefield: interestingly quite similar to those upon which Tulsi administered the blows dispatching the Oaf and crippling
the Camel. Once again, remaining combatants aligned to watch two of their number engage upon combat.
Boots, buoyed by the support of his entourage, summoned forth 400 of his Southern Army to aid in his battle. There Boots turned
upon Tulsi, promising to not only to vanquish her by his superior generalship but send troops across the Southern border. But, becoming
anxious of TWP, he turned to assay his retinue of 400. But lo, none remained, most not having left the barracks.
In face-to-face combat Boots met Tulsi. Mutually acknowledging their military experience, Tulsi struck blows into the Jiggler.
This assault froze Boots into place, unable to respond. The above picture of Boots was made immediately after a biting blow from
Tulsi's broadsword. He was heard to mumble something like "Et tu, Tulsi?".
. . . . .
Campaigns against larger enemies are soon to come. One looming conflict may be likened to a civil war against Brooklyn Bernie
which hopefully be short. A battle against the Hokey Okie is inevitable.
Our AU colleagues assure me that the Feared Medusa will enter the fray after more rivals have fallen. The Snake-head leads a mighty
army, most of whom are oddly cyborg-like. Bots I think they call them. Hilbots actually.
A musical coda is appropriate here. A good choice is a warning, an admonition to those contemplating with the Warrior Princess.
Alligator Ed
on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 8:53pm This message is brought to you thanks to the efforts of the
combined staffs of the History and Sociology Departments of Alligator University.
This year of our Lord, the holy Flying Spaghetti Monster 2019, we have discovered a
legend--a living, fire-breathing legend at that. Not since the days of Boudica , a warrior Queen, has the earth seen such
a warrior. Not surpassed by Jean d Árc nor Katherine the Great. This warrior of the
wireless age has not only exhibited compassion on the battlefield, as befits a person of high
honor, but has the uncanny ability to perform as the best of Generals (not just Majors)
throughout recorded history have done. Know wherein lies the enemy. Know your own strengths.
Know your own weaknesses. When engaging the enemy, do not hold back. Fight to win! Win as big
as you can, while sparing needless damage.
Tulsi, our subject (and [bias apparent here] champion), has arisen, almost from the sea. Far
to the West across the Great Water, from islands spewed from the mouths of living volcanoes,
emerged, almost as an eruption, our Warrior Princess Tulsi. She fought to defend her tribe by
joining a council of the advisers, then abandoning such sedentary life and chosing battle
instead. Fighting with distinction, Tulsi saved the lives of many fellow soldiers. Her counsel
proved both wise and humane. Troops and others recognized Tulsi's emerging greatness, coupled
with compassion.
To the delight of her cadre, Tulsi sallied forth to the land known today as The Great Swamp.
Chauvinistically however, I believe my south Florida estuary is the true Great Swamp. But we
shall leave that debate to a later time.
She joined a regiment called the DNC. At first it seemed to Tulsi this to be a desirable
posting, surrounded by fields and rivers with pleasing structures in which to live. Continuing
her steady progress up the ranks, our Warrior Princess, as yet untested by actual combat,
joined others to high councils of War and of Foreign trysts.
But only a few years had yet to pass during her service, Tulsi sensed some problems in the
command chain. Plans seemed to favor neither Nation nor Military, but instead the commanders
themselves. Upon thus learning, Tulsi resigned her position, abandoning the ill-disposed
regiment, seeking mission achievement over promotion.
A loosely knit Brigade, called the Democratic Party, united by the power of money and of
power itself, was to become the default posting of TWP. Unfortunately the chain of command was
rent asunder by internal factions, an unholy tug of war resulting. This war is still actively
contested--we are in a state of war.
[Injection of unpaid political endorsement, not approved by TWP] Folks, we need this brave
general to lead.
Contesting amongst others for the ultimate Brigade command was Tulsi and 21 22
(23?) others. The concept grew either too tiresome or expensive for many contestants, who
either became sick or perished from fatigue and/or loneliness. The field of battle was becoming
clarified, gaining Tulsi progressively improving evaluation and appropriate planning for future
campaigns.
The First Slain Enemy, Olaf the Oaf
From the gentle hills and scattered forests of Ohionia came Olaf. Initially he was known as
Olaf the Ogre; until he was slain by sword blows from Warrior Tulsi. Description of her foe is
warranted. Her foe was a giant, tall and strong. But Olaf was neither quick of wit nor of foot.
Large he was, as said. The ground would rumble beneath his foot steps. Trees were bent aside as
he strode unstoppably through the woods. Local dwellers both feared and respected Olaf, the
mighty.
The battle: the setting is on a level plain under illumination of many cell
phones torches soon after sunset. Other contestants on the field have agreed that only
two contestants combat each other. Female referees would enforce rules of combat.
Tulsi and Olaf faced each other. In his ponderous way, Olaf declared his desire to engage.
With that, Warrior Tulsi swiftly smote his pate with a mighty broadsword blow. Owing to the
thickness of Olaf's cranium, the sound of the resultant impact was heard for miles. Yea, more
than a thousand miles some say. Rending Olaf's pulsating brain irreversibly damaged, the Oaf
staggered from battleground, only to succumbing to his wounds months later.
Not being particularly fond of Olaf, I did not check the source of the following: it is
estimated that 30 people attended his internment, including undertakers.
Yet the Campaign had only just begun. More foes to conquer.
Second Casualty: Klammer
the Camel
Venturing forth from the Kingdom of Kalifornication comes (but not for very long) the former
Lord High Executioner, Klammer the Camel. Since Klammer is of mixed parentage, it is unsure
whether Klammer is a Dromedary (one hump camel) or a two hump Bactrian camel. It is recorded
that an expert on Klammer's humping is retired statesman Willie Brown.
It is said said that Klammer's exhalations could kill enemies at 10 paces. Yet Klammer's
best weapon was heaving heavy Criminal Code books at her victims. Strangely, Klammer looked
reasonably fit in her drab clothing. Foes who faced her in battle have noted how white
Klammer's teeth are as she gnashes at them. She had a strange reaction to cannabis. When others
utilized the substance, she raged and destroyed them, if she could reach them. Yet when she
herself inhaled the aroma of such burning vegetation, she became as if in a trance.
The battlefield: very much like the field upon which brave Tulsi slew the Oaf, at
night with many candles burning held by acolytes of various contestants. Once again, only two
were allowed combat at a time. Supremely self-confident of victory, flush with
self-satisfaction after inflicting a minor wound on former vice-king JoJo the Far Gone. Klammer
first engaged other contestants, smirking from her presumed victories. Now brimming with
confidence bordering on hubris, Klammer stood her ground. Then, in a well-planned straight
ahead frontal attack, delivered with swiftness and ferocity, Tulsi struck her foe. And struck
her. While Klammer lay quivering on the ground, TWP demanded an apology of her for her past
sins. When none was evinced, Tulsi stuck the tip of her blade into Klammer's seeming
impenetrable armor. This wound, though not immediately fatal, nevertheless is proving fatal to
the now debilitated Klammer. Klammer attempted a counter-attack at another field before falling
slack-jawed after a mere glare from Tulsi. Not yet dead, but soon.
Third Casualty: Boots
the Jiggler
Wandering from a land not far from the home of Olaf, proceeds the Stolid Boots. He sets his
sights on new lands to conquer. The city he leaves is burning and being plundered by wandering
Mnuchkins from the neighboring fiefdom of Illinois. Unconcerned with the plight of the subjects
of the Boots' prior management, Boots bravely strides forth, still not battle-tested. He
gathers with him followers, some of whom are loyal, while others need financial encouragement
to participate in his campaign.
Boots has been gifted with the ability to speak so eloquently and at such length that those
auditioners of his monologues are both amazed and yet unable to understand the essence of
Boots' message.
The battlefield: interestingly quite similar to those upon which Tulsi administered the
blows dispatching the Oaf and crippling the Camel. Once again, remaining combatants aligned to
watch two of their number engage upon combat.
Boots, buoyed by the support of his entourage, summoned forth 400 of his Southern Army to
aid in his battle. There Boots turned upon Tulsi, promising to not only to vanquish her by his
superior generalship but send troops across the Southern border. But, becoming anxious of TWP,
he turned to assay his retinue of 400. But lo, none remained, most not having left the
barracks.
In face-to-face combat Boots met Tulsi. Mutually acknowledging their military experience,
Tulsi struck blows into the Jiggler. This assault froze Boots into place, unable to respond.
The above picture of Boots was made immediately after a biting blow from Tulsi's broadsword. He
was heard to mumble something like "Et tu, Tulsi?".
. . . . .
Campaigns against larger enemies are soon to come. One looming conflict may be likened to a
civil war against Brooklyn Bernie which hopefully be short. A battle against the Hokey Okie is
inevitable.
Our AU colleagues assure me that the Feared Medusa will enter the fray after more rivals
have fallen. The Snake-head leads a mighty army, most of whom are oddly cyborg-like. Bots I
think they call them. Hilbots actually.
A musical coda is appropriate here. A good choice is a warning, an admonition to those
contemplating with the Warrior Princess.
"... "Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount of influence over both parties." ..."
"... She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so serious about what's at stake here." ..."
"... Democratic presidential primary debate, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in Atlanta, via the AP. ..."
In a rare moment with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi
Gabbard explained why the leading figures in her party are war hawks. Far from days of the
Democrats feigning to have any semblance of an 'anti-war' platform (only convenient for Liberal
activism during the Bush years, but fizzling out under Obama), today's party attempts to
out-hawk Republicans at every turn.
"I'm looking at the Democratic establishment figures," Matthews introduced, "people I
normally like. John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton. You go down the list. They all supported
the war in Iraq. Why were they hawks? " (Though we might ask, what do you mean, "
were ?"). "Why so many Democrats with a party that's not hawkish, why are so many of
their leaders hawks?" Matthews reiterated.
In the segment, Matthews heaps rare praise on Tulsi for being "out there all alone tonight
fighting against the neocons."
"Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy
establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount
of influence over both parties."
She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors
have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have
people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical
decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so
serious about what's at stake here."
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The interview happened immediately after this week's fifth Democratic debate Wednesday night
in Atlanta, and after pundits have continued to complain that Gabbard is a 'single issue
candidate'.
However, is there any candidate in her party or in the GOP saying these things?
We find ourselves in a rare moment of agreement with MSNBC's Matthews: she is "out there all
alone tonight fighting against the neocons." Tags Politics
Hopefully Kamala Harris never sniffs the White House, we'd all die in a nuclear war. Her
pathetic and stupid swipes at the courageous and brilliant Tulsi Gabbard last night in the
debates were something to cringe at.
"It Was A Coup. Period": Tulsi Gabbard Slams US 'Interference' In Bolivia
Democratic Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has come out swinging on Bolivia, following an initial period of being silent
and reflection on the issue after leftist President Evo Morales was forced to step down on November 10 over growing anger at election
irregularities, whereupon he was given political asylum in Mexico.
"What happened in Bolivia is a coup. Period," Gabbard wrote on Twitter in the early hours of Friday while warning against any
US interference.
"The United States and other countries should not be interfering in the Bolivian people's pursuit of self-determination and right
to choose their own government, " she argued.
Washington had been quick to endorse and recognize opposition senator Jeanine Anez as 'interim president' after she controversially
declared herself such without a senatorial quorum or public vote, and as Morales' Movement for Socialism was said to be barred from
the senate building when it happened.
Gabbard's statement, which again sets her far apart from a large field of establishment and centrist candidates on foreign policy
issues , comes a few days after Bernie Sanders was the first to condemn the events which led to Evo's ouster as a military coup.
"When the military intervened and asked President Evo Morales to leave, in my view, that's called a coup," Sanders tweeted Monday,
while linking to a video showing Bolivian security forces dispersing an indigenous pro-Morales protest using a volley of tear gas
canisters.
Meanwhile, in a new interview with Russian media this week, Evo Morales said the right-leaning Organization of American States
(OAS), which had initially cited "clear manipulations" in the voting surrounding his controversial re-election to a fourth term,
played a prime role in deposing him, and that ultimately Bolivia's huge reserves of lithium were being eyed by the United States
and its right-wing Latin American allies .
"The OAS made a decision and its report is not based on a technical report, but on a political decision,"
Evo told RT in the interview from Mexico.
Addressing his country's most valued natural resource, he said, "In Bolivia we could define the price of lithium for the world...Now
I have realized that some industrialized countries do not want competition" -- while implying Washington had helped engineer his
downfall.
Most estimates put the impoverished country's Lithium supply at about 60% of the world's known reserves .
The White House in the days after Evo's ouster
had called it a "significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere"; however, the now exiled former president described
it as "the sneakiest, most nefarious coup in history."
* * *
Watch key moments of the translated RT interview below:
Taken together, those twin hasbara refrains evoke a notion of divine punishment. JFK and
RFK were punished for the sins of their Jew-hating, Nazi-loving father. Mind you, it was
Yahweh who took vengeance, not Israel!
Brilliant article by Guyenot. Thoroughly well written & informative.
A Congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard, is being viciously slandered in article after article in
the Mainstream (Zionist) Media. Read the diatribe carefully, and learn some of how the People
are misdirected-brainwashed.
Ms. Gabbard is, apparently, leading in the Polls, and the Zionist controller Power Elite
are Panicky. They will do to Ms. Gabbard what they did to Ron Paul, and his campaign.
It is a sense of frustration that We-I are not able to Revenge the murder of our last
Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy, the Destruction of our Republic, the millions of
murders from November 22, 1963, to the present, or to effectively defend & protect this
noble lady (Ms. Gabbard).
If we protect her, we protect ourselves and our Country. Freedom is not free. We must
Pay for i t!
"DNC Announces 10 Candidates in Atlanta Democratic Debate" [
Bloomberg ]. Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy
Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang. And not Julian Castro,
sadly. "The forum will be co-hosted by the Washington Post and MSNBC. Candidates will be
questioned by four female moderators: Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell and Kristen Welker from
the network, and Ashley Parker from the Post. The two-hour event had a higher bar to qualify
than previous debates. Candidates must have contributions from 165,000 donors, up from 135,000.
And the donors must be geographically dispersed, with a minimum of 600 per state in at least 20
states. In addition, participants must either show 3% support in four qualifying national or
single-state polls, or have at least 5% support in two qualifying single-state polls released
between Sept. 13 and Nov. 13 in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South
Carolina or Nevada."
"... The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing along. ..."
Recent class history of US is quite simple: the elite class first tried to shift the burden
of supporting the lower classes on the middle class with taxation. But as the lower class
became demographically distinct, partially via mass immigration, the elites decided to ally
with the ' underpriviledged ' via identity posturing and squeeze no longer needed
middle class out of existence.
What's left are government employees, a few corporate sinecures, NGO parasitic sector, and
old people. The rest will be melded into a few mutually antagonistic tribal groups providing
ever cheaper service labor. With an occasional lottery winner to showcase mobility. Actually
very similar to what happened in Latin America in the past few centuries.
The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are
'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of
corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing
along.
Unlike the USA (under Neocon stewardship) China has not squandered twenty trillion dollars
of its national solvency bombing countries which never attacked it post 9-11.
China's leaders (unlike our own) never LIED its people into launching obscenely expensive,
illegal wars of aggression across the middle east. (WMD's, Mushroom clouds, Yellow Cake,
etc.)
China has used its wealth and resources to build up its infrastructure, build out its
capital markets, and turbo charge its high tech sectors. As a consequence, it has lifted
nearly half a billion people out of poverty. There has been an explosion in the growth of the
"middle class" in China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are now living comfortable "upwardly
mobile" lives.
The USA, on the other hand, having been defrauded by its "ruling elites" into launching
and fighting endless illegal wars, is now 23 trillion dollars in catastrophic debt.
NOT ONE PENNY of this heinous "overspending" has been dedicated to building up OUR
infrastructure, or BUILDING OUT our middle class.
It has all gone into BLOWING UP countries which never (even) attacked us on 9-11.
As a consequence , the USA is fast becoming a failed nation, a nation where all its wealth
is being siphoned into the hands of its one percent "war pilfer-teers".
It is so sad to have grown up in such an amazing country , with such immense resources and
possibilities, and having to bear witness to it going down the tubes.
To watch all our sovereign wealth being vaporized by our "lie us into endless illegal war"
ruling elites is truly heartbreaking.
The white middle class is the only group that might effectively resist Globohomo's designs on
total power.
Blacks? Too dumb. Will be disposed of once Globohomo is finished the job.
Hispanics? Used to corrupt one party systems. Give them cerveza and Netflix and they're
good.
East Asians? Perfectly fine with living like bug people.
South Asians? Cowardly; will go with the flow.
The middle class is almost completely unique to white people.
Racial aliens cannot wrap their minds around being middle class. They think I'm crazy for
appreciating my 2009 Honda Accord. They literally cannot understand why somebody would want
to live a frugal and mundane life. They are desperate to be like Drake but most end up broke.
It will be very easy for GloboHomo to control a bucket of poor brown slop.
There IS a black middle class, but a big chunk of that works for governments of all
shapes and sizes.
Strictly speaking, there is no more "middle class" in the sense of the classical
economists: a person with just enough capital to live off the income if he works the capital
himself or herself. By this definition professionals (lawyers, dentists, physicians, small
store owners, even spinsters [1] and hand loom operators in a sense) were middle class. Upper
class had enough property to turn it over to managers, lower class had little or no property
and worked for others (servants and farm workers, for example). Paupers didn't earn enough
income per year to feed themselves and didn't live all that long, usually.
What we have is "middle income" people, almost all of whom work as an employee of some
organization -- people who would be considered "lower class" by the classical economists
because they don't have freedom of action and make no independent decisions about how the
capital of their organizations is spent. Today they are considered "intelligentsia", educated
government workers, or, by analogy, educated corporate workers. IMHO, intelligentsia is a
suicide job, and is responsible for the depressed fertility rate, but that's just me.
Back in the AD 1800s and pre-AD 1930 there were many black middle class people. usually
concentrating on selling to black clientele. Now there are effectively none outside of
criminal activities, usually petty criminal. And so it goes.
Of course, back then there were many white middle class people also, usually concentrating
on selling to white clientele. Now there are effectively none, except in some rural areas.
And so it goes.
Counterinsurgency
1] Cottagers who made their living spinning wool skeins into wool threads.
@unit472 A
lot of the middle class are Democrats but not particularly liberal. Many of them vote
Democrat only when they personally benefit. For example, my parents were suburban public
school teachers. They voted for Democrats at the state level because the Democrats supported
better pay and benefits for teachers but voted for Republicans like Goldwater and Reagan at
the national level because Republicans would keep their federal taxes lower. They had no
political philosophy. It was all about what left them financially better off. My parents also
got on well with their suburban neighbors. Suburbanites generally like their local school
system and its teachers and the suburban school systems are usually careful not to engage in
teaching anything controversial. A lot of the government employed white middle class would be
like my parents. Except in situations where specific Republicans talk about major cuts to
their pay and pensions they are perfectly willing to consider voting Republican. They are
generally social moderates, like the status quo, are fairly traditionalist and don't want any
radical changes. Since the Democrats seem be trending in a radical direction, this would put
off a lot of them. Trump would be more appealing as the status quo candidate. When running
the last time, he carefully avoided talking about any major cuts in government spending and
he's governed that way too. At the same time, his talk of cutting immigration, his lack of
enthusiasm for nonwhite affirmative action, and his more traditional views on social issues
is appealing to the white middle class.
The term middle class is used in the U.S. to mean middle income. It has nothing to do with
class. Why not just say what you mean? Most of the middle class that we say is disappearing
is really that rarest of phenomenons. A prosperous working class. The prosperous American
working class is no longer prosperous due to the Neoliberal agenda. Free trade, open borders
and the financialization of everything.
Americans know nothing of class dynamics. Not even the so called socialists. They don't
even see the economy. All they see is people with infinite need and government with infinite
wealth. In their world all of Central America can come to the U.S. and the government (if it
only wants to) can give them all homes, health care and education.
Lets stop saying class when we mean income. Not using the word class would be better than
abusing it.
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists. If
the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with the
Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
Are we to the point where we've collectively resigned ourselves to the death of the
middle class?
In the neoliberal worldview, the middle class is illegitimate, existing only as a
consequence of artificial trade and immigration barriers. Anytime Americans are spied out
making a good living, there is a "shortage" that must be addressed with more visas. Or else
there is an "inefficiency" where other countries could provide said service or produce said
product for less because they have a "comparative advantage."
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists.
If the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with
the Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
I don't know about that anymore. Increasingly, "middle class" means Asian, with Whiteness
being associated with the lower middle class (or perhaps "working class"). Sometimes the
media uses the term " noncollege Whites," which I think is actually very apt. They are the
ones who identify with Whiteness the most.
"... Journalist Glenn Greenwald summarized the testy exchange as Gabbard "responding with righteous rage but also great dignity to the disgusting smears of Democrats about her patriotism and loyalty." ..."
"... What a woman! Get Trump out and give the POTUS to Tulsi. Wonderful. I will definitely contribute to her campaign. ..."
"... What's funny about the whole thing is that the 'regular viewers' of the view are some of the most programmable 'useless' idiots that this (excuse for a country) has ever seen.... ..."
"... The View -- owned by Disney. Openly misandrist show -- in the shows more than 2 decades, having gone through dozens of hosts, the show has never had a male host. How's that for "inclusivity"? ..."
Democratic presidential candidate and Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard faced the
increasingly nasty smears branding her a Russian asset and "traitor" head on during The View on
Wednesday, following the recent spat with Hillary Clinton who suggested the
Kremlin was "grooming" Gabbard to be a third-party candidate .
"Some of you have accused me of being a traitor to my country, a Russian asset, a Trojan
horse, or a useful idiot I think was the term that you used," Gabbard told the panel, after in
prior episodes Joy Behar especially had agreed with and aggressively amplified Hillary's
baseless claims. The panel had also previously called her a Trojan horse. Gabbard came out
swinging in her remarks: "It's offensive to me as a soldier, as an American, as a member of
Congress, as a veteran, and frankly as a woman, to be so demeaned in such a way."
"Well, useful," Behar said, referencing her previously labeling the Iraq war veteran
Moscow's 'useful idiot'. "But that's a Russian term, they use that," she added. "Are You
Calling Me Stupid?" Gabbard at one point angrily shoots back. And demonstrating just how low
and idiotic, and without substantive argument the "controversy" around Gabbard has become,
Behar at one point even offers as 'evidence' of the presidential candidate's supposed Russian
ties that she's appeared on FOX's Tucker Carlson Tonight on multiple occasions.
"I am a strong and intelligent woman of color, who has dedicated almost all of my adult life
to protecting the safety, security & liberty of Americans," Gabbard fired back.
She also schooled the panel on her distinguished military career and slammed Behar's
likening her to Putin's "useful idiot" -- explaining also that she joined the Army after the
9/11 attacks but that her country lied to her in invading Iraq.
"You are implying that I am too stupid, and too naive, and lack the intelligence to know
what I am doing," she further counter-attacked Behar with.
The full segment from Wednesday's The View appearance is below, with the fight over Behar's
"useful idiot" remarks beginning at the 1-min mark:
One astounding moment came when Gabbard reiterated her position that Hillary Clinton is a
"warmonger," at which point Behar actually asked, "What's your evidence of that?"
A perplexed Gabbard immediately shot back, "Are you serious?"
Journalist Glenn Greenwald summarized the testy exchange as Gabbard "responding with
righteous rage but also great dignity to the disgusting smears of Democrats about her
patriotism and loyalty."
What's funny about the whole thing is that the 'regular viewers' of the view are some of
the most programmable 'useless' idiots that this (excuse for a country) has ever seen....
The View -- owned by Disney. Openly misandrist show -- in the shows more than 2 decades, having gone through dozens of
hosts, the show has never had a male host. How's that for "inclusivity"?
Next time you take the kids to the movies or to a themepark, think twice about patronizing
Disney.
I am fearful the Republic for which We Stand, is falling, right before our eyes. I guess
we disengaged at some point, sad. We are all Americans, what happened to the common ground?
It is disappearing...
Joy Behar is a so fugly. She's a loudmouth ******, who is even uglier than the fat negress
with the stupid looking blonde dregs. ****, what a hideous show. Anyone who watches that POS
show is a ******* low IQ moron .
@bevin | Nov 8 2019 18:29 utc | 12
Exactly, and thanks.
Question: Could Bloomberg change the equation, the equation being that neither Sanders nor
Warren not Biden have what it takes to defeat Trump?
And thank you Tulsi Gabbard for speaking out against the war machine and the penal gulag.
With all the vitriol being leveled against Tulsi to paint her as a Russian plant or useful
idiot or whatever, whether from Hillary or the worthless females on the view, a daytime
television show aimed at influencing the political opinion of stay-at-home middlebrow moms
and retirees (Including low energy males), I think my earlier thought that without the Djt
phenomenon, there would be no Tulsi, is proven more and more correct with each passing day.
And for those suffering from such a quickening case of tds, unable to point out that
before the current potus, the tpp was a thing, fake news was as of yet unexposed, Syria was a
powderkeg with the potential of a Russophobic true believer ready to command and chief, and
where immigration as a national question had not been brought to bear on a people that had
been for decades suffering the effect of the evil of cheap, exploitative labor, your case
against the man is extremely misguided and, dare I say, you are the useful idiot here.
Perhaps
one reason Gabbard's political career will continue to be successful:
"I go on Tucker Carlson, I go on Bret Baier, I go on Sean Hannity, I go on MSNBC, I go on
CNN -- I am here to speak to every single American in this country about the unifying
leadership that I want to bring as president, not just speak to those who agree with me."
IIRC, Sanders is the only other candidate who consistently says we need to do this (Change
America) together. IMO, there's only one way Gabbard and Sanders will be nominated next year
in Milwaukee: That's because We the People hijack the Convention, driving out the
Clintonistas, DNC pukes, and their Super Delegates and nominate them via proclamation. All
that's lacking to attain such an outcome is the effort, the will, the realization that
nothing good's going to happen for We the People unless We do it Ourselves.
"... The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The LA Times described the project as meant to "to appear to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton campaign. ..."
"... In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution for the breach was ever attempted. ..."
"... In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers argued that it was the party's right to select candidates. ..."
"... The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was protected by the First Amendment . ..."
"... The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race, ..."
"... f Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district. Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election in which Canova ran as an independent. ..."
"... Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal ballot destruction , improper transportation of ballots, and generally shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the Sun-Sentinel reported at the time: ..."
"... Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies. Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments externalize what Gabbard called the "rot" in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet. ..."
"... Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon in a recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed titled: " Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," ..."
Establishment Democrats and those who amplify them continue to project
blame for the public's doubt in the U.S. election process onto outside influence, despite the clear history of the party's subversion
of election integrity. The total inability of the Democratic Party establishment's willingness to address even one of these critical
failures does not give reason to hope that the nomination process in 2020 will be any less pre-ordained.
The Democratic Party's bias against Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential nomination, followed by the DNC defense counsel
doubling down on its right to rig the race during the
fraud lawsuit brought
against the DNC , as well as the irregularities in the races between former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova,
indicate a fatal breakdown of the U.S. democratic process spearheaded by the Democratic Party establishment. Influences transcending
the DNC add to concerns regarding the integrity of the democratic process that have nothing to do with Russia, but which will also
likely impact outcomes in 2020.
The content of the DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks demonstrated that the DNC
acted in favor of Hillary Clinton in the lead up to the 2016 Democratic primary. The emails also revealed corporate media reporters
acting as surrogates of the DNC and its pro-Clinton agenda, going so far as
to promote Donald Trump during the GOP primary process as a preferred " pied-piper
candidate ." One cannot assume that similar evidence will be presented to the public in 2020, making it more important than ever
to take stock of the unique lessons handed down to us by the 2016 race.
Social Media Meddling
Election meddling via social media did take place in 2016, though in a different guise and for a different cause from that which
are best remembered. Twitter would eventually admit to actively suppressing
hashtags referencing the DNC and Podesta emails in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Additional
reports indicated that tech giant Google also showed measurable "pro-Hillary
Clinton bias" in search results during 2016, resulting in the alleged swaying of between 2 and 10 millions voters in favor of Clinton.
On the Republican side, a recent episode of CNLive! featured discussion
of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which undecided voters were micro-targeted with tailored advertising narrowed with the combined
use of big data and artificial intelligence known collectively as "dark strategy." CNLive! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan noted that
SCL, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, provides data, analytics and strategy to governments and military organizations "worldwide,"
specializing in behavior modification. Though Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018, related companies remain.
The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The
barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock
were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding
for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The
LA Times described the project as meant to "to appear
to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid
and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton campaign.
In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have
purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls
before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found
broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution
for the breach was ever attempted.
Though the purge was not explicitly found to have benefitted Clinton, the admission falls in line with allegations across the
country that the Democratic primary was interfered with to the benefit of the former secretary of state. These claims were further
bolstered by reports indicating that voting results from the 2016 Democratic
primary showed evidence of fraud.
DNC Fraud Lawsuit
The proceedings of the DNC fraud lawsuit provide the most damning evidence of the failure of the U.S. election process, especially
within the Democratic Party. DNC defense lawyers argued in open court for the party's
right to appoint candidates at its own discretion, while simultaneously denying
any "fiduciary duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the impression that the DNC would act impartially
towards the candidates involved.
In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued
against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process
was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers
argued that it was the party's right to select candidates.
The Observer noted the sentiments of Jared Beck, the attorney representing the plaintiffs of the lawsuit:
"People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the Democratic nominee -- nominating process
in 2016 were fair and impartial, and that's not just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that
we live in a democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But that's what the Democratic
National Committee's own charter says. It says it in black and white."
The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's
right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was
protected by the First Amendment . The DNC's lawyers wrote:
"To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege would run directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court
precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties, especially when it comes to
selecting the party's nominee for public office ." [Emphasis added]
The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication
that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race,
Tim Canova's Allegations
If Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference
was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district.
Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election
in which Canova ran as an independent.
Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal
ballot destruction , improper
transportation of ballots, and generally
shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial
results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the
Sun-Sentinel reported at the time:
"[Canova] sought to look at the paper ballots in March 2017 and took Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to court three months
later when her office hadn't fulfilled his request. Snipes approved the destruction of the ballots in September, signing a certification
that said no court cases involving the ballots were pending."
Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies.
Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms.
Republicans appear no more motivated to protect voting integrity than the Democrats, with
The Nation reporting that the GOP-controlled Senate
blocked a bill this week that would have "mandated paper-ballot backups in case of election machine malfunctions."
Study of Corporate Power
A 2014
study published by Princeton University found that corporate power had usurped the voting rights of the public: "Economic elites
and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
In reviewing this sordid history, we see that the Democratic Party establishment has done everything in its power to disrespect
voters and outright overrule them in the democratic primary process, defending their right to do so in the DNC fraud lawsuit. We've
noted that interests transcending the DNC also represent escalating threats to election integrity as demonstrated in 2016.
Despite this, establishment Democrats and those who echo their views in the legacy press continue to deflect from their own wrongdoing
and real threats to the election process by suggesting that mere discussion of it represents a campaign by Russia to attempt to malign
the perception of the legitimacy of the U.S. democratic process.
Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former
Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments
externalize what Gabbard called the "rot"
in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet.
Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon in a
recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed titled:
" Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," Jamali
argued :
"Moscow will use its skillful propaganda machine to prop up Gabbard and use her as a tool to delegitimize the democratic process.
" [Emphasis added]
Jamali surmises that Russia intends to "attack" our democracy by undermining the domestic perception of its legitimacy. This thesis
is repeated later in the piece when Jamali opines : "They want to see a retreat
of American influence. What better way to accomplish that than to attack our democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of our
elections." [Emphasis added]
The only thing worth protecting, according to Jamali and those who amplify his work (including former Clinton aide and establishment
Democrat Neera Tanden), is the perception of the democratic process, not the actual functioning vitality of it. Such deflective tactics
ensure that Russia will continue to be used as a convenient international pretext for
silencing domestic dissent as we move into 2020.
Given all this, how can one expect the outcome of a 2020 Democratic Primary -- or even the general election – to be any fairer
or transparent than 2016?
* * *
Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter, co-host of CN Live! and regular contributor to Consortium News. If you value this
original article, please consider
making
a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
The 'they are manipulating Trump' angle is valid I'm sure but it tends to diminish those
other aspects of Trump's 'intuition'. It is stated in the article though. Trump is antiwar in
the sense that he is against useless wars. Give him a clear goal and he doesn't mind war at
all. Looting and pillage is fine. Attacking defenseless enemies is fine. Convince him that
endless wars are actually good business and he'll support those as well. He doesn't require
manipulating for that. The antiwar elements in his thinking are easily used to paper over his
other characteristics as 'being manipulated'.
Another subject is that of Trump's dishonesty. In fact it is more about out of sync
dishonesty: 'normal people' (policy level) use shared schemas for when to lie and when not to
lie. Trump uses a different one. He will lie when others consider it a bad idea and will
speak the truth when others consider it a bad idea.
The Washington Post actually ran a very favorable article
on Gabbard's campaign in Iowa a couple of days ago. Most unusual for them. Only explanation I can
think of is that they realize she has a good chance of winning the Iowa caucuses and don't want
to be caught flatfooted by continuing their noncoverage of her campaign.
The explanation is more likely the opposite, I'm afraid. The Iowa caucuses are now close
enough, and Gabbard polling low enough, that the WashPost feel they can tidy up their record
by publishing something about her, even something favorable. If she were really threatening
the front-runners, minimal and/or hostile coverage would be de rigueur.
Thanks for your reply! IMO, Gabbard was correct to vote Yea for the inquiry as it doesn't
specify the crime(s). On her Twitter , Gabbard
called out Trump for his continuing criminal actions in Syria which constitute a High Crime
and impeachable offense. Furthermore, the orders given were all illegal orders as they're
against international and US Law and should've been refused by every soldier issued them as
it's their duty to do so . Unfortunately, Gabbard didn't make that very important
point.
The whole impeachment show the Democrats launched is a major political mistake.
Right on b, a MAJOR blunder. But they stampeded themselves into that blunder because of
their hysteria over Trump gunning for Biden and all the other carpetbaggers in Ukraine. This
Demoncrat gang of shysters have as much wisdom as a flat rock. They have now lost Biden, must
choose frootloop Warren as they can never have Sanders.
That looks a lot like keeping USA safe for Trump to me.
It is so pathetically obvious and these Demoncrats can't even assemble a package of
legislation with their majority to benefit USA citizens even one small bit. The Demoncrats
'leadership' are owned in their entirety by the oligarchs of MIC, big pharma and big
insurance. The Greens are incapable of breaking through their glass ceiling. What a total
shambles in just about every USA allied country.
I just posted poll results two days ago from New Hampshire showing Gabbard at 5% while
Harris had dropped to 3%. And given the size of the field, 5% is respectable and was clearly
a boost provided by Clinton's outburst. Gabbard was just given space for an op/ed in
The
Wall Street Journal which prompted the WaPost item. Can't read the WSJ item since
it's behind a paywall, but The Washington Times
ran its own piece about her op/ed that provides some insight as to its content, but that
site won't allow copy/paste so I can't provide MoA with the blurb it published.
Here's a WaPost item about Gabbard's Iowa campaign, which as I discovered when using
google is one of many by the WaPost. Despite all the ads, I liked it, but it won't get me to
subscribe.
Just got another fundraiser email from Tulsi's campaign. It ends with:
Tulsi is taking this fight directly to the people -- with a packed schedule of townhalls and
meet and greets, with big ad spends in the early states, with signs and boots on the ground.
The best thing you can do right now to help Tulsi rise above the smear campaigns is to help
her keep speaking truth to power. . . .
From what I read at ZeroHedge, it sounds like it will be "Make my day" time in the Senate,
with GOP senators able to subpoena anyone they want.
Yes, but if the GOP senators stick with their usual grandstanding posing then they can
subpoena whoever they like and it'll be pointless. Actually, it'll be a complete and utter
waste of fucking time because GOP senators have little or no experience of forensic
cross-examination and will spend their time dicking around and asking stupid questions in a
vain vain attempt to look good.. If they really want to stick it to the Democrats they need a
Senate impeachment resolution that allows them to use really experienced outside criminal
lawyers to plan and carry out the questioning. Since most experienced U.S. criminal lawyers
are experts at making deals with prosecutors for their clients rather than going to trial, I
would suggest they should bring in a couple of top-flight British QCs (barristers)with their
teams of juniors.
With Russia and now Ukrainegate, I'm reminded on the Fed dropping interest rates every time
the market has a down week. Yet eventually this shot of adrenaline will not work and the
market falls through the floor.
So now that Ukrainegate has a huge hole in its chest, do the dems have a plan c, or is this
the Big One?
I make this point because there are very many never Trumpers out there, clinging to this
spiel, but eventually even they will wake up and where do they go? Do they finally accept the
whole system really is rigged?
Eventually the ground under the powers that be will turn to quicksand and this really is a
notable earthquake.
"Well, you know, thank God for the 'deep state'," McLaughlin responded, provoking
laughter and applause.
The former intelligence official was speaking at an event hosted by George Mason
University, joined by former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former CIA Director John
Brennan -- both of whom have been critical of the president.
"With all of the people who knew what was going on here, it took an intelligence officer
to step forward and say something about it, which was the trigger that then unleashed
everything else," McLaughlin said.
He went on to praise the intelligence community. "This is the institution within the
U.S. government -- that with all of its flaws, and it makes mistakes -- is institutionally
committed to objectivity and telling the truth," he said.
"It is one of the few institutions in Washington that is not in a chain of command that
makes or implements policy. Its whole job is to speak the truth -- it's engraved in marble
in the lobby."
As b stated in a previous post, it is
the Borg who should dictate US foreign policy. It certainly is not one of the three
branches of government (the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary) of the trias
politica model. The Intelligence Community if the Fourth Estate (Vierte Gewalt)
that rules supreme over the three other branches of government.
Since the UN Charter has the same legal status as Acts of Congress under U.S. law, the AUMF
can certainly violate the UN Charter, under U.S. law. The AUMF may violate international law,
but that is another matter.
A friend of mine attended a government meeting under President G.H.W. Bush. I believe the
subject was the kidnapping of General Noriega from Panama. In any case, I was told that at
the meeting William Barr said, "F!!! international law!" And it is well known that (according
to Richard Clark) George W. Bush said in the White House the evening of 9/11, "I don't care
what the international lawyers say, we're going to kick some ass!"
lysias 98 US when it comes to international law has been lawless since 1986.
"The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America (1986) ICJ 1 is a public
international law case decided by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ ruled in
favor of Nicaragua and against the United States and awarded reparations to Nicaragua. The
ICJ held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their
rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The United
States refused to participate in the proceedings after the Court rejected its argument that
the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The U.S. also blocked enforcement of the
judgment by the United Nations Security Council and thereby prevented Nicaragua from
obtaining any compensation.[2]"
In the last decades, US has used things like R2P and coalitions and so forth, but under
Trump, US is dropping most pretenses.
Pompeo at times is as honest as Trump when it comes to US and what it is.
I linked a video in an earlier comment to Pompeo, but then I realised there was a bit more to
"We lied, we cheated, we stole." The piece that was cut off in the earlier video I linked "
It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment"
The Bushes were a CIA family. William Barr's first jobs after college were with the CIA, and
his father was OSS. This has been the CIA's attitude towards law from the start. They've
largely been running the country since the JFK assassination, and now they're out in the open
trying to topple an elected president.
lysias , Nov 2 2019 2:31 utc |
104Peter AU1 , Nov 2 2019 2:33 utc |
105
The non Trump section of the swamp is not going down without a fight..
That effort was carried out at the request of at least one Ukrainian official, prosecutors
said. Trump ordered the ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, removed in May."
b said;" The whole impeachment show the Democrats launched is a major political mistake."
Exactly b, and most Dems know it. That's the whole point, find a way to pretend they
want
DJT gone, when in reality, they love what this Admin. is doing. Devolving the Gov. so their
corporate masters can rake in more $ thru deregulation.
Big $ has finally achieved it's goal of of complete and total hegemony in the U$A.
Pelosi & Schumer are sycophants for the uber-wealthy, along with the majority of both
parties.
Known cost of Intel: $80 Billion for 17 Agencies.
Results? No known benefits.
Unknown cost: The damage they do.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 2 2019 3:17 utc | 106
Since the activity is secret, so are the benefits! Actually, as a place for work,
"agencies" offer a number of benefits, especially post-employment opportunities.
On the topic of scholarship and the benefits of war, here's a reminder of what passes for
elite leadership. Tulsi Gabbard wants to end endless wars and the knives are now out for her.
Somebody takes Morris's thesis seriously. The world will be better off with the US the
permanent military leader of the world.
This is blowing up all over Twitter, with Gabbard slapping back, and the HRC loyalists
calling Gabbard an Assad apologist and worse.
According to HRC logic, American third party candidates are necessarily Russian stooges
placed to help the Kremlin's candidate win. The logic is "inescapable" according to HRC. BUT
OF COURSE!!!! Now it ALL MAKES SENSE! 1992 Perot-Clinton, 2000 Nader-Bush, 2016 Jill
Stein-Trump, and, 2020 Gabbard-Trump!!!!
It's all so clear now! The KGB wanted to keep HW Bush out of office as the former Soviet
Union collapsed! That's how she and Bill entered the WH in 1992! Perot was a KGB stooge, and
Bill and Hillary have been lifelong assets of the KGB. Of course!!! That's why Hillary sold
all that uranium to the Russians! Lest, anyone believe the charge of dual-loyalty leveled
against Gabbard is a fiction, check for yourselves.
The above is an actual argument just made by the 2016 candidate for POTUS. Russia controls
US elections by promoting third-party candidates. The best part is that HRC, beneficiary of
"obvious" Russian interference may yet end up running in 2020. Something to look forward to!
Imagine if HRC had won in 2016. Conspiracy theories out the wazoo!
Kind of puts the Morris "scholarship" in perspective, doesn't it? my mother and sister
have. Dipper, probably not)
Hi John, do whatever you want with this interview with Tulsi. It looks like it's on –
big time. Clinton versus Gabbard for the nomination and the chance to run against orange man
bad. On the basis of what I've seen I'd say Tulsi is the only Dem with a message to take
Donald down, and she's not scared to reach out to everyone for support.
I wonder about the Morris book, really. Histories aimed at the popular market are rarely
written in a vacuum. As you know, post-9/11 we saw a bumper crop of mostly crap histories of
the class of civilizations variety. I won't be buying or reading Morris, simply because I
find wide, encompassing arguments generally useless and dull. Anyway, from the sounds of it,
I do think Morris has a constituency among the FP elites.
Arguably some of the most significant events since the eight-year long war's start have played out in Syria with rapid pace over
just the last month alone, including Turkey's military incursion in the north, the US pullback from the border and into Syria's oil
fields, the Kurdish-led SDF&# deal making with Damascus, and the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. All of this is why a
televised interview with Presiden39;st Bashar Assad was highly anticipated at the end of this week.
Assad's commentary on the latest White House policy to "secure the oil" in Syria, for which US troops have already been redeployed
to some of the largest oil fields in the Deir Ezzor region, was the biggest pressing question. The Syrian president's response was
unexpected and is now driving headlines, given what he said directly about Trump, calling him the "best American president" ever
– because he's the "most transparent."
"When it comes to Trump you may ask me a question and I'll give you an answer which might seem strange. I tell you he's the best
American president," Assad said, according to a
translation provided by NBC.
"Why? Not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president," Assad continued.
"All American presidents commit crimes and end up taking the Nobel Prize and appear as a defender of human rights and the 'unique'
and 'brilliant' American or Western principles. But all they are is a group of criminals who only represent the interests of the
American lobbies of large corporations in weapons, oil and others," he added.
"Trump speaks with the transparency to say 'We want the oil'." Assad's unique approach to an 'enemy' head of state which has just
ordered the seizure of Syrian national resources also comes after in prior years the US president called Assad "our enemy" and an
"animal."
Trump tweeted in April 2018 after
a new chemical attack allegation had surfaced: "If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster
would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!"
A number of mainstream outlets commenting on Assad's interview falsely presented it as "praise" of Trump or that Assad thinks
"highly" of him; however,
it appears the Syrian leader was merely presenting Trump's policy statements from a 'realist' perspective , contrasting them from
the misleading 'humanitarian' motives typical of Washington's rhetoric about itself.
That is, Damascus sees US actions in the Middle East as motivated fundamentally by naked imperial ambition, a constant prior theme
of Assad's speeches , across administrations, whether US leadership dresses it up as 'democracy promotion' or in humanitarian terms
characteristic of liberal interventionism. As Assad described, Trump seems to skip dressing up his rhetoric in moralistic idealism
altogether, content to just unapologetically admit the ugly reality of US foreign policy.
I see Americans keep calling Assad and Putin a ''dictator'' Hey, jackasses, they were ELECTED in elections far less corrupt than what you have in the USSA
Assad is a very eloquent speaker. Witty, sharp and always calm when speaking with decadent press. Of course the MSM understood
what he DID mean, but they cannot help themselves, but parse anything to try hurting Trump.
If true. It means the Vatican (the oldest most important money there is) like Saudi Arabia and the UAE sure do seem to care
about stuff like purchasing power in their "portfolios" and a "store of value"?...
I see lots of EU participants taking their money to Moscow as well with that Arctic bonanza that says "come hither" if you
want your money to be worth something!!!
It's always been about oil. Spreading Freedumb, Dumbocracy and Western values, is PR spiel. The reality is, the West are scammers,
plunderers and outright thieves. Forget the billions Shell Oil, is holding for the Biafran people/region in Nigeria, which it
won't give to either the Bianfran states in the east, nor the Nigerian government, dating back to the secessionist state of Biafra/Nigerian civil war 1967-70. The west are nothing more than gang-bangers, but on the world stage.
Yet the department for trade and industry is scratching its head, wondering why their are so few takers for a post-Brexit trade
deal with the UK, where the honest UK courts have the final say? lol
Too bad it is political suicide for an American president to try to establish communication with Assad. He seems like a pretty
practical guy and who knows, it might be possible to work out a peaceful settlement with him.
economic warfare on the syrian civlian population through illegal confiscation of vital civilian economic assets, and as conducted
in venezeula, is called ________________
Assad is saying where before the UKK was a masked thief, with Trompas and his egotism alias exceptionalism, has not bothered
withthe mask. He is still a murderer and thief.
Now Assad has some idea why Trump is so popular with his base, they love him for not being politically correct, for "telling
it like it is". He's like the wolf looking at the sheep and telling them he's going to eat them and the sheep cheering because
he's not being a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Unfortunately in the case of Trump's sheeple, they don't even have a clue they're going to be eaten, the Trumptards all think
he's going to eat someone else like the "deep state" or the "dumbocrats". Meanwhile he's chewing away at their health care, their
export markets, piling up record deficits, handing the tax gold to the rich and corporations while they get the shaft, taking
away program after program that aided students, the poor, and the elderly, appointing lobbyists to dismantle or corrupt departments
they used to lobby against, and in general destroying the international good will that it's taken decades to build.
"... Believing herself untouchable and immune from any genuine criticism or objective analysis after having successfully evaded prosecution from the nation's top law enforcement agencies, HRC went off the deep end dragging the Democratic party further into the ditch. ..."
"... She is a favorite of the Russians. That's assuming that Jill Stein will give it up which she might not because she is also a Russian asset." ..."
"... Gabbard's message is relatively simple -that is: Instead of the US destroying countries it should be spending the Military Budget on rebuilding the US. Yes that sounds like an America First type of stance but it has a decent logic about it. ..."
"... The US needs an enemy to justify its massive defence bill and 800 bases worldwide. ..."
"... Stoltenberg would happily stop all social services in order to buy more missiles and gain a few brownie points from Trump. Stoltenberg along with the US Neocons are are sick SOB's. ..."
"... Both Trump and Jabbard are opponents of the CIA – Wall street complex. Nationalists vs Globalists, but some people still believe the former are more dangerous than the latter. ..."
"... The Dems morphed into neocons when her willy-waving husband sold out and destroyed the Democratic Party of LBJ's Great Society. ..."
"... Tulsi has shown a lot of class, truth to the darkest Power, and long may she have this platform.. ..."
As you may have figured out by now, Hillary Clinton, warped by her own self aggrandizement of entitlement, did Tulsi Gabbard and
her Presidential campaign against interventionist wars a huge incidental favor.
While the Democrats continue to splinter and spiral out of control on the eve of what promises to be a transformative national
election, the Grand Inquisitor seized an opportunity to allege that Gabbard (and Jill Stein) are " Russian assets " and " Putin puppets
".
Since Tulsi is a Major in the US Army Reserves and holds the highest security clearance available, the term 'asset,' which is
associated with being an agent of a foreign power, carries a level of national security significance.
Believing herself untouchable and immune from any genuine criticism or objective analysis after having successfully
evaded
prosecution from the nation's top law enforcement agencies, HRC went
off the deep end dragging the Democratic party
further into the
ditch.
She is a favorite of the Russians. That's assuming that Jill Stein will give it up which she might not because she is also
a Russian asset."
Clinton's
historic pronouncement came in the mistaken belief that publicly humiliating Gabbard would intimidate the Aloha Girl to silence
and seek refuge on her surfboard – but that is not how it has played out.
An unexpected bonus proved once again that political strategy has never been Clinton's strong suit as her malicious comments have
brought the anti-war alt left with the libertarian alt-right together in Gabbard's defense. With HRC's injudicious taunts, the glimmer
of an emerging political realignment , one that has
been at odds with both the Dem and Republican establishments, has surfaced – probably not exactly what HRC intended.
In response to having received a burst of unprecedented support, Gabbard is about to assure her place on the November debate stage
and continues to solidify her credibility as a critic of a corrupt bipartisan political establishment and its endless wars.
If they falsely portray me as a traitor, they can do it to anyone. Don't be afraid. Join me in speaking truth to power to take
back the Democrat Party and country from the corrupt elite."
It is noteworthy that HRCs accusation was to the only candidate who stands in direct opposition to the Queen Bee's history for
the war machine and all of its bells and whistles. As if to call attention to the contradiction, the entire fiasco has acknowledged
what was never meant to be acknowledged: that one little known Congresswoman from Hawaii would dare to publicly confront the omnipotent
HRC with her own demons and malfeasance; thereby elevating the one candidacy that represents a threat to the military industrial
complex and its globalist order.
It is no coincidence that the corporate media operates in lockstep as an offensive October 12th
NY Times article was immediately
followed by a CNN
commentary as well as other media sycophants, all tagging Gabbard as a Russian asset.
Contrary to Journalism 101 on how professional media should conduct themselves, there has been no evidence, no facts, no supporting
documentation as they characteristically rely on innuendo and disinformation.
At the last Dem debate and during the kerfuffle with Clinton, Tulsi has stepped up and
showed herself
to be a candidate the country has been waiting for. With a powerful inner grit, she did not hesitate to take the
Times and CNN
publicly to task and then
in response
called HRC out as a warmonger and
dared her to enter the 2020 fray.
There lies a deep truth within
Gabbard's response especially identifying Clinton as the " personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party.
"
During Clinton's term as Secretary of State which is little more than a Glorified Global Hustler for the US military industrial
complex, the Democratic Party lost its soul, morphing as nefarious neocons in pursuit of raw political and economic power that emanates
from a policy of unfettered regime change and interventionist wars.
As Democrats embraced the neocons with no objection to the unrestrained violence, increased military budgets, indiscriminate selling
of weapons to bomb a civilian population, then why should the party's grassroots object to the Tuesday morning assassination list
or drone attacks on civilians or creating war in four countries living in peace in 2008?
As the party faithful allow themselves to dismiss all the suffering, the death and destruction wrought by US-made weapons as if
Amazon and Google toys were an acceptable trade, they lost their conscience and their connection to the basic essence of humanity's
need for peace, love and compassion.
The latest example of the Party's devotion to war is their opposition to the withdrawal of US troops from Syria as they created
the phony debate that the Kurds were worth more American blood or resources. The Dems have always been more pro-war than they have
been given credit for with WWI, WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam all initiated and/or expanded under Democrat Presidents.
With no substantiation from the mindless meanderings of a seriously disoriented woman, it is now clear that Clinton's derangement
syndrome of unresolved guilt and denial led the Democratic party to its irrational embrace of Russiagate as the justification for
her 2016 loss.
In other words, it was Russiagate that protected HRC's fragile self-esteem from the necessary introspection as Americans were
pitted against one another, dividing the nation in a deliberate disruption of civil society in a more acrimonious manner than any
time since the 1860's. The country has paid a bitter, unnecessary price for a divisive strategy due to Clinton's refusal to personally
accept responsibility for her own failings.
HRC's most egregious war crimes as Secretary of State include assigning Victoria Nuland to conduct the
overthrow of a democratically elected
President in Ukraine in 2014 and the ensuing violence and civil war in the Donbass as well as her
joyous rapture cackling at the death of Libyan President Qaddafi in 2011. The now infamous video " We came, we saw, he died "
showed her to be more than just your average war criminal but a Monster who experiences an aberrant thrill at death and destruction.
Since June, TPTB have done their darnedest to deny Tulsi a spot on the debate stage rigging the qualifying requirements as best
they could. Making it near impossible for the polling firms, which rely on campaign season and their economic connection with the
DNC to call the shots in a fair and equitable manner.
As the early primary states loom ahead, the last thing TPTB need is a powerful pro-peace voice resonating with the American public.
The message seems clear: talk of peace is verboten and equates with being a Russia asset and anyone with pacifist tendencies will
be publicly chastised and condemned for being a tool of the Kremlin.
None of that has stopped Tulsi Gabbard.
Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast
Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member
of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31
Ken Kenn
I am very impressed by Tulsi Gabbard. She's a bit too patriotic for me – but I'm a Brit so for a serving American it's understandable.
It isn't the person that is dangerous- it is the insertion of the idea that Regime Change wars are counterproductive.
Gabbard's message is relatively simple -that is: Instead of the US destroying countries it should be spending the Military
Budget on rebuilding the US. Yes that sounds like an America First type of stance but it has a decent logic about it.
Wasteful wars and the idea that the US should install its version of Democracy across the Middle East has always been a doomed
project and co-operation and an attempt at rebuilding these nations in order to attempt some kind of democracy and future prosperity
is required – not bombing and bullying.
You could be outraged by Clinton's nasty rhetoric but let's face it. Clinton lost to someone she considered to be a Clown.
In actuality the DNC almost promoted Trump as person they could beat hands down.
It bit them on the arse as did the Brexit result in the UK.
Clinton has never got over losing to a chump and she is just covering her backside as to why she lost.
Hell hath no fury like a self appointed Candidate scorned. Like Johnson in the UK Clinton thought she had the right to rule.
She didn't and doesn't. To quote some US Senator; " The people have spoken. The bastards!"
Igor
The objective is not to install American "democracy". Which does not exist anywhere, USA is officially a republic. Unofficially,
it is an oligarchy. Elite super wealthy families and their corporations run the USA. All 45 Presidents have been related to those
families. The President is actually elected by the Electoral College, not the popular vote. This was designed into the Constitution
of USA, Inc.
The aim of regime change is to create chaos in MENA, by which a small ME state can profit without doing any visible dirty work.
The Democrats(oxymoron for il Partito Fascista Americano) are doing this for the simple reason knowing full well that most traditional
old school democrats identify with Bernie Sanders. The whole notion of the WASP notion of left right paradigm is oxymoron in itself.
Any political science follower or student would have to agree. What is the political left mean in the west????????? Has anyone
ever read Marx and Engles ???????????? Social democrat WTF does that mean. Historical revisionist get labelled Nazi sympathisers.
The constant lies and obfuscation with real facts. Like population stats death births . The Classic method being used at the moment
is they no longer due c0up d'etats the good old fascistic way. The popular vote gets discredited by the judicial system. IE the
recent elections of Argentina and Bolivia does not suit the IMF( the International Mafia Fund) henc e the European Union Funded
election monitoring organisations are all openly stating that both elections were not KOSHER.
Look at the people in Venezuela and Bolivia that are demonstrating against the popular elected and voted for Governments. White
upper middle class figli di putane. Plain and simple the western paradigm of fake democrazia and fake economy is dying the plutocratic
and oligarchical class are just creating storms and fires just do deviate from good old fashion bread and butter issues.
Conclusion:
The pax-americana Democrats(RATS) know full well that Bernie will not lead the party Gabbard will not lead the party so here
is there strategy and good old Chuckie Schuemer the anglo-zionist par excellance laid it out in 2015. They are hoping that old
fashion conservative Republicans that are disgusted with the Orange one will vote for them and further reduce the number of voters.
Just think of this. In this day and age with the largest wealth gap exceeding the Gilded age which individual would take a day
off to line up to vote on a bitter grey November day. So these remarkable establishment shills in their great wisdom are running
as Eisenhower Republican and hoping to steal votes from the Republicans and not win any votes from the new ever growing lower
so called middle class.
POST SCRIPTUM: The irony and the complete paradox more war will give us peace and the rich getting richer will give us the
sheeple wealth. Black is white and grey does not exist and left vs right. What a sad state of affairs.
Docius in fundem: The sad reality in our dying western paradigm of pax-americana is never in the history of the modern and
post modern era we have more people graduating from tertiary education but we have created the most ignorant and pliant class
of individuals ever.
Jon
She came, we saw, she lied.
Hugh O'Neill
Russian asset and Putin puppet, Jesus of Nazareth reportedly said: "Blessed are the Peace Makers". As we know, Trump receives
maximum MSM contempt for anything approaching diplomacy and peace, and highest MSM approval when advocating war and destruction.
Likewise, when a Presidential candidate dare breathe the word "Peace" then she is either ignored, ridiculed or accused of treachery
– and that greatest of all crimes, being pro-Russian (ergo anti-American). It is timely perhaps to re-read President Kennedy's
(largely unreported) Commencement Address to American University, 10th June 1963:
" What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons
of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes
life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not
merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time".
"I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and
relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when
a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World
War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and
soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn."
Lest we forget: Lee Harvey Oswald was sheep-dipped as a Russian-loving commie precisely so as to blame Russia for killing that
commie/socialist/pacifist/drug-addled/free-lovin' Jack Kennedy. Somehow, their script didn't really make any sense. Script-writer
Allen Dulles had written a turkey, but the show must go on, and on .
Igor
It won't be allowed. The People have no say in the matter. Politics is pure spectacle, to distract and entertain the masses, and
to make them think that they have a voice. All 45 US Presidents have been interrelated through 200+ super wealth elite intertwined
families. If Tulsi Gabbard is not related, then she is not getting into the White House. If she is related, she will get in and
do nothing different from what the previous actors have always done.
#Resist45 and Trump, Mr. #45, work for the same people. Keeping the nation dazed and confused, since January 2017. Congress
does nothing useful, by design, concentrating on impeachment. The Media has plenty of Trump social media coverage to prevent ever
having space to report on actual events (as if they would).
Chinese Asset?
Please don't make the Republicans look better than they are. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ms. Hua Chunying said at a press briefing
that
Pence's speech made Thursday revealed his "sheer arrogance and hypocrisy, and was packed with political prejudice and lies"
So refreshing to hear it from a high level official! Ms Hua also accused Pence of using China as a prop to distract from
the United States' failings. Now we know, the 'Russian asset' accusation is used to distract from the continuous and
never-ending murderous operation of the US regime.
Seamus Padraig
Since Tulsi is a Major in the US Army Reserves and holds the highest security clearance available, the term 'asset,' which
is associated with being an agent of a foreign power, carries a level of national security significance.
Alt-journalist
Caity Johnstone has recently remarked upon how the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have started to give the
word 'asset' their own little proprietary meaning:
"Russian 'assets' are not formal relationships in the USIC [US Intelligence Community] sense of the word," CNN analyst and
former FBI agent Asha Rangappa explained via Twitter. "If you are parroting Russian talking points and furthering their interests,
you're a source who is too dumb to know you're being played to ask for money."
"It's important to point out here that a Russian 'asset' is not the same thing as a Russian 'agent'," tweeted virulent establishment
narrative manager Caroline Orr. "An asset can be witting or unwitting; it's any person or org who can be used to advance Russia's
interests. It's pretty clear that Tulsi satisfies that criteria."
"One doesn't have to be on the Kremlin's payroll to be a Russian asset. One doesn't even have to know they are a Russian
asset to be a Russian asset. Have you not heard the term 'useful idiot' before?" tweeted writer Kara Calavera.
At this rate, pretty soon, we'll all have to check with RT first before we open our mouths in public, just to make sure we're
not accidentally agreeing with the Russians!
The Dems have always been more pro-war than they have been given credit for with WWI, WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam all
initiated and/or expanded under Democrat Presidents.
Ha, ha! That takes me back–all the way to 1976, to be exact–to when Bob Dole (then a candidate for Vice-President) described
all the wars of the 20th century as " Democrat wars
".
Igor
"CNN analyst and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa explained via Twitter. "
Says the CNN paid asset.
Hugh O'Neill
Thanks once again to Renee for championing Tulsi. Yesterday my local paper here in NZ (The Otago Daily Times) in its "This Day
in History" column, briefly referred to JFK and the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I wrote to the editor my
appreciation:
"Although I am old enough to remember both the 1960 election and the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, I was
blissfully unaware of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 (when I was almost 7 years old). My thanks to the ODT for marking
this date which is the day in History when the world stepped back from the abyss of nuclear war and ended all life on Earth. Sadly,
too many today live in blissful ignorance of the most dangerous moment in the History of Mankind.
As the old saying goes, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Next time around, there may no longer be the politicians
with the courage and intelligence of Kennedy and Khrushchev: both men had to out-manoeuvre their own military hawks, and each
man knew the personal risks he faced in doing so. Khrushchev was replaced within a year and died in ignominy.
JFK's lived another year before his own untimely end. Though we may lament the execution of John F. Kennedy, he had not lived
and died in vain, because we are still here despite the military. I cannot recommend highly enough two books: firstly, Bobby Kennedy's
"13 Days> A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis" and James Doulglass "JFK & The Unspeakable. Why he died & Why it Matters".
Tulsi has been the only candidate in a very long time to speak the unspeakable truth. Do not condemn her for whatever flaws
some commenters below perceive. No-one is absolutely perfect in every way – not even Mary Poppins. But Tulsi is a breath of fresh
air and has immense courage, eloquence, passion, integrity and charisma to bring out the best in people. The real enemy is within
– in every sense.
Thanks, Gwyn. I knew this story already but it is worth rereading. The fact that some dimwitted USN ship started dropping depth
charges without top authority shows that JFKs grip on his own military was tenuous. He had recently read Barbara Tuchman's "The
guns of August" which showed how stupid acts by subordinates could have massive consequences. Once again, this demonstrates the
treachery of the military. Recently, some British General stated publicly that if Corbyn were elected, there would be a coup.
The military mind cannot cope with the concept of Democracy.
Stoltenberg would happily stop all social services in order to buy more missiles and gain a few brownie points from Trump.
Stoltenberg along with the US Neocons are are sick SOB's.
Antonym
Trump doesn't want US taxpayers to fund US mil in Europe, not unreasonable. Both Trump and Jabbard are opponents of the CIA
– Wall street complex. Nationalists vs Globalists, but some people still believe the former are more dangerous than the latter.
Amazon, Google or Apple have more power than North Korea, Iran or Xyz. China cannot be the CIA-Wall street bogey now as they make
too much profit of it: Russia is much smaller fish margin wise (the Clinton's only managed a few dozen million$) so that makes
the perfect fake enemy. On top Russia actually competes with oil and gas, which China can't.
Wilmers31
Someone with more knowledge to the timeline needs to correlate the punishments for Russia (sanctions) to the oil price. I think
they started sanctions when Russian oil and gas deliveries were getting cheaper but US needed 75$+ for the frackers. It was just
eliminating a competitor, especially after they could not purchase the monopoly on Russian gas and oil through the monopoly company
Yukos.
Gary Weglarz
This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and this seems like a good post to share it on.
Watching trolls emerge to discredit and attack the lone U.S. candidate who publicly and vocally opposes America's regime change
wars and even dares tell the American people that "we are supporting the terrorists – not fighting them" – is bad enough in MSM,
but a sad and interesting comment on how completely engaged the State has become with attempting to "control" and "shape" discourse
on progressive sites such as this.
My favorite of course is when one State troll debates another State troll in completely "fake" discourse, attempting to amplify
their troll message. The other technique that is endlessly amusing is when a single troll posts something a well informed person
with progressive values can quite agree with one day, followed the next by complete gibberish posing as "sophistication," followed
the next day by talking points right out of the CIA & Pentagon, and then follows all that up with posting something sensible again.
Just a bit "crazy-making" no?
It pays to remember ("The 4 D's: Deny / Disrupt / Degrade / Deceive") that come right out of the trolling manual. It should
be a red-flag if these descriptors characterize someone's posts.
The saying that if it ("looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck, well, it just might be a duck") – is one
that is worth applying to our comment's sections discourse. Because if it "posts like a troll"- in the end it doesn't really matter
if it "is" a troll (something we will never know), or is simply an uniformed but opinionated idiot – as that person is "doing
the work of" the State sponsored trolls in either case.
I find it is always worth periodically reviewing what we know about these operations (thank you Edward Snowden) – as it helps
us to better understand and prepares us to better deal with the State sponsored troll operations we now see routinely in all of
our truly progressive comments sections on alternative media sites. What we now deal with here at OffG and elsewhere are daily
routine attempts to take over, shape and control otherwise rational informed sincere discussion by readers. Sadly this is how
some people make their living – existing in a continual state of existential "bad faith."
Anyone who stands for a perception managed 'business as usual' candidacy is authentic: anyone who tries to expose the vicious
hypocrisy is an 'asset' or a 'troll'? Welcome to the postmodern anti-debate.
I'm trying to think of where I have come across a more cynical attempt to distort the truth and apologetically cover ethnic
cleansing and cultural anti-Muslim genocide? And I cannot think of a better example. Anyone who attempts to expose Gabbard for
her cultural links to actual Hindutva supremacism and real live fascism must be a paid state troll? What can I say: I am a peace
troll exposing the Politics of Lies you appear to support. Tulsi Gabbard is a traitor to humanity.
What I laid out below is not trolling: it exposes just how much you have to invert the true values of liberation and freedom
to get a 'peace candidate' from a Zionist fascist supporter. In brief synopsis: Modi tore up the Indian constitution; flooded
Jammu and Kashmir with troops; invoked the 'Riot Act' to eject all journalists and TV crews; in order that his ethnic cleansing
of the valley goes unseen. This is a crime against humanity: which also carries no small risk of nuclear war. Making this apparent
is trolling?
In the perversion of the narrative script you propose: this is called "vocally opposing America's regime change wars". How;
by apologising for not being able to attend the 'Howdy, Modi' because she was pre-commited to be lying somewhere else?
In contrast: Arundhati Roy stands accused as a traitor and having her rights and citizenship stripped for bringing attention
to Modi's war crimes. What does Gabbard do? Pass the caviar and offer more lucrative trade deals for Modi's murderers? That is
the difference between a real world candidate and a fake. Will Gabbard call out Modi; el-Sisi; Netanyahu or Adelson for that matter?
You know the scene that Milosevic likes to post: of Netanyahu being feted by Congress – which looks exactly like the Nuremberg
Rallies Gabbard was there to listen to the ally and friend of the United States – that is the only democracy in the Middle East
– denounce Iran. Afterward, she went on Fox News and glibly agreed Greta Van Susteren that the deal was akin to the infamous Munich
Pact. Blithely nodding her head before engaging in some fantasy talking points about North Korean nukes hitting Hawaii: and the
three month acquisition of the Iranian bomb which comes straight off of one of Nuttyyahoo's empty CD-roms. So can we drop the
pretense please?
Adelson's 'Champion of Freedom' nails her real colours to the mast?
Then you invoke Sartre: did you know he was a communist? Who staid loyal to Stalin's Soviet Union for much longer than he really
should have? What do you think he would have made of a candidate who dines with Hindutva fascist racist supremacists and offers
them more trade on a pro rata basis of carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity? Bad faith and authenticity: where
do yo think they lie? Gabbard is an authentic candidate only in such a highly perception managed world as we have. Which is why
we have such a highly perception managed world – because we highly perception manage it ourselves. No paid state trolls required:
except in the imagination perhaps? Perhaps only those not suffering the illusion can see who she really is?
The only way to make this real is by censoring the right to criticism the illegitimate candidacy of those who are silent on
Modi's open fascism and very probable silent, unseen ethnic cleansing. If it is silent and unseen then it is not happening. Then
we have our perfect 'peace candidate'. Do you see how it works?
Let us shut down any chance of any open debate on that. Well done Gary. You and all the fawning sycophants on this page have
the perfect peace candidate you deserve. By ignoring valid and authentic critical consciousness and suppressing the voice of freedom.
Gabbard needs to be exposed as a modified war candidate: and friend of the Gods of Money and their pet dictators. It is a cynical
ploy to try and close down such real world exposure as 'trolling'. Trolling for peace maybe? Peace we may never now know.
Gary Weglarz
My comments were not intended to be a defense of Gabbard. Though she is the only candidate I can remember in many years that is
speaking some truth, any truth, about the amoral U.S. war machine, she of course has no chance whatsoever of winning and no one
in their right mind would suggest otherwise. Yet I and others who are quite aware of this obvious reality find the undeniable
fact she is "publicly speaking some truth" about that war machine a rather important addition to the theatre of the absurd political
debate here in the U.S. So strange that support and recognition of this simple fact is so controversial to some.
No, my comments were not some defense of Gabbard as an impure savior, but rather about the trolls and those who perhaps in
their boundless narcissism simply do the work of the government trolls because they routinely "post like trolls." You know, ("The
4 D's: Deny / Disrupt / Degrade / Deceive"). Perhaps you missed that somehow?
I tire of so much smug narcissistic idiocy, and predictable attacks on any who might disagree, posing as – "commentary" or
"discourse." Of course neither you nor Big B have commented a word on that topic- the actual topic of my post. Instead simply
strawman attacks related to Tulsi. How strange. But then again: "You've obviously got it all sewn up :(" – eh Frank?
I really don't give a shit about what the totally corrupt US political system is doing.
They are all scum and vermin, who, in a sane world, would all be swept down the gutter.
In the Middle East we are on the verge of WW3. The Russians and the Chinese are not going to put up with the American Frankenstein
any more. Do Americans realise what this will mean?
I doubt it, because many Americans don't have a brain cell between them (Clue: America will be totally destroyed in a WW3).
nonameforsure
8 elements appeared on a website recently which the author suggested could be used to identify fake, false, or self agenda propaganda..
learn them.. apply them.
Develop an international way to report in some standard way on the elements that appear in articles. Maybe date, time, place presented,
element identified, together with a comment that fits each expression. In my opinion it is important to build the case that the
same false narrative appears in your favorite fake media as well as everyone else's favorite fake media.
You will be able to detect how these 8 elements develop fact that identify processes and activities of those in charge and
how these elements will allow those seeking the truth to build a collaborative means to debunk fake. Example refer to paragraph
7 in a subject article by indicating "place" on "date" @ "time" "time" "title" and element number and then make a comment to explain
why you marked the expression with a element number.
This kind of reference system allows to detect and compare both intra article fake news with inter publication fake news..
so maybe it will be discovered the news outlets and publishers and authors that hawk the same false or misleading propaganda in
time to inform the public, moreover, if you can get the public to understand and to apply the element method of debunking propaganda;
article by article, paragraph by paragraph, just the act of doing it, might wake them up.
1) EN establish the narrative :fake always try to establish the tuth
2) WR They wrong, we right : inconvenient facts are transformed to support the narrative
3) PF Cherry Pick the Facts : only report the facts that support the narrative
4) IS Ignore stuff : never include something that is contrary to the narrative
5) VB Blame the Victim : keep the victim on the defensive
6) MU Make up Stuff: false or non fact claims can be made up to fit the narrative
7) AC Attack and deny any form to all challengers: Persons who ask ?s are conspiracy terrorist.
8) RL Repeat the lies, repeat the lies, repeat the lies. People need help to remember the lie
Capricornia Man
Your eight methods for creating fake news aptly describe the way the 'systemic anti-Semitism in the UK Labour Party' myth was
promoted. Particularly methods 3,4 and 8.
When I complained to a broadcaster about its incompetent and biased 'coverage' of this non-issue, one of its chief defences
was: 'that's what all the other news outlets are saying'.
The MSM wonder why they are regarded as mendacious and contemptible by thinking people who take the trouble to separate the
facts from the spin.
mark
A Brief Summary Of The War In Syria.
2011. The Neocons activate a long standing plan that has been around for 20 years to destroy Syria. Syria is to be destroyed,
like Iraq and Libya before it. Assad will be toppled within a few months and Syria smashed into a thousand pieces.
The Axis of Evil, the US and its NATO satraps, Shady Wahabia, Kosherstan and Sultan Erdogan, flood Syria with the necessary
cannon fodder, hundreds of thousands of head choppers and throat slitters from a hundred countries, with a licence to murder,
burn, rape, loot, steal and enslave to their hearts content. An alphabet soup of takfiri groups is created out of thin air, armed,
trained, paid, transported and orchestrated with tens of billions of western taxpayers money. ISIS is just one of many.
The Syrian state, armed forces and people resist with unexpected courage and determination, and fight the proxy head choppers
to a standstill. But they are under extreme pressure and have to concentrate their forces in the main battles in the west of the
country. This leaves a vacuum that is filled by the phantom ISIS caliphate. This suits the Axis of Evil just fine. There is no
problem with ISIS black flags flying over Damascus provided Syria is destroyed.
By 2015, the outcome is in the balance. Clinton and Sultan Erdogan have agreed to impose a no fly zone to turn the tide in
favor of the head choppers. A series of Gas Attack Hoaxes and false flag atrocity claims are staged over a protracted period of
time to justify Libya style intervention.
All bets are off as Putin overrides his advisors and dispatches Russian forces to intervene and prevent the destruction of
the Syrian state. With the support of Iran and Hezbollah, the situation is transformed. Though the worst of the fighting is yet
to come, the Neocon plot to destroy Syria is a busted flush. Syria is steadily liberated from terrorist occupation.
The main terrorist sponsors try to salvage something from this failure. Sultan Erdogan switches sides and takes the opportunity
to attack the Kurds. Trump seizes the opportunity to scale back US involvement, generating much hysteria from all the Zionist
shills in Washington. The Kurds seek some kind of accommodation with Damascus.
The war is now winding down. It will take some time before all the terrorist areas are liberated and occupying US and Turkish
forces have to withdraw. But the outcome is now inevitable.
Funny you mentioned Arundhati Roy as I almost bought her book today: Capitalism A Ghost Story, in a Left bookshop here, however
ended up getting Culture & Imperialism by Edward Said and a second hand copy of Pedadogy Of The Oppressed which I've, um, never
read. Time to broaden the mind, as have hardly read any books for years except articles on the Internet. Will pick up Arundhati's
book next time. Have a good day
eddie
The Dems morphed into neocons when her willy-waving husband sold out and destroyed the Democratic Party of LBJ's Great Society.
Tulsi being a member of the establishment which she lambasts is quite a paradox, but can be seen from one's own moral perspective.
During the VietNam war era, '63-75, many who opposed the fiasco took a stronger stance: prison as a conscientious objector, moving
to Canada, undesirable discharges, very vocal public protests & arrests. Many lives and futures ruined, my own included, to actively
stop the illegal & profit driven Invasion ..
Tulsi has shown a lot of class, truth to the darkest Power, and long may she have this platform..
Rhys Jaggar
Next they will try saying that because she is not a mother she has no place being President. If I had a vote in the US, I would
vote for any man, woman, black/white/Hisoanic/Asian/any other ethnicity, straight/gay/indeterminate who:
1. Pledged to cut the US military budget in half, sign up to existing OPCW conventions on chemical+biological weapons and demanded
that Israel did likewise.
2. Removed the right for dual citizen US-Israeli zionists to hold public US office (tell em to decide whether they are primarily
aligned to Israel or not) and neutered the election-rigging AIPAC monstrosity at source.
3. Called out the global warming hoax as the biggest scam of the 21st century.
4. Enforced the concept that polluters pay to clean up their polluting, particularly in extractive industries, agriculture, mining
and packaging.
5. Promoted the restoration of mutually owned local finance, particularly in providing mortgages.
6. Confronted the self-serving victim gravy train, in particular making the terms 'man' and 'woman' beyond the rights of anyone
to take legal action.
7. vowed to shut down 25% of US overseas military bases in a first term and a further tranche in a second term.
gjohnsit on Wed,
10/30/2019 - 3:11pm The Clinton Dead-Enders aren't very clever or original, but they can
stick to a script.
First Bernie defends Tulsi from baseless smears.
Tulsi Gabbard has put her life on the line to defend this country. People can disagree on
issues, but it is outrageous for anyone to suggest that Tulsi is a foreign asset.
Next they will try saying that because she is not a mother she has no place being President.
If I had a vote in the US, I would vote for any man, woman, black/white/Hisoanic/Asian/any
other ethnicity, straight/gay/indeterminate who:
1. Pledged to cut the US military budget in half, sign up to existing OPCW conventions on
chemical+biological weapons and demanded that Israel did likewise.
2. Removed the right for dual citizen US-Israeli zionists to hold public US office (tell em
to decide whether they are primarily aligned to Israel or not) and neutered the
election-rigging AIPAC monstrosity at source.
3. Called out the global warming hoax as the biggest scam of the 21st century.
4. Enforced the concept that polluters pay to clean up their polluting, particularly in
extractive industries, agriculture, mining and packaging.
5. Promoted the restoration of mutually owned local finance, particularly in providing
mortgages.
6. Confronted the self-serving victim gravy train, in particular making the terms 'man' and
'woman' beyond the rights of anyone to take legal action.
7. vowed to shut down 25% of US overseas military bases in a first term and a further tranche
in a second term.
This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and this seems like a good post to
share it on.
Watching trolls emerge to discredit and attack the lone U.S. candidate who publicly and
vocally opposes America's regime change wars and even dares tell the American people that "we
are supporting the terrorists – not fighting them" – is bad enough in MSM, but a
sad and interesting comment on how completely engaged the State has become with attempting to
"control" and "shape" discourse on progressive sites such as this.
My favorite of course is when one State troll debates another State troll in completely
"fake" discourse, attempting to amplify their troll message. The other technique that is
endlessly amusing is when a single troll posts something a well informed person with
progressive values can quite agree with one day, followed the next by complete gibberish
posing as "sophistication," followed the next day by talking points right out of the CIA
& Pentagon, and then follows all that up with posting something sensible again. Just a
bit "crazy-making" no?
It pays to remember ("The 4 D's: Deny / Disrupt / Degrade / Deceive") that come right
out of the trolling manual. It should be a red-flag if these descriptors characterize
someone's posts.
The saying that if it ("looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck, well,
it just might be a duck") – is one that is worth applying to our comment's sections
discourse. Because if it "posts like a troll"- in the end it doesn't really matter if it "is"
a troll (something we will never know), or is simply an uniformed but opinionated idiot
– as that person is "doing the work of" the State sponsored trolls in either case.
I find it is always worth periodically reviewing what we know about these operations
(thank you Edward Snowden) – as it helps us to better understand and prepares us to
better deal with the State sponsored troll operations we now see routinely in all of our
truly progressive comments sections on alternative media sites. What we now deal with here at
OffG and elsewhere are daily routine attempts to take over, shape and control otherwise
rational informed sincere discussion by readers. Sadly this is how some people make their
living – existing in a continual state of existential "bad faith."
Just prior to the R-Party Nominating Convention at Cleveland in July 2016, Pepe
wrote :
"Some powerful, well-connected business interests supporting Trump from New York to the
Midwest have outlined their reasons to me, off the record. The fact that their reasons run
completely opposite to the Beltway consensus speaks volumes."
Yes, I remember this article quite well as should other barflies. As I wrote at the time,
those Pepe cited had their own perverted twist on history and thus incorrect reasons as to
the why of America's decline as this paragraph details:
"Why Russia? ' Because Russia does not rig their currency against us to destroy our
industries, and is therefore a natural ally rather then Germany and Japan, who still rig
their currencies against the United States and have destroyed much of our industrial
power .'" [Italics Original]
The bolded text above is what the businessmen were wrong about, and in a big way. But
Trump's isn't the first time policy was based on misconceptions and incorrect history. Pepe
provides further citations that I'll omit here, although they are important, and just provide
his summation followed by one a bit too important to omit here:
"For these business interests, illegal immigration, rigged currencies, and the
'unnecessary war' against Russia are the biggest issues of the presidential campaign....
"This business crowd is distinctly anti-war: ' When Mr. Trump talks about war having to
have rational profit and loss expectation, he is sounding as a logical businessman .'
They also stress that, ' the war against Russia is also destroying our oil industry
as the US ordered the Gulf States to dump their shut-in oil production capacity on the oil
market to bankrupt Russia .'" [Bolded text my emphasis]
But 3 years later, oil price has yet to really recover to the point where Frackers can
make a profit and their Ponzi Scheme seems about to go bust, which is why we're seeing
something that looks like a shift in Trump's initial plan regarding Syria. And there's still
more that can be gleaned from the article that goes against what was then current policy and
its direction. I think it's now fairly easy to see the reasoning behind Trump's UNGA tirade
aimed at the Globalists while contradicting himself about patriots as he's fighting against
one of the most noted--and demonized--of the planet's patriots--Bashar Hafez al-Assad.
Democrats haven't been too kind to Hawaii Rep. Tusli Gabbard. Ever since she took down
California's Sen. Kamala Harris, she's had a target on her back, with wild accusations being
thrown her way such as being a "Russian asset."
Recently, as my colleague
Thomas LaDuke covered , Gabbard announced that she won't be seeking reelection for her seat
in congress, and instead, putting all her efforts into running for President.
It's pretty clear, however, that Gabbard isn't going to win the 2020 nomination from the
Democrats, but some Democrats fear that in light of this obvious fact, Gabbard may continue her
campaign under a different banner, and go for a third party run. Despite Gabbard not being
anywhere near the front of the pack, she is somewhat popular, and Democrats fear that her
third-party run would subtract from the total number of Democrat voters.
According to The Hill ,
strategists are expressing their worries:
Some party strategists and operatives fear that a third-party bid by the Hawaii
congresswoman could fracture parts of the electorate and stir chaos in the 2020 contest,
ultimately setting the stage for President Trump 's reelection.
The criticisms are particularly pointed from people in former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton 's
orbit.
"She has absolutely zero path to becoming the Democratic nominee, so what is she doing?"
said Adam Parkhomenko, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Clinton, the party's 2016
presidential nominee. "To say that she's going to take her campaign all the way to the
convention just suggests that she's trying to create chaos."
Other Democrats have expressed their worries as well according to The Hill:
"I think the possibility of [Gabbard] running as a third party is very, very real and it
should concern all of us," one DNC member said. "Look what Jill Stein did to Hillary Clinton.
She was the difference in three states."
Despite Gabbard's insistence that she has ruled out a third-party campaign, some Democrats
remain skeptical. Sellers said there was still plenty of time for the congresswoman to change
her mind.
"I don't trust anything she says in that regard," Sellers said. "I think we've seen that
before, but I think many of the concerns that Hillary Clinton and myself had about
congresswoman Gabbard are proving to be true and I think that's unfortunate."
This is an echo of things Clinton herself has said previously. The failed 2016 candidate
once indirectly made the wild accusation that Gabbard was being groomed for a third party run.
A spokesperson later confirmed that Clinton was speaking about Gabbard.
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who's
currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate," said
Clinton to the Campaign HQ podcast.
Despite their fears, Gabbard herself has made it very clear that she has no intention of
seeking a third-party run, but in the event that she did, Democrats would definitely have a
problem on their hands.
As of right now, Gabbard is polling with an approval average of 12.5 according to
Real Clear Politics . Miniscule in terms of the big picture, but between Gabbard, the Green
Party's Jill Stein, and possibly others who may jump into the race, such as
Dick's Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack , leftist figures could nickel and dime the Democrats
into another election loss.
As of right now, it's already not looking good for Democrats as is. One more pebble in their
shoe would spell doom, and Gabbard has proven to be a pretty big pebble.
"Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard appeared on Fox News' "Hannity" Thursday
evening to criticize the House's impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump.
"I don't know what's going on in those closed doors," Gabbard said. "We as members of
Congress do not have access to the information that's being shared. I think the American
people deserve to know exactly what the facts are, what the evidence is being presented as
this inquiry goes on."
Imagine that! Republicans as the anti-war party. Could happen ... and Democrats have only
themselves to blame for stiffing the large percentage of the population that opposes fighting
pointless and futile wars forever. But hey, if 'defense' contractors got big bucks, you can
bet Democrats will be sniffing up their crotches...
No
wonder Democratic Party bosses and mainstream media are trying to bury presidential contender Tulsi
Gabbard.
She is the only candidate, perhaps the only politician in the US, who is telling
the American public exactly what they need to know about what their government and military are
really up to: fighting illegal regime-change wars, and to boot, sponsoring terrorists for that
purpose.
It didn't come much clearer nor more explicit than when Gabbard fired up the Democratic TV
debate this week. It was billed as the biggest televised presidential debate ever, and the Hawaii
Representative
told
some prime-time
home-truths to the nation:
"Donald Trump has blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our
country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that
started in 2011 along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing and
cheer-leading this regime-change war."
The 38-year-old military veteran went on to denounce how the US has sponsored Al Qaeda
terrorists for its objective of overthrowing the government in Damascus.
It was a remarkably damning assessment of US policy in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.
And it was by no means the first time that Gabbard has leveled with the American people on the
brutality and criminality of Washington's so-called "interventions".
The other 11 Democratic candidates on the stage during the TV debate looked agog after Gabbard's
devastating and calmly delivered statement. All the others have proffered the false narrative that
US forces are in Syria to "fight terrorism". They deplore Trump's announcement last week to pull
back US troops from northeast Syria because, they say, it will undermine the fight against Islamic
State (IS or ISIS) and other Al Qaeda affiliates. They also condemn Trump for "betraying Kurdish
allies" by his partial troop withdrawal.
President Donald Trump talks about "ending endless wars" and "bringing our troops home".
But he still premises his views on a credulous belief that the US under his watch "defeated ISIS
100 per cent". In that way, he essentially shares the same corny view as the Democrats and media
that America is a force for good, that it is the "good guys wearing white hats riding into the
sunset".
On the other hand, Gabbard stands alone in telling the American people the plain and awful
truth. US policy is the fundamental problem. Ending its regime-change war in Syria and elsewhere
and ending its diabolical collusion with terror groups is the way to bring peace to the Middle East
and to spare ordinary Americans from the economic disaster of spiraling war debts.
American
citizens need to know the truth about the horror their government, military, media and politicians
have inflicted not just on countries in the Middle East, but also from the horrendous boomerang
consequences of this criminal policy on the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Americans,
including millions of veterans destroyed by injuries, trauma, suicide, and drug abuse.
Following the TV debate this week, it seems that Gabbard won the popular vote with her
truth-telling. A major
online poll
by the Drudge Report
found that she stole a march on all the other candidates, winning approval from nearly 40 per cent
of voters. Top ticket candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden were trailing
behind with 7 per cent or less.
Gabbard has clearly struck a deep chord with the US public in her honest depiction of
American wars.
Despite her shattering exposé and seeming appreciation by the public, most mainstream media
tried to bury her after the TV debate. Outlets like Vox and CNN
declared
that
Warren was the winner of the debate, whose talking points were mainly about domestic policy issues.
Like the other candidates, Warren plies the propaganda narrative of US forces "fighting terrorism".
Vox even slated Gabbard as "a loser" in the debate and claimed she had made "blatantly false"
statements about the US' role in Syria.
Other mainstream news outlets chose to ignore reporting on Gabbard's demolishing of the official
propaganda about American wars. Earlier this week, CNN and the New York Times
smeared
her
as a "Russian asset" and an "apologist for Assad", referencing a visit she made to Syria in 2017
when she held talks with President Assad.
The Democratic National Committee is
claiming
that
Gabbard does not have sufficient support in polls it deems worthy for her to qualify for appearing
in the next TV debate in November.
International events, however, are proving the Hawaii Representative right. US troops, as with
other NATO forces, have been occupying Syrian territory illegally. They have no mandate from the
United Nations Security Council. The pullback of US troops by Trump has created a vacuum in
northeast Syria into which the Syrian Arab Army is quickly moving to reclaim the territory which
US-backed Kurdish fighters had de facto annexed for the past five years. Several
reports
show
the local people are joyfully welcoming the arrival of the Syrian army. The scenes are reminiscent
of when Syrian and Russian forces liberated Aleppo and other cities previously besieged by terror
groups.
America's war machine must get out of Syria for the sake of restoring peace to that
war-torn country.
Not because "they have defeated ISIS 100 per cent", as Trump would
conceitedly claim, nor because "we are betraying Kurds in the fight against terrorism", as most
Democrats and US media preposterously claim.
Peace will come to Syria and the Middle East when Washington finally ends its criminal
regime-change wars and its support for terrorist proxies. Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the
only politician with the intelligence and integrity to tell Americans the truth.
Unlike Trump she's against the patriot act and foreign
intervention. Trump hired Bolton, attempted a coup in Venezuela,
has been dropping more bombs on Syria than Obama did, is
escalating a new war with Iran, has sent more troops to Saudi
Arabia and Yeman. He's also for red flag laws to take away guns.
I cannot see her have a shot as DNC candidate. Either she
will end up like a young and liberal version of Ron Paul; get
angry and become a RossPerot-like spoiler type or (least likely)
become another Bernie sellout for a beachhouse.
The way she is being demonized by the Democrat party,
it is clear that she cannot win this battle.
Oct 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Curiously, this reticence doesn’t extend to voting on resolutions that seek to
preserve America’s military presence in the Middle East. Legislators are more interested in stopping troop withdrawals from
unauthorized conflicts than authorizing those conflicts in the first place.
Ask Congress to engage in an honest, open, and
transparent national conversation before launching the first cruise missile and they run for the hills like villagers from a
flash flood.
But ask them to spend an hour on the floor blasting the president for losing his “resolve” or upending American “leadership”
(those favorite Beltway buzzwords), and they arrive with speeches in hand. It would all be hilarious if it wasn’t so depressing.
It's way too late to be saying "the longer this continues". Undeclared wars have been
standard practice from the start. WW1 and WW2 were extremely unusual exceptions to the
normal rule.
It also begs the question who exactly is war supposed to be declared on here? Syria,
Turkey, Iran or Russia, and for what reason are they going to declare this war for?
Sorry, but the only one who's moaning here is you. While the article tells hard facts by
saying that there would be nothing to hold Trump to account for regarding foreign policy,
since he wouldn't have inherited any war, had the parliament done its job and denied Bush
II and Obama the authorization of the said wars. Now, it doesn't mean that those wars
wouldn't have happened, since the MIC, oil companies, pharmaceutical industry et al. could
have easily staged a coup to get rid of such an inconvenient parliament, but in such a case
the said (former) parliament could, at least, speak from a morally high ground. While now
their complaints sound like laments about a streak of assassinations from those who
prepared sniper nests for hitmen every single time.
The mistake the president made was to extend an olive branch to his opponents by hiring
them in the first place.
Whatever one thinks of Mr Bannon. He came out with a clear understanding . . . whatever
agenda or intent was had to reduce our use of force to regime change --
"fo ged aboud it . . . "
And while, I think he may have overstated the matter. It's clear that agenda was not
aided by those appointments to is cabinate.
Goodwill to policy goodbye.
It is farcical and painful to watch.
Note:
one aspect of my opposition to the conflict was the strategy chosen. And it that
strategy unfortunately did not include "pulling out all the stops."
BTW. the author states: "Most lawmakers accepted the administration's arguments with barely
a blink, which enabled one of the gravest U.S. foreign policy blunders (the second Iraq
War) in modern history."
Most of the Democrats were opposed, but remembering how they were raked over the coals
for opposing the first Iraq War, voted in favor of a war to cover their butts.
It doesn't matter why Team D voted the way they did - it's not like a whole hearted vote
in favor of aggressive war counts double, or the kids on the other end of the drone don't
really die if you feel sad when you push the "yes" button.
For that matter, it's not as if Team D are engaged in a wholesale mea culpa after
they claimed to have been rooked.
If our military members refuse to uphold their oath to constitution it's time to disband
the standing army as it has become nothing more than the tool of foreign occupiers who have
purchased our government. Revoke all their benifit packages, no more free college, no more
subsidized loans for housing. If these people are nothing but mercenaries then stop paying
them for violating the contract.
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
"... It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East. ..."
"... Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ..."
"... They've re-started the Cold War. Keeps all the warmongers in business. Surely they're not stupid enough to want a hot one are they? ..."
"... It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold. ..."
"... "Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and influence it continues to bestow on them." ..."
There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision
to pull troops out of Syria.
One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure
of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger
picture.
The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the
paper writes
that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".
Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the
last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.
Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the
Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains
of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington,
in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.
No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to
the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance
at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State
– and they didn't care.
Overthrow, not regime change
You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to
be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined
in international law as "the supreme war crime".
The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states
with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book
Israel and the Clash of Civilisations
, these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.
The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied
in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.
The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region.
The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction,
the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable
population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".
The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as
new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about
building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.
Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of
dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted
– from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning
from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based
community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."
The birth of Islamic State
The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these
societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they
were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest
public health services.
Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to
prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture
I want to address.
The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create
a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be
found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.
The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing,
flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in
the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even
more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.
A dark US vanity project
After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always
abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.
The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis
saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned
state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.
This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before
their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building
their state on parts of Syria.
Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that
in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the
moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.
The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through
Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.
From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of
thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became
instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.
A giant red herring
Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly
only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East,
one intimately tied to Islamic State.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they
are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was
inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with
money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.
Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival
of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.
With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project
is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its
Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.
Doomed Great Game
The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in
northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds
too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army,
which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.
The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best
hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.
That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those
deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly
became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western
military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.
Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is
really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama
spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against
the head-chopping extremists?
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to
silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political
realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues
to bestow on them.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair"
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.
The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism
that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish
credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.
ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme
and immediate solution and broke away.
-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme
ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim
Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.
-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New
Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.
One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the
problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving
the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to
the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution.
If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside
forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".
Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not?
Forces outside of what?
ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created
the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.
Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011,
the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal
of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern
Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge"
in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent
and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.
While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over
most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.
And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left
ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could
be dealt with later after Assad was gone.
That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed
the situation.
The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis
who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of
them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated
to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously:
Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.
And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel
statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.
So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates
and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste
under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.
We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless
of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political
and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.
The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing
that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly
alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts
on this site?
Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read
it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who
they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.
Given the craziness of Wahhabism
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country
– Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that
the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are
the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and
fully implement the New World (banking) Order.
Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring
they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .
My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel
isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" --
instead of our own lying eyes.
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and
Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.
"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section
of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small
group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."
Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct
It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.
This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly
and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency
of having clothes on .
"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region."-
This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.
Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain
and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with
Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally
better than Hitlery Clinton.
Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate
change led to repeated crop failures?"
Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run
out of water because of "climate change," that's false.
The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made
the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic
Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).
The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which
point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical
care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).
Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year
there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored
in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there
is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.
Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically
as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell
as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination,
but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and
later senators who become lobbyists are doing.
I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled,
or even dead, it was all for naught.
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.
We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.
Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist
attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to
happen to Israel since 9/11.
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "
That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's
meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the
most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like
it – was inevitably going to fill."
Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created.
IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in
the existence of (international) banks.
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing
the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib
"don't measure up?")
I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian
aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been
President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last
100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition!
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about
Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power
Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.
I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis.
Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction
of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized.
In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for
Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical
care for their wounded, training and weapons.
WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006
Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and
create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence
Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.
From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American
Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.
Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in
Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about
chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor
a preordained conclusion.
We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts
to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments
-- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring
the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.
Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention
the weak sheep-dog Sanders).
The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be
the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos
masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans
or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and
evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.
But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.
Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting"
neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"
Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a
charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as
a third-party candidate.
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.
Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one
of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks
watching the headlights approach:
1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting
mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas
Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.
2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child
policy.
Climate:
If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back
a few years, at most.
The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree
with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often
triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European
and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration
and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.
It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing
their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and
influence it continues to bestow on them."
FTFY
Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest,
the country be damned.
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more,
that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for
their lifestyle.
As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to
Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the
Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human
beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision
to pull troops out of Syria.
One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure
of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger
picture.
The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the
paper writes
that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".
Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the
last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.
Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the
Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains
of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington,
in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.
No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to
the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance
at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State
– and they didn't care.
Overthrow, not regime change
You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to
be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined
in international law as "the supreme war crime".
The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states
with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book
Israel and the Clash of Civilisations
, these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.
The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied
in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.
The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region.
The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction,
the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable
population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".
The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as
new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about
building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.
Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of
dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted
– from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning
from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based
community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."
The birth of Islamic State
The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these
societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they
were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest
public health services.
Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to
prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture
I want to address.
The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create
a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be
found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.
The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing,
flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in
the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even
more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.
A dark US vanity project
After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always
abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.
The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis
saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned
state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.
This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before
their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building
their state on parts of Syria.
Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that
in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the
moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.
The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through
Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.
From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of
thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became
instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.
A giant red herring
Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly
only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East,
one intimately tied to Islamic State.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they
are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was
inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with
money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.
Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival
of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.
With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project
is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its
Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.
Doomed Great Game
The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in
northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds
too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army,
which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.
The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best
hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.
That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those
deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly
became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western
military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.
Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is
really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama
spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against
the head-chopping extremists?
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to
silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political
realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues
to bestow on them.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair"
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.
The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism
that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish
credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.
ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme
and immediate solution and broke away.
-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme
ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim
Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.
-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New
Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.
One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the
problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving
the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to
the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution.
If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside
forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".
Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not?
Forces outside of what?
ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created
the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.
Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011,
the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal
of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern
Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge"
in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent
and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.
While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over
most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.
And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left
ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could
be dealt with later after Assad was gone.
That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed
the situation.
The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis
who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of
them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated
to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously:
Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.
And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel
statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.
So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates
and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste
under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.
We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless
of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political
and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.
The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing
that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly
alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts
on this site?
Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read
it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who
they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.
Given the craziness of Wahhabism
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country
– Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that
the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are
the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and
fully implement the New World (banking) Order.
Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring
they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .
My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel
isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" --
instead of our own lying eyes.
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and
Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.
"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section
of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small
group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."
Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct
It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.
This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly
and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency
of having clothes on .
"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region."-
This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.
Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain
and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with
Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally
better than Hitlery Clinton.
Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate
change led to repeated crop failures?"
Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run
out of water because of "climate change," that's false.
The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made
the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic
Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).
The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which
point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical
care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).
Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year
there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored
in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there
is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.
Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically
as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell
as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination,
but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and
later senators who become lobbyists are doing.
I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled,
or even dead, it was all for naught.
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.
We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.
Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist
attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to
happen to Israel since 9/11.
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "
That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's
meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the
most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like
it – was inevitably going to fill."
Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created.
IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in
the existence of (international) banks.
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing
the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib
"don't measure up?")
I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian
aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been
President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last
100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition!
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about
Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power
Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.
I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis.
Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction
of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized.
In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for
Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical
care for their wounded, training and weapons.
WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006
Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and
create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence
Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.
From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American
Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.
@Digital Samizdat Absolutely. Gabbard is the "Democrat" Trump. A Jew puppet presented as an outsider. They're exactly the
same. Even Obama was presented that way to an extent.
Yet the dumb goyim will fall for it for the third time in a row.
Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in
Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about
chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor
a preordained conclusion.
We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts
to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments
-- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring
the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.
Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention
the weak sheep-dog Sanders).
@Ilyana_Rozumova The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be
the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos
masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans
or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and
evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.
But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.
@MarathonMan Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting"
neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"
Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a
charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as
a third-party candidate.
And now, according to the latest news, Trump will send tanks into Syria to help the Kurds secure the oil for Israel. It's hard
to understand why the Elders of the Deep State want to impeach Trump. He has done everything they wanted, moved the embassy, gave
Syria's Golan Heights to Israel, never criticizes the illegal settlements in Palestine. What else do they want from him?
What do you mean Pelosi has no credibility? Have you checked her bank balance lately? Nancy, had she not waded into politics,
would have been a pole dancer she had the goods for it.
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.
Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one
of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks
watching the headlights approach:
1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting
mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas
Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.
2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child
policy.
Climate:
If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back
a few years, at most.
The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree
with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often
triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European
and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration
and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.
When it comes to senior American politihoes, no one is ever right. Pelosi may be cultivating the ISIS, but Gabbard is busy blowing
assorted dictators and more closer to the heart, the hindoo nationalist queers, as impotent (I mean that in a literal sexual context,
as their elites don't marry) as they might be.
Tulsi needs to conduct herself with gravitas, because of her age. However, she is helped by the fact that the leader of the progressive
wing is a former bartender, and the leader of the environmental resistance is a high-school sophomore.
@MarathonMan It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing
their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and
influence it continues to bestow on them."
FTFY
Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest,
the country be damned.
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
Lol! Deceitful lies from some godless/pagan whitrash.
If you are referring to some self-perceived notions of barbarity/deception/etc., within Islam, then you are a deceitful !@#
who is trying to cover up the sheer savagery/psychopathy/deception/hypocrisy/etc., of the Christoo whitrash race.
Again, as far as the roots of Islam being in Judaism, that is laughable. It is Christooism which is clearly having roots in
Judaism (there have been so many here who have quoted from your pagan scriptures about the haloed position of the Jooscum)
and Hindooism .
In-his-image mangods/womangods, Trinity/Trimurthi, the human body is the temple of god the list is long where you all share
your pagan theologies.
Islam utterly rejects all such pagan abominations. The following verses of the Holy Quran amply proves the simplest and purest
form of monotheism, that is Islam;
Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born , Nor is there to Him
any equivalent ."
@A123 "Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability."
Wrong.
The Oded Yinon Plan employs exactly this strategy, and along with the Neocon dominated State Dept with its Regime Change program
(Oded Yinon plan in stealth mode) is the predicate. Meanwhile, once it emerged, Obama & Kerry sought to preserve ISIS as a means
to pressure Assad. Neocon Zionist fifth column in the US, & Israel-behind-the-scenes are the dual agency-behind-the-curtain of
US regime-change wars ***EVERYWHERE*** (because they hate Russia, too.).
@DESERT FOX And rule, finally, over a smoldering wreck of a planet? They already rule most of it, they're at the Endgame of
their long match with the world. Not that they eschew violence and mass murder. Indeed, they got their start thousands years ago
by worshiping a god who told them to genocide all their neighbors and steal all their goods.
@really no shit I'm in the same age cohort as most of these shameless grifters, so I know the end of this run on earth is
drawing near. I know that no one can take whatever they accumulate in this life with them into oblivion or whatever their imagined
version of paradise might be. The loot stays here in this vale of tears.
ALL of these players busy ruining and ending lives, like Pelosi, the Clintons and the Bush family, are multi-millionaires at
the least–and all on the taxpayers' dime. Why do they desperately seek to add ever more cash to their bank accounts by bringing
yet more misery into the world? It won't be very long and either the collection of psychopaths known as the government of the
United States and its ruthless war machine will end up with the proceeds or they will pass down to further generations of these
congenital parasites and deadbeats.
Does Joe ask himself whether it was worthy to spend his wretched life accumulating ill-gotten wealth to pass on to Hunter and
his ilk? Or for Hillary to set up Chelsea and the next generation of Rodham Clinton lampreys? Jimmy Carter seems to have been
the only American president who didn't constantly grasp for money once out of office and the world never heard a peep about Amy
ever again.
[MORE]
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publication, this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters trained in Jordan became members
of the ISIS after their training.]
JERUSALEM – Syrian rebels who would later join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S.
instructors working at a secret base in Jordan, according to informed Jordanian officials.
The officials said dozens of future ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting
the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future
campaign in Iraq.
The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any links to
extremist groups like al-Qaida.
In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in
the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern desert region.
That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.
Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in Jordan.
Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it was not clear whether the Americans
worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms. The training in Jordan
reportedly focused on use of anti-tank weaponry.
The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three months amid U.S. plans to train a total
of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps in the south and the east of Jordan.
Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British
and French instructors.
Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the German magazine's report. The
French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense ministries also would not comment to Reuters.
Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch have published formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defence
which reveals the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that
they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
Levantreport.com reports:
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION
THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR),
AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME ".
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government
agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others.
The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic
asset.
Government watchdog Judicial Watch published more than 100 pages of formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department
of Defense and the State Department.
The documents obtained through a federal lawsuit, revealed the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable
presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
The U.S. intelligence documents not only confirms suspicions that the United States and some of its coalition allies had actually
facilitated the rise of the ISIS in Syria – as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also
that ISIS members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency at facilities in Jordan
in 2012.
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more,
that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for
their lifestyle.
As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to
Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the
Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human
beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.
The path of U.S.-Israeli arrogance and domination, with its various dimensions, and with its direct and indirect extensions
and alliances, which is witnessing military defeats and political failures, reflected successive defeats for the American strategies
and plans, one after the other. All this has led [the U.S.] to a state of indecision, retreat, and inability to control the progress
of events in our Arab and Islamic world. There is a broader international context for this – a context that, in its turn, helps
to expose the American crisis, and the decline of the [U.S.] unipolar hegemony, in the face of pluralism, the characteristics
of which are yet to be stabilized.
"The crisis of the arrogant world order is deepened by the collapse of U.S. and international stock markets, and by the confusion
and powerlessness of the American economy. This reflects the height of the structural crisis of the model of capitalist arrogance.
Therefore, it can be said that we are in the midst of historic transformations that foretell the retreat of the USA as a hegemonic
power, the disintegration of the unipolar hegemonic order, and the beginning of the accelerated historic decline of the Zionist
entity.
After World War II, the U.S. has adopted the leading, central hegemonic project. At its hands, this project has witnessed great
development of the means of control and unprecedented subjugation. It has benefited from an accumulation of multi-faceted accomplishments
in science, culture, technology, knowledge, economy, and the military, which was supported by an economic political plan that
views the world as nothing but open markets subject to the laws of [the U.S.].
"The most dangerous aspect of Western logic of hegemony in general, and the American logic of hegemony in particular, is their
basic belief that they own the world, and have the right to hegemony due to their supremacy in several fields. Thus, the Western,
and especially American, expansionist strategy, when coupled with the enterprise of capitalist economy, has become a strategy
of a global nature, whose covetous desires and appetite know no bounds.
The barbaric capitalism has turned globalism into a means to spread disintegration, to sow discord, to destroy identities,
and to impose the most dangerous form of cultural, economic, and social plunder. Globalization reached its most dangerous phase,
when it was transformed into military globalization by the owners of the Western hegemony enterprise, the greatest manifestation
of which was evident in the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq, to Palestine, and to Lebanon.
There is no doubt that American terrorism is the source of all terrorism in the world. The Bush administration has turned the
U.S. into a danger threatening the whole world, on all levels. If a global opinion poll were held today, the United States would
emerge as the most hated country in the world.
The most important goal of American arrogance is to take control of the peoples politically, economically, and culturally,
and to plunder their resources.
– Hassan Nasrallah December 8, 2009
and Trump IS NOT "pulling out" Will Tulsi? One way to find out. Doesn't look good though, unless shes willing to splinter the
C.I.A. into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds, as they say..
Where's the proof that she is CFR member, I see sock puppets parrot this line all the time but offer no proof. Her serving
on the armed & financial services committees and doing a speech for them doesn't make her a member. I'd take her over Trump any
day.
1. CIA, Hillary Clinton, 'Rothschild-Octopus' money power. Altogether, British Israel
(Zionism).
2. Pentagon-NSA, Donald Trump, second tier elites including, for example, Sheldon Adelson.
Altogether, Israel (and the USA) First.
If these are the primary factions vying for control of the New World Order, why did HRC
throw Tulsi such a honkin' big bone by calling her a Russian asset?
Clinton has endorsed Gabbard in the same way Catholicism endorses sin: ergo, there is a
working agreement between all Globalist factions for a final settlement of WW3.
Or is there a better explanation for HRC's non endorsement endorsement of TG?
Should we also mention both are card carrying members of the Council on Foreign
Relations?
Understanding we are ruled by a duopoly of 1st and 2nd tier elites is essential piecing
together who represents whom - and what it means for the vast majority of humanity, which
remains generally ignorant and utterly voiceless.
Class is everything, which is why both Globalizing tiers have agreed to, amongst other
things, pretend we don't exist. Clinton threw Tulsi a bone so that Tulsi could throw us
another, but it all counts for nothing when the bill for elite criminality comes due. Both
factions agree that We the People, the unrepresented Third Estate, will be paying for
everything.
"... It was this curious arrangement that Tulsi Gabbard ran smack into earlier this week. Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii and Democratic presidential candidate, was attacked seemingly out of nowhere by Hillary, who implied that the Russians might somehow be controlling her. "I'm not making any predictions," Clinton intoned on a podcast, "but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate." ..."
"... It was a base (and baseless) smear, and it drew a furious response. Gabbard tweeted that Clinton was "queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long." She also dared Clinton to jump into the race, declaring that the primary was now effectively between the two of them. ..."
"... in a more macro sense, she's correct. Of all the dividing lines vivisecting the Democratic Party right now, there's an important and understated one that runs between Clinton World and everything that Gabbard has come to represent. At issue is whether or not one family ought to be able to run the Democratic National Committee like its own LLC, installing loyalists as its leaders, freezing its foreign policy in the past, embarrassing it with self-serving fabrications. ..."
"... Preserve the brand even at the expense of the party : that's what the Clintons have always done. ..."
"... The common denominator in Clinton World is always personal short-term gain; all else, including political reality, is subordinated to that. And even when they lose, they still linger, their business more like a monopoly, having accumulated so much personnel power as to immunize it from market forces. ..."
"... Gabbard, then, isn't Clinton World's most formidable opponent, but right now she looks like its clearest antithesis. Her knight's move has been to take the Clintons off the grounds of personal accomplishment and put them on the harsher terrain of policy accomplishment ..."
"... Hillary is less eager, meanwhile, to discuss her and her husband's writ large policy records, given the current revolt against the liberal internationalism and Third Way centrism they've long regarded as de rigueur . Gabbard not only brings this up, her entire candidacy is a homing missile aimed at the establishment's failed foreign policy, one of its most gaping vulnerabilities. While Clinton World thrashes on the floor screeching at the Russian nanobots in their nose hairs, Gabbard offers up informed critiques of actual events. ..."
"... THANK YOU TULSI GABBARD for opening this debate on the direction our national diplomacy should take in the future, for demanding a reassessment of the old Cold War approach that abandoned the Constitutional requirement that wars be declared by Congress. ..."
"... It doesn't look like she has much of a chance, but I admire Ms. Gabbard's integrity and forthrightness. ..."
"... Well spoken. Indeed, one doesn't have to buy all her policy positions or support her nomination campaign. But Gabbard is worthy of the kind of genuine respect ..."
Is there anything sadder in the year 2019 than to be a hanger-on of the Clintons? It's the one form of communitarianism even we here
at TAC can oppose. Five years back, the New York Times pointed its telescope at what it called
Clinton World, the seemingly endless ecosystem of staffers, clients, strategists, old friends, wonks, flatterers, henchmen, consiglieres,
and hired dog walkers who have latched on to the Clintons over the years. The takeaway for the Times was that such a vast
coterie is difficult to control, a big rig that can only turn so quickly -- but one quote in particular stands out. Said a Clinton
friend of Clinton World: "Some people get eaten up by the charisma and forget that, in the end, it is a business."
And that's just it right there. Has anyone ever fine-tuned the business-ification of politics as have the Clintons? Their conquering
of the Democratic Party over the past 25 years has often felt like a corporate takeover, the absorption of a nationwide political
apparatus into a family syndicate that exists to build and burnish the brand of a single couple.
It was this curious arrangement that Tulsi Gabbard ran smack into earlier this week. Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii
and Democratic presidential candidate, was attacked seemingly out of nowhere by Hillary, who implied that the Russians might somehow
be controlling her. "I'm not making any predictions," Clinton intoned on a podcast, "but I think they've got their eye on somebody
who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate."
It was a base (and baseless) smear, and it drew a furious response. Gabbard tweeted that Clinton was "queen of warmongers,
embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long." She also dared Clinton
to jump into the race, declaring that the primary was now effectively between the two of them.
She's wrong about that, of course, at least in the literal sense. Gabbard, who rarely clears 2 percent in the polls, has little
chance of winning the Democratic nomination. But in a more macro sense, she's correct. Of all the dividing lines vivisecting
the Democratic Party right now, there's an important and understated one that runs between Clinton World and everything that Gabbard
has come to represent. At issue is whether or not one family ought to be able to run the Democratic National Committee like its own
LLC, installing loyalists as its leaders, freezing its foreign policy in the past, embarrassing it with self-serving fabrications.
The reason Clinton slimed Tulsi as a Russian patsy is because Clinton herself is obsessed with Russia. Over and over again, she's
blamed her own loss on their supposed meddling in the 2016 election, even going so far as to call Donald Trump's presidency
"illegitimate."
This is partly understandable -- no one wants to accept fault for difficult failures, least of all when the entire country is
watching -- and partly egotistical. But the belief that maybe Hillary really won, which extends well beyond the candidate
herself and throughout Clinton World, is also good business. However scant the evidence might be that the Russians heave-hoed votes
in Wisconsin, the Clintonian goal is always to guard their own -- "protect the shield," in the nonsensical words of the NFL. Better,
then, to hang around Democrats' neck a nutty conspiracy theory then to admit, even all these years later, that the Clinton product
might not be what it once was.
Preserve the brand even at the expense of the party : that's what the Clintons have always done. It's why Bill dragged
the Democrats into the realm of adolescent word parsing ("the definition of sex") rather than admit to his affair with Monica Lewinsky
from the start. It's why he was willing to triangulate during his presidency, chucking half the party platform off the wagon in order
to ensure he could net legislative victories. It's why Hillary obtusely insisted on running in 2008 and 2016, even though anyone
paying attention knew these would be populist years with her cast in role of Dickens' Monseigneur. The common denominator in
Clinton World is always personal short-term gain; all else, including political reality, is subordinated to that. And even when they
lose, they still linger, their business more like a monopoly, having accumulated so much personnel power as to immunize it from market
forces.
Still, all the bumps and losses have at least somewhat diminished the Clintons. There is little enthusiasm for another Hillary
rev of the engine, no matter how badly she seems to want one. As for Bill, when people say they're nostalgic for the 1990s, they
generally mean boy bands and Legends of the Hidden Temple , not blue dresses. Now enter Tulsi Gabbard. She is both a walking
repudiation of Clinton World and a product of its failures. A former vice chair at the DNC, she
resigned after it became clear the organization intended to slight Bernie Sanders' presidential candidacy in favor of Hillary's.
A political neophyte, she's running a barebones campaign, in contrast to Clinton World's legions. She remains unsullied by the corrupt
Democratic influencers of yore, from Goldman Sachs to Jeffrey Epstein, all of whom the Clintons have rubbed elbows with. And most
importantly, she served as a National Guard medic in Iraq and came away jaded by the very wars Hillary keeps endorsing.
Gabbard, then, isn't Clinton World's most formidable opponent, but right now she looks like its clearest antithesis. Her knight's
move has been to take the Clintons off the grounds of personal accomplishment and put them on the harsher terrain of policy accomplishment.
Hillary loves to tout her (substantial) record of public service as a woman, but Gabbard, a war veteran, can claim that too.
Hillary is less eager, meanwhile, to discuss her and her husband's writ large policy records, given the current revolt against the
liberal internationalism and Third Way centrism they've long regarded as de rigueur . Gabbard not only brings this up, her
entire candidacy is a homing missile aimed at the establishment's failed foreign policy, one of its most gaping vulnerabilities.
While Clinton World thrashes on the floor screeching at the Russian nanobots in their nose hairs, Gabbard offers up informed critiques
of actual events.
The contrast is unavoidable, and it's made Clinton World look one slice short of a (faux New York-style) pizza. (It's always wrong
to say that conspiracy theories are the sole province of "the fringes"; they can afflict the center, too, and they're all the more
embarrassing when they do.) Sure enough, fade to Iowa, where voters are expressing renewed interest in Gabbard. One
told the Associated Press that Hillary's smear
was "divisive and despicable" and said he likes Tulsi's "anti-regime-change message," while another accused Clinton of "sowing division
in the primary." As it turns out, protecting the brand of a couple that hasn't won a nationwide election in 23 years is not
a priority in flyover country.
It may be that this is the year the Democrats are finally ready to cast out the Clintons for good, along with all their attendant
wars and machinations and courtiers. If so, the strongest tonic they could swallow would be the campaign of Tulsi Gabbard. You don't
have to support her candidacy (I don't) to appreciate what she's trying to do here.
Matt Purple is the managing editor of The American Conservative.
Tulsi Gabbard has volunteered twice to serve active duty in the US military, and continues today as a Major in the Army National
Guard...definitely NOT a "Russian asset" but rather a very patriotic American. The worst thing about HRC's slander against Ms.
Gabbard (and the repeats of that slander by other Dem party operatives and even major media publishers of HRC-echoing op-eds)
is that the endless-undeclared-multiple-wars party won't debate the merits of their approach but rather only accuse opponents
of treason.
THANK YOU TULSI GABBARD for opening this debate on the direction our national diplomacy should take in the future,
for demanding a reassessment of the old Cold War approach that abandoned the Constitutional requirement that wars be declared
by Congress. THANK YOU TULSI GABBARD for your military service to our country, for your public service in various elected offices,
and now for your campaign that forces these issues back into the national debate.
It doesn't look like she has much of a chance, but I admire Ms. Gabbard's integrity and forthrightness. She ought to at least
rate a cabinet position if a Democrat becomes president. (SecDef, or State or National Security Advisor, perhaps?). I hope she
keeps hammering away on the foreign policy issue.
Well spoken. Indeed, one doesn't have to buy all her policy positions or support her nomination campaign. But Gabbard is worthy
of the kind of genuine respect that will elude HRC's legacy.
What she coerced in life will be denied her for eternity, methinks.
But Gabbard, however she may fare this time around, has upside. Because she's the real deal.
There is such a hole where our leadership
should be, an enormous surfeit of vacuity in the leadership ranks on both sides of the ball that looks to be the curse of our
time. It wouldn't bother me a bit if she helped fill the void.
Protecting the faded brand indeed. Because it's the sole explanation of a situation when someone starts dividing a party a year
before the election and after an impeachment debacle, aside from idiocy in both colloquial, clinical and ancient Greek meaning.
Russian agents behind Gabbard, Russian agents behind Stein, Russian agents behind Trump, Russian agents behind Clinton's fridge.
And it's not said by a 5-year-old girl. It keeps on being said by a grown-up woman who, basically, rules one of America's two
biggest parties. It starts feeling like some tragifarce already.
"... NATO has become an end run around the UN in legitimizing our dirty little wars. No wonder they are going after Tulsi. ..."
"... War and spooks. It makes it me absolutely disgusted to see intelligent, left-leaning people following obvious traps into xenophobia and fascism. People I love talking about Russian conspiracies, foreign "assets", etc. ..."
What was Hillary Clinton thinking? The 2016 Democratic nominee, for some reason, felt the
need to insert herself into the 2020 race with an attack on Tulsi Gabbard, an oddball
Democratic presidential contender who barely registered in polls. The congresswoman from
Hawaii is a completely discreditable candidate -- more on that in a moment -- but Clinton's
accusation that Gabbard is a tool of the Russians was so blunt and clumsy that it has added
new life to a primary bid that should never have existed in the first place. Within a day,
Gabbard was already fundraising off of it, a development as predictable as a sunrise.
Oh no! The great neo-liberal hope proves herself inept again, and the rest of the spooks get
antsy. Damn it Hillary, you're not supposed to directly say that. You're supposed to
imply it from unverifiable sources. Geez, you're making us all look like amateurs over
here.
Here we are again, watching the people that foiseted Her onto us in the first place,
gnashing their teeth because she can't play even the most elementary of politics.
Moreover, Clinton is also right that both Stein and Gabbard are favorites of the Russian
government, which has rushed social-media bots and state-controlled media to their defense at
various times. Stein even got a seat at a dinner with Vladimir Putin, an honor one might
think is a bit out of the weight class of a super-minor American candidate. The fact that
Stein was sitting at the same table as Putin, along with the retired general, future Donald
Trump appointee, and current felon Michael Flynn, should have raised alarm bells because
Putin never wastes a minute of his day on people who cannot be of use to him. But once Trump
was in the race, Russia focused its efforts on getting him elected, and Stein was left to do
what damage she could as a third-party spoiler.
And this is great! We're just going to repeat everything she said, embellish it, and pretend
like it's common knowledge! Brilliant!
Makes Kamala's answer the other day look especially telling. Well, of course ,
everyone knows that... But god, don't say that out loud!
The Atlantic Council of the United States was established in 1961 by former Secretaries
of State Dean Acheson and Christian Herter to bolster support for NATO. The name is
derivative of North Atlantic Council, the highest governing body of NATO.
+ On April 23, 1999, NATO rocketed the central studio of Radio Televisija Srbije (RTS),
the state-owned broadcasting corporation in Belgrade, destroying the building. Sixteen
civilian employees of RTS were killed and 16 wounded. Amnesty International concluded the
attack was a war crime.
+ In a Feb. 12, 2010 atrocity that was kept secret until March 13, US Special Forces
killed a teenage girl, a pregnant mother of 10, a pregnant mother of 6, a police officer
and his brother, and were accused of then trying to cover-up the killings by digging
bullets out of the victims' bodies, washing the wounds with alcohol and lying to superior
officers.
+ While bombing Libya in March 2011, NATO refused to aid a group of 72 migrants adrift
in the Mediterranean Sea. Only nine people on board survived. The refusal was condemned as
criminal by the Council of Europe.
+ On Nov. 26, 2011, NATO jets bombed and rocketed an allied Pakistani military base for
two hours, killing 26 Pakistani soldiers and wounding dozens more. NATO refuses to
apologize
War and spooks. It makes it me absolutely disgusted to see intelligent, left-leaning
people following obvious traps into xenophobia and fascism. People I love talking about
Russian conspiracies, foreign "assets", etc.
My wife is from Hawaii, and she used to respect Tulsi a great deal. It's heartbreaking for
me to watch her fall for this shit.
@Lookout
I think it's because she actually went to school for Political Science. She was in fact, an
intern in the Clinton administration.
Now, she left politics because she was disgusted by it.... I can only imagine how gross it
is up close and personal. But, I think like many women of her time, and a true feminist,
she's fallen for Hillary's victimization game.
When I told her I made my first political donation yesterday, she was excited. When I told
her it was to Tusi, for what Clinton had said, she became immediately combative. But when, I
in exasperation, yelled "I'M DOING IT TO DEFEND A WOMAN!" I think it finally clicked. I'm
hoping that maybe she can finally see that she is just a nasty, vindictive woman.
#2.1 I think
it's because she actually went to school for Political Science. She was in fact, an
intern in the Clinton administration.
Now, she left politics because she was disgusted by it.... I can only imagine how
gross it is up close and personal. But, I think like many women of her time, and a true
feminist, she's fallen for Hillary's victimization game.
When I told her I made my first political donation yesterday, she was excited. When I
told her it was to Tusi, for what Clinton had said, she became immediately combative. But
when, I in exasperation, yelled "I'M DOING IT TO DEFEND A WOMAN!" I think it finally
clicked. I'm hoping that maybe she can finally see that she is just a nasty, vindictive
woman.
Feminism isn't about saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as
men.
Exactly right. My wife and I own a company. She's better at sales and customer service
than I am, so she does that. I'm better at marketing and technology issues, so I do that. We
each have strengths and weaknesses. The best policy for us, and I posit for society in
general, is to base decisions on quantifiable facts, not on gender.
#2.1.1 may
consider herself a true feminist, her unrelenting support of women as THE answer to our
problems says to me, in my own opinion, she's really no feminist. Feminism isn't about
saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as men. To me, the
uttering of women who say, like some twit in the media a couple weeks ago, that "women
aren't corrupt" is actually a highly sexist thing to say. Women with real power in our
corrupt system are indeed as corrupt as any man is and seem fully capable of using their
corruption to get ahead. And there have been many women historically who proved that
capability rather well.
I have a couple of friends who are on the same wavelength in too many ways for me.
Both are younger than I am so some of that might be generational differences in
perception, but I think a lot of it is also the media hype of MeToo, Trump, etc. I get
extremely frustrated with them at times but I have learned lately not to even respond to
the latest outrage and keep reminding them, which both do not really like, that woman or
man, in this world, that choice matters about as much as the one between R and D...
Hillary and her disgusting minions sicken me with their sexism talk. They make an open
mockery of real sexism and they feel absolutely no shame doing it. Anything to get ahead
after all, they do not care how many real women they step on, bomb, and kill to get there
either.
@edg
generally, women just think a little different. It was a woman, accountant, that confronted
Ken Lay and brought down Enron. She had nothing to gain. It was a woman FBI agent that
noticed foreign nationals were taking flying lessons that didn't include landing an aircraft.
Her observations were dismissed. Men say, do this, you will prosper, women say do this, it's
the right thing to do. Because that's what they teach their kids. Yes, women can emulate men,
the glass ceiling omits that those standing on the top rung are standing on the fingers of
those below them. But damn it, we need a different way of thinking.
Feminism isn't about saying women are better than men but saying women are as
capable as men.
Exactly right. My wife and I own a company. She's better at sales and customer service
than I am, so she does that. I'm better at marketing and technology issues, so I do that.
We each have strengths and weaknesses. The best policy for us, and I posit for society in
general, is to base decisions on quantifiable facts, not on gender.
women are not shamed, objectified, exploited, deprived of choice, deprived of freedom,
deprived of opportunity, abused, or killed for being women.
#2.1.1 may
consider herself a true feminist, her unrelenting support of women as THE answer to our
problems says to me, in my own opinion, she's really no feminist. Feminism isn't about
saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as men. To me, the
uttering of women who say, like some twit in the media a couple weeks ago, that "women
aren't corrupt" is actually a highly sexist thing to say. Women with real power in our
corrupt system are indeed as corrupt as any man is and seem fully capable of using their
corruption to get ahead. And there have been many women historically who proved that
capability rather well.
I have a couple of friends who are on the same wavelength in too many ways for me.
Both are younger than I am so some of that might be generational differences in
perception, but I think a lot of it is also the media hype of MeToo, Trump, etc. I get
extremely frustrated with them at times but I have learned lately not to even respond to
the latest outrage and keep reminding them, which both do not really like, that woman or
man, in this world, that choice matters about as much as the one between R and D...
Hillary and her disgusting minions sicken me with their sexism talk. They make an open
mockery of real sexism and they feel absolutely no shame doing it. Anything to get ahead
after all, they do not care how many real women they step on, bomb, and kill to get there
either.
#2.1.1 may
consider herself a true feminist, her unrelenting support of women as THE answer to our
problems says to me, in my own opinion, she's really no feminist. Feminism isn't about
saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as men. To me, the
uttering of women who say, like some twit in the media a couple weeks ago, that "women
aren't corrupt" is actually a highly sexist thing to say. Women with real power in our
corrupt system are indeed as corrupt as any man is and seem fully capable of using their
corruption to get ahead. And there have been many women historically who proved that
capability rather well.
I have a couple of friends who are on the same wavelength in too many ways for me.
Both are younger than I am so some of that might be generational differences in
perception, but I think a lot of it is also the media hype of MeToo, Trump, etc. I get
extremely frustrated with them at times but I have learned lately not to even respond to
the latest outrage and keep reminding them, which both do not really like, that woman or
man, in this world, that choice matters about as much as the one between R and D...
Hillary and her disgusting minions sicken me with their sexism talk. They make an open
mockery of real sexism and they feel absolutely no shame doing it. Anything to get ahead
after all, they do not care how many real women they step on, bomb, and kill to get there
either.
Gabbard herself has already ruled out such a challenge, but that is beside the point.
Gabbard has now vowed to take her fight to the convention, where she might argue that the
nominee, whom Clinton will applaud and support, is just another tool of the Democratic,
neoconservative, neoliberal, warmongering, globalist establishment.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think of
her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my feet
applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that may
very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every one of the
major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates - with the
exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the Wikileaks email
from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly, the vicious and
vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past was
testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut the same
hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be asked
about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and I
especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the other,
the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should all be
swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of me wonders
why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should be relegated
to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a rat's ass about her
or her "opinions."
@Le
Frog
Based on Fmr. Sec. Clinton's libelous statement. The language was more direct and
absolute.
Rep. Gabbard should get a bump but she, and certainly Sen. Sanders, have bigger fish to
fry than jumping up and down every time Her rattles the car keys.
is a Donald Trump asset.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think
of her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my
feet applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that
may very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every
one of the major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates
- with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the
Wikileaks email from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly,
the vicious and vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past
was testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut
the same hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be
asked about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and
I especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the
other, the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should
all be swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of
me wonders why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should
be relegated to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a
rat's ass about her or her "opinions."
@OzoneTom
I would love to see a lawsuit from Jill Stein.
#4
Based on Fmr. Sec. Clinton's libelous statement. The language was more direct and
absolute.
Rep. Gabbard should get a bump but she, and certainly Sen. Sanders, have bigger fish
to fry than jumping up and down every time Her rattles the car keys.
...but it fits this conversation too
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/20/max-blumenthal-on-why-hillary-clinton... (22 min)
Max Blumenthal says that Clinton's comments reflect a continued effort by Democratic
neo-liberals to deflect responsibility for their loss to Trump in 2016; marginalize voices
like Gabbard and Stein's who challenge their pro-war, corporatist agenda; and preview their
potential future attacks on Bernie Sanders.
is a Donald Trump asset.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think
of her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my
feet applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that
may very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every
one of the major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates
- with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the
Wikileaks email from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly,
the vicious and vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past
was testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut
the same hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be
asked about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and
I especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the
other, the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should
all be swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of
me wonders why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should
be relegated to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a
rat's ass about her or her "opinions."
Representative Gabbard, We were very disappointed to hear that you would resign your
position with the DNC so you could endorse Bernie Sanders, a man who has never been a
Democrat before. When we met over dinner a couple of years ago I was so impressed by your
intellect, your passion, and commitment to getting things done on behalf of the American
people. For you to endorse a man who has spent almost 40 years in public office with very
few accomplishments, doesn't fall in line with what we previously thought of you. Hillary
Clinton will be our party's nominee and you standing on ceremony to support the sinking
Bernie Sanders ship is disrespectful to Hillary Clinton. A woman who has spent the vast
majority of her life in public service and working on behalf of women, families, and the
underserved. You have called both myself and Michael Kives before about helping your
campaign raise money, we no longer trust your judgement so will not be raising money for
your campaign.
Darnell Strom & Michael Kives
Ooh..bet that hurt.
These are the guys who represent lots of powerful people in government, the media and
Hollywood. If you want to go anywhere then you need them on your side.
is a Donald Trump asset.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think
of her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my
feet applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that
may very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every
one of the major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates
- with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the
Wikileaks email from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly,
the vicious and vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past
was testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut
the same hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be
asked about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and
I especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the
other, the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should
all be swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of
me wonders why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should
be relegated to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a
rat's ass about her or her "opinions."
Thomas M. Nichols
He closes the article with this tidbit -
As a former Republican who will vote for the Democratic nominee again in 2020, I hope
that I never have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again. I can only hope that enough Democratic
Party leaders can convince Hillary Clinton to feel the same way.
Check out his book! -
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
(!!!!)
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information
than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in
narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates
on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through
WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual
footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be
taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic
elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has
occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer service model in higher
education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment
machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of
information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of
ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary
citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions
themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy or, in the worst
case, a combination of both.
@konondrum@konondrum
But I can't remember who. The big quote was something like, "In America every shopkeeper is
an expert."
Thomas M. Nichols
He closes the article with this tidbit -
As a former Republican who will vote for the Democratic nominee again in 2020, I
hope that I never have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again. I can only hope that enough
Democratic Party leaders can convince Hillary Clinton to feel the same way.
Check out his book! -
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
(!!!!)
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more
information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a
surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled
informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a
quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an
equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most
ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is
dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this
rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a
customer service model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry
into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the
increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated
public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce
intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than
anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to
populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both.
@konondrum
This is just what I need: My worst of all fears confirmed.
It wasn't so long ago that "standing up to experts" was just something crank Texas
dentists got skewered by Stephen Colbert for...but now?
Thomas M. Nichols
He closes the article with this tidbit -
As a former Republican who will vote for the Democratic nominee again in 2020, I
hope that I never have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again. I can only hope that enough
Democratic Party leaders can convince Hillary Clinton to feel the same way.
Check out his book! -
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
(!!!!)
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more
information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a
surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled
informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a
quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an
equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most
ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is
dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this
rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a
customer service model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry
into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the
increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated
public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce
intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than
anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to
populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both.
Will any of HER buddies address anything in Tulsi's tweet aside from Russia? I think not.
HER is going to have to take the "rot" comment on the chin because I'm sure they really
really don't want to have that conversation.
So, I am glad Tulsi opened that door and I hope she doesn't let up on it. Russiagate is,
after all, a symptom of the corruption in the party, just like Trump is.
@Lookout
I watched it yesterday and was amazed by his take on it, especially after he had harsh words
for Tulsi regarding her version of Medicare for All. To be sure, Time Black is a big Bernie
supporter, but his latest on Tulsi is excellent.
I was sorta confused about why Hillary did it. Mostly I thought to open door to attack
Bernie. In many ways that door is closed now given the reaction of the masses. I now think
Hillary's comments were meant to sideline not so much the candidate Tulsi but her messages of
anti-war and anti-regime change. I think her constant iteration just like Bernie's
constant iteration of m4a, was reaching people way beyond her poll numbers.
It boils down to this:
Atlantic Council (war mongers) = regime change and war is good. Losing ground.
Tulsi: regime change and war is bad. Winning ground.
Tulsi's influence goes beyond her poll numbers. She is thee most dangerous candidate to
the establishment because she is winning the ideological battle over foreign policy and
war.
@MrWebster
Nothing today should be about Her. It is straight from the Trump playbook. Allowing this
absurd slander to distract us from keeping our eyes on the prize is a win for Her.
Senator Sanders and Representative Gabbard are moving ahead on the front. They are
depending on the rest of us to resist on the flanks.
"Not me, Us!" is not just a slogan...
I was sorta confused about why Hillary did it. Mostly I thought to open door to attack
Bernie. In many ways that door is closed now given the reaction of the masses. I now
think Hillary's comments were meant to sideline not so much the candidate Tulsi but her
messages of anti-war and anti-regime change. I think her constant iteration just like
Bernie's constant iteration of m4a, was reaching people way beyond her poll
numbers.
It boils down to this:
Atlantic Council (war mongers) = regime change and war is good. Losing ground.
Tulsi: regime change and war is bad. Winning ground.
Tulsi's influence goes beyond her poll numbers. She is thee most dangerous candidate
to the establishment because she is winning the ideological battle over foreign policy
and war.
@MrWebster
Excellent comment that reflects my own view of what is going on here.
Just as Bernie's 2016 Presidential campaign has greatly changed the dommestic policy
landscape, the oligarchy and the MIC are seeing that Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 Presidential
campaign is beginning to take hold in changing the political landscape foreign policy wise.
The empire is coming apart and they are lashing back.
I was sorta confused about why Hillary did it. Mostly I thought to open door to attack
Bernie. In many ways that door is closed now given the reaction of the masses. I now
think Hillary's comments were meant to sideline not so much the candidate Tulsi but her
messages of anti-war and anti-regime change. I think her constant iteration just like
Bernie's constant iteration of m4a, was reaching people way beyond her poll
numbers.
It boils down to this:
Atlantic Council (war mongers) = regime change and war is good. Losing ground.
Tulsi: regime change and war is bad. Winning ground.
Tulsi's influence goes beyond her poll numbers. She is thee most dangerous candidate
to the establishment because she is winning the ideological battle over foreign policy
and war.
...something to do with HER server, wasn't it? But what I REALLY think is going on, and I
could be totally wrong, is that Bernie is considering Tulsi as his VP pick, when and if, and
this is to sow enough doubt and deceit about Tulsi that it wounds Bernie. But one thing I
know for sure: that Clinton hag is one evil bitch!
...something to do with HER server, wasn't it? But what I REALLY think is going on,
and I could be totally wrong, is that Bernie is considering Tulsi as his VP pick, when
and if, and this is to sow enough doubt and deceit about Tulsi that it wounds Bernie. But
one thing I know for sure: that Clinton hag is one evil bitch!
Neocons are lobbyists for MIC, the it is MIC that is the center of this this cult. People like Kriston, Kagan and Max Boot are
just well paid prostituttes on MIC, which includes intelligence agencies as a very important part -- the bridge to Wall Street so to
speak.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us. ..."
Glenn Greenwald has just published a very important
article in The Intercept that I would have everyone in America read if I could. Titled "With New D.C. Policy Group,
Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons", Greenwald's excellent piece details the frustratingly under-reported
way that the leaders of the neoconservative death cult have been realigning with the Democratic party.
This pivot back to the party of neoconservatism's origin is one of the most significant political events of the new millennium,
but aside from a handful of sharp political analysts like Greenwald it's been going largely undiscussed. This is weird, and we need
to start talking about it. A lot. Their willful alignment with neoconservatism should be the very first thing anyone ever talks about
when discussing the Democratic party.
When you hear someone complaining that the Democratic party has no platform besides being anti-Trump, your response should be,
"Yeah it does. Their platform is the omnicidal death cult of neoconservatism."
It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard
as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly
calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever
existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions
with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a
world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan
member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Check out leading neoconservative Bill Kristol's response to the aforementioned Intercept article:
... ... ...
Okay, leaving aside the fact that this bloodthirsty psychopath is saying neocons "won" a Cold War that neocons have deliberately
reignited by fanning the flames of the Russia hysteria and
pushing for more escalations , how insane is it that we live in a society where a public figure can just be like, "Yeah, I'm
a neocon, I advocate for using military aggression to maintain US hegemony and I think it's great," and have that be okay? These
people kill children. Neoconservatism means piles upon piles of child corpses. It means devoting the resources of a nation that won't
even provide its citizens with a real healthcare system to widespread warfare and all the death, destruction, chaos, terrorism, rape
and suffering that necessarily comes with war. The only way that you can possibly regard neoconservatism as just one more set of
political opinions is if you completely compartmentalize away from the reality of everything that it is.
This should not happen. The tensions with Russia that these monsters have worked so hard to escalate could blow up at any moment;
there are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. The last Cold War brought our species
within a hair's
breadth of total annihilation due to our inability to foresee all possible complications which can arise from such a contest,
and these depraved death cultists are trying to drag us back into another one. Nothing is worth that. Nothing is worth risking the
life of every organism on earth, but they're risking it all for geopolitical influence.
... ... ...
I've had a very interesting last 24 hours. My
article about Senator John
McCain (which I titled "Please Just Fucking Die Already" because the title I really wanted to use seemed a bit crass) has received
an amount of attention that I'm not accustomed to, from
CNN to
USA Today to the
Washington Post . I watched Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar
talking about me on The View . They called me a "Bernie
Sanders person." It was a trip. Apparently some very low-level Republican with a few hundred Twitter followers went and retweeted
my article with an approving caption, and that sort of thing is worthy of coast-to-coast mainstream coverage in today's America.
This has of course brought in a deluge of angry comments, mostly from people whose social media pages are full of Russiagate
nonsense , showing
where McCain's current support base comes from. Some call him a war hero, some talk about him like he's a perfectly fine politician,
some defend him as just a normal person whose politics I happen to disagree with.
This is insane. This man has actively and enthusiastically pushed for every single act of military aggression that America has
engaged in, and some that
it hasn't , throughout his entire career. He makes Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton look like a dove. When you look
at John McCain, the very first thing you see should not be a former presidential candidate, a former POW or an Arizona Senator; the
first thing you see should be the piles of human corpses that he has helped to create. This is not a normal kind of person, and I
still do sincerely hope that he dies of natural causes before he can do any more harm.
Can we change this about ourselves, please? None of us should have to live in a world where pushing for more bombing campaigns
at every opportunity is an acceptable agenda for a public figure to have. Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless
hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are
traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any
kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are
whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around
what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us.
-- -- --
I'm a 100 percent reader-funded journalist so if you enjoyed this, please consider helping me out by sharing it around, liking
me on Facebook , following me on
Twitter , or throwing some money into my hat on
Patreon .
"... This is when it became clear it wasn't just political operatives pushing fake news about Russian influence, but that "respected" mass media would be leading the charge for them. The rest is pretty much history. MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, etc have been spewing outlandish Russiagate nonsense for three years straight, and despite the complete failure of special counsel Robert Mueller to find any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, these agents of empire refuse to stop. ..."
"... Americans like to sneer at more transparently unfree societies around the world, but when you think about the disturbing implications of former spooks delivering news to the public, one can't help but conclude that mass media in 2019 looks like a gigantic propaganda campaign targeting U.S. citizens. Moreover, as can be seen by the recent attacks by Clinton and her allies in the media on Gabbard, they aren't easing up. ..."
"... Comey was a senior vice president for Lockheed Martin before returning to Washington ..."
"... Excuse me, the voting going on up there for sanctions on Russia for various bogus things has been pretty much unanimous and bipartisan. ..."
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their
wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
– Arundhati Roy
Last week, Hillary Clinton called Tulsi Gabbard (and Jill Stein) Russian agents on a podcast. More
specifically :
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the Democratic primary and
are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians," said Clinton, apparently referring to Rep.
Gabbard, who's been accused of receiving support from Russian bots and the Russian news media. "They have a bunch of sites and
bots and other ways of supporting her so far." She added: "That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because
she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset -- I mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate.
So I don't know who it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states
that they most needed."
Tulsi subsequently responded to this slanderous accusation with a series of devastating blows.
Her tweets set off a firestorm, and even if you're as disillusioned by presidential politics as myself, you couldn't help but
cheer wildly that someone with a major political platform finally stated without any hint of fear or hesitation exactly what so many
Americans across the ideological spectrum feel.
Of course, this has far wider implications than a high profile feud between these two. The "let's blame Russia for Hillary's loss"
epidemic of calculated stupidity driven by Ellen-Democrats and their mouthpieces across corporate mass media began immediately after
the election. I know about it on a personal level because this website was an early target of the neoliberal-led new McCarthyism
courtesy of a ridiculous and libelous smear in the Washington Post over Thanksgiving weekend 2016 (see:
Liberty Blitzkrieg Included on Washington Post Highlighted Hit List of "Russian Propaganda" Websites) .
This is when it became clear it wasn't just political operatives pushing fake news about Russian influence, but that "respected"
mass media would be leading the charge for them. The rest is pretty much history. MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, etc have been
spewing outlandish Russiagate nonsense for three years straight, and despite the complete failure of special counsel Robert Mueller
to find any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, these agents of empire refuse to stop. The whole charade seems more akin to an intelligence
operation than journalism, which shouldn't be surprising given the proliferation of former intelligence agents throughout mass media
in the Trump era.
Former CIA Director
John Brennan
(2013-17) is the latest superspook to be reborn as a TV newsie. He just
cashed in at
NBC News as a "senior national security and intelligence analyst" and served his first expert views on last Sunday's edition of
Meet the Press .
The Brennan acquisition seeks to elevate NBC to spook parity with CNN, which employs former Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper and former CIA Director
Michael Hayden
in a similar capacity.
Other, lesser-known national security veterans thrive under TV's grow lights. Almost too numerous to list, they include
Chuck Rosenberg
, former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBI Director James B. Comey, and
counselor to former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III;
Frank Figliuzzi , former chief of FBI counterintelligence;
Juan Zarate , deputy national security adviser under Bush, at NBC; and
Fran
Townsend , homeland security adviser under Bush, at CBS News.
CNN's bulging roster also includes former FBI agent Asha Rangappa
; former FBI agent James Gagliano
; Obama's former deputy national security adviser
Tony Blinken ; former House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers ; senior
adviser to the National Security Council during the Obama administration
Samantha Vinograd ; retired CIA operations officer
Steven L. Hall; and
Philip Mudd , also retired from the CIA.
Americans like to sneer at more transparently unfree societies around the world, but when you think about the disturbing implications
of former spooks delivering news to the public, one can't help but conclude that mass media in 2019 looks like a gigantic propaganda
campaign targeting U.S. citizens. Moreover, as can be seen by the recent attacks by Clinton and her allies in the media on Gabbard,
they aren't easing up.
Which brings us to the crux of the issue. Why are they doing this? Why is Clinton, with zero evidence whatsoever, falsely calling
a sitting U.S. Congresswoman, a veteran with two tours in Iraq, and someone polling at only 2% in the Democratic primary a "Russian
asset." Why are they so afraid of Tulsi Gabbard?
It's partly personal. Tulsi was one of only a handful of congressional Democrats to set aside fears of the Clintons and their
mafia-like network to endorse Bernie Sanders early in 2016. In fact, she
stepped
down from her position as vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee to do so. This is the sort of thing a petty narcissist
like Hillary Clinton could never forgive, but it goes further.
Tulsi's mere presence on stage during recent debates has proven devastating for the Ellen Degeneres wing of the Democratic party.
She effectively ended neoliberal darling Kamala Harris' chances by simply telling the truth about her horrible record, something
no one else in the race had the guts to do.
In other words, Tulsi demolished Kamala Harris and put an end to her primary chances by simply telling the truth about her on
national television. This is how powerful the truth can be when somebody's actually willing to stand up and say it. It's why the
agents of empire -- in charge of virtually all major institutions -- go out of their way to ensure the American public is exposed
to as little truth as possible. It's also why they lie and scream "Russia" instead of debating the actual issues.
But this goes well beyond Tulsi Gabbard. Empire requires constant meddling abroad as well as periodic regime change wars to ensure
compliant puppets are firmly in control of any country with any geopolitical significance. The 21st century has been littered with
a series of disastrous U.S. interventions abroad, while the country back home continues to descend deeper into a neo-feudal oligarchy
with a hunger games style economy. As such, an increasing number of Americans have begun to question the entire premise of imperial
foreign policy.
To the agents of empire, dominant throughout mainstream politics, mega corporations, think-tanks and of course mass media, this
sort of thought crime is entirely unacceptable. In case you haven't noticed, empire is a third-rail of U.S. politics. If you dare
touch the issue, you'll be ruthlessly smeared, without any evidence, as a Russian agent or asset. There's nothing logical about this,
but then again there typically isn't much logic when it comes to psychological operations. They depend on manipulation and triggering
specific emotional responses.
There's a reason people like Hillary Clinton and her minions just yell "Russia" whenever an individual with a platform criticizes
empire and endless war. They know they can't win an argument if they debate the actual issues, so a conscious choice was made to
simply avoid debate entirely. As such, they've decided to craft and spread a disingenuous narrative in which anyone critical of establishment
neocon/neoliberal foreign policy is a Russia asset/agent/bot. This is literally all they've got. These people are telling you 2+2=5
and if you don't accept it, you're a traitorous, Putin-loving nazi with a pee pee tape. And these same people call themselves "liberal."
Importantly, it isn't just a few trollish kooks doing this. It's being spread by some of the most powerful people and institutions
in the country, including of course mass media.
This inane verbal vomit is considered "liberal" news in modern America, a word which has now lost all meaning. Above, we witness
a collection of television mannequins questioning the loyalty of a U.S. veteran who continues to serve in both Congress and the national
guard simply because she dared call out America's perpetually failing foreign policy establishment.
To conclude, it's now clear dissent is only permitted so long as it doesn't become too popular. By polling at 2% in the primary,
it appears Gabbard became too popular, but the truth is she's just a vessel. What's really got the agents of empire concerned is
we may be on the verge of a tipping point within the broader U.S. population regarding regime change wars and empire. This is why
debate needs to be shut down and shut down now. A critical mass of citizens openly questioning establishment foreign policy cannot
be permitted. Those on the fence need to be bullied and manipulated into thinking dissent is equivalent to being a traitor. The national
security state doesn't want the public to even think about such topics, let alone debate them.
Ultimately, if you give up your capacity for reason, for free-thought and for the courage to say what you think about issues of
national significance, you've lost everything. This is what these manipulators want you to do. They want you to shut-up, to listen
to the "experts" who destroy everything they touch, and to be a compliant subject as opposed to an active, empowered citizen. The
answer to such a tactic is to be more bold, more informed and more ethical. They fear truth and empowered individuals more than anything
else. Stand up tall and speak your mind. Pandering to bullies never works.
* * *
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For those of us who grew up during the Cold War going to Russia is intense. I have never been so scared in my life as when
that plane touched down at Pulkovo 2. And I though Dulles was a shithole.
Russians love art and they have fantastic museums and fantastic architecture. Food is a bit sketchy but you can make do. No
fat women there that I saw. In fact, you will see some of the most beautiful women in the world there. Trust me on that.
Pelosi is smart enough to know that all roads lead to Putin. But is she smart enough to know that're not just American and
its 'allied' Western 'roads', but now its all the roads in the world.
Because the world finally understands that Putin is the only peacemaker on the scene. And that most of the disputes the international
community is saddled with are a direct result of American foreign policy and the excesses of its economy.
The world is tired of being dragged through Hell at the whim of a handful of American neocon devotees of Paul Wolfowitz and
the fallacious Wolfowitz Doctrine which was credited with having won the Cold War for the West and has been in effect ever since.
Except there seems to be some doubt now who actually won the Cold War with America scrambling to get out of Syria, leaving
behind a symbolic force of a couple of thousand troops.
That's the reason for everything that's going on America today. Russia, under Putin, has turned the tables on Congress, the
neocons, the warmongers, and those politicians and elite who want the Middle East and its vast reserves of oil to continue to
be destabilized by intranational, neighborly hatreds, by terrorism and by America's closest ally, Israel to continue to expand
its borders with its policy of settlements. This problematic situation is scrupulously avoided in America and the West's MSM,
and can only be seen in foreign media. Which brings us back to Putin.
Is he following the strategies of Sun Tzu, who advises you to
'appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.'
'all warfare is based on deception'
'victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first then try to win.'
Hillary Clinton is obviously testing the waters for a last-minute, swoop-in candidacy. She sees Biden deflating and realizes
there's nobody to keep the Democratic nomination firmly in corporate hands. She wants them to beg her, though.
Without Russia, ASSAD would be long gone and IRAN would have been bombed to oblivion, and Greater Israhell would have been
fulfilled and ruling over the MidEast.
In other words, Russia bashing by Jewish-controlled politicians and in Jewish-controlled Western media
is simply PAYBACK .
I am a Russian Agent. Well, not formally but act as one. Only in elections though as Russia forbids (after losing 30 million
dead in WW2) any military or violent interference. Agent may be too strong a word as my actions reflect the beauty of Russian
literature, music and philosophy. (qv Kropotkin, Rimsky Korsakoff etc. etc.) Maybe a spokesman?
In this coming election vote for the agent of your choice. Gabbard, Trump, (Cackles, hang on and wait for this one) or Biden
( on whom we await a conversion). This agency stuff is fun. Can't wait.
The quid pro quo for many Deep State bureaucrats comes after they are no longer in office as typified by jobs as "experts"
with the corrupt news networks. Comey was a senior vice president for Lockheed Martin before returning to Washington.
Trump is outing them all and they are out to destroy him.
If the Russians are so bad, why did we give them our Uranium? Hillary and corrupt Washington Swamp dwellers in action. How
many in Congress opposed the deal? We need Trump to be reelected to Make America Great Again.
I remember in the 80's Democrats would mercilessly lampoon and make fun of Conservatives for their (at the time) hard-line
stance against the Soviet Union and how we should just get over it: peace, love and b*llsh*t. My how times have changed.
You need a scorecard to keep track these days. Barry lampooned Mitt for speaking against the Russians, like they were the 'good
guys' (ahem, 'tell Vlad' and Kills power reset button) Make up your ******* minds people.
Thank you for bringing my attention to Russia. Had it not been for your constant denunciations, I probably would never have
investigated that nation to the extent that I have, and that would have been my loss. Allow me to explain.
As a permanent student of human history and culture, I've traveled to, and studied many different nations, from Japan, China
and Thailand, to Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, but somehow I managed to completely miss Russia. Of course I was familiar
with the Western narrative concerning communism and the USSR - I grew up with that - but I never fully understood Russian culture
until, by your actions, you forced me to look into it.
I've since studied their history intently, and have studied their language to the point where I can at least make myself understood.
I've spoken to Russian expats, read numerous books, watched their TV shows, listened to their music, and have kept a close eye
on current events, including the coup in Ukraine and Russia's response to that event. At this point I feel well enough prepared
to travel to Russia and I'm looking forward to my upcoming trip with great anticipation.
I operate on the basic premise that I'm nobody special - that there are thousands of people just like me with a deep interest
in human affairs, who, like myself, have been prompted to investigate a culture that, for various reasons, has been largely overlooked
in the West. So, on my own and their behalf I thank you for providing the impetus to focus our attention in that regard. It's
probably not what you intended, but it is what it is. Thanks to you, many hundreds, if not thousands of people have now undertaken
a study of Russia and her people, and that can only be a good thing, as the more we know about each other, the less we have to
fear, and the less likely we are to come into conflict with one another.
Bravo well written and right on the mark. If Tulsi wasn't a gun grabber and openly supported the 2nd Amendment she would be
a front runner, only a few steps behind Trump. And by the way, don't trust those 2% Polls. We all know the polls are pure ********.
When one Colonel Gary Powers was shot down in his USAF U2 spy plane in 1960 and captured alive he was asked by his then KGB
interrogators what the difference was between the Republican and Democratic parties.......and he admitted to being at a loss to
explain that there was any fundamental difference at all.
Therein lies the root problem with the American political system. All through the process it arrives at the same outcomes and
it doesnt matter who you vote for.
It could be argued that it is in effect a one party system as both are indistinguishable from each other ultimately as they
push the America PLC agenda.
The entire system is held captive by secretive and "invisible" unelected groups who call the shots and if you push too hard
they have you killed one way or another.....all the esoteric secret societies of any significance are represented.
The question therefore is this; Is America any different to China other than the wallpaper coverings?
To paraphrase Mark Twain; If voting really mattered they wouldn't let you do it.
Those on the fence need to be bullied and manipulated into thinking dissent is equivalent to being a traitor
This is true with Trumptards on this comments board. They unquestionably follow lies, manipulative, and hollow Trump doctrine
without thinking.
Just yesterday there was and idiot spewing out that 'Assange was treasonous' before engaging his cerebral matter to realise
you cannot be a traitor against a country that's not yours.
In keeping with professional journalistic ethics, The Times also reached out to
experts on fascism, fascist terrorism, terrorist fascism, fascist-adjacent Assad-apologism,
Hitlerism, horrorism, Russia, and so on, to confirm Gabbard's guilt-by-association with the
people The Times had just associated her with. Brian Levin, Director of the CSU Center
for the Study of Hate and Extremism, confirmed that Gabbard has "the seal of approval" within
goose-stepping, Hitler-loving, neo-Nazi circles. The Alliance for Securing Democracy (yes, the
one from the previous paragraph) conducted an "independent analysis" which confirmed that RT
("the Kremlin-backed news agency") had mentioned Gabbard far more often than the Western
corporate media (which isn't backed by anyone, and is totally unbiased and independent, despite
the fact that most of it is owned by a handful of powerful global corporations, and at least
one CIA-affiliated oligarch). Oh, and Hawaii State Senator Kai Kahele, who is challenging
Gabbard for her seat in Congress, agreed with The Times that Gabbard's support from
Jew-hating, racist Putin-Nazis might be a potential liability.
"Clearly there's something about her and her policies that attracts and appeals to these
type of people who are white nationalists, anti-Semites, and Holocaust deniers."
But it's not just The New York Times , of course. No sooner had Clinton finished
cackling than the corporate media launched into their familiar Goebbelsian piano routine,
banging out story after television segment repeating the words "Gabbard" and "Russian asset."
I've singled out The Times because the smear piece in question was clearly a warm-up for
Hillary Clinton's calculated smear job on Friday night. No, the old gal hasn't lost her mind.
She knew exactly what she was doing, as did the editors of The New York Times , as did
every other establishment news source that breathlessly "reported" her neo-McCarthyite
smears.
As I noted in my previous essay ,
2020 is for all the marbles, and it's not just about who wins the election. No, it's mostly
about crushing the "populist" backlash against the hegemony of global capitalism and its happy,
smiley-faced, conformist ideology. To do that, the neoliberal establishment has to
delegitimize, and lethally stigmatize, not just Trump, but also people like Gabbard, Bernie
Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and any other popular political figure (left, right, it makes no
difference) deviating from that ideology.
Ask yourself, what do Trump, Sanders, Corbyn, and Gabbard have in common? No, it's not their
Putin-Nazism it's the challenge they represent to global capitalism. Each, in his or her own
way, is a symbol of the growing populist resistance to the privatization and globalization of
everything. And thus, they must be delegitimized, stigmatized, and relentlessly smeared as
"Russian assets," "anti-Semites," "traitors," "white supremacists," "fascists," "communists,"
or some other type of "extremists."
Gabbard, to her credit, understands this, and is focusing attention on the motives
and tactics of the neoliberal establishment and their smear machine. As I noted in
an essay last year , "the only way to effectively counter a smear campaign (whether
large-scale or small-scale) is to resist the temptation to profess your innocence, and,
instead, focus as much attention on the tactics and the motives of the smearers as
possible ." This will not save her, but it is the best she can do, and I applaud her for
having the guts to do it. I hope she continues to give them hell as they finish off her
candidacy and drive her out of office.
... ... ...
Ask them whether their smear machine is working... if you can get them off the phone with
their brokers, or whoever is decorating their summer places in the Hamptons or out on
Martha's
Vineyard .
Or ask the millions of well-off liberals who are still, even after Russiagate was exposed as an
enormous hoax based on absolutely nothing , parroting this paranoid official narrative and
calling people "Russian assets" on Twitter. Or never mind, just pay attention to what happens
over the next twelve months. In terms of ridiculous
official propaganda , spittle-flecked McCarthyite smears, and full-blown psychotic mass
Putin-Nazi hysteria, it's going to make the last three years look like the Propaganda Special
Olympics.
* * *
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
She is absolutely in the best position to talk about foreign policy having been there in the
trenches and personally knowing horrors or war. I've seen bits of those Fox videos and she
was admirable there. Being a veteran probably counts for something in small towns where most
Americans live.
I wasn't following her on social media so not sure how she fares there.
Bernie, on the other hand, knows how to campaign and has very good domestic policy and he
used to be popular in swing states, certainly better than Clinton.
So two of them would be my dream ticket. I feel Warren and Biden would be a loss of
another four years or even longer.
While the mainstream liberal media remains firmly in the pocket of the Clintons' propaganda machine, spewing russophobic accusations
at any and every one who dares question the establishment and military-industrial complex line, there are some - on the left - that
are willing to step up and defend Tulsi Gabbard against the latest delusional suggestion from Hillary that she is a 'Russian asset'.
So now Crooked Hillary is at it again! She is calling Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard "a Russian favorite," and Jill Stein "a Russian
asset." As you may have heard, I was called a big Russia lover also (actually, I do like Russian people. I like all people!).
Hillary's gone Crazy!
What the circular firing squad left undone, will be accomplished by infighting between Clintonites and "moderates" ( a too
positive concept). May the Deluge drown you all in 2020.
...Tulsi served two tours of duty in the Middle East, and she continues her service as a Major in the Army National Guard.
Tulsi's 2005 deployment was a 12-month tour at Logistical Support Area Anaconda in Iraq, where she served in a field medical unit
as a specialist with a 29th Support Battalion medical company. She was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal at the end of this
tour.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren are reportedly developing a close
political friendship that might prove pivotal to deciding the Democratic presidential nomination.
Both have kept in touch since Warren announced her decision to seek the Democratic nomination last February, NBC News reported
Saturday.
"Hillary Clinton would absolutely have influence over a number of delegates to this convention," Deb Kozikowski, the vice-chairwoman
of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, told NBC, referring to the possibility that Clinton could help Warren secure delegates
if there is no clear nominee heading into the Democratic National Convention next summer .
One Democratic strategist told NBC that Clinton has been watching and approving of Warren's campaign as the senator has unveiled
a series of increasingly progressive policy proposals.
"... And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party ..."
"... Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . ..."
"... Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic candidate debate the New York Times ..."
"... quid pro quos ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
There was what might be described as an extraordinary amount of nonsense being promoted by
last week's media. Unfortunately, some of it was quite dangerous. Admiral William McRaven, who
commanded the Navy Seals when Osama bin Laden was captured and killed and who has been riding
that horse ever since, announced that if Donald Trump continues to fail to provide the type of
leadership the country needs, he should be replaced by whatever means are necessary. The
op-ed entitled "Our Republic is Under Attack by the President" with the subtitle "If
President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a
new person in the Oval Office" was featured in the New York Times, suggesting that the Gray
Lady was providing its newspaper of record seal of approval for what might well be regarded as
a call for a military coup.
McRaven's exact words, after some ringing praise for the military and all its glorious deeds
in past wars, were that the soldiers, sailors and marines now must respond because "The America
that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within."
McRaven then elaborated that "These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen
the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State
Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen,
preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have
heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort
Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, 'I don't like the
Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!'"
It is a call to arms if there ever was one. Too bad Trump can't strip McRaven of his pension
and generous health care benefits for starters and McRaven might also consider that he could be
recalled to active duty by Trump and court martialed under the Uniform Code of Military
Justice. And the good admiral, who up until 2018 headed the state university system in Texas,
might also receive well merited pushback for his assessment of America's role in the world over
the past two decades, in which he was a major player, at least in terms of dealing out
punishment. He wrote ""We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the
good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom
and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the
protectors of the less fortunate."
Utter bullshit, of course. The United States has been acting as the embodiment of a rogue
nation, lashing out pointlessly and delivering death and destruction. If McRaven truly believes
what he says he is not only violating his oath to defend the constitution while also toying
with treason, he is an idiot and should never have been allowed to run anything more demanding
than a hot dog stand. Washington has been systematically blowing people up worldwide for no
good reasons, killing possibly as many as 4 million mostly Muslims, while systematically
stripping Americans of their Bill of Rights at home. "Good guys" and "champions of justice"
indeed!
And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an
interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's
dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including
nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party . She said, clearly suggesting
that it would be Tulsi Gabbard, that "They're also going to do third-party again. I'm not
making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the
Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of
the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far."
Clinton explained how the third-party designation would work, saying of Jill Stein, who ran
for president in 2016 as a Green Party candidate, "And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it
up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset -- I
mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate. So I don't know who
it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in
the key states that they most needed."
Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . You, the queen of warmongers,
embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party
for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my
candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was
behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies
in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this
primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race
directly."
Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that
she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic
candidate debate the New York Timesran an
article suggesting that Gabbard was an isolationist, was being promoted by Russia and was
an apologist for Syria's Bashar al-Assad. In reality, Gabbard is the only candidate willing to
confront America's warfare-national security state.
The Hillary Clinton attack on Gabbard and on the completely respectable Jill Stein is to a
certain extent incomprehensible unless one lives in the gutter that she and Bill have wallowed
in ever since they rose to prominence in Arkansas. Hillary, the creator of the private home
server for classified information as well as author of the catastrophic war against Libya and
the Benghazi debacle has a lot to answer for but will never be held accountable, any more than
her husband Bill for his rapes and molestations. And when it comes to foreign interference,
Gabbard is being pilloried because the Russian media regards her favorably while the Clinton
Foundation has taken
tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments and billionaires seeking quid pro
quos , much of which has gone to line the pockets of Hillary, Bill and Chelsea.
Finally, one comment about the Democratic Party obsession with the Russians. The media was
enthusing last Friday over a photo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi standing up across a table from
President Trump and pointing at him before walking out of the room. The gushing regarding how a
powerful, strong woman was defying the horrible chief executive was both predictable and
ridiculous. By her own admission Pelosi's
last words before departing were "All roads lead to Putin." I will leave it up to the
reader to interpret what that was supposed to mean.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected]
While Mayor Pete was a little evasive on actually talking down the "Russian asset"
accusation, he did question it, saying that "statements like that ought to be backed by
evidence."
"I don't know what the basis is for that," he said.
"But I consider her to be a competitor. I respect her service. I also have very different
views than she does, especially on foreign policy, and I would prefer to have that argument
in terms of policy which is what we do at debates and what we're doing as we go forward."
Another 2020 presidential hopeful, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, also dismissed
the Gabbard claim , insisting the focus of the presidential campaign should be on the economy,
climate change and other issues affecting Americans.
"That's not correct. Tulsi is not being groomed by anyone. She is her own person," he told
reporters after delivering a keynote address Saturday at the Alabama Democratic Conference
Semi-Annual Convention in Birmingham.
"Obviously (she) has served this country, continues to serve this country in uniform, in
Congress, as a candidate for presidency so I think those facts speak for themselves."
" Tulsi Gabbard deserves much more respect and thanks than this. She literally just got
back from serving our country abroad."
And now, having been cheated of his chance against Hillary in 2016 - running to her side
like a loyal party comrade after the DNC practically ran him out of the party - a
post-heartattack Bernie Sanders - perhaps with little left to lose - has finally come out
swinging at Clinton.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth
Warren are reportedly developing a close political friendship that might prove pivotal to
deciding the Democratic presidential nomination.
Both have kept in touch since Warren announced her decision to seek the Democratic
nomination last February, NBC News reported Saturday.
"Hillary Clinton would absolutely have influence over a number of delegates to this
convention," Deb Kozikowski, the vice-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, told
NBC, referring to the possibility that Clinton could help Warren secure delegates if there is
no clear nominee heading into the Democratic National Convention next summer .
One Democratic strategist told NBC that Clinton has been watching and approving of
Warren's campaign as the senator has unveiled a series of increasingly progressive policy
proposals.
"... "I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate." ..."
"... The Times piece goes on to list an assortment of unsavory, extremist, white supremacist, horrible, neo-Nazi-type persons that Tulsi Gabbard has nothing to do with, but which Hillary Clinton, the Intelligence Community, The Times , and the rest of the corporate media would like you to mentally associate her with. ..."
So, it looks like that's it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have "hacked,"
or "influenced," or "meddled in" our democracy. Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up
a last-minute
military coup , it's four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration
camps, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public
schools, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death's heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards.
We probably should have seen this coming.
That's right, as I'm sure you are aware by now, president-in-exile Hillary Clinton has discovered Putin's diabolical plot to steal
the presidency from Elizabeth Warren, or Biden, or whichever establishment puppet makes it out of the Democratic primaries. Speaking
to former Obama adviser and erstwhile partner at AKPD Message and Media David
Plouffe, Clinton revealed
how the godless Rooskies intend to subvert democracy this time:
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary
and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate."
She was referring, of course, to Tulsi Gabbard, sitting Democratic Member of Congress, decorated Major in the Army National Guard,
and long shot 2020 presidential candidate. Apparently, Gabbard (who reliable anonymous sources in the Intelligence Community have
confirmed is a member of some kind of treasonous, Samoan-Hindu, Assad-worshipping cult that wants to force everyone to practice yoga)
has been undergoing Russian "grooming" at a compound in an undisclosed location that is probably in the basement of Mar-a-Lago, or
on Sublevel 168 of Trump Tower.
In any event, wherever Gabbard is being surreptitiously "groomed" (presumably by someone resembling
Lotte Lenya in From Russia With Love ),
the plan (i.e., Putin's plan) is to have her lose in the Democratic primaries, then run as a third-party "spoiler" candidate, stealing
votes from Warren or Biden, exactly as Jill Stein (who, according to Clinton, is also "totally a Russian asset") stole them from
Clinton back in 2016, allowing Putin to install Donald Trump (who, according to Clinton, is still being blackmailed by the FSB with
that "kompromat" pee-tape) in the White House, where she so clearly belongs.
Clinton's comments came on the heels of a preparatory smear-piece in The New York Times ,
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To?
, which reported at length on how Gabbard has been "injecting chaos" into the Democratic primaries . Professional "disinformation
experts" supplied The Times with convincing evidence (i.e., unfounded hearsay and innuendo) of "suspicious activity" surrounding
Gabbard's campaign. Former Clinton-aide Laura Rosenberger (who also just happens to be the Director of the
Alliance for Securing Democracy , "a bipartisan transatlantic
national security advocacy group" comprised of former Intelligence Community and U.S. State Department officials, and publisher of
the
Hamilton 68 dashboard) "sees Gabbard as a potentially useful vector for Russian efforts to sow division."
The Times piece goes on to list an assortment of unsavory, extremist, white supremacist, horrible, neo-Nazi-type persons that
Tulsi Gabbard has nothing to do with, but which Hillary Clinton, the Intelligence Community, The Times , and the rest of the corporate
media would like you to mentally associate her with.
Richard Spencer, David Duke, Steve Bannon, Mike Cernovich, Tucker Carlson, and so on. Neo-Nazi sites like the Daily Stormer .
4chan, where, according to The New York Times , neo-Nazis like to "call her Mommy."
In keeping with professional journalistic ethics, The Times also reached out to experts on fascism, fascist terrorism, terrorist
fascism, fascist-adjacent Assad-apologism, Hitlerism, horrorism, Russia, and so on, to confirm Gabbard's guilt-by-association with
the people The Times had just associated her with. Brian Levin, Director of the CSU Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, confirmed
that Gabbard has "the seal of approval" within goose-stepping, Hitler-loving, neo-Nazi circles. The Alliance for Securing Democracy
(yes, the one from the previous paragraph) conducted an "independent analysis" which confirmed that RT ("the Kremlin-backed news
agency") had mentioned Gabbard far more often than the Western corporate media (which isn't backed by anyone, and is totally unbiased
and independent, despite the fact that most of it is owned by a handful of powerful global corporations, and at least one CIA-affiliated
oligarch). Oh, and Hawaii State Senator Kai Kahele, who is challenging Gabbard for her seat in Congress, agreed with The Times that
Gabbard's support from Jew-hating, racist Putin-Nazis might be a potential liability.
"Clearly there's something about her and her policies that attracts and appeals to these type of people who are white nationalists,
anti-Semites, and Holocaust deniers."
But it's not just The New York Times , of course. No sooner had Clinton finished cackling than the corporate media launched into
their familiar Goebbelsian piano routine, banging out story after television segment repeating the words "Gabbard" and "Russian asset."
I've singled out The Times because the smear piece in question was clearly a warm-up for Hillary Clinton's calculated smear job on
Friday night. No, the old gal hasn't lost her mind. She knew exactly what she was doing, as did the editors of The New York Times
, as did every other establishment news source that breathlessly "reported" her neo-McCarthyite smears.
As I noted in my previous essay
, 2020 is for all the marbles, and it's not just about who wins the election. No, it's mostly about crushing the "populist" backlash
against the hegemony of global capitalism and its happy, smiley-faced, conformist ideology. To do that, the neoliberal establishment
has to delegitimize, and lethally stigmatize, not just Trump, but also people like Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and any
other popular political figure (left, right, it makes no difference) deviating from that ideology.
In Trump's case, it's his neo-nationalism.
In Sanders and Corbyn's, it's socialism (or at least some semblance of social democracy).
In Gabbard's, it's her opposition to the Corporatocracy's ongoing efforts to restructure and privatize the Middle East (and
the rest of the entire planet), and their using the U.S. military to do it.
Ask yourself, what do Trump, Sanders, Corbyn, and Gabbard have in common? No, it's not their Putin-Nazism it's the challenge they
represent to global capitalism. Each, in his or her own way, is a symbol of the growing populist resistance to the privatization
and globalization of everything. And thus, they must be delegitimized, stigmatized, and relentlessly smeared as "Russian assets,"
"anti-Semites," "traitors," "white supremacists," "fascists," "communists," or some other type of "extremists."
Gabbard, to her credit, understands this, and is
focusing attention on the motives and tactics
of the neoliberal establishment and their smear machine. As I noted in
an
essay last year , "the only way to effectively counter a smear campaign (whether large-scale or small-scale) is to resist the
temptation to profess your innocence, and, instead, focus as much attention on the tactics and the motives of the smearers as possible
." This will not save her, but it is the best she can do, and I applaud her for having the guts to do it. I hope she continues to
give them hell as they finish off her candidacy and drive her out of office.
Oh, and if you're contemplating sending me an email explaining how these smear campaigns don't work (or you spent the weekend
laughing about how Hillary Clinton lost her mind and made an utter jackass of herself), maybe check in with Julian Assange, who is
about to be extradited to America, tried for exposing U.S. war crimes, and then imprisoned for the remainder of his natural life.
And, if Katharine is on holiday in Antigua or somewhere, or having tea with Hillary in the rooftop bar of the
Hay-Adams
Hotel , you could try Luke Harding (who not only writes and publishes propaganda for The Guardian , but who wrote a whole
New York Times
best-seller based on nothing but lies and smears). Or try Marty Baron, Dean Baquet, Paul Krugman, or even Rachel Maddow, or any
of the other editors and journalists who have been covering the Putin-Nazi "
Attack on America ," and keeping us apprised of who is and isn't a Hitler-loving "Russian asset."
Ask them whether their smear machine is working... if you can get them off the phone with their brokers, or whoever is decorating
their summer places in the Hamptons or out on
Martha's Vineyard
.
Or ask the millions of well-off liberals who are still, even after
Russiagate was exposed as an enormous hoax
based on absolutely nothing , parroting this paranoid official narrative and calling people "Russian assets" on Twitter. Or never
mind, just pay attention to what happens over the next twelve months. In terms of
ridiculous official
propaganda , spittle-flecked McCarthyite smears, and full-blown psychotic mass Putin-Nazi hysteria, it's going to make the last
three years look like the Propaganda Special Olympics.
* * *
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published
by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel,
ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy,
Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or
consentfactory.org .
This post generated over 2K comment on zero hedge...
Looks like Tulsi masterfully capitalized on Hillary mistake. after Russiagate the change of being Russian agent does not have the
same byte as before and now can even be played to one's advantage as a sign of anti neoliberal establishment orientation. Which is what
Tulsi did.
Tulsi would be a powerful Secretary of State I think, if she did not win the nomination...
Notable quotes:
"... "If you stand up to the rich and powerful elite and the war machine, they will destroy you and discredit your message... ," says Gabbard, who said she's suffered smears " from day one of this campaign. " ..."
"... Great! Thank you Hillary Clinton," Gabbard tweeted late on Friday afternoon. " You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain ." ..."
"... "From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose." Gabbard added. ..."
"... And now, Gabbard has capitalized on Hillary's hubris and unchallenged conspiracy theory to fundraise and increase her visibility. ..."
"... For comparison, a real protest looks like Gilet Jaunes. Some people started protesting because they are being disenfranchised by their own government. They were already in real pain long before Macron went backward on all his campaign promises. ..."
"Toe The Line Or Be Destroyed": Tulsi Gabbard Dismantles Establishment 'Hit-Job' In Viral Video by
Tyler Durden Sun, 10/20/2019 - 16:57 0 SHARES
Tulsi Gabbard unleashed her latest counterattack to the establishment hit-job against her, after Hillary Clinton suggested she's
an Russian asset.
"If you stand up to the rich and powerful elite and the war machine, they will destroy you and discredit your message...
," says Gabbard, who said she's suffered smears " from day one of this campaign. "
In a Sunday tweet accompanied by a video which has nearly 450,000 views on Twitter (and 18,000 on YouTube) as of this writing,
Gabbard writes "Hillary & her gang of rich, powerful elite are going after me to send a msg to YOU: "Shut up, toe the line, or be
destroyed." But we, the people, will NOT be silenced."
Hillary & her gang of rich, powerful elite are going after me to send a msg to YOU: "Shut up, toe the line, or be destroyed."
But we, the people, will NOT be silenced. Join me in taking our Democratic Party back & leading a govt of, by & for the people!
http:// tulsi.to/take-it-back
Last week, Clinton told Democratic operative and podcast host David Plouffe that "Russians" were "grooming" a female Democratic candidate
- clearly referring to Gabbard.
"I'm not making any predictions but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are
grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton said, in apparent reference to Gabbard, a Hawaii Army National Guard major
who served in Iraq. " She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so
far. "
Great! Thank you Hillary Clinton," Gabbard tweeted late on Friday afternoon. " You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of
corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind
the curtain ."
"From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was
behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine,
afraid of the threat I pose." Gabbard added.
And now, Gabbard has capitalized on Hillary's hubris and unchallenged conspiracy theory to fundraise and increase her visibility.
People are seeing entirely too much into this. Seriously this is nothing but some crazy old crone, extremely jealous of someone
else and wanting revenge, honestly all I see is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrUEjpHbUMM
. No political scam, not grand strategy, just a really jealous vengeful old crone, HRC can see Tulsi Gabbard winning and in infuriates
her, fills her with jealousy fueled rage, Tulsi in every way better than Hillary, smarter, more popular, prettier (never forget
this can really freak out women) and younger (ohh the rage) and HRC blames Tulsi and Jill for HRC's arrogant public failure.
History will think extremely poorly of Hillary Rodham Clinton, extremely poorly.
Consider what is occurring here. Citizen Hillary has started a media circus with 1 of the 12 - or is it 16? - "candidates"
the spy infested DNC is fielding. The C_A MSM mouthpieces are shilling this white noise, blocking out any more important, more
difficult reporting if not analysis of world events they don't want in the news.
World Events like the Clinton, Obama, Biden, Kerry, Pelosi, Feinstein and Schiff scandals in Ukraine and China, how
well things are going in Syria and who the real villains there have been, how well negotiations are going with China, how the
Syrian refugee crisis is being settled in the best way for all concerned and how the C_A plan to start WW3 has been exposed.
The C_A can repeat this op another 11 Times. This is good because they are lazy and stupid, but even so you can expect them
to **** it up in some way every time. Evil has recruiting problems. Remember Hillary laughing about obliterating civilization
in Libya. Remember the corpse of Gadafi being dragged through the street by her mercs. Remember who stole Libya's gold, and Ukraine's
gold.
Consider all these "best" pictures of Gabbard. The method is obvious: Don't listen to the pettiness and low news value of this
PR stunt, just look at the cutie. This fits the media op signature of the Tavistock faggots on loan to Soros. Here are a few more:
BLM: Look at us. We all black! Don't listen to our demands, we still working on them, but whoever you are we coming for your
stuff.
Antifa: Look at us. We all revolutionaries! We like to rumble! Don't listen to our message. We don't have one. We're really
a lot of fun. Come to us, children, or we'll mess you up.
Naked woman protests: We are women! Every day we pretend to be smart but we're really emotionally unbalanced fools! REEEEEE...
Our message is, we need to be taken care of like babies. When you take off your clothes to protest, you've already lost.
For comparison, a real protest looks like Gilet Jaunes. Some people started protesting because they are being disenfranchised
by their own government. They were already in real pain long before Macron went backward on all his campaign promises. The
government of France has been bought and paid for from top to bottom by a few rich Jews and they are destroying civilization just
like Hillary did Libya, only they are in the subversion stage. The bombing is still to come. If you doubt me, dig for stories
about who Macron is meeting with, who he takes orders from. This is a peek into the real criminals behind the current form of
the EU. Thousands of people in the street. A few big protests got the imagination of the world, giving Macron ulcers. Good. They
got solidarity. Then Macron started sending in the thugs and gestapo. Then he sent in EU troops suited up for urban warfare. Both
the optics and the message of this are devastating to the cabal, worldwide.
IMO the best thing to do is to follow this circus and all that follow loosely. If you can't turn it around on them, for instance
pointing out that Gabbard is CFR and her positions are folly, do not give it the clicks (((they))) expect. At least screw up their
stats, make their psychological warfare "experts" lose their jobs or at least work day and night to keep up, until they melt down
in pools of their own saliva.
What this stunt is, is "opening a second media front". They created this meaningless drivel to hide the news that is favorable
to Trump and good for everybody in the world, and bad for the cabal. This is all they got. This is the best they can do. They
have nothing to offer but lies, threats and tyranny. As Hillary said, her policy is to keep them dumb, keep them poor and keep
them hungry. They are all gangsters.
Consider how cheap it is to do an op like this. That is the signature of the DS. They like cheap ops because they can do so
many.
The best we can do is open second fronts right back at them. Expose errors, omissions and lies in their fake news, as well
as what their lies are meant to conceal. It is fun to watch when the first slavos of their campaigns immediately fall apart and
get thrown back at them. Sometime real news gets out.
Tomorrow is the Canadian election. It will be a good message to them if Trudeau gets destroyed.
Brexit deadline is coming up. Pelosi swore that if they Brexit she will do all the crimes she can to obstruct US-UK trade.
Pretty sure she used up whatever stolen credibility she had with that admission of lawless tyranny.
Point is, Brexit will have a significant meaning to Americans and gangsters like her will be in the spotlight. We want good
will and trade with the UK. If this is obstructed, Pelosi has already said she's responsible and obstructing trade will have criminal
consequences on the US side. Learn all you can, keep track and if you get the chance, share any damning facts you find.
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and
personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally
come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a
...
Tulsi Gabbard 1:20 PM - 18 Oct 2019
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why.
Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and ...
Tulsi Gabbard 1:20 PM - 18 Oct 2019
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your
proxies. Join the race directly.
"... I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against 'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans. ..."
"... This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a good description ..."
"... The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely two branches of the Business Party. ..."
"... Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points across at the same time. ..."
"... Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment. ..."
"... Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local. ..."
Hillary Clinton appeared to suggest that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is the "favorite of the Russians" to win the 2020 presidential
election and is being groomed by Moscow to run as a third-party candidate against the eventual Democratic nominee.
...
The Russians already have their "eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party
candidate," she said, in an apparent reference to Gabbard.
"She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her, so far," Clinton
told David Plouffe, the podcast's host and the campaign manager for former President Obama's 2008 campaign.
"And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset," Clinton added, referring
to the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate.
The responses were appropriate:
Tulsi Gabbard @TulsiGabbard - 22:20 UTC
· Oct 18, 2019
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that
has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy,
there has been a ...
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through
your proxies and ...
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.
The Streisand effect of Clinton's shoddy remark will help Tulsi Gabbard with regards to name recognition. It will increase her
poll results. With Joe Biden faltering and Elizabeth Warren increasingly exposed as a phony Clinton copy, Bernie Sanders could become
the Democrats leading candidate. Then the “favorite of the Russians” smear will be applied to him.
Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party for damaging it's chances to regain the White House. But the Democratic
establishment would rather sabotage the election than to let one of the more progressive candidates take the lead.
Voters do not like such internal squabble and shenanigans. The phony Ukrainegate 'impeachment inquiry' is already
a gift for Trump. Messing with the candidate field on top
of that will inevitably end with another Trump presidency.
and Suspend her from what? a lamp post? That's a little bit harsh.
Hillary is actually doing something constructive for the first time in her career - by giving a boost to Tulsi Gabbard who
is the only candidate who challenges the military industrial complex, which has probably caused more death and destruction than
anyone else in history.
I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against
'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans.
But none of the other Democratic candidates stand a chance of beating Trump either. The two front-runners are medically unfit
for any important challenging job - Biden (senility) and Sanders (recent heart attack/stroke?).
Tulsi is urging Hillary to "enter the race" !! Hillary is foaming at the mouth with desire to enter the 2020 race. Is Tulsi
working for Hillary?
Behind the scenes it was decided to make HunterBidenGate the pretext for a Trump impeachment. This, it
was thought, would damage Trump AND Biden and make way for the resurrection of Hillary Clinton. There were so many other pretexts
available but they chose this one.
"Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party"
This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual
structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a
good description. Even a quick review of the Wikipedia entry reveals little.
As best I can tell, a person is a party member by checking the box on the voter registration form. The few times I have registered,
I did not check a box for any party. It is none of the state's business who I associate with or vote for.
It is also not the state's business to supervise and fund the selection of party candidates. But that is what happens in the
US. The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely
two branches of the Business Party.
"It didn't come much clearer nor more explicit than when Gabbard fired up the Democratic TV debate this week. It was billed
as the biggest televised presidential debate ever, and the Hawaii Representative told some prime-time home-truths to the nation:
"Donald Trump has blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have
supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that started in 2011 along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing
and cheer-leading this regime-change war."
The 38-year-old military veteran went on to denounce how the US has sponsored Al Qaeda terrorists for its objective of overthrowing
the government in Damascus."
Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points
across at the same time. The way she tries to finesse her stances on Iran, India and Israel is disturbing though.
Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary
of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement.
When she's forthright, punches hard and says the things that many people are thinking but few dare say - as she did in her
statement on Syria, but didn't in her statement on Iran - she comes off as the first real candidate for President that I've seen
in my lifetime (I don't count the likes of Dennis Kucinich, who never seemed to actually want to win).
If Tulsi is serious about doing the world good, this is the path she needs to take. Speak the truths no one else is willing
to say; punch hard; stick with it. Yeah and be willing to die for it. If they can't stop you, which I don't think they can, they'll
come gunning for you...
Finally, at last, foreign affairs (i.e wars) has made it into a presidential campaign, and by a veteran, with veterans currently
being sanctified in the U.S. The women (Tulsi, Jill and Hillary) are getting down and dirty, too, which is always a good thing
and a feature of politics in time past, as in the Truman era. President Harry Truman: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of
the kitchen. If you cannot handle the pressure, you should not remain in a position where you have to deal with it."
Let's hope that they get into the details of Hillary's failures, including Libya, Somalia, and especially Syria. Let's get
it on! In the last election she never was forced to answer for her specific failures. Now's the time.
Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way
from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate
media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment.
What Trump has successfully done from the right that Sanders/Gabbard (like Corbyn in the UK) are struggling to do from the
left is to attack the establishment that's in a permanent state of warfare abroad and at home against its "enemies" and unfettered
capitalism at home For a brief moment it was hoped by progressives that Obama - who defeated the faces of the establishment, Clinton
and McCain in 2008 - would really fight the establishment but he ended up becoming more of a celebrity politician like Trudeau
who talked a good game but was unable to effect real change on the ground which of course led to a large number or African Americans
not voting in 2016 and a lot of white blue collar Obama 2008 voters going for Trump.
The corporate media which has been totally corrupted and infiltrated by intelligence agencies - quote openly versus covertly
as in the past - is going to make every effort to shut down not just Gabbard but Sanders and ensure that Warren - a wannabe feel-gooder
like Obama - be completely neutered to effect real change.
Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed
through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local.
"... Clinton's claims, made without the slightest effort at factual substantiation, are an attempt to criminalize the anti-war statements of the two candidates as treasonous. ..."
"... Clinton's attacks on Gabbard and Stein make clear once again that the Democrats' assertions of "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election were primarily aimed not at Trump, but at the anti-war and anti-capitalist sentiments that led millions of people to refuse to vote for her in 2016. They underscore how the Democrats have appropriated the McCarthyite tactics historically associated primarily with the Republican right. ..."
"... As a central part of their anti-Russia campaign, Clinton and the Democrats promoted the media effort to poison public opinion against journalist Julian Assange by slandering him as a "Russian agent," preparing the way for the Trump administration to indict him on bogus sedition charges and secure his imprisonment in London under conditions that threaten his life. ..."
"... "That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a Russian asset," Clinton said. "Yes, she's a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate." ..."
"... Gabbard replied to Clinton's slander on Twitter by declaring, "Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain." Gabbard's performance in this week's Democratic presidential debate no doubt put her in Clinton's crosshairs. Gabbard vowed, "As president, I will end these regime-change wars," and "would make sure that we stop supporting terrorists like Al Qaeda in Syria, who have been the ground force in this ongoing regime-change war." ..."
"... Gabbard's true statement that the United States -- with Clinton as secretary of state under Obama -- had allied with forces linked to Al Qaeda in the drive to overthrow the Syrian government was passed over in total silence by the rest of the candidates and the CNN and New York Times moderators. It was then blacked out in the post-debate media coverage of the event. ..."
"... In an earlier debate, Gabbard said the greatest geopolitical danger facing the United States was the threat of nuclear war -- another taboo in the broadcast media, which routinely demands that the United States "stand up" to Russia without mentioning what a military confrontation with the nuclear-armed country would look like. ..."
Hillary Clinton, the widely despised former Democratic Party presidential candidate, has
slandered two of her political opponents -- Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and 2016 Green Party
presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein -- as traitors and Russian spies.
The World Socialist Web Site has fundamental political differences with both Ms.
Gabbard and Dr. Stein. But Clinton's claims, made without the slightest effort at factual
substantiation, are an attempt to criminalize the anti-war statements of the two candidates as
treasonous.
Clinton's attacks on Gabbard and Stein make clear once again that the Democrats' assertions
of "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election were primarily aimed not at Trump, but at the
anti-war and anti-capitalist sentiments that led millions of people to refuse to vote for her
in 2016. They underscore how the Democrats have appropriated the McCarthyite tactics
historically associated primarily with the Republican right.
As a central part of their anti-Russia campaign, Clinton and the Democrats promoted the
media effort to poison public opinion against journalist Julian Assange by slandering him as a
"Russian agent," preparing the way for the Trump administration to indict him on bogus sedition
charges and secure his imprisonment in London under conditions that threaten his life.
At the same time, in the name of countering the supposed menace of Russian "fake news," the
Democrats pressured Google to slash search traffic to left-wing political websites and insisted
that Facebook and Twitter delete left-wing accounts with millions of followers.
In a podcast interview published Thursday, Clinton told former Obama adviser David Plouffe,
"I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are
grooming her to be the third-party candidate." Implicitly but clearly referring to Gabbard,
Clinton continued, "She's the favorite of the Russians."
"They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her," Clinton added.
Asked later if the former secretary of state was referring to Gabbard in her comment,
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told CNN, "If the nesting doll fits "
Clinton then went on to make her strongest assertion yet that Jill Stein was a "Russian
asset."
"That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a
Russian asset," Clinton said. "Yes, she's a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they
can't win without a third-party candidate."
Gabbard replied to Clinton's slander on Twitter by declaring, "Thank you @HillaryClinton.
You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has
sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain."
Gabbard's performance in this week's Democratic presidential debate no doubt put her in
Clinton's crosshairs. Gabbard vowed, "As president, I will end these regime-change wars," and
"would make sure that we stop supporting terrorists like Al Qaeda in Syria, who have been the
ground force in this ongoing regime-change war."
Gabbard's true statement that the United States -- with Clinton as secretary of state under
Obama -- had allied with forces linked to Al Qaeda in the drive to overthrow the Syrian
government was passed over in total silence by the rest of the candidates and the CNN and
New York Times moderators. It was then blacked out in the post-debate media coverage of
the event.
In an earlier debate, Gabbard said the greatest geopolitical danger facing the United States
was the threat of nuclear war -- another taboo in the broadcast media, which routinely demands
that the United States "stand up" to Russia without mentioning what a military confrontation
with the nuclear-armed country would look like.
Toward the end of Thursday's interview, Clinton implicitly called for censorship. She
condemned the growth of internet news outlets, which have broadened the number and range of
sources of information available to the population.
"I think it's a lot harder for Americans to know what they're supposed to believe," she
said. In the 1970s, with only three major national newspapers, "It was a much more controllable
environment."
Jill Stein advocates the reform of capitalism and is an opponent of Marxism. She has stated
that she is opposed to "state socialism." Tulsi Gabbard, a veteran of the Iraq war and major in
the Hawaii National Guard, describes herself as a "hawk" in many aspects of US foreign
policy.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the statements they have made in opposition to the wars in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria correspond to the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of
the American people, who see these wars of aggression launched on the basis of lies, which have
killed and maimed millions, as a criminal squandering of lives and resources.
Clinton, speaking for a rabidly pro-war faction of the American financial oligarchy and the
military-intelligence establishment, sees these sentiments as treasonous and argues for their
criminalization.
Her statements make clear once again that the working class has no stake in the struggle
between the Trump faction and his opponents in the Democratic Party and intelligence apparatus.
Trump, relying on fascistic appeals to his right-wing base, is seeking to turn the United
States into a personalist dictatorship. But Clinton's faction does not oppose his concentration
camps for immigrants or his pro-corporate agenda. Rather, it opposes Trump on the grounds that
he is "soft" on Russia and insufficiently aggressive in waging America's wars.
Isn't it funny that the Clinton trolls were weaponizing her gender in the last election,
screaming "sexist!" at anyone who criticized her for her actual policies and corrupt
practices, slandering Sanders supporters as "Bernie Bros", and to the point of Albright
claiming there was a special place in hell for women who didn't support her, while the Queen
of Warmongering, who was besties with Trump, married to Bill, took cash from Weinstein, and
flew with Epstein (all serial rapists) gets to baselessly smear women as treasonous spies
without a peep from the liberal feminists, metoo-ers, and media mouthpieces? And, for a
cherry on top, she's on tour for a book called "Gutsy Women"!
Gabbard, after deftly doing a front-stabbing number on Bad Cop Harris, torpedoing Saint
Obomber's "legacy" with his bungled attempt to surf AQ to regime-change in Syria and rightly
ripping the agitprop rags NYT and CNN some fresh axeholes, has indeed now flushed out the
deranged Alien Queen, wildly spitting globs of steaming molecular acid at the one who dared
wound her drones.
She raises some ugly home truths rarely heard from bourgeois politicians at this level
and, having busted the media blackout to get back in the debates, for her troubles is now
receiving what amount to transparent public death threats from a top Mafiosa desperate to
evade any proper scrutiny of her own and the Party's many warcrimes.
Regardless of the rest of her politics, one has to recognise Gabbard's personal bravery in
tackling dangerous predators like this and hope she has an extremely dedicated 24/7 armed
personal protection detail, to ward off the elevated risk of Arkancide.
""I think it's a lot harder for Americans to know what they're supposed to believe," she
said. In the 1970s, with only three major national newspapers, "It was a much more
controllable environment.""
This is a true voice of bourgeois democracy, of course.
" 'That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a
Russian asset,' Clinton said. 'Yes, she's a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they
can't win without a third-party candidate.' "
"We came, we saw, he died." -- Clinton on Khaddafy
But can you guess who uttered the following quote(hint: it is not the "white nationalist"
Donald Trump, who unlike some public figures is politically apt enough not to say "white
people" aloud):
"Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening
again, and whites in both states who had not completed college are supporting me." *
The capitalist Democratic Party is a loudmouthed, racist buffoon.
* working hard when not hardly working--but maybe it's not just whites
The vile, vindictive nature of Mrs Clinton has reached new lows as her seeming unaccepting
the loss of the '16 election to shift the blame to anyone but her. She is why we have Trump.
She really needs to fade away and quit meddling in our elections.
"Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and
personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally
come out from behind the curtain." - An Interview with Tulsi Gabbard regarding the role of
HIllary Clinton, the military-industrial complex, and her anti-war stance here. To my
surprise, she makes the clear connection that Clintons claim that she is a 'russian asset' is
aimed also at demonizing all Americans who oppose the war-regime.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
"... Clearly, Gabbard may have real problems with Donald Trump as president but she's learned very quickly from him that the best way to deal with Hillary and her media quislings is to attack them without mercy. ..."
"... Gabbard throws down the gauntlet here outing Hillary as the mastermind behind the DNC strategy of allowing the current crop of future losers to fall all over themselves to alienate as many centrist voters as possible. ..."
"... She emerged from that debate as the only candidate with any moral compass capable of pointing in a single direction. Warren made a fool of herself responding with bromides about leaving in the 'rightt way' indistinguishable from any other presidential puppet of the last twenty years. ..."
"... The people Gabbard is up against are even more ruthless since Hillary intends to win, whereas the Republicans in 2008 were fighting for the right to lose to her at the time. ..."
"... Gabbard's rise in popularity among Trump voters and centrists is born of the same exhaustion the American people have with endless wars for globalism. She is Trump's Kryptonite. ..."
"... The party she represents is irrelevant. By wrapping herself in the mantle of the front-runner for the nomination is not delusional, it's the most strategic thing she's done to date. ..."
"... Join my Patreon to assist me in helping you expose the frauds and liars whose perversions of truth threaten the fabric of civil society. Install the Brave Browser to make it harder for them to track you and marginalize similar voices. ..."
Clearly, Gabbard may have real problems with Donald Trump as president but she's learned very quickly from him that the
best way to deal with Hillary and her media quislings is to attack them without mercy.
Gabbard throws down the gauntlet here outing Hillary as the mastermind behind the DNC strategy of allowing the
current crop of future losers to fall all over themselves to alienate as many centrist voters as possible.
This paves the way for Hillary to swoop in on her broom, pointed hat in hand, and declare herself the savior of the
Democratic Party's chances to defeat Donald Trump next November.
Remember that leading up to the debate Gabbard was going to boycott the event because it was such a corrupted event
and stage-managed to showcase the chosen 'front-runners' -- Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.
It makes sense to me that she decided at the last minute to join the debate after the Times piece just to ensure she
got the national platform to openly call out the corruption in the same breath as attacking Trump for his, to this
point, disastrous foreign policy mistakes.
She emerged from that debate as the only candidate with any moral compass capable of pointing in a single direction.
Warren made a fool of herself responding with bromides about leaving in the 'rightt way' indistinguishable from any
other presidential puppet of the last twenty years.
This is two debates in a row where Gabbard came out blazing at the front-runner, claiming a moral and ethical high
ground on foreign policy that, at just over half the age of her rivals, that shows a maturity well beyond her years.
Her calling Hillary the "Queen of Warmongers" is so self-evidently true that it will reverberate far beyond Twitter
into votes.
And it tells Hillary that Gabbard has zero fear of her and her political machine.
You can't cow a person without fear who has nothing to lose.
Bullies like Hillary never learn that lesson until they are humiliated beyond recognition.
Moreover, when you look at this sequence of events it's clear that the DNC, Hillary and everyone else close to the
corridors of power fear Gabbard's rise. If they weren't they wouldn't be putting out smears in the New York Times.
They wouldn't be spending millions on social media trolls to discredit her in the public fora.
The first rule of politics is "You never attack down."
Well, Hillary attacked down. The Times attacked down. The DNC, by gaming the debate rules, attacked down. And that
spells disaster for anyone who does it.
This was the exchange that ended Rudy's political career. 150 seconds of truth-telling that ignited a movement which
culminated in the election of Donald Trump.
Gabbard is following that same course. The difference between her and Dr. Paul is that she's less polite. But as to
their moral clarity there is little difference. And she shouldn't be polite. The stakes are higher today than they were
in 2008.
The people Gabbard is up against are even more ruthless since Hillary intends to win, whereas the Republicans in 2008
were fighting for the right to lose to her at the time.
Gabbard's rise in popularity among Trump voters and centrists is born of the same exhaustion the American people have
with endless wars for globalism. She is Trump's Kryptonite.
The party she represents is irrelevant. By wrapping herself in the mantle of the front-runner for the nomination is
not delusional, it's the most strategic thing she's done to date.
It's also becoming more and more realistic as the days go on.
Because by responding to Hillary's ham-fisted
attempts to position herself as the voice of reason, Gabbard clarifies for everyone just how sick and
bile-filled Hillary is by outing her as the delusional one.
And reminding everyone that Hillary is the architect of the very policies in the Middle East that Trump is
now taking heat for trying to unwind.
Gabbard knows what the plan is. She was there in 2016 when Hillary stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders
and quit her position in the DNC because of it.
Even Trump knows that foreign policy and foreign entanglements will be the big ticket issue for this
election cycle.
Why?
Because Gabbard has single-handedly made it so.
Trump is already running against her by pulling back from Syria, looking for peace options in Afghanistan,
firing John Bolton while using proxies and, yes, Vladimir Putin to assist him in fixing his myriad mistakes of
the first thirty months of his presidency.
Hillary trying to position herself as the one who can save the Middle East from Trump's bumbling is
laughable and Gabbard just laughed in Hillary's face.
Calling everyone who voices any dissent from foreign or domestic policy orthodoxy a Russian agent is a
losing proposition. It belies reality and what people see with their own eyes.
Americans want better relations with Russia now World War III. Trump's popularity has risen since he backed
off on starting a war with Iran.
The media spent four years marginalizing Dr. Paul. The RNC stole the nomination from him just as surely as
the DNC stole the nomination from Bernie. As the people in the U.K. are finding out, their votes don't matter.
Democracy doesn't matter, only the fever dreams of the soulless and the power mad who think they run the
world. Look at what Hillary has become, not what you remember her to be.
She's a tired, sick, fragile woman whose bitterness and evil is literally eating her up from the inside out.
Have you noticed that she hasn't been photographed standing up for months?
She's the epitome of everything wrong with America and, in fact, the world and Tulsi Gabbard just stood up
and laughed at her for still thinking she was the Emperor when in reality she's The Joker.
Join my Patreon
to assist me in helping you expose the frauds and liars whose
perversions of truth threaten the fabric of civil society.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
This New York Times article about @TulsiGabbard is perfect. It belongs in a museum to show
how the NYT & DNC smear anyone who expresses any dissenting views: accuse them of serving
RUSSIA & white nationalists, quote Neera Tanden & Laura McCarthy Rosenberg, etc.
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? - The New York Times
6:56 AM - 12 Oct 2019
[ Radical, unethical Democratic National Committee folks are determined to defame and
destroy an heroic Democratic member of congress, a combat veteran and still serving member of
the armed forces, reelected with a 70% majority in 2018. ]
Astonishing the Democratic leadership calumny of a Democratic member of Congress, a woman, of
Indian and Samoan heritage, a combat veteran and serving member of the armed forces. Such is
self-styled supposed Democratic leadership, steeped in the terrible terrifying tradition of
Joseph McCarthy.
(The price of admission, so as to be
able to read the posts of others, is
for now, posting something, anything.)
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? https://nyti.ms/33s1Aj8
NYT - Lisa Lerer - October 12
WASHINGTON -- Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, is impressed
with her political talent. Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist leader, says he could
vote for her. Former Representative Ron Paul praises her "libertarian instincts," while
Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, finds her "refreshing."
And far-right conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich see a certain MAGA sais quoi.
"She's got a good energy, a good vibe. You feel like this is just a serious person," Mr.
Cernovich said. "She seems very Trumpian." ...
(The price of admission, so as to be
able to read the posts of others, is
for now, posting something, anything.)
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? https://nyti.ms/33s1Aj8
NYT - Lisa Lerer - October 12
WASHINGTON -- Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, is impressed
with her political talent. Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist leader, says he could
vote for her. Former Representative Ron Paul praises her "libertarian instincts," while
Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, finds her "refreshing."
And far-right conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich see a certain MAGA sais quoi.
"She's got a good energy, a good vibe. You feel like this is just a serious person," Mr.
Cernovich said. "She seems very Trumpian." ...
Among her fellow Democrats, Representative Tulsi Gabbard has struggled to make headway as a
presidential candidate, barely cracking the 2 percent mark in the polls needed to qualify for
Tuesday night's debate. She is now injecting a bit of chaos into her own party's primary
race, threatening to boycott that debate to protest what she sees as a "rigging" of the 2020
election. That's left some Democrats wondering what, exactly, she is up to in the race, while
others worry about supportive signs from online bot activity and the Russian news media. ...
On podcasts and online videos, in interviews and Twitter feeds, alt-right internet stars,
white nationalists, libertarian activists and some of the biggest boosters of Mr. Trump heap
praise on Ms. Gabbard. They like the Hawaiian congresswoman's isolationist foreign policy
views. They like her support for drug decriminalization. They like what she sees as
censorship by big technology platforms. ...
Ms. Gabbard has disavowed some of her most hateful supporters, castigating the news media
for giving "any oxygen at all" to the endorsement she won from the white nationalist leader
David Duke. But her frequent appearances on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show have buoyed her
support in right-wing circles.
Both Ms. Gabbard and her campaign refused requests for comment about her support in
right-wing circles or threat to boycott the debate. Even some political strategists who have
worked with her are at a loss to explain her approach to politics.
"She's a very talented person but I'm not sure, I just don't know what to say about the
campaign exactly," said Mark Longabaugh, a Democratic strategist who worked with Ms. Gabbard
when she was campaigning for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2016. ...
Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, is impressed with her political
talent....
-- Lisa Lerer
[ This is a vile article, contemptible for the New York Times to have printed. An heroic
member of congress, a woman, a person of color, a combat veteran, a serving member of the
armed forces, a person who serves others to seek peace, is being contemptibly slandered.
Shame, shame, shame for writing and printing such an article. ]
You and a number of the posters here are horribly naive about the Nixon Rat(bad word
omitted)s. Tulsi has been working with them. This should be automatically disqualifying.
Gabbard is a veteran, very much younger than I, she also is the most opposed to the neocon
permanent war (strong in securing the US' post WW II world order)agenda which seems to be
standard democrat stance.
"
By Dillon Ancheta | October 10, 2019 at 10:13 AM HST - Updated October 10 at 5:54 PM
HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - Claiming a "rigged" primary process, presidential
candidate Tulsi Gabbard says she's seriously considering boycotting the next Democratic
presidential debate.
Twelve contenders, including Gabbard, have qualified for the Oct. 15 debate in Ohio.
But in a video posted on social media Thursday, Gabbard said she's not sure she'll take
the debate stage because she believes the Democratic National Committee and corporate media
rigged the 2016 primary election against Bernie Sanders and are trying to do it again with
the 2020 primary.
She said the election is being rigged against early voting states.
"There are so many of you who I've met in Iowa and New Hampshire who have expressed to me
how frustrated you are that the DNC and corporate media are essentially trying to usurp your
role as voters in choosing who our Democratic nominee will be," Gabbard said, in the
video.
"In short, the DNC and corporate media are trying to hijack the entire election process,"
she added."
This of course is sheer nonsense, and so hurtful to Dems that she has drawn the admiration
of right wing crazies for her efforts to help trump.
Nonsense in 2016 just like this hurt Dems; ruined the Supreme Court; and damaged the
country. And she is trying to do it again in the midst of a primary in which she never, ever
had a ghost of a chance. And that was because of her total inexperience and a number of
highly questionable actions in the last decade.
At this point, she has managed to remove herself from higher office for the rest of her
life. And deservedly so.
In Hawaii you cannot run for two public offices at once, so this is her plan to run for
the House. Trash the DNC and media for defeating her, despite the fact she never had any
chance to even be a serious player in the primary.
Combine that with her gay conversion stance of a decade ago and her meddling withe asaad
and Modi, and I am starting to question her sanity.
If she loses the House primary, I would fully expect her to be the Rep candidate.
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily
uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits
as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person
of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane
Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials
responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over
the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more
to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.
George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether
he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only
moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:
And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has
many deaths on his conscience:
Here's the money quote from her apologia:
"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio
audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be
kind to everyone."
This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it
should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still
have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end
of his days.
Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:
There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong,
and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion,
I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues
the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief
extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency
to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes
from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that
his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency
has to die.
DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity.
From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems
very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."
...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.
Tulsi Gabbard
Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago
.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear
us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha,
& work together for the people.
There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.
Candidates for POTUS who are fundraising off "impeachment" are undermining credibility of
inquiry in eyes of American people, further dividing our already fractured country. Please
stop. We need responsible, patriotic leaders who put the interests of our country before
their own.
On day one of my presidency, I will call a summit between the United States, China, and
Russia to work to end the new Cold War, stop the arms race, and reduce tensions and increase
cooperation going forward.
"... With so much deceit and shenanigans, it is best politicians let the voters decide in the next election rather than continue this circus. The article below argues the average American doesn't care if Trump isn't perfect and if the Democrats want him out they should offer up a better alternative. ..."
"... Globalist SES Infiltration, Subversion, De Facto Police State Coup D'Etat https://aim4truth.org/2018/01/03/deep-state-shadow-government-revealed-senior-executive-service/ ..."
"... I would call it a coup except I think it happened several decades ago. What is left is a shell. ..."
"... If that feels rotten, then you may start to understand why the world does like the USA not so much. ..."
"... This is clearly an attempted coup, i.e., removal of a duly elected President by force instead of by any legitimate political process. The leftists and RINOs have been trying by the most subversive of means to get rid of Trump even before he took office. ..."
"... Isn't it a matter of record who created and ordered the implementation of the revised whistleblower form? I know it was secretly uploaded two days before the blower blew (9/24), but why now and who said to? ..."
You don't need to be a supporter of President Trump to be concerned about the efforts to remove him from office. Last week House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced impeachment proceedings against the President over a phone call made to the President of Ukraine.
According to the White House record of the call, the President asked his Ukrainian counterpart to look into whether there is any
evidence of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election and then mentioned that a lot of people were talking about how former US Vice
President Joe Biden stopped the prosecution of his son who was under investigation for corruption in Ukraine.
Democrats, who spent more than two years convinced that "Russiagate" would enable them to remove Trump from office only to have
their hopes dashed by the Mueller Report, now believe they have their smoking gun in this phone call.
It this about politics? Yes. But there may be more to it than that.
It may appear that the Democratic Party, furious over Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss, is the driving force behind this ongoing attempt
to remove Donald Trump from office, but at every turn we see the fingerprints of the CIA and its allies in the US deep state.
In August 2016, a former acting director of the CIA, Mike Morell, wrote an extraordinary article in the New York Times accusing
Donald Trump of being an "agent of the Russian Federation." Morell was clearly using his intelligence career as a way of bolstering
his claim that Trump was a Russian spy – after all, the CIA should know such a thing! But the claim was a lie.
Former CIA director John Brennan accused President Trump of "treason" and of "being in the pocket of Putin" for meeting with the
Russian president in Helsinki and accepting his word that Russia did not meddle in the US election. To this day there has yet to
be any evidence presented that the Russian government did interfere. Brennan openly called on "patriotic" Republicans to act against
this "traitor."
Brennan and his deep state counterparts James Comey at the FBI and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper launched
an operation, using what we now know is the fake Steele dossier, to spy on the Trump presidential campaign and even attempt to entrap
Trump campaign employees.
Notice a pattern here?
Now we hear that the latest trigger for impeachment is a CIA officer assigned to the White House who filed a "whistleblower" complaint
against the president over something he heard from someone else that the president said in the Ukraine phone call.
Shockingly, according to multiple press reports the rules for CIA whistleblowing were recently changed, dropping the requirement
that the whistleblower have direct, first-hand knowledge of the wrongdoing. Just before this complaint was filed, the rule-change
allowed hearsay or second-hand information to be accepted. That seems strange.
As it turns out, the CIA "whistleblower" lurking around the White House got the important things wrong, as there was no quid pro
quo discussed and there was no actual request to investigate Biden or his son.
The Democrats have suddenly come out in praise of whistleblowers – well not exactly. Pelosi still wants to prosecute actual whistleblower
Ed Snowden. But she's singing the praises of this fake CIA "whistleblower."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer once warned Trump that if "you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from
Sunday at getting back at you." It's hard not to ask whether this is a genuine impeachment effort or a CIA coup!
The WhatDoesItMean has earned a bad reputation over the years and I've avoided it as dis-info. But in recent months it seems
to had done a turn around and is providing good info.
both of whom are becoming increasingly alarmed over the grave military implications of what is now occurring -- the evidence
of which is being kept hidden from the American people by their socialist Democrat Party leaders and their leftist mainstream
media lapdogs
If the CIA is this brazen on so many attempts...and with no accountability yet, you could argue the coup already happened.
This is what a country run by a bunch of intelligence ppl looks like.
Epstein is not the top. Above Epstein are Soros, the Queen of England, and the Rockefeller/Rothschild's crime families. They
are the head of the Satanic (NOT JEWISH) "New World Order". Hey artisant when in hell are you going to actually get way down in
the rabbit hole and find out who is really behind globalism? You spout off the most stupid crap that takes you into mindless racism.
We as a corporate fascist socialist nation are much higher than Israel on the globalist hierarchy. They own our monetary system,
our corporate government with 22 trillion national debt, the military, and the intelligence alphabet agencies who are their right
enforcement arm.
Currently, a full-scale propaganda war rages with many Americans hell-bent on convincing the rest of us what is really going
on. I think it is clear we have reached the point where people are either outraged, simply concerned or take the attitude this
is all a big nothing burger or much ado about nothing.
With so much deceit and shenanigans, it is best politicians let the voters decide in the next election rather than continue
this circus. The article below argues the average American doesn't care if Trump isn't perfect and if the Democrats want him out
they should offer up a better alternative.
CIA finally coming home to roost. Never known to respect law or human rights outside the US now CIA applying "regime change"
inside the US. If that feels rotten, then you may start to understand why the world does like the USA not so much.
This is why the CIA is going to die under Haspel. I just read 3 dozen tweets on Sebastian Gorka's trip to Italy with Barr...None
of these liberals have a clue on what is going on in Italy...Which means they haven't a clue about the real Russia hoax and the
setup with Papadopolous. This says everything about our division in America.
The media has kept these people in the dark and this is why I keep saying the media companies need to be investigated and charged
with crimes.
The CIA and NSA are rogue foreign invaded and occupied) enemies of the State and should be surrounded by the military and seized
as a national security threat and a dangerous enemy. Everyone should be thrown out of the buildings controlled and occupied by
them and filled with military police until those who are true traitors can be identified and and arrested, including former employees
who still have highest level security access.
This is clearly an attempted coup, i.e., removal of a duly elected President by force instead of by any legitimate political
process. The leftists and RINOs have been trying by the most subversive of means to get rid of Trump even before he took office.
They have abandoned the peaceful political process and that leaves only force as a means to settle differences of opinion.
My hope is that the impeachment effort will backfire on the leftists in the House. Not only will they energize Trump's base,
but they will look bad to the rest of the non-communist public. And a bonus will be that Trump will be able to blame any pre-election
decline in the stock market and/or economy on the uncertainty created by their reckless and unjustified impeachment actions. (My
take is that the stock market is teetering on the edge of a cliff.)
This should be an interesting year between now and the elections with this impeachment **** show and what might come out of
the Justice Department relating to spygate and who was involved in it.
I almost fell like I am watching a new Game of Thrones episode.
Worst case is that Trump is actually removed from office and Civil War II breaks out. Best case is Trump wins by a landslide
in 2020 and Trump supporters take the House and improve their position in the Senate followed by a huge swamp drain during Trump's
second term.
They are not Judeo. They hide behind that term but have absolutely no bloodline connection to the Tribe of Judah from the Middle
East, they do not worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Moses. They worship Satan.
That you use that term shows your vast ignorance of the real enemies behind the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. It was funded
and orchestrated by the Rothschild/Rockefeller Satanic bankers. The Rothschild's are Khazarian Satanist who funded Marx and Engels
communist socialist creators!
This is how CIA toppled a duly elected Iranian government in 1953 and now we refuse to understand, why Iranians don´t like
us and don´t want our "democracy".
Sometimes you have to wonder if the CIA learned its lessons from the Kennedy Assassination, and decided this would be a more
humane way. As much as John Brennan hates Trump, I am sure he would disagree with me on that. Brennan is out for blood.
Time for Trump to declare martial law and have the military arrest all these treasonous cowards and pussies in the CIA, FBI,
and Demoncratic party. We'll just see how 'deep' their state is. Btw, Soros and Obama will be part of those arrests along with
Shillary and Billy Bob Clinton.
Its easy to find the guilty individuals as they protest the loudest.
99% of all Americans already recognize this as a coup. You just have to know which half is rooting for the coup to be successful,
and the ones who are rooting for failure.
'Impeachment Inquiry' is just a fancy schmancy label for it all, that third world countries can't be bothered with, when they
overthrow their President or dictator. At least those banana republics are honest about what they are actually doing when performing
their version of the overthrow.
The entire US Beast of Gog&Babylon Roman Catholic Church/Synagogue of Satan Vatican FedScam Rothschild/Rockefeller Pyramid's
Satanic Fifth Column must, with precision, be 'tagged and bagged,' fully expropriated, its principals hanged for Treason, the
remainder banished from Our Holy Land.
CIA/FBI/NSA is just an 'action branch' of mechanics and operatives, who too must hang.
Need to cut the head off the snake,ie the deep deep state, the ones who's names are not even uttered in fear of reprisal, the
rest are just actors in this theater of the absurd.
Damn good point. Trump praised Wikileaks all through his campaign. A great investigation into Epstein and his connections to
Clinton, Mossad, Orwellian crime detection software and 9/11.
More than half of the country realizes this is a Deep State coup, led by Brennan's CIA traitors. If they get away with this,
our country is all but finished, we have to bring all hands on deck to defeat these treasonous scum. We will support President
Trump 110% and pray that the white hats in Washington will have the goods on all the traitors.
Isn't it a matter of record who created and ordered the implementation of the revised whistleblower form? I know it was
secretly uploaded two days before the blower blew (9/24), but why now and who said to? That name should be at least on Fox
from 8:00-11:00 for the next 3 weeks, while Lindsey is sending out subpoenas like barf at a sat night frat party. Let em flow
Senator.
As I reported on the previous thread, Sanders endorsed the impeachment proceedings in a
tweet I linked to and cited. Gabbard is apparently the only D-Party candidate that said this
decision is a mistake.
This article about her stance is actually balanced. Citing her recent interview by
FOXNews :
"'I have been consistent in saying that I believe that impeachment in this juncture would
be terribly divisive for our country at a time when we are already extremely divided,'
Gabbard explained. 'Hyper-partisanship is one of the things that's driving our country
apart.'
"'I think it's important to defeat Donald Trump. That's why I'm running for president, but
I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard, making that decision,'
she said.
"Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard, you have to give her credit on this front.
America is extremely divided today and politicians in Washington play into that. The
impeachment saga is a prime example of their role in this division ." [My Emphasis]
When one digs deeper into the forces Gabbard's attacking, she's the most patriotic one of
the entire bunch, including the Rs. I haven't looked at her election websites recently, but
from what I see of her campaign appearances, her and Sanders seem to be sharing each other's
policy proposals, although they both choose to place more emphasis on some than others. For
Gabbard, its the wonton waste and corruption of the Empire that keeps good things from being
done for all citizens at home, whereas Sanders basically inverts the two.
Sanders is spend force in any case. His endorsement does not matter much. But for Warren this
is a blunder. Tulsi is the only one out of this troika who proved to be capable politician.
As I reported on the previous thread, Sanders endorsed the impeachment proceedings in a
tweet I linked to and cited. Gabbard is apparently the only D-Party candidate that said this
decision is a mistake.
This article about her stance is actually balanced. Citing her recent interview by
FOXNews :
"'I have been consistent in saying that I believe that impeachment in this juncture would
be terribly divisive for our country at a time when we are already extremely divided,'
Gabbard explained. 'Hyper-partisanship is one of the things that's driving our country
apart.'
"'I think it's important to defeat Donald Trump. That's why I'm running for president, but
I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard, making that decision,'
she said.
"Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard, you have to give her credit on this front.
America is extremely divided today and politicians in Washington play into that. The
impeachment saga is a prime example of their role in this division ." [My Emphasis]
When one digs deeper into the forces Gabbard's attacking, she's the most patriotic one of
the entire bunch, including the Rs. I haven't looked at her election websites recently, but
from what I see of her campaign appearances, her and Sanders seem to be sharing each other's
policy proposals, although they both choose to place more emphasis on some than others. For
Gabbard, its the wonton waste and corruption of the Empire that keeps good things from being
done for all citizens at home, whereas Sanders basically inverts the two.
"... Tulsi is the only Democrat who has her head screwed tight on her shoulders. As for the rest of that clown show---God help us!! ..."
"... Russia Gate 2.0 ..."
"... The Ukrainian gas HoldCo gave Hunter Biden a no-show job that paid $600K a year. They could have hired dozen of Yale Law grads for less. ..."
"... Kind of sad we Americans after two years of Russia gate will be dragged through a new political ploy. Our intelligence community and the DOJ need come clean and quick. ..."
"... The transcript of Trump's call to the Ukrainian president is out. There is absolutely no mention of anything close to a quid pro quo. ..."
"... "Repeat after me: the President should not demand foreign powers investigate his political rivals." How about Senate Democrats, Hillary Clinton, the DNC? Do you have a problem with them soliciting, even paying cash, to foreigners to investigate Trump? How about spying? Do you have a problem with one party using U.S. intelligence to spy on another party's nominee? ..."
"... This time - played into showing an utter electoral weakness by demanding an impeachment with no grounds for such a year before an election they, according to their screams on every corner, are "poised to win". Uncool, bros and sises, uncooool... ..."
"... The only mildly critical observation as to how exactly Trump played the said fiddle is that it would have been a tad better had he taken his time and waited for some days. ..."
"... The Democrats have hitched their train to the impeachment star not with impeachment per se as the goal. ..."
"... Just dragging us through this execrable process will achieve what they want nicely, i.e., disrupting possible Trump progress on his policy initiatives ( such as they are ), and weakening his electoral chances amongst the incorrigibly indecisive segment of American voters at the margin. Fighting corruption with corruption has now become the norm in Washington, D.C. ..."
I agree with Tulsi Gabbard - an impeachment at this time serves no point. It also discounts
the value of voting Democrat. This act may hand the White House to Trump for another 4
years. One can only hope that a Tusi G can arise and become our next president. The rest of
the team are basically knee jerk politicians waiting for the lobbies to instruct.
If Democrats weren't fanatically determined to prevent her from arising at all costs, she
could become the president already in a year. She can realiably beat any Republican aside
from Rand Paul, who isn't much more loved within his party than she within hers. One can
only wonder why the Democratic establishment hates her so much. Not a member of the Cult?
Better losing on and on and on than allowing an anti-war candidate to get the nomination?
Collective political manifestation of Freudian death wish?
"I hope with all of my soul, and with respect for those like Ellsberg, Manning, and
Snowden, that this whistleblower proves worthy to stand next to them. And God help him and
our country if not."
So, Democrats have done just what he wanted them to do - started a miserable (and a doomed,
given that the Senate is in Republican hands) circus instead of actually campaigning with
their voters, while also riling his ones. But thanks, team D, for showing what your
candidates' chances to get elected really are. Has been no secret to me that those chances
are illusory, but thanks for making the thing official anyways. Starting a stillborn
attempt to depose a president, against whom you, in your fantasy world, are "poised to win"
in a year, is the best testimony of how toast you are in the said fantasy world's real
counterpart. Attacongressboys and attacongressgirls. Take some metaphorical cookies from
the metaphorical jar.
The only sad thing is that you're sullying the notion of whistleblower with a clown,
who, most probably, doesn't even exist. The whole thing is actually your petty revenge
against Snowden, who has just released his new book, ain't it? Low.
"Remember, he knows what was said and the Dems demanding impeachment do not."
Exactly and the Dems are setting themselves up for another public disaster thus handing
Trump his reelection. Anyway Biden is history and he should withdraw immediately. Fighting
this losing battle will only invoke the well deserved wrath of justice.
Looks to me that Trump is turning the tables on the democrats and they are in for a
world of hurt when the investigations and indictments start rolling now.
Kind of sad we Americans after two years of Russia gate will be dragged through a new
political ploy. Our intelligence community and the DOJ need come clean and quick.
The transcript of Trump's call to the Ukrainian president is out. There is absolutely no
mention of anything close to a quid pro quo. Trump asks the president to take calls from
Bill Barr and Giuliani to talk about corruption broadly. Biden's son is also included in
what they'll talk about. It is all very high-level, general, surface talk. If Dems want to
try and impeach on this, it is a long shot at best.
https://fm.cnbc.com/applica...
"Repeat after me: the President should not demand foreign powers investigate his political
rivals."
How about Senate Democrats, Hillary Clinton, the DNC? Do you have a problem with them soliciting, even paying cash, to foreigners to
investigate Trump? How about spying? Do you have a problem with one party using U.S. intelligence to spy on
another party's nominee?
I'll repeat after you once you clarify your position on those things. But if you're not
consistent, why should I?
The transcript released has Trump asking for an investigation of Biden and Biden's son
explicitly. Then it emphasizes how "very good" to the Ukraine the U.S. has been and how the
relationship "has not always been reciprocal".
At the time of the call the president was holding back hundreds of millions of dollars
in Ukranian aid. How dumb do you have to be to not interpret this as a gangsta time of quid-pro-quo
attempt?
The whole whistle blower report should be released.
The Demos have no real choice but to start an impeachment query as their voters will
interpret not doing this as clear cowardice and moral spinelessness. They know the
impeachment won't succeed.
So, looks like "some" folks have been played like a fiddle all over again. This time -
played into showing an utter electoral weakness by demanding an impeachment with no grounds
for such a year before an election they, according to their screams on every corner, are
"poised to win". Uncool, bros and sises, uncooool...
The only mildly critical observation as to how exactly Trump played the said fiddle is
that it would have been a tad better had he taken his time and waited for some days.
Nothing practical - the situation served its purpose fairly and squarely - but it would be
such a cute circus, and wailings would be so much louder if everything fell apart just a
little bit later. But maybe he just doesn't like the circus. De gustibus non est
disputandum , though.
Whoa, there cowboys and indigenous peoples! The Democrats have hitched their train to the
impeachment star not with impeachment per se as the goal.
Just dragging us through this
execrable process will achieve what they want nicely, i.e., disrupting possible Trump
progress on his policy initiatives ( such as they are ), and weakening his electoral
chances amongst the incorrigibly indecisive segment of American voters at the margin.
Fighting corruption with corruption has now become the norm in Washington, D.C.
It's sort of the long game, with a hint of the "Hail Mary" pass thrown in for good
measure. They know what they're up to. But, as the author says, it just might backfire.
They may overplay their hand. Or make one of the two classic blunders.
Vizzini: "Ha-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most
famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well
known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line!'"
The ratcheting up of retaliatory actions between the US and Iran will lead to a war that
will be devastating to the people of both countries. As president I will re-enter the Iran
Nuclear Agreement and end the sanctions against Iran to move us back from the precipice of
war.
Reckless Retaliation Has Us One Spark Away From War
"... Aaron Maté warned, "They're doubling down on failure: a failure to transform after losing 2016; & a failure to bring Trump down w/ the failed Russiagate conspiracy theory." ..."
We've long commented that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is certainly the most interesting and
'outside-the-establishment-box' candidate on the Democrat side running for president
--
a
"Ron
Paul of the Left"
of sorts given her outspoken criticism of US regime change wars and standing
against foreign policy adventurism as her central message.
She even once met in 2016 with then President-elect Trump to discuss Syria policy and
non-interventionism at a private meeting at Trump Tower just ahead of his being sworn into office,
after which she said both agreed to resist "the drumbeats of war [on Syria] that neocons have been
beating to drag us into an escalation...".
And now
she's resisting calls for Trump to be impeached,
saying it
would be
"terribly divisive"
. She
told "Fox &
Friends"
on Tuesday that she'll remain consistent to her message that the road to 2020 can only
be found in a clear victory and mandate, saying it's for
"the American people... making
that decision" of who is in the White House,
not impeachment
.
"I believe that impeachment at this juncture would be terribly divisive for the
country at a time when we are already extremely divided. The hyperpartisanship is one of the
main things driving our country apart,"
Gabbard
told
host Brian Kilmeade.
Once again showing herself outside of the establishment and its blindly loyal partisan
narrative, and perhaps more in-tune with the American public, she's further setting herself apart
from her main Democratic rivals and the presidential nominee front-runners on this one.
"I think it's important to beat Donald Trump, that's why I'm running for president," she said.
"But I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard making that
decision."
Top contender Elizabeth Warren, for example, tweeted
early Tuesday
, "The House must
impeach. It must start today."
A number of commentators pointed out this would likely end in failure as the Democrats double
down on impeachment even after Trump agreed to release the full, unredacted transcript of the
Ukraine call in question.
One progressive journalist and political commentator, Aaron Maté warned, "They're doubling down
on failure: a failure to transform after losing 2016; & a failure to bring Trump down w/ the failed
Russiagate conspiracy theory."
As we noted earlier, Democrats are now scrambling as it seems President Trump's
decision
to release the transcript has spoiled their narrative.
Like the failed Mueller investigation, should this blow up in Democrats' faces
it will
practically guarantee the reelection of Donald Trump
.
And likely for this very reason, Pelosi herself had for months resisted calls to start the
impeachment process, and
yet here we are
, with Pelosi leading the charge.
When the other candidates prove reliably progressive, I'll consider them. So far, Sanders
is the only one to reach that threshold. You may call that "purism"; I call it not supporting
candidates who don't support me.
I contributed to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign (and supported her as a potential VP candidate)
despite having reservations about her, specifically because I wanted her to be on the debate
stage to promote her anti-imperialist foreign policy views. She lost a lot of ground with me
on her vote on the anti-BDS referendum.
Not a Gabbard 'fan', despite donating to her. She was never a serious candidate; her
usefulness was in bringing a genuine anti-war platform into the debate. Now that the
'democratic' Party has cut her out, she doesn't have much point. She's still a drone loving
Zionist, and her continued supporting of literal fascist (or the next closest thing) Modi is
just gross.
Purity suggests politics is about morality. It isn't. It's about who's going to get you
stuff. Only Bernie talks in those terms. And he isn't pure but barely acceptable.
Purity is posturing for those who think politics is about public performance and self
expression. Upper middle class liberals can afford to approach things this way, but most
people are too busy trying to keep their horse out of the ditch. They need stuff.
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon,
administering the occasional rap on the knuckles
to those acting in bad faith"
". Meanwhile, the system's multilateral institutions,
especially the International Monetary Fund,
helped countries in dire need of funds,
provided they followed the rules."
Behind the escalating global conflict over trade and technology is a larger breakdown of the
postwar rules-based order, which was based on a belief that any country's growth benefits
all. Now that China is threatening to compete directly with the United States, support for
the system that made that possible has disappeared.
By RAGHURAM G. RAJAN
CHICAGO – Another day, another attack on trade. Why is it that every dispute –
whether over intellectual property (IP), immigration, environmental damage, or war
reparations – now produces new threats to trade?
For much of the last century, the United States managed and protected the rules-based
trading system it created at the end of World War II. That system required a fundamental
break from the pre-war environment of mutual suspicion between competing powers. The US urged
everyone to see that growth and development for one country could benefit all countries
through increased trade and investment.
Under the new dispensation, rules were enacted to constrain selfish behavior and coercive
threats by the economically powerful. The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering
the occasional rap on the knuckles to those acting in bad faith. Meanwhile, the system's
multilateral institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund, helped countries in
dire need of funds, provided they followed the rules....
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to
those acting in bad faith"
USA foreign policy since 70th was controlled by neocons who as a typical Trotskyites
(neoliberalism is actually Trotskyism for the rich) were/are hell-bent of world domination
and practice gangster capitalism in foreign policy. Bolton attitude to UN is very symptomatic
for the neocons as a whole.
Madeline "not so bright" Allbright was the first swan. As well as Clinton attempts to
bankrupt and subdue Russia and criminal (in a sense of no permission from the UN) attack on
Yugoslavia. Both backfired: Russia became permanently hostile. The fact he and his coterie
were not yet tried by something like Nuremberg tribunal is only due to the USA dominance at
this stage of history.
The truth is that the dissolution of the USSR the USA foreign policy became completely
unhinged. And inside the country the elite became cannibalistic, as there was no external
threat to its dominance in the form of the USSR.
The USA stated to behave like a typical Imperial state (New Rome, or, more correctly,
London) accepting no rules/laws that are not written by themselves (and when it is convenient
to obey them) with the only difference from the classic imperial states that the hegemony it
not based on the military presence/occupation ( like was the case with British empire)
Although this is not completely true as there are 761 US Military Bases across the planet
and only 46 Countries with no US military presence. Of them, seven countries with 13 New
Military Bases were added since 09/11/2001. In 2001 the US had a quarter million troops
posted abroad.
Still as an imperial state that is the center of neoliberal empire the USA relies more on
financial instruments and neoliberal comprador elite inside the country.
With the collapse of neoliberal ideology in 2008 the USA centered neoliberal empire
experiences first cracks. Brexit and election of Trump widened the cracks in a sense of
further legitimizing the ruling neoliberal elite (big middle finger for Hillary was addressed
to the elite as whole)
If oil price exceed $100 per barrel there will yet another crack or even repetition of the
2008 Great Recession on a new level (although we may argue that the Great Recession never
ended and just entered in Summers terms "permanent stagnation" phase)
Although currently with unhinged Trump at the helm the USA empire still going strong in
forcing vassals and competitors to reconsider their desire to challenge the USA. Trump
currently is trying to neutralize the treat from China by rejecting classic neoliberal
globalization mechanism as well as signed treaties like WTO. He might be successful in the
short run.
In the long run the future does not look too bright as crimes committed by the USA during
triumphal period of neoliberalism hangs like albatross around the USA neck.
EU now definitely wants to play its own game as Macron recently stated and which Merkel
tacitly supports. If EU allies with Russia it will became No.1 force in the world with the
USA No. 2. With severe consequences for the USA.
If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position will hinge of keeping EU vassals in
check and NATO in place. Without them it will became No.2 with fatal consequences for the
dollar as world reserve currency and sudden change of the USA financial position due to the
level of external debt and required devaluation of the dollar.
Looks like 75 year after WWII the world started to self-organize a countervailing force
trying to tame the USA with some interest expressed by such players as EU, Russia, China,
India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and even Saudi Arabia. As well as ( in the past; and possibly
in the future as neoliberal counterrevolutions in both countries probably will end badly) by
Brazil and Argentina.
Only Canada, Australia and probably UK can be counted as the reliable parts of the USA
empire. That's not much.
"If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position "........
Think Italy moving into the Axis in 1937? Or the Soviet German Non Aggression Pact.
Nuclear weapons removes the incentive for large "rearmaments" or not?
Would the Britain to France 1938 relationship describe the US to EU? Thinking in 1939
(1914?) terms Europe is less stitched together than in 1936.
She did make him look stupid – all he had was a handful of talking points. Occasionally
he did try to talk over her to hammer home his points, but often he sat quietly and let her
finish. When your interviewer lets you speak, he's interested in what you have to say, or if
opposed to you, in letting you hang yourself.
When he talks over you, he's simply trying to do all the talking while offering the
pretense of an interview.
Gabbard's uncompromising honesty and principles on these important foreign policy positions
give her the moral high ground.
Trump can't respond to that without betraying his entire Presidential aura.
She is correct that US citizens who sign up for the military take an oath to protect and
defend the constitution and the people of the United States. They did not take an oath to
protect foreign dictators incapable of basic defense of their most precious and valuable real
estate.
This is especially true when said dictators are the aggressors in a war of conquest against
their neighbors. After more than four years of fighting, using weapons produced by the United
States, with assistance by US military advisers, the Saudi Arabians have completely botched
their war in Yemen, committing dozens, if not hundreds, of despicable attacks on civilian
targets without anything to show for it but animosity and, now, wholly insecure
infrastructure.
That this infrastructure is vital to the global economy should be irrelevant to Trump's
calculus as to where to send US troops and war materiel. That was something Saudi Arabia's
Clown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman should have considered before starting this war back in
2015.
The Houthi rebels in Northern Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on the Abqaiq gas
processing facility as a direct consequence of Saudi aggression. Of course, they are backed by
Iran and Iranian technology.
It's nearly a week after the event and we still don't know for sure what happened. We have
vague assurances from anonymous sources with the US and Saudi governments but no concrete
details other than what was hit and how.
More questions abound, still, than answers.
That Trump ultimately decided against going to war with Iran over this incident doesn't
negate Gabbard's attack on him. It was cogent given the moment and is principled in how US
troops should be used.
In all of this discussion about a potential war with Iran no one in the Trump administration
or anywhere else have made a credible argument as to what actual threat Iran poses to the
people of the United States.
Vague proclamations by Iranian politicians of "death to America" are, ultimately far less
threatening or interesting than the parade of US Senators and Congresscritters saying that Iran
is a "rogue regime" and it should be wiped off the face of the earth.
Are our sensibilities so fragile that we can't handle a little criticism from people we have
waged war by proxy with for over 70 years?
How is this any different than the average tweet
by Lindsay Graham (R-AIPAC)?
We have senior officials, like the Secretary of State and the erstwhile National Security
Adviser calling Iran 'evil' and we have officially lumped their army in with the same lot of
terrorists as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. We have sanctioned their government and individuals within
it.
Never forget that you reap what you sow in this life. And any animosity Iran and Iranians
bear towards the US and Americans is richly deserved. The reverse, however, is difficult to
make a case for.
Because, little factoid, Iran hasn't attacked anyone in a span of time that is longer than
the US has been a country.
Iran threatens Israel in the same way that Israel threatens it. Saudi Arabia threatens Iran
as an oil competitor and religious one.
And the idea that the President of the United States should entertain even a mere thought of
going to war with Iran over an attack on Saudi oil production should be anathema to anyone with
two brain cells to rub together and make a spark.
Because at the end of the day this is not our fight. This is a fight between enemies made
rich by oil in some cases (Saudi, Iran), political clout in high places in the US and U.K. in
others (Israel) and friends in other high places and cultural integrity (Iran).
This is a cultural and religious conflict we barely understand and cannot change the
dynamics of by blundering in with weapons of mass destruction. It is precisely because we take
sides in this conflict that this conflict never ends.
And it is a conflict that dovetails with prevailing 'wisdom' in the West about how to
maintain control over the planet that dates back more than 150 years. And that is why we do
what we do. But it is time for that worldview to end.
It's time bury Mackinder's ideas alongside his corpse.
To Trump's credit he seems to have realized that this incident was another like the events
which led up to the US Global Hawk drone getting shot down in June. It was designed to get him
to over-commit to a policy which would engulf the world in a war that only a very few powerful
and highly placed want.
Even the tweet that Gabbard called him out on was carefully worded to cool things down and
hint that he wasn't prepared to respond militarily to this incident. As Gabbard climbs in the
polls and is treated worse than Bernie Sanders in 2016 and Ron Paul by the Republicans in 2008
and 2012, she will hold Trump to account on foreign policy with an ever-growing clout and moral
clarity which bodes well for the future of US involvement overseas.
And, like Nigel Farage in the U.K. offering the Tories a non-aggression pact to get a real
Brexit over the finish line, Gabbard should put country before career and applaud Trump when he
doesn't act like Saudi Arabia's "Bitch." That will win her even more votes and more respect
among the silent majority who are not in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome on both the
Left and the Right.
Along with this, the likely end of Netanyahu's political career should mark a sea change in
US policy. While AIPAC's pull is still very strong in the US, Israel's commitment to an
aggressive foreign policy with an uncommitted President should falter under a new government
without its Agitator-in-Chief.
And without that animus propelling events along eventually cooler heads will prevail, and
the present dynamic will change.
Trump made an enormous mistake pulling out of the JCPOA. That genie cannot be put back in
the bottle. The question now is does he have the sense and the humility to realize his board
position has materially weakened to the point where the probability of a rout is rising?
2020 for him has to be about making good on his promises to end the Empire building and
improving relations with Russia. With Putin openly trolling him and the Saudis recently over
weapon sales the odds of the latter happening are low.
But he can still make good on the former. Trump has lost so much of his goodwill with the
people he's 'negotiating with' that there is little to no wiggle room left. He has no leverage
and he's got no goodwill.
I saw this coming the day he bombed the Al-Shairat airbase in April 2017. I said then that
it was one of the biggest geopolitical mistakes ever. It set the stage for all the others
because it showed us just how out of his depth Trump was on foreign affairs. It set him back
with both Putin and Chinese Premier Xi and it also showed how easily he could be manipulated by
his staff and their rotten information.
It's a deep hole he's dug for himself. But there are still people who want to help him climb
out of it. Gabbard's 'bitch slap' is an example of the kind of tough love he needs to right his
Presidency's ship.
His base needs to do that a little more often and then maybe, just maybe, we'd get
somewhere
"... Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen. Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution, they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. ..."
"... "Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the region." ..."
"... "The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued. ..."
"... Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing a successful bill to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen. ..."
"... "It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest between the Saudis and Iranians." ..."
"... "Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.), who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran. ..."
"... "This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not a walk in the park." ..."
"... "In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's desulphurization capacity out of commission. ..."
"... "This little accident was designed to be maximally disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil in the long run. ..."
"... On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump understands." ..."
Retired Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis pointed out that the puncture marks do not actually show
the origin of the attack. "Missiles can fly from almost anywhere. They have the ability to
maneuver! And certainly drones can, too," the Defense Priorities senior fellow told the
National Interest . "There hasn't been the time to do an actual analysis on the
ground, so let's wait and see."
Mark Latham, managing partner at the London-based analysis firm Commodities Intelligence,
told the National Interest that the puncture marks pointed to a cruise missile with no
explosive warhead. Removing the payload would allow the missile to carry more fuel and launch
from farther away from its target.
... ... ...
"Mr. X is a sophisticated fellow. He's sourced some Iranian cruise missiles.
He's removed the explosive payload. He's replaced the explosive payload with fuel," he said.
"So this isn't your twenty dollar Amazon drone. This is a sophisticated military operation."
"The culprit behind the Abqaiq attack is most definitely the Islamic Republic, either
directly or through one of its proxies," argued Varsha Koduvayur, a senior research analyst at
the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
"The attack fits the pattern of Iran signaling to the Gulf states that if it can't get its
oil out, it will cause their oil exports to become collateral damage," Koduvayur told the National Interest . "It's because of how strong our coercive financial tools are that
Iran is resorting to attacks like this: it's lashing out."
Violating an Obama-era agreement to regulate Iran's nuclear research program, the Trump
administration imposed massive sanctions on Iran's oil industry beginning in May 2018. The goal
of this "maximum pressure" campaign was to force Iran to accept a "better" deal. Since then,
Iranian forces have captured a British oil tanker and allegedly sabotaged tankers from other
countries.
There were some signals that Trump was planning to use the ongoing United Nations General
Assembly in New York to open a new
diplomatic channel with Iran, especially after the
firing of hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton. But the weekend attack sent Trump
into reverse.
"Remember when Iran shot down a drone, saying knowingly that it was in their 'airspace'
when, in fact, it was nowhere close. They stuck strongly to that story knowing that it was a
very big lie," he said in a Monday morning Twitter post, referring to a June incident
when Iranian and American forces almost went to war. "Now they say that they had nothing to do
with the attack on Saudi Arabia. We'll see?"
He also hinted at a violent U.S. response.
"There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on
verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of
this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" Trump wrote on Sunday.
"Saudi Arabia is not a formal treaty ally of ours, so there are no international agreements
that obligate us to come to their defense," John Glaser, director of foreign-policy studies at
the CATO Institute, stated. "This does not amount to a clear and present danger to the United
States, so no self-defense justification is relevant. He would therefore need authorization
from Congress."
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had mixed reactions to the attack.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proposed putting "on the table an attack on Iranian oil
refineries" in order to "break the regime's back." His press office did not respond to a
follow-up question from the National Interest asking whether the president would have
the authority to do so.
Amy Grappone, spokeswoman for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), told the National Interest
that the Senator "will support an appropriate and proportionate response" after "studying the
latest intelligence pertaining to Iran's malign activities, including these recent attacks in
Saudi Arabia."
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, condemned the attack with
a backhanded insult towards Saudi Arabia. "Despite some ongoing policy differences with the
kingdom, no nation should be subjected to these kinds of attacks on it soil and against its
people," he wrote on Twitter, declining to name Iran as the culprit.
Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced
their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen.
Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution,
they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder
reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The
president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin
(D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi
Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain
its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the
region."
"The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with
Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi
Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued.
Asked how he would vote on a declaration of war, the senator told the National
Interest : "Let's hope it does not come to that. Congress has not authorized war against
Iran. The majority voted to engage them diplomatically to slow their nuclear ambitions. The
international community is ready to work with the U.S. again to ease economic pressure on Iran
in exchange for their restraint. We are at a dangerous precipice."
In a statement emailed to the National Interest and posted to Twitter, Sen. Tim
Kaine (D-Va.) was even more direct: "The US should never go to war to protect Saudi oil."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing
a successful bill
to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override
the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread
explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen.
"It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual
defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And
frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long
term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest
between the Saudis and Iranians."
But the reaction did not fall neatly along party lines.
"Iran is one of the most dangerous state sponsors of terrorism. This may well be the thing
that calls for military action against Iran, if that's what the intelligence supports," said
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) in a Monday interview with Fox News. Others pointed out that
attacking Iran would contradict Trump's own principles.
"Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic
presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.),
who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud
with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran.
"This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States
needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he
told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the
Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not
a walk in the park."
Davis agreed with Paul's assessment. "There's too many people who have lost touch with
understanding what war is all about. They think it's easy," he told the National
Interest . "Just imagine this. What we go ahead and do this, and Iran makes good on their
threats, and American warships get sunk in the Gulf?" "This is not America's fight," he
concluded. "The American armed forces are not on loan as a Saudi defense force."
"There's another claim that the impact on oil markets is sufficient to impact the vital U.S.
interest in the free flow of energy coming out of that region, but that argument quickly
descends into absurdity when we remember that the Trump administration has been trying to
zero-out Iranian oil exports, for a host of spurious reasons," Glaser told the National
Interest . "Washington is also aggressively sanctioning Venezuela, making it harder for
Caracas to bring oil to market, too. If we really cared about the supply of oil, we wouldn't be
doing this."
In any case, the attack may not have affected oil markets in such a straightforward way.
Latham says that the attack struck an oil desulphurization facility. At the moment,
desulphurized fuel is in high demand from the shipping industry, which is rushing to comply
with new international environmental regulations.
"In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping
fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur
fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham
explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's
desulphurization capacity out of commission.
"This little accident was designed to be maximally
disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is
really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous
stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might
delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil
in the long run.
On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's
not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy
infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense
capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale
war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what
that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump
understands."
Matthew Petti is a national security reporter at the National Interest.
"... American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. ..."
"... A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some ..."
"... U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is: ..."
"... Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be. ..."
"... Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. ..."
"... The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. ..."
"... Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense. ..."
"... any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it. ..."
"... Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. ..."
"... Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment. ..."
"... I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power. ..."
"... Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion. ..."
"... What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure. ..."
"... We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt. ..."
"... I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets. ..."
"... The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged. ..."
"... It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting. ..."
"... I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries. ..."
"... The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. ..."
Stephen Wertheim explains
what is required to bring an end to unnecessary and open-ended U.S. wars overseas:
American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe.
Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do
what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace.
Any government that presumes to be the world's hegemon will be fighting somewhere almost all of the time, because its political
leaders will see everything around the world as their business and it will see every manageable threat as a challenge to their "leadership."
A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire
itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some.
U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at
the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to
use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is:
Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military
force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be.
Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and
intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts.
Our government's frenetic interventionism and meddling for the last thirty years hasn't made our country the slightest bit more secure,
but it has sown chaos and instability across at least two continents. Wertheim continues:
Continued gains by the Taliban, 18 years after the United States initially toppled it, suggest a different principle: The profligate
deployment of force creates new and unnecessary objectives more than it realizes existing and worthy ones.
The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the
idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous
goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. Constant warfare achieves nothing except to provide an excuse
for more of the same. The longer that a war drags on, one would think that it should become easier to bring it to an end, but we
have seen that it becomes harder for both political and military leaders to give up on an unwinnable conflict when it has become
an almost permanent part of our foreign policy. For many policymakers and pundits, what matters is that the U.S. not be perceived
as losing, and so our military keeps fighting without an end in sight for the sake of this "not losing."
Wertheim adds:
Despite Mr. Trump's rhetoric about ending endless wars, the president insists that "our military dominance must be unquestioned"
-- even though no one believes he has a strategy to use power or a theory to bring peace. Armed domination has become an end in
itself.
Seeking to maintain this dominance is ultimately unsustainable, and as it becomes more expensive and less popular it will also
become increasingly dangerous as we find ourselves confronted with even more capable adversaries. For the last thirty years, the
U.S. has been fortunate to be secure and prosperous enough that it could indulge in decades of fruitless militarism, but that luck
won't hold forever. It is far better if the U.S. give up on hegemony and the militarism that goes with it on our terms.
Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership,
resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense.
Truth be told, as your article states, any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is
considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it.
It makes us less safe. Isolationism did not cause 9/11. In the 90's when we were being attacked by Al Qaeda we were too distracted
dancing on Russia's bones to pay any attention to them. While Al Qaeda was attacking our troops and blowing up our buildings we
were bombing Serbia, expanding NATO and reelecting Yeltsin and sticking it to Iran.
It goes beyond that. Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan.
We later abandoned them when the job was done: a pack hound we trained, pushed to fight, then left in the forest abandoned and
starved. Then we wonder why it came back growling.
Isolationism may not be the most effective solution to things, but I'll admit a LOT of pain, on ourselves and others, would've
never happened if we took that policy.
Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only
from reward and punishment.
So far, they only have been rewarded for their crimes.
While I think the economic basis of the Soviet Union was faulty, and it had lost the popular support it might have had in early
days, the USSR's military aggression, particularly in Afghanistan, was a major precipitating factor in its downfall. It would
have eventually crumbled, I believe, anyway, but had they taken a less aggressive stance I think they would have lasted several
decades longer.
Is it really in our hands to actually disengage though? Is this politically feasible?
How does this work? The US gets up one day and says "We're pulling all of our troops out of Saudi and SK. No more funding for
Israel! No bolstering the pencil-thin government of Afghanistan. All naval bases abroad will be shut down. Longstanding alliances
and interests be damned!"
I sympathize very strongly with the notion that we must use military force wisely and with restraint, and perhaps even that
the post-WW2 expansion abroad was a mistake, but I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without
destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power.
This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not, and barring some military or economic disaster that forces a strategic
realignment or retreat (like WW2 did for the old European powers) I don't know how you practically pull back. Empires have
a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion.
What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our
debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure.
We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending
and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt.
Sure. That doesn't mean American withdrawal would create less instability in toto. Maybe it would. Who knows? We mortals can only
take counterfactuals so far.
I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/
hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets.
The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled
congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged.
It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The
money and power is too corrupting.
Maybe, just maybe, however, as we are at $22 trillion in debt and counting (just saw a total tab for F-35 of $1.5 trillion)
that the money will run out, and zero interest rate financing is not all that awesome, this unsustainable mindlessness will be
curtailed or even better, changed.
It's not really hegemony. Old-fashioned empires took over territory in order to gain resources and labor. We haven't done that
since 1920. Especially since 1990 we've been making war purely to destroy and obliterate. When our war is done there's nothing
left to dominate or own.
Domestically we've been using politics and media and controlled culture to do the same thing. Create "terrorists" and "extremists"
on "two" "sides", set them loose, enjoy the resulting chaos. Chaos is the declared goal, and it's been working beautifully for
70 years.
China is expanding empire in Africa and Asia the old-fashioned way, improving farms and factories in order to have exclusive
purchase of their output.
Could not have said it better. "On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own
hands, I hope. But chanches are slim, history shows empires must fall hard and break a leg or so first before anything changes.
Iran, Saudi-arabia, the greater ME, China, the trade wars and the world economy are coming together for a perfect storm it seems.
The problem with US hegemony is Israel. Look around the world. Neither Japan nor South Korea nor Vietnam nor Philippines nor India
nor Indonesia nor Australia (the same can be said for South and Central America, Mexico, Canada and Europe) require a significant
US presence.
None of them are asking for a greater presence in their country (except Poland) while being perfectly happy with
our alliance, joint defense, trade, intelligence and technology sharing.
It is only Israel and Saudi Arabia which are constantly pushing the US into middle eastern wars and quagmires that we have
no national interest. Trump sees the plain truth that the US is in jeopardy of losing its manufacturing and its technological
lead to China. If we (US) dont start to rebuild our infrastructure, our defense, our cities, our communities, our manufacturing,
our educational system then our nation is going to follow California into a 3rd world totalitarian state dominated by democratic
voting immigrants whose only affiliation to our country and our constitutional republic is a welfare check, free govt programs
and incestuous govt contracts which funnel govt dollars into the re-election PACs of democratic / liberal elected officials.
The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking.
Defeat is now when war's income streams end. The only wars that are lost, are those that end, defeating the winning of war profits.
War, as a financial success story, has become an end in itself, and an empire that looks for more to wage means some mighty big
wages with more profit opportunities. Victory is to be avoided - red ink being spilled through peace detestable - and blood spilled
profitably to be encouraged.
Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending
on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what
terms we would proceed!
in American imperialism and the power imbalance isn't about just oil? How about we elaborate on that. It's not enough to criticize
American military meddling without also calling out the geopolitical and economic meddling. These are intertwined and while I
think Tulsi is very strong and very correct on military "interventions," she can and should go further. (All Americand should,
no arguments here.) I mean, as far as this tweet goes, it's a cheap shot at a total loser who is already an easy target. Is she
tweeting this at the American companies with interests in Saudi oil?
as far as this tweet [by Tulsi] goes, it's a cheap shot at a total loser who is already an easy target. Is she tweeting
this at the American companies with interests in Saudi oil?
The "total loser" is a master politician, surviving a coup attempt , battling hostile MSM 24/7 and with an enlarging voter
base. Include rising favorability ratings, though still less than 50%. His popularity currently equals that of Obomber at a similar
point in first term.
in American imperialism and the power imbalance isn't about just oil? How about we elaborate on that. It's not enough to
criticize American military meddling without also calling out the geopolitical and economic meddling. These are intertwined
and while I think Tulsi is very strong and very correct on military "interventions," she can and should go further. (All Americand
should, no arguments here.) I mean, as far as this tweet goes, it's a cheap shot at a total loser who is already an easy target.
Is she tweeting this at the American companies with interests in Saudi oil?
I'm not trying to be contrary, but I honestly do not get what she's saying here, other than Trump is being KSA's "bitch" because
he's waiting to hear what they say before letting bombs fly at whoever the US "believes" is responsible. Personally I think that's
a big improvement over him immediately ordering an attack on Iran, or wherever.
If her statement criticized the "locked and loaded" part of his statement and she directly said we should not be bombing
anyone on behalf of Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with her.
But instead she criticized his waiting to hear from the country that was actually bombed, before doing anything or taking unilateral
action. Calling him SKA's bitch, means he's being weak and submissive. Goading him into quicker action ... seems like an odd way
to discourage war and the macho-man thinking that drives it.
I guess I really don't understand at all why people like this rhetoric from her. I personally have a confused, but basically
negative, gut reaction to her comment.
@CS in AZ@CS in AZ
I ran across her statements on youtube. And I don't see how you can interpret what she said as "goading" him.
I'm not trying to be contrary, but I honestly do not get what she's saying here, other than Trump is being KSA's "bitch"
because he's waiting to hear what they say before letting bombs fly at whoever the US "believes" is responsible. Personally
I think that's a big improvement over him immediately ordering an attack on Iran, or wherever.
If her statement criticized the "locked and loaded" part of his statement and she directly said we should not be bombing
anyone on behalf of Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with her.
But instead she criticized his waiting to hear from the country that was actually bombed, before doing anything or taking
unilateral action. Calling him SKA's bitch, means he's being weak and submissive. Goading him into quicker action ... seems
like an odd way to discourage war and the macho-man thinking that drives it.
I guess I really don't understand at all why people like this rhetoric from her. I personally have a confused, but basically
negative, gut reaction to her comment.
was a country at peace and was suddenly attacked, I could sort of understand your objection to Gabbard criticizing Trump for
waiting to hear from the Saudi princes about what to do next.
But that's not the situation. Saudi Arabia has been targeting school buses, hospitals, weddings, and has starved 85,000 children
to death in Yemen, and we have HELPED! Starving a child to death is torture.
The fact that the civilized world hasn't rained retribution down on the Saudi government for supporting Al Qaeda, for supporting
ISIS and its atrocities, and for using the people of Yemen for target practice just to benefit our defense contractors, is an
abomination. We are not just being USED by the Saudi government. We are being ABUSED, as a nation, as a people, as a culture that's
supposed to have values. We are being transformed into the sucking scum of the earth. For money. For a few contractors.
I'm not trying to be contrary, but I honestly do not get what she's saying here, other than Trump is being KSA's "bitch"
because he's waiting to hear what they say before letting bombs fly at whoever the US "believes" is responsible. Personally
I think that's a big improvement over him immediately ordering an attack on Iran, or wherever.
If her statement criticized the "locked and loaded" part of his statement and she directly said we should not be bombing
anyone on behalf of Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with her.
But instead she criticized his waiting to hear from the country that was actually bombed, before doing anything or taking
unilateral action. Calling him SKA's bitch, means he's being weak and submissive. Goading him into quicker action ... seems
like an odd way to discourage war and the macho-man thinking that drives it.
I guess I really don't understand at all why people like this rhetoric from her. I personally have a confused, but basically
negative, gut reaction to her comment.
Trump is his own worst enemy. His thoughtless tweets reveal him to be some seriously damaged goods.
Not since the late days of dementia ridden Reagan has a more dangerous finger been on "The Button".
@earthling1@earthling1
Trump's policies are by and larger terrible, neoliberal, disguised as populism. But before considering that Trump is an idiot,
rather than one prone to bad choices in policy, please consider his current POLIICAL status. See my comment above to Monsieur
le Frog.
Trump is his own worst enemy. His thoughtless tweets reveal him to be some seriously damaged goods.
Not since the late days of dementia ridden Reagan has a more dangerous finger been on "The Button".
have not unreasonably read his tweet as saying what it clearly seems to be saying, that the US will wait to see who the Saudis
decide carried out the bombing, and the US will wait for their instructions on how the US should proceed -- deferring to the Saudis
on two counts.
Does seem rather clear, and odd, for a US president to state a foreign power should dictate our actions on their behalf.
I didn't read it at all as a complaint that the US has to wait and cool its heels for the Saudis in order to rush into military
action.
Of course she went on twitter to respond to DT's tweet. Twitter, the short-form of communication, where brief tweets are always
vulnerable to misunderstanding.
This used to be called diplomacy. That's what we (the peace-not-war minded) people) wanted from our government. I still
do, and I'm forced to say I think I actually agree with trump on this one. His tweet was unusually diplomatic and relatively calm.
I was glad he said something reasonable, for perhaps the first time ever.
WE (the US) are not the world dictatorship that should feel free to bomb anyone anywhere anytime, and screw the rest of the
world. Cooperation among governments is not being anyone's bitch. That's the pro war, pro US empire kind of thinking.
America first... see, that's not really what I believe in. So I see now, that must be why I felt so disturbed by her comment.
I just disagree with her basic premise.
have not unreasonably read his tweet as saying what it clearly seems to be saying, that the US will wait to see who the
Saudis decide carried out the bombing, and the US will wait for their instructions on how the US should proceed -- deferring
to the Saudis on two counts.
Does seem rather clear, and odd, for a US president to state a foreign power should dictate our actions on their behalf.
I didn't read it at all as a complaint that the US has to wait and cool its heels for the Saudis in order to rush into military
action.
Of course she went on twitter to respond to DT's tweet. Twitter, the short-form of communication, where brief tweets are
always vulnerable to misunderstanding.
@CS in AZ@CS in AZ
is when two countries engage in discussions to possibly reach a mutual agreement. That seems like an incredibly expansive and
pro-Trump reading of his bizarre tweet.
Twump's tweet, in the clear language of the brief text, was about the US president waiting to hear marching orders from Crown
Prince Mohammed "Ben" Salman as to what the US should do.
Tulsi's tweet and use of the word "bitch" was actually referencing a previous tweet she had made months ago criticizing the
way the US seems to be subservient to the Saudis.
This used to be called diplomacy. That's what we (the peace-not-war minded) people) wanted from our government. I
still do, and I'm forced to say I think I actually agree with trump on this one. His tweet was unusually diplomatic and relatively
calm. I was glad he said something reasonable, for perhaps the first time ever.
WE (the US) are not the world dictatorship that should feel free to bomb anyone anywhere anytime, and screw the rest of
the world. Cooperation among governments is not being anyone's bitch. That's the pro war, pro US empire kind of thinking.
America first... see, that's not really what I believe in. So I see now, that must be why I felt so disturbed by her comment.
I just disagree with her basic premise.
Gabbard Campaign Video Slams Trump For Making US "The Prostitute Of Saudi Arabia"
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/17/2019
Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 Rep. Tulsi Gabbard lashed out at Trump on Wednesday after the president vetoed
the Yemen War Powers Resolution this week, which sought to end US support for the Sauid-led war in Yemen.
The Hawaiian congresswomen and outspoken US foreign policy critic asserted the president is turning the nation "into the
prostitute of Saudi Arabia" and further stated he vetoed the bill "to please his Saudi masters" in a minute-and-a-half campaign
video.
"Unlike Donald Trump I will not turn our great country into the prostitute of Saudi Arabia."
#5.1#5.1 is when two countries
engage in discussions to possibly reach a mutual agreement. That seems like an incredibly expansive and pro-Trump reading of
his bizarre tweet.
Twump's tweet, in the clear language of the brief text, was about the US president waiting to hear marching orders from
Crown Prince Mohammed "Ben" Salman as to what the US should do.
Tulsi's tweet and use of the word "bitch" was actually referencing a previous tweet she had made months ago criticizing
the way the US seems to be subservient to the Saudis.
@Linda Wood
which provides the context for Tulsi's latest tweet. In this manner, Tulsi continues to emphasize a theme: no matter the circumstance
(i.e., excuses), Saudi is a barbarous country, executing its detractors with swords rather than nice "surgical" drone strikes
like Obomba and DJT have used.
Gabbard Campaign Video Slams Trump For Making US "The Prostitute Of Saudi Arabia"
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/17/2019
Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 Rep. Tulsi Gabbard lashed out at Trump on Wednesday after the president vetoed
the Yemen War Powers Resolution this week, which sought to end US support for the Sauid-led war in Yemen.
The Hawaiian congresswomen and outspoken US foreign policy critic asserted the president is turning the nation "into
the prostitute of Saudi Arabia" and further stated he vetoed the bill "to please his Saudi masters" in a minute-and-a-half
campaign video.
"Unlike Donald Trump I will not turn our great country into the prostitute of Saudi Arabia."
very
convoluted version , Iranian drones were launched from an Iranian affiliated militia base in Iraq in retaliation for Saudi
funded Israeli drone strikes originating from a US/Kurdish base in Syria that struck Iranian/Iraqi bases, weapons depots, and
a convoy in August.
Middle East Eye, a Qatari financed outlet, reported yesterday that the attack was launched from Iraq by Iran aligned forces
in revenge for Israeli attacks in Syria. The author, David Hearst, is known for slandered reporting. The report is based on
a single anonymous Iraqi intelligence source. Qatar, which is struggling with Saudi Arabia and the UAE over its support for
the Muslim Brotherhood, would like to see a larger conflict involving its rivals east and west of the Persian Gulf. The report
should therefore be disregarded.
but with all the various reports it does seem clear that who launched them (drone or planes) look hard to ascertain for certain.
but trump was far more careful than pompeo and lindsey graham who want to bomb bomb bomb iran on speculation, because iran
is evil.
ah, i've been trying to figure out ho to compile a post on possibilities v. blame, and it's getting further and further away
from me. but both KSA and trump (or his generals) may really understand what's at stake. what's bibi saying?
very
convoluted version , Iranian drones were launched from an Iranian affiliated militia base in Iraq in retaliation for Saudi
funded Israeli drone strikes originating from a US/Kurdish base in Syria that struck Iranian/Iraqi bases, weapons depots, and
a convoy in August.
it's clear that Gulf oil installations are vulnerable from a new generation of drones that these players are assembling or
otherwise acquiring themselves. Several years ago, the Iranians were able to hack a Predator drone and bring it down intact, suitable
for reverse engineering. In past war games, the entire US fleet in the Persian Gulf was destroyed in a matter of minutes by swarms
of Iranian missiles. The Yemen war is likely to be over and the possibility of an attack on Iran seems more unlikely now as well.
Middle East Eye, a Qatari financed outlet, reported yesterday that the attack was launched from Iraq by Iran aligned
forces in revenge for Israeli attacks in Syria. The author, David Hearst, is known for slandered reporting. The report is
based on a single anonymous Iraqi intelligence source. Qatar, which is struggling with Saudi Arabia and the UAE over its
support for the Muslim Brotherhood, would like to see a larger conflict involving its rivals east and west of the Persian
Gulf. The report should therefore be disregarded.
but with all the various reports it does seem clear that who launched them (drone or planes) look hard to ascertain for
certain. but trump was far more careful than pompeo and lindsey graham who want to bomb bomb bomb iran on speculation,
because iran is evil.
ah, i've been trying to figure out ho to compile a post on possibilities v. blame, and it's getting further and further
away from me. but both KSA and trump (or his generals) may really understand what's at stake. what's bibi saying?
against such a swarm attack like this (and so accurately targeted), nor does the US, according to b and a few others. iran
probably does have russian missile defense, but clearly: riyadh needs to make peace with the houthis at any cost. there must be
next to nothing left standing there after what, four years?
it's clear that Gulf oil installations are vulnerable from a new generation of drones that these players are assembling
or otherwise acquiring themselves. Several years ago, the Iranians were able to hack a Predator drone and bring it down intact,
suitable for reverse engineering. In past war games, the entire US fleet in the Persian Gulf was destroyed in a matter of minutes
by swarms of Iranian missiles. The Yemen war is likely to be over and the possibility of an attack on Iran seems more unlikely
now as well.
against such a swarm attack like this (and so accurately targeted), nor does the US, according to b and a few others. iran
probably does have russian missile defense, but clearly: riyadh needs to make peace with the houthis at any cost. there must
be next to nothing left standing there after what, four years?
@dystopian
She, as many predicted, is pushing Trump further and further into a non-confrontational foreign policy. There is not one of the
Klown Kontenders with enough guts to call out Trump as forcefully as this--including Bernie.
This is a new tweet from Tulsi this afternoon with a short vid...
The attack marks a turning point in asymmetrical warfare: no longer can a country bomb its neighbor without fearing a significant
attack in return. An that attack won't be tossing a few rockets in the general direction of a targey; instead they'll be precision
strikes taking out key infrastructure.
The concept of an air force has changed and the big powers won't have a monopoly going forward. Mutually assured destruction
lite.
"Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) slammed President Donald Trump for turning the nation into
"Saudi Arabia's bitch" after he assured the kingdom that the U.S. is "locked and loaded" as
it waits to hear who may be behind an attack on its oil supply.
"Trump awaits instructions from his Saudi masters," the Democratic presidential candidate
tweeted Sunday. "Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First.'"
Gabbard previously accused Trump of making the U.S. "Saudi Arabia's bitch" last November
for his failure to take action against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who, according
to the U.S. intelligence community, directed the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal
Khashoggi."
"Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has doubled down attacking President Donald Trump over his
response to the weekend's drone attacks on major oil sites in Saudi Arabia.
Trump assured Saudi Arabia via Twitter that the U.S. is "locked and loaded" and awaiting
its direction following the strikes, which were claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels but which
Trump claimed were backed by Iran.
The Democratic presidential candidate -- a combat veteran and a major in the Army National
Guard ― called Trump's response "disgraceful" in a new video shared online Monday.
"Mr. President, as you know, I have never engaged in hateful rhetoric against you or your
family and I never will," said Gabbard. "But your offering our military assets to the
dictator of Saudi Arabia to use as he sees fit is a betrayal of my brothers and sisters in
uniform who are ready to give our lives for our country."
Gabbard said Trump's belief he can "pimp out our proud servicemen and women to the prince
of Saudi Arabia is disgraceful and it once again shows that you are unfit to serve as our
commander in chief."
"My fellow service members and I, we are not your prostitutes," she concluded. "You are
not our pimp."
Most of our disagreements here are not on either economic or political principles, but rather
the awarding of style points with considerable confusion regarding the (sometimes remotely)
possible, the plausible, and the actual.
"... Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is possible but I don't believe it." ..."
"... So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution? ..."
Just bewildering to read the Left's continuing insistence that Israel is best understood as
'just another outpost of the American empire'. This is probably the most damaging idea in
circulation right now, as its diversionary effect is only matched by its absurdity.
The Left simply cannot 'go there' though, no matter how much factual evidence is stacked up.
(On top of the spying and theft we have 'The Lobby' documentary, the defence pact, party
funding, etc. etc.). They have to avoid the reality, one which can only be explained through
cross border tribal allegiances and religious history going back many centuries. These, of
course, lay outside the Left's purview, and any consideration of them is dogmatically
opposed. It is getting to be a kind of insanity.
Tulsi can allege that Saudi Arabia was behind the 9/11 attacks and that they pull the
strings in Washington, (and many on the Left will applaud) but she cannot point out the
rather more glaring 9/11 connections to Israel and the whole machinery of control that lies
at the centre of American empire.
As she votes against BDS, has there ever been a more ridiculous double standard ?
Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual
personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think
the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is
possible but I don't believe it."
So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution?
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been
found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non
stop.
@Cloak And
Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the
few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA
"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them. It just
boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all
the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people
understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would RISE UP IN ARMS.
Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." – Admiral Thomas Moorer, head
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, interview, 24 Aug. 1983
Admiral Moorer, "the dirty anti-semite," was one of the few people with influence to call
out Israel for their deliberate attack on the USS Liberty – https://www.erasingtheliberty.com/
The American Legion continues to wet its pants apparently believing that kissing (((ass)))
is more patriotic than standing up for America and members of the Navy.
Whats new about Israeli spying against the zio/US, hell the government is full of zionists in
every facet of the government, they run every department, including and especially the CIA ,
which would be better named the Mossad West, in fact the Mossad is so embedded in the CIA
that the only way to end this would be to as JFK said to scatter it to the winds aka abolish
the Mossad infested CIA.
DNC is a criminal organization and the fact that Debbie Wasserman
Schultz escaped justice is deeply regreatable.
Notable quotes:
"... The problem facing the Democratic National Committee today remains the same as in 2016: How to block even a moderately left-wing social democrat by picking a candidate guaranteed to lose to Trump, so as to continue the policies that serve banks, the financial markets and military spending for Cold War 2.0. ..."
"... Trump meanwhile has done most everything the Democratic Donor Class wants: He has cut taxes on the wealthy, cut social spending for the population at large, backed Quantitative Easing to inflate the stock and bond markets, and pursued Cold War 2.0. Best of all, his abrasive style has enabled Democrats to blame the Republicans for the giveaway to the rich, as if they would have followed a different policy. ..."
"... The effect has been to make America into a one-party state. Republicans act as the most blatant lobbyists for the Donor Class. But people can vote for a representative of the One Percent and the military-industrial complex in either the Republican or Democratic column. That is why most Americans owe allegiance to no party. ..."
"... I'm just curious about how much longer this log-jam situation can persist before real political realignment takes place. Bernie Sander is ultimately a relic not a representative of new political vigor running through the party, like Trump he would be largely be on his own without much congressional support from his own party. ..."
"... As the 2016 election and Brexit have illuminated, globalisation is a religion for the upper middle classes. ..."
"... They just refuse to understand that political solidarity, key to any such policies is permanently damaged by immigration. ..."
"... If you make people chose between their ethnicity being displaced and class conflict, they'll pick the preservation of their ethnicity and it's territory every time. I ..."
"... My prediction: The elites in the US won't give way, people will simply become demoralised and the Trump/Sanders moment will pass with significant damage done to the legitimacy of American democracy and media but with progressives unable to deal with immigration (Much like the right can't deal with global warming) they will fail to get much done. The general population has become too atomised and detached, beaten-down bystanders to their own politics and society to mount a popular political movement. Immigrants, recent descendants of immigrants and the upper middle classes will continue to instinctually understand globalisation is how they loot America and will not vote for 'extreme' candidates that threaten this. The upper middle class will continue to dominate the overton window and use it to inject utter economic lies to the public. ..."
I hope that the candidate who is clearly the voters' choice, Bernie Sanders, may end up as the party's nominee. If he is, I'm
sure he'll beat Donald Trump handily, as he would have done four years ago. But I fear that the DNC's Donor Class will push Joe Biden,
Kamala Harris or even Pete Buttigieg down the throats of voters. Just as when they backed Hillary the last time around, they hope
that their anointed neoliberal will be viewed as the lesser evil for a program little different from that of the Republicans.
So Thursday's reality TV run-off is about "who's the least evil?" An honest reality show's questions would focus on "What are
you against ?" That would attract a real audience, because people are much clearer about what they're against: the vested
interests, Wall Street, the drug companies and other monopolies, the banks, landlords, corporate raiders and private-equity asset
strippers. But none of this is to be permitted on the magic island of authorized candidates (not including Tulsi Gabbard, who was
purged from further debates for having dared to mention the unmentionable).
Donald Trump as the DNC's nominee
The problem facing the Democratic National Committee today remains the same as in 2016: How to block even a moderately left-wing
social democrat by picking a candidate guaranteed to lose to Trump, so as to continue the policies that serve banks, the financial
markets and military spending for Cold War 2.0.
DNC donors favor Joe Biden, long-time senator from the credit-card and corporate-shell state of Delaware, and opportunistic California
prosecutor Kamala Harris, with a hopey-changey grab bag alternative in smooth-talking small-town Rorschach blot candidate Pete Buttigieg.
These easy victims are presented as "electable" in full knowledge that they will fail against Trump.
Trump meanwhile has done most everything the Democratic Donor Class wants: He has cut taxes on the wealthy, cut social spending
for the population at large, backed Quantitative Easing to inflate the stock and bond markets, and pursued Cold War 2.0. Best of
all, his abrasive style has enabled Democrats to blame the Republicans for the giveaway to the rich, as if they would have followed
a different policy.
The Democratic Party's role is to protect Republicans from attack from the left, steadily following the Republican march rightward.
Claiming that this is at least in the direction of being "centrist," the Democrats present themselves as the lesser evil (which is
still evil, of course), simply as pragmatic in not letting hopes for "the perfect" (meaning moderate social democracy) block the
spirit of compromise with what is attainable, "getting things done" by cooperating across the aisle and winning Republican support.
That is what Joe Biden promises.
The effect has been to make America into a one-party state. Republicans act as the most blatant lobbyists for the Donor Class.
But people can vote for a representative of the One Percent and the military-industrial complex in either the Republican or Democratic
column. That is why most Americans owe allegiance to no party.
The Democratic National Committee worries that voters may disturb this alliance by nominating a left-wing reform candidate. The
DNC easily solved this problem in 2016: When Bernie Sanders intruded into its space, it the threw the election. It scheduled the
party's early defining primaries in Republican states whose voters leaned right, and packed the nominating convention with Donor
Class super-delegates.
After the dust settled, having given many party members political asthma, the DNC pretended that it was all an unfortunate political
error. But of course it was not a mistake at all. The DNC preferred to lose with Hillary than win with Bernie, whom springtime polls
showed would be the easy winner over Trump. Potential voters who didn't buy into the program either stayed home or voted green.
No votes will be cast for months, so I don't know how Mr. Hudson can say that Sanders is "clearly the voters choice." He would
be 79 on election day, well above the age when most men die, which is something that voters should seriously consider. Whoever
his VP is will probably be president before the end of Old Bernie's first term, so I hope he chooses his VP wisely.
In any case I laugh at how the media always reports that Biden, who has obviously lost more than a few brain cells, has such
a commanding lead over this field of second-raters. The voters, having much better things to do, haven't even started to pay attention
yet.
And, how could anyone seriously believe in these polls anyway? Only older people have land lines today. If calling people is
the methodology pollsters are using, then the results would be heavily skewed towards former VP Biden, whose name everyone knows.
I lost all faith in polls when the media was saying, with certainty, that Hillary was a lock to win against the insurgent Trump.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate beside Trump with charisma today. With her cool demeanor, she is certainly the least unlikeable.
She would be Trump's most formidable opponent. But the democrats, like their counterparts, are owned by Wall Street and the Military
Industrial Complex. Sadly, most democrats still believe that the party is working in their best interests, while the republicans
are the party of the rich.
If you watch the debates tonight, which I will not be, you will notice that Tulsi Gabbard won't be on stage. That is by design.
She is a leper. At least the republicans allowed Trump to be onstage in 2016, which makes them more democratic than the democrats.
Plus they didn't have Super Delegates to prevent Trump from achieving the nomination he had rightfully won. Something to think
about since the DNC, not the voters, annointed Hillary last time.
If the YouTube Oligarchs still allow it, I plan on watching the post-debate analysis with characters like Richard Spencer and
Eric Striker. Those guys are most entertaining, and have insights that are not permitted to be uttered in the controlled, mind-numbing
farce of the mainstream media.
Elizabeth Warren seems a more likely nominee than Sanders.
Elizabeth Warren is phony as phuck(PAP). Just like forked tongued Obama she's really just a tool for the neo-liberal establishment,
which does make her more likely.
Here is another question. Can the DNC or RNC really change institutionally fast enough?
I'm just curious about how much longer this log-jam situation can persist before real political realignment takes place.
Bernie Sander is ultimately a relic not a representative of new political vigor running through the party, like Trump he would
be largely be on his own without much congressional support from his own party.
As the 2016 election and Brexit have illuminated, globalisation is a religion for the upper middle classes. Many of
them may be progressives but they refuse to understand the very non-progressive consequences of mass immigration (Or, one should
say over-immigration) or globalisation more generally. The increasing defection of such individuals to the Liberal Democrats in
Britain is a fascinating example. They just refuse to understand that political solidarity, key to any such policies is permanently
damaged by immigration.
It is interesting to see the see-saw effect of UKip and now the Brexit party in the UK (Well, in England). With them first
drawing working class voters from Labour without increasing Conservative performance, bringing about a massive conservative majority
and now threatening to siphon voters from the Tories with the opposite effect.
But UKip and later the Brexit party almost exist through the indispensable leadership of Nigel Farage and a very specific motivating
goal of leaving the EU. I can't see a third party rising to put pressure on the mainstream parties.
If you make people chose between their ethnicity being displaced and class conflict, they'll pick the preservation of their
ethnicity and it's territory every time. I f the centre left refuses to understand this (Something that wouldn't have been
hard for them to understand when they still drew candidates from the working classes) they will continue their slide into oblivion
as they have done across the Western world. (Excluding 2 party systems and Denmark where they do understand this)
My prediction: The elites in the US won't give way, people will simply become demoralised and the Trump/Sanders moment
will pass with significant damage done to the legitimacy of American democracy and media but with progressives unable to deal
with immigration (Much like the right can't deal with global warming) they will fail to get much done. The general population
has become too atomised and detached, beaten-down bystanders to their own politics and society to mount a popular political movement.
Immigrants, recent descendants of immigrants and the upper middle classes will continue to instinctually understand globalisation
is how they loot America and will not vote for 'extreme' candidates that threaten this. The upper middle class will continue to
dominate the overton window and use it to inject utter economic lies to the public.
The novel internet mass media outlets that allowed such unpoliced political discussion to reach mass audiences will be pacified
by whatever means and America will slide into an Italian style trans-generational malaise at a national level for some time.
Here is another question. Can the DNC or RNC really change institutionally fast enough?
Trump is trying to change the RNC away from Globalist elites and towards Christian Populist beliefs and Main Street America.
I am some what hopeful, as the U.S. is not alone in this trajectory. There is a global tail wind that should help the GOP change
quickly enough.
The true test will be the 2024 GOP nomination. A bold choice will have to break through to keep the RNC from backsliding into
the clutches of Globalist failure.
I think Sanders could have beat Trump in 2016. This time around it is not that clear because so many of his supporters in 2016
feel burnt.
Badly burnt. Or Bernt. He threw his support for Hillary, even if it was tepid, and then got a bad case of Russiagateitis which
his base on the left really hated. His left base never bought Russiagate for a minute. We knew it was an internal leak, probably
by Seth Rich, who provided all the information to Assange. He still seems to be a strong Israel supporter even if has stood up
to Netanyahu.
And while it may seem odd, many of his base on the left have grown weary of the global climate change agenda.
He has not advocated nuclear power and there is a growing movement for that on the left, especially by those who think renewables
will not generate the power we need.
But since Sanders does seem to attract the rural and suburban vote more than any other Democrat, Sanders has a chance to chip
away at Trumps' base and win the Electoral College. Another horrible loss to rural and suburban America by the Democrats will
cost them the EC again by a substantial margin, even if they manage to pull off another popular vote win.
the republican party is as globalist as you can find,and I'm sure you will be the first one to inform us when the global
elite including those in America throw in the towel,
Some elite Globalist NeverTrumpers, such as George Will and Bill Kristol, have thrown in the towel on the GOP. This allows
their "neocon" followers to return to their roots in the war mongering Democrat Party. So it *IS* happening.
The real questions are:
-- Can it happen fast enough?
-- Can it be sustained after Donald Trump term limits out?
I'm not bold enough to say it is inevitable. All I will say is, "There are reasons to be at least mildly hopeful."
Has everyone forgot the last time the DNC openly cheated Sanders he said nothing publicly, but then endorsed Clinton? Sanders
knows he is not allowed to become president, his role to prevent the formation of a third party, and to keep the Green Party small.
Otherwise he would jump to the Green Party right now and may beat the DNC and Trump.
Sanders treats progressives like Charlie Brown. Once again, inviting them to run a kick the football, only to pull it away
and watch them fall. He recently backed off his opposition to the open borders crazies, rarely mentions cuts to military spending
to fund things, and has even joined the stupid fake russiagate bandwagon.
Note that he dismisses the third party idea as unworkable, when he already knows the DNC is unworkable. Why not give the Green
party a chance? Cause he don't want to win knowing he'd be killed or impeached for some reason.
@Carlton Meyer The
Stalinist DNC openly cheated Tulsi Gabbard when they left her off the debate stage last night. When asked about it on 'The View'
recently, Sanders said nothing in her defense, or that she deserved to be on the stage. Nice way to stab her in the back for leaving
her DNC position to support you last time, Bernie. Socialist Sanders wants to be president, yet is afraid of the DNC. Nice!
Those polls were rigged against Tulsi, and everyone who is paying attention knows it. But, far from hurting her candidacy by
not making the DNC's arbitrary cut, her exclusion may wind up helping her. Kim Iverson, Michael Tracey, and comedian Jimmy Dore,
anti-war progressive YouTubers with large, loyal followings, have lambasted the out-of touch DNC for its actions. Tucker Carlson
on the anti-war right has also done so.
One hopes that the DNC's stupidity in censoring her message may wind up being the best thing ever for Tulsi's insurgent candidacy.
We shall see. OTOH, who can trust the polls to tell us the truth of where her popularity stands.
@RadicalCenter Do you
forget about Trump's declaration that he wants the largest amount of immigration ever, as long as they come in legally? There
are no good guys in our two sclerotic monopoly parties when it comes to immigration. Since both are terrible on that topic, at
least Tulsi seems to have the anti-war principles that Trump does not.
@follyofwar
Agreed . she was better off absent from that snore session. They all looked weak and
pathetic. BTW, Tulsi's now gotten her 3rd qualifying poll. She'll surge back much stronger.
And maybe even smarter, if she endorses this:
That means protection against the Republican-Democratic threats to cut back Social
Security to balance the budget in the face of tax cuts for the richest One Percent and
rising Cold War military spending. This means a government strong enough to take on the
vested financial and corporate interests and prosecute Wall Street's financial crime and
corporate monopoly power.
Analogies with late Imperial Rome are by now so cliché that even your average
dullard is familiar with them. But I find that the most fascinating -- and frightening --
parallels are with another empire of more recent vintage: the Empire of Japan.
The above quote brought to my mind the political unrest in Tokyo during the 1930s. Far
from being the work of a cabal of "militarists", as postwar legend would have it, Japan's
various internecine (and often bloody) political feuds and expensive military ventures were
driven by a public heavily invested in these affairs; hoping against hope for an outlet to
vent their increasing rage over dwindling social programs and opportunities at the cost of
propping up a concurrently fattening elite class.
Analyzing events like the Ni-ni-roku jiken (2/26 Incident) can be highly
instructional for Americans seeking some manner of explanation for their present failing
political system. While it is true that this nearly successful insurrection was carried out
by ultra-nationalists, their intention was not to deny the people a voice in the running of
government with their aspiration for direct rule by the Shōwa Emperor (then as now, the
Emperor served in a quasi-religious capacity with little ability to actually govern). Rather,
they felt that parliamentary democracy was a sham that benefitted only the monied and
privileged; and that only the Emperor, as the living incarnation of the Japanese state, could
act and respond according to the sovereign will of its people. What appeared to be a desire
for authoritarianism was, in fact, the radical, ideological inversion of the Marxist concept
of a "dictatorship of the proletariat". The Shōwa Emperor, in other words, was the
instrument of effecting the will of the nation; the "Emperor of the people"
(天皇の國民 Tennō no kokumin ).
I view in a similar vein the fascination and dreams that Trump and other such figures
excite in many: The radical hope that only a leader willing to smash the system, which to all
intents and purposes appears to only serve the few, can paradoxically restore the ability of
the many to express and act. Bogged down as we are by ballooning military debt (and blood),
economic stagnation, and an ever-widening chasm between the "haves" and "have-nots", and it
becomes difficult to ignore the parallels between the US today and Japan in 1936.
This was an interesting article, but I hold no illusions about the future. There will be
no breakup of the two major parties, no viable alternatives. Things will only get worse.
I envy those in their 50s and up today -- they will likely miss out on the momentous
history that people my generation and younger will be bearing reluctant witness to.
"... After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism. ..."
"... In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation. In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." ..."
"... Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high "the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system." ..."
"... The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another. ..."
This is as good a time as any to point to an alternative vision of foreign policy. One based on the principle of non-interference,
respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and, above all, international law. One based on peaceful coexistence and mutual
cooperation. A vision of the world at peace and undivided by arbitrary distinctions. Such a world is possible and even though
there are currently players around the world who are striving in that direction we need look no further than our own history for
inspiration. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one Henry A. Wallace, for your consideration.
(The following excerpts from an article by Dr. Dennis Etler. Link to the full article provided below.) --
The highest profile figure who articulated an alternative vision for American foreign policy was the politician Henry Wallace,
who served as vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940-1944 and ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the
Progressive Party.
After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's
role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with
partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism.
Wallace gave a speech in 1942 that declared a "Century of the Common Man." He described a post-war world that offered "freedom
from want," a new order in which ordinary citizens, rather than the rich and powerful, would play a decisive role in politics.
That speech made direct analogy between the Second World War and the Civil War, suggesting that the Second World War was being
fought to end economic slavery and to create a more equal society. Wallace demanded that the imperialist powers like Britain and
France give up their colonies at the end of the war.
In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation.
In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in
war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and
by such means as we see fit."
Wallace responded to Luce with a demand to create a world in which "no nation will have the God-given right to exploit other
nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there
must be neither military nor economic imperialism." Wallace took the New Deal global. His foreign policy was to be based on non-interference
in the internal affairs of other countries and mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Sadly, since then, despite occasional efforts to head in a new direction, the core constituency for US foreign policy has been
corporations, rather than the "common man" either in the United States, or the other nations of the world, and United States foreign
relations have been dominated by interference in the political affairs of other nations. As a result the military was transformed
from an "arsenal for democracy" during the Second World War into a defender of privilege at home and abroad afterwards.
-- - Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without
political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high
"the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key
policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance
of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system."
--
Wallace's legacy suggests that it is possible to put forth a vision of an honest internationalism in US foreign policy that
is in essence American. His approach was proactive not reactive. It would go far beyond anything Democrats propose today, who
can only suggest that the United States should not start an unprovoked war with Iran or North Korea, but who embrace sanctions
and propagandist reports that demonize those countries.
Rather than ridiculing Trump's overtures to North Korea, they should go further to reduce tensions between the North and the
South by pushing for the eventual withdrawal of troops from South Korea and Japan (a position fully in line with Wallace and many
other politicians of that age).
Rather than demonizing and isolating Russia (as a means to score political points against Trump), progressives should call for
a real détente, that recognizes Russia's core interests, proposes that NATO withdraw troops from Russia's borders, ends sanctions
and reintegrates Russia into the greater European economy. They could even call for an end to NATO and the perpetuation of the
dangerous global rift between East and West that it perpetuates.
Rather than attempt to thwart China's rise, and attack Trump for not punishing it enough, progressives should seek to create new
synergies between China and the US economically, politically and socioculturally.
-- -
In contrast to the US policy of perpetual war and "destroying nations in order to save them," China's BRI proposes an open plan
for development that is not grounded in the models of French and British imperialism. It has proposed global infrastructure and
science projects that include participants from nations in Africa, Asia, South and Central America previously ignored by American
and European elites -- much as Wallace proposed an equal engagement with Latin America. When offering developmental aid and investment
China does not demand that free market principles be adopted or that the public sector be privatized and opened up for global
investment banks to ravish.
-- The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing
its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying
on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with
nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another.
"Support and attend the People's Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine and Save the
Planet, September 20 through 23, in New York City. Christian liberationist intellectual
Cornel West and Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice,
Peace and Reparations will speak, and much of the Black Agenda Report team are
participating.
Good catch; you were first with that blockbuster. You know who would be a good replacement?
Tulsi Gabbard. It would please those who moan the government is too partisan, it would remove
the only real non-ideologue from the Democratic slate, and leave them with doddering Uncle
Joe and a bunch of no-ideas bobbleheads. Few would dare question her lack of foreign-policy
experience, given her actual experience of being at the sharp end of it with the military.
The American people claim to be sick of war – although not sick enough of it to do any
real protesting against it – and Gabbard is anti-war. She's easy on the eyes, but if
Trump tried his grab-'er-by-the-pussy move, he would find himself only needing one glove this
winter; her obvious toughness would appeal to feminists. I think she'd take it if asked,
because although she despises Trump and his government, she would not be able to resist the
opportunity to shape America's foreign policy. She would eat news outlets who tried to
portray her as an apologist for terror or Putin or whatever for lunch.
Well, she was not on the short list of names I saw for potential Bolton replacements. I don't
see her making president, though, her support base is just not big enough. But if the
Democrats put all their eggs in the Burnout Joe basket, he will in all probability lose to
Trump. Trump's support has eroded, but not so far that very many people want to see Joe Biden
running the country.
apenultimate on Fri, 08/30/2019 - 12:39am Even though she will not be included in the
3rd DNC debate, upon her return from Indonesia where she was training with her Hawaii National
Guard unit, Tulsi has indicated that we should not be discouraged and she has given every
indication she will continue to campaign at this point:
Peter Harris continently forget that the USA is imperial power with expansionist, imperial
goals in the Middle East (Iraq war was about oil) and unrelenting support of Israel. Which in
turn is a destabilizing force in the Middle East. The only state with not no accepted borders
which recently annexed Holland heights.
recenthistory of
engineering the downfall of foreign regimes. Second, the U.S. military's top priority should be
to eliminate terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. From these two premises, a third
foundation of Gabbard's foreign policy can be inferred: that the United States must sometimes
tolerate the existence of brutal foreign governments, especially if they share a common
interest in fighting the same terrorist groups as America.
None of these are radical assumptions about American foreign policy. Indeed, Gabbard's
anti-interventionism is tightly aligned with the prevailing zeitgeist in U.S. politics.
According to polling data, voters today are opposed to U.S. involvement in
Yemen , supportive of a withdrawal from
Afghanistan , and roughly
evenly split on the question of whether the United States should cease operations in Syria.
Military veterans are among those
most critical of the so-called "forever wars" in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
Gabbard's insistence that the U.S. military should focus on counterterrorism rather than
regime change is also well within the mainstream of political opinion. In this regard, Gabbard
is
not unlike the last Democratic occupant of the Oval Office. After all, it was Barack Obama
who, as a candidate for the presidency, explicitly coupled his headline promises to end the
Iraq War and shrink America's overall military footprint with a commitment to ramp up the fight
against Al Qaeda and their Taliban enablers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
... ... ..
Peter Harris is an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State
University. You can follow him on Twitter: @ipeterharris .
I vote for taking Tulsi seriously. Pres Trump should consider her as Sec Defense or
head of the DNI. We've ruined the lives of the Syrian people with our intervention and
who the f decided we have a say? The U.S. needs to stop being interventionist for the
most part and in the event another country invades us, then and only then should be blow
them the F up!
Working with Assad and Russia to rid Syria of the remaining terrorists makes sense. It
would stop the "cleansing" of Idlib from Kurds, Christians and moderate Muslims by Al
Qaeda/ex-ISIS forces supported by Turkey. It would force Turkey to withdraw its forces
from Syria, and isolate Turkey from Russian influence. Iranian proxy militias would no
longer be needed in Syria to fight Al Qaeda. Finally, it would facilitate return of
Syrian refugees. The US should also remove existing sanctions on Syria which are
preventing economic reconstruction of the country.
Tulsi Gabbard is our only chance to beat Trump, and yet the media refuses to print
much about her, or her policies. I don't get it?
Anyway, thank you for this article you posted.
You can find all that on YouTube, where she has posted dozens of her campaign chats.
See also Joe Rogan interviews. The connection between foreign and domestic policy is that
trillions wasted on endless wars make health, education, infrastructure, etc.
unaffordable and therefore pie-in-the-sky until we come to our senses. She seems to offer
more detailed positions and more practical proposals on most of those issues -- and more
-- than the rest of the candidates put together. Is she too good to be true? Perhaps. Is
she a candidate we need in coming debates? Definitely. Could she beat Trump? In debates,
easily and decisively; in November 2020, not sure, but I think she has better odds than
the rest. What sort of president would she be? The wildest of wild cards, possibly one of
the greatest, possibly something else. At the rate things are going, it might be a lot
riskier NOT to take a chance on her.
The US administration shifted its policy to "no boots on the ground" during Pres.
Obama. Russia exploited the opportunity to reinstate its "boots" in the region and even
put a wedge between NATO and Turkey. To me it looks that this policy is detrimental to
the US hegemony in the region. Besides, I scream:'the King is naked' and claim that
people's interest or wellbeing in this region comes last, if at all, in the list of
priorities of all the regional and global superpowers, including the US administration.
Finally, collaborating with thugs like current rulers of Syria, Iran and similar was
proved a wrong policy by their infamous predecessor, 'Mr.' Adolf H., how respectfully Mr.
Chamberlain called him.
Most politicians don't learn from history.
Lots of Historians say that Stalin was as bad as Hitler, arguably even worse, in terms
of body counts. But if Churchill and Roosevelt had not engaged with Stalin, defeating the
Third Reich might have taken the rest of the 20th century. The crucial difference is
between Chamberlain and Churchill. It not how evil our negotiating partners are but how
strong and clear-sighted we are that determines the outcome.
https://www.youtube.com/wat... Until you listen to this by Col Lawrence Wilkerson
whose Truth-Telling is never carried on MSM then you can fall for this Drivel Propaganda
about Assad and him being a brutal dictator who in fact DID NOT Gas his people. This is
all Israeli Likud extremists who have been trying to illegally seize land in Syria, steal
oil, and destabilize it for 65 yrs. The Zionist White Helments are using human shields.
Assad is a sovereign and if you think Iran, Russia, and their other allies are going to
let them fail with US-sponsored Terrorists then you are wrong. Wilkerson says he wishes
he could slap Clinton, Pelosi, and all the hysterical pundits screamin about pulling out
of Syria in the face. He goes on to say there are 50 Air, Naval, & Army bases
surrounding Iran and Syria, the largest on Earth, and that the only solution is Diplomacy
or Nuclear War.
israel shoots up civilians in gaza not a problem, saudis behead homosexuals not a big
deal, assad fights against alqaeda and isis omg he is worst than hitler this cannot be
happening >.<
Wow, just came across two pro-Tulsi articles in a row on my Google feed. What is going
on? Varitas got Google shook, or Dems finally realizing Tulsi the only chance they have
against Trump. No, Dems will never forgive her for defecting to Bernie, they bite their
own nose off first. Must be the Varitas stuff. Things will get back to hate Tulsi normal
soon I'm sure
The worst by far are the Saudis. But they our ally so can't talk about them. They buy
billions worth of US weaponry, keep economy going, yippie. I remember when Saddam was a
rock star, on USA magazine covers, hailed as progressive. Kadahfy too. Kadahfy was a
actually a pretty decent guy. He truly was progressive. It is strange world when you
realize up is down and down is up , 2+2=5
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Film 'Official Secrets' is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg August 29, 2019 •
37 Comments
A new film depicting the whistleblower Katherine Gun, who tried to stop the Iraq invasion,
is largely accurate, but the story is not over, says Sam Husseini.
T wo-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley is known for being in "period pieces" such as "Pride
and Prejudice," so her playing the lead in the new film "Official Secrets," scheduled to be
released in the U.S. on Friday, may seem odd at first. That is until one considers that the
time span being depicted -- the early 2003 run-up to the invasion of Iraq -- is one of the most
dramatic and consequential periods of modern human history.
It is also one of the most poorly understood, in part because the story of Katharine Gun,
played by Knightley, is so little known. Having followed this story from the start, I find this
film to be, by Hollywood standards, a remarkably accurate account of what has happened to
date–"to date" because the wider story still isn't over.
Katharine Gun
worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent
of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. She tried to stop the impending invasion of
Iraq in early 2003 by exposing the deceit of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their claims
about that country. For doing that she was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act -- a
juiced up version of the U.S. Espionage Act, which in recent years has been used repeatedly by
the Obama administration against whistleblowers and now by the Trump administration against
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.
Gun was charged for exposing -- around the time of
Colin Powell's infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq's alleged WMDs – a top secret
U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an illegal spying "surge" against other U.N.
Security Council delegations in an effort to manipulate them into voting for an Iraq invasion
resolution. The U.S. and Britain had successfully
forced through a trumped
up resolution, 1441 in November 2002. In early 2003, they were poised to threaten, bribe or
blackmail their way to get formal United Nations authorization for the invasion. [See
recent interview with Gun .]
Katherine Gun The leaked memo, published by the British Observer , was big news in
parts of the world, especially the targeted countries on the Security Council, and helped
prevent Bush and Blair from getting the second UN Security Council resolution they said they
wanted. Veto powers Russia, China and France were opposed as well as U.S. ally Germany.
'Most Courageous Leak' It was the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy,
where I work ( accuracy.org ), Norman
Solomon, as well as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who in the U.S. most
immediately saw the importance of what Gun had done. Ellsberg would later comment: "No one else
-- including myself -- has ever done what Katharine Gun did: Tell secret truths at personal
risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it. Hers was the most important --
and courageous -- leak I've ever seen, more timely and potentially more effective than the
Pentagon Papers."
Daniel Ellsberg on the cover of Time after leaking the Pentagon Papers
Gun said: "I went to the local bookshop, and I went into the political section. I found two
books, which had apparently been rushed into publication, one was by Norman Solomon and Reese
Erlich, and it was called Target Iraq . And the
other one was by Milan Rai. It was called War
Plan Iraq . And I bought both of them. And I read them cover to cover that weekend, and
it basically convinced me that there was no real evidence for this war. So I think from that
point onward, I was very critical and scrutinizing everything that was being said in the
media." Thus, we see Gun in "Official Secrets" shouting at the TV to Tony Blair that he's not
entitled to make up facts. The film may be jarring to some consumers of major media who might
think that Donald Trump invented lying in 2017. Gun's immediate action after reading critiques
of U.S. policy and media coverage makes a strong case for trying to reach government workers by
handing out fliers and books and putting up
billboards outside government offices to encourage them to be more critically minded.
Solomon and Ellsberg had debunked Bush administration propaganda in real time. But Gun's
revelation showed that the U.S. and British governments were not only lying to invade Iraq,
they were violating international law to blackmail whole nations to get in line.
Mainstream reviews of "Official Secrets" still seem to not fully grasp the importance of
what they just saw. The trendy AV
Club review leads : "Virtually everyone now agrees that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a
colossal mistake based on faulty (at best) or fabricated (at worst) intelligence." "Mistake" is
a serious understatement even with "colossal" attached to it when the movie details the
diabolical, illegal lengths to which the U.S. and British governments went to get other
governments to go along with it.
Gun's revelations showed before the invasion that people on the inside, whose livelihood
depends on following the party line, were willing to risk jail time to out the lies and
threats.
Portrayal of The Observer
Other than Gun herself, the film focuses on a dramatization of what happened at her work; as
well as her relationship with her husband, a Kurd from Turkey who the British government
attempted to have deported to get at Gun. The film also portrays the work of her lawyers who
helped get the Official Secrets charge against her dropped, as well as the drama at The
Observer , which published the NSA document after much internal debate.
Observer reporter Martin Bright, whose strong work on the original Gun story was
strangely followed by an ill-fated stint at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, has recently noted
that very little
additional work has been done on Gun's case. We know virtually nothing about the apparent
author of the NSA document that she leaked -- one "Frank Koza." Other questions persist, such
is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign governments to get UN votes or for other
purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with allegations made by former NSA analyst
Russ
Tice about the NSA having massive files on political people?
Observer reporter Ed Vulliamy is energetically depicted getting tips from former CIA
man Mel Goodman. There do seem to be subtle but potentially serious deviations from reality in
the film. Vulliamy is depicted as actually speaking with "Frank Koza," but that's not what he
originally
reported :
"The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency
which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The
Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the
United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the
assistant had just said this was Koza's extension, the assistant repeated that it was an
erroneous extension, and hung up."
There must doubtlessly be many aspects of the film that have been simplified or altered
regarding Gun's personal experience. A compelling part of the film -- apparently fictitious or
exaggerated -- is a GCHQ apparatchik questioning Gun to see if she was the source.
Little is known about the reaction inside the governments of Security Council members that
the U.S. spied on. After the invasion, Mexican Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser spoke in blunt
terms about U.S. bullying -- saying it viewed Mexico as its patio trasero , or back yard
-- and was Zinser was compelled to resign by President Vicente Fox. He then,
in 2004 , gave details about some aspects of U.S. surveillance sabotaging the efforts of
the other members of the Security Council to hammer out a compromise to avert the invasion of
Iraq, saying the U.S. was "violating the U.N. headquarters covenant." In 2005, he tragically
died in a car crash
.
Documents
leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept in 2016 boasted of how the NSA
"during the wind-up to the Iraq War 'played a critical role' in the adoption of U.N. Security
Council resolutions. The work with that customer was a resounding success." The relevant
document specifically cites resolutions 1441 and 1472 and quotes John Negroponte ,
then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: "I can't imagine better intelligence support
for a diplomatic mission." (Notably, The Intercept has never published a word on "
Katharine Gun ." )
Nor were the UN Security Council members the only ones on the U.S. hit list to pave the way
for the Iraq invasion. Brazilian Jose Bustani, the director-general of the international
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. was ousted in an effective coup by John
Bolton in April of 2002 . Bolton is now national security adviser.
"Official Secrets" director Gavin Hood is perhaps more right than he realizes when he says
that his depiction of the Gun case is like the "tip of an iceberg," pointing to other deceits
surrounding the Iraq war. His record with political films has been uneven until now. Peace
activist David Swanson, for instance, derided his film on drones, " Eye in the Sky ." At a D.C. showing of "Official Secrets,"
Hood depicted those who backed the Iraq war as being discredited. But that's simply untrue.
Keira Knightley appears as Katherine Gun in Official Secrets (Courtesy of Sundance
Institute.)
Leading presidential candidate Joe Biden -- who not only voted for the Iraq invasion, but
presided over rigged
hearings on in 2002 – has recently falsified
his record repeatedly on Iraq
at presidential debates with hardly a murmur. Nor is he alone. Those refusing to be held
accountable for their Iraq war lies include not just Bush and Cheney, but John Kerry and
Nancy
Pelosi .
Biden has actually faulted Bush for not doing enough to get United Nations approval for the
Iraq invasion. But as the Gun case helps show, there was no legitimate case for invasion and
the Bush administration had done virtually everything, both legal and illegal, to get UN
authorization.
Many who supported the invasion try to distance themselves from it. But the repercussions of
that illegal act are enormous: It led directly or indirectly to the rise of ISIS, the civil war
in Iraq and the war in Syria. Journalists who pushed for the Iraq invasion are prosperous and
atop major news organizations, such as Washington Post editorial page editor
Fred Hiatt. The
editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer , Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News.
After Gun's identity became known, the Institute for Public Accuracy brought on Jeff Cohen,
the founder of FAIR, to work with program director Hollie Ainbinder to get prominent
individuals to support
Gun . The film -- quite plausibly -- depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the
simple reason that the British government feared that a high profile proceeding would
effectively put the war on trial, which to them would be have been a nightmare.
Sam Husseini is an independent journalist, senior analyst at the Institute for Public
Accuracy and founder of VotePact.org .
Follow him on twitter: @samhusseini .
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
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David G , August 31, 2019 at 19:49
Saw the film today. Solid work; recommended.
Did her ultimate court appearance really go down in such a dramatic fashion? I suppose I
shouldn't be surprised if it did: English courtroom proceedings may not deliver better
justice than U.S. ones, but they're definitely more entertaining.
William , August 31, 2019 at 19:06
U.S. Government officials should be indicted for war crimes. It is quite clear that U.S.
officials conspired to ensure that an invasion
of Iraq would take place. The U.S. and Britain -- George Bush and Tony Blair -- initiated a
war of aggression against Iraq, and under
international law should be tried for war crimes, just as numerous German officials were
tried and convicted of war crimes.
No U.S. politician has called for investigation, and the main stream media has not touched
this topic. It is unquestionably clear that
the U.S. congress is a collection of spineless, cowardly, corrupt, greedy men and women. They
have allowed the U.S. to become a rogue,
criminal nation.
Katherine Gun is awesome! I heard her speak as part of a panel of whistleblowers –
wish there were many more like her
michael , August 31, 2019 at 08:15
Inequality.org reports that the majority of our top 1% are corporate executives. Finance,
which reportedly accounted for 3% of our economy in 1980, now accounts for 30%. Many of the
US's 585 billionaires have monopolies in their business domain, no different from the Robber
Barons of the late 19th and early 20th century. "Stability is more important than democracy",
the market hates uncertainty, and our foreign policies, determined by think tanks staffed and
funded by our "allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia, will continue to push for the greed of our
Richest. "Democracy" is a just a hypocritical bon mot for stealing and destroying.
The Republicans have always supported these people. What is worrisome is that the Democrats
have come to the same place as the GOP, since donations– pay-to-play- lead to
re-elections. The Democrats have deserted the Poor and working class, since they have no
money for pay-to-play. Our 17 technologically advanced Stasis work in concert with Congress,
our entitled government bureaucrats, and their lapdog main stream media to "make things
happen" for our Richest. How long before people like Assange, Katherine Gunn, Chelsea
Manning, Edward Snowden, Binney, Kiriakou etc learn that it pays to keep their mouths shut?
Transparency and whistleblowing is punished. Maybe other approaches are needed?
Tony , August 31, 2019 at 07:26
Very interesting to see what inspired her to act the way that she did.
Of course, the supporters of the war had various motives.
But one motive behind President Bush's plan was revealed by Russ Baker in his book 'Family of
Secrets' page 423.
He recalls a conversation with Bush family friend and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. He
says that he told him:
"He (George W. Bush) was thinking about invading in 1999."
Bush apparently said:
"If I have a chance to invade if I had that much (political) capital, I'm not going to
waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed, and I'm going to have
a successful presidency."
So there we have it, he thought that a war would boost his presidency.
David G , August 31, 2019 at 05:16
"The editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer, Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News."
That's a repulsive little nugget I would never have known otherwise.
Thanks to Sam Husseini for this account. The film is playing in my town, at least for this
coming week; I plan to get to it.
RomeoCharlie29 , August 30, 2019 at 19:24
This is a really interesting story and one I knew nothing about, although I was one who
opposed the Iraq war because to me it was obvious the whole WMD issue was bullshit. Now I
understand the perception that that war was an American/ Brit thing but you might recall that
America's deputy Sheriff in the Pacific, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, was Gung
ho for the war and committed Australian troops to the ill-fated endeavour with the result
that our country has subsequently become a target for ISIS inspired terrorism. Australia's
Opposition Leader at the time, Simon Crean led a vocal opposition to the war but "Little
Johnny" as we called him was not to be denied. Incidentally I don't think he has ever
admitted being wrong on this.
Xander Arena , August 30, 2019 at 18:15
Tip of an iceberg is right. Iraq was the second big lie of the 21st century. I wonder how
the world will react to the University of Alaska Fairbanks report which proves fraud at NIST,
and arguably reveals aiding and abetting of treason by the contractors who wrote NIST's
analysis of the WTC7 destruction. The UAF report drops Tuesday 9/3/19, and chisels away at
the big lie that preceded all the related Iraq deceit. BTW great article :)
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:49
I enjoyed the article and learned some things, but it does seem a bit of Hollywood
promotion at the same time.
If only Gun's sacrifice had stopped the invasion it would have been a sensation. As is,
the UN did not sanction the invasion, making that effort a bit moot, and since the reveal of
NSA bugging the world under Obama that dulls the sensibilities of those who might today have
otherwise been shocked, shocked like the Gary Powers U-2 spy plane downing over the USSR and
Ike being caught in a lie on TV.
But overall, knowing the downhill Gun's livelihood has taken over the 15 years makes the
story more of a warning for whistle blowers than inspiration. Maybe Gun will be well
compensated by the movie makers!
Neil E Mac , August 30, 2019 at 15:54
En fin!
bevin , August 30, 2019 at 14:13
One thing is certain: The Observer of 2019 would not publish a story like this. That is
one of the major changes since 2003: the capitalist media has tightened up. There are no
longer papers competing to attract readers at risk of cozy relations with the State. The
Observer/Guardian today – since the Snowden revelations- does what it is told.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:16
"In 2005, he tragically died in a car crash."
Unfortunately -- or fortunately? -- this no longer seems to be credible when it comes to
those who have gone ouit on a limb to challenge the Deep State, or the US version of the Deep
State.
Can Bush and Blair be charged with crimes? In connection with the Third Reich there is
AFAIK no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. Well, Iraq was also full of
'humanity." These guys belong in The Hague. Or in Iraq, doing community service.
In connection with Ellsberg's reviewing the evidence and concluding there was no
evidentiary justification for invading Iraq -- I wanna say, you didn't need to be Ellsberg or
any kind of expert to see clearly that there was no evidence that justified invading Iraq.
Millions of common folk could see this clearly. That is why over 14 million people worldwide
demonstrated against the planned illegal invasion. That is why people like me when to NYC, to
Washington, and also the front our local US Post Office in small towns all over the country
to protest the country's being lied into war. And were greeted mostly with thumbs-up from the
passers- and drivers-by.
The people knew it was all a pack of lies. It was the gullible PRESS that ginned up this
show. Remember Judith what's her name at the NYT? These people also should be indicted as war
criminals.
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:19
Judith Miller, the NYTimes reporter who did maybe the most to make the invasion of Iraq,
is the last name you were seeking.
SteveF , August 30, 2019 at 12:22
The timescales are interesting, we have the alleged US blackmail to get this illegal war
'approved' by the UN and in the same timescale we have the Jeffery Epstein story unfolding
and the corresponding allegations that he was a CIA/Mossad agent operating honey traps to
entangle the rich and famous.
The evil machinations of our governments are indeed breathtaking.
As we can see from so very many modern instances, it matters not at all that truth is on
your side, if what you are doing is attacking those with money and power.
And there's an entire American establishment dedicated to keeping it just that way.
America's history of the last half century, at least so far as foreign relations and
control of an empire, is almost entirely an artificial construct.
Absolutely no truth in everything from John Kennedy's assassination, which was intimately
concerned with America's relationship with Cuba, and the despicable Vietnam War to 9/11 and
the despicable Neocon Wars in the Middle East.
From hundreds of millions of printed newspapers and television broadcasts to speeches from
prominent American politicians, you have tissue of lies not unlike that that was constantly
being created by Oceania's Inner Party in 1984.
That's not even the slightest exaggeration, but, truly, are Americans in general the least
concerned or bothered?
We have no evidence of significant concern. None.
The Democratic Party just weeded out the only candidate it had, brave and informed enough
to speak to truth in some of these matters.
The ten left just represent varying degrees of hopelessness. On and on with weaving dreams
about this or that creative social program while the resources and close attention dedicated
to destruction in a dozen lands make them all impossible.
At the sae time, there is an almost complete lack of information and courage about
anything that is happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, in Israel, and in such massively
important countries as China, Russia, and Iran.
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are brave contemporary examples of the American
establishment's methods for shutting down truth and punishing severely those who reveal it.
While they have followers and supporters, I am always amazed at how relatively small their
numbers are.
And we have remarkably few individuals like Manning or Assange, especially when you
consider the scale and scope of America's many dark works. Mostly, we see only "willing
helpers" carrying on with their sensitive, secretive careers in government.
In the Democratic nomination contest, the "star" liberals, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren, are virtually no different in these absolutely critical matters than a confirmed old
puke of a war criminal like Joe Biden, someone who probably deserves recognition as father of
Obama's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing project with drones and Hellfire missiles
making legally-innocent people in a dozen countries just disappear. Biden has a long record
of smarmy deeds and lack of courage and principles. He is, of course, most likely to get the
nomination too.
Act, from America's CIA, no different in principle and in law to those of the old
Argentine military junta's massive efforts at dragging people off the streets, drugging them,
and throwing them out of planes over the ocean, something they did to thousands. Oh, and
during that wonderful project there were no objections from America, only silence.
Aimee , August 30, 2019 at 22:31
Excellent post. Agree completely. Tulsi was our only hope and she never had a chance. We
are doomed.
Coleen Rowley , August 30, 2019 at 23:29
Here are some of the reasons for the ever lessening concern over US-NATO-Israel-Saudi's
(aka our current Empire's) wars: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/04/recipe-concocted-for-perpetual-war-is-a-bitter-one/
By the way my co-author and I tried unsuccessfully to get this published in about 15
different US papers before Robert Parry posted it on Consortiumnews.
Robert Edwards , August 30, 2019 at 11:17
It's time these liers and war criminals are brought to Justice – I know that's
wishful , but sometimes wishes come true America must get back to a country run on integrity
and honesty, otherwise all will be lost in the spiral of evil
Sorry, but, oh please, America is lost. Has been so for a very long time.
Only tremendous outside influences like depression or war and the growth of competing
states and the loss of the dollar's privileged status, are going to change the reality.
America's feeble democratic system is capable of changing almost nothing. After all, it
was constructed with just that in mind.
john wilson , August 31, 2019 at 05:07
I think think the real worry is that these days they don't even bother to lie anymore and
they just do what they want. Think Venezuela.
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:42
"Other questions persist, such is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign
governments to get UN votes or for other purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with
allegations made by former NSA analyst Russ Tice about the NSA having massive files on
political people?"
This also stands out , as given what we now know is standard modus opendi of CIA / Mossad
operations ,due to the Epstein arrest and ensuing information , who knows what is used to
leverage other nations to follow along with US and in this case UK demands.Birds of a feather
fly together.
Very good report by Sam Husseini.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:32
Absolutely. It is an obvious avenue now to investigate: How did the Epstein operation
impact on the decision to invade Iraq? How were teh votes wrung out for the war authorization
in October 2002?
Regarding Kerry, as a resident of Mass. I couldn't believe that Vietnam vet Kerry would
vote Yes on the war authorization act. I called his office a number of time to beg him to
vote no. Rumors emanated from within his office in Boston or wherever that phone calls from
constituents were running 180 to 1 urging him to vote NO. But he voted YES anyhow.
I simply believe that Yalie Kerry didn't see what was up with the obvious lying that drove
the runup to an illegal invasion. This is the kind of scenario where one now has to wonder --
and ask openly -- whether Kerry had been compromised in some way that made him vulnerable to
blackmail. Why the hell else would he vote so stupidly?
Recall that Scott Ritter ran afoul of some kind of sex trap and so he, one of the most
knowledgeable and outspoken critics of the fake WMD narrative, was effectively muzzled.
Did Kerry have a little skeleton in the closet somewhere?
The same could be asked of all the esp. Democratic legislators who voted YES. Because we
now understand which state in the EAstern Med wanted the war most and profited the most from
it. We now know how deep and how wide the tentacles of that state's intelligence service
intrude into our own national sphere, our Congress, our own intelligence services, our media,
and, most likely, our military. Epstein seems to been part f this web of pressure and
blackmail.
Epstein is gone, but Ghislaine Maxwell apparently still runs free.
Let's bring her in for questioning specifically about pressure applied on the Oct. 2002 vote.
(Although some speculate that she, too, is already dead.)
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:23
At a time when despair in political affairs is very depressing ,it is very refreshing to
see that the voices of reason are being vindicated.
I really want to see this film as this is the first time that I hear of the voice of
Katherine Gun .Bless her heart for standing up and her efforts to warn of deception . Does
the film make any mention of Dr.David Kelly's so-called suicide / murder ? Will have to wait
ans see.
Thank you CN for once again coming through for your excellent report.
Pablo , August 30, 2019 at 10:15
Lawrence Wilkerson (Powell's Chief of Staff?) told me that Collin knew Bush was
fabricating, but went to the U.N. as a "loyal foot soldier".
AnneR , August 30, 2019 at 08:25
Thank you, Sam Husseini, for this overview of the background – real story – to
the film Official Secrets.
To be frank, I'd not heard of Katherine Gun's revelations at the time – not
surprising because I don't think that the US MSM gave the leak any oxygen. They were all too
gung-ho for the war.
While the film undoubtedly soft-pedals some of the story and likely doesn't reveal or make
explicit as much as we'd all hope, I really do hope that it receives at least as much
publicity (good) and viewing as that execrable film Zero dark Thirty which basically
supported the CIA and its torturers. But somehow I doubt that.
TomR , August 31, 2019 at 06:19
Zero Dark Thirty is just about the worst bullshit fake narrative put out by the CIA that
I've ever seen. I watched it but cringed with the dramatized fake narrative that the CIA is
famous for – think the bullshit 9/11 US govt. narrative – if you or anyone else
believes that totally bunkum govt. narrative – well, I feel sorry for you.
Druid , August 31, 2019 at 17:28
Im a good- movie buff. I avoided Zero Dark Thirty. Not a farthing for those lies
Sylvia Bennet , August 30, 2019 at 07:51
I applaud Keira Knightley and all who were involved in bringing this story to the public.
It is vital that more people who have the eyes and ears of the public speak out on these
issues. Sadly, most of them keep their heads below the parapet. With the Main Stream Media
colluding with corrupt corporations and governments to lie or distort the truth, we need
decent people with influence to step up before it is too late.
Toxik , August 30, 2019 at 02:42
Looked at my local theaters and Official Secrets will not be shown.
jmg , August 29, 2019 at 18:39
Katharine Gun's case can also be very relevant for Julian Assange's defense:
"Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer
evidence. . . . The day before the trial, Gun's defence team had asked the government for any
records of advice about the legality of the war that it had received during the run-up to the
war. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny as the defence
were expected to argue that trying to stop an illegal act (that of an illegal war of
aggression) trumped Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act 1989. . . . In 2019 The
Guardian stated the case was dropped 'when the prosecution realised that evidence would
emerge that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful.'"
So Katharine Gun, like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, etc., by revealing corruption and
crimes, maybe didn't obey the code of silence of organized crime, government sector, but
that's not a law.
For example, the US Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information,
explicitly outlaws any classification that covers up crimes or embarrassing information.
This means that whistleblowers like Katharine Gun or Chelsea Manning, and investigative
journalists like Julian Assange are the ones defending the law here, while the US and UK
governments are the criminals.
lindaj , August 29, 2019 at 22:10
Hear, Hear!
Me Myself , August 30, 2019 at 12:11
The espionage act has and would protect those who were responsible for the war I
believe.
If we could Abrogate the espionage act it would make are representatives more
accountable.
I was unaware of Katherine Gun she is clearly a standout person and will join the ranks of
are most respected truthers.
WTF Burkie , August 31, 2019 at 14:05
Our not are.b.c. burkhart
evelync , August 30, 2019 at 13:34
And the secrecy, apparently, is required in the name of "national security" .that's what I
was told by a Harvard JFK School of Government associate when I emailed 200+ of 'em to
express my outrage over their withdrawal of Chelsea Manning's honorary degree when Pompeo and
Morrell bullied them. I responded with – that's INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE at Harvard
– as a "respected" educational institution you should be front and center critiquing
foreign policy instead of helping to bury the wrongdoing ..no wonder voters didn't trust the
establishment candidates in 2016 but the DNC was too much a part of it all to see or care
what was going on. Except for Tulsi Gabbard who resigned at DNC VP in protest for what was
being done to the Sanders campaign and to endorse Sanders instead of Clinton. The DNC knee
capped the campaign of the one person who had won peoples' trust for his honesty.
We have incompetent people with no moral fiber making terrible decisions and burying the
mistakes under secrecy, a fear based "code of silence", as you say.
Biden touts his being chosen by Obama for VP; therefore "he's qualified".
Since Clinton and Biden were the most dangerously ambitious critics of Obama, I think he may
have chosen to add them to his administration as VP and Sec of State to practice "keep your
friends close and your enemies closer" .but his decision was very costly to the lives of
people around the world including the Caribbean and South American countries whose wealth our
oligarchs coveted.
And as far as Honduras is concerned those political choices by Obama sadly explains refugees
fleeing from that violent country even now ..thanks to our failing to declare the 2009 Coup a
"military coup". One of Clinton's "hard choices". Obama and Biden went along with that of
course.
Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire" tells the sordid tale of how waterboarding was
used long before Bush II – used on the freedom fighters for their independence in the
Philippines after the Spanish American War and we took over as imperialists ..
Most people, I think, don't know all the gruesome details of our aggression but they now know
enough to be troubled by it. Few political candidates have the backbone to criticize
wrongheaded foreign policy.
I'm disappointed that Tulsi Gabbard won't be permitted to join Bernie Sanders at the
September 12 2019 "debate" as the only ones who speak out on how wrong for this country and
the world our foreign policies have been. This courageous woman should be heard.
When Bernie was challenged in the 2016 Miami debate on his enlightened views on Cuba and
other Caribbean and South American countries, Clinton used Cold War rhetoric to attack him.
She was shocked, I tell you, shocked that he would not grind his heel on the Cuban people. I
wondered at the time whether she really believed the crap she was selling or just put on a
good political show for the national security state.
We so need transparency if we want to be a real democracy.
Sam F , August 30, 2019 at 21:06
Very true that transparency is essential to democracy. That also requires lifelong
monitoring of officials and their relatives for paybacks and other influence. But (for
example) Florida has an Sunshine Act that merely moves the bribes into other channels, and
may be the most corrupt state. I am investigating extensive racketeering there involving
state officials stealing conservation funds. They can be quire careless because their party
runs the entire state including state and federal judiciary, and instantly approves whatever
their rich "donors" want to steal. But the FBI and DOJ refuse to take action when given the
evidence on a silver platter – no doubt because they are appointed by the same party.
Theft is their sacred right and duty, to protect their country from its people.
michael , August 31, 2019 at 07:30
Florida's Sunshine laws were on display at Epstein's only trial, much of it still sealed
from public view.
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Yves here. The DNC position on elections does much to explain the 2016 California primary,
which featured numerous reports by poll workers of dirty practices. Oddly, I saw two separate
videos with many detailed first person accounts of a range of abuses which now seem to be not
findable on Google. Oh, and there were no exit polls. Convenient, that.
As Jimmy Breslin wrote in his blurb, this is the best book ever written about legendary
Democratic Party boss Richard J. Daley, king of the smoke-filled back room deal. (Fun fact:
John Belushi played a character closely based on Royko in an early Lawrence Kasden film,
Continental Divide, that's well worth watching.)
This is your periodic reminder that the "Democratic Party" is not an organization that
Democratic voters belong to or have any right to control. The Democratic Party is instead a
private organization, much like a club, that non-members support by giving it their money,
their time and their votes. (The same is true of the "Republican Party.) All other "rights" and
promises offered by the Party to its supporters, including those obligations described in the
DNC charter, are not obligations at all, but voluntary gifts that can be withdrawn at any
time.
At least, that's how the DNC sees it.
Consider this report
of a 2017 court filing , one that almost no one noticed, in which Sanders supporters sued
the DNC for violating the section of its charter that requires DNC-run elections to be
"impartial" and "evenhanded." The DNC's defense was, in essence, "So what?" (emphasis added
below):
DNC Lawyers Argue DNC Has Right to Pick Candidates in Back Rooms
Attorneys claim the words 'impartial' and 'evenhanded' -- as used in the DNC Charter --
can't be interpreted by a court of law
On April 28 the transcript [pdf] was released
from the most recent
hearing at a federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on the
lawsuit filed on behalf of Bernie Sanders supporters against the Democratic National
Committee and former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for rigging the Democratic primaries
for Hillary Clinton. Throughout the hearing, lawyers representing the DNC
and Debbie Wasserman Schultz double[d] down on arguments confirming the disdain the
Democratic establishment has toward Bernie
Sanders supporters and any entity challenging the party's status quo.
Shortly into the hearing, DNC attorneys claim Article V, Section 4 of the DNC Charter
-- stipulating that the DNC chair and their staff must ensure
neutrality in the Democratic presidential primaries -- is "a discretionary rule that it
didn't need to adopt to begin with." Based on this assumption, DNC
attorneys assert that the court cannot interpret, claim, or rule on anything associated with
whether the DNC remains neutral
in their presidential primaries.
The attorneys representing the
DNC have previously argued that Sanders
supporters knew the primaries were rigged, therefore annulling any potential accountability
the DNC may have . In the latest hearing, they doubled down on this argument: "The Court
would have to find that people who fervently supported Bernie
Sanders and who purportedly didn't know that this favoritism was going on would have not
given to Mr. Sanders, to Senator Sanders
, if they had known that there was this purported favoritism."
"People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the
Democratic nominee -- nominating process in 2016 were fair and impartial," [Jared] Beck [the
attorney representing Sanders supporters in the class action lawsuit] said. "And that's not
just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that we live in a
democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But
that's what the Democratic National Committee's own charter says . It says it in black
and white. And they can't deny that." He added, " Not only is it in the charter, but it
was stated over and over again in the media by the Democratic National Committee's
employees , including Congresswoman Wassermann
Schultz , that they were, in fact, acting in compliance with the charter . And
they said it again and again, and we've cited several instances of that in the case."
According to this report, attorneys for the DNC argued that the DNC was not liable to
Sanders supporters if they threw the primary race to Clinton, or tilted it toward her,
because:
(a) Sanders supporters already knew the primary was rigged (did DNC lawyers really
say that?), and
(b) the DNC charter requirement that elections be "impartial" and "evenhanded" is
discretionary and not a requirement.
Shorter DNC lawyers: "We don't have to run an evenhanded primary, even if we say we're going
to."
About the second point , let's look at the court transcript itself. In this section,
the court asks: If Sanders supporters give money to an election run by the DNC, and if the DNC
violates its charter and runs an election that unfairly disadvantages Sanders, do Sanders
supporters have standing to sue?
DNC's response is below. "Mr. Spiva" is Bruce Spiva, one of the DNC's defense lawyers
(emphasis mine):
THE COURT: All right. Let me ask the defense -- we're going to go into the issue of
standing now at this point.
Let me ask counsel. If a person is fraudulently induced to donate to a charitable
organization, does he have standing to sue the person who induced the donation?
MR. SPIVA: I think, your Honor, if the circumstance were such that the [charitable]
organization promised that it was going to abide by some general principle, and the donee --
or donor, rather, ultimately sued, because they said, Well, we don't think you're living up
to that general principle, we don't think you're, you know, serving kids adequately, we think
your program is -- the way you're running your program is not adequate, you know, you're not
doing it well enough, that that -- that they would not have standing in that
circumstance .
[On the other hand] I think if somebody -- a charitable organization were to solicit funds
and say, Hey, we're gonna spend this money on after-school programs for kids, and the
executive director actually put the money in their pocket and went down the street and bought
a Mercedes-Benz, I think in that circumstance, they would have standing.
I think this circumstance is even one step further towards the no standing side of that,
because here we're talking about a political party and political principles and debate. And
that's an area where there's a wealth of doctrine and case law about how that -- just
simply giving money does not give one standing to direct how the party conducts its
affairs, or to complain about the outcomes, or whether or not the party is abiding by its own
internal rules .
And I should say, your Honor, I just want to be clear, because I know it may sometimes
sound like I am somehow suggesting that I think the party did not -- you know, the party's
position is that it has not violated in the least this provision of its charter.
THE COURT: I understand.
MR. SPIVA: So I just want to get that out there. But to even determine -- to make
that determination would require the Court to wade into this political thicket. And -- you
know, which would invade its First Amendment interests, and also, I think, would raise issues
-- standing issues along all three prongs of the standing test.
After a legal discussion of the "three prongs," the court asks this:
THE COURT: And then one other question on the issue of standing for the defense. Is
there a difference between a campaign promise made by a political candidate and a promise
that pertains to the integrity of the primary process itself? In other words, President
George H.W. Bush's --
MR. SPIVA: "Read my lips."
THE COURT: -- promise -- "read my lips, no new taxes," and then he raised taxes.
Well, he could not be sued for raising taxes. But with respect to the DNC charter ,
Article V, Section 4, is there a difference between the two?
MR. SPIVA:Not one -- there's obviously a difference in degree. I think your
Honor -- I'm not gonna -- I don't want to overreach and say that there's no difference. But I
don't think there's a difference that's material in terms of how the Court should decide the
question before it in terms of standing, in that this, again, goes to how the party runs
itself, how it decides who it's going to associate with, how it decides how it's going to
choose its standard bearer ultimately. In case after case, from O'Brien , to
Wymbs , to Wisconsin v. LaFollette , Cousins v. Wigoda , the Supreme
Court and other courts have affirmed the party's right to make that determination. Those
are internal issues that the party gets to decide basically without interference from the
courts .
[ ]
You know, again, if you had a charity where somebody said, Hey, I'm gonna take this money
and use it for a specific purpose, X, and they pocketed it and stole the money, of course
that's different.
But here, where you have a party that's saying, We're gonna, you know, choose our standard
bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily
deciding, we could have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna
go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.
That's not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would have also been their
right , and it would drag the Court well into party politics, internal party politics to
answer those questions.
To this day the DNC believes that if it wanted to "go into back rooms" and "pick the
[presidential] candidate," this would "have been their right," and no one outside the
organization would have any right to enforce the DNC charter or interfere in any other way.
Good to know as we watch the 2020 machinations (for example,
this one ) unfold before us.
They actually do not care much about the victory. Being stooges of MIC and thesecond war
party means that they will be well fed anyway. Even without goverment positions.
Notable quotes:
"... Why doesn't the DNC want Gabbard in the debates? Two reasons come to mind. ..."
"... Firstly, her marquee issue is foreign policy. She thinks the US should be less militarily adventurous abroad, and as an army veteran of the post-9/11 round of American military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia, she's got the credentials to make her points stick. ..."
"... Foreign policy is a weak spot for the increasingly hawkish Democratic establishment in general and the front-runner and current establishment pick, former vice-president Joe Biden, in particular. As a Senator, Biden voted to approve the ill-fated US invasion of Iraq. As vice-president, he supported President Barack Obama's extension of the war in Afghanistan and Obama's ham-handed interventions in Libya, Syria, and other countries where the US had no business meddling. The party's leaders would rather not talk about foreign policy at all and if they have to talk about it they don't want candidates coloring outside simplistic "Russia and China bad" lines. ..."
"... Gabbard damaged -- probably fatally -- the establishment's pre-Biden pick, US Senator Kamala Harris, by pointing out Harris's disgusting authoritarian record as California's attorney general. Gabbard knows how to land a punch, and the DNC doesn't want any more surprises. They're looking for a coronation, not a contest. ..."
President Donald Trump faces an exceedingly narrow path to
re-election in 2020. In order to beat him, the Democratic nominee only needs to pick up 38
electoral votes. With more than 100 electoral votes in play in states that Trump won narrowly
in 2016 -- especially Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida -- all the Democrats have
to do is pick a nominee ever so slightly more popular than Hillary Clinton.
That's a low bar that the Democratic National Committee seems determined, once again, to not
get over. As in 2016, the DNC is putting its finger on the scale in favor of "establishment"
candidates, the sentiments of the rank and file be damned.
Last time, the main victim was Bernie Sanders. This time, it's Tulsi Gabbard.
Michael Tracey delivers the gory details in a column at RealClearPolitics. Here's the short
version:
By selectively disqualifying polls in which Gabbard (a US Representative from Hawaii)
performs above the 2% threshold for inclusion in the next round of primary debates, the DNC is
trying to exclude her while including candidates with much lower polling and fundraising
numbers.
Why doesn't the DNC want Gabbard in the debates? Two reasons come to mind.
Firstly, her marquee issue is foreign policy. She thinks the US should be less
militarily adventurous abroad, and as an army veteran of the post-9/11 round of American
military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia, she's got the credentials to make
her points stick.
Foreign policy is a weak spot for the increasingly hawkish Democratic establishment in
general and the front-runner and current establishment pick, former vice-president Joe Biden,
in particular. As a Senator, Biden voted to approve the ill-fated US invasion of Iraq. As
vice-president, he supported President Barack Obama's extension of the war in Afghanistan and
Obama's ham-handed interventions in Libya, Syria, and other countries where the US had no
business meddling. The party's leaders would rather not talk about foreign policy at all and if
they have to talk about it they don't want candidates coloring outside simplistic "Russia and
China bad" lines.
Secondly, Gabbard damaged -- probably fatally -- the establishment's pre-Biden pick, US
Senator Kamala Harris, by pointing out Harris's disgusting authoritarian record as California's
attorney general. Gabbard knows how to land a punch, and the DNC doesn't want any more
surprises. They're looking for a coronation, not a contest.
If the DNC has its way, next year's primaries will simply ratify the establishment pick,
probably a Joe Biden / Elizabeth Warren ticket, without a bunch of fuss and argument.
And if that happens, the Democratic Party will face the same problem it faced in 2016: The
rank and file may not be very motivated to turn off their televisions and go vote.
Whatever their failings, rank and file Democrats seem to like well, democracy. They want to
pick their party's nominees, not have those nominees picked for them in advance. Can't say I
blame them.
Nor will I blame them for not voting -- or voting Libertarian -- if the DNC ignores them and
limits their choices yet again. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Thomas KnappThomas L. Knapp is
director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy
Journalism ( thegarrisoncenter.org
). He lives and works in north central Florida.
Images removed... See the original with full set of pictures
Notable quotes:
"... Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who gave up her DNC career to back Bernie Sanders in 2016 is the candidate the establishment most fears. Tulsi has more than met the debate criteria in the number of unique donations and in poll numbers in 26 of the most respected national polls, but the DNC, fearing she will take down another Establishment candidate, is refusing to let Tulsi into the third debate against candidates who have lower polling numbers in most polls and significantly fewer unique contributions than Tulsi has. The problem (or maybe plan) is that the smaller "DNC approved" polls have mostly been avoiding polling over the last month as a block to allowing Tulsi into the third debate. ..."
"... People fed up with the Democratic Party have encouraged both Tulsi and Bernie to run together as independent candidates. Tulsi especially has cross-party appeal for independents. Bernie is popular across the board as well and many view them as an unbeatable ticket, no matter what their political affiliation. Most Americans are independents or third party members by almost a two to one margin over the registrants of either of the major parties. However, because their Congressional seats are considered critical to fighting the military industrial complex and Wall Street, it is doubtful either Tulsi or Bernie will run as an independent. ..."
Tom Perez, Nancy Pelosi and Rusty Hicks
(
Image by Henry Samson) DetailsDMCA
This is the question that was asked by a great many DNC/CDP members last weekend as they
tried to understand the scheduling debacle that pitted the Democratic National Committee
Meeting in San Francisco against the California Democratic Party meeting in San Jose (one to
three hours away, depending on traffic). On the two main days for both events, August 23rd and
24 th , attendees had to choose which to attend and which to miss. It turned out
that the CDP did better on overall attendance than the DNC. When Tom Perez spoke, there were
about a hundred delegates in the DNC ballroom. The crowd significantly increased when Bernie
spoke. At the CDP meeting, the crowd in the general sessions ranged between about 300 and
500.
Empty Seats at DNC during Perez's Speech
(
Image by Henry Samson) DetailsDMCA
As Bernie was about to speak at the DNC Friday afternoon meeting, Kamala Harris's supporters
loudly walked out of the hall and continued to make noise outside in a seeming attempt to drown
out Bernie. One might think this would create disfavor with the DNC. However, most party
leaders said they were supporting a Harris/Warren ticket, leading some progressives to wonder
if this was an officially- -sanctioned affront against Bernie. The DNC was in charge of the
microphone volume and there no lack of security to handle the problem.
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who gave up her DNC career to back Bernie Sanders in 2016 is
the candidate the establishment most fears. Tulsi has more than met the debate criteria in the
number of unique donations and in poll numbers in 26 of the most respected national polls, but
the DNC, fearing she will take down another Establishment candidate, is refusing to let Tulsi
into the third debate against candidates who have lower polling numbers in most polls and
significantly fewer unique contributions than Tulsi has. The problem (or maybe plan) is that
the smaller "DNC approved" polls have mostly been avoiding polling over the last month as a
block to allowing Tulsi into the third debate.
Bernie activists who have reportedly learned that the DNC plans to go after him, once Tulsi
was out of the way, chose not to take things lying down. Tulsi is the only candidate with a
history of having Bernie's back. Several activists went to party leaders and asked point blank
whether blocking popular candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders from being nominated
would be worth a second term for Donald Trump. To the surprise of the activists, leaders spoken
to were clear that holding Bernie and Tulsi to the contract they were forced to sign before the
first debate was more important than fairness and beating Donald Trump. Some leaders talked
about which candidates they planned run in 2024 if Trump was re-elected. An assistant to one of
the party bosses, who asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job, pointed out that
the DNC actually makes more money as a result of anger about Donald Trump's Presidency than
they would if a popular progressive, such as Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard, became President.
One person pointed out that a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and
the expected loss would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the
party.
Tulsi Gabbard on Video at DNC Meeting
( Image
by Henry Samson) DetailsDMCA
Tulsi Gabbard had been re-deployed prior to the DNC meeting and was only able to attend by
pre-recorded video. Interestingly, at the DNC meeting, her table was placed in a corner away
from everyone. The supporters at her table were told to sit there like good little children.
One Tulsi supporter broke the mold and handed out copies of Senator Mike Gravel's endorsement
letter of Tulsi Gabbard inside the DNC meeting. The letter on Gravel's stationary called Tulsi
"the most qualified and prepared candidate." At the CDP event, the Gabbard supporters weren't
sitting in a corner. Everyone who attended the larger CDP meeting received a copy of Gravel's
endorsement letter and other literature in support of Gabbard. It was reported that over one
thousand pieces of Tulsi literature were distributed to Democrats attending the CDP Executive
Board meetings and caucuses. The attendees there were greeted by a giant volunteer-printed
banner at the ballroom door at both general sessions. Top-behind-the-scenes DNC leader Bob
Mulhulland was seen studying Tulsi's military picture on the banner.
Tulsi Banner Outside CDP General Assembly Room
( Image
by Henry Samson) DetailsDMCA
The treatment of the press at the DNC event was rather interesting. The ballroom there was
divided into two sections with the press at the back. DNC members could just walk in and out of
their section of the room but the press section had metal detectors with guards searching bags
and repeatedly running wands over reporters as if they were terrorists. The CDP meetings were
significantly more relaxed. No metal detectors, wands or searches.
Taking considerable floor time at the final CDP floor session was the issue of whether it
was OK for Israelis to detain and torture Palestinian children. The fact that there was an
argument between two sides to this issue on the floor shows how far the Democratic Party has
fallen. At one time, the Democratic Party was seen as the party of peace. Now it is generally
viewed as the party of war, pitting peaceniks Tulsi and Bernie at odds with the Democratic
Establishment
At the CDP meeting, there was a great deal of dissatisfaction. According to past and current
officials, the standing committee membership is less diverse than ever before. To fake
diversity, a single individual fitting multiple categories was treated as multiple people. Most
disabled people were cut from the standing committees. Supporters of one of Chairman Rusty
Hick's opponents were summarily thrown off any committees that could make a difference in the
party's positions on in the election. Five of the supporters of Berniecrat Daraka
Larimore-Hall, who had been long-standing members of the Voter Services Committee, reported
being suddenly removed without explanation. These were the most active Voting Services
Committee members in terms of trying to improve voter integrity and protect the rights of
voters. When questioned about the removals, Committee Chairman Jess Durfee said it was Rusty
who had thrown these Berniecrats off the committee and that there was nothing he could do about
it.
The priorities of the Voters Services Committee have changed as well. Removed from the goals
were diversity and integrity of the vote (as in making sure all registered voters could vote
regular ballots). Removed as a lead subcommittee chairman was a party delegate who had pushed
through a call for expanding voting rights to felon prisoners and ensuring that registered
voters were not disenfranchised due to election oddities. Instead, that subcommittee chairman
was relegated to being a secondary assistant below the subcommittee assistant chairman on the
subcommittee to which he was assigned this year.
There was some talk of a lawsuit over the committee assignment questionnaire. There were two
sex-related questions, one of which demanded to know the sexual orientation of the applicants.
All those who refused to answer on the grounds that it violated their privacy were denied
committee positions. Also denied standing committee positions were all civil rights attorneys
and all criminal defense attorneys.
People fed up with the Democratic Party have encouraged both Tulsi and Bernie to run
together as independent candidates. Tulsi especially has cross-party appeal for independents.
Bernie is popular across the board as well and many view them as an unbeatable ticket, no
matter what their political affiliation. Most Americans are independents or third party members
by almost a two to one margin over the registrants of either of the major parties. However,
because their Congressional seats are considered critical to fighting the military industrial
complex and Wall Street, it is doubtful either Tulsi or Bernie will run as an independent.
Henry Samson has been a professor of political science and legal ethics and an advisor to many successful candidates
for public office. He is currently working on a book about the inequality crisis in America
"... The true third rail of US politics is empire. Any candidate that is publicly against the empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC. ..."
"... That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters. ..."
"... When the Empire is on the line, left and right in the US close ranks and unite against the threat. The good news is that all they have is their pathetic Russia bashing and appeals to their authority on foreign policy. ..."
"... One person, a DNC official to be precise, pointed out that: a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party. ..."
"... So, there we have it. The war mongering neo cons and neo liberals are welcome in the Democratic (sic) Party, but us peace loving, non-imperialist progressives are not. Which explains, among a lot of more important things, why a pushy Dem. operative thinks she can come to my house without notice or invitation and insult me because I don't like her gal Hillary. ..."
I'm sure most people here are no strangers to the realization that the DNC is an abusive,
anti-democratic, tyrannical, Establishment organization that has its head up its own orifice
(that is, when it isn't busy burying its nose way up that of the crooked Clintons ).
Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has met and exceeded the stated qualifying
criteria necessary to participate in the 3rd and 4th Democratic Party debates by any
objective measurement -- by having over 165,000 independent donors, and by polling over 2%
in 26 separate polls -- including those in early Primary States such as New Hampshire and
South Carolina.
But according to the DNC there are " qualifying polls " and non-qualifying polls --
to which they, and they alone, are the sole determinant and arbitrator of.
Thus by the authority of the DNC (and not the actual voters themselves) she only has just
two " qualifying polls " (less than the 4 threshold number) -- all those 24 other
independent polls do not count - and no explanation is given (or needed apparently) as to
why.
So they will declare her unfit, and deem her to be excluded from the Debate Stage, as they
seek to drive the only Anti-War, Pro-American, Anti-Globalist, progressive candidate out of the
race (who also attracts support from both the left and the right, and has the distinction of
being the most Google-Searched Democratic candidate following both of the earlier
Democratic Debates).
This outrage tells you everything about how the process of running for President in this
Country is totally controlled like .. i dunno an Iron Curtain . Anti-War, Anti-Establishment
candidates must be made invisible by any means necessary (no matter how much of the entire
process is exposed as a total farce to accomplish that end).
Jimmy Dore helps to illustrate just how totally arbitrary and absurdly unfair this is -- not
just to Tulsi Gabbard, but unfair for the American public trying to evaluate their potential
voting options and take control of their future .
So the question then is, what
should Tulsi Gabbard do now?
Create a new, live Internet Debate Stream that might possibly draw more viewership than
the dying "Fake News" Cable TV shows.
Run as an Independent candidate (but how does she get on the State ballots?)
Sue the DNC?
I'm not sure what the most effective strategy is. This is an open discussion. But this whole
process needs to be publicly discredited and shown for the tyranny and political repression
that it is. The DNC is the enemy of the people.
I don't have that much faith in Bernie anymore. His full-throated support for Hillary
Clinton in 2016, and rejection of Jill Stein -- along with him giving multiple Clinton
corruptions and scandals a complete pass (nothing to see folks), and covering up the
DNC's efforts to defeat his own campaign -- turned him into a hypocrite, and a false
messenger. You can't talk about the need for "Revolution", and then run straight into the
arms of the Establishment -- kissing their feet and protecting them.
Meanwhile Sanders has bought several lavish Lake Houses in Vermont (as his payoff?) while
he complains about the lifestyles of the rich, and has become preoccupied with useless "
Identity Politics " divisiveness, boring, mindless
Racism/White-Supremacist/Homophobe narratives, and the dishonest Russia-gate
fear mongering (created by the Deep State). It is hard to take Sanders seriously anymore.
Tulsi Gabbard was different . She wasn't playing into any of the false
divisions , and the false narratives. She never wasted a moment on "Impeachment", or
chasing phony Deep-State setups. She knows what is real, and what is not real.
But as Jimmy Dore pointed out in the Video, Bernie Sanders now won't even come to the
defense of Tulsi Gabbard, even though she put her neck on the line for him (back in
2016). Instead Sanders covers up for the likes of the crooked Clintons . That tells
you something about Sanders real character. I'm no longer impressed with him.
Tulsi Gabbard or bust for me.
I've long liked Tulsi's courage, contributed a few bucks to get her on the debate
stage, and have faith she will do what's right when the time comes.
Edit/add: Unless she endorses anybody aside from Bernie.
. . . has written some really great articles opposed to identity politics. You might
consider googling them. I don't think Bernie is at all a proponent of the primacy of identity
politics. He is constantly being criticized by IdPol proponents for placing an overriding
emphasis on class.
While his takes on Russia are a bit off kilter, misguided and unwise in my estimation, I
would not call them "fear mongering."
I wound up voting Green in 2016. Bernie lived to run another day by doing what he did.
Most of his supporters have forgiven him or haven't given it a second thought. But if his
endorsing her bothers you that much, it's certainly your right to object to it. For me, his
campaigning alone has made socialism an issue. That's something in and of itself and pretty,
pretty dang good in my estimation.
And whatever will you do if Tulsi endorses Bernie? Consign her to the depths of hell for
evermore? And what if she endorses WARren or Biden et al or gawdforbid Hillary? Aside from
Bernie, I don't think any of the other candidates would want her campaigning for them. If
Bernie gets nominated, I hope she's ensured of a prominent spot in his administration.
She might be able to turn a negative (DNC) into a positive and exploit the situation. She
could do some Internet events, and Tucker Carlson would put her on TV again, and she might be
able to create some public outrage, build some momentum .. and force, by public sentiment, to
allow her back in some later Debates.
And if she supports Bernie, Bernie might just ignore or dismiss it. I don't think he has
any real loyalty to her.
Tulsi is a uniquely courageous person and a wonderful presidential candidate. If there was
ranked voting, she'd definitely be my #2. Aside from Bernie, she's the only presidential
candidate for whom I'd even consider voting.
I'm not going to suggest she drop out but if she does, I hope she endorses Bernie.
If Bernie is the nominee, I'm sure she will endorse him, just as I'm pretty darn sure she
will endorse any other nominee given that she signed off on exactly that to become a
candidate herself.
I'd say I hope you don't give up on her come those circumstances, but if it gets to that
point, I'm giving up on politics period.
Meanwhile Sanders has bought several lavish Lake Houses in Vermont (as his payoff?)
Please provide evidence for this claim.
Bernie and Jane bought one (repeat one ) vacation property situated on the shore of Lake
Champlain. They bought it before 2016, using money Jane inherited from her parents. The
purchase price was around $600K, if I recall, which is pretty darn cheap for a vacation home.
I've seen pictures of it. It's far from "lavish". Looks more like a middle-class vacation
cabin.
You know, there are arguments you could make about Bernie that would be worth discussion.
His dropping out of the race before Philly, for instance. This crap about "Bernie's rich, he
owns a lot of fancy houses and flaunts his ill-gotten wealth" isn't one of them.
Tulsi's in it for the long haul. I don't think she expects to become POTUS this time
around. At present, she seems to be positioning herself, making herself known to the public,
building a base of support, and no doubt exploring alliances. I'm looking forward to seeing
what she does. Warrior Tulsi.
@Centaurea in my humble opinion. There are a couple of things to note here. The main
thing that spurs Tulsi to run is not for being the first anything or for self glorification.
Her campaign is based upon her own strong beliefs against regime change wars, using those
monies here in the US to help the people, and her belief in environmental stewardship.
Whether or not people like or support Tulsi Gabbard, no one can question her courage to go
against the MIC and other powers that be. She is not ready to quit yet. I have felt from the
beginning that Tulsi is running now for the future. My personal belief is that she will be a
great President due to her courage, intelligence and leadership skills. I am hoping that if
Bernie becomes President, he will appoint Tulsi as Secretary of State where her skills will
be very valuable.
Yeah, I can dream, but if you are going to dream, dream big.
Tulsi's in it for the long haul. I don't think she expects to become POTUS this time
around. At present, she seems to be positioning herself, making herself known to the
public, building a base of support, and no doubt exploring alliances. I'm looking forward
to seeing what she does. Warrior Tulsi.
The true third rail of US politics is empire. Any candidate that is publicly against the
empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations
who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC.
That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters.
When the Empire is on the line, left and right in the US close ranks and unite against
the threat. The good news is that all they have is their pathetic Russia bashing and
appeals to their authority on foreign policy.
Foreign policy, by the way, that most people in America, frankly, despise.
Every word of that is so true it makes me want to weep. I don't cry easily.
Thanks for posting that link! It will be shared, several times.
that the DNC would rather lose with a "centrist" than win with Bernie or Tulsi:
Bernie activists who have reportedly learned that the DNC plans to go after him, once
Tulsi was out of the way, chose not to take things lying down. Tulsi is the only candidate
with a history of having Bernie's back. Several activists went to party leaders and asked
point blank whether blocking popular candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders from
being nominated would be worth a second term for Donald Trump. To the surprise of the
activists, leaders spoken to were clear that holding Bernie and Tulsi to the contract they
were forced to sign before the first debate was more important than fairness and beating
Donald Trump. Some leaders talked about which candidates they planned run in 2024 if Trump
was re-elected. An assistant to one of the party bosses, who asked not to be identified for
fear of losing his job, pointed out that the DNC actually makes more money as a result of
anger about Donald Trump's Presidency than they would if a popular progressive, such as
Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard, became President. One person pointed out that a ticket with
Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss would be used to
McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party.
The report is at open democracy.com and is worth reading in its' entirety. It seems that
the Democrats scheduled a meeting of the DNC in SF and meetings of the California Democratic
Party in San Jose (abt. 2-3hrs. away, best is to ride the BART) the same day. Party hack Tom
Perez drew about 100 to his speech at the DNC.
a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss would
be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party
Yet a loss by Hillary isn't blamed on centrists but is, instead, somehow, used to McGovern
or kill....
that the DNC would rather lose with a "centrist" than win with Bernie or Tulsi:
Bernie activists who have reportedly learned that the DNC plans to go after him, once
Tulsi was out of the way, chose not to take things lying down. Tulsi is the only
candidate with a history of having Bernie's back. Several activists went to party leaders
and asked point blank whether blocking popular candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie
Sanders from being nominated would be worth a second term for Donald Trump. To the
surprise of the activists, leaders spoken to were clear that holding Bernie and Tulsi to
the contract they were forced to sign before the first debate was more important than
fairness and beating Donald Trump. Some leaders talked about which candidates they
planned run in 2024 if Trump was re-elected. An assistant to one of the party bosses, who
asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job, pointed out that the DNC actually
makes more money as a result of anger about Donald Trump's Presidency than they would if
a popular progressive, such as Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard, became President. One
person pointed out that a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and
the expected loss would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the
party.
The report is at open democracy.com and is worth reading in its' entirety. It seems
that the Democrats scheduled a meeting of the DNC in SF and meetings of the California
Democratic Party in San Jose (abt. 2-3hrs. away, best is to ride the BART) the same day.
Party hack Tom Perez drew about 100 to his speech at the DNC.
@Nastarana
I went to opendemocracy.net and couldn't find this content.
that the DNC would rather lose with a "centrist" than win with Bernie or Tulsi:
Bernie activists who have reportedly learned that the DNC plans to go after him, once
Tulsi was out of the way, chose not to take things lying down. Tulsi is the only
candidate with a history of having Bernie's back. Several activists went to party leaders
and asked point blank whether blocking popular candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie
Sanders from being nominated would be worth a second term for Donald Trump. To the
surprise of the activists, leaders spoken to were clear that holding Bernie and Tulsi to
the contract they were forced to sign before the first debate was more important than
fairness and beating Donald Trump. Some leaders talked about which candidates they
planned run in 2024 if Trump was re-elected. An assistant to one of the party bosses, who
asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job, pointed out that the DNC actually
makes more money as a result of anger about Donald Trump's Presidency than they would if
a popular progressive, such as Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard, became President. One
person pointed out that a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and
the expected loss would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the
party.
The report is at open democracy.com and is worth reading in its' entirety. It seems
that the Democrats scheduled a meeting of the DNC in SF and meetings of the California
Democratic Party in San Jose (abt. 2-3hrs. away, best is to ride the BART) the same day.
Party hack Tom Perez drew about 100 to his speech at the DNC.
One person, a DNC official to be precise, pointed out that:
a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss would
be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party.
So, there we have it. The war mongering neo cons and neo liberals are welcome in the
Democratic (sic) Party, but us peace loving, non-imperialist progressives are not. Which
explains, among a lot of more important things, why a pushy Dem. operative thinks she can
come to my house without notice or invitation and insult me because I don't like her gal
Hillary.
@Nastarana Harris has been plunging in the polls. I think Tulsi finished her off.
Why would any nominee want to have an unpopular pol on the ticket? Not much of a chance of
that, so no need to worry about any Harris presence on the ticket or threat in any way.
As for the DNC possibly preferring Trump b/c it leads to better fundraising, the RNC is
currently outraising the DNC by 2-to-1. Apparently Ds just aren't that angry. Or are
channeling their anger in other ways.
One person, a DNC official to be precise, pointed out that:
a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss
would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party.
So, there we have it. The war mongering neo cons and neo liberals are welcome in the
Democratic (sic) Party, but us peace loving, non-imperialist progressives are not. Which
explains, among a lot of more important things, why a pushy Dem. operative thinks she can
come to my house without notice or invitation and insult me because I don't like her gal
Hillary.
Tulsi did finish her off, but the DNC is trying to prop her back up again by removing
Tulsi from the picture.
I don't think Bernie is principled enough, or bold enough (based on his handling of 2016
and the Clintons/DNC) to ever select Tulsi Gabbard as his V.P.
But I do see him selecting someone (corrupt) like K. Harris just to check-off the "woman
box". So Harris may have life after all due to the DNC rigging of things.
#7
Harris has been plunging in the polls. I think Tulsi finished her off.
Why would any nominee want to have an unpopular pol on the ticket? Not much of a
chance of that, so no need to worry about any Harris presence on the ticket or threat in
any way.
As for the DNC possibly preferring Trump b/c it leads to better fundraising, the RNC
is currently outraising the DNC by 2-to-1. Apparently Ds just aren't that angry. Or are
channeling their anger in other ways.
with a link at the very least. So if you have one, please share it.
Some guy said that he heard this and he told someone who told me . . . .
One person, a DNC official to be precise, pointed out that: a ticket with Warren and Harris would be labeled progressive and the expected loss
would be used to McGovern or kill the progressive movement within the party.
So, there we have it. The war mongering neo cons and neo liberals are welcome in the
Democratic (sic) Party, but us peace loving, non-imperialist progressives are not. Which
explains, among a lot of more important things, why a pushy Dem. operative thinks she can
come to my house without notice or invitation and insult me because I don't like her gal
Hillary.
tossed out the suit against the DNC filed by Jared Beck, Elizabeth Beck, and Niko House,
the DNC doesn't have single worry about how they conduct their political business. The
declined prosecution against the DNC established the DNC's legal rights to make whatever
decisions they want in smoke-filled rooms. There should be no doubt the DNC gets what Killary
wants. This is why H. Rodent Clinton enters the race, erupting with all the subtlety of lava
flowing down the slopes of Mauna Loa (or Karatoa, etc.)
7 polls that were supposed to be qualifying have not and are not going to be taken.
Seems to me, the DNC needs to include 7 of the polls that were taken, which would put Tulsi
in.
but they won't. There's a reason they only took 10 of the 17 polls. It's rigged again.
Please remember that many people voted for Trump just because they can't vote for warmonger
Hillary and/or to show middle finger to the Washington neoliberal establishment.
Everybody understand that he is just another billionaire with very shady past and
questionable connection in NYC, but some people hoped that like FDR he can be the traitor of his
own class. They were severely disappointed.
Voting is severely screwed in the USA as you are allowed to select out of two usually
pre-selected by the elite candidates (Pepsi-Cola choice) but that all we have.
With all her warts, Tulsi foreign policy agenda is the most realistic and anti-war among all
Democratic Candidates. And that's something to vote for.
Just rewatched your appearance on "CrossTalk on Tulsi Gabbard: Peace Candidate." I've been
somewhat manic about championing her, generally sharing her anti-war message, but
periodically suffering some sucker-punch. Her supporters point to the smear campaign launched
at her by neocons and neolibs as evidence of her threat to the MIC and establishment. There's
a disconnect in that assertion. I wonder if either side realizes how conventional her
positions are in general. Is there any real evidence that her understanding (lack of same) on
Israel or Iran has change since she made this dreadful speech in 2015 to the CUFI conference?
Frightening.
Tulsi Gabbard Speaks to Right-Wing Christians United for Israel Conference 2015
@anon
True, her views on Iran and Syria (even after she visited and met with Bashar al-Assad) are
dreadful and she is careful to say the right things about Israel. But she is at the same time
the only candidate seriously talking about ending all the wars so she deserves support at
least for that message, if only because it might force some others to confront the issue.
Let's face it, our search for a truly acceptable candidate will not find one in either major
party.
On the Gabbard Story-- Real Clear Politics did an excellent job of explaining the
point-at-issue: the unknown criteria for the polls DNC hasn't told anyone which they are
using or why. RT, in a more condensed article cited
"Andrew Yang, who has since qualified, slammed the DNC in July for excluding one of two NBC
polls he said had reached the 2 percent threshold in, [saying] ' It is frustrating to see
the rules be changed mid-game .' The article also cites "Colorado Senator Michael Bennet
[who] criticized the process in front of DNC Chair Tom Perez on Friday, saying it was
'stifling debate at a time when we need it most.'
These two important critiques when added to the information provided by the RCP article
clearly show DNC manipulating the debate criteria in order to manage who
participates.
I tried to find updated relevant polling data over the past week knowing the deadline was
approaching and its importance to all the candidates, not just Gabbard, but is was very
difficult to find just one poll let alone at least 4.
IMO, if she's excluded from the next round of debates because the DNC favored polls
with tiny sample sizes versus far more relevant polls, then we will again know the Fix is
In--Again--but for whom this time.
While this is a Russian site with specific audience, comments show that people reject the USA policy which might creates problems
for the USA in the future. Not the USA neoliberal/neocon elite cares.
This decisions just had shown to the whole would that Trump is a clown capable of twitting, not much more. Other people make key
decisions for the county.
The deep state that controls the US are lying criminal psychopaths. Any agreements and treaties negotiated with them aren't
worth the time or paper they are written on.
all.putin wants world peace but the Americans whats to tell everyone what to do and start wars what.they.sould buid a wall.around
america stop them getting out
le"> We can certainly expect Poland and Romania to be targeted with Nuclear munitions at the very least. There will likely
be an official Russian announcement of this fact as well. In the event of a breakout of hostilities with Nato then Russia will
target the military infrastructure in both countries and vaporise them immediately. Unfortunately a very large number of Polish
and Romanian civilians will be caught in the blasts. That will be tragic of course.
I live in the Netherlands and I am on the side of Russia. Europe is disgusting for not condemning the USA intentions. Eu will
regret it. When bombs fall on Europe because of these incompetent leaders we will not forget.
icle"> The Western public MUST, MUST become very familiar pronto with the few intellectuals, scholars, journalists, writers
and authors who have been at the forefront for global peace and world justice for decades! It's our only hope! Right now the only
sane voice on the national stage is Tulsi Gabbard. People must start reading: John Pilger, James Petras, Diana Johnstone, Stephen
Lendman, Ray McGovern, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek, Michael Parenti, Stephen Cohen, The Saker, Caitlin Johnstone, Paul Craig
Roberts.
USA a decadent nation run by global mafia . Cannot trust what they say , is proven by their actions Sold their soul to the
devil for money and power. Yet they will fail God is in charge!
e"> The double standard in the West is breathtaking. It's as simple as the Golden Rule: merely try to imagine the reaction
in New York, London, Washington, Paris, Chicago, Boston if Russia or China were to do the exact same thing in southern Canada
or the Caribbean. The Washington military empire builders could possibly destroy humanity with their reckless and imperial behavior.
They simply cannot accept any sovereign nation-states that 1.) give the finger to Wall Street or the idea of the uni-polar world
Washington's intent on establishing, or 2.) gives diplomatic support to the Palestinians or is even a mild thorn in the side of
Israel. For further reading, see the following scholars, intellectuals, journalists and writers: James Petras, Diana Johnstone,
John Pilger, Stephen Lendman, Michael Parenti, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek and a few others I'm forgetting at the moment.
e"> Under Trump the USA are rapidly steering towards an open dictatorship, something they've been doing for years but more
covertly. The USA have always been shouting the loudest about democracy and freedom but that's just a façade while they bully
the world and their own people into submission. The curtain is falling faster and faster now. Oh, and ask the American Natives
what the Americans do with treaties...
The US does not want friendship with Russia, it seeks to either control it or destroy it. Since the first option isn't going
to happen, it's obvious what's next and it'll start with more sanctions, expanding NATO into Georgia and Ukraine and placing nuclear
missiles on Russia's Eastern and Western border.
"comment-renderer-text-content expanded"> All it takes, is 1 single warhead fired from ex. Poland to reach Moscow. How many
launchers do USA have placed in these countries near Russia? Is Moscow more than 500 KM away from any NATO border? If the enemy
sets up catapults outside your city walls, isn't that a clear sign the enemy intend to fire those catapults against your walls?
So what do you do? Do you sit and wait? Or do you take out the catapults before they break down your walls? As far as any strategist
see this, it can be only one solution for survival.
omment-renderer-text-content expanded"> During FDR's 'Pearl Harbor' speech he said, "It will be recorded that the distance
of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago." There are echoes
of this speech in Putin's words (
02:18 ) and the
type of treachery referred to by Roosevelt applies to the American exit from the INF. America has become a nation holding "a big
stick" and loudly shouting about it (contrary to an earlier Roosevelt's advice). The White House acknowledged (and the NYT reported)
that we are involved in seven wars right now (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Niger). We have 38 "named" foreign
military bases as well as upwards of 600 overseas military installations of some sort including "lily pads," i.e., "cooperative
security locations" and an undisclosed number of "black" locations. Our military budget is pushing towards a trillion dollars
per year ($717 billion this year). We are threatening small countries such as Venezuela with military action (and yes, something
needs to be done for the good of the people there but that should not include an American military attack which President Trump,
our Secretary of State ("and his colleague") have said is "on the table." And now, we are dumping nuclear weapons treaties. We
have truly become a country which "lives by the sword." Good luck to us all.
Okay , so this is a broadcast of the President of Russia speaking to his security council right , this is official researched
factual intel ....has to be on that level ...right . Now to the few negative responses I have come across ,what intel do you have
and where did you get it...
Instead of addressing and trying to ameliorate this most dangerous development, let's instead focus on Trump's idiotic and
diversionary comments and tweets about buying Greenland or some such other nonsense.
"... Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them. ..."
"... The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best." That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history. ..."
"... As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion. ..."
"... Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before." ..."
"... The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans. ..."
"... As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq. ..."
"... Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security." He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous, to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question. ..."
"... The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes? ..."
"... Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic war. ..."
Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them.
Estimates of the number of civilians who died during the war in Iraq range from 151,000 to 655,000. An additional 4,491 American
military personnel perished in the war. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, toxicologist at the University of Michigan, has organized several
research expeditions to Iraq to measure the contamination and pollution still poisoning the air and water supply from the tons of
munitions dropped during the war. It does not require any expertise to assume what the studies confirm: disease is still widespread
and birth defects are gruesomely common. Back home, it is difficult to measure just how many struggle with critical injuries and
post-traumatic stress disorder.
The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction,
Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best."
That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually
did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history.
As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match
its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion.
Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state
of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before."
The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement
in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans
dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When
they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the
equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans.
As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical
assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played
a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq.
Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security."
He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving
aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous,
to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question.
Far worse than the worship of Mueller is the refusal to scrutinize the abysmal foreign policy record of Joe Biden, currently the
frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Of the Democrats in the Senate at that time, Biden was the most
enthusiastic of the cheerleaders for war, waving his pompoms and cartwheeling in rhythm to Dick Cheney's music. Biden said repeatedly
that America had "no choice but to eliminate the threat" posed by Saddam Hussein. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
his blustering was uniquely influential.
The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked
into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone
who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador
to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should
ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes?
Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism
of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The
moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic
war.
Polling well below Biden in the race is the congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard. She alone on the Democratic stage has made
criticism of American militarism central to her candidacy. A veteran of the Iraq war and a highly decorated major in the Hawaii Army
National Guard, Gabbard offers an intelligent and humane perspective on foreign affairs. She's called the regime change philosophy
"disastrous," advocated for negotiation with hostile foreign powers, and backed a reduction in drone strikes. She pledges if she
becomes president to end American involvement in Afghanistan.
When Chris Matthews asked Gabbard about Biden's support for the Iraq war, she said, "It was the wrong vote. People like myself,
who enlisted after 9/11 because of the terrorist attacks, were lied to. We were betrayed."
Her moral clarity is rare in the political fog of the presidential circus. She cautions against accepting the "guise of humanitarian
justification for war," and notes that rarely does the American government bomb and invade a country to actually advance freedom
or protect human rights.
Gabbard's positions are vastly superior to that of the other young veteran in the race, Pete Buttigieg. The mayor of South Bend
recently told New York that one of his favorite novels is The Quiet American , saying that its author, Graham Greene,
"points out the dangers of well-intentioned interventions."
Buttigieg's chances of winning the nomination seem low, and his prospects of becoming a literary critic appear even lower.
The Quiet American does much more than raise questions about interventions: it is a merciless condemnation of American exceptionalism
and its attendant indifference to Vietnamese suffering.
Americans hoping for peace won't find much comfort in the current White House either. President Trump has made the world more
dangerous by trashing the Iran nuclear deal, and his appointment of John Bolton, a man who makes Donald Rumsfeld look like Mahatma
Gandhi, as national security advisor is certainly alarming.
America's willful ignorance when it comes to the use of its own military exposes the moral bankruptcy at the heart of its political
culture. Even worse, it makes future wars all but inevitable.
If no one can remember a war that ended merely nine years ago, and there's little room for Tulsi Gabbard in the Democratic primary,
how will the country react the next time a president, and the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declare that they
have no choice but to remove a threat?
Norman Solomon, journalist and founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy, knows the answer to that question. He provides it
in the title of his book on how the media treats American foreign policy decisions: War Made Easy .
Where ae the people who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Should they be tried for lying to the American public?
4500 troops killed and over $1.1 TRILLION wasted with no good results .With hundreds of thousands of Iraq's killed. .
Where are they, indeed? They are still running US foreign policy; that's where they are. They are pundits in all the major media;
that's where they are.
I cannot even imagine what historians will say about the uncanny persistence of these charlatans' influence in this era after
a consistent record of disastrous, abysmal misadventures.
You don't have to look too hard to find them. Bolton, Pompeo, and other neocons are hiding in plain sight. The Military Industrial
Complex is embedded in our foreign policy like a tick on a dog.
Because you'd be knocking out a storm trooper instead of the emperor, at least as far as Bush goes. Same for why the focus is
on Bolton rather than simply Trump.
I CAN see an argument that Trump/Bush knew what they were doing when they brought those people in though. f you feel that way
and see it more of an owner of a hostile attack dog then yeah, you'd want to include those two too.
Here stands Tulsi. A woman, who, unlike their conventional troupe, can win this election. They reject her because... what? Moar
war? She's not the member of the Cult? Or it's simply some sort of collective political death wish?
They reject her because she had the temerity to speak truth to power and supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 race. She stepped
down from her position as Vice Chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders. She has real courage, and earned their wrath. She's not perfect
but she's braver and stronger than almost the entire field. Only Bernie is on par.
And Bernie is the one they also hate, maybe a little bit less openly. Thus they reject those who can win the election. It's either
a self-destructiveness or they think that it's better to keep on losing than to rebuild the party into what it needs to be.
Democrats and the Republican establishment, both, love war. It wasn't a coincidence that Hillary Clinton chose Madeleine Albright
to be a keynote speaker at "her" party convention ("we think the deaths of a half million children are worth it"). Liberals know
that there isn't really any "free" free, and that taxing the rich won't match their dreams -- it is the blood and bones of innocent
foreigners that must pay for their lust. Establishment Republicans are more straightforward: they simply profit off the death
and destruction.
This is why Trump is being destroyed, and why Tulsi is attacked. If only "she" (the one who gloated over Khameni's murder)
had been elected, we'd be in a proxy war with Russia now! A real war with Iran! This is what the American people want, and what
they'll likely get when they vote another chicken-hawk in come 2020.
Tulsi, like Sanders is a 'danger' to everything Israel wants.
So, all...all the main 'news' networks and online sites don't like them and give more coverage to the same old Dem bull peddlers
like ignorant Booker and the lousy opportunist low IQ Kamala Harris and Gillibrand.
Manafort and his ilk can be tried and convicted for their lies. I guess if the lie is big enough we grant a pass on any need for
prosecution. Justice for all? I don't think so.
Max Blumenthal posted a powerful piece at Consortium News (7/31/2019) about Biden's central and south American mis-adventures.
Biden still extols his own policies however disastrous. The hubris of the man is worse than nauseating.
Whether one thinks Gabbard has a shot at the nomination or not, it's important to keep her on the stage in the next round of debates.
Go to Tulsi2020.com
and give her just one dollar (or more if you can)
so she has enough unique contributors to make the next round. And if you get polled,early on give her your vote.
The total US costs related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to be considerably larger than $1.1 trillion, according
to this study:
https://www.hks.harvard.edu...
Try $4-$6 trillion, according to the author of the study.
Long after I, Andrew Bacevitch and Hillary Clinton have gone to our reward, there will still be thousands of wounded warriors
from these US Middle East adventures dependent on VA benefits for their survival and competing with civilian seniors for government
handouts. A war with Iran would make the US fiscal situation that much worse.
The religious folks who were so anxious to protect family values only a few years ago seem to have their heads in the sand
when it comes to the financial future of today's young Americans.
A few weeks ago, I made a token contribution to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign to help her qualify for the July Democratic debates.
She will need more new contributors to qualify for the next round of debates.
Tulsi hasn't a chance of the nomination, but she's exposing things and maybe more people will get a clue about what's really going
on with American lives and taxes being squandered for the profit of the few who benefit from these atrocities and wars abroad,
done in the name of all Americans.
Being a supporter of Tulsi Gabbard for the very reasons that the author writes, has me agreeing with everything he has promoted
in his piece.
However, to answer his own question as to why Americans are lured into commenting on such innocuous and foolish things in such
an important election such as Biden's touching of women, is answered by the author's own prose.
He states that Americans are only provided such nonsense from the press that is monitoring the election process. What else
can people talk about? And even if many Americans are clearheaded enough to understand the charade of the current Democratic debates,
what or who will actually provide legitimate coverage with the exception of online sites as the American Conservative, among others?
If most Americans were actually thinking individuals, Tulsi Gabbard would be a shoo-in for the presidency in 2020. However,
given the two factors of a highly corrupted mainstream press and too many Americans not studying enough civics to understand what
is going on around them, it is highly unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard will even get close to the possibility of being nominated...
Cheney, mentioned in the article, was pure evil. I voted for GB2 for two reasons. 1) He was a very good Texas governor. He actually
got anti-tax Texas to raise taxes dedicated to support education, in return for stricter standards for teachers. A good trade
since Texas public schools were awful. 2) Dick Cheney. I thought he was the adult in the room that would provide steady and reliable
guidance for Bush.
Boy was I wrong about Cheney. "Deficits don't matter". Just watch the movie Vice. Christian Bale does an incredible job portraying
the pure evil of Cheney and the Military Industrial Complex. The movie is chilling to watch. And it is basically true. Politifact
does a good job of scoring the accuracy of Cheney's role in the Bush administration as portrayed in the movie.
all neocon scum instantly had risen to the surface to defend the neoliberal empire and its wars...
Notable quotes:
"... In the race to determine who will serve as commander in chief of the most powerful military force in the history of civilization, night two of the CNN Democratic presidential debates saw less than six minutes dedicated to discussing U.S. military policy during the 180-minute event. ..."
"... That's six, as in the number before seven. Not 60. Not 16. Six. From the moment Jake Tapper said "I want to turn to foreign policy" to the moment Don Lemon interrupted Rep. Tulsi Gabbard just as she was preparing to correctly explain how President Donald Trump is supporting Al-Qaeda in Idlib , approximately five minutes and 50 seconds had elapsed. The questions then turned toward the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections and impeachment proceedings. ..."
"... But the near-absence of foreign policy discussion didn't stop the Hawaii lawmaker from getting in some unauthorized truth-telling anyway. Attacking the authoritarian prosecutorial record of Sen. Kamala Harris to thunderous applause from the audience, Gabbard criticized the way her opponent "put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana;" "blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the court's forced her to do so;" "kept people in prisons beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California;" and "fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way." ..."
"... That was all it took. Harris's press secretary Ian Sams unleashed a string of tweets about Gabbard being an "Assad apologist," which were followed by a deluge of establishment narrative managers who sent the word "Assad" trending on Twitter, at times when Gabbard's name somehow failed to trend despite being the top-searched candidate on Google after the debate. ..."
"... "Somehow I have a hard time believing that 'Assad' is the top trending item in the United States but 'Tulsi' is nowhere to be found," tweeted journalist Michael Tracey. ..."
"... It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into mainstream consciousness all at the same time. ..."
"... The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin went on a frantic, lie-filled Twitter storm as soon as he saw an opportunity, claiming with no evidence whatsoever that Gabbard lied when she said she met with Assad for purposes of diplomacy and that she "helped Assad whitewash a mass atrocity," and falsely claiming that " she praised Russian bombing of Syrian civilians ." ..."
"... War is the glue that holds the empire together . A politician can get away with opposing some aspects of the status quo when it comes to healthcare or education, but war as a strategy for maintaining global dominance is strictly off limits. This is how you tell the difference between someone who actually wants to change things and someone who's just going through the motions for show; the real rebels forcefully oppose the actual pillars of empire by calling for an end to military bloodshed, while the performers just stick to the safe subjects. ..."
"... The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging, because it means she's forcing them to fight back. In a media environment where the war propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream attention, the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things for our future. If our society is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal, ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and soul-crushing oppression, the first step is punching a hole in the narrative matrix which keeps us hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and acceptable. ..."
"... Her immediate response to the first question directed to her, regardless of topic, should be prefaced with something like "I would appreciate the media and the opposition please refrain from deliberately misrepresenting my policies and remarks, most notably trying to tar me with more of the fallacious war propaganda they both dispense so freely and without any foundation. ..."
"... Gabbard has any chance to be elected only if she starts vigorously throwing over the tables of the money-lenders in the temple, so to speak. ..."
"... Hide the empire in plain sight, that way no one will notice it. Then someone like Tulsi Gabbard goes and talks about it on national TV. Can't have that, can we? People might begin to see it if we do that ..."
"... Pro war democrats are now using the Russian ruse to go after anti war candidates like Gabbard. It's despicable to even insinuate Gabbard is working for Putin or had any other rationale for going to Syria than seeking peace. This alone proved Harris unfit for the presidency. Her awful record speaks for itself. ..."
"... And she has courage. She quit the DNC to support Bernie and went to Syria to seek the truth and peace. ..."
"... She is unique. The media is trying Ron-Paul-Type-Blackout on her, lest the public catches on to the fact that she is exactly what the country needs. ..."
"... Warmonger candidates had better reconsider their positions if they believe that voters will back their stance. Just ask Hillary Clinton how that worked out for her and her warrior mentality in 2016. ..."
"... she has cross over appeal with republicans who want out of the wars. People like Tucker Carson and Paul Craig Roberts support her. Thats why the DNC hate her.. ..."
"... There's an obvious effort to Jane Fodarize Tulsi before she threatens the favorites. She seems to keep a cool head, so much of it is likely to backfire and bring the narrative back where it belongs. ..."
"... In contrast to Gabbard, a service member with extensive middle east combat experience, Cooper is a chickenhawk and a naif to murder and torture; ..."
"... "Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative control is doing the real work." ..."
"... I read "narrative control" as brainwashing. ..."
Establishment narrative managers distracted attention from a notable antiwar contender, seizing instead the chance to marshal
an old smear against her, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
In the race to determine who will serve as commander in chief of the most powerful military force in the history of civilization,
night two of the CNN Democratic presidential debates saw less than six minutes dedicated to discussing U.S. military policy during
the 180-minute event.
That's six, as in the number before seven. Not 60. Not 16. Six. From
the moment Jake Tapper said "I want to turn to foreign policy"
to the moment Don Lemon interrupted Rep. Tulsi Gabbard just as
she was preparing to correctly explain how President Donald Trump
is supporting Al-Qaeda in
Idlib , approximately five minutes and
50 seconds had elapsed. The questions then turned toward the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections and impeachment
proceedings.
Night one of the CNN debates saw almost twice as much time, with
a whole 11 minutes by my count dedicated to questions of war and peace for the leadership of the most warlike nation on the planet.
This discrepancy could very well be due to the fact that night two was the slot allotted to Gabbard, whose campaign largely revolves
around the platform of ending U.S. warmongering.
CNN is a virulent establishment propaganda firm with an extensive history of promoting
lies and
brazen psyops in facilitation of U.S. imperialism, so it would make sense that they would try to avoid a subject which would
inevitably lead to unauthorized truth-telling on the matter.
But the near-absence of foreign policy discussion didn't stop the Hawaii lawmaker from getting in some unauthorized truth-telling
anyway. Attacking the authoritarian prosecutorial record
of Sen. Kamala Harris to thunderous applause from the audience, Gabbard criticized the way her opponent "put over 1,500 people in
jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana;" "blocked evidence that
would have freed an innocent man from death row until the court's forced her to do so;" "kept people in prisons beyond their sentences
to use them as cheap labor for the state of California;" and "fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people
in the worst kind of way."
Harris Folded Under Pressure
Harris, who it turns out
fights very well
when advancing but folds under pressure, had no answer for Gabbard's attack, preferring to focus on attacking former Vice President
Joe Biden instead.
Later, when she was a nice safe distance out of Gabbard's earshot, she uncorked a
long-debunked but still effective smear that establishment narrative managers have been dying for an excuse to run wild with.
"This, coming from someone who has been an apologist for an individual, Assad, who has murdered the people of his country
like cockroaches," Harris
told Anderson
Cooper after the debate, referring to the president of Syria. "She who has embraced and been an apologist for him in a way
that she refuses to call him a war criminal. I can only take what she says and her opinion so seriously and so I'm prepared to
move on."
That was all it took. Harris's press secretary Ian Sams unleashed
a string of tweets about Gabbard being
an "Assad apologist," which were followed by a deluge of establishment narrative managers who sent the word "Assad" trending on Twitter,
at times when Gabbard's name somehow failed to trend despite being
the
top-searched candidate on Google after the debate.
"Somehow I have a hard time believing that 'Assad' is the top trending item in the United States but 'Tulsi' is nowhere
to be found," tweeted journalist Michael
Tracey.
It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into mainstream consciousness all at the
same time.
The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin went on a
frantic, lie-filled Twitter storm as
soon as he saw an opportunity, claiming
with no evidence whatsoever that Gabbard lied when she said she met with Assad for purposes of diplomacy and that she "helped Assad
whitewash a mass atrocity," and falsely claiming that "
she praised Russian bombing of Syrian civilians
."
... ... ...
War is
the glue that
holds the empire together . A politician can get away with opposing some aspects of the status quo when it comes to healthcare
or education, but war as a strategy for maintaining global dominance is strictly off limits. This is how you tell the difference
between someone who actually wants to change things and someone who's just going through the motions for show; the real rebels forcefully
oppose the actual pillars of empire by calling for an end to military bloodshed, while the performers just stick to the safe subjects.
The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging, because it means she's forcing them
to fight back. In a media environment where the war propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream
attention, the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things for our future. If our society
is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal, ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and
soul-crushing oppression, the first step is punching a hole in
the narrative matrix which keeps us hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and acceptable.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative control is doing the real work.
I'm going to venture a guess and say that the media fixers for the Deep State's political song and dance show are not going
to allow Tulsi back on that stage for the next installation of "Killer Klowns on Parade." Just as she had the right to skewer
Harris for her sweeping dishonesty and hypocrisy in public office, she has just as much right to proactively respond to the smears
and slanders directed against her by both the party establishment and its media colluders.
Her immediate response to the first question directed to her, regardless of topic, should be prefaced with something like
"I would appreciate the media and the opposition please refrain from deliberately misrepresenting my policies and remarks, most
notably trying to tar me with more of the fallacious war propaganda they both dispense so freely and without any foundation.
It is beneath all dignity to attempt to win elections with lies and deceptions, just as it is to use them as pretexts for wars
of choice that bring no benefit to either America or the countries being attacked. As I've repeatedly made clear, I only want
to stop the wasteful destruction and carnage, but you deceitfully try to imply that I'm aligned with one of the several foreign
governments that our leaders have needlessly and foolishly chosen to make war upon. You've done so on this stage and you've continued
this misrepresentation throughout the American media. Please stop it. Play fair. Confine your remarks only to the truth."
That would raise a kerfuffle, but one that is distinctly called for. Going gently towards exit stage right consequent to their
unanswered lies will accomplish nothing. If the Dems choose to excommunicate her for such effrontery, she should run as a Green,
or an independent. This is a danger the Dem power structure dare not allow to happen. They don't even want the particulars of
the actual history of these wars discussed in public. Thus, they will not even give her the chance to offer a rejoinder such as
I outlined above. They will simply rule that she does not qualify for any further debates based on her polling numbers (which
can be faked) and/or her financial support numbers. That is nominally how they've already decided to winnow down the field to
the few who are acceptable to the Deep State–preferably Harris, Biden or Booker. Someone high profile but owned entirely by the
insider elites. Yes, this rules out Bernie and maybe even Warren unless she secretly signed a blood pact with Wall Street to walk
away from her platform if elected.
Gabbard has any chance to be elected only if she starts vigorously throwing over the tables of the money-lenders in the
temple, so to speak.
Tom Kath , August 2, 2019 at 20:05
There is a big difference between "PRINCIPLES" and "POLICY". Principles should never change, but policy must. This is where
I believe Tulsi can not only make a big difference, but ultimately even win. – Not this time around perhaps, she is young and
this difference will take time to reveal itself.
Hide the empire in plain sight, that way no one will notice it. Then someone like Tulsi Gabbard goes and talks about it
on national TV. Can't have that, can we? People might begin to see it if we do that
What is happening to Tulsi (the extraordinary spate of lies about her relationship with Assad coming from all directions) provides
a good explanation why Bernie and Elizabeth have been smart not to make many comments about foreign policy.
The few Bernie has made indicate to me that he is sympathetic to the Palestinian problem, but smart enough to keep quiet on
the subject until, God willing, he is in a position to actually do something about it. It will be interesting to see if debate
questions force them to be more forthcoming about their opinions.
Pro war democrats are now using the Russian ruse to go after anti war candidates like Gabbard. It's despicable to even
insinuate Gabbard is working for Putin or had any other rationale for going to Syria than seeking peace. This alone proved Harris
unfit for the presidency. Her awful record speaks for itself.
Tulsi is the most original and interesting candidate to come along in many years. She's authentic, something not true of most
of that pack.
And not true of most of the House and Senate with their oh-so-predictable statements on most matters and all those crinkly-faced
servants of plutocracy. She has courage too, a rare quality in Washington where, indeed, cowards often do well. Witness Trump,
Biden, Clinton, Bush, Johnson, et al.
If there's ever going to be any change in a that huge country which has become a force for darkness and fear in much of the
world, it's going to come from the likes of Tulsi. But I'm not holding my breath. It's clear from many signals, the establishment
very much dislikes her. So, the odds are, they'll make sure she doesn't win.
Still, I admire a valiant try. Just as I admire honesty, something almost unheard of in Washington, but she has it, in spades.
Warmonger candidates had better reconsider their positions if they believe that voters will back their stance. Just ask
Hillary Clinton how that worked out for her and her warrior mentality in 2016.
Robert , August 2, 2019 at 14:49
Tulsi is the most promising candidate to successfully run against Trump for 2 reasons. 1. She has a sane, knowledgeable foreign/military
policy promoting peace and non-intervention. 2) She understands the disastrous consequences of the WTO and "free" trade deals
on the US economy. No other Democratic candidate has these 2 policies. Unfortunately, these policies are so dangerous to the real
rulers of the world, her message is already being shut down and distorted.
And she has cross over appeal with republicans who want out of the wars. People like Tucker Carson and Paul Craig Roberts
support her. Thats why the DNC hate her..
Skip Scott , August 2, 2019 at 14:05
I read this article over on Medium this morning. Thanks for re-printing it here. I made the following comment there as well.
I was a somewhat enthusiastic supporter of Tulsi until just recently when she voted for the anti-BDS resolution. I guess "speaking
truth to power" has its limits. What I fear is that the war machine will manipulate her if she ever gets elected. Once you accept
any of the Empire's propaganda narrative, it is a slippery slope to being fully co-opted. Tulsi has said she is a "hawk" when
it comes to fighting terrorists. All the MIC would have to do is another false flag operation, blame it on the "terrorists", and
tell Tulsi it's time to get tough. Just as they manipulated the neo-liberals with the R2P line of bullshit, and Trump with the
"evil Assad gasses his own people" bullshit, Tulsi could be brought to heel as well.
I will probably continue to send small donations to Tulsi just to keep her on the debate stage. But I've taken off the rose
colored glasses.
Well said, Caitlin! There's an obvious effort to Jane Fodarize Tulsi before she threatens the favorites. She seems to keep
a cool head, so much of it is likely to backfire and bring the narrative back where it belongs.
P. Michael Garber , August 2, 2019 at 13:42
Great article! Anderson Cooper in his post-debate interview with Gabbard appeared to be demanding a loyalty oath from her:
"Will you say the words 'Bashar Assad is a murderer and torturer'?" In contrast to Gabbard, a service member with extensive
middle east combat experience, Cooper is a chickenhawk and a naif to murder and torture; in that context his attack was inappropriate
and disrespectful, and as he kept pressing it I thought he appeared unhinged. Gabbard could have done more to call out Cooper's
craven attack (personally I think she could have decked him and been well within her rights), but she handled it with her customary
grace and poise.
hetro , August 2, 2019 at 13:09
Seems to me Caitlin is right on, and her final statement is worth emphasizing: "Whoever controls the narrative controls
the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative control is doing the real work."
I read "narrative control" as brainwashing.
Note also that Caitlin is careful to qualify she does not fully agree with Gabbard, in context with year after year of demonizing
Assad amidst the murk of US supported type militants, emphasis on barrel bombs, etc etc, all in the "controlling the narrative/propaganda"
sphere.
Another interesting piece to consider on the smearing of Gabbard:
@Hanrahan Notice the
continued exclusion of Representative Gabbard and her criticism of the destructive Empire --
despite focusing on Beltway politics, he hasn't typed her name since June 28. He wants the
"Elizabeth Warren-Bernie Sanders-AOC Democrats" to go even kookier because this website's "Mr.
Paleoconservative" has become a Beltway fixture, cheerleading for Team Red in the next Most
Important Election Ever
"... The election will be waged, like the primaries, around race-baiting. Biden will be the first victim. The other white candidates are running scared & becoming more shrill in their denunciations of whites in general by the hour. ..."
"the Great Arsenal of Democracy was looted by" the military-industrial complex Arsenal &
it's unending wars & nothing short of nuclear annihilation is going to change that. There
is no Democrat who is willing to bet their chance at the presidency on pulling it down.
And the American public, by and large, is put to sleep by lengthy discussions of the
intricacies of trade policy.
The election will be waged, like the primaries, around race-baiting. Biden will be the
first victim. The other white candidates are running scared & becoming more shrill in
their denunciations of whites in general by the hour.
There's no telling where it all may lead but it's becoming clearer day by day that the
hostility will outlast the primaries & the general election will be a very ugly affair.
There's no turning back to the soothing center now, it will be an us-vs.-them type election
& hopefully, Pat Buchanan, still America's shrewdest pundit, will keep us fully
apprised.
"Tulsi Gabbard to report for active duty in Indonesia for 2 weeks"
by Brian Pascus...CBS News...1 hr ago
"Tulsi Gabbard, Democrat from Hawaii and presidential candidate, will be taking a two-week
absence from her campaign Monday to report for active duty with the Hawaiian Army National
Guard in Indonesia, she said in an interview with CBSN's Caitlin Huey-Burns.
"I'm stepping off of the campaign trail for a couple of weeks and putting on my army
uniform to go on a joint training exercise mission in Indonesia," she said. Gabbard has also
taken two weeks off to report for active service in 2017."...
Gabbard (D)(1): "Tulsi Gabbard's daredevil act" [ Politico
]. "Gabbard delivered a piercing, if inaccurate, appraisal of Kamala Harris' law enforcement
record -- then turned it into a misleading, yet effective, online ad push." • That's all
Politico says. I heard what Gabbard said, when she said it, and could have backed up every line
of it with links. Gabbard was even nicer than she could have been, because she left out
Mnuchin. I wish I could say this article was shocking, but it isn't.
"... Joe Biden is both sadly demented and deeply compromised to the Chinese Communist Party through his use of his office as VP to fund his son's investment fund with money from China's government owned and run central bank. His condition and his compromised state will keep him from the WH. ..."
"... Gabbart is the only person that seems rational and slightly honest. Harris traded sex for political advancement I understand why she would be a favorite. No moral or ethical standards willing to do anything for what she wants. Perfect useful idiot. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard is an exception to the subject of my title, but she is not going to be
nominated. I am currently contributing to her campaign as a tribute to a gallant lady.
Joe Biden is both sadly demented and deeply compromised to the Chinese Communist Party
through his use of his office as VP to fund his son's investment fund with money from China's
government owned and run central bank. His condition and his compromised state will keep him
from the WH.
They will both be irrelevant in the 2020 election as will as the Zombie candidates like
Bullock, Delaney, etc. i.e. the "moderates."
The rest of the pastiche of 2020 "Democrat" candidates are essentially Globalist advocates
of reduced US sovereignty as a step toward their "ideal" of a world socialist state in which
they will be part of the new Nomenklatura and will enjoy exemptions from the inevitable
shortages of everything resulting from universal "sharing" with the unfortunate masses who will
be proletarians engaged in slave labor or doing the gardening at the dachas of people like
Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Roarke and the like.
The barely hidden opposition by the leftist Democrats to border control is telling. The
leftist Democrats want to take down the SW border of the US until it is nothing but a line on
the map. They want to do that that in order to flood the country with illegals who can be voted
for Democrat majorities in states where they control the state governments. Remember, the
states run federal elections.
California is an example of dirty dealing intended to further rig election outcomes. Gavin
Newsom, the apparent present leader of the Sacramento cabal, has signed into law a statute
seeking to bar Trump from the ballot if he will not surrender his federal tax returns for
public inspection. Was the possibility of illegally voting millions of non-citizens by driver
licensing of illegals and their simultaneous voter-registration at the DMV not enough to ensure
victory? Thank god that a change in the number of presidential electors allotted to California
is not within the capability of the Sacramento cabal.
Americans and other people who will vote in 2020 will have a stark choice. Do you wish to
remain living in a sovereign state or do you wish to become a building bloc in a world
socialist empire?
Unfortunately the only choice available to the US sovereignty side will be Donald Trump, the
real estate hustler from New York City. Weld is not a serious candidate. pl
Both parties seem inclined to bring about "paradise on earth". To understand these
internationalists, I cite Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor conversation with Christ:
..."'So that, in truth, Thou didst Thyself lay the foundation for the destruction of Thy
kingdom, and no one is more to blame for it. Yet what was offered Thee? There are three
powers, three powers alone, able to conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of
these impotent rebels for their happiness those forces are miracle, mystery and authority.
Thou hast rejected all three and hast set the example for doing so. When the wise and dread
spirit set Thee on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Thee, "If Thou wouldst know whether
Thou art the Son of God then cast Thyself down, for it is written: the angels shall hold him
up lest he fall and bruise himself, and Thou shalt know then whether Thou art the Son of God
and shalt prove then how great is Thy faith in Thy Father." But Thou didst refuse and wouldst
not cast Thyself down. Oh, of course, Thou didst proudly and well, like God; but the weak,
unruly race of men, are they gods? Oh, Thou didst know then that in taking one step, in
making one movement to cast Thyself down, Thou wouldst be tempting God and have lost all Thy
faith in Him, and wouldst have been dashed to pieces against that earth which Thou didst come
to save. And the wise spirit that tempted Thee would have rejoiced. But I ask again, are
there many like Thee? And couldst Thou believe for one moment that men, too, could face such
a temptation? Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the great
moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonising spiritual difficulties,
cling only to the free verdict of the heart? Oh, Thou didst know that Thy deed would be
recorded in books, would be handed down to remote times and the utmost ends of the earth, and
Thou didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to God and not ask for a miracle. But
Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracle he rejects God too; for man seeks not so
much God as the miraculous. And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will
create new miracles of his own for himself, and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft,
though he might be a hundred times over a rebel, heretic and infidel. Thou didst not come
down from the Cross when they shouted to Thee, mocking and reviling Thee, "Come down from the
cross and we will believe that Thou art He." Thou didst not come down, for again Thou wouldst
not enslave man by a miracle, and didst crave faith given freely, not based on miracle. Thou
didst crave for free love and not the base raptures of the slave before the might that has
overawed him for ever. But Thou didst think too highly of men therein, for they are slaves,
of course, though rebellious by nature. Look round and judge; fifteen centuries have passed,
look upon them. Whom hast Thou raised up to Thyself? I swear, man is weaker and baser by
nature than Thou hast believed him! Can he, can he do what Thou didst? By showing him so much
respect, Thou didst, as it were, cease to feel for him, for Thou didst ask far too much from
him- Thou who hast loved him more than Thyself! Respecting him less, Thou wouldst have asked
less of him. That would have been more like love, for his burden would have been lighter. He
is weak and vile. What though he is everywhere now rebelling against our power, and proud of
his rebellion? It is the pride of a child and a schoolboy. They are little children rioting
and barring out the teacher at school. But their childish delight will end; it will cost them
dear. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organise a universal state. There have been
many great nations with great histories, but the more highly they were developed the more
unhappy they were, for they felt more acutely than other people the craving for world-wide
union. The great conquerors, Timours and Ghenghis-Khans, whirled like hurricanes over the
face of the earth striving to subdue its people, and they too were but the unconscious
expression of the same craving for universal unity. Hadst Thou taken the world and Caesar's
purple, Thou wouldst have founded the universal state and have given universal peace. For who
can rule men if not he who holds their conscience and their bread in his hands? We have taken
the sword of Caesar, and in taking it, of course, have rejected Thee and followed him. Oh,
ages are yet to come of the confusion of free thought, of their science and cannibalism. For
having begun to build their tower of Babel without us, they will end, of course, with
cannibalism. But then the beast will crawl to us and lick our feet and spatter them with
tears of blood. And we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written,
"Mystery." But then, and only then, the reign of peace and happiness will come for men. Thou
art proud of Thine elect, but Thou hast only the elect, while we give rest to all. And
besides, how many of those elect, those mighty ones who could become elect, have grown weary
waiting for Thee, and have transferred and will transfer the powers of their spirit and the
warmth of their heart to the other camp, and end by raising their free banner against Thee.
Thou didst Thyself lift up that banner. But with us all will be happy and will no more rebel
nor destroy one another as under Thy freedom. Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only
become free when they renounce their freedom to us and submit to us. And shall we be right or
shall we be lying? They will be convinced that we are right, for they will remember the
horrors of slavery and confusion to which Thy freedom brought them. Freedom, free thought,
and science will lead them into such straits and will bring them face to face with such
marvels and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy
themselves, others, rebellious but weak, will destroy one another, while the rest, weak and
unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet and whine to us: "Yes, you were right, you alone
possess His mystery, and we come back to you, save us from ourselves!"
"'Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take the bread made by their
hands from them, to give it to them, without any miracle. They will see that we do not change
the stones to bread, but in truth they will be more thankful for taking it from our hands
than for the bread itself! For they will remember only too well that in old days, without our
help, even the bread they made turned to stones in their hands, while since they have come
back to us, the very stones have turned to bread in their hands. Too, too well will they know
the value of complete submission! And until men know that, they will be unhappy. Who is most
to blame for their not knowing it?-speak! Who scattered the flock and sent it astray on
unknown paths? But the flock will come together again and will submit once more, and then it
will be once for all. Then we shall give them the quiet humble happiness of weak creatures
such as they are by nature. Oh, we shall persuade them at last not to be proud, for Thou
didst lift them up and thereby taught them to be proud. We shall show them that they are
weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike happiness is the sweetest of
all. They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to
the hen. They will marvel at us and will be awe-stricken before us, and will be proud at our
being so powerful and clever that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock of
thousands of millions. They will tremble impotently before our wrath, their minds will grow
fearful, they will be quick to shed tears like women and children, but they will be just as
ready at a sign from us to pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song.
Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a
child's game, with children's songs and innocent dance. Oh, we shall allow them even sin,
they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin.
We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that
we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon
ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will adore us as their saviours who
have taken on themselves their sins before God. And they will have no secrets from us. We
shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have
children according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient- and they will submit to
us gladly and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of their conscience, all, all they will
bring to us, and we shall have an answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our
answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at
present in making a free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the millions of
creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the
mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred
thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and
evil. Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave
they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we
shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity. Though if there were anything in
the other world, it certainly would not be for such as they. It is prophesied that Thou wilt
come again in victory, Thou wilt come with Thy chosen, the proud and strong, but we will say
that they have only saved themselves, but we have saved all. We are told that the harlot who
sits upon the beast, and holds in her hands the mystery, shall be put to shame, that the weak
will rise up again, and will rend her royal purple and will strip naked her loathsome body.
But then I will stand up and point out to Thee the thousand millions of happy children who
have known no sin. And we who have taken their sins upon us for their happiness will stand up
before Thee and say: "Judge us if Thou canst and darest." Know that I fear Thee not. Know
that I too have been in the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and locusts, I too prized
the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I too was striving to stand among Thy
elect, among the strong and powerful, thirsting "to make up the number." But I awakened and
would not serve madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those who have corrected Thy
work. I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness of the humble. What I
say to Thee will come to pass, and our dominion will be built up. I repeat, to-morrow Thou
shalt see that obedient flock who at a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders
about the pile on which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if anyone has ever
deserved our fires, it is Thou. To-morrow I shall burn Thee. Dixi.'"*...
Dem candidate clown car is every bit as vile as the Gop clown car in 16.
Gabbart is the only person that seems rational and slightly honest. Harris traded sex for
political advancement I understand why she would be a favorite. No moral or ethical standards
willing to do anything for what she wants. Perfect useful idiot.
"... Ms. Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii, has railed against "regime change wars" and warned of a nuclear arms race ..."
"... Ms. Gabbard has focused on ending what she calls "regime change wars ..."
"... She has introduced legislation in Congress that would prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars for weapons that violate a 1987 nuclear arms-control pact. ..."
Ms. Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii, has railed against "regime change wars" and
warned of a nuclear arms race
Ms. Gabbard has focused on ending what she calls "regime change wars ," the "new
Cold War" and the nuclear arms race.
She has
introduced legislation in Congress that would prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars for
weapons that violate a 1987 nuclear arms-control pact.
And she has spoken out forcefully in opposition to President Trump's Iran strategy and
North
Korean policy , and what she sees as a general culture of warmongering.
"... The Saker also strongly criticized Milosevic for seeking an accommodation with the West after sustaining a brutal 70+ day all-out aerial assault by NATO and ground assault by Albania. He was silent on Russia's cowardly abandonment of Serbia leaving it to face the West utterly alone. ..."
"... The Saker can deliver a good analysis from time to time but can fail spectacularly as well. IIRC, he predicted that no one in Ukraine would lift a finger to stop Western domination (wrong), completely missed Crimea (just about everyone missed that in his defense) and that Russia would never intervene in Syria as it had no compelling national interest to protect (wrong again). He is right just enough to remain interesting. ..."
The Saker is back on his high horse – criticizing Gabbard for not going down in flames
as she tries to navigate the myriad of traps laid out the the US Government and MSM.
The Saker also strongly criticized Milosevic for seeking an accommodation with the West
after sustaining a brutal 70+ day all-out aerial assault by NATO and ground assault by
Albania. He was silent on Russia's cowardly abandonment of Serbia leaving it to face the West
utterly alone.
The Saker can deliver a good analysis from time to time but can fail spectacularly as
well. IIRC, he predicted that no one in Ukraine would lift a finger to stop Western
domination (wrong), completely missed Crimea (just about everyone missed that in his defense)
and that Russia would never intervene in Syria as it had no compelling national interest to
protect (wrong again). He is right just enough to remain interesting.
On September 13, 2018, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard took to the floor of the House
to rebuke the administration, accusing President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence of
protecting "al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria," all the while "threatening Russia,
Syria, and Iran, with military force if they dare attack these terrorists."
####
In under a minute, Gabbard shredded Harris to pieces for jailing more than 1,500
nonviolent marijuana offenders while admitting in a radio interview that she had smoked
marijuana in college, and for her "tough-on-crime" stances. "She blocked evidence that would
have freed an innocent man from death row she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to
use them as cheap labor and she fought to keep the cash bail system in place," Gabbard
continued, leaving Harris unable to counter.
The MSM is having a difficult time ignoring her. She may have a chance. I will make
another donation to her campaign.
She beat Harris like a red-headed stepchild. Her monotonous reiteration "I'm proud of my
record" reminded me of the Breakfast Moment in Happy Gilmour, when Shooter McGavin mocks
Happy for daring to challenge him in golf.
Shooter: "Oh, you're on. But you're in big trouble, pal. I eat pieces of shit like you for
breakfast."
thern Star
August 2, 2019 at 4:31 am Very cogent..
A lot of the crucial but easily overlooked put on the table.
Never underestimate the significance of the obvious!
Like
Reply
August 2, 2019 at 4:44 pm I think a lot of people DID see that coming, to the extent that the
only behavior acceptable today in the American political milieu is a rehash of that sophomore's
question, "Can you say in one sentence or less what makes America the Greatest Country In The
World?" The American media typically pleats that 'the system is broken', but not during election
season. Then, America is the greatest and running on all cylinders, and the successful candidate
is the one who will convince voters that, rather than fix the whatever system, he/she/ze/zir
(it's only a matter of time) will take a system that is the best in the world and make itr
squeeze out even more happiness and satisfaction for Americans. Anyway, if you go off-message
with that, you are under the soulless influence of the Russians.
Anyway, it looks as if the democrats have gone to the well too often with that Russian
bullshit, and people are starting to get impatient with the cop-out – it's just an excuse
for having no good answer. You can always say, "X is because Russia". I think Harris just bit the
dust, and will lose a lot of support over this and gradually drop out. I got a kick out of the
"Gabbard is a non-issue, and won't even make the second debates" or something to that effect.
Whoever smugly said that was apparently asleep when a Ukrainian comedian who plays a president on
TV won the presidency in a landslide. The incumbent once thought it was safe to laugh politely at
him, because he was a non-issue, too.
I saw this story also on the same site, although it was not necessary to click on it, for
obvious reasons.
"A salute to the bravery of Olga Misik, 17, who during recent bloody protests for free
Moscow elections sat before Putin's armed-to-the-teeth goons and calmly read aloud the Russian
constitution, including Article 31 affirming the right to peaceful political assembly. She was
later arrested and allegedly beaten. "Injustice always concerns everyone," said Olga, who takes
the long view of repression. "Today the Moscow City Duma, tomorrow the governor of the region It
is only a matter of time."
'Bloody protests for free Moscow elections'?? They were bloody? Really? and the issue was free
Moscow elections? Not candidates being allowed to run despite having been disqualified for not
reaching the signatory threshold? The game of coming up with enough signatures to demonstrate a
valid support base is an old one, trawling the obituaries and all manner of dodges to come up
with enough for people who don't really have any support, but want a soapbox from which to squawk
their message and then say they were cheated of victory by the Kremlin. Putin's
armed-to-the-teeth goons? Really? American police called to control demonstrations are unarmed?
Since when? Does arming them make them goons? I can't see their teeth – how does the
reporter know they are armed to the teeth? Olga takes the long view of repression, does she? From
the jaded pinnacle of 17? I'm surprised they did not ask her views on gay sex – she's old
enough. Just.
Embarrassing western hyperbole – a Russian review of the PISA tests that descended to
the same level might read, "A salute to the simple-mindedness of the Amerikantsi 'students', who
must have gone to school at a mental institution, or been taught by the homeless lunatics that
abound in and around Amerikantsi cities. Once again they managed to score so poorly that one
might reasonably wonder if they arrived at the testing institution by accident, thinking instead
that they were being taken to see one of the violence-and-profanity-riddled Amerikantsi movies
that pollute the television and cause the Amerikantsi schoolchildren to shoot each other as if
they lived inside a video game where it is not real blood. It's difficult to imagine a sensible
explanation for such a dismal performance, in which they finished below the OECD average in every
category."
But you won't see anything like that in a Russian newspaper, or hear it on a Russian news
program. Because they don't act like the country is run by hysterical 12-year-olds. However, if
the Americans want to pin their new hopes for Putin's political immolation on some 17-year-old
attention-junkie bint, they should knock themselves out. They are merely hardening Russian
opinion against them, and they may not care but some day they will. And then they will wail, "Why
do they hate us? It must be because of our freedom!"
I was particularly intrigued by the mention of the Democrats getting caught fabricating fake
Russian troll accounts to pretend the Russians were trying to influence some state election or
other, I forget what, supposedly reported in the Times. I didn't see that, and I don't recall
anyone mentioning it here.
Like
ReplyMark Chapman
August 2, 2019 at 3:10 pm A very cogent argument for (a) keeping the debates agenda-free and
independently managed, and (2) a less-insane democratic party.
I would not call this article decent. At best it is half-decent ;-) This is a typical NYT anti-Tulsi propaganda but it does make
several relent observation buried in the sea of anti-Tulsi crapola.
Notable quotes:
"... “We should be coming to other leaders in other countries with respect, building a relationship based on cooperation rather than with, you know, a police baton,” she says. ..."
"... While she is the embodiment of this anti-interventionist message onstage, there is a much larger movement brewing. There is big money in peace. Two billionaire philanthropists from opposite ends of the political spectrum — George Soros and Charles Koch — came together this summer to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank to argue against American intervention abroad. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard Thinks We're Doomed by Nellie Bowles
Tulsi Gabbard is running for president of a country that she believes has wrought horror on the world, and she wants its
citizens to remember that.
She is from Hawaii, and she spends each morning surfing. But that is not what she talks about in this unlikely campaign.
She talks about the horror.
She lists countries: Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq. Failure after failure, she says. To drive the point
home, she wants to meet on a Sioux tribe reservation in North Dakota, where, she explains, the United States government committed
its original atrocity.
“These Indigenous people have been disrespected, mistreated with broken promises and desecrated lands,” Ms. Gabbard says.
... ... ...
But her run, and the unusual cross-section of voters she appeals to — Howard Zinn fans, anti-drug-war libertarians, Russia-gate
skeptics, and conservatives suspicious of Big Tech — signifies just how much both parties have shifted, not just on foreign
policy. It could end up being a sign that President Trump’s isolationism is not the aberration many believed, but rather a
harbinger of a growing national sentiment that America should stand alone.
To Ms. Gabbard, it is the United States that has been the cruel and destabilizing force.
... ... ...
“We should be coming to other leaders in other countries with respect, building a relationship based on cooperation rather
than with, you know, a police baton,” she says.
... ... ...
While she is the embodiment of this anti-interventionist message onstage, there is a much larger movement brewing. There
is big money in peace. Two billionaire philanthropists from opposite ends of the political spectrum — George Soros and Charles
Koch — came together this summer to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank to argue against American
intervention abroad.
... ... ...
Ms. Gabbard says she is driven by the feeling that death could come at any moment, which she realized at age 10 but which
became more intense in Iraq.
“My first deployment was at the height of the war in 2005. We were 40 miles north of Baghdad. And there was a huge sign
by one of the main gates that just read: ‘Is today the day?’” she says. “It was such a stark reminder that my time could come
at any moment. That any day could be my last.”
She is not sure who put the sign up or why. But it was this message of potentially imminent doom that she wanted to leave
the audience with at the second Democratic debate.
“As we stand here tonight,” she told the crowd. “There are thousands of nuclear missiles pointing right at us, and if we
were to get an attack, we would have 30 minutes, 30 minutes, before we were hit.”
Ms. Gabbard continued.
“There is no shelter. This is the warmonger’s hoax. There is no shelter. It’s all a lie.”
Nellie Bowles covers tech and internet culture. Follow her on Twitter:
@nelliebowles
"A seat or family seat was the principal manor of a medieval lord, which was normally an
elegant country mansion and usually denoted that the family held political and economic
influences in the area. In some cases, the family seat was a manor house."
She is descended from "to the manor born", thus qualified to be POTUS.
Other trivia is that Tulsi was a martial arts instructor in 2002. Similar to Justin
Trudeau's part time drama teacher and ski instructor qualifications to be PM of Canada.
Politics is a drity business. The last think any aspiring politician wants is to
fight on two fronts. For example against forign wars and Isreal lobby. that's creates Doublespeak
situation for candidates like Tulsi...
Notable quotes:
"... But the Empire is taking no chances. The Empire has sicced its Presstitute Battalion on her. Josh Rogin (Washington Post), Joy Reid (MSNBC), Wajahat Ali (New York Times and CNN), and, of course the Twitter trolls paid to slander and misrepresent public figures that the Empire targets. Google added its weight to the obfuscation of Gabbard. ..."
It is unfortunate that Tulsi Gabbard succumbed to the Israel Lobby. The forces of the Empire
saw it as a sign of weakness and have set about destroying her.
The ruling elite see Gabbard as a threat just as they saw Trump as a threat. A threat is an
attractive political candidate who questions the Empire's agenda. Trump questioned the
hostility toward Russia orchestrated by the military/security complex. Gabbard questions the
Empire's wars in the Middle East. This is questioning that encroaches on the agendas of the
military/security complex and Israel Lobby. If fear of Israel is what caused Gabbard to vote
the AIPAC line on the bill forbidding criticism of Israel, she won't be able to stick to her
line against Washington's aggression in the Middle East. Israel is behind that aggression as it
serves Israeli interests.
But the Empire is taking no chances. The Empire has sicced its Presstitute Battalion on
her. Josh Rogin (Washington Post), Joy Reid (MSNBC), Wajahat Ali (New York Times and CNN), and,
of course the Twitter trolls paid to slander and misrepresent public figures that the Empire
targets. Google added its weight to the obfuscation of Gabbard.
Wars in the Middle East against Israel's enemies and preparation for major wars against
Iran, Russia, and China are the bread and butter for the powerful US military/security complex
lobby. All that is important to the military/security complex is their profits, not whether
they get all of us killed. In other words, their propaganda about protecting America is a
lie. They endanger us all in order to have enemies in order to justify their massive budget
and power.
Those of us who actually know, such as myself and Stephen Cohen, have been warning for years
that the orchestrated hostility against Russia is producing a far more dangerous Cold War than
the original one. Indeed, beginning with the criminal George W. Bush regime, the arms control
treaties achieved at great political expense by US and Soviet leaders have been abandoned by
Washington. The lastest treaty to be discarded by Washington in service to the
military/security lobby is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) negotiated by
President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbechev. This treaty banned missiles that
Washington could place in Europe on Russia's border with which to attack Russia with little or
no reaction time, and Russian missiles that could be used to attack Washington's NATO puppet
states in Europe and UK. The treaty resulted in the elimination of 2,692 missiles and a decade
of verification inspections that satisfied both parties to the agreement. But suddenly
Washington has pulled out of the treaty. The main purpose of pulling out of the treaty is to
enable the military/security complex to develop and produce new missiles at the taxpayers'
expense, but Washington also sees a military advantage in withdrawing from the INF treaty.
Washington, of course, blames the US withdrawal on Russia, just as Washington blames every
country that Washington intends to attack. But it is completely obvious even to a moron that
Russia has no interest whatsoever in abandoning the treaty. Russian intermediate-range
missiles cannot reach the United States. Russia has no reason to attack Europe, which has
no military forces of any consequence. It is the American nuclear missiles on European soil
that are the problem
Washington, however, does gain by tearing up the INF treaty. At Europe's risk, not
America's, Washington's intermediate-range nuclear misslies stationed in Europe on Russia's
borders permit a preemptive nuclear attack on Russia. Because of proximity, the warning time is
only a couple of minutes. Washington's crazed war planners believe that so much of the Russian
retaliatory capacity would be destroyed, that Russia would surrender rather than retaliate with
diminished forces and risk a second attack.
Putin stresses this danger as does the Russian military. US missiles on Russia's border puts
the world on a hair trigger. Aside from the fact that a nuclear attack on Russia is the likely
intent of the criminal neoconservatives, nuclear warning systems are notorious for false
alarms. During Cold War I, both sides worked to build trust, but since the criminal Clinton
regime Washington has worked to destroy all trust between the two dominant nuclear powers. All
that is required to obliterate life on earth, thanks entirely to the crazed fools in
Washington, is one false alarm received by the Russians. Unlike past false alarms, next time
the Russians will have no choice but to believe it.
Intermediate-range nuclear missiles leave no time for a phone call between Putin and Trump.
The Russian leader who has suffered hundreds of diplomatic insults, demonization of his person
and his country, illegal sanctions, endless false accusations, and endless threats cannot
assume that the warning is false.
The idiots in Washington and the presstitutes have programmed the end of the world. When the
alarm goes off, the Russian leader has no choice but to push the button.
Any remaining doubt in the Russian government of Washington's hostile intentions toward
Russia has been dispelled by Trump's National Security Advisor, the neocon warmonger John
Bolton. Bolton recently announced that the last remaining arms control agreement, START, will
not be renewed by Washington in 2021.
Thus, the trust built between the nuclear powers that began with President John F. Kennedy
and reached its greatest success with Reagan and Gorbachev has been erased. It will be lucky if
the world survives the destruction of trust between the two major nuclear powers.
ORDER IT NOW
The American government in Washington has been made so utterly stupid by its arrogant hubris
that it has no comprehension of the dangerous situation that it, and it alone, has created. We
are all at risk every minute of our lives because of the power, of which President Eisenhower
warned us more than a half century ago to no avail, of the US military/security complex, an
organized powerful force determined and able to destroy any American president who would
threaten their budget and power by making peace.
Donald Trump is a strong personality, but he has been cowed by the Israel Lobby and the
military/security complex. As reigning president, Trump sat there Twittering while an attack
orchestrated by the military/security complex and the Democratic Party, with 100% cooperation
from the American media, tried to portray him as a Russian agent as grounds for his
impeachment.
A strong personality in what is allegedly the most powerful office in the world who allows
his entire first term to be wasted by his opponents in an attempt to frame him and drive him
from office is all we need to know about the likely fate of Tulsi Gabbard.
"... it turned out that the very people who were up in arms about "fake news" were the ones propagating their own version of it. WikiLeaks did much to expose their game by publicizing the key role played by the Legacy Media in acting as an extension of the Clinton campaign. However, the real unmasking came after the November election, when the rage of the liberal elites became so manifest that "reporters" who would normally be loath to reveal their politics came out of the closet, so to speak, and started telling us that the old journalistic standard of objectivity no longer applied. The election of Trump, they averred, meant that the old standards must be abandoned and a new, and openly partisan bias must take its place. In honor of this new credo, the Washington Post has adopted a new slogan: " Democracy dies in darkness "! ..."
"... Rep. Gabbard's "crime" was to challenge the US-funded effort to overthrow the regime of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad as contrary to our interests and the prospects for peace in the region. For that she has been demonized in the media – and, not coincidentally, the very same media that is now an instrument in the hands of our "intelligence community." For ..."
"... And of course it's not just the Washington Post : the entire "mainstream" media is now colluding with the "intelligence community" in an effort to discredit and derail any efforts at a rapprochement with Russia. We haven't seen this kind of hysteria since the frigid winter of the cold war. ..."
"... My longtime readers will not be shocked by any of this: during the run up to the Iraq war, the media was chock full of fake news about Saddam Hussein's fabled weapons of mass destruction, which all the "experts" told us were certainly there and ready to rain death and destruction at any minute. Who can forget the series of articles by Judith Miller that adorned the front page of the New York Times – which were merely Bush administration talking points reiterated by Donald Rumsfeld & Co. on the Sunday talk shows? Miller has now become synonymous with the very concept of fake news – and yet how quickly we forget the lesson we should have learned from that shameful episode in the history of American journalism . ..."
"... Blinded by partisan bias, all too willing to be used as an instrument of the Deep State -- and determined to "control exactly what people think," which is, as Mika Brzezinski put it the other day, " our job " – the English-speaking media has become increasingly unreliable. This has become a big problem for us here at Antiwar.com: we now have to check and re-check everything that they report as fact. Not that we didn't do that anyway, but the difference is that, these days, we have to be more careful than ever before linking to it, or citing it as factual. ..."
"... The day of the "alternative media" has passed. We are simply part of the media, period: the increasingly tiny portion of it that doesn't fall for war propaganda, that doesn't have a partisan agenda, and that harkens back to the "old" journalistic standards of yesteryear – objective reporting of facts. That doesn't mean we don't have opinions, or an agenda – far from it! However, we base those opinions on what, to the best of our ability, we can discern as the facts. ..."
"... And we have a pretty good record in this regard. Back when everyone who was anyone was telling us that those "weapons of mass destruction" were lurking in the Iraqi shadows, we said it was nonsense – and we were right. As the "experts" said that war with Iraq would "solve" the problem of terrorism and bring enlightenment to the Middle East, we said the war would usher in the reign of chaos – and we were right. We warned that NATO expansion would trigger an unnecessary conflict with Russia, and we were proved right about that, too. The Kosovo war was hailed as a "humanitarian" act – and we rightly predicted it would come back to haunt us in the form of a gangster state riven by conflict. ..."
"... There's one way in which we are significantly different from the rest of the media – we depend on our readers for the financial support we need to keep going. The Washington Post has Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest men in the world – not to mention a multi-million dollar contract with the "intelligence community." The New York Times has Carlos Slim, another billionaire with seemingly bottomless pockets. We, on the other hand, just have you. ..."
We're not the alternative media – we're the best media you've got!
Posted on
August 06, 2019 August 4, 2019The more things change, the more they stay the same: the
sun comes up in the morning; another Hitler arises in the fantasies of the foreign-policy
establishment; and Josh Rogin writes
another column attacking Tusli Gabbard, the most pro-peace candidate in the Democratic
lineup. Justin blasted Rogin the first time he tried this, back in February of 2017, proving
that the whole story was "fake news". We think it's important to revisit Justin's analysis of
the media-enhanced demand for war. As Justin notes, the only real alternative to this, the only
real "alternative media," are sites like Antiwar. com and WikiLeaks.
If we look at the phrase itself, it seems to mean the media that presents itself as the
alternative to what we call the "corporate media," i.e. the New York Times , the
Washington Post , your local rag – in short, the Legacy Media that predominated in
those bygone days before the Internet. And yet this whole arrangement seems outdated, to say
the least. The Internet has long since been colonized by the corporate giants: BuzzFeed, for
example, is regularly fed huge dollops of cash from its corporate owners. And the Legacy Media
has adapted to the primacy of online media, however reluctantly and ineptly. So the alternative
media isn't defined by how they deliver the news, but rather by 1) what they judge to be news,
and 2) how they report it.
And that's the problem.
There's been much talk of "fake news," a concept first defined by the "mainstream" media
types as an insidious scheme by the Russians and/or supporters of Donald Trump to deny Hillary
Clinton her rightful place in the Oval Office. Or it was
Macedonian teenagers out to fool us into giving them clicks. Or something. Facebook and
Google announced a campaign to eliminate this Dire Threat, and the mandarins of the
"mainstream" reared up in righteous anger, lecturing us that journalistic standards were being
traduced.
Yet it turned out that the very people who were up in arms about "fake news" were the ones propagating
their own version of it.
WikiLeaks did much to expose their game by publicizing the
key role played by the Legacy Media in acting as an
extension of the Clinton campaign. However, the real unmasking came after the November
election, when the rage of the liberal elites became so manifest that "reporters" who would
normally be loath to reveal their politics came out of the closet, so to speak, and started
telling us that the old journalistic standard of objectivity no longer applied. The election of
Trump, they averred, meant that the old standards must be abandoned and a new, and openly
partisan bias
must take its place. In honor of this new credo, the Washington Post has adopted a new slogan:
"
Democracy dies in darkness "!
This from the newspaper that ran a front page story citing the anonymous trolls at
PropOrNot.com as credible sources for an account of alleged
"Russian agents of influence" in the media – a story that slimed Matt Drudge and
Antiwar.com, among others.
This from the newspaper that regularly publishes "news" accounts citing anonymous
"intelligence officials" claiming the Trump administration is rife with Russian "agents."
This from the newspaper that published
a piece by foreign affairs columnist Josh Rogin that falsely claimed Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's
trip to Syria was funded by a group that is "nonexistent" and strongly implied she was in the
pay of the Syrian government or some other foreign entity. Well after the smear circulated far
and wide, the paper posted the following correction:
" An earlier version of this op-ed misspelled the name of AACCESS Ohio and incorrectly
stated that the organization no longer exists. AACCESS Ohio is an independent non-profit
organization that is a member of the ACCESS National Network of Arab American Community
organizations but is currently on probation due to inactivity. The op-ed also incorrectly
stated that Bassam Khawam is Syrian American. He is Lebanese American. This version has been
corrected."
Rep. Gabbard's "crime" was to challenge the US-funded effort to overthrow the regime of
Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad as contrary to our interests and the prospects for peace in
the region. For that she has been demonized in the media – and, not coincidentally, the
very same media that is now an instrument in the hands of our "intelligence community." For it
is these spooks who, for years, have been canoodling with the Saudis in an effort to rid the
region of the last secular obstacle to the Sunni-ization of the Middle East. That they have
Tulsi Gabbard in their sights is no surprise.
And of course it's not just the Washington Post : the entire "mainstream" media is
now colluding with the "intelligence community" in an effort to discredit and derail any
efforts at a rapprochement with Russia. We haven't seen this kind of hysteria since the frigid
winter of the cold war.
My longtime readers will not be shocked by any of this: during the run up to the Iraq war,
the media was chock full of fake news about Saddam Hussein's fabled weapons of mass
destruction, which all the "experts" told us were certainly there and ready to rain death and
destruction at any minute. Who can forget the series of articles by Judith Miller that adorned
the front page of the New York Times – which were merely Bush administration
talking points reiterated by Donald Rumsfeld & Co. on the Sunday talk shows? Miller has now
become synonymous with the very concept of fake news – and yet how quickly we forget the
lesson we should have learned from that shameful episode in the history of American
journalism.
So fake news is nothing new, nor is the concept of the "mainstream" media as a megaphone for
war propaganda. What's different today is that many are waking up to this fact – and
turning to the "alternative." I've been struck by this rising phenomenon over the past year or
so: Matt Drudge gave Antiwar.com a permanent link. Our audience has increased by many
thousands. And I've been getting a steady stream of interview requests. I was quite pleased to
read the following in
a recent piece in The Nation about the media's fit of Russophobia and the key role
played by the journalist I. F. Stone during the 1950s:
"To conclude where I began, think for a moment about I.F. Stone during his haunted 1950s.
While he was well-regarded by a lot of rank-and-file reporters, few would say so openly. He was
PNG [persona non grata] among people such as [ New York Times publisher Arthur]
Sulzberger – an outcast .
"Now think about now.
"A few reporters and commentators advise us that the name of the game these days is to
sink the single most constructive policy the Trump administration has announced. The rest is
subterfuge, rubbish. This isprima faciethe case, though you can read it nowhere
in theTimesor any of the other corporate media. A few have asserted that we may
now be witnessing a coup operation against the Trump White House. This is a possibility, in my
view. We cannot flick it off the table. With the utmost purpose, I post
here one of
these pieces. "A Win for the Deep State" came out just after Flynn was forced from office. It
is by a writer named Justin Raimondo and appeared in a wholly out-of-bounds web publication
called Antiwar.com. I know nothing about either, but it is a thought-provoking piece."
Well, we aren't quite "wholly out of bounds," except in certain circles, but all in all this
is a great compliment – and it's illustrative of author Patrick Lawrence's point, which
is that
"We, readers and viewers, must discriminate among all that is put before us so as to make
the best judgments we can and, not least, protect our minds. The other side of the coin, what
we customarily call 'alternative media,' assumes an important responsibility. They must get
done, as best they can, what better-endowed media now shirk. To put this simply and briefly,
they and we must learn that they are not 'alternative' to anything. In the end there is no such
thing as 'alternative media,' as I often argue. There are only media, and most of ours have
turned irretrievably bad."
We here at Antiwar.com take our responsibility to you, our readers and supporters, very
seriously. We're working day and night, 24/7, to separate fact from fiction, knee-jerk
"analysis" from intelligent critique, partisan bullshit from truth. And we've had to work much
harder lately because the profession of journalism has fallen on hard times.
Blinded by partisan bias, all too willing to be used as an instrument of the Deep State --
and determined to "control exactly what people think," which is, as Mika Brzezinski put it the
other day, " our job " – the
English-speaking media has become increasingly unreliable. This has become a big problem for us
here at Antiwar.com: we now have to check and re-check everything that they report as
fact. Not that we didn't do that anyway, but the difference is that, these days, we have to be
more careful than ever before linking to it, or citing it as factual.
The day of the "alternative media" has passed. We are simply part of the media, period: the
increasingly tiny portion of it that doesn't fall for war propaganda, that doesn't have a
partisan agenda, and that harkens back to the "old" journalistic standards of yesteryear
– objective reporting of facts. That doesn't mean we don't have opinions, or an agenda
– far from it! However, we base those opinions on what, to the best of our ability, we
can discern as the facts.
And we have a pretty good record in this regard. Back when everyone who was anyone was
telling us that those "weapons of mass destruction" were lurking in the Iraqi shadows, we said
it was nonsense – and we were right. As the "experts" said that war with Iraq would
"solve" the problem of terrorism and bring enlightenment to the Middle East, we said the war
would usher in the reign of chaos – and we were right. We warned that NATO expansion
would trigger an unnecessary conflict with Russia, and we were proved right about that, too.
The Kosovo war was hailed as a "humanitarian" act – and we rightly predicted it would
come back to haunt us in the form of a gangster state riven by conflict.
I could spend several paragraphs boasting about how right we were, but you get the idea. Our
record is a good one. And we intend to make it even better. But we can't do it – we
can't do our job – without your help.
There's one way in which we are significantly different from the rest of the media
– we depend on our readers for the financial support we need to keep going. The
Washington Post has Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest men in the world – not to
mention a multi-million
dollar contract with the "intelligence community." The New York Times has Carlos
Slim, another billionaire with seemingly bottomless pockets. We, on the other hand, just have
you.
Okay, I'll cut to the chase: we've come to a crucial point in our current fundraising
campaign, and now it's make it or break it time for Antiwar.com.
A group of our most generous supporters has pledged $40,000 in matching funds – but
that pledge is strictly conditional . What this means is that we must match that
amount in the short time left in our campaign in order to get the entire $40,000.
Our policies are to do, mostly, with Republicans.
Our failure to convince voters, in a democracy, that there are alternatives to the gradual
rot of the last two generations -- that is to do, mostly, with Democrats.
Sure, undermining the party after it's made its choice of nominee is stupid and
counterproductive. But strengthening the party and fighting for its message are not mutually
exclusive. That is where we are now; Sarandonism is, for the moment, irrelevant.
I asked you a long time ago if you supported democracy, and you took offense. How then am
I supposed to interpret "blame the American voters"?
If fear of Israel is what caused Gabbard to vote the AIPAC line on the bill forbidding
criticism of Israel, she won't be able to stick to her line against Washington's aggression
in the Middle East. Israel is behind that aggression as it serves Israeli interests.
***
A strong personality .who allows his entire first term to be wasted by his opponents in an
attempt to frame him and drive him from office is all we need to know about the likely fate
of Tulsi Gabbard.
This piece, "Tulsi Gabbard: R.I.P.," is a good example of why I don't normally read PCR.
He blogs for his loyal followers, but says nothing we don't know, with little or no value
added. And then his analysis is weak. Perhaps he thinks this jab will stiffen Tulsi's spine,
(he's been a fan) and improve her platform. But she might just blow off his criticism as
irrelevant, which it may be.
PCR assumes that Tulsi voted against BDS out of fear. I believe that's wrong. She voted
out of idealism. That's what her Aloha movement is about. It may be naïve to think you
can make everybody happy, but if the Israel she supports turns out to be one state of equal
rights, that's fine.
"All we need to know" is one of my least favorite phrases. It's almost never true,
certainly not in this case. Trump's example (and he hasn't been as cowed as his detractors
make him out) doesn't foretell Tulsi's behavior. He's overflowing with bombast. She's calm,
with a core of steel.
PCR assumes that Tulsi voted against BDS out of fear. I believe that’s wrong. She
voted out of idealism. That’s what her Aloha movement is about. It may be naïve
to think you can make everybody happy, but if the Israel she supports turns out to be one
state of equal rights, that’s fine.
RobinG,
There are many good Dems who support the Palestinians. To get into the next debate, Tulsi
is looking for 4 polls who give her 2% support. To gain the support of those good people, she
must show sympathy for the Palestinians.
No empathy for the obvious plight of the Palestinians is a turn off among people of good
heart – something that Gabbard does not need.
Tulsi needs to be explicit concerning Israel/Palestine – it is unbecoming not to
be.
Wow!! Honesty in reporting!! I must applaud Caitlin Johnstone's boldfaced honesty in her
"Propagandists Freak Out Over Gabbard's Destruction of Harris: Establishment narrative
managers distracted attention from a notable antiwar contender, seizing instead the chance to
marshal an old smear against her, writes Caitlin Johnstone."
I stopped reading after this passage and had to come her and post a comment about the most
honest description of CNN I've ever read:
"CNN is a virulent establishment propaganda firm with an extensive history of promoting
lies and brazen psyops in facilitation of U.S. imperialism, so it would make sense that they
would try to avoid a subject which would inevitably lead to unauthorized truth-telling on the
matter."
Johnstone then recites the smearing attacks alluded to @46 but also tells us why:
"Gabbard just publicly eviscerated a charming, ambitious and completely amoral centrist
who would excel at putting a friendly humanitarian face on future wars if elected, and that's
why the narrative managers are flipping out so hard right now."
Harris and Michelle Obama I see as one and the same--both equally putrid. I know I dropped
by unequivocal support for Gabbard, but that doesn't mean I'm 100% against her and her
efforts. I wholeheartedly support Caitlin's conclusion:
"The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging,
because it means she's forcing them to fight back. In a media environment where the war
propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream attention,
the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things
for our future. If our society is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal,
ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and soul-crushing
oppression, the first step is punching a hole in the narrative matrix which keeps us
hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and acceptable.
"Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative
control is doing the real work."
Gabbard must poll 2% or more in at least 4 different polls between 6/28 & 8/28 to
qualify for the 3rd debate; she's received enough donations to qualify. She needs to be on
the podium!
Proven
Propagandist Bellingcat joins D-Party talking-point hit parade attacking Gabbard for
being "Assad Apologist." Interesting how she's getting the similar sort of negative publicity
Trump got quite a lot of at the outset of his campaign, which only serves to increase her
national exposure. Her retorts are forceful and having success; and as Trump proved, smear
campaigns no longer are assured of success. Clearly, the Current Oligarchy and their D-Party
allies are convinced that the massive propaganda smearing of Assad was successful; but, was
it really?
Media: Tulsi is New Darling of 'Russia's Propaganda Machine'
Remember when Red-baiting was considered dogmatic and passé by the left-wing hive?
By
Barbara Boland
•
August 5, 2019
Tulsi Gabbard in Amherst, New Hampshire, July 4, 2019..
( Andrew
Cline/Shutterstock)
What do Hawaii Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and billionaire real estate heir Donald J. Trump have in common?
According to MSNBC, Gabbard is part of the Russian scheme that "Moscow used when it interfered in the 2016" election.
The
establishment loathes any candidate
who seeks an end to U.S. military adventurism abroad -- so much so that they are
willing to make the logically incoherent claim that Russian bots elected Trump. Now they're apparently also attempting to
elect his 2020 Democratic rival.
The mind-bending MSNBC
article
resurfaced on social media after Gabbard became the most Googled candidate thanks to several viral moments
during the debates.
Advertisement
NBC News rests its
claim
that "Russia's propaganda machine" has "discovered" Tulsi Gabbard on the fact that "there have been at least 20
Gabbard stories on three major Moscow-based English-language websites affiliated with or supportive of the Russian
government: RT, the Russian-owned TV outlet; Sputnik News, a radio outlet; and Russia Insider, a blog that experts say
closely follows the Kremlin line. The coverage devoted to Gabbard, both in news and commentary, exceeds that afforded to
any of the declared or rumored Democratic candidates despite Gabbard's lack of voter recognition."
Because Russian media reports on Gabbard, that means they're seeking to elect her. How sneaky.
A more obvious explanation for the increased coverage is that as a member of Congress, Gabbard has made many statements
regarding the war in Syria and America's and Russia's involvement, and because as a presidential candidate, she's made
foreign policy the centerpiece of her campaign.
Or it could be because -- Russian bots.
MSNBC says that "negative coverage and fabricated stories about Hillary Clinton" in 2016 were
"amplified by a huge network of fake social media accounts and bots" and that "experts who track inauthentic social media
accounts have already found some extolling Gabbard's positions since she declared."
It continues: "Within a few days of Gabbard announcing her presidential bid,
DisInfo 2018
, part of the
cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, found that three of the top 15 URLs shared by the 800 social media accounts affiliated
with known and
suspected
Russian propaganda operations
directed at U.S. citizens were about Gabbard."
New Knowledge is the company the Senate Intelligence Committee used to track Russian activities
in the 2016 election. Apparently they've told NBC News that they spotted "chatter" about Gabbard "in anonymous online
message boards, including those known for fomenting right-wing troll campaigns. The chatter discussed Gabbard's
usefulness."
Further, "Josh Russell, a researcher and 'troll hunter' known for identifying fake accounts,
similarly told NBC News he recently spotted a few clusters of suspicious accounts that retweeted the same exact text about
Gabbard, mostly neutral or slightly positive headlines."
"A few clusters" of "mostly neutral or slightly positive headlines." Scary stuff.
I'm old enough to remember when Democrats mocked the very idea of Russians being a threat.
Remember Obama's famous
comeback
:
"Governor Romney, I'm glad you recognize that al-Qaeda is a threat, because a couple of months ago when you were asked
what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their
foreign policy back."
Romney is a "Cold War holdover" with an "apparent determination to take U.S.-Russian relations back to the 1950s,"
chided
Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, at an April campaign event.
Romney "acts like he thinks the Cold War is still on, Russia is still our major adversary. I don't know where he has
been," Biden said in an
interview
with Bob Schieffer on
Face the Nation
. "We have disagreements with Russia, but they're united with us. This is
not 1956. He just seems to be uninformed or stuck in a Cold War mentality."
This all feels so long ago. Ever since the Democrats lost the 2016 election to Trump, there's been endless fear
mongering about how Russians are hiding behind every candidate. Now, if a Democratic candidate dares to defy the
establishment line on foreign interventionism, she must be aided by the Russians.
Because that's the only reason someone might
say
,
"I will not apologize to you, or to anyone for doing all that I can to prevent our country from continuing to make these
perpetual wrong decisions that have taken a toll on the lives of my brothers and sisters in uniform. I will continue to do
all that I can to make sure that we end these wasteful regime change wars."
Barbara Boland is
's foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her on
Twitter
@BBatDC.
Tulsi Gabbard is the
only
-- and I do mean
only
-- Democratic candidate for
President worth taking a serious look at.
Not that a serious look means actually voting for
the candidate of that diseased and corrupt Party. To my mind, in fact, a "D" next to the name
on the ballot is disqualifying.
Still, Tulsi appears to be the only one of the sorry lot deserving of some attention and
respect on the part of intelligent people.
This would account for why the Democratic Party Public Relations Machine (aka: Mainstream
Media) has trained its guns on her as a Russian dupe (or worse).
Seriously, it is to laugh: how this pathetic collection of tools, who spent the entire
Cold War as Soviet apologists, have in a generation converted wholesale to McCarthyite
Russia-bashers. All because Vlad doesn't cotton to gays.
Anyway, one might think that all of them, the lib-Dem-media tools, deserve the nuclear
incineration they're so casually inviting, which would mess up their privileged lives
big-time.
Unfortunately, the rest of us would end up taking the hit with them. Therefore, our only
recourse is to call them out for the witless idiots they are and pray their witless idiocy
does not end in a catastrophe.
Caitlyn Johnstone teaches us that all
anti-imperialists will necessarily be accused of Russian sympathies, solely because Russia,
for its own reasons, is the main opposition to western imperialism.
When this happens, demand to know what kind of war opposition would not be labeled
"Russian". They won't be able to provide a coherent answer.
"The establishment loathes any candidate who seeks an end to U.S. military adventurism
abroad -- so much so that they are willing to make the logically incoherent claim that Russian
bots elected Trump."
How "effective" Russian interference in our elections was in 2016 is a
question that political scientists and statisticians will be arguing about for years if not
decades.
What is logically incoherent is the idea that President Trump opposes US "military
adventurism." Tell that to the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Yemenis. And he certainly
does not oppose Russian "military adventurism" in Crimea and Syria.
More divisive talk, it doesn't matter if it's coming from the left or right. They'll say
whatever they can to deflect attention from our outrageous military budget. Finally we have a
candidate that is capable of uniting Americans across the entire political spectrum under a
single cause...end all of these useless foreign conflicts and redirect that money back into
programs and services that improve the quality of life for all Americans. So it comes as no
surprise to me that this journalist claiming to speak on behalf of American Conservatives
would claim Tulsi Gabbard is the Russian Candidate in an attempt to halt her momentum. 21st
Century McCarthyism won't work on us anymore. Conservatives, moderates, and liberals are
united behind Tulsi.
The mind-bending MSNBC article resurfaced on social media after Gabbard became the most
Googled candidate thanks to several viral moments during the debates.
the MSM hacks have enough stupidity to talk about
Gabbard's lack of voter recognition.
Seriously? I know that the MSM propaganda is oxymoronic to its core, but now I'm not sure
about "oxy".
Josh Russell, a researcher and 'troll hunter'
Really? That's his profession? I've always thought that "troll-hunting" is a form of what
medics may call either paranoid schizophrenia, querulous paranoia or paraphrenia, depending
on further symptoms.
Just give the wacko a fantasy video game, where he can literally hunt trolls.
Oh, and this:
Ever since the Democrats lost the 2016 election to Trump, there's been endless fear
mongering about how Russians are hiding behind every candidate.
Hopefully, they ain't gonna start hiding behind every fridge in a year.
...As for Tulsi Gabbard, her foreign policy views are a clear and present danger to Israel's
and Washington's grand strategy to secure permanent military hegemony in the Middle East. If
the PNAC grand strategy succeeds, there will never be any justice or sovereignty for the
Palestinian people. I think she was being strategic with the BDS vote (as with her defense of
Joe Biden, a head-fake which opened up the opportunity for her to take down Kamala Harris).
Gabbard's mission faces long enough odds without her publicly confirming the worst
paranoid Zionist fears about her. She's already being denounced as an "Assad apologist" and
"Putin puppet" (don't you love the sub literary assonance and alliteration?); she can dispel
the outrageous slanders, but if she were on the record in support of BDS, it would have been
the nail in the coffin of her campaign. Gabbard strikes me as radically pragmatic.
We will need her remarkable leadership skills to avoid civil war as the empire collapses.
Please don't throw in the towel yet or give up on the one hope that remains.
Kamala Harris (Dem.-AIPAC) goes full-bore Mccarthy after Tulsi Gabbard skewers her in the
debates. After attacking Biden in the first debate with a proven winning argument (Racist!),
Harris and her campaign now employ the other proven winning argument (Assad apologist! Putin
Apologist!) all over the Twittersphere: suddenly #5 trending on Twitter is Assad(!), with MSM
joining the frenzy to attack Gabbard. NPR's approach is to never mention Gabbard's name;
maybe the only lesson they learned from the 2016 election is to not give coverage to a
candidate they despise.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/08/01/propagandists-are-freaking-out-over-gabbards-destruction-of-harris/
Gabbard needs 130,000 donors ($2 will work) to qualify for the September debates; hope
folks will step up, as she's the strongest voice breaking the MIC/Neocon Narrative. Without
her in the race, I'd predict those issues will disappear from the media and Presidential
campaigns. Of course that's the goal for those forces, but 2020 may be the best chance yet of
bursting open that rotten fruit.
Gabbard needs 130,000 donors ($2 will work) to qualify for the September debates; hope folks
will step up, as she's the strongest voice breaking the MIC/Neocon Narrative. Without her in
the race, I'd predict those issues will disappear from the media and Presidential campaigns.
Of course that's the goal for those forces, but 2020 may be the best chance yet of bursting
open that rotten fruit.
Posted by: kabobyak | Aug 3 2019 1:22 utc | 44
Bow, bow, to the great kabobyak! Bow, bow, to the great kabobyak! (for the correct tune,
check "Miya sama, Mikado", for original tune, check "Miya-san, miya san"). Our after the
kabobyak appeal, Gabbard raised the number of donations above 150,000!
Some commenters had justified objections to Gabbard, but the game here is to shake the
"bipartisan consensus" to inflict "maximum misery" to all perceived opponents of USA. It is
not easy to convey this message to the American majority. And Tulsi has other positive
messages too, she apparently eviscerated Kamala Harris for her past as a cruelly heartless
prosecutor, fighting to keep innocent in prison. Mind you, Hillary, Kamala etc. do those
things out of conviction that it is popular, or that the public is divided as follows: those
who donate to campaigns and those who do not care. Once they are properly scared, politicians
can actually improve. Alas, for decades they were "improperly scared", thus concluding that
to survive on the national (or state-wide) arena they need a psychopathic persona.
BTW, there are websites tabulating donations and industries, and Gabbard is apparently
supported by fitness clubs. Survival of the fittest may be actually a positive social
value.
I guess we don't really know what Gabbard would be. All the Dems and Repubs have bad
connections; almost all have pushed (or are still pushing) the lunatic Russiagate hoax, and
that includes Bernie. OK to sit back and watch the circus, but if Gabbard gets no support for
what she is currently speaking out on, it sends a strong message to anyone else thinking of
carrying the water further on issues of war and peace.
There is plenty not to like about Tulsi Gabbard. Maybe someday I will dislike her as much
as I dislike Kamilla Harris and some of the others. Whoever wins, we will end up with the
same bureaucracy anyway so it will pretty much business as usual.
>> As Caitlin Johnstone writes, the fact that Gabbard is under such attack
>> by war cheerleaders like Lindsey Graham and Josh Rogin shows they
>> view her as a threat to their narrative control.
Yes, it "shows".
The appearance of a fight "shows" they're actually fighting. It "shows" you that the DNC
and American democracy isn't a complete sham. So you found someone (within the establishment
and who votes establishment) you can pour your heart, energy, and money into. And who will,
after the primary, endorse the establishment pick. And another election cycle passes with no
effort for a genuinely independent challenge. Just like every prior cycle that I paid
attention to.
"Maybe someday I will dislike her as much as I dislike Kamilla Harris"
Not a chance in hell--Kamala takes the despicable cake: people don't know the tip of the
iceberg with regard to how genuinely corrupt she is. I'm pretty sure it is a travesty she's
not in prison right now.
Well you don't trust any of them, but you vote for the ones pushing policy you want to see
happen, and you vote for the ones that try to make that happen, and you abandon them
immediately if they renege. In the current rigged system, you can't assume anybody can be
relied on, I mean pressure will be applied, and all kinds of dirty politics is totally the
way we do things here. So when one leader falls you look for the next to pick up the flag,
and follow them now. It's not about the leader. Tulsi is talking the talk, that's all you can
do in a campaign. I'd support her against anybody who is mouthing weasel words. Right now
there are three candidates with something to say: Tulsi, Elizabeth, and Bernie, any will do,
lets see who gets traction when people start to pay attention again.
Anacharsis @88: Well, on the one hand we have slid a long way downhill intellectually here,
can't deny it.
On the other hand among 300-plus-something millions here, I'm sure we could find better,
but they won't run, the system is rigged, and we know it. They rub it in our faces. Once it
collapses of its own fecklessness, maybe then you will see some new faces worthy of respect
here.
Other oligarchies get overthrown, oligarchy seems to be the human norm for humans, they
fail with some regularity in history, it can for sure happen here too.
Tulsi, Elizabeth, and Bernie, any will do, lets see who gets traction when people start to
pay attention again.
Posted by: Bemildred | Aug 3 2019 13:50 utc | 87
"The people" are a bottleneck of the democracy. They have to select representatives to
decide on complex issues that they scant idea about, and their access to information reminds
my "The Library of Babel", a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges
(1899–1986). The library contains every possible book, and for any "genuine book",
every possible variation, with truth replaced with something else in every possible pattern
-- the paradoxes of infinity were a major theme in Borges stories.
Creating a message that relates these issues to everyday experience of the people, so
their common sense is switched on, is hard, but not impossible. For example, for all ravages
of "imperial complex", military plus weapon making plus economic impositions and distortions,
the largest loot is collected by business in all aspects of healthcare, be it making drugs
and devices, administering insurance, "providing healthcare" etc. More than a sixth of
American GDP at hugely inflated prices adds to... surely, these are trillions. This rapacity
can be contained by a "single payer" system that can provide more care for more people at
smaller costs (e.g. compare costs and outcomes in USA and Australia). Not so long time ago,
you were a Commie or a Socialist (equally bad) if you were proposing that. Sanders championed
it and failed, but now, it became a mainstream idea with a decent chance of being implemented
in the next decade.
Even now there is unceasing propaganda for "creativity and efficiency of free market" in
healthcare, but the shift in public opinion AND in political programs is clear.
Clarification of Gabbard's vote on H.Res.246 on BDS
Linda Wood on Sat, 08/03/2019 - 1:54pm I have read Tulsi Gabbard's response to
criticism of her Yes vote on H.Res.246 , which opposes BDS but which also affirms the right of
Americans to support BDS. She is quoted here in making that point:
Tulsi Gabbard voted to condemn BDS, but she's become a co-sponsor of Ilhan Omar's boycott
bill
Congresswoman and presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has become the fifteenth House
member to cosponsor H.Res.496 , a resolution affirming that Americans have the right to
boycott foreign countries to advance the cause of human rights...
The article then quotes Gabbard on her vote in support of the anti-BDS resolution, H.Res.246
:
... H.Res.246 does not in any way limit or hinder our First Amendment rights. In fact, it
affirms every American's right to exercise free speech for or against U.S. foreign policy, as
well as the right of Israeli and Palestinian people to live in safe and sovereign states free
from fear and violence and with mutual recognition. The right to protest the actions of our
government is essential if America is to truly be a free society.
I support BDS as far as I understand it. And I disagree strongly with the parts of 246 that
establish support for Israel's right to exist because I question the whole premise. But I
understand Gabbard's position.
H.Res.246 - Opposing efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the Global Boycott,
Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel.
116th Congress (2019-2020)
Resolved, That the House of Representatives --
(1) opposes the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS Movement)
targeting Israel, including efforts to target United States companies that are engaged in
commercial activities that are legal under United States law, and all efforts to delegitimize
the State of Israel;
(2) urges Israelis and Palestinians to return to direct negotiations as the only way to
achieve an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
(3) affirms the Constitutional right of United States citizens to free speech, including
the right to protest or criticize the policies of the United States or foreign governments
;
(4) supports the full implementation of the United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act
of 2014 (Public Law 113–296; 128 Stat. 4075) and new efforts to enhance
government-wide, coordinated United States-Israel scientific and technological cooperation in
civilian areas, such as with respect to energy, water, agriculture, alternative fuel
technology, civilian space technology, and security, in order to counter the effects of
actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel; and
(5) reaffirms its strong support for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict resulting in two states -- a democratic Jewish State of Israel, and a viable,
democratic Palestinian state -- living side-by-side in peace, security, and mutual
recognition.
2016 was widely recognized as the year of "populism," more adequately described as the year
of revolt against the political Establishment -- in both Parties. The Democratic Primary in
2016 was a battle of progressive forces against the Democratic Establishment, and the battle
lines were clearly drawn. Those lines remain much the same as we approach 2020.
On the Progressive or Populist side were those who opposed the endless wars in the Middle
East, and on the Establishment side those who supported those long and bloody wars. On the
Progressive Side were those who supported badly needed domestic reforms, most notably Medicare
for All, which after all is a reform of almost 20% of the entire economy and a reform that has
to do with life itself. In contrast on the Establishment side were those who supported
ObamaCare, a device for leaving our health care to the tender mercies of the Insurance
behemoths with its ever increasing premiums and ever decreasing coverage.
In 2016 the pundits gave progressives little chance of success. Hillary Clinton was a
shoo-in, we were all assured by a horde of "reliable sources." And given the control that the
Clintonites exercised over the Democratic Party apparatus, there was little prospect of a
successful rebellion and every chance of having one's career badly damaged by opposing Party
elite. Summer soldiers and duplicitous candidates were not interested in challenging the
Establishment.
In 2016 Bernie Sanders was the only politician who was willing to take on the Establishment.
Although not technically a Democrat, he caucused with them and worked with them. And he was a
lifelong, reliable and ardent advocate for Medicare for All and a consistent opponent of the
endless wars. For these things he was prepared to do battle against overwhelming odds on the
chance that he might prevail and because from his grass roots contacts he sensed that a
rebellion was brewing.
In 2016 only one among the current crop of candidates followed Bernie, supported him and
joined him on the campaign trail -- Tulsi Gabbard. At the time she was a two term Congresswoman
and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), a career building position, from
which she would have to resign in order to support one of the candidates. Moreover, reports
said she bridled at the internal bias of the DNC in favor of Hillary. To express her
displeasure with the DNC and to support Bernie, she had to defy the Clinton Establishment,
which might even have terminated her political career. But she was a foe of the endless wars,
partly based on her own experience as a National Guard member who had been deployed to Iraq in
a medical unit and saw the ravages of war first hand. So she joined Bernie, introducing him at
many of his rallies and strengthening his antiwar message.
Bernie and Tulsi proved themselves in the defining battle of 2016. They let us know
unequivocally where they stand. And Bernie might well have won the nomination were he not
cheated out of it by the Establishment which continues to control the levers of power in the
Democratic Party to this day.
In 2016 these two stood in stark contrast to the other 2020 Democratic candidates. Let us
take one example of these others, Elizabeth Warren, a darling of the main stream media which
often refers to her as ideologically aligned to Bernie Sanders. Perhaps she is so aligned at
times -- at least in words; she is after all in favor of Medicare for All, although she hastens
to add that she is "open to other approaches." That qualifier is balm to the ears of the
Insurance behemoths. Translation: she has already surrendered before the battle has begun.
In 2016 a critical primary for Bernie was Masschusetts where Senator Warren wields
considerable influence. Clinton defeated Sanders there by a mere 1.5% whereas she had lost to
Obama there by 15% in 2008. Wikipedia has this to say of the
primary:
"Following the primary, Elizabeth Warren, the state's senior US senator, was widely
criticized by Sanders supporters online for her refusal to endorse him prior to the primary.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders have argued that an endorsement from Warren, whose political
positions were similar to that of Sanders's, and who was a frequent critic of Hillary Clinton
in the past, could have handed Massachusetts to him. "
One must conclude that either Warren does not genuinely share the views of Sanders or she is
loath to buck the Establishment and fight for those views. In either event she, and the others
who failed to back Bernie in 2016, are not made of the stuff that can win Medicare for All,
bring an end to the regime change wars and illegal sanctions of the last four or more
administrations, begin serious negotiations to end the existential nuclear peril, and address
the many other problems facing us and all of humanity.
“Bernie walked the walk”
When was that? The time he toured through Baltimore and called it a third world city while
assiduously not discussing how, why, and because of who it became so?
The way he openly sold out to Clinton and ducked into his new third manor house to avoid
being held to task for leaving his base out to dry the very moment they were ready to
seriously break ranks from the neolib political machine?
Is he walking the walk now as he tries to rationalize away his underpaying of his campaign
workers and cuts hours to minimize the costs of the 15 dollar floor price he demanded for
everyone other employer?
The man is a DNC stooge through and through.
And Tulsi being anti-war out of personal squeamishness doesn’t make up for the rest of
her painfully party-line-compliant platform, particularly when the Deep State has multiple
active avenues available to at the very least keep our military presence still existing
military presence trapped and held hostage. All the dove cooing in recorded world history
won’t hold up when, not if, Britain or France or whoever deliberately sinks another
navy vessel and drags her by the hair into another desert scrum.
@Tusk As with the 1960 Presidential Election, Hillary stole that election fair and
square. Had Sanders went full third party, it would’ve destroyed the Democrats
outright. Despite Clinton’s cheating, Bernie went ahead and bent the knee. Strangely
enough, Trump’s victory saved Sanders and his faction. Had Clinton won, she
would’ve purged the Sanders supporters relentlessly.
There is such a thing as a tactical retreat. Now he’s able to play again.
is that our “establishment elite” have failed the United States of
America.
How, you may ask ?
The answer is simple.
By defrauded us into multiple illegal wars of aggression they have bankrupted the entire
nation.
The iron fact is that because our “elites” lied us into illegal war we are now
22.5 trillion dollars in heinous debt.
Why is this okay ?
The answer is simple.
It is not okay, NOT AT ALL .
And it is not enough (anymore) to just demand we “end our wars”, Mr.
Walsh.
The cost in treasure has been too high and the burden on the US taxpayer too obscene.
Without demanding “accountability” from our elites, who lied us into this
catastrophe, our nation is most probably going under.
I say…. make them pay …”every penny”…. for the cost of
the wars they lied us into.
An initiative, like the “War fraud Accountability Act” (retroactive to 2002)
would do just that.
it would replenish the coffers of our nation with all the assets of the larcenous
profiteers who deceived us all….into heinous war debt.
As we witness the rise of China as the new global economic powerhouse, we can see first
hand how a nation can rise to immense wealth and global influence “precisely
because” it was never deceived by its “ruling class” into squandering all
its resources initiating and fighting endless criminal wars.
Just imagine where the USA would be today, had we chosen the same course.
Until Dems are willing to refuse to depend on Haim Saban’s “generous
donation” to the Dem candidate, none of their candidates will deserve to be the the
POTUS candidate. Ditto for the Republicans and their fetish with Shelly Adelson. Candidates
must kowtow to Israel or else there will be no dough for them and they might even be
challenged in their incumbencies next time around by ADL/AIPAC. Until we get rid of Israeli
money and political power, we are toast.
1)Both Sanders and Gabbard are onboard for going to war against Christian Russia over
Crimea..Sanders has gone so far as saying that a Military response against Russia is an
option if all else fails in getting Russia out of Crimea…
2)Both Sanders and Gabbard are waging a war of RACIAL EXTERMINATION against Working Class
Native Born White American Males….And that’s WHITE GENOCIDE!!!!
@Kronos Bernie “bent the knee” once and got to enjoy his lakeside home and
his wife protected from fraud prosecution after she stole money from People’s United
Bank for her college scam.
He is owned.
If Tulsi were a serious threat she would be neutralized one way or another.
“Progressives” are virtue signaling fools–the kleptocracy marches on and
laughs at them.
One has to wonder where Dems like Warren and their identity politics is taking the US.
Will everyone who even slightly disagrees with them be labeled a terrorist?
@Wally as this question is being raised again in a few threads: my guess is Tulsi
gives great weight to people who apologize and own up for their mistakes (Joe on his Iraq
vote) and she believes in forgiveness, and 2dly she knows she also has made mistakes in her
public service career.
Besides the above, she might have felt some of the others on the stage were doing a fair
job of going after Joe last night, albeit not on Iraq, and she didn't want to contribute to
the pile-on. She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this debate.
There will be future debates to go after Joe on Iraq, if she chooses. Perhaps we might
hope for a sponsored debate where the mods spend more than 1% of the air time talking about
FP. Last night, unless I missed something, the few minutes on foreign stuff was only about
trade, not FP as usually understood.
I did find this
July 9, 2019 article in truthdig calling on him to apologize, tho.
And no matter how it's sliced, Biden's still a warmonger.
I sense something is afoot. Pure speculation but crazier things have happened:
Michelle as Biden's VP. Vote for Joe, get Michelle.
#1 as this question is being raised again in a few threads: my guess is Tulsi gives
great weight to people who apologize and own up for their mistakes (Joe on his Iraq vote)
and she believes in forgiveness, and 2dly she knows she also has made mistakes in her
public service career.
Besides the above, she might have felt some of the others on the stage were doing a
fair job of going after Joe last night, albeit not on Iraq, and she didn't want to
contribute to the pile-on. She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this
debate.
There will be future debates to go after Joe on Iraq, if she chooses. Perhaps we might
hope for a sponsored debate where the mods spend more than 1% of the air time talking
about FP. Last night, unless I missed something, the few minutes on foreign stuff was
only about trade, not FP as usually understood.
@Wally
@Wally sense, what matters to the issue and complaint being discussed is not what you
or I think of Joe and Iraq (we agree) or even what the objective truth is (I did a full 0.5
sec google search, lazy latte-sipping liberal that I am, and couldn't find an explicit use of
the term "apology" from Joe).
What matters is TG's perception or memory of what Joe said about his vote. In the video
linked above, she talks about how Joe has said it was a mistake --
true -- and that "he's apologized for it, many times" (I couldn't find a link proving
that).
Edit: In Tulsi's forgiving world, she might equate or accept the term "mistake" in lieu of
an official, formal expression of regret using the term "apology".
I might be able to give you Tulsi's private # and you could ask her personally, but in the
words of that immortal American Statesman Richard Nixon, That Would Be Wrong.
@wokkamile
. . . when I run for Pope? I can't wait for you to spin my many wrong thoughts;>).
#1.2.1
#1.2.1 sense, what matters to the issue and complaint being discussed is not what you
or I think of Joe and Iraq (we agree) or even what the objective truth is (I did a full
0.5 sec google search, lazy latte-sipping liberal that I am, and couldn't find an
explicit use of the term "apology" from Joe).
What matters is TG's perception or memory of what Joe said about his vote. In the
video linked above, she talks about how Joe has said it was a mistake --
true -- and that "he's apologized for it, many times" (I couldn't find a link proving
that).
Edit: In Tulsi's forgiving world, she might equate or accept the term "mistake" in
lieu of an official, formal expression of regret using the term "apology".
I might be able to give you Tulsi's private # and you could ask her personally, but in
the words of that immortal American Statesman Richard Nixon, That Would Be Wrong.
@wokkamile IMO, this is not a fatal error by Tulsi.
Despite what we are being sold, Biden is a very weak candidate and many others are working
to take him down. No one was willing to take on Harris who was designated as the rising star
in the Hamptons. But Tulsi did, based upon principle. Funny thing is that Tulsi told Harris
that she was coming after her in advance, but Harris was unprepared.
#1 as this question is being raised again in a few threads: my guess is Tulsi gives
great weight to people who apologize and own up for their mistakes (Joe on his Iraq vote)
and she believes in forgiveness, and 2dly she knows she also has made mistakes in her
public service career.
Besides the above, she might have felt some of the others on the stage were doing a
fair job of going after Joe last night, albeit not on Iraq, and she didn't want to
contribute to the pile-on. She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this
debate.
There will be future debates to go after Joe on Iraq, if she chooses. Perhaps we might
hope for a sponsored debate where the mods spend more than 1% of the air time talking
about FP. Last night, unless I missed something, the few minutes on foreign stuff was
only about trade, not FP as usually understood.
@wokkamile
that this is exactly what Tulsi was doing. It seems to have been effective. For one thing, it
took everyone, including the CNN hosts, off guard.
She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this debate.
#1 as this question is being raised again in a few threads: my guess is Tulsi gives
great weight to people who apologize and own up for their mistakes (Joe on his Iraq vote)
and she believes in forgiveness, and 2dly she knows she also has made mistakes in her
public service career.
Besides the above, she might have felt some of the others on the stage were doing a
fair job of going after Joe last night, albeit not on Iraq, and she didn't want to
contribute to the pile-on. She may also have had a strategy of focusing on Harris in this
debate.
There will be future debates to go after Joe on Iraq, if she chooses. Perhaps we might
hope for a sponsored debate where the mods spend more than 1% of the air time talking
about FP. Last night, unless I missed something, the few minutes on foreign stuff was
only about trade, not FP as usually understood.
Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) told Luke Rudkowski of "We Are Change," a libertarian
media organization, that Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has just signed on
as a co-sponsor of Audit the Fed bill, officially known as H.R.24 The Federal Reserve
Transparency Act of 2019.
Last night Tulsi Gabbard went after Harris on her support of the for profit prison system in
Cali at the expense of human beoings......
soon enough Harris supporters were tweeting that Gabbard is an "Assad apologist".
"Assad apologist is war monger agit prop against anyone who might get in the way of the
profitable forever wars for al Qaeda (in Idlib etc) and the Saudi royals.
im1dc": propagandizing for the war profiteers is not limited to the press it is in the
diverse democrat campaigns pandering for contributions caring nothing for the US or humans in
general. Gabbard being the obvious exception garnering their sound bites.
The Joseph McCarthy-style attack on the Representative by the California Senator and
associates is shocking and dangerous and revealing of "character."
After Democratic 2020 candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) dressed down Sen. Kamala Harris
(D-CA) over her criminal justice record, Harris hit back - suggesting that Gabbard is somehow
'below her' - and an "apologist" for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
In response, Harris thumbed her nose at Gabbard , telling CNN 's Anderson Cooperafter the
debate: "This is going to sound immodest, but obviously I'm a top-tier candidate and so I did
expect that I'd be on the stage and take some hits tonight ... when people are at 0 or 1% or
whatever she might be at , so I did expect to take some hits tonight."
Harris added "Listen, I think that this coming from someone who has been an apologist for an
individual , [Syrian President Bashar al] Assad, who has murdered the people of his country
like cockroaches. She has embraced and been an apologist for him in the way she refuses to call
him a war criminal. I can only take what she says and her opinion so seriously, so I'm prepared
to move on."
Wait a second...
Tulsi wasn't having it. In a Thursday interview with CNN 's Chris Cuomo, Gabbard punched
back - saying "[T]he only response that I've heard her and her campaign give is to push out
smear attacks on me, claim that I am somehow some kind of foreign agent or a traitor to my
country, the country that I love, the country that I put my life on the line to serve , the
country that I still serve today as a soldier in the Army National Guard."
Gabbard also made clear that she believes Assad is " a brutal dictator, just like Saddam
Hussein, just like Gaddafi in Libya ," adding "The reason that I'm so outspoken on this issue
of ending these wasteful regime change wars is because I have seen firsthand this high human
cost of war and the impact that it has on my fellow brothers and sisters in uniform. "
"... When Lindsey Graham tweets about Tulsi Gabbard twice after a debate, when the Washington Post neocons like Josh Rogin are attacking her , you know she's got their panties in a bunch. ..."
"... You expect it from the Harris camp, obviously. But when it comes directly from people like Navid Jamali (double agent, navy intelligence, MSNBC contributor) you know the empire is beginning to get worried. ..."
"... Gabbard is now getting the Ron Paul treatment. It will only intensify from here. They will come after her with everything they have. ..."
"... When the Empire is on the line, left and right in the US close ranks and unite against the threat. The good news is that all they have is their pathetic Russia bashing and appeals to their authority on foreign policy. ..."
"... The colonial masters have been forgetting that more and more people are not benefitting from having like 800 military bases/wars/colonies all over and want them dissolved. Go Gabbard. ..."
"... The longer the US acts like a colonial power, the more painful the dismantling will be. ..."
The second debate among Democratic hopefuls was notable for two things. The lack of common
decency of most of them and Tulsi Gabbard's immense, career-ending attack on Kamala Harris'
(D-Deep State) record as an Attorney General in California.
Harris came out of the first debate the clear winner and Gabbard cut her down to size with
one of the single best minutes of political television since Donald Trump told Hillary Clinton,
"Because you'd be in jail."
Gabbard's takedown of Harris was so spot on and her closing statement about the
irresponsible nature of the Trump Administration's foreign policy was so powerful she had to be
actively suppressed on Twitter. And, within minutes of the debate ending the media and the
political machines moved into overdrive to smear her as a Russian agent, an Assad apologist and
a favorite of the alt-right.
Now, folks, let me tell you something. I write and talk about Gabbard a lot and those to the
right of me are really skeptical of her being some kind of plant for Israel or the
establishment. If she were truly one of those she wouldn't have been polling at 1% going into
that debate.
She would have been promoted as Harris' strongest competition and served up for Harris to
co-opt.
That is not what happened.
No, the fact that Gabbard is being smeared as viciously and baselessly as she is by all the
right people on both the left and the right is all the proof you need that she is 1) the real
deal and 2) they are scared of her.
You expect it from the Harris camp, obviously. But when it comes directly from people like
Navid Jamali (double agent, navy intelligence, MSNBC contributor) you know the empire is
beginning to get worried.
Gabbard is now getting the Ron Paul treatment. It will only intensify from here. They will
come after her with everything they have.
In the past week she's destroyed Kamala Harris on national TV, sued Google for
electioneering and signed onto Thomas Massie's (R-KY) bill to audit the Federal Reserve. What
does she do next week, end the Drug War?
Tulsi Gabbard is admittedly a work in progress. But what I see in her is something that has
the potential to be very special. She's young enough to be both passionately brave and willing
to go where the truth takes her.
And that truth has taken her where Democrats have feared to tread for more than forty years:
the US Empire.
The entire time I was growing up the prevailing wisdom was Social Security was the third
rail of US politics. That, like so many other pearls of wisdom, was nonsense.
The true third rail of US politics is empire. Any candidate that is publicly against the
empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations who
profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC.
That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters.
When the Empire is on the line, left and right in the US close ranks and unite against the
threat. The good news is that all they have is their pathetic Russia bashing and appeals to
their authority on foreign policy.
Foreign policy, by the way, that most people in America, frankly, despise.
And the response to her performance at the second debate was as predictable as the sun
rising in the east. It's also easily countered. Gabbard will face an uphill battle from here
and we'll find out in the coming weeks just how deep into Trump Derangement Syndrome the
average Democrat voter is.
If she doesn't begin climbing in the polls then the Democrats are lost. They will have
signed onto crazy Progressivism and more Empire in their lust to destroy Donald Trump. But they
will lose because only a principled anti-imperialist like Gabbard can push Trump back to his
days when he was the outsider in the GOP debates, railing against our stupid foreign
policy.
No one else in the field would be remotely credible on this point. It's the area where Trump
is the weakest. He's not weak on women's rights, racism, gay rights or any of the rest of the
idiotic identity politics of the rest of the Democratic field.
He's weakest on the one issue that got him elected in the first place, foreign policy.
Hillary was the candidate of Empire. Trump was not. It's why we saw an international conspiracy
formed to destroy him and his presidency. Now that same apparatus is mobilized against Tulsi
Gabbard.
That's good. As a solider she knows that when you're taking flak you are over your target.
Now let's hope she's capable of sustaining herself to push this election cycle away from the
insanity the elite want to distract us with and make it about the only thing keeping the world
from healing, ending the empire of chaos.
Those who benefit from the US being a Colonial Empire are closing ranks and that is
certainly a huge endorsement for Gabbard.
The colonial masters have been forgetting that more and more people are not benefitting
from having like 800 military bases/wars/colonies all over and want them dissolved. Go
Gabbard.
The longer the US acts like a colonial power, the more painful the dismantling will
be.
Do politicians control the military, especially the strategic arm and weapons of mass
destruction, both here in the US and in Russia? Perhaps only partially, and even that is
doubtful given rapidly unfolding emergency situations. A convincing case could be made that
it's too late, that war is inevitable.
You sound intelligent. Read Herman Kahn's treatise "On Thermonuclear War." It is
mathematical. But Basically nuclear war is out of hands of politicians. But it won't start
from large nuclear powers. If Iran sunk a US Carrier, there would be NO NUCLEAR WAR PERIOD.
But a nuclear war could be caused by an accident of smaller powers but it would be very
limited and not spread.
"The more destructive we [America] look, the less they like us and our program. To the
extent that some in our midst talk and threaten potential world annihilation as a U.S.
defense measure, we focus undeserved attention on ourselves as being dangerous and even
irresponsible -- appearing to be willing to risk uncounted hundreds of millions or billions
of bystanders as to our selfish ambitions and desires." Herman Kahn...
That quote typifies Trump's cavalier yapping about nuclear weapons and his threats in the
last year to expunge North Korea, Iran and most recently Afghanistan. This is the kind of
conversation that most people in the world hate and they hate Trump and the United States for
it. The US is blamed for Trump's loose cannon conduct. So that generates concern and
heightens the potential for a nuclear weapons accident.
As for the world, it would survive a nuclear war. Many people would survive just as the
animals of Chernobyl have survived and thrived even though radioactive. Dumb politicians like
Trump that talk out their *** and sound imbalanced appear flaky. Rest assured the Joint
Chief's would never let Trump near a nuclear weapon.
With nuclear war you also have to mathematically project dud rockets and rockets that land
on your own people or detonate at launch.
Forget Biden, a deadbeat deep state ***. he could never be elected being such a MIC pawn.
Just go Tulsi first (with Rand Paul would be good!) . She'll have to dig deep in the shitheap
to find another honest Dem to play sidekick. But Tulsi stands out above them all as
intelligent and independant. No surprise the Dem and Rep MSM ****-spewers are attacking her.
Go tulsi -the only candidate i would vote for (since they'll nobble her candidacy i guess i
wont be voting).
Liked Trump when he was anti-swamp. But they nobbled him and now he's just a ***-pawn. So
sad he sold his balls.
Tulsi's predicament if of her own doing. She's to the right for today's Dems, but still
too far to the left for the GOP. Her positions on the 2nd Amendment and accusing Trump of
being an Al Qaeda sympathizer have pretty much killed her chances with moderates, too. She's
not really that sane, she just looks that way because the rest of the Dem candidates are
socialist whack jobs.
Newsflash: Trump does support Al Qaeda by virtue his blind support of the Saudi regime
which champions, funds, and spreads Sunni Wahhabism, the violent Jihadist core philosophy of
both Al Qaeda and Isis.
Compare Tulsi Gabbard to Kamala Harris. Harris is a frontrunner for the nomination only
because she is a she and is half black. That is all she has going for her. She owes her
political career to her willingness to **** an old geezer politician from California (Willie
Brown?) As a result, she became state AG. Which shows you just how corrupt politics is at the
state level. Now she's a real candidate for the demorat nomination even though she is a a
total POS, especially compared to someone like Gabbard, who has served her country, talks
straight, and doesn't take **** from the pompous a-holes in the dem establishment. I hope she
stays in the race.
In the race to determine who will serve as Commander in Chief of the most powerful military
force in the history of civilization, night two of the CNN Democratic presidential debates
saw less than six minutes dedicated to discussing US military policy during the 180-minute
event.
That's six, as in the number before seven. Not sixty. Not sixteen. Six. From the moment
Jake Tapper said "I want to turn to foreign policy" to the moment Don Lemon interrupted
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard just as she was preparing to correctly explain how President
Trump is supporting Al-Qaeda in Idlib, approximately five minutes and fifty seconds had
elapsed.
...
Harris' press secretary Ian Sams unleashed a string of tweets about Gabbard being an "Assad
apologist", which was followed by a deluge of establishment narrative managers who sent the
word "Assad" trending on Twitter, at times when Gabbard's name somehow failed to trend
despite being the top-searched candidate on Google after the debate. As of this writing,
"Assad" is showing on the #5 trending list on the side bar of Twitter's new layout, while
Gabbard's name is nowhere to be seen. This discrepancy has drawn criticism from numerous
Gabbard defenders on the platform.
"Somehow I have a hard time believing that 'Assad' is the top trending item in the United
States but 'Tulsi' is nowhere to be found," tweeted journalist Michael Tracey.
apenultimate on Thu, 08/01/2019 - 7:31pm Well, Tulsi for the past couple months had
been averaging around 500 new unique donors per day. Early in the day before her 2nd debate
performance, her campaign announced she had reached 110,000 unique donors. In 1.5 days, she
gained more than 10,000 more.
During the first debate, in the week after the debate Tulsi gained 8,500 donors above her
usual donor gains. Tulsi managed to do 9,500 more than average in less than 2 days this time
around. This time around seems much better.
She needed a debate boost from the second debate of 8,000 donors above her typical daily
donor gain to be ensured to reach the 130,000 unique donor minimum. She has already surpassed
that gain.
But, the polling requirements still need to be met . . .
Tulsi is going on an annual 2-week National Guard training pretty much now. She will not be
able to personally campaign during this time. That's one reason this debate was so crucial.
Let's see if it can elevate her in the coming polls.
A national Economist/YouGov poll had her at 2% through July 30. That one is not qualifying,
but it's a good trend.
I have *heard* (but not confirmed) that only one qualifying poll from each of the first 4
states are allowed for qualifying (but all qualifying national polls count). Tulsi has 1
qualifying poll from New Hampshire. If what I heard above is true, this means no other polls
from New Hampshire count towards the debate requirements. They must be qualifying polls from
Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina, or national polls from here on out.
on Snoopydawg's thread about Tulsi confronting Kamala, but I'd like to repost it here. I
think the American people are responding not just to what Tulsi is saying, but how she is
presenting herself.
Tulsi is a warrior. That's one of the main things she's accomplishing here: letting the
voters see that about her.
She's directly confronting and exposing the old guard and their heirs presumptive. She's
taking on the "powers that be", right to their faces, with strength and confidence.
And she's demonstrating to the American people that she is fully willing and capable of
doing so.
"... Gabbard has been perhaps the most interesting Democrat running for president and Wednesday night could be her last stand. She gets to share the stage with frontrunner Joe Biden, like Hillary Clinton a vote for the Iraq war. There is no guarantee she will get another opportunity: the eligibility criteria for subsequent debates is more stringent and she has yet to qualify. ..."
"... represent our military veterans' sharp turn against forever war, arguably the most important public opinion trend of our time. ..."
"... Tulsi is more experienced and articulate on foreign AND domestic policy than any other Democrat up there (Bernie being an independent). She's also more genuine. ..."
"... being 'woke', as the author failed to point out, is code for having the backing of the still extant Clinton/Obama cartel and hence the idiot US media. ..."
Screenshot
It was already one of the most memorable moments of the Democratic presidential debates
in this young election cycle. "Leaders as disparate as President Obama and President Trump have both said they want to
end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan but it isn't over for America," observed moderator Rachel Maddow. "Why isn't it
over? Why can't presidents of very different parties and very different temperaments get us out of there? And how could
you?"
Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio responded with talking points that could
have been ripped out of a George W. Bush speech circa 2004. "[T]he lesson that I've learned over the years is that you
have to stay engaged in these situations," he said, later adding, "Whether we're talking about Central America, whether
we're talking about Iran, whether we're talking about Afghanistan, we have got to be completely engaged."
Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii was having none of it. "Is that what you will
tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged?" she asked
a sputtering Ryan. "As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from
Afghanistan." Gabbard noted that she had joined the military to fight those who attacked us on 9/11, not to nation-build
indefinitely in Afghanistan, and pointed out the perfidy of Saudi Arabia.
Some likened Gabbard's rebuke of Ryan to the famous 2007 exchange
between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani
. Except Paul, then a relatively unknown
congressman from Texas, was speaking truth to power against "America's Mayor" and the national GOP frontrunner. Gabbard
is polling at 0.8 percent in the national RealClearPolitics average, and was challenging someone at 0.3 percent.
Ryan's asterisk candidacy is unsurprising. But Gabbard has been perhaps the most
interesting Democrat running for president and Wednesday night could be her last stand. She gets to share the stage with
frontrunner Joe Biden, like Hillary Clinton a vote for the Iraq war. There is no guarantee she will get another
opportunity: the eligibility criteria for subsequent debates is more stringent and she has yet to qualify.
The huge Democratic field has been a bust. Of the more than 20 declared presidential
candidates, only seven are polling at 2 percent or more in the national averages. Two more -- Senators Cory Booker and Amy
Klobuchar -- are polling at least that well in Iowa. Only four candidates are consistently polling in the double digits:
Biden, who recovered from his early debate stumbles and remains comfortably in the lead; Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont, who has nevertheless mostly failed to recapture his 2016 magic; Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who
seems ascendant; and Senator Kamala Harris of California, potentially the main threat to Biden's rock-solid black
support.
Low-polling candidates have still managed to have an impact. Some, like former
secretary of housing and urban development Julian Castro, have helped coax contenders likelier to win the nomination to
the left on immigration. We've thus seen Democrats raise their hands in support of decriminalizing illegal border
crossings in the midst of a migrant crisis not entirely of the Trump administration's making, expanding Medicare to
cover everyone even at the expense of private health insurance, and ensuring that "everyone" includes illegal
immigrants. Transgender abortions, also at taxpayer expense, have come up too.
Gabbard has so far been unable to penetrate this madness despite being young (she's
38), attractive, telegenic, a military veteran, a woman of color, and an articulate, passionate opponent of the regime
change wars that have brought our country so much pain. While reliably progressive, she has occasionally reached across
the political divide on issues like religious liberty and Big Tech censorship, a potent combination that could prove
more responsive to Trump voters' concerns than what we've heard from her neocon lite interlocutor from Youngstown.
"None of this seems to matter in a Democratic Party that cares more about wokeness
than war. In fact, Gabbard's conservative fans --
The View
brought up Ann Coulter -- are often held against her, as
is her failure to go all in on Trump-Russia. Ninety-five Democrats stand ready to impeach Trump over mean tweets with
nary a peep over the near-bombing of Iran or the active thwarting of Congress's will on Yemen.
That's not to say that no one else running is sound on foreign policy -- Bernie has
realist advisers and it took real courage for Warren to back Trump's abortive withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria -- and
it required a Democratic House to advance the bipartisan Yemen resolution. But none of them are basing their campaigns
on it in the same way Gabbard has. Nor do any of them better represent our military veterans'
sharp turn
against forever war, arguably the
most important public opinion trend of our time.
Liberals remain skeptical of Gabbard's turn away from social conservatism (which
admittedly went far beyond sincerely opposing gay marriage while Barack Obama was merely pretending to do so), which she
attributes to "aloha." In meeting with Bashar al-Assad, she hurt her credibility as a foe of the Syria intervention,
failing to realize that doves are held to a higher standard on these matters
than hawks
.
A saner Democratic Party might realize the chances are far greater that their nominee
will be a covert hawk rather than a secret right-winger. Only time will tell if vestiges of that party still exist.
Tulsi is more experienced and articulate on foreign AND domestic policy than any
other Democrat up there (Bernie being an independent). She's also more genuine.
But
being 'woke', as the author failed to point out, is code for having the backing of
the still extant Clinton/Obama cartel and hence the idiot US media. And that she
does not have
Unfortunately foreign policy and the forever war are not an issue that resonates with
voters on either side. Here is an
excerpt from NPR
.
"That is one finding from the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, which shows that
Americans have limited confidence in its public schools, courts, organized labor and
banks -- and even less confidence in big business, the presidency, the political parties
and the media.
.....
The only institution that Americans have overwhelming faith in is the military -- 87
percent say they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the military. That
is a striking change from the 1970s during and after the Vietnam War."
A military that has been a consistent loser for decades. How depressing
Given that this magazine was partially founded as a reaction to the Iraq War, why
does an article about Tulsi Gabbard, one of the only presidential candidates who
takes a mostly non-interventionist foreign policy stance, surprise you? She is a
progressive, yes, and a Democrat, but her stance on war is very conservative.
You
don't have to be a Republican to be conservative or to hold some conservative views.
Warren is a corporate kiss a** and a perfect example of precisely why the
person you're talking to might as well be listening to a Chipmunks song for
all the ridiculous partisan deflection going on. Literally nothing of value in
any of that and the implication that Dumbocraps are any different than
Republicans in talking a lot and saying and doing nothing is frankly one of
the insults to the intelligence that convinced me very early to reject both
"sides" of this Candyland based majik partisan aisle
I was ready to replace Mike Pompeo with Tulsi Gabbard the day after the first debate. It
would be very unfortunate if she got bumped out. I live in California (an open primary
state), which means I would have voted for her in the primary
It doesn't "hurt" Tulsi's "credibility" that she met with Assad. It's been clear from the
beginning of the Syrian civil war that he was the sole viable protector of Christian and
other religious minorities in the region after the fall of Saddam. The U.S. should never
have armed and trained the country's rebels. But it's again apparent that Democrats have
no interest in saving Christians from Islamic killers.
Foreign policy does not elect American presidents.
I like her, and support her, and
think she's made valuable points. I hope it is heard. However, there was never any chance
that her course would lead to the White House.
Maybe she can get a senior post and shape policy on our endless wars. Or maybe she'll
have a louder voice in Congress. However, the best she could do with this is influence.
They all support Israel w/o condition. Unfortunately. None of them are any better
than her on this issue, and they are much worse than her on most FP and military
issues.
I am fully supporting Gabbard's campaign, but few people are concerned about our senseless
wars. The issue does not make the top ten voter concerns in recent polls.
For whatever reason the President Primary debates tend to avoid most foreign policy
issues. Democrats love getting the gory details of healthcare that sort prove Reagan's
joke "They know too much" but there are few question on Foreign Policy. I think it
reasonable to ask "What would your administration do with Venezuela?" (And Yes I like
really basic Open End questions at debates.)
And yes there are good parts of Tulsi but
she does need to campaign things outside of No Wars as that usually does not win
Primaries.
Forever wars are driven by Wash. through campaign funds coming from the war industry,
foreign states and those in the USA who support other countries over their own. How could
an anti-war candidate get those funds necessary for campaigning? And, as I said before,
Obama and Trump both campaigned to end the wars but didn't. What makes anyone think the
next president, when in office, will do anything different? Plus, one has to take into
consideration the DNC's choice, and all the intrigues surrounding that process. Tulsi
hasn't paid all those dues necessary for a shot at the presidency.
Some people were as stupid as to think that Trump would lose by a landslide in 2016.
Some people were as stupid as to think that Candidate
Five-Year-Old-Girl-in-a-Grown-Up-Woman's-Body, who managed to hijack (or, rather,
joyride) Obama's foreign policy and to start two (or, rather, three, given that
Yemen is also her legacy) foreign wars yet, knowing about the "nice" legacy of
Afghanistan and Iraq, would be any appealing. So
I wonder
how anyone with
both hemispheres functional can believe that discarding Gabbard and Sanders, while
picking any of the political reincarnations of the ingnorant, arrogant and, first of
all, almost childishly self-righteous moron who managed to wreck the country's
entire foreign policy without even being the president can win against the man who
cleaned up that child's (despite her physically being his age-mate) mess in Syria
and, judging by what the Italian press says, is letting others to clean an even
greater mess of hers in Libya.
Looks that on foreign policy Tulsi is the only sane option.
That's exactly why the bipartisan establishment, the corrupt corporate media and the MIC
hate her vehemently.
I am a registered Republican so I can't vote for Tulsi in the MD primaries, but I will
consider donating to her campaign to help her get into the third debate.
I can forgive a
Democrat for supporting universal healthcare so long as they
don't buy into the identity politics garbage.
Although I'm fairly conservative, I will take a Democrat with character over who we
have in the White House today.
Eric, you can change your registration for long enough to vote for someone you
obviously think is worth voting for.
I was a registered Democrat for all of my
voting life, although I often voted for Republicans. As a result of Bush Jr.'s war
against Iraq, I swore never to vote for a Republican again.
But when Ron Paul was on the ballot in the Republican primary, I re-registered,
as a Republican, just so I could vote for him. (In California, the party determines
whether its primary is open or closed.) After 6 weeks, following the primary, I
re-registered again, this time as a no-party-preference voter.
It's not that I liked everything Ron Paul believed in (but I did like the fact
that he was genuine and truthful). But I agreed with him on the really important
issues involving foreign policy.
So you have options, Eric. It won't soil you to change party registration
temporarily if it allows you to vote for someone you might vote for in the general
election. In fact, you might feel good about it. I know I did. Voting for Ron Paul
was the first time in a long time that I felt good about my vote. And this time,
I'll vote for Tulsi Gabbard in the primary even if I have to write her name in.
Tulsi is not running for President. She's running for running mate for either Bernie or
Warren. Both need her foreign policy chops and military cred.
She will bring voters to the ticket, unlike most V.P. picks.
Given Bernie age, should he
pick her, she could end up President after all.
Works for me.
The Democratic Party uber alles types over at Daily Kos are supporting Gabbard's primary
challenger for her Congressional seat, attacking her for her previous stands on abortion
and same sex marriage, and really laying into her for playing footsies with a dictator
like Assad. And while Bernie has some support over there, especially among the readers who
take their polls, there are others who still won't forgive him for not actually joining
the Dems officially (and who buy all of the "he cost Clinton the election" stupidity).
The most tragic thing is not that they simply buy that stupidity. It is that they
still
buy it. After almost three years. Bernie didn't cost Clinton the election.
Clinton
cost Democrats the election. Much like any of her political
reincarnations they are about to pick will.
"... Attacking the authoritarian prosecutorial record of Senator Kamala Harris to thunderous applause from the audience, Gabbard criticized the way her opponent "put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana," "blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the court's forced her to do so," "kept people in prisons beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California," and "fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way." ..."
"... That was all it took. Harris' press secretary Ian Sams unleashed a string of tweets about Gabbard being an "Assad apologist", which was followed by a deluge of establishment narrative managers who sent the word "Assad" trending on Twitter, at times when Gabbard's name somehow failed to trend despite being the top-searched candidate on Google after the debate. As of this writing, "Assad" is showing on the #5 trending list on the side bar of Twitter's new layout, while Gabbard's name is nowhere to be seen. This discrepancy has drawn criticism from numerous Gabbard defenders on the platform . ..."
"... It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into mainstream consciousness all at the same time. ..."
"... "Beware the Russian bots and their promotion of Tulsi Gabbard and sowing racial dischord [sic], especially around Kamala Harris," tweeted New York Times and CNN contributor Wajahat Ali. ..."
"... All the usual war cheerleaders from Lindsey Graham to Caroline Orr to Jennifer Rubin piled on, because this feeding frenzy had nothing to do with concern that Gabbard adores Bashar al-Assad and everything to do with wanting more war. Add that to the fact that Gabbard just publicly eviscerated a charming, ambitious and completely amoral centrist who would excel at putting a friendly humanitarian face on future wars if elected, and it's easy to understand why the narrative managers are flipping out so hard right now. ..."
"... War is the glue that holds the empire together . A politician can get away with opposing some aspects of the status quo when it comes to healthcare or education, but war as a strategy for maintaining global dominance is strictly off limits. This is how you tell the difference between someone who actually wants to change things and someone who's just going through the motions for show; the real rebels forcefully oppose the actual pillars of empire by calling for an end to military bloodshed, while the performers just stick to the safe subjects. ..."
"... The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging, because it means she's forcing them to fight back. In a media environment where the war propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream attention, the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things for our future. If our society is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal, ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and soul-crushing oppression, the first step is punching a hole in the narrative matrix which keeps us hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and acceptable. ..."
In the race to determine who will serve as Commander in Chief of the most powerful military
force in the history of civilization, night two of the CNN Democratic presidential debates saw
less than six minutes dedicated to discussing US military policy during the 180-minute
event.
That's six, as in the number before seven. Not sixty. Not sixteen. Six. From the moment Jake Tapper said "I want to
turn to foreign policy" to the
moment Don Lemon interrupted Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard just as she was preparing to
correctly explain how President Trump is supporting Al-Qaeda in
Idlib
, approximately five minutes and fifty seconds had elapsed. The questions then turned toward
the Mueller report and impeachment proceedings.
Night one of the CNN debates saw almost twice as much time, with
a whole eleven minutes by my count dedicated to questions of war and peace for the
leadership of the most warlike nation on the planet. This discrepancy could very well be due to
the fact that night two was the slot allotted to Gabbard, whose campaign largely revolves
around the platform of ending US warmongering. CNN is a virulent establishment propaganda firm
with an extensive history of promoting
lies and
brazen psyops in facilitation of US imperialism , so it would make sense that they would
try to avoid a subject which would inevitably lead to unauthorized truth-telling on the
matter.
But the near-absence of foreign policy discussion didn't stop the Hawaii congresswoman from
getting in some unauthorized truth-telling anyway.
Attacking the
authoritarian prosecutorial record of Senator Kamala Harris to thunderous applause from the
audience, Gabbard criticized the way her opponent "put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana
violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana," "blocked
evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the court's forced her to
do so," "kept people in prisons beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state
of California," and "fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in
the worst kind of way."
Harris, who it turns out fights
very well when advancing but folds under pressure, had no answer for Gabbard's attack,
preferring to focus on attacking Joe Biden instead . Later, when she was a nice safe distance
out of Gabbard's earshot, she uncorked a
long-debunked but still effective smear which establishment narrative managers have been
dying for an excuse to run wild with.
"This, coming from someone who has been an apologist for an individual, Assad, who has
murdered the people of his country like cockroaches," Harris told
Anderson Cooper after the debate.
"She who has embraced and been an apologist for him in a way that she refuses to call him
a war criminal. I can only take what she says and her opinion so seriously and so I'm
prepared to move on."
That was all it took. Harris' press secretary Ian Sams unleashed a string of tweets
about Gabbard being an "Assad apologist", which was followed by a deluge of establishment
narrative managers who sent the word "Assad" trending on Twitter, at times when Gabbard's name
somehow failed to trend despite being
the top-searched candidate on Google after the debate. As of this writing, "Assad" is showing on the #5 trending list
on the side bar of Twitter's new layout, while Gabbard's name is nowhere to be seen. This
discrepancy has drawn
criticism from numerous Gabbard defenders on
the platform .
"Somehow I have a hard time believing that 'Assad' is the top trending item in the United
States but 'Tulsi' is nowhere to be found," tweeted journalist Michael
Tracey.
It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into
mainstream consciousness all at the same time.
The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin went on a frantic, lie-filled Twitter
storm as soon as he saw an opportunity, claiming with no evidence
whatsoever that Gabbard lied when she said she met with Assad for purposes of diplomacy and
that she "helped Assad whitewash a mass atrocity", and falsely claiming that " she praised
Russian bombing of Syrian civilians ".
In reality all
Gabbard did was meet with Assad to discuss the possibility of peace, and, more importantly,
she said the US shouldn't be involved in regime change interventionism in Syria. This latter
bit of business is the real reason professional war propagandists like Rogin are targeting her;
not because they honestly believe that a longtime US service member and sitting House
Representative is an "Assad apologist", but because she commits the unforgivable heresy of
resisting the mechanics of America's forever war .
MSNBC's Joy Reid gleefully leapt into the smearing frenzy, falsely claiming that "Gabbard
will not criticize Assad, no matter what." Gabbard has publicly and unequivocally both decried
Assad as a "brutal dictator" and claimed he's guilty of war crimes, much
to the irritation of anti-imperialists like myself who hold a far more skeptical eye to the
war propaganda narratives about what's going on in Syria. At no time has Gabbard ever claimed
that Assad is a nice person or that he isn't a brutal leader; all she's done is say the US
shouldn't get involved in another regime change war there because US regime change
interventionism is consistently and predictably disastrous. That's not being an "Assad
apologist", that's having basic common sense.
"Beware the Russian bots and their promotion of Tulsi Gabbard and sowing racial
dischord [sic], especially around Kamala Harris," tweeted New York Times and
CNN contributor Wajahat Ali.
All the usual war cheerleaders from Lindsey Graham to
Caroline
Orr to Jennifer Rubin piled on,
because this feeding frenzy had nothing to do with concern that Gabbard adores Bashar al-Assad
and everything to do with wanting more war. Add that to the fact that Gabbard just publicly
eviscerated a charming, ambitious and completely amoral centrist who would excel at putting a
friendly humanitarian face on future wars if elected, and it's easy to understand why the
narrative managers are flipping out so hard right now.
War is the
glue that holds the empire together . A politician can get away with opposing some aspects
of the status quo when it comes to healthcare or education, but war as a strategy for
maintaining global dominance is strictly off limits. This is how you tell the difference
between someone who actually wants to change things and someone who's just going through the
motions for show; the real rebels forcefully oppose the actual pillars of empire by calling for
an end to military bloodshed, while the performers just stick to the safe subjects.
The shrill, hysterical pushback that Gabbard received last night was very encouraging,
because it means she's forcing them to fight back. In a media environment where the war
propaganda machine normally coasts along almost entirely unhindered in mainstream attention,
the fact that someone has positioned themselves to move the needle like this says good things
for our future. If our society is to have any chance of ever throwing off the omnicidal,
ecocidal power establishment which keeps us in a state of endless war and soul-crushing
oppression, the first step is punching a hole in
the narrative matrix which keeps us hypnotized into believing that this is all normal and
acceptable.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever disrupts that narrative control
is doing the real work.
* * *
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"It really is interesting how aggressively the narrative managers thrust this line into
mainstream consciousness all at the same time." - C.J.
I think we see evidence of this sort of thing all the time. "Russian collusion" was thrust
upon MSM consumers in coordinated fashion for many months. Now that it has largely fizzled
out, "racism" has taken its place. "Racism". "Racism". "Racism". It seems as if MSM drones
plug into the Mothership to get their talking points. This sort of behavior was featured in
the 1939 film, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", when the Establishment decided Mr. Smith
needed to be crushed.
Harris's deflection of Gabbard's attacks are right in line with the Establishment's
treatment of people who don't tow the line. Harris is trying to dismiss Gabbard as if her
opinion has no weight. Harris is probably wishing hard that Gabbard won't make the next round
of debates.
if Tulsi is nominee, i'll vote for her and vote republican for house/senate etc. her
anti-war policy is what i was hoping Trump would do. in reality if the republicans hold a
chamber in congress then any anti-gun and healthcare bills won't get through. but on day one
Tulsi can start removing our troops from Ukraine, Syria, Afghan, Iraq, Saudi, Turkey, and
wherever the hell else they are
Tulsi Gabbard is no cankles. She is a veteran, she's female, and she has some good
policies. Buyer beware her site mentions nothing about gun control. Liberals always make me
nervous.
As president I'll end the failed war on drugs, legalize marijuana, end cash bail, and
ban private prisons and bring about real criminal justice reform. ( link )
Everyone talks a big game..but Trump's actually delivered on a few good policies. Example
he ended Trans-Pacific partnership. He is renegotiating bad deals with NAFTA and China. He's
able to take the heat form the deep state and criminals all around him. He's kept the stock
market up. I suspect the stock market is the tide lifting all boats. So far Trump's been
pretty good.
The only thing I have against Tulsi Gabbard is that she recently voted for the ridiculous
Democrat sponsored Defense budget that was even more than the Pentagon requested.
Tulsi Gabbard should be the Democratic Nominee. I support Trump, voted for him, but he is
too distracted, too much of an overactive schmoe. He made all of these promises and yes the
attacks have been relentless, but nothing is being accomplished. Trump has deep state clowns
all around him including Bolton and Pompeo. The deficit is going through the roof, the
artificial, superficial manipulated stock market is going to eventually hurt a lot of
people.
I don't agree with many of her policies but Tulsi Gabbard is a sane and a thoughtful
thinker. She will think before reacting. Her Ron Paul approach to our overreach in the world
is absolutely appropriate. Think about this, we spend $850 Billion Dollars on defense so we
can feed the war industry. That is more than all the countries of the world combined
literally!!! If we brought all the troops home, closed up most bases outside the US, and
protected our borders, our deficit would plummet, we could rebuild the infrastructure, we
could figure out the health care B.S. We would get along with the rest of the world instead
of being looked at as an enemy.
Everybody is coming out of the woodwork because she knows, like most, that Assad did not
pepper spray his own people. Cripes, when does this insanity end?
Drawing down the US military to the point you describe will put 1 million American men and
women between the ages of 18 and 40 out of work. Do you not realize in addition to feeding
the MIC the military is one giant jobs program? Those young men and women, the vast majority
of whom do not want to learn to code, would find themselves competing against foreigners and
teenagers for $15 minimum wage jobs.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world would openly laugh at us and secretly plot how to take
advantage of the power vacuum. Evil does not rest when unopposed, it becomes stronger.
When half the world's population (= all Chinese plus all Muslims) wants to destroy your
country, "insanity" is defined as beating your swords into ploughshares.
The enemies of Tulsi Gabbard are not the Zionazis who helped Trump win the elections or
MAGA hat wearing hillbillies who have no clue whats the difference between Hong Kong and King
Kong. It is the liberals who voted for Hillary and went berserk after their beloved mafia
bitch lost who hate Tulsi Gabbard. Because she makes them look like what they are, i.e. scum.
Sure, conservatives will never vote for a intelligent woman. But they are not the
problem.
"Liberals who voted for Hillary" is a false premise. The Democratic National Committee
forced Hillary Clinton on liberals, they fixed the primaries so she would win. Liberals and
progressives wanted Bernie Sanders who would have kicked Trump's ***.
"... On top of the cake Kamala Not-The-Wrestler responded as expected, with a neoMcCarthyite slander, which will only work with Tulsi's haters and make Harris look like a tool to everyone else. ..."
"... @doh1304 ..."
"... Harris' record was both fair game and easy pickings because no one had gone there yet. It gained Tulsi the maximum impact because those who don't follow politics had not heard about any of these issues. ..."
"... Joe is so far down in the actual REAL polls, (not the land line polls as has been exposed), that the oligarchy has given up on him. Tulsi senses Joe is low hanging fruit. The DNC is going to cheat Bernie with either Kamala or Liz. Tulsi just took out Kamala. ..."
Why go after Biden? He's already imploding; she would only look cruel, beating up on a senile
old man for her own aggrandizement. Harris, OTOH, is a clear enemy, perpetrator of obvious
crimes. Exposing her could only make her look like a paladin.
On top of the cake Kamala Not-The-Wrestler responded as expected, with a neoMcCarthyite
slander, which will only work with Tulsi's haters and make Harris look like a tool to everyone
else.
Harris is sort of right, it is a strategy only used by someone trying to come from behind,
but that's because people with Tulsi's integrity are not allowed to start at the "Top-tier". up
14 users have voted. --
@doh1304 Harris' record was both fair game and easy pickings because no one had gone there yet.
It gained Tulsi the maximum impact because those who don't follow politics had not heard
about any of these issues.
Joe is so far down in the actual REAL polls, (not the land line polls as has been
exposed), that the oligarchy has given up on him. Tulsi senses Joe is low hanging fruit. The
DNC is going to cheat Bernie with either Kamala or Liz. Tulsi just took out Kamala.
Don't be surprised if she goes after Pocahontas in the next debates.
The crisis actors are just there to say what the democrats can't do or to derail anyone
who thinks they are going to change the system. Delaney, Bullock, DeBlasio and everyone else
who doesn't stand a chance have all been negative on Warren and Bernie pushing their MFA. Did
Delaney set himself up for Warren to smack him down? The silly ass smile on his face made me
think that. Then he was all over Twitter the next day saying how good he did in the debate.
And after 24 hours he finally had a comeback to Warren's response.
The other reason for so many candidates of course is to split the votes during the first
part so that the super delegates can come in and play.
attitude certainly was smacked down in righteous fashion. Hollywood level
righteous.
Having those extras on stage feature so prominently in the debates certainly was
interesting.
Harris's spokesman explains Tulsi's takedown of Kamala: It was Russia!
gjohnsit on Thu, 08/01/2019 - 11:47am Snoopydawg has got the
takedown covered , so I won't duplicate it.
Instead I'd like to show you how TOP has gone into a full-throated
whine party over it.
On Wednesday night, that meant that Gabbard got to go after Kamala Harris on her actions as
attorney general, using loaded phrases and selected statements to paint Harris as someone who
was ready to throw pot-smokers behind bars for eternity and personally throw the execution
switch for death row inmates after hiding evidence of their innocence.
There's no doubt that Harris will face more kicks about her AG role during this campaign,
and she certainly expected to receive some blows. But Gabbard knew she could square off with
Harris in the certainty that no one, but no one, came into the Wednesday night debate
thinking, "I need to prepare some talking points against Tulsi Gabbard." And even if she had,
CNN gave Harris little time to muster her thoughts before calling in more witnesses to
bolster Gabbard's attacks.
It wasn't just the tools on GOS that Tulsi knocked off balance, it was Harris
herself . Even CNN noticed.
Worse than that -- for Harris -- is the fact that it became crystal clear in the aftermath of
the debate that Gabbard had gotten under her skin. In a post-debate interview, CNN's Anderson
Cooper asked Harris about the moment with Gabbard.
"This is going to sound immodest, but obviously I'm a top-tier candidate and so I did expect
that I'd be on the stage and take some hits tonight," Harris said. "When people are at 0 or
1% or whatever she might be at, so I did expect to take some hits tonight."
Woof.
First of all, if you are running for president and you hear the words, "This is going to
sound immodest" come out of your mouth, it may be best to recalibrate what you are going to
say.
Second, what Harris is actually saying is, basically, this: The dork took a shot at the most
popular kid in school. Big whoop.
That is not a good look. For any candidate. Ever. (And, yes, politics is a LOT like high
school.)
That's gonna leave a mark.
But never fear, because there is a reason for Harris getting taken down by Gabbard -
Russia .
The #KamalaHarrisDestroyed hashtag had disappeared from the list of trending U.S. terms by
9:30 a.m. Thursday.
Harris's spokesman, Ian Sams, responded to the hashtag, noting that at least some of the
accounts promoting it appeared to be bots.
"The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 election is now promoting
the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat," he said.
Reporters writing their stories with eyes on the modern-day assignment desk of Twitter,
read this:
"The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 election is now promoting
the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat" https://t.co/2kpKQqW3Ir
Damn! Putin was on the debate stage and no one noticed?
That has got to be the weakest response in recent history.
Here's the thing, the Harris campaign is already guilty of
crying wolf over Russia.
Harris has already been caught misrepresenting alleged Russian propaganda activity. She
claimed in a radio interview on July 12 that she had been subjected to Russian bot attacks on
social media sites like Twitter.
But CNN debunked the claim days later, reporting that Twitter saw no evidence that Russian
bots were targeting Harris.
The far left wants too much form Tulsi. You can't fight on two fronts when attacking the the neocon foreign policy.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is the litmus test issue in American politics for a lot of good reasons. It may or may not be the worst regime in the world. There are a lot of bad ones competing for that title, many of whom we support. But Israel is the candidate we not only support but sponsor and champion to the point where it is at times very very hard to tell who is leading and who is following, between Israel and the US. This seems to have a lot to do with the end-times preoccupations that seem to have been at the heart of what passes for American spirituality since the earliest colonial days. ..."
I should always trust my instincts. Attending an event hosted by the Adelsons was disturbing enough, but I trusted people here
instead and brushed off my suspicions.
Israel is the litmus test issue in American politics for a lot of good reasons. It may or may not be the worst regime in the
world. There are a lot of bad ones competing for that title, many of whom we support. But Israel is the candidate we not only
support but sponsor and champion to the point where it is at times very very hard to tell who is leading and who is following,
between Israel and the US. This seems to have a lot to do with the end-times preoccupations that seem to have been at the heart
of what passes for American spirituality since the earliest colonial days.
Gabbard has now broken a lot of hopes. She has jumped the shark spectacularly, shamelessly craving the support of the 'Israel
Lobby'. Her claims to be against the regime change wars when these wars are relentlessly pushed by the Israel Lobby she is now
shamelessly courting?!!!
I suppose we can hope that Tulsi takes a flying leap back over the shark, say by visiting Gaza the way she recently visited
Puerto Rico. If she doesn't now make a huge point of it, in words and actions, that she will NOT be yet another tool of the Israel
Lobby, the neocons, the neolibs, etc., then she must be opposed as the turncoat shill she now seems to be.
No use wasting breath on Gabbard. Trump vs. Biden in 2020 with Trump taking the Midwest and the electoral college like 2016 is
unavoidable. If undermining Gabbard is your deal, I'd wait until 2024.
I took a lot of flak when I pointed out the simple truth that Gabbard is not against war and not against US/NATO imperialism
but simply against "regime change wars" that USA failed to win.
Trump was also against dumb wars and his imperialist detractors called him an isolationist - but that was merely a neat
way to burnish his populist credentials. Trump has acted much like his imperialist predecessors who hedge their peace talk with
exceptionalist morality that requires utmost strength in a "dangerous world". And these faux democratic leaders are all-too-willing
to lead the propaganda effort when called upon to support Deep State objectives.
Gabbard reminds me that the leaders of every nation should be watching re-runs of Mister Roger's Neighborhood and apply its lessons
to the abstract and Alpha-male dominated world of international relations.
I'm only half-joking. In a world of technological parity, real-time communication, and rapid travel the importance of being
a good neighbor has never been more important. At the minimum, that means doing no harm and, at the max, doing nice things with
no expectations.
Alas, we're stuck with countries building walls, using prosperity as a weapon, and thinking that power never waxes and wanes.
Shame that human wisdom hasn't kept up with material progress.
I had an uneasy interest/hope in/for Gabbard. No more after she sold herself to Israeli interests.
Lets face it, nobody worth his/her salt can get close to the Presidency without being backed by one or more factions of the
elite. The unrepresented bottom 90% (non military/vet) simply has no representation, and more than half are too stupid to know
it.
Change for the better will never happen under the present system. The US and the world will continue falling into the abyss.
One day soon the people find out what that means. Thats when the gloves come off. Nowhere to hide then. Serve your masters well
or be disappeared.
Jason @42 is right. Gabbard was never going to make it anyway. She's there because fake democratic choice is the establishment's
way of cementing their control.
As in:
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Tulsi (faux anti-war choice)
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Bernie (faux anti-wealth inequality choice)
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Kamala (faux civil rights choice)
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Biden (faux anti-Trump choice)
- STFU, you shoulda voted for Warren (faux business regulation)
Gabbard: One can either give up participating (definitely an option) or look for the best alternative to doing nothing. As
pointed out by others there is a power structure in America, which cannot be opposed in totality.
On the other hand, politicians are famous for not keeping their promises. There is the possibility of not keeping promises
to Adelson as well. One person can only do so much, even the President. So, we have to keep supporting alternatives, if there
is any chance at all to change direction. Outside forces are definitely going to help here ... Russia and China are busy building
a new 'World Order' which will be very good for America, when we finally give up the Empire.
Environmental fanatics: The two essential factors in preserving Earth's ecosystem are: 1) limit to human population ... I believe
this is happening and human population will reach a peak and begin to decline I think best estimates are ~ 2050 at 10 billion,
2) widespread, near total replacement of fossil energy use by nuclear power, which can easily be made to have virtually zero environmental
impact, while allowing a high standard of living for Earth's entire population.
Jodi Schneider
Senior International Editor
Gabbard says she will "
end these endless regime-change wars
" and use the "trillions of dollars we have
been wasting on these wars and these weapons" on domestic spending.
Photographer: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
"... Only four candidates are consistently polling in the double digits: Biden, who recovered from his early debate stumbles and remains comfortably in the lead; Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has nevertheless mostly failed to recapture his 2016 magic; Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who seems ascendant; and Senator Kamala Harris of California, potentially the main threat to Biden's rock-solid black support. ..."
"... Gabbard has so far been unable to penetrate this madness despite being young (she's 38), attractive, telegenic, a military veteran, a woman of color, and an articulate, passionate opponent of the regime change wars that have brought our country so much pain. While reliably progressive, she has occasionally reached across the political divide on issues like religious liberty and Big Tech censorship, a potent combination that could prove more responsive to Trump voters' concerns than what we've heard from her neocon lite interlocutor from Youngstown. ..."
"... That's not to say that no one else running is sound on foreign policy -- Bernie has realist advisers and it took real courage for Warren to back Trump's abortive withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria -- and it required a Democratic House to advance the bipartisan Yemen resolution. But none of them are basing their campaigns on it in the same way Gabbard has. Nor do any of them better represent our military veterans' sharp turn against forever war, arguably the most important public opinion trend of our time. ..."
"... Unfortunately foreign policy and the forever war are not an issue that resonates with voters on either side. Here is an excerpt from NPR . ..."
"... The most important public opinion of our time is not the military realizing that forever war is bad, it's that climate change is occurring now. It is the only issue that will matter to our grandchildren and we haven't begun to deal with it. We need to get serious about this. "A stitch in time saves 9" comes to mind. ..."
"... Foreign policy does not elect American presidents. I like her, and support her, and think she's made valuable points. I hope it is heard. However, there was never any chance that her course would lead to the White House. ..."
It was already one of the most memorable moments of the Democratic presidential debates in this young election cycle. "Leaders
as disparate as President Obama and President Trump have both said they want to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan but it isn't
over for America," observed moderator Rachel Maddow. "Why isn't it over? Why can't presidents of very different parties and very
different temperaments get us out of there? And how could you?"
Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio responded with talking points that could have been ripped out of a George W. Bush speech circa
2004. "[T]he lesson that I've learned over the years is that you have to stay engaged in these situations," he said, later adding,
"Whether we're talking about Central America, whether we're talking about Iran, whether we're talking about Afghanistan, we have
got to be completely engaged."
Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii was having none of it. "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who
were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged?" she asked a sputtering Ryan. "As a soldier, I will tell you that
answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan." Gabbard noted that she had joined the military to fight
those who attacked us on 9/11, not to nation-build indefinitely in Afghanistan, and pointed out the perfidy of Saudi Arabia.
Some likened Gabbard's rebuke of Ryan to the famous 2007 exchange
between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani
. Except Paul, then a relatively unknown congressman from Texas, was speaking truth to power against "America's Mayor" and the national
GOP frontrunner. Gabbard is polling at 0.8 percent in the national RealClearPolitics average, and was challenging someone at 0.3
percent.
Ryan's asterisk candidacy is unsurprising. But Gabbard has been perhaps the most interesting Democrat running for president and
Wednesday night could be her last stand. She gets to share the stage with frontrunner Joe Biden, like Hillary Clinton a vote for
the Iraq war. There is no guarantee she will get another opportunity: the eligibility criteria for subsequent debates is more stringent
and she has yet to qualify.
The huge Democratic field has been a bust. Of the more than 20 declared presidential candidates, only seven are polling at 2 percent
or more in the national averages. Two more -- Senators Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar -- are polling at least that well in Iowa.
Only
four candidates are consistently polling in the double digits: Biden, who recovered from his early debate stumbles and remains comfortably
in the lead; Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has nevertheless mostly failed to recapture his 2016 magic; Senator Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts, who seems ascendant; and Senator Kamala Harris of California, potentially the main threat to Biden's rock-solid
black support.
Low-polling candidates have still managed to have an impact. Some, like former secretary of housing and urban development Julian
Castro, have helped coax contenders likelier to win the nomination to the left on immigration. We've thus seen Democrats raise their
hands in support of decriminalizing illegal border crossings in the midst of a migrant crisis not entirely of the Trump administration's
making, expanding Medicare to cover everyone even at the expense of private health insurance, and ensuring that "everyone" includes
illegal immigrants. Transgender abortions, also at taxpayer expense, have come up too.
Gabbard has so far been unable to penetrate this madness despite being young (she's 38), attractive, telegenic, a military veteran,
a woman of color, and an articulate, passionate opponent of the regime change wars that have brought our country so much pain. While
reliably progressive, she has occasionally reached across the political divide on issues like religious liberty and Big Tech censorship,
a potent combination that could prove more responsive to Trump voters' concerns than what we've heard from her neocon lite interlocutor
from Youngstown.
"None of this seems to matter in a Democratic Party that cares more about wokeness than war. In fact, Gabbard's conservative fans
-- The View brought up Ann Coulter -- are often held against her, as is her failure to go all in on Trump-Russia. Ninety-five
Democrats stand ready to impeach Trump over mean tweets with nary a peep over the near-bombing of Iran or the active thwarting of
Congress's will on Yemen.
That's not to say that no one else running is sound on foreign policy -- Bernie has realist advisers and it took real courage
for Warren to back Trump's abortive withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria -- and it required a Democratic House to advance the bipartisan
Yemen resolution. But none of them are basing their campaigns on it in the same way Gabbard has. Nor do any of them better represent
our military veterans'
sharp turn against forever war, arguably the most important public opinion trend of our time.
Liberals remain skeptical of Gabbard's turn away from social conservatism (which admittedly went far beyond sincerely opposing
gay marriage while Barack Obama was merely pretending to do so), which she attributes to "aloha." In meeting with Bashar al-Assad,
she hurt her credibility as a foe of the Syria intervention, failing to realize that doves are held to a higher standard on these
matters than hawks
.
A saner Democratic Party might realize the chances are far greater that their nominee will be a covert hawk rather than a secret
right-winger. Only time will tell if vestiges of that party still exist.
I generally like Tulsi, but she's a mixed bag for Democrats and an easy mark for her Beltway opponents. She needs more time, but
could be a very effective member of a Democrat's cabinet.
Unfortunately foreign policy and the forever war are not an issue that resonates with voters on either side. Here is an
excerpt from NPR .
"That is one finding from the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, which shows that Americans have limited confidence in its
public schools, courts, organized labor and banks -- and even less confidence in big business, the presidency, the political
parties and the media.
.....
The only institution that Americans have overwhelming faith in is the military -- 87 percent say they have a great deal or
quite a lot of confidence in the military. That is a striking change from the 1970s during and after the Vietnam War."
A military that has been a consistent loser for decades. How depressing!
I was ready to replace Mike Pompeo with Tulsi Gabbard the day after the first debate. It would be very unfortunate if she got
bumped out. I live in California (an open primary state), which means I would have voted for her in the primary.
Anyone who wants to keep as much focus on foreign policy issues as possible during the Democratic Party primary campaigns should
contribute to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign. It looks like she needs another 20,000 unique contributors in order to qualify for the
third debate in September. Even contributing a dollar or two is sufficient.
Fortunately, she is yet so young. She has many years before her, and, when the old Democratic Party dies, much like its old Republican
counterpart did in 2016, Tulsi and people like her will be able to take over.
Also, covert hawks are either critically endangered or extinct in the wild. They're all open now in both parties.
Tulsi will be the leading progressive / conservative on the stage this evening, looking forward to seeing how she handles being
asked to criticize Bernie. (I'm a Tulsi fan.)
Btw, a saner American Conservative would realize a big field almost always looks like this. Can you name the 20 or so who ran
as Republicans a few years ago?
The most important public opinion of our time is not the military realizing that forever war is bad, it's that climate change
is occurring now. It is the only issue that will matter to our grandchildren and we haven't begun to deal with it. We need to
get serious about this. "A stitch in time saves 9" comes to mind.
What you seem to be missing about the Democratic Party is that the rift between progressives (extremists asking for higher
wages for those who work, etc.) and establishment types (let's fix the ACA) is ultimately more significant than the upcoming Presidential
election.
This is why I tell anyone who askes that I don't have a favorite for the Democratic Presidential nominee yet, but I know exactly
who I want for VP. That person is whoever comes in second. If HRC had chosen Bernie for VP, she would be President today and no
Republican Congress would have dared to impeach her for fear of seating the first Democratic Socialist President in America's
history.
After multiple *change* elections that have failed to deliver, change will once again be on the ballot in 2020. This time,
for the sake of our Nation and our world, let's hope it's real change this time. Tulsi would certainly be part of that, maybe
not as a nominee, but in the Cabinet.
Foreign policy does not elect American presidents.
I like her, and support her, and think she's made valuable points. I hope it is heard. However, there was never any chance
that her course would lead to the White House.
Maybe she can get a senior post and shape policy on our endless wars. Or maybe she'll have a louder voice in Congress. However,
the best she could do with this is influence.
The purpose of the "Clintonized" Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent to neoliberal rule in an orderly fashion. The
militarization of US economy and society means that by joining the war coalition, the Democratic party doesn't have to win any presidential
elections to remain in power. Because military-industrial complex rules the country.
Yes Clinton neoliberals want to stay in control and derail Sanders, much like they did in 2016. Biden and Harris are Clinton faction
Trojan horses to accomplish that. But times changed and they might have to agree on Warren inread of Biden of Harris.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with. ..."
"... Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their priorities). ..."
"... So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have. ..."
"... I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt and hamstring any legislation that he proposes ..."
"... electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin. ..."
"... The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that doesn't make it impossible. ..."
"... Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you; they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go. ..."
"... In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan. ..."
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street – at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession perhaps or maybe even worse. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
"... By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort to 'money.' In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead. ..."
"... Could that be why "our" three-letter agencies have been stocking up on that substance for awhile, now? ..."
"... " The purpose of the Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion." ..."
"... Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the election to maintain standing with big biz donors. ..."
"... Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America. ..."
"... actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else. ..."
"... the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power at the expense of the party and the country. ..."
"... The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations, social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy and for Main Street businesses. ..."
"... The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street businesses forced to compete with monopolies. ..."
That 2020 existential battle, of course, is always cast as between the Democrats and the Republicans.
But there's another existential battle going on, one that will occur before the main event -- the battle for control of the Democratic
Party. In the long run, that battle may turn out to be more important than the one that immediately follows it.
... ... ...
Before mainstream Democrats can begin the "existential battle" with the forces of Trump and Republicanism, they have to win the
existential battle against the force that wants to force change on their own party.
They're engaged in that battle today, and it seems almost all of the "liberal media," sensing the existential nature of the threat,
is helping them win it. Katie Halper, in a second perceptive piece on the media's obvious anti-Sanders bias, "
MSNBC's Anti-Sanders
Bias Is Getting Truly Ridiculous ," writes: "When MSNBC legal analyst Mimi Rocah (
7/21/19 ) said that Bernie Sanders 'made [her] skin crawl,'
though she 'can't even identify for you what exactly it is,' she was just expressing more overtly the
anti-Sanders bias that pervades the network."
... ... ...
MSNBC is clearly acting as a messaging arm of the Democratic Party mainstream in its battle with progressives in general and Sanders
in particular, and Zerlina Maxwell, who's been variously employed by that mainstream, from her work with Clinton to her work on MSNBC,
is an agent in that effort.
Let me repeat what Matt Taibbi wrote: " [Sanders'] election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic Party, forcing
everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector. "
Agreed. Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that
money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now
surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with.
Trump campaigned on enforcing the laws against illegal immigration and limiting legal immigration, but he's now pretty much
given up, the southern border is open full "Camp of the Saints" style and he's pushing for more legal 'guest' workers to satisfy
the corporate demands for cheap labor – and the Democrats are for this (though Sanders started to object back in 2015 before he
was beaten down).
Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for
himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow
of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their
priorities).
Soon I expect that Trump will propose massive regressive tax increases on the working class – which of course the Democrats
will be fine with ('to save the planet').
So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have.
And elections are pretty much pointless. Even if Sanders does win, he'll get beaten down faster even than Trump was.
I think people have a hard time with real inflection points. Most of life uses more short-term linear decision making. But
at inflection points we have multiple possibilities that turn into rather surprising turns of events, such as Brexit and Trump.
We still have people saying in the UK – "but they wouldn't do that!" The hell "they" won't. Norms are thrown out of the window
and people start realising how wide the options are. This is not positive or negative. Just change or transformation.
That is my philosophical way of agreeing with you! It is easy to point at the hostility of the mainstream media and DNC as
there being no way for Sanders to win. After all in 2004, look what the media and DNC did to Howard Dean. But people weren't dying
then like they are now. The "Great Recession" wasn't on anyone's radar. People felt rich, like everything would be fine. We are
not in that situation – the facts on the ground are so wildly different that the DNC and mainstream media will find it hard to
stay in control.
I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly
of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt
and hamstring any legislation that he proposes.
If Sanders should win against Trump expect the establishment to go into full revolt. Capital strike, mass layoffs, federal
reserve hiking interest rates to induce a recession, a rotating cast of Democrats siding with Republicans to block legislation,
press comparing him to worse than Carter before he even takes office and vilifying him all day every day.
I wouldn't be shocked to see Israel and the Saudis generate a crisis in, for example, Iran so Sanders either bends the knee
to the neocons or gets to be portrayed as a cowardly failure for abandoning our 'allies' for the rest of his term.
You've just convinced me that the American Experiment is doomed. No one else but Sanders can pull America out of its long slow
death spiral and your litany of the tactics of subversion of his presidency is persuasive that even in the event of his electoral
victory, there will be no changing of the national direction.
I'm reading a series of essays by Morris Berman in his book "Are We There Yet". A lot of critics complain that he is too much
the pessimist, but he presents some good arguments, dark though they may be, that the American Experiment was doomed from the
start due to the inherent flaw of Every Man For Himself and its "get mine and the hell with everybody else" attitude that has
been a part of the experiment from the beginning.
He is absolutely right about one thing, we are a country strongly based on hustling for money as much or more than anything
else, and both Trump and the Clintons are classic examples of this, and why the country often gets the leaders it deserves.
That's why I believe that we need people like Sanders and Gabbard in the Oval Office. It is also why I believe that should
either end up even getting close, Nax is correct. Those with power in this country will not accept the results and will do whatever
is necessary to subvert them, and the Voter will buy that subversion hook, line, and sinker.
No. The point is that electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that
a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin.
The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that
doesn't make it impossible.
Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public
sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on
the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you;
they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go.
In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one
of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan.
The high ground is being able to express a new vision for the common good, 24/7, and do something to bring it about. You win
even if you suffer losses.
Without that, life in the USA will become very disruptive to say the least.
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
Pretty bad optics on MSNBC's part being unable to do simple numbers and I can fully believe that their motto starts with the
words "This is who we are". Jimmy Dore has put out a few videos on how bad MSNBC has been towards Bernie and Progressives lately
so it is becoming pretty blatant. Just spitballing a loose theory here but perhaps the Democrats have decided on a "poisoned chalice"
strategy and do want not to win in 2020.
After 2008 the whole economy should have had a major re-set but Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street
– at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's
policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession
perhaps or maybe even worse.
Point is that perhaps the Democrats have calculated that it would be best for them to leave the Republicans in power to own
this crash which will help them long term. And this explains why most of those democrat candidates look like they have fallen
out of a clown car. The ones capable of going head to head with Trump are sidelined while their weakest candidates are pushed
forward – people like Biden and Harris. Just a theory mind.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort
to 'money.'
In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead.
If the nation wishes true deliverance, not just from Trump and Republicans, but from the painful state that got Trump elected
in the first place, it will first have to believe in a savior.
No, no, no, no, no. No oooshy religion, which is part of what got us into this mess. Cities on a hill. The Exceptional Nation(tm).
Obligatory burbling of Amazing Grace. Assumptions that everyone is a Methodist. And after Deliverance, the U S of A will be magically
re-virginated (for the umpteenth time), pure and worthy of Manifest Destiny once again.
If you want to be saved, stick to your own church. Stop dragging it into the public sphere. This absurd and sloppy religious
language is part of the problem. At the very least it is kitsch. At its worst it leads us to bomb Muslim nations and engage in
"Crusades."
Other than that, the article makes some important points. In a year or so, there will be a lot of comments here on whether
or not to vote for the pre-failed Democratic candidate, once the Party dumps Bernie Sanders. There is no requirement of voting
for the Democrats, unless you truly do believe that they will bring the Deliverance (and untarnish your tarnished virtue). Vote
your conscience. Not who Nate Silver indicates.
Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the
election to maintain standing with big biz donors. The leading issue of the day (Iraq/GWOT/Patriot Act) was erased from mainstream
US politics and has been since. Don't for a minute think they won't do a similar thing now. Big donors don't particularly fear
Trump, nor a 6-3 conservative supreme court, nor a Bolton state dept, nor a racist DHS/ICE – those are not money issues for them.
Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting
that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America.
The candidate who would fight and would govern for the 90% of Americans is a revolutionary.
The fact that it can be said as a given that neither major Party is being run specifically to serve the vast majority of our
country is itself an admission for that the class war begun by Reagan has been won, in more of a silent coup, and the rich have
control of our nation.
Sadly, actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war
continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for
the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else.
Sanders is considered a revolutionary merely for stating the obvious, stating the truth. That is what makes him dangerous to
those that run the Democratic Party, and more broadly those who run this nation.
Sanders would do better to cast himself not as a revolutionary, but as a person of the people, with the belief that good government
does not favor the wants of the richest over the needs of our country. That is what makes him a threat. To the rich unseen who
hold power, to the Republican Party, and to some Democrats.
I agree with the thesis here, and confess to being puzzled by comments on LGM (for example) politics threads of the ilk "I'm
with Warren but am good with Buttigieg too," or "I'm with Sanders but am good with Harris, too," etc.
I love reading Taibbi, but in
his article , that quote, " Sanders is the revolutionary. His election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic
Party, forcing everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector ," should be the lede, and its buried
2/3 of the way down.
This primary season is about how the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power
at the expense of the party and the country.
Yves writes: it is unfortunate that this struggle is being personified, as in too often treated by the media and political
operatives as being about Sanders.
I agree. Sanders represents the continuing New Deal-type policies. The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been
working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations,
social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy
and for Main Street businesses.
The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion
of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street
businesses forced to compete with monopolies.
The MSM won't talk about any of the programmatic differences between the two sides. The MSM won't recognize the New Deal style
Democratic voters even exist; the New Deal wing voters are quickly labeled 'deplorable' instead voters with competing economic
policies to the current economic policies.
So, we're left with the MSM focusing on personalities to avoid talking about the real policy differences, imo.
When Bernie talks about a revolution, he explains how it must be from the grassroots, from the bottom up. If he manages to
get elected, his supporters have to make sure they get behind the politicians who also support him and, if they don't, get rid
of them.
Without continuing mass protests, nothing is going to happen. Other countries have figured this out but Americans remain clueless.
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
The New Quincy Institute Seeks Warmongering Monsters to Destroy Andrew Bacevich on his new left-right group, which is
going hammer and tongs against the establishment on foreign policy. By
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos •
July 30, 2019
Andrew J. Bacevich participates in a panel discussion at the U.S. Naval War College in 2016. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication
Specialist 1st Class Christian S. Eskelund/Released) For the last month, the foreign policy establishment has been abuzz over the
new kid on the block: the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft , named
for John Quincy Adams. Adams, along with our first president George Washington,
warned of foreign entanglements and the urge to go
abroad in "search of monsters to destroy," lest America's fundamental policy "insensibly change from liberty to force
. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit ."
Those in the foreign policy Blob have had different reactions to the "upstart" think tank. These are the preeminent organizations
that stand imperious in size and square footage, but have lacked greatly in wisdom and clarity over the last 20 years. Quincy will
stand apart from them in two significant ways: it is drawing its intellectual and political firepower from both the anti-war Left
and the realist and restraint Right. And it is poised to support a new "responsible statecraft," one that challenges the conditions
of endless war, including persistent American militarism here and abroad, the military industrial complex, and a doctrine that worships
primacy and a liberal world order over peace and the sovereignty of other nations.
Quincy, which is rolling out its statement of principles this
week (its official launch will be in the fall), is the brainchild of Trita Parsi, former head of the National Iranian-American Council,
who saw an opening to bring together Left and Right academics, activists, and media disenchanted by both sides' pro-war proclivities.
Together with Vietnam veteran and former Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich (also a longtime TAC contributor), the
Carnegie Endowment's Suzanne DiMaggio, Columbia University's Stephen Wertheim, and investigative journalist Eli Clifton, the group
wants to serve as a counterweight to both liberal interventionists like the Brookings Institution and Council on Foreign Relations,
and the war hawks and neoconservatives of the Heritage Foundation and Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
They've already taken hits from both sides of the establishment, dismissed brusquely
as naive , or worse,
isolationist (that swipe from neoconservative Bill Kristol, whose now-defunct Weekly Standard once ran a manifesto headlined
"The Case for American Empire"
). The fact that Quincy will be funded by both George Soros on the Left and the Charles Koch Foundation on the Right has brought
some rebuke from unfriendlies and even some friendlies. The former hate on one or the other powerful billionaire, while the latter
are wary of Soros' intentions (he's has long been a financial supporter of
"soft-power"
democracy movements overseas, some of which have encouraged revolution and regime change).
Advertisement
But Quincy's timing couldn't be more perfect. With a president in the White House who has promised to draw down U.S. involvement
overseas (with the exception of his Iran policy, he has so far held to much of that pledge), and national conservatives coming around
to TAC's long-held worldview on realism and restraint (and an increasing willingness to reach across the aisle to work with
like-minded groups and individuals), Quincy appears poised to make some noise in Washington.
According to the group's new statement of principles , "responsible
statecraft" 1) serves the public interest, 2) engages the world, 3) builds a peaceful world, 4) abhors war, and 5) is democratic.
Andrew Bacevich and Trita Parsi expanded on this further in a recent Q&A with TAC.
(Full disclosure: the author is on Quincy's steering committee and TAC also receives funding from the Charles Koch Foundation.)
TAC : Quincy's principles -- and thus it's name -- are rooted in the mission of "responsible statecraft." Can you give
me a sense of what that means in practical terms, and why you settled on this phrasing for the institute?
AB: With the end of the Cold War, policy elites succumbed to an extraordinary bout of hubris, perhaps best expressed in the claim
that history had designated the United States as its "indispensable nation." Hubris bred recklessness and irresponsibility, with
the Iraq war of 2003 as Exhibit A. We see "responsible statecraft" as the necessary antidote. Its abiding qualities are realism,
restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement. While the QI is not anti-military, we are wary of war except when all other alternatives
have been exhausted. We are acutely conscious of war's tendency to produce unintended consequences and to exact unexpectedly high
costs.
TAC : Quincy is a trans-partisan effort that is bringing together Left and Right for common cause. Is it a challenge?
AB: It seems apparent to us that the myriad foreign policy failures and disappointments of the past couple of decades have induced
among both progressives and at least some conservatives a growing disenchantment with the trajectory of U.S. policy. Out of that
disenchantment comes the potential for a Left-Right coalition to challenge the status quo. The QI hopes to build on that potential.
TAC : Two of the principles take direct aim at the current foreign policy status quo: responsible statecraft abhors war,
and responsible statecraft is democratic (calling out a closed system in which Americans have had little input into the wars waged
in their names). How much of what Quincy aims to do involves upending conventional norms, particularly those bred and defended by
the Washington "Blob"?
AB: In a fundamental sense, the purpose of the QI is to educate the American people and their leaders regarding the Blob's shortcomings,
exposing the deficiencies of old ideas and proposing new ones to take their place.
TAC: That said, how much blowback do you anticipate from the Washington establishment, particularly those think tanks and
individuals whose careers and very existence depend on the wheels of militarism forever turning?
AB : Plenty. Proponents of the status quo are entrenched and well-funded. Breaking old habits -- for example, the practice of
scattering U.S. military bases around the world -- will not come easily.
TAC : There has been much ado about your two primary funders -- Charles Koch and George Soros. What do you say to critics
who suggest you will be tied to/limited by their agendas?
AB: Our funding sources are not confined to Koch and Soros and we will continue to broaden our support base. It's not for me to
speak for Koch or Soros. But my guess is they decided to support the QI because they support our principles. They too believe in
policies based on realism, restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement.
TAC : Better yet, how did you convince these two men to fund something together?
TP: It is important to recognize that they have collaborated in the past before, for instance on criminal justice reform. This
is, however, the first time they've come together to be founding funders of a new entity. I cannot speak for them, but I think they
both recognize that there currently is a conceptual deficit in our foreign policy. U.S. elite consensus on foreign policy has collapsed
and the void that has been created begs to be filled. But it has to be filled with new ideas, not just a repackaging of old ideas.
And those new ideas cannot simply follow the old political alignments. Transpartisan collaboration is necessary in order to create
a new consensus. Koch and Soros are showing tremendous leadership in that regard.
TAC : The last refuge of a scorned hawk is to call his critics "isolationist." It would seem as though your statement of
principles takes this on directly. How else does Quincy take this often-used invective into account?
AB : We will demonstrate through our own actions that the charge is false.
TAC : Critics (including James Traub,
in his own piece on Quincy
) say that Washington leaders, once in office, are "mugged by reality," suggesting that the idea of rolling back military interventions
and avoiding others sounds good on paper but presidents like Barack Obama had no choice, that this is all about protecting interests
and hard-nosed realism. The alternative is a bit naive. How do you respond?
AB: Choices are available if our leaders have the creativity to recognize them and the gumption to pursue them. Obama's patient
and resolute pursuit of the Iran nuclear deal affirms this possibility. The QI will expose the "we have no choice" argument as false.
We will identify and promote choice, thereby freeing U.S. policy from outmoded habits and stale routines.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is e xecutive editor at . Follow her on Twitter
@Vlahos_at_TAC
QI is a welcome change from the endless, whining tirade of the old hawks.
I wish them well in gaining influence in DC.
I hope that they can give voice to the growing numbers of us who do not support illegal invasions, funding dissidents to
foment regime change and our flawed system of selecting key allies (regardless of their human rights records) and protecting
them and their interests at all cost. This has been a drain our economic resources and moral standing.
In this time, when nationalism and disaster capitalism seem to be winning on both sides of the Atlantic, it seems there
is little hope for peace, decency and diplomacy.
QI has a huge challenge to take on the parasitic organism that is the war machine, but any initiative is better than none.
If Quincy is to have any chance of success in its mission, it will have to tackle the issues surrounding Federal election campaign
financing. The current rules give a handful of American billionaires effective control over US Middle East policy. What is
good for donors like Sheldon and Miriam Edelson is not necessarily good for the American public. Donald Trump was elected president
of the US not Prime Minister of Israel.
I did read one of Mr. Basevich's books a few years ago and my take away remains valid today: The US cannot afford to be
the policeman of the world.
Gabbard is more controlled opposition. Remember, she voted for the anti-BDS resolution,
more sanctions and is anti-2nd Amendment. Don't be fooled by her shtick.
She says she is against forever wars yet she voted to pass the monstrosity that is the new
defense bill. She is also a friend to Israhell as she voted for anti BDS.
I don't listen to what politicians say but what they do that falls in line with the most
important elements of empire.
"... Any candidate that is publicly against the empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC. That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters. ..."
"... This represents an intervention into her ability to speak to voters and, as such, is a violation of not only her First Amendment rights but also, more critically, campaign finance law. ..."
"... On a day when it became clear to the world that Robert Mueller led an investigation to affect the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections (and beyond) while attempting to overthrow an elected President, Gabbard attacking the one of the main pillars of the information control system is both welcome and needed. ..."
"... Her filing this lawsuit is making it clear that even a fairly conventional Democrat on most all other issues is to be marginalized if she criticizes the empire. ..."
"... You can disagree with Tulsi on many things but she is absolutely right and the only one who gets the real problem.Military Industrial Complex & The Empire. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)
is suing Google
. It's about time someone did. It's one thing to for conservatives and libertarians to be outraged by their treatment
by the tech giant, it's another for them to go after a female Democrat.
Since Trump's election the campaign to curtail free speech has went into overdrive and we are now far beyond Orwell's dystopian
vision in 1984 in terms of technological infrastructure.
Google makes Big Brother look like George Carlin's the Hippy Dippy Weather Man with the "hippy dippy weather, man." The drive
to stamp out all forms of political division has only one thing animating it, protecting the drive of the elites I call The Davos
Crowd to erect a transnational superstate to herd humanity to their vision of sustainability.
Gabbard is the only person running for the Democratic nomination worth any amount of my time. Her fundamental criticisms of the
U.S. warfare state are spot on. She's sincere about this. It's costing her stature within her own party.
She's a committed anti-imperialist. She's also young, inexperienced and a little bit naive. But that, to me, is part of her charm.
It means she is still malleable. She's smart enough to be outraged about where we are headed and young enough to be flexible about
what the solutions are to stop it from happening.
So, as such, she's the perfect champion for the defenders of free speech and critics of the U.S. empire. A young, attractive,
intelligent woman of mixed-race heritage with a service record who stands athwart the mainstream on the most important issue in politics
today: the U.S. empire.
The entire time I was growing up the prevailing wisdom was Social Security was the third rail of U.S. politics. That, like so
many other pearls of wisdom, was nonsense.
The true third rail of U.S. politics is empire.
Any candidate that is publicly against the empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations
who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC. That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters.
For that crime Google acted to blunt interest in her campaign in the critical hours after the first democratic debate. So, Gabbard,
rightly, sued them.
The two main points of her lawsuit are:
1) suspending her Google Ad account for six hours while search traffic for her was spiking and
2) Gmail disproportionately junked her campaign emails.
This represents an intervention into her ability to speak to voters and, as such, is a violation of not only her First Amendment
rights but also, more critically, campaign finance law.
Whether this lawsuit goes anywhere or not is beside the point. Google will ignore it until they can't and then settle with her
before discovery. Gabbard doing this is good PR for her as it sets her on the right side of an incredibly important issue, censorship
and technological bias/de-platforming of political outsiders.
It's also good because if she does pursue this principally, it will lead to potential discovery of Google's internal practices,
lending the DoJ a hand in pursuing all the big tech firms for electioneering.
On a day when it became clear to the world that Robert Mueller led an investigation to affect the outcome of the 2018 mid-term
elections (and beyond) while attempting to overthrow an elected President, Gabbard attacking the one of the main pillars of the information
control system is both welcome and needed.
Her filing this lawsuit is making it clear that even a fairly conventional Democrat on most all other issues is to be marginalized
if she criticizes the empire.
As libertarians and conservatives it is irrelevant if she is conventional in other areas. It doesn't matter that she's been to
a CFR meeting or two or that she's anti-gun. She's not going to be president.
This is not about our virtue-signaling about the purity of essence of our political figures. They are tools to our ends. And on
now two incredibly important issues leading up to the 2020 election Tulsi Gabbard is on the right side of them.
She is someone we can and should reach out to and support while she makes these issues the centerpiece of her campaign. Her timing
is even more excellent than what I've already stated.
Filing this lawsuit is a pre-emptive strike at Google now that she's qualified for the next two Democratic debates. And it may
assist her in breaking out of the bottom tier of the Democratic field, Ron Paul style if she gets her opportunity.
Shedding light on Google's anti-free speech practices is a fundamental good, one we should celebrate. Dare I say, it's double
plus good.
* * *
Join
my Patreon
and
install Brave
if you both hate big tech censorship and the empire in equal
measure.
You can disagree with Tulsi on many things but she is absolutely
right and the only one who gets the real problem.Military
Industrial Complex & The Empire.
If you won't kill this problem
you can virtue signal about your left and right opinions about
your perfect candidate as much as you want without getting
anything done ( Trump). Purism won't help you. It only gets you
distracted and controlled by the elites.
The point of this article is that Gabbard is taking on GOOGLE,
for screwing with her account. See Google demonitizes, deboosts,
deplatforms people without them even knowing it, and diddles their
search algorythms NOT ONLY against conservatives, but for
independent democrats like Gabbard. THAT'S THE POINT, not who or
what Gabbard stands for. The dem party did the same to Gabbard
during the 2016 election, cut her off from financing, because she
supported Bernie Sanders.
This is the sort of **** things dim's do, and progressive
companies like Fakebook, Twatter and Goolag. Now Gabbard may not
have views that we can support, but if she is taking on GOOLAG,
than we should stand like a wall behind her. This is a big threat
to 1st amendment rights.
Good point, chunga. She is already being given the Ron Paul
treatment by MSM (they either slam her as basically a naive
fool, or just ignore her), so no way does she rise to the top
of the **** pile of Blue Team candidates. Would make a good
run as an independent, and maybe wake some people up.
Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY)
told
Luke Rudkowski of "
We
Are Change
," a libertarian media organization, that Democratic presidential candidate
Tulsi Gabbard has just signed on as a co-sponsor of Audit the Fed bill, officially known as
H.R.24
The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2019
.
The bill
authorizes the General Accountability Office to perform a full audit of the
Fed's conduct of monetary policy,
including the Fed's mysterious dealings with Wall
Street, central banks and governments.
During the interview, Massie said the latest development in attempting to audit the Federal
Reserve is that Gabbard signed on as co-sponsor.
He believes the topic will "get some
airtime" in the upcoming presidential debates.
He said there are four Democratic co-sponsors and 80 Republican co-sponsors for the
bill;
it was recently passed in the House of Representatives as it heads to the Senate.
Massie said:
"We have passed it in the House but have never passed it in the Senate. Because of a lot of
these people in the House of Representatives who vote for it and support it in the House go to
the Senate and decide it's not such a good idea."
Rudkowski then tells Massie about interesting parallels between some presidential candidates
(Gabbard and Bernie Sanders), who have an anti-interventionists view along with being critical of
the Federal Reserve.
Massie responds by saying,
"Well if you're just trying to sorta tie the anti-war people to
the Federal Reserve. I think the closest connection is
the Federal Reserve enables the
endless Wars that are being funded by controlling the value of our currency and without the massive
borrowing and printing of money and controlling of interest rates - we wouldn't be able to sustain
a permanent state of war.
"
https://www.youtube.com/embed/WQEbGkzy6Sk
Last week, Ron Paul recently wrote that Massie needs to
"expedite passage of their Audit
the Fed legislation should the Federal Reserve decide to disobey the will of its creator – Congress
– by involving itself in real-time payments.
After all, their bipartisan legislation came
just seven votes shy of passing not long ago. With the Fed extending its wings even further and the
president finally making good on his promise to push the bill through, it should be all but certain
of arriving on his Oval Office desk for signing."
With the US infected by a global industrial slowdown, and in President Trump's view a Federal
Reserve-caused economic downturn, support for auditing the Fed will continue to increase among
Americans across all political ideologies.
It's not just Republicans who demand the audit,
but now Gabbard and even Sanders (Democrats).
Auditing the Fed is the first step in changing monetary policy that has created a
debt-and-bubble-based economy; promoted the welfare-warfare state; created the most massive wealth
inequality crisis in history; led to an affordable housing crisis; transferred all the wealth to
the top 1% of America, and could lead to the collapse of the American empire if not corrected in
the next several years.
"... The upcoming Horowitz and Durham reports on their respective probes into "meddling into the meddling" will target many people in the Democratic Party, US intelligence services, and the media. In that order. Can the Dems survive such a thing? It's hard to see. ..."
"... After the opening credits, [Dominic] Cummings rejects an offer in 2015 by UKIP MP Douglas Carswell and political strategist Matthew Elliott to lead the Vote Leave campaign due to his contempt for "Westminster politics", but accepts when Carswell promises Cummings full control. ..."
"... The next sequences show Cummings outlining the core strategy on a whiteboard of narrow disciplined messaging delivered via algorithmic database-driven micro-targeting tools . Cummings rejects an approach by Nigel Farage and Arron Banks of Leave.EU to merge their campaigns, as his data shows Farage is an obstacle to winning an overall majority. ..."
"... [..] In a eureka moment, Cummings refines the core message to "Take Back Control", thus positioning Vote Leave as the historical status quo, and Remain as the "change" option . Cummings meets and hires Canadian Zack Massingham, co-founder of AggregateIQ, who offers to build a database using social media tools of [3 million] voters who are not on the UK electoral register but are inclined to vote to leave. ..."
"... [..] In the final stages, high-profile senior Tory MPs Michael Gove and Boris Johnson join the Vote Leave campaign emphasising the need to "Take Back Control", while Penny Mordaunt is shown on BBC raising concerns over the accession of Turkey. Gove and Johnson are shown as having some reticence over specific Vote Leave claims (e.g. £350 million for NHS, and 70 million potential Turkish emigrants) but are seen to overcome them. ..."
"... And now Cummings is back to finish the job. ..."
"... They were sending targeted personalized messages to individual voters, by the millions. Algorithms. AI. Tailor made. If you're the opposition, and you don't have those tools, then what do you have exactly? ..."
It's a development that has long been evident in continental Europe, and that has now arrived on the shores of the US and UK.
It is the somewhat slow but very certain dissolution of long-existing political parties, organizations and groups. That's what I
was seeing during the Robert Mueller clown horror show on Wednesday.
Mueller was not just the Democratic Party's last hope, he was their identity. He was the anti-Trump. Well, he no longer is, he
is not fit to play that role anymore. And there is nobody to take it over who is not going to be highly contested by at least some
parts of the party. In other words: it's falling apart.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's a natural process, parties change as conditions do and if they don't do it fast enough
they disappear. Look at the candidates the Dems have. Can anyone imagine the party, post-Mueller, uniting behind Joe Biden or Bernie
Sanders or Kamala Harris? And then for one of them to beat Donald Trump in 2020? I was just watching a little clip from Sean Hannity,
doing what Trump did last week, which is going after the Squad. Who he said are anti-Israel socialists and, most importantly, the
de facto leaders of the party, not Nancy Pelosi. That is a follow-up consequence of Mueller's tragic defeat, the right can now go
on the chase. The Squad is the face of the Dems because Trump and Hannity have made them that.
The upcoming Horowitz and Durham reports on their respective probes into "meddling into the meddling" will target many people
in the Democratic Party, US intelligence services, and the media. In that order. Can the Dems survive such a thing? It's hard to
see. The Dems have no Trump. They do have a DNC that will stifle any candidate they don't like (Bernie!), though. Just think
what they would have done if Trump had run as a Democrat (crazy, but not that crazy).
The UK's issues are remarkably similar to those of the US. Only, in their case, the socialists have already taken over the left-wing
party (if you can call the Dems left-wing). This has led to absolute stagnation. Tony Blair had moved Labour so far to the right
(which he and his Blairites call center, because it sounds so much better), that injecting Jeremy Corbyn as leader was just too fast
and furious.
So they labeled Corbyn an anti-semite, the most successful and equally empty smear campaign since Julian Assange was called a
rapist. Corbyn never adequately responded, so he couldn't profile himself and now the Blairites are again calling on him to leave.
Oh, and he never gave a direct answer to the question of Brexit yes or no either. Pity. Corbyn's support among the people is massive,
but not in the party.
Which is why it's now up to Boris Johnson to 'deliver the will of the people'. And apparently the first thing the people want
is 20,000 more policemen. Which were fired by the very party he at the time represented first as first mayor of London and then foreign
minister, for goodness sake. His very own Tories closed 600 police stations since 2010 and will have to re-open many now.
Some survey must have told him it polled well. Just like polling was an essential part of pushing through Brexit. There's a very
revealing TV movie that came out 6 months ago called Brexit: The Uncivil War, that makes this very clear. The extent to which campaigns
these days rely on data gathering and voter targeting will take a while yet to be understood, but they're a future that is already
here. Wikipedia in its description of the film puts it quite well:
After the opening credits, [Dominic] Cummings rejects an offer in 2015 by UKIP MP Douglas Carswell and political strategist
Matthew Elliott to lead the Vote Leave campaign due to his contempt for "Westminster politics", but accepts when Carswell promises
Cummings full control.
The next sequences show Cummings outlining the core strategy on a whiteboard of narrow disciplined messaging delivered
via algorithmic database-driven micro-targeting tools . Cummings rejects an approach by Nigel Farage and Arron Banks of Leave.EU
to merge their campaigns, as his data shows Farage is an obstacle to winning an overall majority.
[..] In a eureka moment, Cummings refines the core message to "Take Back Control", thus positioning Vote Leave as the historical
status quo, and Remain as the "change" option . Cummings meets and hires Canadian Zack Massingham, co-founder of AggregateIQ,
who offers to build a database using social media tools of [3 million] voters who are not on the UK electoral register but are
inclined to vote to leave.
[..] In the final stages, high-profile senior Tory MPs Michael Gove and Boris Johnson join the Vote Leave campaign emphasising
the need to "Take Back Control", while Penny Mordaunt is shown on BBC raising concerns over the accession of Turkey. Gove and
Johnson are shown as having some reticence over specific Vote Leave claims (e.g. £350 million for NHS, and 70 million potential
Turkish emigrants) but are seen to overcome them.
Dominic Cummings, played in the movie by Benedict Cumberbatch, is an independent political adviser who belongs to no party. But
guess what? He was the first adviser Boris Johnson hired after his nomination Wednesday. Cummings didn't want Nigel Farage as the
face of Brexit, because he polled poorly. He wanted Boris, because his numbers were better. Not because he didn't think Boris was
a bumbling fool, he did.
And now Cummings is back to finish the job. Far as I can see, that can only mean one thing: elections, and soon (it's
what Cummings does). A no-deal Brexit was voted down, in the same Parliament Boris Johnson now faces, 3 times, or was it 4? There
is going to be a lot of opposition. Boris wants Brexit on October 31, and has practically bet his career on it. But there is going
to be a lot of opposition.
He can't have elections before September, because of the summer recess. So perhaps end of September?! But he has Dominic Cummings
and his "algorithmic database-driven micro-targeting tools" . Without which Brexit would never have been voted in. So if
you don't want Brexit, you better come prepared.
Cummings and his techies weren't -just- sending out mass mails or that kind of stuff. That's already arcane. They were sending
targeted personalized messages to individual voters, by the millions. Algorithms. AI. Tailor made. If you're the opposition, and
you don't have those tools, then what do you have exactly?
Already thought before it all happened that it was funny that Boris Johnson's ascension and Robert Mueller's downfall were scheduled
for the same day. There must be a pattern somewhere.
You can find the movie at HBO or Channel 4, I'm sure. Try
this link for Channel
4. Seeing that movie, and thinking about the implications of the technology, the whole notion of Russian meddling becomes arcane
as well. We just have no idea.
The Demoncrats have one candidate who could beat Trump, namely Tulsi Gabbard. I disagree with her economics and her 2nd amendment
stance, but enough Chump voters who based their vote on his promise to stop the continuous war on everyone, would switch to Tulsi
if she were nominated, particularly if the Chump plays his Zio directive and starts a war with Iran which will not go well for
anybody. But Tulsi will never have a fair shot at the nominations as the MIC Google has demon-strated in her law suit. **** the
election. The people and their opinions are not a factor. **** the left right hatred division while the Owners just laugh from
the shadows at us for being so easily manipulated.
The upcoming Horowitz and Durham reports on their respective probes into "meddling into the meddling" will target many people
in the Democratic Party, US intelligence services, and the media. In that order. Can the Dems survive such a thing? It's hard
to see.
Can criminals survive a functioning DOJ working under the Law?
In its self-described "pied piper" strategy, the Clinton campaign proposed intentionally cultivating extreme right-wing
presidential candidates, hoping to turn them into the new "mainstream of the Republican Party" in order to try to increase
Clinton's chances of winning.
Trump is using Hillary's Pied Piper strategy against AoC and the Squid.
Elevate the radical leftists...they'll be seen as the face of the Democrat party...then 2020 is a sure Trump win.
Not that I care...I never consented to being governed by anyone.
For decades, the Democratic party has been a joke: a weakly bound coalition of liberals and labor -- two groups with nothing
in common, and a fair degree of hate for each other.
For decades, the Republican party has also been a joke: a weakly bound coalition of religious fundamentalists and fiscal conservatives
-- two groups with nothing in common, and a fair degree of hate for each other.
In European politics, they call a shovel a shovel and work by coalition government. You have smaller parties which actually
represent interest groups, although none are large enough for power themselves. They form and break coalitions -- some long lasting,
some flittering around from election to election -- in order to form a majority ad hoc. It isn't a bad system, and the voters
don't have to hold their noses so much at the polls.
(edit: all this squabbling between "the squad" and the Pelosi leadership makes much more sense when viewed as friction between
the labor and liberal halves of the dems.)
Add his violations of personal space of women and children and he's a perfect
candidate for a RICO prosecution, not POTUS.
Oh, well, Warren's on deck; and, if she goes down (no pun intended), there are the unsweet
sixteen or so more. Anybody but Bernie, Tulsi or Gravel is no doubt the hope of the
establishment, including the PTB of the Democratic Party.
Is Bernie perfect? God, no. None of them are, including Tulsi. Are Bernie and Tulsi evil? I
don't think so. I think, at worst, Bernie is doing what he thinks he must in order to represent
the people of Vermont and, if he can win, the people of the other forty-nine states, too.
I will not vote for anyone who I believe to be evil, but I will vote for Bernie or Tulsi in
the Democratic primary. If nothing else, that will mean one more vote against the rest of the
pack...
+ 64% of veterans said the Iraq War
wasn't worth fighting , considering the costs versus the benefit to the U.S., and more than
50% think the same about the war in Afghanistan I wonder what percentage of them got "woke" to
this before Tulsi Gabbard?
Gabbard is NOT a member of the CFR. She has by her own admission, attended some meetings
as an invited guest. According to her, it was to engage members and find out what their
inside game is. I don't know if Gabbard is for real. I voted for Trump because I perceived
him to be the anti-war and anti-intervention candidate. Period. So, as I said, I don't know
what to think about the lady. I do now understand however, why some individuals in olden
times became hermits.
"... Yes, there is strong reason to believe that, during Tulsi's response to a question on Iran in the first debate, MSNBC technicians digitally implanted a pimple on Tulsi's chin. The "pimple" subsequently vanished. ..."
"... While placing a pimple on her chin is a childish prank, it is a childish prank played by one of the largest information company on the planet. It's not really a childish prank at that scale. ..."
"... Mics being turned off is another trick, not so childish, but still played out by a multibillion dollar institution. This is happening in a public policy event hosted by a news organization. ..."
Yes, there is strong reason to believe that, during Tulsi's response to a question on Iran
in the first debate, MSNBC technicians digitally implanted a pimple on Tulsi's chin. The
"pimple" subsequently vanished.
This bizarre behavior by MSNBC lends additional credence to claims by Andrew Yang and
Marianne Williamson that their mikes were turned off during portions of the debate.
Those responsible for this must be identified, fired, and, if feasible, prosecuted. Until
MSNBC cooperates in these regards, it should be treated like a pariah. Complaints to the
regulatory authorities are in order, and the public should be fully apprised of this. If this
strategy of digital manipulation is not nipped in the bud NOW, who knows what dangerous frauds
might await us in the future?
While placing a pimple on her chin is a childish prank, it is a childish prank played by one
of the largest information company on the planet. It's not really a childish prank at that
scale.
Mics being turned off is another trick, not so childish, but still played out by a
multibillion dollar institution. This is happening in a public policy event hosted by a news
organization.
It's rather ugly, IMO. And while I get the "distraction" angle, it's beyond that: it's a
trial balloon. When it comes to psyops; we ain't seen nothin' yet.
@mimi
I did an eyeroll when I first heard about it too. But then I started to understand. Tulsi is a
beautiful woman, inside and out from what I've seen. I'm quite sure that her outer beauty is
one thing that made lots of people google her.
Some people really are that superficial.
How
would you go about trying to make her less beautiful without being overtly obvious? Did that
pimple stop people from wanting to know who she is?
I really hope not. Personally, I think
she's beautiful with or without a zit on her chin, but her message is what makes her shine so
bright. They can't put a pimple on that.
"... "Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization." ..."
"... Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army fell thousands of troops short of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017 Department of Defense poll that found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z. ..."
"... These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right alliance between two influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months, they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. ..."
"... In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill ultimately passed the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be vetoed by President Trump. That such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy." ..."
"... And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come. ..."
"... In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this." ..."
"... It is little recognized how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC while also taking heavy casualties. ..."
"... We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South. ..."
"... Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. ..."
"... President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions. ..."
Peace activism is rising, but that isn't translating into huge street demonstrations, writes Allegra Harpootlian.
W hen Donald Trump entered the Oval Office in January 2017, Americans took to the streets all across the country to protest their
instantly endangered rights. Conspicuously absent from the newfound civic engagement, despite more than a decade and a half of this
country's fruitless, destructive wars across the Greater Middle East and northern Africa, was antiwar sentiment, much less an actual
movement.
Those like me working against America's seemingly
endless
wars wondered why the subject merited so little discussion, attention, or protest. Was it because the still-spreading war on
terror remained shrouded in government secrecy? Was the lack of media coverage about what America was doing overseas to blame? Or
was it simply that most Americans didn't care about what was happening past the water's edge? If you had asked me two years ago,
I would have chosen "all of the above." Now, I'm not so sure.
After the enormous demonstrations
against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the antiwar movement disappeared almost as suddenly as it began, with some even openly
declaring it dead. Critics
noted the long-term absence of significant protests against those wars, a lack of political will in Congress to deal with them,
and ultimately,
apathy on matters of war and peace when compared to issues like health care, gun control, or recently even
climate
change .
The pessimists have been right to point out that none of the plethora of marches on Washington since Donald Trump was elected
have had even a secondary focus on America's fruitless wars. They're certainly right to question why Congress, with the constitutional
duty to declare war, has until recently allowed both presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump to wage war as they wished without
even consulting them. They're right to feel nervous when a national
poll shows that more Americans think we're fighting a war in Iran (we're not) than a war in Somalia (
we are ).
But here's what I've been wondering recently: What if there's an antiwar movement growing right under our noses and we just haven't
noticed? What if we don't see it, in part, because it doesn't look like any antiwar movement we've even imagined?
If a movement is only a movement when people fill the streets, then maybe the critics are right. It might also be fair to say,
however, that protest marches do not always a movement make. Movements are
defined by their ability to challenge the status
quo and, right now, that's what might be beginning to happen when it comes to America's wars.
What if it's Parkland students
condemning American imperialism or groups fighting the
Muslim Ban that are
also fighting the war on terror? It's veterans not only trying to take on the wars they fought in, but putting themselves on
the front lines of the
gun control
,
climate change , and police brutality debates. It's
Congress
passing the first War Powers Resolution in almost 50 years. It's Democratic presidential candidates
signing a pledge to end America's endless wars.
For the last decade and a half, Americans -- and their elected representatives -- looked at our endless wars and essentially
shrugged. In 2019, however, an antiwar movement seems to be brewing. It just doesn't look like the ones that some remember from
the Vietnam era and others from the pre-invasion-of-Iraq moment. Instead, it's a movement that's being woven into just about every
other issue that Americans are fighting for right now -- which is exactly why it might actually work.
An estimated 100,000 people protested the war in Iraq in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15, 2007 (Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia
Commons)
A Veteran's Antiwar Movement in the Making?
During the Vietnam War of the 1960s
and early 1970s, protests began with religious groups and peace organizations morally opposed to war. As that conflict intensified,
however, students began to join the movement, then civil rights leaders such as
Martin Luther King, Jr. got involved,
then war veterans who had witnessed the horror firsthand stepped in -- until, with a seemingly constant storm of protest in the
streets, Washington eventually withdrew from Indochina.
You might look at the lack of public outrage now, or perhaps the
exhaustion of having been outraged
and nothing changing, and think an antiwar movement doesn't exist. Certainly, there's nothing like the active one that fought against
America's involvement in Vietnam for so long and so persistently. Yet it's important to notice that, among some of the very same
groups (like veterans, students, and even politicians) that fought against that war, a healthy
skepticism about America's 21st century wars, the Pentagon, the military industrial complex, and even the very idea of American
exceptionalism is finally on the rise -- or so the
polls tell us.
"Arlington West of Santa Monica," a project of Veterans for Peace, puts reminders of the costs of war on the beach in Santa Monica,
California. (Lorie Shaull via Flickr)
Right after the midterms last year, an organization named Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness
reported mournfully that younger Americans were "turning on the country and forgetting its ideals," with nearly half believing
that this country isn't "great" and many eyeing the U.S. flag as "a sign of intolerance and hatred." With millennials and Generation
Z rapidly becoming the
largest voting bloc in America for the next 20 years, their priorities are taking center stage. When it comes to foreign policy
and war, as it happens, they're quite different from the generations that preceded them. According to the
Chicago Council of Global Affairs ,
"Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a
goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and
to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across
the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more
likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization."
Although marches are the most public way to protest, another striking but understated way is simply not to engage with the systems
one doesn't agree with. For instance, the vast majority of today's teenagers aren't at all interested in joining the all-volunteer
military. Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army
fell thousands of troops short
of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017
Department of Defense poll that
found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has
the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on
creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z.
In addition, we're finally seeing what happens when soldiers from America's post-9/11 wars come home infused with a sense of
hopelessness in relation to those conflicts. These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning
disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress
against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right
alliance between two
influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically
at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together
to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a
pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months,
they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
and Ilhan Omar.
And this may just be the tip of a growing antiwar iceberg. A misconception about movement-building is that everyone is there
for the same reason, however broadly defined. That's often not the case and sometimes it's possible that you're in a movement and
don't even know it. If, for instance, I asked a room full of climate-change activists whether they also considered themselves part
of an antiwar movement, I can imagine the denials I'd get. And yet, whether they know it or not, sooner or later fighting climate
change will mean taking on the Pentagon's global footprint, too.
Think about it: not only is the U.S. military the world's
largest
institutional consumer of fossil fuels but, according to a
new report from Brown University's Costs of War Project, between 2001 and 2017, it released more than 1.2 billion metric tons
of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (400 million of which were related to the war on terror). That's equivalent to the emissions
of 257 million passenger cars, more than double the number currently on the road in the U.S.
A Growing Antiwar Movement in Congress
One way to sense the growth of antiwar sentiment in this country is to look not at the empty streets or even at veterans organizations
or recruitment polls, but at Congress. After all, one
indicator of a successful movement, however
incipient, is its power to influence and change those making the decisions in Washington. Since Donald Trump was elected, the most
visible evidence of growing antiwar sentiment is the way America's congressional policymakers have increasingly become engaged with
issues of war and peace. Politicians, after all, tend to follow the voters and, right now, growing numbers of them seem to be following
rising antiwar sentiment back home into an expanding set of debates about war and peace in the age of Trump.
In campaign season 2016, in an op-ed in The Washington Post , political scientist Elizabeth Saunders wondered whether foreign policy would play a significant role
in the presidential election. "Not likely," she concluded. "Voters do not pay much attention to foreign policy." And at the time,
she was on to something. For instance, Sen. Bernie Sanders, then competing for the Democratic presidential nomination against Hillary
Clinton, didn't
even prepare stock answers to basic national security questions, choosing instead, if asked at all, to quickly pivot back to
more familiar topics. In a debate with Clinton, for instance, he was asked whether he would keep troops in Afghanistan to deal with
the growing success of the Taliban. In his answer, he skipped Afghanistan entirely, while warning only vaguely against a "quagmire"
in Iraq and Syria.
Heading for 2020, Sanders is once again competing for the nomination, but instead of shying away from foreign policy, starting
in 2017, he became the face of what could be a
new American
way of thinking when it comes to how we see our role in the world.
In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk
introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the
brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill
ultimately passed
the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be
vetoed by President Trump. That
such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable
in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at
Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy."
Nor, strikingly enough, is Sanders the only Democratic presidential candidate now running on what is essentially an antiwar platform.
One of the main aspects of Elizabeth
Warren's foreign policy plan, for instance, is to "seriously review the country's military commitments overseas, and that includes
bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq." Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel have
joined Sanders and Warren in signing a pledge to end America's forever wars if elected.
Beto O'Rourke has called for the repeal
of Congress's 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force that presidents have cited ever since whenever they've sent American forces
into battle. Marianne Williamson , one of the
many (unlikely) Democratic candidates seeking the nomination, has even proposed a plan to transform America's "wartime economy into
a peace-time economy, repurposing the tremendous talents and infrastructure of [America's] military industrial complex to the work
of promoting life instead of death."
And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives,
and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their
skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound
to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come.
Get on Board or Get Out of the Way
When trying to create a movement, there are three likely
outcomes : you will
be accepted by the establishment, or rejected for your efforts, or the establishment will be replaced, in part or in whole, by those
who agree with you. That last point is exactly what we've been seeing, at least among Democrats, in the Trump years. While 2020
Democratic candidates for president, some of whom have been in the political arena for decades, are gradually hopping on the end-the-endless-wars
bandwagon, the real antiwar momentum in Washington has begun to come from new members of Congress like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
(AOC) and Ilhan Omar who are unwilling to accept business as usual when it comes to either the Pentagon or the country's forever
wars. In doing so, moreover, they are responding to what their constituents actually want.
As far back as 2014, when a
University of Texas-Austin Energy Poll asked people where the U.S. government should spend their tax dollars, only 7 percent
of respondents under 35 said it should go toward military and defense spending. Instead, in a "pretty significant political shift"
at the time, they overwhelmingly opted for their tax dollars to go toward job creation and education. Such a trend has only become
more apparent as those
calling
for free public college, Medicare-for-all, or a Green New Deal have come to
realize that they could pay for such ideas if America would stop pouring
trillions of dollars into wars that never should have been launched.
The new members of the House of Representatives, in particular, part of the youngest, most diverse crew
to date , have begun to replace the old guard and are increasingly signalling their readiness to throw out policies that don't
work for the American people, especially those reinforcing the American war machine. They understand that by ending the wars and
beginning to scale back the military-industrial complex, this country could once again have the resources it needs to fix so many
other problems.
In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We
have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we
continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something
equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this."
A few days before that, at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing, Ocasio-Cortez
confronted executives from military contractor TransDigm about the way they were price-gouging the American taxpayer by selling
a $32 "non-vehicular clutch disc" to the Department of Defense for $1,443 per disc. "A pair of jeans can cost $32; imagine paying
over $1,000 for that," she said. "Are you aware of how many doses of insulin we could get for that margin? I could've gotten over
1,500 people insulin for the cost of the margin of your price gouging for these vehicular discs alone."
And while such ridiculous waste
isn't news to those of us who follow Pentagon spending closely, this was undoubtedly something many of her millions of supporters
hadn't thought about before. After the hearing,
Teen Vogue
created a list of the "5 most ridiculous things the United States military has spent money on," comedian
Sarah Silverman tweeted out the AOC
hearing clip to her 12.6 million followers, Will and Grace actress
Debra Messing publicly expressed her gratitude
to AOC, and according to Crowdtangle, a social media analytics tool, the
NowThis clip of her in that congressional
hearing garnered more than 20 million impressions.
Ocasio-Cortez calling out costs charged by military contractor TransDigm. (YouTube)
Not only are members of Congress beginning to call attention to such undercovered issues, but perhaps they're even starting to
accomplish something. Just two weeks after that contentious hearing, TransDigm
agreed to return $16.1 million
in excess profits to the Department of Defense. "We saved more money today for the American people than our committee's entire budget
for the year," said House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings.
Of course, antiwar demonstrators have yet to pour into the streets, even though the wars we're already involved in continue to
drag on and a possible new one with Iran looms on the horizon. Still, there seems to be a notable trend in antiwar opinion and activism.
Somewhere just under the surface of American life lurks a genuine, diverse antiwar movement that appears to be coalescing around
a common goal: getting Washington politicians to believe that antiwar policies are supportable, even potentially popular. Call me
an eternal optimist, but someday I can imagine such a movement helping end those disastrous wars.
Allegra Harpootlian is a media associate at
ReThink Media , where she works with leading experts
and organizations at the intersection of national security, politics, and the media. She principally focuses on U.S. drone policies
and related use-of-force issues. She is also a political partner with the
Truman National Security Project . Find her on Twitter
@ally_harp .
"How Obama demobilized the antiwar movement"
By Brad Plumer
August 29, 2013
Washington Post
"Reihan Salam points to a 2011 paper by sociologists Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, who find that antiwar protests shrunk
very quickly after Obama took office in 2008 -- mainly because Democrats were less likely to show up:
Drawing upon 5,398 surveys of demonstrators at antiwar protests, interviews with movement leaders, and ethnographic observation,
this article argues that the antiwar movement demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican
sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, if not policy success in ending
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Heaney and Rojas begin by puzzling over a paradox. Obama ran as an antiwar candidate, but his first few years in office were
rather different: "As president, Obama maintained the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan. The antiwar movement
should have been furious at Obama's 'betrayal' and reinvigorated its protest activity. Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies
declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement dissipated.""
Rob , July 4, 2019 at 14:20
The author may be too young to realize that the overwhelming driving force in the anti-Vietnam War movement was hundreds
of thousands of young men who were at risk of being drafted and sent to fight, die and kill in that godforsaken war. As the
movement grew, it gathered in millions of others as well. Absent the military draft today, most of America's youth don't seem
to give half a damn about the current crimes of the U.S. military. As the saying goes: They have no skin in the game.
bardamu , July 3, 2019 at 20:21
There has again been some shift in Sanders' public positions, while Tulsi Gabbard occupies a position that was not represented
in '16, and HR Clinton was more openly bent on war than anyone currently at the table, though perhaps because that much of her
position had become so difficult to deny over the years.
That said, Clinton lost to Obama in '08 because she could not as effectively deny her militarism. There was at the time within
the Democratic Party more and clearer movement against the wars than there is now. One might remember the run for candidacy
of Dennis Kucinich, for example. The 8 years of the Obama regime were a consistent frustration and disappointment to any antiwar
or anticorporate voice within the Democratic Party, but complaints were muted because many would not speak against a Blue or
a Black president. More than at any prior time, corporate media spokespersons could endorse radically pro-corporate positions
and imply or accuse their opposition of racism.
That leaves it unclear, however, what any antiwar voices have to do with the Democratic Party itself, particularly if we
take "the party" to mean the political organization itself as opposed to the people whom it claims to represent. The Party and
the DNC were major engines in the rigging of the 2016 Democratic nomination–and also, lest we forget, contributors to the Donald
Trump nomination campaign.
It should not escape us, as we search for souls and soulfulness among these remnants of Democratic Parties Past, that any
turn of the party against war is surely due to Hillary Clinton's loss to presumed patsy candidate Donald Trump in 2016–the least
and second-least popular major presidential contenders in history, clearly, in whichever order one wishes to put them.
There is some value in realism, then. So as much as one hates to criticize a Bernie Sanders in anything like the present
field that he runs in, his is not a consistently antiwar position: he has gone back and forth. Tulsi Gabbard is the closest
thing to an antiwar candidate within the Party. And under even under the most favorable circumstances, 2020 is at best not her
year.
Most big money says war. scorched earth, steep hierarchy, and small constitution. Any who don't like it had best speak up
and act up.
I am for Tulsi, a Senator from Hawaii not a rep as this article says. Folk Music was in when the peace movement was strong
and building, the same for Folk Rock who songs also had words you could get without Google.
So my way of "hoping" for an Anti-War/Peace Movement is to have a Folk Revival in my mind.
Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 14:11
The answer to the question why anti war movement is dead is so simple and obvious but apparently invisible to most Dems/libs/progressives
(excuse my inability to discern the distinctions between labels). The answer points to our onetime "peace" president Obama.
As far as foreign interventions go (and domestic spying, among other things) Obama had continued Baby Bush's policy. Even worse,
Obama had given a bipartisan seal of approval (and legality) to most of Baby Bush's crimes. In other words, for 8 years, meaning
during the "peace" president's reign, the loyal "lefty" sheeple have held their mouth when it came to war and peace.
Obama and the Dems have very effectively killed the ant war movement
The establishment will always be pro-war because there's so much money in it. Street demonstrations will never change that,
as we recently learned with Iraq. The only strategy that has a chance of working is anti-enlistment. If they don't have the
troops they can't invade anywhere, and recruitment is already a problem. It needs to be a bigger problem.
Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 11:51
Sorry, ALL of these Democrat wannabes save one is ignorant of foreign affairs, foreign policy and its destruction of what
they blather on about – domestic vote-getting sky pies. Oh yes, free everything: schools, health care, social justices and services.
It's as though the MIC has not stolen the money from the public's pockets to get rich by sending cheap fodder out there to get
killed and wounded, amputated physically and mentally.
Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't stand
the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men, because she drew a bad
one. Huma was better company. Since she didn't know anything beyond the superficial, she did whatever the "experts" whispered
in her ears: War! Obama was in the same boat. The target, via gaining total control of oil from Libya to Syria and Iran was
her Putin hate. So her experts set up the Ukraine. The "experts" are the MIC/CIA and our fearless, brainless, corrupt military.
They have whispered the same psychotic message since the Gulf of Tonkin. We've lost to everyone with whom we've crossed swords
and left them devastated and America diminished save for the few.
So I was a Sanders supporter until he backed the warrior woman and I, like millions of others backed off of her party. It's
still her party. Everyone just loves every victim of every kind. They all spout minor variations on the same themes while Trump
and his neocons quietly install their right wing empire. Except for one who I spotted when she had the independence to go look
for herself in Syria.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate to be the candidate who has a balance of well thought through, realistic foreign policy
as well as the domestic non-extremist one. She has the hurdle of being a too-pretty woman, of being from the remotest state,
and not being a screamer. Even this article, written about peace by a woman fails to talk about her.
Tulsi has the registered voter count and a respectable budget, but the New York Times which is policy-controlled by a few
of Hillary's billionaire friends has consistently shut her out, because Tulsi left the corrupt Hillary-owned DNC to back Sanders
and Hillary never forgave her.
If you want to know who is against Trump and war, take 5 minutes and listen to what she really said during the 1st debate
where the CBS folks gave her little room to talk. It will change your outlook on what really is possible.
Hi Anonymot; I also exited my Sanders support after over 100 cash donations and over a years painful effort. I will never
call him Bernie again; now it is Sanders, since Bernie makes him sound cute and cute was not the word that came into my mind
as Mr. Sanders missed his world moment at the democratic election and backed Hillary Clinton (I can not vote for EVIL). Sanders
then proceeded to give part of my money to the DNC & to EVIL Hillary Clinton.
So then what now? Easy as Pie; NO MORE DEMOCRATS EVER. The DNC & DCCC used Election Fraud & Election Crimes blatantly to
beat Bernie Sanders. Right out in the open. The DNC & DCCC are War Mongering more then the Republicans which is saying allot.
The mass media and major Internet Plateforms like Goggle & Facebook are all owned by Evil Oligarchs that profit from WAR and
blatantly are today suppressing all dissenting opinions (anti Free Speech).
I stopped making cash donation to Tulsi Gabbard upon the realization that the Democrats were not at all a force for Life
or Good and instead were a criminal organization. The voting for the lessor of two EVILs is 100% STUPID.
I told Tim Canova I could not support any Democrat ever again as I told Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi is still running as a criminal
democrat. If she would run independent of the DNC then I would start to donate cash to her again. End of my story about Tulsi.
I do like her antiwar dialog, but there is no; so called changing, the DNC from the inside. The Oligarchs own the DNC and are
not supportive of "We The People" or the Constitution, or the American Republic.
The end of Tim Canova's effort was he was overtly CHEATED AGAIN by the DNC's Election Fraud & Election Crimes in his 2018
run for congress against Hillary Clinton's 100% corrupt campaign manager; who congress seated even over Tim's asking them not
to seat her until his law suites on her election crimes against him were assessed. Election crimes and rigged voting machines
in Florida are a way of life now and have been for decades and decades.
All elections must be publicly funded. All votes must be on paper ballots and accessible for recounts and that is just the
very minimums needed to start changing the 100% corrupted election system we Americans have been railroaded into.
The supreme Court has recently ruled that gerrymandering is OK. The supreme court has proven to be a political organization
with their Bush Gore decision and now are just political hacks and as such need to be ELECTED not appointed. Their rulings that
Money is Free Speech & that Corporations are People has disenfranchised "We the People". That makes the Supreme Court a tool
to be used by the world money elite to overturn the constitution of the United States of America.
No More War. No More War. No More War.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 16:40
Absolutely spot-on, superb comment, P .Brooks.
DW
Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 18:08
I saw the light (with what the Dems are really about) after Kucinich's candidacy. That made me one of the very few lefties
in my circle not to have voted for Obama even the first time around. I hear a lot of talk about trying to reform the party from
inside. Utter bu** sh**. "You cannot reform Mafia".
Ever since Kucinich, I have been voting Green. No, this is not a waste of my vote. Besides, I cannot be complicit to war
crimes – that's what it makes anyone who votes for either of the two parties.
Steven , July 3, 2019 at 13:56
Wow you said a mouthful. It's worse than that its a cottage industry that includes gun running, drug running and human trafficking
netting Trillions to the MIC, CIA and other alphabet agencies you can't fight the mark of the beast.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:01
I fully back/endorse Gabbard, but
The battering of Bernie is not fair. He is NOT a Democrat, therefore him being able to get "inside" that party to run AS
a Dem put him in a tenuous situation. He really had no option other than to support HRC lest his movement, everyone's movement,
would get extra hammering by the neocons and status quo powers. He wouldn't be running, again, had he not done this. Yeah, it's
a bad taste, I get it, but had he disavowed HRC would the outcome -Trump- been any different? The BLAME goes fully on the DNC
and the Clintons. Full stop.
I do not see AOC as a full progressive. She is only doing enough to make it appear so. The Green New Deal is stolen from
the Green Party and is watered down. Think of this as "Obama Care" for the planet. As you should know, Gabbard's Off Fossil
Fuels Act (OFF) actually has real teeth in it: and is closer to the Green Party's positions.
I support movements and positions. PRIMARY is peace. Gabbard, though not a pacifist, has the right path on all of this: I've
been around long enough to understand exactly how she's approaching all of this. She is, however, taking on EVERYONE. As powerful
a person as she is (she has more fortitude than the entire lot of combined POTUS candidates put together) going to require MASSIVE
support; sadly, -to this point- this article doesn't help by implying that people aren't interested in foreign policy (it perpetuates
the blockout of it- people have to be reeducated on its importance- not something that the MIC wants), people aren't yet able
to see the connections. The education will occur will it happen in a timely way such that people would elect Gabbard? (things
can turn on a dime, history has shown this; she has the makeup that suggests that she's going to have a big role in making history).
I did not support Bernie (and so far have not- he's got ample support; if it comes down to it he WILL get my vote- and I've
held off voting for many years because there's been no real "peace" candidate on the plate). Gabbard, however, has my support
now, and likely till the day I die: I've been around long enough to know what constitutes a great leader, and not since the
late 60s have we had anyone like her. If Bernie gets the nomination it is my prediction that he will have Gabbard high on his
staff, if not as VP: a sure fire way to win is to have Gabbard as VP.
I'm going to leave this for folks to contemplate as to whether Gabbard is real or not:
In a context in which Rio de Janeiro's evangelical churches have been accused of laundering money for the drug trafficking
gangs, all elements of Afro-Brazilian culture including caipoeira, Jango drumming, and participation in Carnaval parades, have
been banned by the traffickers in many favelas.
[end excerpt]
"caipoeria," is something that Gabbard has practiced:
"I trained in different martial arts since I was a kid including Capoeira -- an amazing art created by slaves in Brazil who
were training to fight and resist against their slave masters, disguising their training with music, acrobatics, and dance.
Yesterday I joined my friends Mestre Kinha and others at Capoeira Besouro Hawai'i for their batizado ceremony and some fun!
" – Tulsi Gabbard December 9, 2018
The GOAL is to get her into the upper halls of governing power. If the people cannot see fit to it then I'll support Sanders
(in the end) so that he can do it.
Harpootlian claims to see what's going on, but, unfortunately, she's not able to look close enough.
Anonymot, thank you for leading out here with Gabbard and her message.
michael , July 4, 2019 at 08:10
If Gabbard had the MSM coverage Buttigieg has received she probably be leading in the polls. It is surprising(?) that this
supposedly anti-war author mentions corporatist Mayor Pete but not Gabbard.
David , July 4, 2019 at 19:55
She DOES (briefly)mention Gabbard, but she missed the fact that Gabbard is the most strongly anti-war candidate. She gets
it entirely wrong about Buttigieg, who is strikingly pro-war, and supports getting in to a war with Iran.
And sadly, Ms. Gabbard is mired at the 1% mark in the polls, even after having performed so well in the debate.
This seems to me an indication of the public's lack of caring about our foreign wars.
antonio Costa , July 3, 2019 at 19:06
The reason she's "mired" is because a number of polls don't include her!! However they include, Marianne Williamson.
How's that for inverse totalitarianism par excellence .
Skip Scott , July 4, 2019 at 07:05
I did see one poll that had her at 2%. And given the reputation of many polling outfits, I take any professed results with
a grain of salt. Tulsi's press coverage (what little she gets) has been mostly defamatory to the point of being libelous. If
her strong performance continues in the primary debates despite all efforts to sabotage her, I think she could make a strong
showing. That said, at some point she will have to renounce the DNC controlled democratic party and run as an Independent if
she wants to make the General Election debates for 2020.
"Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't
stand the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men "
If I were to psychologize, I would conjecture more un-gendered stereotype, namely that of a good student. He/she diligently
learns in all classes from the prescribed textbooks and reading materials, and, alas, American education on foreign affairs
is dominated by retirees from CIA and other armchair warriors. Of course, nothing wrong about good students in general, but
I mean the type that is obedient, devoid of originality and independent thinking. When admonished, he/she remembers the pain
for life and strives hard not to repeat it. E.g. as First Lady, Hillary kissed Arafat's wife to emulate Middle East custom,
and NY tabloids had a feast for months.
Concerning Tulsi, no Hillary-related conspiracy is needed to explain the behavior of the mass media. Tulsi is a heretic to
the establishment, and their idea is to be arbiters of what and who belongs to the "mainstream", and what is radical, marginal
etc. Tulsi richly deserves her treatment. Confronted with taunts like "so you would prefer X to stay in power" (Assad, Maduro
etc.) she replies that it should not be up to USA to decide who stays in power, especially if no better scenario is in sight.
The gall, the cheek!
Strangely enough, Tulsi gets this treatment in places like The Nation and Counterpunch. As the hitherto "radical left" got
a whiff of being admitted to the hallowed mainstream from time to time, they try to be "responsible".
Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:39
Yes! Thank You I was gritting my teeth reading this article #Tulsi2020
Eddie , July 3, 2019 at 11:42
The end of the anti-war movement expired when the snake-oil pitchman with the toothy smile and dark skin brought his chains
we could beleive in to the White House. The so-called progressives simply went to sleep while they never criticized Barack Obama
for escalating W. Bush's wars and tax cuts for the rich.
The fake left wing in the US remained silent when Obama dumped trillions of dollars into the vaults of his bankster pals
as he stole the very homes from the people who voted him into office. Then along came the next hope and change miracle worker
Bernie Sanders. Only instead of working miracles for the working class, Sanders showed his true colors when he fcuked his constituents
to support the hated Hillary Clinton.
Let's start facing reality. The two-party dictatorship does not care about you unless you can pony up the big bucks like
their masters in the oligarchy and the soulless corporations do. Unless and until workers end to the criminal stranglehold that
the big-business parties and the money class have on the government, things will continue to slide into the abyss.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:33
An informed awareness of imperialism must also include an analysis of how "technology" is used and abused, from the use of
"superior" weaponry against people who do not have such weapons, from blunderbuss and sailing ships, to B-52s and napalm, up
to and including technology that may be "weaponized" against civilian populations WiTHIN a society, be it 24/7 surveillance
or robotics and AI that could permit elites to dispense with any "need", on the part of the elites, to tolerate the very existence
of a laborung class, or ANY who earn their wealth through actual work, from maids to surgeons, from machine operators to professors.
Any assumption, that any who "work", even lawyers or military officers, can consider their occupation or profession as "safe",
is to assume that the scapegoating will stop with those the highly paid regard as "losers", such comfortable assumption may
very well prove as illusory and ephemeral as an early morning mist before the hot and merciless Sun rises.
The very notions of unfettered greed and limitless power, resulting in total control, must be recognized as the prime drivers
of endless war and shock-doctrine capitalism which, combined, ARE imperialism, unhinged and insane.
michael , July 3, 2019 at 11:06
This article is weak. Anyone who could equate Mayor Pete or the eleven Democrat "ex"-military and CIA analysts who gained
seats in Congress in 2018 as anti-war is clueless. Tulsi Gabbard is anti-regime change war, but is in favor of fighting "terrorists"
(created mostly by our CIA and Israel with Saudi funding). Mike Gravel is the only true totally anti-war 'candidate' and he
supports Gabbard as the only anti-War of the Democrats.
In WWI, 90% of Americans who served were drafted, in WWII over 60% of Americans who served were drafted. The Vietnam War "peace
demonstrations" were more about the Draft, and skin-in-the-game, than about War. Nixon and Kissinger abolished the Draft (which
stopped most anti-war protests), but continued carpet bombing Vietnam and neighboring countries (Operations Menu, Freedom Deal,
Patio, etc), and Vietnamized the War which was already lost, although the killing continued through 1973. The abolition of the
Draft largely gutted the anti-war movement. Sporadic protests against Bush/ Cheney over Afghanistan and Iraq essentially disappeared
under Obama/ Hillary in Afghanistan and Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Since their National Emergency proclamations
no longer ever end, we are in a position to attack Venezuela (Obama), Ukraine (Obama), South Sudan (Obama), Iran (Carter, Clinton),
Libya (Obama), Somalia (Obama), Yemen (Obama), Nicaragua (Trump) and even Burundi (Obama) and the Central African Republic (Obama).
The continuing support of death squads in Honduras and other Latin American countries ("stability is more important than democracy")
has contributed to the immigration crises over the last five years.
As Pelosi noted about Democratic progressives "there are like five of them". Obama not only failed to reverse any of the police
state and warmongering of Bush/Cheney, he expanded both police state (arresting and prosecuting Chelsea Manning for exposing
war crimes, as well as more whistleblowers than anyone in history), and wars in seven Arab Muslim countries. Black Americans,
who had always been an anti-War bloc prior to Obama, converted to the new America. The Congressional Democrats joined with Republicans
to give more to the military budget than requested by Trump. (Clinton squandered the Peace Dividend when the Soviet Union fell,
and Lee Camp has exposed the $21 TRILLION "lost" by the Pentagon.)
The young author see anti-war improvements that are not there. The US is more pro-war in its foreign policies than at any time
in its history. When there was a Draft, the public would not tolerate decades of war (lest their young men died). Sanctions
are now the first attack (usually by National Emergencies!); the 500,000 Iraqi children killed by Clinton's sanctions (Madeline
Albright: "we think it was worth it!") is just sadism and psychopathy at the top, which is necessary for War.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:38
Superb comment, michael, very much agreed with and appreciated.
DW
Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 12:06
You are absolutely right. Obama and Hillary were the brilliant ideas of the MIC/CIA when they realized that NO ONE the Republicans
put up after Bush baby's 2nd round. They chose 2 "victims" black & woman) who would do what they were told to do in order to
promote their causes (blacks & get-filthy rich.) The first loser would get the next round. And that's exactly what happened
until Hillary proved to be so unacceptable that she was rejected. We traded no new war for an administration leading us into
a neo-nazi dictatorship.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:04
Thank you for this comment!
Mickey , July 3, 2019 at 10:47
Tulsi Gabbard is the only peace candidate in the Democratic Party
Many current crises have the potential to escalate into a major confrontation between the nuclear powers, similar to the
Cuban missile crisis, though there is no comparable sense of alarm. Then, tensions were at boiling point, when a small military
exchange could have led to nuclear annihilation. Today there are many more such flashpoint – Syria, the South China Sea, Iran,
Ukraine to name a few. Since the end of the Cold War there has been a gradual movement towards third world war. Condemnation
of an attack on Iran must include, foremost, the warning that it could lead the US into a confrontation with a Sino-Russian
alliance. The warning from history is states go to war over interests, but ultimately – and blindly – end up getting the very
war they need to avoid: even nuclear war, where the current trend is going. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:36
Many truly superb, well-informed, and very enlightening comments on this thread.
My very great appreciation to this site, to its authors, and to its exceptionally thoughtful and articulate commenters.
DW
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:20
I appreciate this author's perspective, research, and optimism.
Clearly, the young ARE far more open to embracing a future less warlike and hegemonic, while far too many of my generation
are wedded to childish myth and fantasy around U$ driven mayhem.
However, I would suggest that vision be broadened beyond opposition to war, which opposition, while important, must be expanded
to opposition to the larger issue of imperialism, itself.
Imperialism is not merely war, it includes economic warfare, both sanctions, internationally, and predatory debt loads, domestically,
in very many nations of the world, as well as privatization of the commons (which must be understood to include all resources
necessary to human existence).
Perpetual war, which profits only the few, is driven by precisely the same aims as pitting workers against each other, worldwide,
in a "game" of "race to the bottom", creating "credit" rather than raising wages, thus creating life-long indebtedness of the
many, which only benefits monopolized corporate interests, as does corporate ownership of such necessities as water, food production,
and most channels of communication, which permits corporations to easily shape public perception toward whatever ends suit corporate
purposes while also ensuring that deeper awareness of what is actually occurring is effectively stifled, deplatformed, or smeared
as dangerous foreign fake news or as hidden, or even as blatant, racial or religious hatred.
Above all, it is critically important that all these interrelated aspects of deliberate domination, control, and diminishment,
ARE talked about, openly, that we all may have better grasp of who really aligns with creating serious systemic change, especially
as traditionally assumed "tendencies" are shifting, quickly and even profoundly.
For example, as many here point out, the Democrats are now as much a war party as the Republicans, "traditionally" have been,
even as there is clear evidence that the Republican "base" is becoming less willing to go to war than are the Democratic "base",
as CNN and MSNBC media outlets strive to incite a new Cold War and champion and applaud aggression in Syria, Iran, and North
Korea.
It is the elite Democratic "leadership" and most Democratic Presidential hopefuls who now preach or excuse war and aggression,
with few actual exceptions, and none of them, including Tulsi Gabbard, have come anywhere near openly discussing or embracing,
the end of U$ imperialism.
Both neoliberal and neocon philosophies are absolutely dedicated to imperialism in all its destructive, even terminal, manifestations.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:16
Exactly!
Gabbard has spoken out against sanctions. She understands that they're just another form of war.
The younger generations won't be able to financially support imperialist activities. And, they won't be, as the statements
to their enlistment numbers suggest, able to "man the guns." I'm thinking that TPTB are aware of this (which is why a lot of
drone and other automation of war machinery has been stepped up).
The recent alliance of Soros and Charles Koch, the Quincy Institute, is, I believe, a KEY turning point. Pretty much everything
Gabbard is saying/calling for is this institute's mission statement: and people ought to note that Gabbard has been in Charles
Koch's circle- might very well be that Gabbard has already influenced things in a positive way.
I also believe that all the great independent journalists, publishers (Assange taking the title here) and whistleblowers
(Manning taking the title here) have made a HUGE impact. Bless them all.
The US government consistently uses psychological operations on its own citizens to manufacture consent to kill anyone and
everyone. Meaningless propaganda phrases such as "Support Our Troops" and "National Security" and "War on Terror" are thrown
around to justify genocides and sieges and distract us from murder. There is no left wing or in American politics and there
has not been one since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. All we have is neoconservatives and neoliberals representing the business
party for four decades. Killing is our business and business is good. Men are as monkeys with guns when it comes to politics
and religion.
One might be hard-pressed to find more outright perversions of reality in a mere two pages of text. Congratulations Congress,
you have indeed surpassed yourself.
So it's those dastardly Russians and Iranians who are responsible for the destabilization of the Middle East, "complicating
Israel's ability to defend itself from hostile action emanating from Syria." And apparently, it's the "ungoverned space" in
Syria that has "allowed" for the rise of terrorist factions in Syria, that (we must be reminded) are ever poised to attack "Western
targets, our allies and partners, and the U.S. homeland."
Good grief.
Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 08:29
Thank you Joe Lauria and Consortiumnews.
There is much wisdom and a good deal of personal experience being expressed on these pages. I especially want to thank IvyMike
and Dao Gen. Ivy Mike you're so right about our troops in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, draftees and volunteers, they fought what
was clearly an internal civil war fought valiantly, beyond that point, Vietnam was a political mess for all involved. And Dao
Gen all of your points are accurate.
As for our legislators, please read the linked Foreign Affairs press release signed by over 400 leglislators On May 20th.,
2019 that address "threats to Syria" including the Russia threat. Clearly it will take action by the People and Peace candidates
to end this travesty of a foreign policy.
Vietnam a war triggered by the prevention of a mandated election by the USA which Ho Chi Minh was likely to win, who had
already recently been Premier of a unified Vietnam.
Sorry, being courageous in a vicious cause is not honorable.
Speaking a true history and responsibility is honorable.
Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 11:07
No need to be sorry James Clooney. I did not mention honor in my comment, I mentioned valiant (courage and determination).
American troupes ultimately fight honorably for each other not necessarily for country. This was the message and evaluation
of Captain Hal Moore To General Westmorland And Robert McNamera after the initial engagement of US troops and NVA and can be
viewed as a special feature of the largely inaccurate DVD "We Were Soldiers And Young).
The veterans group About Face is doing remarkable work against the imperial militarization that threatens to consume our
country and possibly the world. This threat includes militarization of US police, a growing nuclear arms race, and so-called
humanitarian wars. About Face is also working to train ordinary people as medics to take these skills into their communities
whose members are on the front lines of police brutality.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate with a strong, enlightened understanding of the costs of our many imperial wars Costs to
ourselves in the US and costs to the people we invade in order to "save" them. I voted for McGovern in 1972. I would vote for
Tuldi's Gabbard in 2020 if given the chance.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:35
Vote for her now by supporting her*! One cannot wait until the DNC (or other party) picks the candidate FOR us. Anyone serious
about peace ought to support her, and do it now and far into the future. I have always supported candidates who are champions
for peace, no matter their "party" or whatever: I did not, though I wish that I had, support Walter Jones -of Freedom Fries
fame- after he did a 180 (Gabbard knew Jones, and respected him); it took a lot of guts for him to do this, but his honest (like
Ron Paul proved) was proven and his voters accepted him (and likely shifted their views along with him).
* Yeah, one has to register giving money, but for a lousy $1 She has yet to qualify for the third debate (need 130k unique
donations): and yet Yang has! (nothing against him, but come on, he is not "Commander in Chief" material [and at this time it
is, as Gabbard repeats, the single most important part of being president]).
Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:43
Strongly agree Only Tulsi
triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:14
Not surprising there was little or no antiwar sentiment in the newfound civic engagement after Trump's election, since the
majority of those participating were supporters of the war criminals Obama, Clinton, and their corporate, war mongering DEM
party. Those same people today, support Obama-chaperone Biden, or one of the other vetted corporate DEMs, including socialist-in-name-only
Sanders, who signed the DEM loyalty oath promising to continue austerity for the poor, socialism for rich, deregulation, militarism,
and global war hegemony. The only party with an antiwar blank was the Green Party, which captured >2% of the ~130 million votes
in the rigged election- even though Stein is as competent as Clinton, certainly more competent than Trump, and the Green platform,
unlike Sanders', explained how to pay for social and environmental programs by ending illegal wars in at least 7 countries,
closing 1000 military command posts located all over earth, removing air craft carrier task forces from every ocean, cutting
defense spending.
I believe the CIA operation "CARWASH" was under Obama, which gave us Ultra fascism in one of the largest economies in the
world, Brazil.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:02
Superb comment, trieke, and I especially appreciate your mention of Jill Stein and the Green Party.
It is unfortunate that the the Green New Deal, championed by AOC is such a pale and intentionally pusillanimous copy of the
Green New Deal articulated by Stein, which pointedly made clear that blind and blythe economic expansion must cease, that realistic
natural constraints and carrying capacity be accepted and profligate energy squandering come to an end.
That a sane, humane, and sustainable economic system, wholly compatible with ecological responsibility can provide neaningful
endeavor, justly compensated, for all, as was coherently addressed and explained to any who cared to examine the substance of
that, actual, and realistic, original, GND.
Such a vision must be part of successfully challenging, and ending, U$ imperialism.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:53
And Trump likely signed a GOP pledge. It's all superficial crap, nothing that is really written in stone.
I LOVE Stein. But for the sake of the planet we have little time to wait on getting the Green Party up to speed (to the clasp
the levers of power). Unless Gabbard comes out on top (well, the ultimate, and my favorite, long-shot would be Gravel, but reality
is something that I have to accept) it can only really be Sanders. I see a Sanders nomination as being the next best thing (and,
really, the last hope as it all falls WAY off the cliff after that). He would most certainly have Gabbard along (if not as VP,
which is the best strategy for winning, then as some other high-ranking, and meaningful cabinet member). Also, there are a lot
of folks that would be coming in on his coattails. It is THESE people that will make the most difference: although he's got
his flaws, Ro Kana would be a good top official. And, there are all the supporters who would help push. Sanders is WAY better
than HRC (Obama and, of course, Trump). He isn't my favorite, but he has enough lean in him to allow others to help him push
the door open: I'll accept him if that's what it take to get Gabbard into all of this.
Sometimes you DO have to infiltrate. Sanders is an infiltrator (not a Dem), though he treads lightly. Gabbard has already
proven her intentions: directly confronted the DNC and the HRC machine (and her direct attack on the MIC is made very clear);
and, she is indirectly endorsed by some of the best people out there who have run for POTUS: Jill Stein; Ron Paul; Mike Gravel.
We cannot wait for the Dems (and the MIC) to disarm. We need to get inside "the building" and disarm. IF Sanders or Gabbard
(and no Gravel) don't get the nomination THEN it is time to open up direct "warfare" and attack from the "outside" (at this
time there should be enough big defectors to start swinging the tide).
Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:34
Yes trieke, I voted for Stein in 2016, and I plan on voting Green Party again in 2020. I see too many fellow progressives/liberals/leftists
(whatever the hell we want to call ourselves) agonizing about which compromised Democrat to vote-for, trying to weigh their
different liabilities, etc. I've come to believe that my duty as a voter is to vote for the POTUS candidate/party whose stances/platform
are closest to my views, and that's unequivocally the Green Party. My duty as a voter does NOT entail 'voting for a winner',
that's just part of the two-party-con that the Dems & Reps run.
jmg , July 3, 2019 at 07:06
The big difference is that, during the Vietnam years, people could *see* the war. People talked a lot about "photographs
that ended the Vietnam war", such as the napalm girl, etc.
The government noticed this. There were enormous pressures on the press, even a ban on returning coffin photos. Now, since
the two Iraq wars, people *don't see* the reality of war. The TV and press don't show Afghanistan, don't show Yemen, didn't
show the real Iraq excepting for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, who are in prison because of this.
And the wars go on:
"The US government and military are preventing the public from seeing photographs that depict the true horror of the Iraq
war."
For example, we all know that mainstream media is war propaganda now, itself at war on truth and, apart from some convenient
false flags to justify attacks, they very rarely let the very people suffering wars be heard to wake viewers up, and don't often
even show this uncensored reality of war anymore, not like the true images of this old, powerful video:
Happy Xmas (War Is Over! If You Want It)
So this is Xmas
And what have you done
-- John Lennon
mbob -- thank you -- has already put this very well, but it is above all the Dems, especially Obama and the Clintons, who
killed the antiwar movement. Obama was a fake, and his foreign policy became even more hawkish after Hillary resigned as SoS.
His reduction of Libya, the richest state in Africa, to a feudal chaotic zone in which slavery is once more prominent and his
attempt to demonize Syria, which has more semi-democracy and women's rights than any of the Islamic kingdoms the US supports
as its allies, and turn Syria into a jihadi terrorist hell, as well as Obama's bombing of other nations and his sanctions on
still other nations such as Venezuela, injured and killed at least as many people as did GW Bush's invasion of Iraq. Yet where
was the antiwar movement? In the 21st century the US antiwar movement has gained most of its strength from anti-Repub hatred.
The current uptick of antiwar feeling is probably due mostly to hatred of Trump. Yet Trump is the first president since Carter
not to invade or make a major attack on a foreign country. As a businessman, his policy is to use economic warfare instead of
military warfare.
I am not a Trump supporter, and strong sanctions are a war crime, and Trump is also slow to reduce some of Obama's overseas
bombing and other campaigns, yet ironically he is surely closer to being a "peace president" than Obama. Moreover, a major reason
Trump won in 2016 was that Hillary was regarded as the war and foreign intervention candidate, and in fact if Hillary had won,
she probably would have invaded Syria to set up her infamous "no-fly zone" there, and she might have bombed Iran by now. We
might even be in a war with Russia now. At the same time, under Trump the Dem leadership and the Dem-leaning MSM have pursued
an unabashedly neocon policy of attacking from the right Trumps attempts at detente with Russia and scorning his attempts to
negotiate a treaty with N Korea and to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan. The main reason why Trump chose dangerous neocons
like Bolton and Pompeo as advisors was probably to shield himself a little from the incessant and sometimes xenophobic attacks
from the Dem leadership and the MSM. The Dem leadership seems motivated not only by hatred of Trump but also, and probably more
importantly, by a desire to get donations from the military-industrial complex and a desire to ingratiate itself with the Intel
Community and the surveillance state in order to get various favors. Look, for example, at Adam Schiff, cheerleader-in-chief
for the IC. The system of massive collusion between the Dem party elite and the US deep state was not as advanced during the
Vietnam War era as it is now. 2003 changed a lot of things.
The only Dem presidential candidates who are philosophically and securely antiwar are Gabbard and Gravel. Even Bernie (and
even more so, Warren) can't be trusted to stand up to the deep state if elected, and anyway, Bernie's support for the Russiagate
hoax by itself disqualifies him as an antiwar politician, while the Yemen bill he sponsored had a fatal loophole in it, as Bernie
well knew. I love Bernie, but he is neither antiwar nor anti-empire. As for Seth Moulton, mentioned in the article, he is my
Rep, and he makes some mild criticisms of the military, but he is a rabid hawk on Syria and Iran, and he recently voted for
a Repub amendment that would have punished Americans who donate to BDS organizations. And as for the younger generation of Dems,
they are not as antiwar as the article suggests. For every AOC among the newly elected Dems in 2018, there were almost two new
Dems who are military vets or who formerly worked for intel agencies. This does not bode well. As long at the deep state, the
Dem elite, and the MSM are tightly intertwined, there will be no major peace movement in the near future, even if a Dem becomes
president. In fact, a Dem president might hinder the formation of a true antiwar movement. Perhaps when China becomes more powerful
in ten or twenty years, the unipolar US empire and permanent war state will no longer look like a very good idea to a large
number of Americans, and the idea of a peace movement will once again become realistic. The media have a major role to play
in spreading truthful news about how the current US empire is hurting domestic living standards. Rather than hopey-hope wish
lists, no-holds-barred reporting will surely play a big role.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:05
Absolutely superb comment, Dao Gen.
DW
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:07
Another fine example of why I think there is hope! (some very sharp commentators!)
A strong leader can make all the difference. The example gets set from the top: not that this is my preference, just that
it's the reality we have today. MLK Jr. was such a leader, though it was MANY great people that were in his movement/orbit that
were the primary architects. I suppose you could say it's a "rally around the flag" kind of deal. Just as Trump stunned the
System, I believe that it can be stunned from the "left" (the ultimate stunning would be from a Gravel win, but I'm thinking
that Gabbard would be the one that has what it takes to slip past).
I really wish that people would start asking candidates who they think have been good cabinet members for various positions.
This could help give an idea of the most important facet of an administration: who the POTUS selects as key cabinet members
tells pretty much everything you need to know. Sadly, Trump had a shot at selecting Gabbard and passed on her: as much as I
detest Trump, I gave him room in which to work away from the noecon/neolib death squads (to his credit he's mostly just stalemated
them- for a rookie politician you could say that this has been an impressive feat; he's tried to instigate new wars but has,
so far, "failed" [by design?]).
geeyp , July 3, 2019 at 01:19
"We saved more money today for the American people ." – Elijah Cummings. Yea? Well then, give it to us!! You owe us a return
of our money that you have wasted for years.
mark , July 3, 2019 at 00:17
Same old, same old, same old, same old.
Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be
different.
There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel.
Honest.
Just like Dubya.
Just like Obomber.
Just like the Orange Baboon.
Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.
And this is the "new anti war movement."
Yeah.
Tom Kath , July 3, 2019 at 00:04
Every extreme elicits an extreme response. Our current western pacifist obsession is no exception. By prohibiting argument,
disagreement, verbal conflict, and the occasional playground "dust up" on a personal level, you seem to make the seemingly less
personal war inevitable.
Life on earth is simply not possible without "a bit of biff".
An aware person may not react extremely to a extreme. USA slaughtered 5 to 10 million Vietnamese for no apparent reason other
than projection of power yet the Vietnamese trade with the USA today.
Who prohibits argument? Certainly not those with little power; it's the militarily and politically powerful that crush dissent,
(Tinamen Square , Occupy Wall Street). How much dissent does the military allow? Why is Assange being persecuted?
I believe even the most militant pacifist would welcome a lively debate on murder, death and genocide, as a channel for education
and edification.
Antonio Costa , July 2, 2019 at 20:53
Weak essay. AOC hops from cause to cause. She rarely/ever says anything about US regime change wars, and the bombing of children.
She's demonstrated no anti-war bona fides.
Only Tulsi Gabbard has forthright called for an end to regime change wars, the warmongers and reduction in our military.
The power is with the powerful. We'll not see an end to war, nor Medicare for All or much of anything regarding student debt.
These are deep systemic problems calling for systemic solutions beginning with how we live on the planet(GND is a red herring),
the GDP must become null and void if we are to behave as if plundering the planet is part of "progress". It needs to be replaced
to some that focuses on quality of life as the key to prosperity. The geopolitics of the world have to simply STOP IT. It's
not about coalitions between Russia and China and India to off-set the US imperialists. That's an old game for an empty planet.
The planet is full and exceeding it capacity and is on fire. Our geopolitics must end!
Not one of these candidates come close to focusing on the systemic problem(s) except Gabbard's focus on war because it attacks
the heart of the American Imperial Empire.
Maxime , July 3, 2019 at 09:24
I agree with you that you americans will probably not see the end of your system and the end of your problems any time soon.
BUT I disagree on that you seems to think it's inevitable. I'm not american, I'm french, and reading you saying you think
medicare for all, no student debt and end to endless wars are systemic problems linked to GDP and the current economic system
is well, amusing. We have medicare for all, in fact even better than your medicare, we have no student cost for our educating
system, and still in both cases often better results than yours, even if we are behind some of our northern neighbors, but they
don't pay for these either. And we don't wage endless wars, even if we have ourselves our own big war problems, after all we
were in Lybia, we are in Syria, we are in Mali and other parts of Africa.
We also have a big militaro-industrial complex, in fact very alike the american one. But we made clear since much longer
than we would not accept as much wars, in part because the lesson we got from WW2 and Cold War was to learn to live together
with our hated neighbor. You know, the one the other side of the Rhine. Today France is a diplomatic superpower, often the head
of the european spear onthe subject, we got feared elite military, and we are proud of that, but we would not even accept more
money (in proportion) given to our military complex.
And you know the best news (for the americans)? we have an history of warmongering going back millenias. We learn to love
Caesar and the "Guerre des Gaules", his invasion of Gauls. We learn how Franks invaded their neighbors and built the first post-roman
Empire. We learn how crusaders were called Franks, how we built our nation and his pride on ashes of european continental english
hopes and german holy empire aspirations. We learn how Napolean nearly achieved to built a new continental Empire, how we never
let them passed at Verdun, and how we rose in the face of a tyran in 1944.
All of this is still in our history books, and we're still proud of it. But today, if most of us were to be asked what we
were proud about recent wars France got into, it would be how our president vetoed USA when they tried to got UN into Irak and
forced them to invade illegally, and without us.
I think my country's revelation was Algeria's independance war. One bloody and largely filled with war crimes and crimes against
humanity. We're ashamed of it, and I think we, as a nation, learned from it that stopping wars on our soil wasn't enough. I
still don't understand how americans can still wage wars after Vietnam, but I am not american. Still, even the most warmongering
nation can learn. Let's hope you will be quicker than us, because we got millennias of bloody history before even the birth
of USA.
Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:15
Thanks Maxime for a foreign perspective! I'm often curious what people in foreign countries think of our current politics
in the US,especially when I read analysis/commentaries by US writers (even ones I respect) who say "Oh most of our allies think
this or that" -- - maybe they're right or maybe they're wrong or somewhere in-between, but it's interesting getting a DIRECT
opinion from a fellow left-of-center citizen from a foreign state.
I agree with your points that European countries like France almost all have their own bloody history including an imperial
period, but the two big World Wars that killed SO many people and destroyed so many cities in Europe were so tragic and wasteful
that I suspect they DO continue to act as a significant deterrent to the saber-rattling that the US war mongers are able to
engage-in. For too many US citizens 'war' is just something that's mentioned & sometimes displayed on a screen, just like a
movie/TV program/video-game, and there's a non-reality to it because it's so far away and seldom directly affects them. Geography
has famously isolated us from the major death & destruction of war and enables too many armchair warriors to talk boldly and
vote for politicians who pander to those conceits. In a not-so-subtle way, the US IS the younger offspring of Europe, where
Europe has grown-up due to some hard lessons, while the US is going through its own destructive stage of 'lesson-learning'.
Hopefully this learning stage will be over soon and won't involve a world war.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:48
Tulsi Gabbard is, indeed,pointing at part of a major organ of imperialism, Antonio Costa, yet habeas corpus, having the whole
body of imperialism produced is necessary for the considered judgement of a people long terrorized by fictitious "monsters"
and "demons", if they are to understand that shooting warfate is but one part of the heart, while the other is economic warfare.
Both brutally destructive, even if the second is hidden from public awareness or dismissed as "a price worth paying". Imperialism
pays no price (except "blow-back", which is merely "religious extremism" as explained by a fully complicit MSM).
And the "brain" behind it all?
That is corporate/military/political/deep state/media greed – and their desperate need/ambition for total, and absolute,
control.
Only seeing the whole body may reveal the true size of the threat and the vicious nature of the real danger.
Some may argue that it is "too soon", "too early", or "too costly", politically, for Gabbard, even if she, herself, might
see imperialism as the real monster and demon, to dare describe the whole beast.
Frankly, this time, Tulsi's candidacy, her "run" for President, is not likely to see her become the Dem nominee, most likely
that will be Kamala Harris (who will happily do the bidding of brute power), rather, it is to lay the firm and solid foundation
of actual difference, of rational perspective, and thoughtful, diplomatic international behavior.
To expose the whole, especially the role of the MSM, in furthering all the rest of the lumbering body of Zombie imperialism,
would be far more effective in creating an substantial "opening" for alternative possibilities, even a new political party,
next time.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:31
I'm figuring that Warren and Harris will take one another out. Climbing to the top requires this. But, Gabbard doesn't stop
fighting, and if there's a fighter out there it is her: mentally and physically she is the total package.
Sanders' 2016 campaign was ignored, he wasn't supposed to go anywhere, but if not for the DNC's meddling he would be POTUS
right now (I have zero doubt over that). So too was Obama's climb from nowhere: of course, Obama was pushed up by the System,
the System that is NOT behind Gabbard. And then there's the clown at the helm (Trump). I refuse to ignore this history.
Gababard is by no means out. Let's not speak of such things, especially when her campaign, and message, is just starting
to burst out: the MSM is the last to admit the state of things unfavorable to the wealthy, but out on the Internet Gabbard is
very much alive. She is the best candidate (with the best platform of visibility) for peace. She has all the pieces. One comment
I read out on the internet (someone, I believe, not in the US) was that Gabbard was a gift to the Americans. Yes, I believe
this to be the case: if you really look closely you'll see exactly how this is correct. I believe that we cannot afford to treat
this gift with other than the utmost appreciation. Her sincerity when she says that she was/is willing to die for her fellow
soldiers (in reference to LBGT folks, though ALL apply) is total. She is totally committed to this battle: as a warrior in politics
she's proven herself with her support, the loyalty, for Sanders (at risk to her political career- and now look, she's running
for POTUS, she continues to come out on top!).
IvyMike , July 2, 2019 at 20:14
I burned my draft card, grew my hair out, and smoked pot and was anti war as heck. But the peace demonstrations (and riots)
in the 60's and 70's did not have much effect on how the U.S. Government prosecuted the Vietnam War. It is little recognized
how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC
while also taking heavy casualties.
We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive
with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South.
Then the politicians and Generals knew, given the super power politics surrounding the war, that we had lost. We had failed
to recognize that we had not intervened in a Civil War, in truth Vietnam as a whole was fighting for freedom from Imperialism
and we had no friends in the South, just a corrupt puppet government. Instead of getting out, Nixon made the unforgivable choice
to slowly wind the war down until he could get out without losing, Peace With Honor the ultimate triumph of ego over humanity.
Americans had a chance to choose a peace candidate in 1972, instead Nixon won with a big majority.
The military has never been able to admit they were defeated on the battlefield by North Vietnam, blaming it instead on the
Liberal Media and the Anti War movement. Believing that lie they continue to fight unwinnable wars in which we have no national
interest at stake. The media and the people no longer fight against war, but it never really made a difference when we did.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 05:17
I too hoped for a miracle and voted for George. But then I always voted for the loser in whatever state I happened to be
living in at the particular time. I think Carter was a rare winning pick by me but only once. I got disgusted with voting and
sat out the Clinton campaigns, only returning to vote against the Bush juggernaut. In retrospect, Perot should have won to make
a real difference. I sided with the winner in Obama, but the loser turned out to be America getting saddled with that two-faced
hypocrite. Nobel Peace Prize winner indeed! (What did he spend the money on?) When you listen to their campaign promises be
aware they are telegraphing how they plan to betray you.
triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:45
American people in mass need to hit reset button. A yellow vest-like movement made up of tens of millions of woke people,
who understand the democrats and republicans are the left and right wing of the oligarch party,
US elections have been and continue to be rigged, and the US constitution was written to protect the property (such
as slaves) of oligarchs from the people, the founding oligarchs feared real democracy, evident by all the safeguards they built
into our government to protect against it, that remain in tact today.
We need a new 21st century constitution. Global capitalism needs to be greatly curtailed, or ended out right, replaced by
ecosocialism, conservation, restoration of earth focussed society
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:38
And just think that back then there was also Mike Gravel. The CIA did their work in the 60s to kill the anti-war movement:
killing all the great social leaders.
Why wars are "lost" is because hardly is there a time when there's an actual "mission statement" on what the end of a given
war will look like. Tulsi Gabbard has made it clear that she would NOT engage in any wars unless there was a clear objective,
a clear outcome lined out, and, of course, it was authorized by THE PEOPLE (Congress).
All wars are about resources. We cannot, however, admit this: the ruling capitalists won't allow that to be known/understood
lest they lose their power.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 04:59
Ya got all that right, especially the part about the analysts essentially declaring the war lost after Tet. I remember that
offered a lot of hope on the campuses that the war would soon end (even though we lost), especially to those of us near graduation
and facing loss of that precious 2S deferment. Yet the big fool marched on, getting my generation needlessly slaughtered for
four or five more years.
And, yes, the 2 or 3 million dead Vietnamese did matter, to those with a conscience. Such a price to keep Vietnam out of
Russia's and China's orbit. Meanwhile they set an independent course after kicking us out of their land and even fought a war
with China. We should still be paying reparations for the levels of death and destruction we brought to a country half a world
away with absolutely no means or desire to threaten the United States. All our wars of choice, starting with Korea, have been
similar crimes against humanity. Turkey shoots against third world societies with no way to do us any harm. But every one of
them fought ferociously to the death to defend their land and their people. Inevitably, every occupier is sent packing as their
empire crumbles. Obviously, Americans have been too thick to learn this from mere history books. We will only learn from our
tragic mistakes. I see a lot of lessons on the upcoming schedule.
USA did not "intervene" in a civil war. USA paid France to continue it's imperial war and then took over when France fled
defeated. USA prevented a mandated election Ho Chi Minh would win and then continued western imperial warfare against the Vietnamese
( even though Vietnamese was/is bulwark against China's territorial expansion).
mauisurfer , July 2, 2019 at 20:12
The Watson study says: "Indeed, the DOD is the world's largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly,
the single largest producer of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world.4"
This is a gross UNDERcount of emissions. It includes ONLY petroleum burned.
It does NOT count explosions from bombs, missiles, rockets, rifles, etc.
Perhaps someone could provide an estimate of this contribution to greenhouse gases???
Don't worry, Elizabeth Warren has a plan to operate the military on renewables! (she can continue to make sure her constituency,
which is Raytheon, is well served)
Raytheon, one of the biggest employers in Warren's state, where it's headquartered, "has a positive relationship with Sen.
Warren, and we interact with her and her staff regularly," Michael Doble, a spokesman for the company, said.
jo6pac , July 2, 2019 at 20:12
This awful news for the merchants of death and I'm sure they're working overtime to stop silliness;-). I do hope this isn't
killed by those that love the endless wars.
Thanks AH
mbob , July 2, 2019 at 20:10
Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. Rather than support President
Trump's efforts to end the Korean War, to reduce our involvement in the Middle East and to pursue a more peaceful path with
Russia, the Democratic party (with very, very few exceptions) is opposed to all these things.
The Democratic party places its hatred for Trump above its professed love of peace.
President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the
US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton
destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions.
From a peace perspective, Trump looks comparatively great (provided he doesn't attack Iraq or invade Venezuela). But, since
it's impossible to recognize Trump for anything positive, or to support him in any way, it's now impossible for Democrats to
promote peace. Doing so might help Trump. It would, of necessity, require acknowledging Trump's uniqueness among recent US Presidents
in not starting new wars.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 03:28
I agree. mbob makes perfect sense in his analysis.
The Democrats must be brought back to reality with a sound repudiation by the voters, otherwise they are of no use to America
and will have no long-term future.
Obama escalated Afghanistan when he had a popular mandate to withdraw. He facilitated the the Syrian rebellion in conjunction
with ISIS funding Saudi Arabia and Qatar. He instigated the Zalaya (primarily Hillary) and the Ukraine rebellion.
Trump supports the Yemeni genocide.
But yes citizens have been directed to hate Trump the man/symptom rather than the enduring Imperial predatory capitalistic
system.
Opps sorry; so many interventions and invasions, under Obama, special forces trained Malian general overthrew the democratically
elected president of Mali, result, more war,death and destruction.
Robert , July 3, 2019 at 10:48
You are correct in your analysis. Allegra Harpootlian is searching for the peace lobby among Democrat supporters, where it
no longer resides.
As a result of corporate-controlled mainstream media and their support for Democrat elites, Democrat supporters have largely
been brainwashed into hatred for Donald Trump and everything he stands for. This hatred blinds them to the far more important
issue of peace.
Strangely, there is huge US support to remove troops from the ME, but this support resides with the overwhelming majority
of Donald Trump voters. Unfortunately, these are not individuals who typically go to peace demonstrations, but they are sincere
in bringing all US troops home from the ME. Donald Trump himself lobbied on this, and with the exceptions of his anti-Iranian
/ pro-Israel / pro-Saudi Arabia stance and withdrawal from JCPOA, he has not only backed down from military adventurism, but
is the first President since Eisenhower to raise the issue of the influence of the military-industrial complex.
In the face of strong opposition, he is the first President ever to enter North Korea and meet with Kim Jong Un to discuss
nuclear weapons. Mainstream media continues its war-mongering rhetoric, attacking Trump for his "weakness" in not retaliating
against Iran, or in meeting "secretly" with Putin.
Opposition to Trump's peace efforts are not limited to MSM, however, but are entrenched in Democrat and Republican elites,
who attack any orders he gives to withdraw from the ME. It was not Trump, but Democrat and Republican elites who invited NATO's
Stoltenberg to speak to Congress in an attempt to spite Trump.
In essence, you have President Trump and most of his supporters trying to withdraw from military engagements, with
active opposition from Democrats like Adam Schiff, and Republican elites, actively promoting war and military spending.
DJT is like a less-likeable Inspector Clouseau. Sometimes ineptitude is a blessing. You also have a few Republicans, like
journalist Tucker Carlson of Fox News, and Democrats, like Tulsi Gabbard, actively pushing the message of peace.
Erelis , July 3, 2019 at 20:45
I think you got it. The author is right in the sense that there is an anti-war movement, but that movement is in many ways
hidden. As bizarre as it may seen counter to CW wisdom, and in some way ironically crazy, one of the biggest segments of anti-war
sentiment are Trump supporters. After Trump's decision not to attack Iran, I went to various right wing commentators who attacked
Trump, and the reaction against these major right wing war mongers was to support Trump. And with right wing commentators who
supported Trump, absolute agreement. These is of course based on my objective reading reading and totally subjective. But I
believe I am right.
This made me realize there is an untapped anti-war sentiment on the right which is being totally missed. And a lack of imagination
and Trump derangment syndrome which blocks many on the anti-war Left to see it and use it for an anti-war movement. There was
an article in The Intercept that looked research on the correlation between military deaths and voting preference. Here is the
article:
And the thing is that Trump was in many ways the anti-war candidate. And those areas that had high military death rates voted
for Trump. I understand the tribal nature of political affiliation, but it seems what I have read and this article, there may
be indeed an untapped anti-war stance with Trump supporters.
And it really just challenges my own beliefs that the major obstacle to the war mongers are Trump supporters.
mbob – I couldn't have said it better myself. Except to add that in addition to destroying Libya, the Nobel Peace Prize winner
Obama, ably assisted by Hillary Clinton, also destroyed Honduras and the Ukraine.
Anarcissie , July 3, 2019 at 11:55
Historically, the Democratic Party has been pro-war and pro-imperialism at least since Wilson. The hatred for Trump on their
part seems to be based entirely on cultural issues -- he is not subservient enough to their gods.
But as for antiwar demonstrations, it's been proved in the streets that they don't accomplish anything. There were huge demonstrations
against the war in Vietnam, but it ground on until conservatives got tired of it. At least half a million people demonstrated
against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and no one important cared. Evidently more fundamental issues than the war of the moment
are involved and I think that is where a lot of people are turning now. The ruling class will find this a lot harder to deal
with because it's decentralized and widely distributed. Hence the panic about Trump and the seething hatred of Sanders.
mbob , July 3, 2019 at 18:15
I attempted to make three points in my post. First, Democrats are now pro-war. Second, solely regarding peace, Trump looks
better than all other recent Presidents because he hasn't started any new wars. Third, the inability of Democrats (or the public
as a whole) to give Trump the benefit of a doubt, or to support him in any way, is contrary to the cause of peace.
Democrats should, without reservation, support Trump's effort to end the Korean War. They should support Trump's desire to
improve relations with Russia. They don't do either of those things. Why? Because it might hurt them politically.
Your comment does not challenge the first two points and reinforces the third.
As for Yemen, yes, Trump is wrong. Democrats rightly oppose him on Yemen -- but remarkably tepidly. Trump is wrong about
a lot of things. I don't like him. I didn't vote for him. But I will vote for him if Democrats nominate someone worse than him,
which they seem inclined to do. (Gabbard is better than Trump. Sanders probably. Maybe Warren. Of the three, only Warren receives
positive press. That makes me skeptical of her.)
Trump stood up to his advisors, Bolton and Pompeo, regarding both Iran and Venezuela. Obama, on the other hand, did not.
He followed the advice of his advisors, with disastrous consequences.
>>In addition to Tuesday's sanctions, the Treasury Department issued an advisory to maritime shipping companies, warning
them off transporting oil to Syria or risking their property and money seized if kept with financial institutions that follow
U.S. sanctions law.
"The United States will aggressively seek to impose sanctions against any party involved in shipping oil to Syria, or seeking
to evade our sanctions on Iranian oil," said Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence,
in a release. "Shipping companies, insurers, vessel owners, managers, and operators should all be aware of the grave consequences
of engaging in sanctionable conduct involving Iranian oil shipments."<<
Today British marines seized a tanker near Gibraltar for the crime of transporting oil to Syria. And Trumpian peaceful military
seized Syrian oil fields. Traditional war is increasingly augmented by piracy, which is less bloody, but trades outright carnage
for deprivation of civilians. Giving "measured praise" for that makes me barf.
The problem here is that the US population is too brainwashing with jingoism and Exceptionalism to value Tulsi message. The
US army is mercenary army and unlike situation with the draft people generally do not care much when mercenaries die. That makes
any anti-war candidate vulnerable to "Russiagate" smear.
He/she need to have a strong domestic program to appeal to voters, So far Warren is in better position in this area then
Tulsi.
Notable quotes:
"... The Drudge Report website had its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the debate. ..."
"... On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced an article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of Defense." ..."
"... In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable." ..."
"... Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment, saying that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end." ..."
"... Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to "defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging ..."
"... In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the Vietnam War back in 1968. ..."
"... And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be at war with Russia and possibly also with China. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities, leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past twenty years. ..."
"... Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. ..."
"... She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren, who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups, but she has moderated her views recently. ..."
"... To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
Last Wednesday’s debate among half of the announced Democratic Party candidates to become their party’s nominee for
president in 2020 was notable for its lack of drama. Many of those called on to speak had little to say apart from the usual
liberal bromides about health care, jobs, education and how the United States is a country of immigrants. On the following
day the mainstream media anointed Elizabeth Warren as the winner based on the coherency of her message even though she said
little that differed from what was being presented by most of the others on the stage. She just said it better, more
articulately.
The New York Times’
coverage was typical, praising Warren for her grasp of the issues and her ability to present the same
clearly and concisely, and citing a comment "They could teach
classes in how Warren talks about a problem and weaves in answers into a story. She's not just
wonk and stats." It then went on to lump most of the other candidates together, describing
their performances as "ha[ving] one or two strong answers, but none of them had the electric,
campaign-launching moment they were hoping for."
Inevitably, however, there was some disagreement on who had actually done best based on
viewer reactions as well as the perceptions of some of the media that might not exactly be
described as mainstream. The Drudge Report website
had
its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of
Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing
paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search
engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the
debate.
On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced
an
article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by
Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot
to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of
Defense."
Tulsi, campaigning on her anti-war credentials, was indeed not like the other candidates,
confronting directly the issue of war and peace which the other potential candidates studiously
avoided. In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has
to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had
been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers
who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will
tell you that answer is unacceptable."
At another point she expanded on her thinking about America's wars, saying "Let's deal with
the situation where we are, where this president and his chickenhawk cabinet have led us to the
brink of war with Iran. I served in the war in Iraq at the height of the war in 2005, a war
that took over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniforms' lives. The American people need to
understand that this war with Iran would be far more devastating, far more costly than anything
that we ever saw in Iraq. It would take many more lives. It would exacerbate the refugee
crisis. And it wouldn't be just contained within Iran. This would turn into a regional war.
This is why it's so important that every one of us, every single American, stand up and say no
war with Iran."
Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment,
saying
that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after
the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned
tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end."
Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to
"defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is
clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging. So why was there
such a difference between what ordinary Americans and the Establishment punditry were seeing on
their television screens? The difference was not so much in perception as in the desire to see
a certain outcome. Anti-war takes away a lot of people's rice bowls, be they directly employed
on "defense" or part of the vast army of lobbyists and think tank parasites that keep the money
flowing out of the taxpayers' pockets and into the pockets of Raytheon, General Dynamics,
Boeing and Lockheed Martin like a perpetual motion machine.
In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her
must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out
undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the
Vietnam War back in 1968. McCarthy was right and Lyndon Johnson and the rest of the Democratic
Party were wrong. More recently, Congressman Ron Paul tried twice to bring some sanity to the
Republican Party. He too was marginalized deliberately by the GOP party apparatus working
hand-in-hand with the media, to include the final insult of his being denied any opportunity to
speak or have his delegates recognized at the 2012 nominating convention.
And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National
Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be
marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating
from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be
at war with Russia and possibly also with China.
Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be
difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities,
leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past
twenty years. To qualify for the second round of debates she has to gain a couple of points in
her approval rating or bring in more donations, either of which is definitely possible based on
her performance. It is to be hoped that that will occur and that there will be no Debbie
Wasserman Schultz hiding somewhere in the process who will finagle the polling results.
Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is
not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal
Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also
breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning,
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren,
who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss
Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu
and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her
view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups,
but she has moderated her views recently.
To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the
mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine
antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. It is essential
that we Americans who are concerned about the future of our country should listen to what she
has to say very carefully and to respond accordingly.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a
501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more
interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is [email protected]
"... Her courage and convictions were hardened in the burning cauldron of an unjust war. Call it burning resentment if you prefer. It's real and it's what makes her tick. ..."
"... by Al Qaeda. For that unrecanted heresy she was vilified by Republicans and Democrats alike. ..."
"... In the Democratic Party debates, she cut that posturing hypocrite Tim Ryan off at the knees in a matter of seconds. A few home truths about U.S. soldiers dying for no good reason was all it took to dispatch him and his mealy-mouthed platitudes. ..."
"... Watch her do the same to DJT if she gets the nomination and he continues to pander to the neocons. ..."
Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is not a perfect candidate.
Tulsi is a candidate for political office, not sainthood. Much like Trump in 2016, being
patently less cynical than her rivals makes her the obvious choice.
the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable
Operative word in the above sentence: "genuine."
Her courage and convictions were hardened in the burning cauldron of an unjust war. Call it
burning resentment if you prefer. It's real and it's what makes her tick.
She went to Syria and proclaimed that rule by Assad was better for Syrians than rule by Al
Qaeda. For that unrecanted heresy she was vilified by Republicans and Democrats alike.
In the Democratic Party debates, she cut that posturing hypocrite Tim Ryan off at the knees
in a matter of seconds. A few home truths about U.S. soldiers dying for no good reason was all
it took to dispatch him and his mealy-mouthed platitudes.
What was Ryan going to do? Tell Tulsi she didn't know what she was talking about?
Watch her do the same to DJT if she gets the nomination and he continues to pander to the
neocons.
Gabbard did well but if I had to vote tomorrow it would be for Elizabeth Warren ..she's
got the real intelligence firepower combined with some old fashioned common sense. None of
them are going to directly attack the jew lobby during the campaign .why bring on
smear jobs and fake stories when it doesnt matter what they say, only what they do when
elected.
Would never vote for Joe "I am Zionist" Biden, he's just a paler shade of Trump .or to be
even clearer Biden is the DC establishment whereas Trump is the NJ Mafia,
The moderator-filtered t "debate" showed viewers the level of selective-issue political
control. The fact that Tulsi was able to overcome this control and discuss the issue of
neoliberal wars for the
How many Americans aren't so thoroughly disgusted with our entire D.N.C. by now , they have
to pin their nose (to avoid the stink) while sitting through one more . Establishment Elite,
corporate " con job " debate ?
How many , Phil ?
Like just about EVERYBODY .
How many Americans aren't so thoroughly disgusted with NBC . and all its LIES . that even if
the broadcasters PAID them, tomorrow , they would STILL refuse to watch their network ?.
Like just about EVERYBODY .
Tulsi is not simply the ONLY candidate who MATTERS .she is the only candidate, alive, who
has a shot in rescuing our country from its descent into corporatist "warmongering" hell .
@Brabantian lectorate
has been fooled so many times before, no big harm in getting fooled again, although not very
smart (as Einstein once remarked about repeating same same while expecting a different
result).
Hopefully by a "peace" or pseudo-peace candidate to at least keep that narrative going in
the general population even if once elected the new president turns around and betrays the
pre-election promises. Now if there were some way to make those politicians pay for
dishonouring their word.
But as I may have asked in another comment, could the electorate be as cynical and
hypocritical as these politicians they cast votes for?
Bingo! For a smart dude, PG should know (and I am sure he does) that the problem is
systemic. No candidate, if s/he expects to get anywhere, is going to call out Aipac or bring
up the issue of Jewish influence and power.
On Tucker Carlson, Tulsi named Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia as the main pushers for war with
Iran. No, she isn't perfect. No American politician dare say more. But she's the best we have
and deserves our support. If she does gain a large following, as Bernie Sanders did, and is
cheated out of the nomination, as Bernie was, I hope she has the guts, as Bernie didn't, to
form a third, Peace Party, and run on it. So she splits the Democrats and they lose? So what!
What difference does it make what Democrat or Republican Zio-whore becomes President?
Trump was a roaring lion for America First, right up until his inauguration. President
Tulsi will also "see the light" about how Israel is our most important ally. Ever see the
photo of the 10 rabbis flanking Trump's desk in the Oval office? It could just as easily been
a scene out of The Sopranos, with the family forcing some schmuck to "legally" sign over his
business.
As Giraldi wrote, there is no such thing as a perfect candidate. But who can compare with
her in this moribund democrat field? Politics is the art of the possible. When Trump first
announced in 2015, no pundit outside of Ann Coulter said he had a chance. And look how he
demolished that republican field consisting of 16 brain dead neocons. If given half a chance,
Tulsi could do the same. And the fact that she is a veteran works in her favor. Just because
she was in Iraq, does not mean that she supported the US aggression. Like thousands of other
vets, she obviously did not.
@Commentator Mike ou're
right but consider the obstacles she has to overcome – her desperate need to bypass the
hostile media in order to make her point to the American masses who will care little or
nothing about a few hundreds of thousands of dead foreigners but, when it comes to American
dead, they are rather more receptive.
Same thing is true on Israel – if she is to have any chance she has to grit her
teeth and stay pretty mum on that topic. They already know where she stands after her remarks
about Netanyahu; her meeting with Assad and her wish for better relations with Russia –
they will do everything in their power to destroy her.
My Congressman, Tim Ryan, was up there. He's a likeable guy, and he plays ball, probably
because he has to after succeeding Jim Traficant, who was expelled from Congress. He's
criticized locally for not bringing back more pork, and his local cliche-ridden talks sound
as though they were scripted by the Democrat Central Committee. I'll give him credit for
avoiding misconduct that could lead to indictment, no small achievement in this
preternaturally corrupt area. I think he's reasonably honest, but just not a firebrand.
There's unsubstantiated speculation here he's been positioning himself for hire as a
lobbyist.
If she does gain a large following, as Bernie Sanders did, and is cheated out of the
nomination, as Bernie was, I hope she has the guts, as Bernie didn't, to form a third,
Peace Party, and run on it.
Yes. My question, when to start preparing for an outside run? If she's making steady
progress, she won't move until after the convention. Would threatening an independent run
help or hurt her before then?
to TKK:
I've never had a female boss so I can't comment on your question. No, Tulsi can't win the
Presidency, it'd be a miracle if she did, but I'm saying that if she does get a huge
following, gets cheated out of the nomination, and has the guts to form a Third Party, she'd
shake up the rotten rigged system and give us some hope.
"... why can't Tulsi Gabbard pretend to be "one of them" (e.g., by taking money from Raytheon, being a member of the CFR, claiming that al-Qaeda did 9/11, etc.) but then actually oppose the self-destructive wars and risky provocations? ..."
"... If orange clown can be honest about his feelings of animosity toward Iran during his campaign, why can't Tulsi Gabbard be honest about her feelings about pointless and self-destructive wars? ..."
"... If Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning can betray the "deep state" why can't Tulsi Gabbard? ..."
"... somebody is going to be president anyway, whether we like it or not, and the wars – especially the looming WW3 – is the biggest threat ..."
If orange clown can pretend to be one of "us" and then immediately turn around and
enthusiastically stab "us" in the back, why can't Tulsi Gabbard pretend to be "one of them"
(e.g., by taking money from Raytheon, being a member of the CFR, claiming that al-Qaeda did
9/11, etc.) but then actually oppose the self-destructive wars and risky provocations?
If orange clown can be honest about his feelings of animosity toward Iran during his
campaign, why can't Tulsi Gabbard be honest about her feelings about pointless and
self-destructive wars?
If Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning can betray the "deep state" why can't Tulsi Gabbard?
The cynicism I see in some of the comments here disparaging Gabbard is "over the top" IMO; somebody is going to be
president anyway, whether we like it or not, and the wars – especially the looming WW3 – is the biggest threat. So why not support someone who
appears to be genuinely opposed to the wars?
To mis-paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the candidate you don't
have.
Unless Ms. Gabbard can figure out some way to raise and cycle a billion dollars through
media ads in the MSM, they're going to largely ignore her or even demonise her, because it is
the Praetorian Media who now decide who will be the the American President.
Presidential elections are a joke. It's best to vote for 3rd candidate to express your
opposition to the Status quo: I won't be voting Trump again and fall for that sting. Will
vote Tulsi whether she's on ballot or not.
She will never make it as she is too honest about foreign policy and the USA lies.
With all due respect Mr. Smith things have really gone down hill after Bush Sr. I'm talking
about direct attacks on the rights of American citizens. Bush Sr. (R) with his CIA drug dealing
with the help of Noriega. He purchased weapons with the proceeds to arm terrorist guerrilla
groups in Nicaragua. Bill Clinton (D) helped Bush Sr. as governor of Arkansas by covering up
any investigation targeting the operation and laundering their money through a state owned
bank. Bush Jr. (R) secured lands in Afghanistan in order to restart athe heroine trade by
growing poppy fields to process and ship back to the US. Obama (R) made sure the Mexican drug
cartels were well armed in order to launch a drug war that supported the Merida Initiative,
which allowed armed DEA, CIA and Mercenaries into Mexican territory. Trump (R) will be the
clean up hitter that will usher in the dollar collapse.
Mr. Smith do you really believe it is a coincidence that Rep 8 yrs, Dem 8yrs, Rep 8yrs, Dem
8yrs, Rep 3 yrs are voted in? Please sir, don't fool yourself because in the next election I
will bet money the orange fool will be president for another 4 years unless the owners don't
want him there. But we can safely say that history tells us he will. All I'm saying that people
like you, waiting for someone to throw you a rope because you've fallen into deep water are
waiting on a rescue boat that doesn't care if you drown.
Your best bet for change was thrown away when Dr. Ron Paul failed to be nominated. Us dumb
asses in Mexico didn't need another election fraud this time around! The people started YouTube
channels that reported the "real" news (Chapucero – Quesadillas de Verdades –
Charro Politico – Sin Censura, etc.). Those channels made a big difference, countering
the negative reporting by Mexican and US MSM that the Presidential Candidate for MORENA as
"Leftist", "Communist", "Socialist", "Like Hugo Chavez", "Dangerous", etc.
With all of the US propaganda, Mexican propaganda, the negative MSM and Elite financing,
Mexicans knew they had to get out and vote in record numbers and they did! Otherwise a close
election was seen as another loss and the end of Mexico as a country. People were ready to
fight and die if necessary. They had seen the Energy Reforms forced down our throat by the
corrupt PRI/PAN parties (Mex version o DEM/REP), with the help of Hillary Clinton and the US
State Department. They drafting the changes needed to the Mexican Constitution to allow a vote.
Totally against the Law in Mexico and I'm sure the laws of the US.
There is a saying that goes something like, "If you're not ready to die for Freedom, take it
out of your Vocabulary"!
If Ron Unz is reading I might suggest he could do a little something to cover the passing of
probably one of the best Antiwar writers(Justin Raimondo) of this generation. Nobody has gotten
things more right, even before the wars developed – he predicted a war with Iraq even
before Sept 11, 2001, and it's aftermath into sectarian violence. His archives are second to
none in naming the names of who steered the war machine into the Middle East and across the
globe. I could gone on, but the link does a better job. RIP Justin.
Amazing how for these Americans, even this Tulsi, the lives of US soldiers are more
important than countless civilians they murder during the course of their wars. But even that
is a lie. They don't even care about their own soldiers once they're of no use to them any
more, if you consider the rate of alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, homelessness,
mental health issues, and suicide among the veterans.
And also, when it serves their purpose,
then suddenly the life of some innocent somewhere half way round the world getting abused by a
government they dislike becomes important, and the human rights card is played so they can go
and kill more than they save. I thought that to these leftist American politicians everyone is
equal so why don't they express concern about how many Afghans they have killed over there?
Oh
yes, but if they left them alone there wouldn't be those columns of young Afghans making their
way to the West for these liberals to practice their empathy and hospitality on. And who would
be guarding those poppy fields and ensuring maximum production for pharmaceutical companies and
the black market? And when an Afghan immigrant like Omar Mateen sets off on a murder spree on
US soil who is to blame?
Do they even question their wars, or their immigration policy, or
Islamic culture of intolerance, or anything at all? Some may then question gun laws, but even
that is another lie, because guns are as as available as ever. No they just shrug their
shoulders as its just part and parcel, and it's only good for the media to keep people in fear
and sell their sensational news.
And if you question any of this then you're most likely to be
called a racist or supremacist or whatever vile word they can conjure up with which to browbeat
you.
Wars are necessary for the maintaining and expanding the US controlled neoliberal empire. Wars is the health of military
industrial complex.
The Deep State will bury any candidate who will try to change the USA forign policy. Looks
what happened to Trump. He got Russiagate just for vey modest proposal of detente with Russia
(of course not only for that, but still...)
Notable quotes:
"... The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they lied us into. ..."
Those are interesting proposals but wishful thinking: wars are necessary for Electing Tulsi Gabbard as our next Commander in Chief will not solve our biggest problems
alone.
Her candidacy, I believe , must be augmented by two new laws which should be demanded by the
taxpayer and enforced by her administration on "day one".
The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states
that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of
aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all
assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they
lied us into.
If they lied us into war .they pay for it NOT the US taxpayer.
The second is " The Terror Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ also retroactive to 2001,
it states that any and all individuals found to have engaged in plotting, planning, or staging
"false terror events" will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any
and all of the assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit to pay down the cost of
our War on Terror.
Americans should not have to sacrifice one cent of their tax dollars to pay for their own
defrauding by "staged" or "phony" terror events.
I believe that were Tulsi to be elected, she should set up two new task forces designed
especially for these reasons, Try to think of them as the " Office of Special Plans" IN
REVERSO.!.
Moreover she should hold weekly press briefings to notify the taxpayer of her progress, and
also how much of our 23 trillion in losses , FROM THEIR LIES, she has been able to recoup.
Getting these two initiatives up and running is the most potent force the taxpayers have in
cleaning out the fraud and larceny in DC, .ending our illegal wars overseas .. and
(finally)holding our "establishment elite " accountable for "LYING US INTO THEM"
It is way overdue for the American Taxpayer to take back control of our government from
those who ALMOST BANKRUPTED OUR ENTIRE NATION BY LYING US INTO ILLEGAL WARS.
It is not enough any more just to complain or "kvetch" about our problems .put on your
thinking caps .and start coming up with solutions and initiatives .start fighting for your
freedom, your finances and your future.
Elect the leaders YOU WANT and tell them exactly what you want them to do!
Tulsi has promised us all "SERVICE OVER SELF"
There you go !
I say that means not only ENDING our ILLEGAL, CRIMINAL WARS .but GETTING AS MUCH OF OUR
MONEY BACK from those who lied us into them !
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WAR FRAUD it is $23,000,000,000,000.00. in "heinous debt" .overdue!
"... So, the two biggest issues in US politics--Forever Wars and the utter strangulation of politics by Big Money are what she wants to take on. And on those two issues alone, I've decided to work for her campaign! ..."
Doing Due Diligence on Tulsi Gabbard by watching the 1:20 long interview by Jimmy Dore of which
the first 20 minutes are excellent. At the 21 minute mark, Dore asks how can we end these
endless wars. Paraphrasing Gabbard: Failure is not an option: We must end these
interventionist wars as they suck the life blood out of doing the positive things that
must be done to benefit Americans.
Prior to the above, Dore as an aside mentions that Howard Dean, the Podestas, Clintons,
and others are all about keeping the flow of Big Money into politics at the expense of
everything else--that's their absolute #1 concern, to which you'll hear Gabbard agree!
So, the two biggest issues in US politics--Forever Wars and the utter strangulation of
politics by Big Money are what she wants to take on. And on those two issues alone, I've
decided to work for her campaign!
@74 karlof1 - " I've decided to work for [Tulsi Gabbard's] campaign"
This is excellent. As someone who has never had any national experience in politics, I
would be interested to know how one offers this kind of support - if you ever have time to
say, but don't break a leg over it.
One sees in politics how good moral character gets compromised by involvement in the
system. But we also know that one's own contribution to universal sanity can never be known
or measured - or discounted! Therefore, we do what we can. Who knows, perhaps your
involvement is the final butterfly-wing stroke that keeps her honest and upright and making a
difference.
Well done. And thank you.
~~
ps..please don't worry that people are not taking up your links or comments, just because
you don't see feedback here. Keep it all coming as well as you can, but please don't limit
your contributions to feedback. Many of the pieces you post are so friggin' long that it
takes the rest of the night to absorb them all ;)
I'm glad you donate the time of your retirement to offer all the things you do. I still
work, and it's a struggle to keep up with things. Your reading list overlaps mine very
nicely, and I ride on your coat-tails a lot - you along with many commenters here save me a
lot of time in pinpointing articles of value.
In fact, beyond b's superlative work - which he keeps producing even though we all
appreciate it so intently that we usually forget to praise him for it - I'd say the offering
of links from the top analysts and journalists, combined with the gems from the left field,
are a signature mark of this forum.
So please keep the summaries coming, and never lose heart or doubt that people are reading
them and placing value on them.
Someone pinch me and tell me I'm not dreaming! If this is true (my knee-jerk reaction is to
dismiss it), then it is
HUGE! EARTH SHATTERING !
In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros
and Charles Koch, the more active of the two brothers, are joining to finance a new
foreign-policy think tank in Washington. It will promote an approach to the world based on
diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing. (...) It will be
called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who
in a seminal speech on Independence Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not
abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and
independence of all. (...) Among (Trita) Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics
of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent decades promoting
negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran, and North Korea; the historian and
essayist Stephen Wertheim; and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew
Bacevich. "The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist
conservatives to consider a new, less militarized approach to policy," Bacevich said, when
asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore the
pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
i thought it was april fools for a second, until i then thought it is probably a pile of
steaming b.s. but hey - if it can be used as fertilizer to grow a few brains in an otherwise
constant 24/7 war party mindset, i am up for it... call me when something actually happens as
a result of any soros-koch stink tank agenda..
People who run "debates" are the same people (the DNC and the MSM and the USA MIC who controls both) who have charged
that our "democracy" was compromised by Russian interference via Facebook posts and the publishing of DNC documents that no one
has disputed the validity thereof.
As pathetic as Dems "debate" format is, it does give people an actual look at the candidates,
in many cases for the first time. It does change some minds and move the numbers. After all, Tulsi was the person who introduced
Bernie at the DNC convention in 2016. She's the person who left the DNC because she saw what scumbags they were.
For a candidate speaking out about the endless wars but the MSM and associates are performing their marginalization
magic.
More exposure for Gabbard can only help her. She did a fine job in her debate, I'm sure her
numbers will climb a bit.
election is a mighty high bar. she needs about 750 new donors a day, every day, if indeed
the cutoff date is 60ish days from now.
i wonder how many will make it? for that matter, i wonder how many already have? Biden,
O'Rourke, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Buttigieg for sure. Booker, Castro, Gillibrand probably.
Klobuchar maybe?
most of the rest are just taking up space, as far as I can tell -- they're contributing
nothing to the debate at all, and they have no hope of winning substantial support.
meanwhile, i wouldn't be surprised if both Biden and O'Rourke are done and out before the
next debate, destroyed by their own negatives. on the other hand, ego is a powerful thing,
and even the ones whose stars are declining may insist on sticking it out through New
Hampshire at least, in which case there could be a dozen or more still in the race come
September, hopefully including TG.
This is WSWS with their outdated dreams of "working class dictatorship" but some points and observation are very apt and
to the point.
Notable quotes:
"... The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy ..."
"... Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate, her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. ..."
"... She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class, whose views are promoted by the New York Times ..."
"... The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump and Obama. ..."
"... If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia. ..."
"... On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders. ..."
Four hours of nationally televised debates Wednesday and Thursday among 20 Democratic
presidential candidates demonstrated the gigantic disconnect between the claims of this
pro-war, pro-corporate party to be driven by concerns for the well-being of working people
and the reality of poverty and oppression in America, for which the Democratic Party is no
less responsible than the Republicans.
The stage-managed spectacle mounted by NBC marked the formal beginning of an electoral
process dominated by big money and thoroughly manipulated by the corporate-controlled
media.
The attempt to contain the growing left-wing opposition in the working class and channel
it behind the second oldest capitalist party in the world necessarily assumed the form of
lies and demagogy. For the most part, the vying politicians, all of them in the top 10
percent on the income ladder, made promises to provide healthcare, jobs, decent schools,
tuition-free college and a clean environment for all, knowing full well they had no intention
of carrying them out.
No one -- neither the millionaire media talking heads asking the questions nor the
candidates -- dared to mention the fact that that Democratic Party has just voted to give
Trump an additional $4.9 billion to round up, detain and torture hundreds of thousands of
immigrants, including children, in the growing network of concentration camps being set up
within the US. Facts, as they say, are stubborn things, and this one demonstrates the
complicity of the Democratic Party in the fascistic policies of the Trump administration.
The second night of the debate featured the front-runners, former Vice President Joe Biden
and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden has a long record of reactionary politics,
including in the Obama administration. Sanders is continuing in this election his role in
2016 of channeling growing support for socialism into the framework of a right-wing
party.
The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in
the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the
clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy. The African-American
senator was lauded for attacking Biden for statements boasting of his ability in the past to
collaborate with segregationist senators and his past opposition to busing for school
integration.
It was Harris who adopted the most transparently bogus posture of left-radicalism in
Thursday night's debate, repeatedly declaring her agreement with Bernie Sanders and raising
her hand, along with Sanders, to support the abolition of private health insurance in favor
of a single-payer system. By Friday morning, however, she had reversed that stand, claiming
she had "misheard" the question and declaring her support for the continuation of private
insurance.
Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a
law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and
bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven
Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of
Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate,
her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class,
whose views are promoted by the New York Times , who want the Democratic campaign to
be dominated by racial and gender politics so as to mobilize the party's wealthy upper-middle
class base and divert and divide the mass working class anger over social
inequality.
Many of the candidates fondly recalled the Obama administration. But those eight years saw
the greatest transfer of wealth from working people to the super-rich in American history.
The pace was set by the initial $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, which was expanded to
uncounted trillions in the course of 2009, combined with the bailout of the auto companies at
the expense of the autoworkers, who suffered massive cuts in benefits and a 50 percent cut in
pay for new hires, rubber-stamped by the United Auto Workers.
The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was
raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of
sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump
and Obama.
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado attacked Biden for claiming credit for a bipartisan
budget deal in 2011 with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Far from a genuine
compromise, he said, the deal "was a complete victory for the Tea Party. It extended the Bush
tax cuts permanently," as well as putting in place major cuts in social spending which
continue to this day. Bennet neglected to mention that he had voted for the deal himself when
it passed the Senate by a huge majority.
It was remarkable, under conditions where President Trump himself declared that the United
States was only 10 minutes away from launching a major assault on Iran earlier this month,
that the 20 Democratic candidates spent almost no time discussing foreign policy.
In the course of four hours, there were only a few minutes devoted to the world outside
the United States. The silence on the rest of the world cannot be dismissed as mere
parochialism.
Many of the Democratic presidential candidates are deeply implicated in either the
policy-making or combat operations of US imperialism. The 20 candidates include two who were
deployed as military officers to Iraq and Afghanistan, Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard; Biden,
vice president for eight years and the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee; and five senators who are members of high-profile national security committees:
Harris and Bennet on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten
Gillibrand on the Armed Services Committee, and Cory Booker on the Foreign Relations
Committee.
If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is
clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military
interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for
major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with
nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia.
In the handful of comments that were made on foreign policy, the Democratic candidates
struck a belligerent note. On Wednesday, four of the ten candidates declared the main global
threat to the United States to be China, while New York Mayor Bill de Blasio opted for
Russia. Many candidates referred to the need to combat Russian interference in the US
election -- recycling the phony claims that Russian "meddling" helped Trump into the White
House in 2016.
On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest
global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a
greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration
was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was
not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders.
"... Connected to Trump as the 'winner', it was Tulsi Gabbard who stood out from the rest of the candidates. Interestingly, reliable polling data just out from the Drudge Report shows that Gabbard emerged as the winner of the debate on ideas and policies overall. She won some 40% of the vote, and when compared to the candidates whom the other 60% was divided, it was a landslide. ..."
"... Before anyone dismisses Gabbard, it's critical to understand that mainstream media lost most of its credibility over the lat election. This is the age of underdogs and dark horses ..."
"... When the subject moved to Afghanistan and occupation, Gabbard was on confident and really on fire. This is significant because while historically Gabbard's anti-imperialist line on occupation would be associated with (normally later broken) Democratic Party talking points, it was here that Trump defeated Clinton at the polls, when Trump won the anti-war vote in 2016. ..."
"... Gabbard destroyed Ryan on Afghanistan, and Booker's attempt to attack Gabbard fell tremendously short and felt very artificial, saying that Gabbard's position on LGBTQ 'isn't enough', but then switching incoherently to the subject of African Americans, Jim Crow, and lynchings – a misfire and very much off-topic. ..."
"... Trump's hardline on Cuba and Venezuela is appealing to the Florida wing of the Latino constituency (to the extent we can speak of a single constituency), and this is where the Democratic Party understands it needs to fight in order to win Florida. ..."
"... There hasn't been a Republican candidate to win the Presidency without winning Florida in many generations, and the Republican victory of Rick Scott in the state's most expensive senatorial race against Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson in 2018 shows that Republicans are aiming to win Florida in 2020. The Democratic Party concern is palpable and well founded. ..."
"... At face value, Trump and Democrats seem to be 6's and 7's over immigration. But when we really look at what the real deal is, we find yet another alignment of the Democrat's position to that of Trump's. How can this be? ..."
"... To understand this is to understand the overall trajectory now that the US empire is all but finished. Its historical aim now is to be able to disentangle from the Mid-East, a prominent Trump position which used to be Obama's until it wasn't, and on the Democratic side today is only being carried forward by Tulsi Gabbard. The so-called neo-isolationism of the US isn't so much that, as it is a return to the Monroe Doctrine. This author has written about this several years before Trump took office, in the article ' From Pax Americana to Pan Americana '. Here this author argued that the US must transform from a Sea Power into a Land Power. This isn't isolationism, but a right-sized regional hegemon, a regional hegemon for the Americas. ..."
"... Trump's rhetoric on the immigration question and Mexico has never failed to mention that the mid-to-long term solution is not only that Mexico enforces its own borders to its south, but that the Mexican economy grows – and this requires investment. ..."
"... While Trump is nominally strict on immigration, it was under Obama that the US deported the most migrants in history. This is a fact that Democrats ignore in their talking points and attacks on Trump's 'inhuman policy' that tears families apart. And so in a strange departure from what might otherwise occur to us, it was Obama's policy that was worse by the numbers for pro-migration advocates, and it's been Trump who has openly called for investment into Latin America with a named reason being to stem the migration 'crisis'. ..."
"... But this Marshall Plan for Latin America was already introduced by none other than Mexican President AMLO himself, in talks with Trump. ..."
"... What Tulsi Gabbard, the clear winner of the debate, will do next is to appropriate Julian Castro's 'Marshall Plan' line on Mexico and Central America. It dog-whistles numerous Trump talking points in relation to Mexico, as well as taking a 'less migration is good migration' approach to what is no doubt a real problem, without engaging in reactionary attacks on the migrants themselves. To get 'to the source' of the problem, as Castro explains, requires investment into Latin America. ..."
"... Gabbard is the dark horse, and along with Yang (in the second night's debate) will no doubt pull ahead of the conventionally pre-selected winners that were supposed to be Booker, Sanders, Warren and especially Biden. We will see much more focus on Gabbard now in virtual spaces, even while the mainstream media will continue to wrongly focus on Biden and Booker. Booker played his left-most game in the debate, but as prospective voters sort him on questions as far and ranging as Palestine, war, and labor (economy) – they will find him sorely lacking. ..."
"... With 60% of American generally supporting Trump's approach to the economy, these are his highest approval ratings, and ones which Americans care about and highly prioritize. Gabbard would be wise to approach the question of distribution, winners and losers of the economic boom, and focus on the 1% vs. the 99%. Doing so will help her move beyond her initial base of support as the anti-war candidate. ..."
The single truth that many mainstream Democrats will have a very difficult time
acknowledging coming out of the June 26 th Democratic Party Presidential Debate, is
that Donald Trump's positions on China and Latin America have become a Democratic Party line.
Is this is a mere matter of pandering to the polling data on questions like Latin America and
China? Even if just that, it would be a Trump success in and of itself.
But it also raises whether Trump has indeed accomplished more – a tectonic shift, a
sea-change in elite policy formation focus from Russia and the Mid-east over to China and Latin
America. The ties between the DNC and China still appear too strong, and so the reality would
seem to tend to rotate around a pandering to the polling data.
From China to solving the migration problem through a 'Marshall Plan' for Latin America and
more, Trump's nominal views on these questions found expression as dominating themes in the
debate.
In the war of positions, this is a victory for Trump.
The June 26th Democratic Party Presidential Debate was astounding in its representation of a
major paradigm shift in the United States.
Before anyone dismisses Gabbard, it's critical to understand that mainstream media lost most
of its credibility over the lat election. This is the age of underdogs and dark horses
When the subject moved to Afghanistan and occupation, Gabbard was on confident and really on
fire. This is significant because while historically Gabbard's anti-imperialist line on
occupation would be associated with (normally later broken) Democratic Party talking points, it
was here that Trump defeated Clinton at the polls, when Trump won the anti-war vote in
2016.
Worth noting as well as that in the aftermath of the debate last night, Gabbard's new social
media campaign on Twitter features her name scrolling across the bottom of the screen in
undeniable Trump 2016 campaign font. Coincidence? Nothing in politics is coincidental –
nothing.
Gabbard destroyed Ryan on Afghanistan, and Booker's attempt to attack Gabbard fell
tremendously short and felt very artificial, saying that Gabbard's position on LGBTQ 'isn't
enough', but then switching incoherently to the subject of African Americans, Jim Crow, and
lynchings – a misfire and very much off-topic.
CHINA
Of the ten candidates debating, four responded that China was the primary threat to the US
– but this was the single-most consistent answer. Delaney, Klobuchar, Castro, and Ryan
all answered this way.
This was a win for Trump's entire line for the last thirty something years.
De Blasio stood out as the lone Russiagater, definitely representing the mindset of his New
York City electorate and the coastal media establishment.
Gabbard, meanwhile, was wise to name ecological threats as this helped her maintain her
position as an anti-war candidate.
The pivot to a focus on China is much less dangerous than the focus on Russia. TheUS does
not really believe it can challenge China in a military sense, and their anti-Chinese rhetoric,
while full of sword rattling and imperial bravado, amounts to noise and little more. There is
some hope in American quarters about curtailing China's economic strength, but the focus on
China appears more as a question of a state requiring the spectre of an anthropomorphized
threat in the abstract, in order to justify the existence of a state and a military budget, and
to make a foreigner responsible for matters of wealth disparity and a lack of employment
opportunities in the US – a prominent tactic and talking point in market-driven societies
based in private property norms.
But the pivot to a focus on China was tremendous and not expected, given the relationship
historically between China and the Democratic Party – a friendly one.
Until now, it's been just the conservative corners of the alt-light in the US-centric
internet who view the 'rising Chinese threat' as a serious concern for the US. This trope was
primarily focused on the twin threat of Chinese rising military prowess and its population
size, along with the US practice of outsourcing American jobs to China – a policy that
saw short term consumer savings, and mid-to-long term slashes to US wages and employment. It
created a trade imbalance which the US can only resolving by defaulting on and then drawing its
guns to force a new deal.
Taken all together, this means that whoever Trump gets into the big race with, it will not
be a question of 'whether' China is a threat, but how to 'best contain' the Chinese threat.
This is a victory from 'go' for Trump.
LATIN AMERICA
Here is another major subject where Trump's influence on the entire discourse has prevailed,
though it's a little less obvious and requires a minor bifurcation to reveal.
We are of course obliged to mention that the location of the debate in Miami Florida was
strategic given its representation of Latinos in the US – traditionally Cuban and more
recently Venezuelan Republicans as hardline anti-communists and cold-warriors, who see their
children increasingly becoming more 'center-left' as they have Americanized and become
'Latinos' in the US. They are still at odds geopolitically with Latinos, primarily
Mexican-Americans from the American southwest, who tend to be friendlier to socialist ideas and
have represented the far-left of the Democratic Party on economic issues as well as
anti-imperialism, even if sharing with Cuban-Americans some more socially conservative values.
This communitarian axis of Latinos in the US, however, has grown and become a real force of its
own.
Trump's hardline on Cuba and Venezuela is appealing to the Florida wing of the Latino
constituency (to the extent we can speak of a single constituency), and this is where the
Democratic Party understands it needs to fight in order to win Florida.
There hasn't been a Republican candidate to win the Presidency without winning Florida in
many generations, and
the Republican victory of Rick Scott in the state's most expensive senatorial race against
Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson in 2018 shows that Republicans are aiming to win Florida in
2020. The Democratic Party concern is palpable and well founded.
So we find the extraordinary focus on Latinos was represented in the ultimately surprising
display of whole Spanish language answers from both Beto O'Rourke and Cory Booker, and a few
questions wholly or partly in Spanish from the moderators. The entire debate was brought to
viewers not just by NBC but also by Spanish language network Telemundo.
At face value, Trump and Democrats seem to be 6's and 7's over immigration. But when we
really look at what the real deal is, we find yet another alignment of the Democrat's position
to that of Trump's. How can this be?
To understand this is to understand the overall trajectory now that the US empire is all but
finished. Its historical aim now is to be able to disentangle from the Mid-East, a prominent
Trump position which used to be Obama's until it wasn't, and on the Democratic side today is
only being carried forward by Tulsi Gabbard. The so-called neo-isolationism of the US isn't so
much that, as it is a return to the Monroe Doctrine. This author has written about this several
years before Trump took office, in the article ' From Pax Americana to
Pan Americana '. Here this author argued that the US must transform from a Sea Power
into a Land Power. This isn't isolationism, but a right-sized regional hegemon, a regional
hegemon for the Americas.
Trump's rhetoric on the immigration question and Mexico has never failed to mention that the
mid-to-long term solution is not only that Mexico enforces its own borders to its south, but
that the Mexican economy grows – and this requires investment.
The trade-offs are several fold. For one, the US goes back to its China position, and wants
Latin American countries to agree to reduce the
Chinese influence in exchange for real industrial capital investments from the United
States into Latin America.
This is not to say that the Democratic Party has ignored Latin America to date, far from it.
It was under Obama's two terms that the US worked the most to reverse the Pink Tide in Latin
America, and this came with a few 'own goals' when the ultimate consequence of the
regime-change operation in Honduras was to stoke a human wave migration crisis. This was, in
short, the American version of the Libya scenario.
While Trump is nominally strict on immigration, it was under Obama that the US deported the
most migrants in history. This is a fact that Democrats ignore in their talking points and
attacks on Trump's 'inhuman policy' that tears families apart. And so in a strange departure
from what might otherwise occur to us, it was Obama's policy that was worse by the numbers for
pro-migration advocates, and it's been Trump who has openly called for investment into Latin
America with a named reason being to stem the migration 'crisis'.
And it's this exact talking point that numerous Democratic Party candidates picked up on,
and a very telling term was introduced by Julian Castro – a Marshall Plan for Latin
America. Cory Booker stood beside and nodded in apparent agreement, and that the words came
from the token Latino (no, not Beto), Castro was both intentional and symbolically telling.
While Bolton and Pompeo have operated under the 'Monroe Doctrine' term, this is so entirely
distasteful for all of Latin America that it offends anyone and everyone, even the US's own
lackeys, puppets, and proxies in the region.
"Why it matters: AMLO has worked energetically since taking office to sell the White
House on a "Marshall Plan" of support to address the region's growing migrant crisis. The US
commitment is a preliminary sign that he's at least being heard
While he campaigned as a compassionate voice on immigration, Mexico's new left-wing
leader spied the need for a grand solution. The US funding will contribute to a $30 billion
aid package envisioned by AMLO
AMLO even dangled the prospect of Chinese investment to bring Trump to the table,
according to the NY Times -- reasoning that the US might be more willing to pay up if it
feared that China might try to expand its influence in the region by opening its
wallet."
Since them, numerous articles have popped up describing Trump's potential 'Marshall Plan'
for Central America.
WHAT NEXT? CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
What Tulsi Gabbard, the clear winner of the debate, will do next is to appropriate Julian
Castro's 'Marshall Plan' line on Mexico and Central America. It dog-whistles numerous Trump
talking points in relation to Mexico, as well as taking a 'less migration is good migration'
approach to what is no doubt a real problem, without engaging in reactionary attacks on the
migrants themselves. To get 'to the source' of the problem, as Castro explains, requires
investment into Latin America.
Gabbard will be well positioned to nominally attack Trump's policy implementation along
human rights grounds, while not being specific on anything except getting 'to the source of the
problem'.
Gabbard is the dark horse, and along with Yang (in the second night's debate) will no doubt
pull ahead of the conventionally pre-selected winners that were supposed to be Booker, Sanders,
Warren and especially Biden. We will see much more focus on Gabbard now in virtual spaces, even
while the mainstream media will continue to wrongly focus on Biden and Booker. Booker played
his left-most game in the debate, but as prospective voters sort him on questions as far and
ranging as Palestine, war, and labor (economy) – they will find him sorely lacking.
With 60% of American generally supporting Trump's approach to the economy, these are his
highest approval ratings, and ones which Americans care about and highly prioritize. Gabbard
would be wise to approach the question of distribution, winners and losers of the economic
boom, and focus on the 1% vs. the 99%. Doing so will help her move beyond her initial base of
support as the anti-war candidate.
This will angle the populist line, and position her well not only against all other
Democrats, but even against Trump himself should she win the nomination. It's a long shot, but
remember indeed: this is the age of underdogs and dark horses.
"... More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good. ..."
"... Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option. ..."
"... A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled " Non-Interventionism is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense. ..."
"... "Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing nations." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic consequences." ..."
"... Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia". ..."
"... Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq. ..."
"... All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." – Henry Kissinger ..."
"... Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents? ..."
"... instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. ..."
"... funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America. ..."
"... if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important ..."
"... As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong: I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's also the fact that she's a CFR member ..."
"... Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out. ..."
"... All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden. ..."
After getting curb stomped on the debate
stage by Tulsi Gabbard, the campaign for Tim "Who the fuck is Tim Ryan?" Ryan
posted a statement decrying the Hawaii congresswoman's
desire to end a pointless 18-year military occupation as "isolationism".
"While making a point as to why America can't cede its international leadership and retreat from around the world, Tim was
interrupted by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard," the statement reads.
"When he tried to answer her, she contorted a factual point Tim was making -- about the Taliban being complicit in the 9/11
attacks by providing training, bases and refuge for Al Qaeda and its leaders. The characterization that Tim Ryan doesn't know
who is responsible for the attacks on 9/11 is simply unfair reporting. Further, we continue to reject Gabbard's isolationism and
her misguided beliefs on foreign policy . We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators
like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad who used chemical weapons on his own people."
Ryan's campaign is lying. During an exchange that was explicitly about the Taliban in Afghanistan, Ryan plainly said "When we
weren't in there, they started flying planes into our buildings." At best, Ryan can argue that when he said "they" he had suddenly
shifted from talking about the Taliban to talking about Al Qaeda without bothering to say so, in which case he obviously can't legitimately
claim that Gabbard "contorted" anything he had said. At worst, he was simply unaware at the time of the very clear distinction between
the Afghan military and political body called the Taliban and the multinational extremist organization called Al Qaeda.
More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a
costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything
other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good.
Under our current Orwellian doublespeak
paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable
opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option.
This is entirely by design. This bit of word magic has been employed for a long time to tar any idea which deviates from the neoconservative
agenda of total global unipolarity via violent imperialism as something freakish and dangerous. In
his farewell address to the nation , war criminal George W Bush said the following:
"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism
and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity
at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."
A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled "
Non-Interventionism
is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which
simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense.
"Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest
form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be
mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent."
"A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists
share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with
all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing
nations."
"A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within
nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling
itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and
non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic
consequences."
Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia".
Yet you'll see this ridiculous label applied to both Gabbard and Trump, neither of whom are isolationists by any stretch of the imagination,
or even proper non-interventionists. Gabbard supports most US military alliances and continues to voice full support for the bogus
"war on terror" implemented by the Bush administration which serves no purpose other than to facilitate endless military expansionism;
Trump is openly pushing regime change interventionism in both Venezuela and Iran while declining to make good on his promises to
withdraw the US military from Syria and Afghanistan.
Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm
not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this
while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending
disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq.
This is bullshit for a couple of reasons. Firstly, virtually no one is a pure pacifist who opposes war under any and all possible
circumstances; anyone who claims that they can't imagine any possible scenario in which they'd support using some kind of coordinated
violence either hasn't imagined very hard or is fooling themselves. If your loved ones were going to be raped, tortured and killed
by hostile forces unless an opposing group took up arms to defend them, for example, you would support that. Hell, you would probably
join in. Secondly, equating opposition to US-led regime change interventionism, which is literally always disastrous and literally
never helpful, is not even a tiny bit remotely like opposing all war under any possible circumstance.
Another common distortion you'll see is the specious argument that a given opponent of US interventionism "isn't anti-war" because
they don't oppose all war under any and all circumstances.
This tweet by The Intercept 's Mehdi Hasan
is a perfect example, claiming that Gabbard is not anti-war because she supports Syria's sovereign right to defend itself with the
help of its allies from the violent extremist factions which overran the country with western backing. Again, virtually no one is
opposed to all war under any and all circumstances; if a coalition of foreign governments had helped flood Hasan's own country of
Britain with extremist militias who'd been murdering their way across the UK with the ultimate goal of toppling London, both Tulsi
Gabbard and Hasan would support fighting back against those militias.
The label "anti-war" can for these reasons be a little misleading. The term anti-interventionist or non-interventionist comes
closest to describing the value system of most people who oppose the warmongering of the western empire, because they understand
that calls for military interventionism which go mainstream in today's environment are almost universally based on imperialist agendas
grabbing at power, profit, and global hegemony. The label "isolationist" comes nowhere close.
It all comes down to sovereignty. An anti-interventionist believes that a country has the right to defend itself, but it doesn't
have the right to conquer, capture, infiltrate or overthrow other nations whether covertly or overtly. At the "end" of colonialism
we all agreed we were done with that, except that the nationless manipulators have found far trickier ways to seize a country's will
and resources without actually planting a flag there. We need to get clearer on these distinctions and get louder about defending
them as the only sane, coherent way to run foreign policy.
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"If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."
Fascinating belief, has he been to Libya lately, perhaps attended an open air slave Market in a country that was very developed
before the US decided to 'free' it.
When we weren't there, they flew planes into our buildings?
Excuse me mutant, but I believe we paid Israel our jewtax that year like all the others and they still flew planes into our
buildings. And then danced in the streets about it. Sick people.
All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." –
Henry Kissinger
Picture if you will Jesus. Seriously? Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can
you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents?
Do you see Jesus piloting a drone and killing Muslims, other non-believers, or anyone for that matter? Can you picture Jesus
as a sniper?
Soooo,,, If my favorite evening activity, is to sit on the front porch steps, while the dog and the cats run around, with my
shotgun leaning up next to me,,, Is that Isolationist, or Protectionist,,,
instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. we can't do **** if we're
glazed over in a nuclear holocaust. maybe Tulsi is lying through her teeth, but i am so pissed Trump went full neocon
funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY
projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America.
If you read her positions on various issues, a quick survey shows that she supports the New Green Deal, more gun control (ban
on assault rifles, etc.), Medicare for all. Stopped reading at that point.
We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad
who used chemical weapons on his own people.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only
for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus
becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the
lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. ~ Joseph Goebbels
The better educated among us know exactly as to who Goebblels was referring to. Even a dullard should be able to figure out
who benefits from all of our Middle East adventures.
"Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer
peace, but isolationism. "
Under military might WAS the old world order... Under the new world order the strength is in cyber warfare .
If under technology the profiteers can control the masses through crowd control ( which they can-" Department of Defense has
developed a non-lethal crowd control device called the
Active Denial System (ADS) . The ADS works by firing a high-powered beam of 95 GHz waves at a target that is, millimeter wavelengths.
Anyone caught in the beam will feel like their skin is burning.) your spending power ( they can through e- commetce and digital
banking) and isolation cells called homes ( they can through directed microwaves from GWEN stations).... We already are isolated
and exposed at the same time.
That war is an exceptable means of engagement as a solution to world power is a confirmation of the psychological warfare imposed
on us since the creation of our Nation.
Either we reel it in and back now or we destroy ourselves from within.
"
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly
has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important
Idiot, Tulsi is a sovereign nationalist on the left. You have just never seen one before. If you were truly anti-globalist
you'd would realize left and right are invented to divide us. The politics are global and national, so wake the **** up
""War Is the U.S. Racket!"" They are not good at it, there "great at it". My entire life 63yrs,they been fighting someone or
something. When times where rough in the 1800s,Hell! they fought themselves(Civil War. As I said b4 No one seems to ask, Where
does the gold go of the vanquished foe? Truly Is A Well Practiced Racket.
Good article with several salient points, thought I would ask "what's wrong with a little isolationism?" Peace through internal
strength is desirable, but good fences make good neighbors and charity begins at home!
The gradual twisting of language really is one of most insidious tactics employed by the NWO Luciferians. I think we'd all
like to see the traitorous Neocons gone for good. Better yet, strip them of their American citizenship and ill-gotten wealth and
banish them to Israel. Let them earn their citizenship serving in a front-line IDF rifle company.
As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong:
I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's
also the fact that she's a CFR member and avowed gun-grabber, to boot. Two HUGE red flags!
She almost strikes me as a half-assed 'Manchurian Candidate.' So, if she's elected (a big 'if' at this point) I ask
myself 'what happens after the next (probably nuclear) false flag?' How quickly will she disavow her present stance on non-interventionism?
How quickly and viciously will the 2nd Amendment be raped? Besides, I'm not foolish enough to believe that one person can turn
the SS Deep State away from it's final disastrous course.
These word games were already in use looong ago. Tulsi Gabbard is using Obama's line about fighting the wrong war. She
would have taken out Al Qaeda, captured Bin Laden, and put a dog leash on him. So that she could make a green economy, a
new century of virtue signalling tyranny. No thanks.
Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried
Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out.
All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden.
I went to some of the so-called liberal websites and blogs and the only mention of Gabbard is in the context of her being a
Putin stooge. This combined with the fact that virtually all establishment Republicans are eager to fight any war for Israel clearly
shows that it will take something other than the ballot box to end Uncle Scam's endless wars.
"... For Raimondo, being called names while in the service of trying to end U.S. wars of choice was like rocket fuel. Particularly when neoconservative David Frum launched his "unpatriotic" broadside at National Review on March 24, 2003, five days after the U.S. launched what would be the most disastrous invasion of another country since Vietnam. Being accused of "appeasing the enemy" could only mean they were getting under the warmongers' skin at a time when the rest of Washington was mobilized like lemmings for battle. ..."
"... His penultimate column on May 3 was classic Raimondo, blasting John Bolton for saber rattling for U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and entitled "Will the Real Moron Stand Up?" ..."
"... For writers who were skeptical of U.S. national security policy after 9/11 -- especially those on the Right end of the spectrum, whether they be libertarians or conservatives -- there were few outlets, at least with a substantial audience, to publish. Antiwar.com , which had been around since 1995, became a hub for Left and Right critics. Justin, though, provided the juice. His willingness to mix it up, to say what needed to be said, in unvarnished, funny, often un-politically correct language (in any given column he would be calling officials and media "shrieking monkeys," "whores," "harpies") was for many both a motivator and a balm at a time when it seemed like every column one wrote against the status quo was one step closer to career-ending purgatory. ..."
"... Surrounded by brave iconoclasts and B.S.-beaters like Phil Giraldi, Jeff Huber and Raimondo charged my courage and batteries as a writer. Justin was especially supportive, and though there were things he would say that I would never have the guts to (I tried to flex more on the reporting side, and less on the polemics), he seemed to appreciate having me as a junior member of the suicide squad. ..."
"... Why? You can read in detail here , but much of it was because of Antiwar.com 's mission to criticize U.S. war policies, its linking to government watch lists at the time, and Justin's writing, particularly on five Israelis who were detained by the FBI in New Jersey after they were spotted by witnesses on a rooftop celebrating and taking pictures in sight of the burning NYC towers on 9/11 and later deported. ..."
"... Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is ..."
"... Executive Editor at ..."
"... and former columnist at Antiwar.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC ..."
"... He challenged conventional wisdom because he thought conventional wisdom is often wrong, which it is. As his work created more journalists and citizens who are willing to do this, his life's work was important ..."
"... And he managed to write and publish one of the best most comprehensive biographies on Murray Rothbard ever written as well, only one of the most important American thinkers of the 20th century. He will be greatly missed, at Antiwar, and everywhere else. RIP. ..."
The Antiwar.com co-founder, who died
Thursday, was one of the toughest fighters for the cause. We all benefitted.
Justin
Raimondo gives Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special
Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. (You Tube) WASHINGTON -- Justin
Raimondo -- author, activist and consummate critic of the U.S. war machine–passed away at
the age of 67 on Thursday. While many of you might know him as the co-founder and prolific
columnist at Antiwar.com , he was once
branded a "unpatriotic conservative" at the start of the Iraq War, and a potential "threat to
national security" a year later.
For Raimondo, being called names while in the service of trying to end U.S. wars of choice
was like rocket fuel. Particularly when neoconservative David Frum launched his "unpatriotic"
broadside at
National Review on March 24, 2003, five days after the U.S. launched what would be the
most disastrous invasion of another country since Vietnam. Being accused of "appeasing the
enemy" could only mean they were getting under the warmongers' skin at a time when the rest of
Washington was mobilized like lemmings for battle.
"He loved it," said Eric Garris, who co-founded Antiwar.com with Raimondo. Garris was his close friend and
co-conspirator in dozens of political and anti-war campaigns from 1976 until his death
yesterday. "Justin loved to be attacked -- he viewed it usually as a badge of honor."
Word of Raimondo's death didn't quite come as a surprise to people who had been following
him online -- they knew he had been battling cancer for two years, and his volatile presence on
Twitter had dropped off to an occasional flash, then nothing, for the last few months. His
penultimate column on May 3 was classic Raimondo, blasting John Bolton for saber rattling for
U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and entitled
"Will the Real Moron Stand Up?"
For writers who were skeptical of U.S. national security policy after 9/11 -- especially
those on the Right end of the spectrum, whether they be libertarians or conservatives -- there
were few outlets, at least with a substantial audience, to publish. Antiwar.com , which had been around since 1995, became a hub for Left
and Right critics. Justin, though, provided the juice. His willingness to mix it up, to say
what needed to be said, in unvarnished, funny, often un-politically correct language (in any
given column he would be calling officials and media "shrieking monkeys," "whores," "harpies")
was for many both a motivator and a balm at a time when it seemed like every column one wrote
against the status quo was one step closer to career-ending purgatory.
"We were really very much in the wilderness," Garris recalled to me this morning. But
Raimondo surged -- doing stints on Fox News, MSNBC, even CNN at the time. He wrote quite a
bit forTACtoo, from its inception through
2016. "He had the ability to reach people and/or piss them off so much. He was such a
powerful force."
This is where I come in. Having begun writing for TAC in 2007 I was happy when Garris
reached out in
2009 to see if I wanted to do some regular columns for Antiwar.com . As one of those "misfits among misfits," I can say that
my decision to do so was both therapeutic (what better venue to rage against the machine?) and
a most fulfilling stage in my career as a journalist. Some of us might recall the atmosphere in
Washington during those times: stiflingly conformist and relentlessly punitive towards those
who did not toe the line. Surrounded by brave iconoclasts and B.S.-beaters like Phil Giraldi,
Jeff Huber and
Raimondo charged my courage and batteries as a writer. Justin was especially supportive, and
though there were things he would say that I would never have the guts to (I tried to flex more
on the reporting side, and less on the polemics), he seemed to appreciate having me as a junior
member of the suicide squad.
There was a moment I was put to the test. I was in the middle of my daughter's Girls Scout
meeting in 2013 when I got a call from Garris. I stepped out in the hall. Would I please write
a piece on Antiwar.com suing the FBI for
secretly investigating Antiwar.com in the
early days of the war, in part because of some of the things Justin had written and said? My
mind reeled. Would bringing attention to this bring further heat on the website? Would it bring
heat on me?
I read the FBI memo at the center of their planned lawsuit and agreed to write it. Frankly,
I knew in my heart I wouldn't be worth my salt as a journalist if I went wobbly on this. The
government had opened secret files on Garris and Raimondo, and at one point the FBI agent
writing the April 30, 2004 memo on Antiwar.com recommended further monitoring of the website in the form
of a "preliminary investigation to determine if [redaction] are engaging in, or have engaged
in, activities which constitute a threat to national security."
Why? You can read in detail
here , but much of it was because of Antiwar.com 's mission to criticize U.S. war policies, its linking to
government watch lists at the time, and Justin's writing, particularly on five Israelis who
were detained by the FBI in New
Jersey after they were spotted by witnesses on a rooftop celebrating and taking pictures in
sight of the burning NYC towers on 9/11 and later deported.
The ACLU had taken up their case, rightly, as an example of the government's hostile
attitude against the 1st Amendment. The government had taken advantage of its new 9/11
authorities and the country's war-time footing to spy and harass dissidents just like the old
days. Garris and Raimondo won, but their efforts to have all of the government records expunged
is still tied up in appeals . Garris said Justin was at least able to see the latest
June
12 hearing i n the Ninth Circuit.
"He saw the hearing and he got to see that what he was doing was worth something," Garris
said, audibly choking back tears. When they met, Raimondo was a libertarian gay rights
activist. Later on they would help convince Buchanan to run for president in 1992 and Raimondo
led his campaign office in San Francisco (Garris said Buchanan had sent a touching note about
Justin's death this morning). When gay protesters had surrounded and "assaulted" the San
Francisco headquarters at the time, Garris recalled, Raimondo ran out loaded for bear. "He gave
them the what-for," he said, laughing.
That was the image many of us are conjuring today. Raimondo the fighter. Raimondo the brave.
Of course not everyone agreed with him. His enemies over the years have tarred him as a racist
and anti-semite. On the other hand, he easily came to blows with his friends over a point of
view or a passage in a column–a tweet even. His bridge-burning with colleagues and fellow
travelers was notorious. "He was very vocal and contentious person who people either hated or
loved or both," Garris told me. "I've gotten a lot of emails and comments today about him that
said, you know I hated him but he was a hero."
But in the end, after 68 years of being a rebel and contrarian, he was forced to sheath the
sword. He was just too sick. "He just fought and fought, to keep going to get the words out,"
Garris said. He last saw him on Saturday. They knew it would be the last time
.
"I am going to miss him so much. My life would have been completely different if I hadn't
met him."
I know I feel that way, and millions of readers and fans (and foes) do too. RIP.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos isExecutive Editor at TAC and former columnist
at Antiwar.com.
Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC
I was hoping he could stay around. But let those of us who miss him redouble our efforts to
the mission we shared so that it grows stronger in the wake of our loss.
He challenged conventional wisdom because he thought conventional wisdom is often wrong,
which it is. As his work created more journalists and citizens who are willing to do this,
his life's work was important.
Reading Reclaiming the American Right well over 10 years ago (but years after first being
published), I was shocked at how intellectually challenging, substantiated with historical
fact, and fascinating it was.
Clearly, I had let the Rush Limbaugh School of Total
Immersion™, 3 hours a day, inform my views of what, exactly, the American Right,
post-WWII really was and is and continues to be to this day a little too much, no offense
to Rush and the golden EIB. I still like listening to him.
The scholarship in that book is
FAR beyond any silly Jonah Goldberg tome, no matter how snazzy the title, from "Liberal
Fascism" to his latest, with the copied James Burnham title, "Suicide of the West".
Raimondo was a incredibly well read, superbly talented writer who was self-taught on
America's history in general and the post-WWII conservative history in particular.
And he managed to write and publish one of the best most comprehensive biographies on Murray Rothbard ever written as
well, only one of the most important American thinkers of the 20th century. He will be greatly missed, at Antiwar, and
everywhere else. RIP.
on are zombies and stupid.
Have a good one, know what I mean...
Miss Gabbard just served two tours in the ME, one as enlisted in the HI National Guard.
Brave Mr. Bolton kept the dirty communists from endangering the US supply of Chesapeake
crab while serving in the Maryland Guard. Rumor also has it that he helped Tompall Glaser
write the song Streets of Baltimore. Some say they saw Mr. Bolton single handily defending
Memorial Stadium from a combined VC/NVA attack during an Orioles game. The Cubans would have
conquered the Pimlico Race Course if not for the combat skill of PFC Bolton.
We’ll see how neoliberal MSM will spin this, but I would say Sanders emerged unscathed, Harris attacked and "wounded" Biden, Biden
sounded like a lightweight, Gillibrand seems to be a very unpleasant person although different form Harris...
Notable quotes:
"... as if polling on donald trump and stuff is just so interesting ..."
"... Kamala Harris got more floor time than anyone else. Harris ended Biden's campaign. The debate is rigged against Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... Did Harris get the debate questions in advance? ..."
"... Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage. ..."
"... Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala The Cop. ..."
Pathetic, the whole scene is pathetic. What a way to run a putative democracy, bring back the league of women voters to run
the debates and that idiot with the graphs during commercial breaks while watching this online, I want to break his freaking head
sorry.
I had the idea that your sensibilities were rather more refined than that, knowing anything about or not.
Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who
is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying
from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage.
FWIW, Boot Edge Edge’s prehensile sincerity was masterful in my view – shows some real talent.
I’m just observing this out of academic interest and hope we’ll all have a chance to vote for Bernie in the general. But from
tonight, Boot Edge Edge to me stood out as a talent – and everyone else (besides Bernie who was reliably on message and will keep
going more or less the same after this) was garbage or unnecessary (Biden is a disgrace), and the first debate was better.
Cal2, June 27, 2019 at 11:19 pm
In that case, Donald Trump gets our votes, as well as keeping all the potential crossovers, who had supported Trump last time,
and would have voted for Sanders-Gabbard.
Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala
The Cop.
Sanders-Harris would be political suicide for the Democrats.
On Thursday, June 27, Justin Raimondo passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. He
was 67. Justin was a lifelong fighter for peace and liberty. In 1995, he co-founded Antiwar.com
with Eric Garris.
He served as Antiwar.com's editorial director and top columnist, writing over 3,000 articles for the website.
He can never be replaced and will be missed by countless numbers of fans and followers
"... She is the only candidate who has made ending the wars a centerpiece of her campaign, which will likely lead to her undoing ..."
"... The only bright spot in the second debate was Senator Bernie Sanders's single mention of the word Yemen -- specifically ending U.S. support for that war and shifting war powers back where they belong -- with Congress. Still, most of the candidates had just about nothing to say on this or other war-related topics. Their silence was instructive. ..."
"... Ironically, then, two more American soldiers were killed in another meaningless firefight in the long meaningless war in Afghanistan on the day of the first Democratic presidential primary debate. Indeed, were it not for this horrendous event -- the deaths of the 3,550th and 3,551st coalition troops in an 18-year-old war -- Afghanistan might not have ever made it onto Rachel Maddow's debate questions list. ..."
"... Maddow's question on the first night was one of precious few posed on the subject of foreign policy at all. Moreover, it spurred the most interesting, engaging, and enlightening exchange of either evening -- between Gabbard and Ohio Representative Tim Ryan. ..."
"... Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan We have spent so much money. Money that's coming out of every one of our pockets We are no better off in Afghanistan today than we were when this war began. This is why it is so important to have a president -- commander in chief who knows the cost of war and is ready to do the job on day one. ..."
"... In a few tight sentences, Gabbard distilled decades' worth of antiwar critique and summarized what I've been writing for years -- only I've killed many trees composing more than 20,000 words on the topic. The brevity of her terse comment, coupled with her unique platform as a veteran, only added to its power. Bravo, Tulsi, bravo! ..."
"... Gabbard, shamefully, is the only one among an absurdly large field of candidates who has put foreign policy, specifically ending the forever wars, at the top of her presidential campaign agenda. Well, unlike just about all of her opponents, she did fight in those very conflicts. The pity is that with an electorate so utterly apathetic about war, her priorities, while noble, might just doom her campaign before it even really starts. That's instructive, if pitiful. ..."
She is the only candidate who has made ending the wars a centerpiece
of her campaign, which will likely lead to her undoing
Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard during the first night of the the Democratic debate. (YouTube/NBC News/screenshot) Democrats, liberals,
progressives -- call them what you will -- don't really do foreign policy. Sure, if cornered, they'll spout a few choice talking
points, and probably find a way to make them all about bashing President Donald Trump -- ignoring the uncomfortable fact that their
very own Barack Obama led and expanded America's countless wars for eight long years.
This was ever so apparent in the first two nights of Democratic primary debates this week. Foreign policy hardly registered for
these candidates with one noteworthy exception: Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard -- herself an (anti-war) combat veteran and army
officer.
Now primary debates are more show than substance; this has long been the case. Still, to watch the first night's Democratic primary
debates, it was possible to forget that the United States remains mired in several air and ground wars from West Africa to Central
Asia. In a two-hour long debate, with 10 would-be nominees plus the moderators, the word Afghanistan was
uttered just nine
times -- you know, once for every two years American troops have been killing and dying there. Iraq was uttered just twice -- both
times by Gabbard. Syria, where Americans have died and still fight, was mentioned not once. Yemen, the world's worst humanitarian
disaster, courtesy of a U.S.-supported Saudi terror campaign didn't get mentioned a single time, either.
Night two was mostly worse! Afghanistan was uttered just three times, and there was no question specifically related to the war.
Biden did say, in passing, that he doesn't think there should be "combat troops" in Afghanistan -- but notice the qualifier "combat."
That's a cop-out that allows him to keep advisers and "support" troops in the country indefinitely. These are the games most Democrats
play. And by the way, all those supposedly non-combat troops, well, they can and do get killed too.
The only bright spot in the second debate was Senator Bernie Sanders's single mention of the word Yemen -- specifically ending
U.S. support for that war and shifting war powers back where they belong -- with Congress. Still, most of the candidates had just
about nothing to say on this or other war-related topics. Their silence was instructive.
Ironically, then, two more American soldiers were
killed in another meaningless firefight in the long meaningless war in Afghanistan on the day of the first Democratic presidential
primary debate. Indeed, were it not for this horrendous event -- the deaths of the 3,550th and 3,551st coalition troops in an 18-year-old
war -- Afghanistan might not have ever made it onto Rachel Maddow's debate questions list.
I mourn each and every service-member's death in that unwinnable war; to say nothing of the far more numerous Afghan civilian
fatalities. Still, in a macabre sort of way, I was glad the topic came up, even under such dismal circumstances. After all, Maddow's
question on the first night was one of precious few posed on the subject of foreign policy at all. Moreover, it spurred the most
interesting, engaging, and enlightening
exchange of either evening -- between Gabbard and Ohio Representative Tim Ryan.
Reminding the audience of the recent troop deaths in the country, Maddow asked Ryan, "Why isn't [the Afghanistan war] over? Why
can't presidents of very different parties and very different temperaments get us out of there? And how could you?" Ryan had a ready,
if wholly conventional and obtuse, answer: "The lesson" of these many years of wars is clear, he opined; the United States must stay
"engaged," "completely engaged," in fact, even if "no one likes" it and it's "tedious." I heard this, vomited a bit into my mouth,
and thought "spare me!"
Ryan's platitudes didn't answer the question, for starters, and hardly engaged with American goals, interests, exit strategies,
or a basic cost-benefit analysis in the war. In the space of a single sentence, Ryan proved himself just another neoliberal militarist,
you know, the "reluctant" Democratic imperialist type. He made it clear he's Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Chuck Schumer rolled
into one, except instead of cynically voting for the 2003 Iraq war, he was defending an off-the-rails Afghanistan war in its 18th
year.
Gabbard pounced, and delivered the finest foreign policy screed of the night. And more power to her. Interrupting Ryan, she poignantly
asked:
Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be
engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan We have
spent so much money. Money that's coming out of every one of our pockets We are no better off in Afghanistan today than we were
when this war began. This is why it is so important to have a president -- commander in chief who knows the cost of war and is
ready to do the job on day one.
In a few tight sentences, Gabbard distilled decades' worth of antiwar critique and summarized what I've been
writing for years -- only I've killed many trees composing more than 20,000 words on the topic. The brevity of her terse comment,
coupled with her unique platform as a veteran, only added to its power. Bravo, Tulsi, bravo!
Ryan was visibly shaken and felt compelled to retort with a standard series of worn out tropes. And Gabbard was ready for each
one, almost as though she'd heard them all before (and probably has). The U.S. military has to stay, Ryan pleaded, because: "if the
United States isn't engaged the Taliban will grow and they will have bigger, bolder terrorist acts." Gabbard cut him right off. "The
Taliban was there long before we came in. They'll be there long [after] we leave," she thundered.
But because we didn't "squash them," before 9/11 Ryan complained, "they started flying planes into our buildings." This,
of course, is the recycled and easily refuted
safe haven myth -- the notion
that the Taliban would again host transnational terrorists the moment our paltry 14,500 troops head back to Milwaukee. It's ridiculous.
There's no evidence to support this desperate claim and it fails to explain why the United States doesn't station several thousand
troops in the dozens of global locales with a more serious al-Qaeda or ISIS presence than Afghanistan does. Gabbard would
have none of it. "The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11," she reminded Ryan, "al-Qaeda did." It's an important distinction, lost on
mainstream interventionist Democrats and Republicans alike.
Ryan couldn't possibly open his mind to such complexity, nuance, and, ultimately, realism. He clearly worships at the temple of
war inertia; his worldview hostage to the absurd notion that the U.S. military has little choice but to fight everywhere, anywhere,
because, well, that's what it's always done. Which leads us to what should be an obvious conclusion: Ryan, and all who think
like him, should be immediately disqualified by true progressives and libertarians alike. His time has past. Ryan and his ilk have
left a scorched region and a shaken American republic for the rest of us.
Still, there was one more interesting query for the first night's candidates. What is the greatest geopolitical threat to the
United States today, asked Maddow. All 10 Democratic hopefuls took a crack at it, though almost none followed directions and kept
their answers to a single word or phrase. For the most part, the answers were ridiculous, outdated, or elementary, spanning Russia,
China, even Trump. But none of the debaters listed terrorism as the biggest threat -- a huge sea change from answers that candidates
undoubtedly would have given just four or eight years ago.
Which begs the question: why, if terrorism isn't the priority, do far too many of these presidential aspirants seem willing to
continue America's fruitless, forever fight for the Greater Middle East? It's a mystery, partly explained by the overwhelming power
of the America's military-industrial-congressional-media complex. Good old President Dwight D. Eisenhower is rolling in his grave,
I assure you.
Gabbard, shamefully, is the only one among an absurdly large field of candidates who has put foreign policy, specifically
ending the forever wars, at the top of her presidential campaign agenda. Well, unlike just about all of her opponents, she did
fight in those very conflicts. The pity is that with an electorate so utterly apathetic about war, her priorities, while noble,
might just doom her campaign before it even really starts. That's instructive, if pitiful.
I, too, served in a series of unwinnable, unnecessary, unethical wars. Like her, I've chosen to publicly dissent in not just strategic,
but in moral, language. I join her in her rejection of U.S. militarism, imperialism, and the flimsy justifications for the Afghanistan
war -- America's longest war in its history.
As for the other candidates, when one of them (likely) wins, let's hope they are prepared the question Tulsi so powerfully posed
to Ryan: what will they tell the parents of the next soldier that dies in America's hopeless Afghanistan war?
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major and regular contributor to The American Conservative. His work has also appeared
in Harper's, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation , Tom Dispatch, The Huffington Post, Truthdig and The Hill .
He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point.
He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers,
Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . He co-hosts the progressive veterans' podcast " Fortress on a Hill ." Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet .
It wasn't surprising that Hawaii's Representative Tulsi Gabbard, an outspoken advocate of
realism in foreign policy, exploited every opportunity to highlight her opposition to what she
considers America's promiscuous warmaking policies of recent decades. She decried the country
"going from one regime-change war to the next. This insanity must end." But other Democrats
also echoed that sentiment, particularly with regard to the growing tensions between the Trump
administration and Iran. Bill de Blasio said he would oppose another Mideast war unless it is
authorized by Congress. He added, "We learned a lesson in Vietnam that we seem to have
forgotten." Sanders also decried the possible drift to war with Iran as well as America's
involvement in the civil war in Yemen. He expressed pride in his opposition to the Iraq war and
chided Biden for supporting that 2003 invasion.
Three candidates -- Klobuchar, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, and Gabbard -- criticized
Trump for getting out of the Iran nuclear deal. "I would sign back on," said Gabbard, saying a
war with Iran would quickly ignite the entire region and would be "far more devastating and
costly" than the Iraq war. When Ryan suggested we must remain engaged in the Middle East,
Gabbard called that "unacceptable" and added the United States has nothing to show for its
18-year mililtary campaign in Afghanistan. At the conclusion of the debate, Gabbard became the
most searched candidate on Google, according to a report on Fox News that cited Google Trends
data. Could this mean a gap persists between the foreign policy sentiments of many Americans
and the foreign policy activities of their government in Washington?
Tulsi Gabbard being interviewed by Tucker Carlson after the debate. During the debate, Tulsi
made clear she was against war with Iran and getting back to the JCPOA deal. In the interview
with Carlson, she makes clear that she opposes the sanctions on Iran.
The reason why is simple: the party is not about politics, nor is it about the will of the
people or anything else. It is about power and money. It is about keeping the donors happy.
It is ethically bankrupt. That is what their true purpose is. Sanders and Gabbard rock the
boat and the party establishment will never forgive them for that.
Gillebrand:
Capitalism is Okey-Dokey, but greed is bad?
Keynes:
"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives
will somehow work together for the benefit of all."
Will neoliberal MSM "Ron Paul" Tulsi ? "Merchants of death" control Washington and they will fiercely attack
anybody who attempt to change the current neocon policies even one bit. Looks at color revolution launched against Trump
despite the fact that he folded three month after inauguration.
Notable quotes:
"... Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii during Wednesday night's Democratic debate. At 38, she was the youngest candidate on stage. ..."
"... Gabbard proceeded to rip both the "president and his chickenhawk cabinet (who) have led us to the brink of war with Iran." ..."
"... "The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11," Gabbard replied, "Al-Qaida attacked us on 9/11. That's why I and so many other people joined the military, to go after al-Qaida, not the Taliban." ..."
"... By debate's end, Gabbard was the runaway winner in both the Drudge Report and Washington Examiner polls and was far in front among all the Democratic candidates whose names were being searched on Google. ..."
"... If she can rise a few points above her 1-2% in the polls, she could be assured a spot in the second round of debates. ..."
"... If she makes it into the second round, Gabbard could become the catalyst for the kind of globalist vs. nationalist debate that broke out between Trump and Bush Republicans in 2016, a debate that contributed to Trump's victory at the Cleveland convention and in November. ..."
"... Given more airtime, she will present problems for the GOP as well. For the foreign policy Tulsi Gabbard is calling for is not far off from the foreign policy Donald Trump promised in 2016 but has since failed to deliver. ..."
"... Rather than engaging Russia as Trump promised, we have been sanctioning Russia, arming Ukraine, sending warships into the Black Sea, beefing up NATO in the Baltic and trashing arms control treaties Ronald Reagan and other presidents negotiated in the Cold War ..."
"... At the end of the Cold War, we were the lone superpower. Who forfeited our preeminence? Who bled us of 7,000 U.S. lives and $6 trillion in endless Middle East wars? Who got us into this Cold War II? ..."
"... They're already trying to 'Ron Paul' her, which means we should support her, CFR, and Zionist associations notwithstanding. She's the only one saying 'Enough!' to the insanity of Eternal War, as America's infrastructure crumbles, and our progeny are enslaved to trillions of un-payable debt. ..."
"... Does Pat Buchanan know? During a radio interview he assured me that his friend Dick Cheney wouldn't do something like that. I asked Pat's friend Paul Craig Roberts what he thought. Craig said Pat just can't go there or he'll never appear in the MSM again. Then Pat got purged anyway. https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2012/02/20/pat-buchanan-avoids-911-truth-gets-fired-anyway/ ..."
"... Hi Kevin. I am a big fan of yours but I think that you should market your beliefs about Israel's role in 911 a bit more modestly. While the evidence is compelling, it is not air-tight. ..."
"... This also applies to the Zio-Judaic role in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. You posit (in your otherwise excellent article on the Raptors' proposed visit Israel) that the Zions basically killed both Kennedys. While this position may be correct, it is an allegation that, at present, cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Your confidence therefore seems excessive. This weakness might therefore turn off average folks to your otherwise astute insights. ..."
"... The media is so terrified of Tulsi that they digitally added a zit to her face during the debate while she was discussing foreign policy to try to subliminally turn people off to her anti-war message. Here's an article on it showing videos of it happening: ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard's foreign policy ideas are anathema to the war-prone Washington establishment and the media class, not to speak of the Israel firster. The anti-Gabbard slur is already underway. ..."
"For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the
next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax
payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end."
Donald Trump, circa 2016?
Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
of Hawaii during Wednesday night's Democratic debate. At 38, she was the youngest candidate on
stage.
Gabbard proceeded to rip both the "president and his chickenhawk cabinet (who) have led us
to the brink of war with Iran."
In a fiery exchange, Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio countered that America cannot disengage
from Afghanistan: "When we weren't in there they started flying planes into our buildings."
"The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11," Gabbard replied, "Al-Qaida attacked us on 9/11.
That's why I and so many other people joined the military, to go after al-Qaida, not the
Taliban."
When Ryan insisted we must stay engaged, Gabbard shot back:
"Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in
Afghanistan? 'Well, we just have to be engaged.' As a solider, I will tell you, that answer is
unacceptable. We are no better off in Afghanistan that we were when this war began."
By debate's end, Gabbard was the runaway winner in both the Drudge Report and Washington
Examiner polls and was far in front among all the Democratic candidates whose names were being
searched on Google.
Though given less than seven minutes of speaking time in a two-hour debate, she could not
have used that time more effectively. And her performance may shake up the Democratic race.
If she can rise a few points above her 1-2% in the polls, she could be assured a spot in the
second round of debates.
If she is, moderators will now go to her with questions of foreign policy issues that would
not have been raised without her presence, and these questions will expose the hidden divisions
in the Democratic Party.
Leading Democratic candidates could be asked to declare what U.S. policy should be -- not
only toward Afghanistan but Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jared Kushner's "Deal of
the Century," and Trump's seeming rejection of the two-state solution.
If she makes it into the second round, Gabbard could become the catalyst for the kind of
globalist vs. nationalist debate that broke out between Trump and Bush Republicans in 2016, a
debate that contributed to Trump's victory at the Cleveland convention and in November.
The problem Gabbard presents for Democrats is that, as was shown in the joust with Ryan, she
takes positions that split her party, while her rivals prefer to talk about what unites the
party, like the terribleness of Trump, free college tuition and soaking the rich.
Given more airtime, she will present problems for the GOP as well. For the foreign policy
Tulsi Gabbard is calling for is not far off from the foreign policy Donald Trump promised in
2016 but has since failed to deliver.
We still have 2,000 troops in Syria, 5,000 in Iraq, 14,000 in Afghanistan. We just moved an
aircraft carrier task force, B-52s and 1,000 troops to the Persian Gulf to confront Iran. We
are about to impose sanctions on the Iranian foreign minister with whom we would need to
negotiate to avoid a war.
Jared Kushner is talking up a U.S.-led consortium to raise $50 billion for the Palestinians
in return for their forfeiture of sovereignty and an end to their dream of a nation-state on
the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as its capital.
John Bolton is talking of regime change in Caracas and confronting the "troika of tyranny"
in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Rather than engaging Russia as Trump promised, we have been sanctioning Russia, arming
Ukraine, sending warships into the Black Sea, beefing up NATO in the Baltic and trashing arms
control treaties Ronald Reagan and other presidents negotiated in the Cold War
U.S. policy has managed to push our great adversaries, Russia and China, together as they
have not been since the first Stalin-Mao decade of the Cold War.
This June, Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing where he and Xi Jinping met in the Great Hall
of the People to warn that in this time of "growing global instability and uncertainty," Russia
and China will "deepen their consultations on strategic stability issues."
Xi presented Putin with China's new Friendship Medal. Putin responded: "Cooperation with
China is one of Russia's top priorities and it has reached an unprecedented level."
At the end of the Cold War, we were the lone superpower. Who forfeited our preeminence? Who
bled us of 7,000 U.S. lives and $6 trillion in endless Middle East wars? Who got us into this
Cold War II?
Was all this the doing of those damnable isolationists again?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
They're already trying to 'Ron Paul' her, which means we should support her, CFR, and Zionist
associations notwithstanding. She's the only one saying 'Enough!' to the insanity of Eternal War, as America's
infrastructure crumbles, and our progeny are enslaved to trillions of un-payable debt.
Perhaps there's no way we can dislodge the Zionist fiend slurping from America's jugular,
but at least we can use our voice to say 'no' to it. And support the only person who's
willing to strike at the root, the Eternal Wars for Israel.
By debate's end, Gabbard was the runaway winner in both the Drudge Report and Washington
Examiner polls and was far in front among all the Democratic candidates whose names were
being searched on Google.
Which got the MIC to paint a giant target on her. The Atlantic Council is not going to be
happy with this kind of anti war shtick entering the debates, and their patrons own the
media.
Does Tulsi know she's lying when she says "al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11"? I suspect she does,
and that her disgust with the big lie behind the 9/11-wars-for-Israel has something to do
with her anti-interventionism.
I would hope Gabbard has more sense than to accept any position in Trumps administration.
Trump is the kiss of death for any decent person who works for or with him.
Hi Kevin. I am a big fan of yours but I think that you should market your beliefs
about Israel's role in 911 a bit more modestly. While the evidence is compelling, it is not
air-tight.
This also applies to the Zio-Judaic role in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy.
You posit (in your otherwise excellent article on the Raptors' proposed visit Israel) that
the Zions basically killed both Kennedys. While this position may be correct, it is an
allegation that, at present, cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Your confidence
therefore seems excessive. This weakness might therefore turn off average folks to your
otherwise astute insights.
As for Tulsi Gabbard, who you suggest is "lying" about her belief in what/who caused 911,
I bet that she (like myself) rejects the Official 911 report but is unsure of what/who did
exactly what on Sept. 11, 2001. Mysteries remain. The puzzle is incomplete.
Allow me to respectfully advise you to stick with what you know for certain, as you do it
quite well.
As for the mysteries concerning 911 and Israel's role, it may be more fruitful to concede
that the evidence has not only been partially destroyed but that a coverup has occurred. And
yes, there's overwhelming evidence pointing to Israeli involvement. And no honest person can
deny that.
The media is so terrified of Tulsi that they digitally added a zit to her face during the
debate while she was discussing foreign policy to try to subliminally turn people off to her
anti-war message.
Here's an article on it showing videos of it happening:
@Robert
Dolan As if Hillary 'War with Russia' Clinton would have been different.
Trumps foreign policies in obedience to 'that shitty little country' are disgusting, no
doubt, but we would still have all of that and much worse under Hillary.
It's a charming idea; Pat Buchanan is ventilating. Tulsi Gabbard as Trump's national security
adviser; what a treat! But poor Tulsi, she wouldn't survive very long in the Zionist
environment, which dominates Trump's White House.
Tulsi Gabbard's foreign policy ideas are
anathema to the war-prone Washington establishment and the media class, not to speak of the
Israel firster. The anti-Gabbard slur is already underway.
Tulsi Gabbard was half right by saying that the Taliban didn't do 9/11, but Al-Qaida did,
which is false. None of them committed the murderous attack. Everybody with a clear mind can
see of the web of lies and inconsistencies that the 9/11 Commission Report has solidified.
The American people have to come to grips with the fact that it was an inside job, and those
responsible are still all alive and kicking. The problem with the whole truth is that nobody
can afford to tell it, because it would be his or her political death.
So, Tulsi Gabbard was wise sticking to the half-truth.
@Kevin
Barrett 'Does Tulsi know she's lying when she says "al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11"?'
She has been showing signs of hedging since her campaign began. I can't make up my mind
how bad that is. If she went on telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
– such as that Mr Assad has done little or nothing to deserve the abuse heaped on him
– she might simply be ruling herself out as a candidate.
On the other hand, once a candidate starts telling herself, "Oh, it's worth one or two
little white lies to get myself elected, because I can do so much good then", it's the start
of a long slippery slope.
That specific statement can be justified, to my mind, with a little Jesuitical
equivocation. Because no one has ever really pinned down who or what "Al Qaeda" is – or
even whether such an organization exists at all.
If she said, "No one can be certain who was responsible for 9/11, but it's time we had a
really thorough, impartial investigation", she would alienate a huge section of the
voters.
There's almost always something like this tucked into Mr. Buchanan's columns. The other
day, he was still celebrating Uncle Sam's rescue of medical students from the "Marxist thugs"
in Grenada. That little "our" is the key. Pronoun propaganda is one of the ways that this
website's "Mr. Paleoconservative" helps to keep Americans identifying with Uncle Sam.
Another fundamental way that Mr. Buchanan actually supports the Establishment is by
channeling and harmlessly blowing off dissent through "Red v Blue" politics. Enjoy columns
like this one in the meantime, but keep in mind that he's also going to tell you to believe
the puppet show and vote (almost certainly GOP) in November 2020. Even if someone who says
things like Ms. Gabbard is elected, there will be ample drama in and about Washington to
excuse the lack of meaningful change and fire people up for the next Most Important Election
Ever in 2022.
And note this:
"For the foreign policy Tulsi Gabbard is calling for is not far off from the foreign
policy Donald Trump promised in 2016 but has since failed to deliver."
Oh, a mere logistical problem due to people like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Elliot
Abrams somehow crashing the MAGA party? Mr. Buchanan should have written "the foreign policy
Donald Trump lied about in 2016." But that might lead people to doubt the system.
If she can rise a few points above her 1-2% in the polls, she could be assured a spot in
the second round of debates.
Oi Vey! If Tulsi starts to rise in the polls then then (((they'll))) create a new dossier
and claim she's colluding with Russia or the Taliban to steal the 2020 election. I wouldn't
be surprised if elements of Trump's administration did the very same things to Tulsi as
Obongo's did to Trump.
Was all this the doing of those damnable isolationists again?
Pat knows (((who))) but has lost the will to say it. But we know. The goyim know.
@mark
green We, we all have our opinions. I think you're most charitable to Mr. Barrett's
fictions. Zio-terrorists (I'm not using the word Zionist, since I am Zionist – sort of
-because I support the idea of Jewish nation-state as a democratic country) may have
contributed (just freely associating), say, max 30% to 9/11, while the possibility of their
involvement in the assassination of JFK is way below 5%.
I don't know either. But it's been the main stream party line for a while now. "Bernie
should drop out because he's old, white, male, and his opinions are not unique. He's not even
a real Democrat. And he doesn't support the party. So why is he running for president as a
Democrat and picking fights with Biden/Warren/Beto?"
The one that gets me is Bernie the Bomber. Somehow when the pundit class talks about
Bernie and Tulsi, it's only to mention how they coddle dictators.
Coddle (the wrong) dictators. Real Dems coddle our CIA approved dictators. Bernie and
Tulsi coddle those filthy democratically elected "dictators" that want to retain natural
resources for the benefit of their own nations and not for the enrichment of multinationals.
They're monsters!
Seriously though, only the Dems would have a superstar like Bernie and put all their
efforts into sabotaging him. Even the RNC and right wing media was willing to suck it up and
get behind Trump when it was clear he was going to win and had a huge base of support. But,
as is said often now, "the Dems would rather lose to a Republican than win with a
progressive".
Is the CIA's purpose to protect national security or financial security? They seem
confused at times on their purpose and if they were disbanded would the country notice?
Doesn't the Defense Intelligence Agency do most of the heavy security lifting?
Looking at the CIA actions from the Dulles Brothers onwards, I would say that it is to
protect and support all members of the Oligarchy of Money from the 1% to Big Oil to Big
Finance from that pesky Democratic Government and the troublesome Rule of Law.
Actually protecting the United States and never mind Americans themselves is like #47 on
its to-do list.
Did you notice the shift in Bernie's message tonight? He said they needed to have the guts
to take on Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, and Big Pharma. I didn't hear him
complain about big banks. I think he's been compromised!
Elsewhere, British military intelligence ... erm, sorry, its mouthpiece The Fraudian
attacks Tulsi Gabbard over her supposed overlap with the Republican Party and her level of
wokeness which, not surprisingly, The Fraudian finds low and therefore starts worrying like a
dried-up dog mummy with teeth bites already all over it.
"... "[We need] a Commander in Chief [who will stop] these failed interventionist wars of regime change that have cost our country so much in human lives, untold suffering, and trillions of dollars." ..."
"... "Trump Nikki Haley...Mike Pompeo... The people around John Bolton. These people are advocating for strengthening our economy, and if the only way they can do that is by building that economy based on building and selling weapons to countries that are using them to slaughter and murder innocent people, then we need new leaders in this country. The American people deserve better than that." ..."
"Sadly, the system in this country is rigged in favor of wealthy elites who have purchased
tremendous influence in our government."
"We have to put an end to the culture of selfishness and corruption that allows greedy
Wall Street banks and executives to rip off working people without any consequences."
"[We need] a Commander in Chief [who will stop] these failed interventionist wars of
regime change that have cost our country so much in human lives, untold suffering, and
trillions of dollars."
"Will you stand for the humanity of the Yemeni people? Will you stand against Saudi
Arabia's genocidal war? Or will you continue to support this war that has caused 22 million
Yemeni people to be in desperate need of humanitarian aid? To cause these 85,000 children to
have died from starvation, to have caused the dropping of U.S.-made bombs on innocent
civilians, killing tens of thousands of people. This is such an urgent action that must be
taken by the United States Congress to assert its authority and end United States support for
this genocidal war in Yemen."
"Trump Nikki Haley...Mike Pompeo... The people around John Bolton. These people are
advocating for strengthening our economy, and if the only way they can do that is by building
that economy based on building and selling weapons to countries that are using them to
slaughter and murder innocent people, then we need new leaders in this country. The American
people deserve better than that."
"I don't smoke marijuana. I never have... But I believe firmly in every person's freedom
to make their own choices, and that people should not be thrown in jail and incarcerated or
made into criminals for choosing to smoke marijuana whether it be for medicinal and
non-medicinal purposes.
There's no question that this overall war on drugs has not only been a failure, it has
created and exacerbated a number of other problems that continue to afflict people in this
country..."
Quoted in: For Tulsi Gabbard, Marijuana Sits At Nexus Of Good Policy And Smart Politics,
Forbes, nu Tom Angell (7 March 2019)
"We are in a situation today where we, here in the United States and the world, are at a
greater risk of nuclear catastrophe than ever before in history. My commitment in fighting to end these counterproductive regime change wars is based on
these experiences and my understanding [of] the cost of war and who pays the price.
Yes, it is our service members. It is our troops. It is our military families. It is the
people in these countries, where these wars are waged, whose suffering ends up far worse
after we launch these regime change wars... The skepticism, and the questions that I
raised, were very specific around incidents that the Trump administration was trying to use
as an excuse to launch a U.S. military attack in Syria.
I served in a war in Iraq, a war that was launched based on lies and a war that was
launched without evidence. And so the American people were duped... As a soldier, as an
American, as a member of Congress, it is my duty and my responsibility to exercise
skepticism any time anyone tries to send our service members into harm's way or use our
military to go in and start a new war."
Quoted by Kevin Gosztola in CNN Foreign Policy Gatekeepers Vilify Tulsi Gabbard for Her
Anti-Intervention Dissent, Mintpress News (13 March 2019)
"... Thanks for the posting b about how manipulated the public is by the MSM. ..."
"... Bravo Tulsi ! The msm will hit hard on you, as they will be forced to take the numbers into account. Consider it as stripes... ..."
"... It is interesting how the NYTimes has now gone full in for Warren. They had at least three positive opinion columns for her yesterday, plus a front page spread that could have been written by the Warren campaign itself. This while having many negative Biden pieces, the last few days. The neoliberals really wanted Biden, but see he is unelectable so have gotten behind the next Obama. Looks like Wall Street is expecting a crash and want to make sure they are bailed out and not put in jail again. ..."
"... What do you expect from the Warshington Post. ..."
"... Tulsi served in the Anbar province. She understands the difference between Sunni and Shia which is why she is against war with Iran, Syria, and Libya. She also understands the corrupt nature of the US relationship with Saudi Arabia and speaks out against it. ..."
"... This is a big big NO NO in DC. Saudi Arabia is seen as part of the empire. Al Qaeda and ISIS serve their purpose as shock troops for the US empire. ..."
"... Richard Shultz, a professor of international politics at Tufts who's long been a key national security state intellectual, wrote in 2004 that "A very senior [Special Operations Forces] officer who had served on the Joint Staff in the 1990s told me that more than once he heard terrorist strikes characterized as 'a small price to pay for being a superpower.'" ..."
"... It is pretty clear to me that Tulsi doesn't believe this. This is why she is so hated by the MSM. She is former military and largely believes in military spending and fighting Sunni extremists including distancing the US from their sponsor Saudi Arabia and throwing out the US traitors who also support them. I don't believe in US military spending myself but Tulsi is the only honest person running. The rest of them are all completely corrupt. I do believe she would change US foreign policy for the better. Of course this is why she won't be allowed in office. ..."
"... I forget the exact details, but I remember that in the last election, a TV network was asked why it did not give more coverage to Bernie Sanders. The reply was that Sanders was not a real contender because he had almost no chance of winning. Well that's a self-fulfilling prophecy if it's made by those in control of the media (let's forget for a moment that his own party also conspired against him). ..."
"... It will be interesting to see if Tulsi Gabbard can attract enough support that she cannot be dismissed that easily. Funnily enough, by blocking the more centrist candidates like Sanders, the Democrat leadership has made room for Gabbard who is much more radical (by American standards). ..."
"... her first point was that we are spending enormous amounts of our tax dollars on unnecessary wars. Of course the media wanted instead to hear about what new boondoggle programs they might propose, not something as mundane (and unprofitable for some) as reducing military budget to reduce taxation and free up money for other programs. ..."
"... This morning I saw the clip of Gabbard taking apart Ryan and felt that she did pretty well overall. I'm hopeful that interest in her will grow as I think she is one of very few in Washington who are trustworthy. ..."
"... I am sickened by the neocon chicken hawks, laptop bombardiers, armchair generals and admirals who thank war veterans for their service while glorifying legalized murder and mayhem at the same time. ..."
"... I will eagerly vote for the first candidate to observe that U.S. lawmaking and U.S. elections are hopelessly corrupt and worthless, and can't be used to fix themsleves or any other issue. ..."
"... Maybe you should have a look at Tulsi Gabbards voting record. She is literally one of the very few who constantly votes against military funding. ..."
"... "Tulsi believes the United States would be far better off spending the trillions of dollars wasted in interventionist wars on more pressing domestic issues in America, like infrastructure, college debt, healthcare, etc." ..."
"... When Gabbard is forthright and hits hard with well-informed, well-thought out positions; delivered calmly and with composure; regardless of how far from the mainstream they fall; she scores. This is a boxer who can win. But Gabbard has to resist the temptation to fall in line with political weaseling. ..."
"... I have been watching Gabbard for a long time now. As you mentioned there is no perfect candidate. But she is the lesser evil at this point. The elephant in the room is as usual Israel. Did she sign that pledge when she got into office? How much money has she received from AIPAC. Being a CFR member is a problem as well. Where does she stand with respect to the Palestinians? ..."
"... While I agree with those who state that it is all a sham and that she doesn't have a chance, I still think that she is a test to show the extent to which the yankee populace has been suborned into the structure's propaganda bullshit. ..."
The mainstream media seem to judge the Democratic primary debate last night quite
differently than the general public.
Quartz cites multiple polls which show that Tulsi Gabbard won
the debate :
[T]wo candidates seemed to pique a lot of interest among US voters, at least when judged by
who Americans searched for on Google: New Jersey senator Cory Booker and Hawaii
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
Gabbard was lost for much of the debate. That may not have been her fault -- she wasn't asked
many questions -- ....
Duh!
The New York Timesmain piece
about the debate mentions Gabbard only once - in paragraph 32 of the 45 paragraphs long piece.
It does not reveal anything about her actual political position:
There was little discussion of foreign policy until near the end of the debate when two
little-known House lawmakers, Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Tim Ryan of Ohio, clashed over how
aggressively to target the Taliban.
The New York Times also has some 'experts' discussing
winners and losers. Gabbard is only mentioned at the very end, and by a Republican pollster, as
a potential candidate for Secretary of Defense.
NBC News
ranks the candidates' performance. It puts Gabbard on place 8 and inserts a snide:
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii: Seized an opportunity to highlight her military experience in
Afghanistan and her signature anti-intervention foreign policy views, without being tainted
by her past sympathetic comments on Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Most of the above media have long avoided to mention Gabbard and to discuss her political
positions. It is quite evident that the mainstream media do not like her anti-regime-change
views and are afraid of even writing about them.
Tulsi Gabbard's campaign posted a video of her parts of the
debate. She received some good applause.
Posted by b on June 27, 2019 at 11:19 AM |
Permalink
She humiliated Tim Ryan when he asserted that the Taliban attacked the U.S. on 9/11, pointing
out that it was Al Qaeda. Ryan responded that the Taliban protected Al Qaeda. Gabbard then
said something to the effect, "Try Saudi Arabia."
I thought it was hypocritical that none of the other candidates thanked Gabbard for her
service because you know if it had been some guy who is a Major in the National Guard with a
bunch of commendations people would be elbowing each other out of the way to lick his
boots.
Tulsi - "You know who is protecting al-Qaeda right now? It's Saudi Arabia"
MSNBC time given to each candidate:
#1 Booker: 9.68 minutes
#3 Warren: 8.35 minutes
#7 Gabbard: 5.35 minutes
Tulsi was the only candidate to get a negative question directed at her, though she
handled it very well.
MSDNC also framed a trick question who is for the elimination of ALL private healthcare.
Tulsi didn't raise her hand because she is for private insurance for supplemental surgery
such as plastic surgery, like Bernie. Tulsi and Bernie are the only ones for true Medicare
for All. Warren raised her hand but previously has stated she would be for something like
combining a public option and medicare for all, so she is now for cosmetic elective plastic
surgery being covered under Medicare for All?
It is interesting how the NYTimes has now gone full in for Warren. They had at least three
positive opinion columns for her yesterday, plus a front page spread that could have been
written by the Warren campaign itself. This while having many negative Biden pieces, the last
few days. The neoliberals really wanted Biden, but see he is unelectable so have gotten
behind the next Obama. Looks like Wall Street is expecting a crash and want to make sure they
are bailed out and not put in jail again.
--
Tulsi served two tours of duty in the Middle East (Iraq / Kuwait)
In France main newspaper le Figaro, their Washington correspondent said it was Warren who won
the debate, and he only mentiones Tulsi Gabbard once, she stood out because of her red vest, he
wrote, nothing about content. So there you are.
Tulsi is against "regime change war" which she defines as essentially wars that USA lose.
If Tulsi were a serious anti-war candidate, she would be talking about significant
reductions in the military budget. She's not.
Tulsi has drunk the Kool-Aid about Russian interference in US elections. Her nominally
anti-war stance helps her to "sell" neo-McCarthyism to those that think her anti-regime
change war is "courageous".
Furthermore, she is very passive and "reasonable" about her views, making it easy for MSM
to ignore her because every candidate will say that they are for peace and against dumb
wars.
<> <> <> <> <>
Anyone looking to any duopoly candidate for salvation is deluded.
Tulsi Gabbard is allowed some brief MSM exposure.
To demonstrate that plurality of opinion is alive and well and going strong - toot toot!
rah rah! - in the Dem party. A show, a charade. She may be quite genuine and believe what she states, which seems like common sense, ok.
And she is good at it. Her opinions - tagged with Xtreme hopiness - will be shown to be
inconguent with the majority, etc.
In any case she can't win the nomination, she is an 'actor extra' on the fringes. From her promo site:
In this new century, everyone has clean water to drink, clean air to breathe and access
to nourishing food; everyone receives the medical care they need, has a roof over their head,
receives the education they need and is able to find good paying, fulfilling work. People
have financial security and don't have to worry about making ends meet in their old
age.
Our children, and children for generations to come, never worry again about nuclear war
and no parent has to wonder where they will hide their children when the missiles strike. Our
economy is not dependent on war, but is driven instead by innovation, green technology and
renewable industries.
Tulsi served in the Anbar province. She understands the difference between Sunni and Shia
which is why she is against war with Iran, Syria, and Libya. She also understands the corrupt
nature of the US relationship with Saudi Arabia and speaks out against it.
This is a big big
NO NO in DC. Saudi Arabia is seen as part of the empire. Al Qaeda and ISIS serve their
purpose as shock troops for the US empire.
If a few buildings have to come down and a few
thousand people killed that is a small price to pay for the US being a global hegemonic
empire... from counterpunch... Richard Shultz, a professor of international politics at Tufts
who's long been a key national security state intellectual, wrote in 2004 that "A very senior
[Special Operations Forces] officer who had served on the Joint Staff in the 1990s told me
that more than once he heard terrorist strikes characterized as 'a small price to pay for
being a superpower.'"
It is pretty clear to me that Tulsi doesn't believe this. This is why she is so hated by the
MSM. She is former military and largely believes in military spending and fighting Sunni
extremists including distancing the US from their sponsor Saudi Arabia and throwing out the
US traitors who also support them. I don't believe in US military spending myself but Tulsi
is the only honest person running. The rest of them are all completely corrupt. I do believe
she would change US foreign policy for the better. Of course this is why she won't be allowed
in office.
I forget the exact details, but I remember that in the last election, a TV network was asked
why it did not give more coverage to Bernie Sanders. The reply was that Sanders was not a
real contender because he had almost no chance of winning.
Well that's a self-fulfilling prophecy if it's made by those in control of the media
(let's forget for a moment that his own party also conspired against him).
It will be interesting to see if Tulsi Gabbard can attract enough support that she cannot
be dismissed that easily. Funnily enough, by blocking the more centrist candidates like
Sanders, the Democrat leadership has made room for Gabbard who is much more radical (by
American standards).
I cringed when Tulsi launched into patriotic spiel about her service and could not bear to
watch as they went on to over-look her.
But then I realized that she had carefully considered the possibility that she may only be
asked one question and that that if there was one point to make that that was it - she unlike
most of the others has been willing to put herself at risk do do what she thought was the
right thing, serving her country at disadvantage to herself (though there may have been some
politics in it, but never mind) as opposed to say "pocahontes" lady for example. She's pretty
sharp and would represent us well I think.
@Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 27, 2019 1:01:12 PM | 15
Excellent point Zachary. In the first question they asked her about what she might do to
improve the economy for the benefit of the un-rich, her first point was that we are spending
enormous amounts of our tax dollars on unnecessary wars. Of course the media wanted instead
to hear about what new boondoggle programs they might propose, not something as mundane (and
unprofitable for some) as reducing military budget to reduce taxation and free up money for
other programs.
We're not allowed to consider candidates who would endeavor to make things better for the
majority at the expense of the minority, which is why Tulsi Gabbard will never be allowed to
the the nominee, regardless of how much her policy positions would resonate with voters were
they to actually be exposed to them.
The democrats are as as polluted as the republicans.
They refuse to see that Warren is far too hysterical to have any chance in a face to face
with Trump while Tulsi Gabbard will knock him Trump off.
The dems have been stupid enough to support Clinton that everybody disliked, now they will
redo the same mistake and lose again
If Tulsi were a serious anti-war candidate, she would be talking about significant
reductions in the military budget. She's not.
This is absurd. The things she talks about ALL THE TIME is how we're spending trillions on
regime change wars and how that money could be better used paying for health care, education,
the environment, etc. That is the entire focus of her campaign. And, by the way, she is the
*only* candidate to speak out against sanctions on Venezuela (and one of maybe two or three
to speak out against the US coup), saying that Venezuelans should determine their own future
without outside interference.
My first take on Tulsi's performance (the first hour) was not positive. I thought her early
spiel sounded too pro "soldier" and thus pro military, I was wishing she or someone would dig
deeper into the "border crisis" and explain the U.S. role in central America especially in
the 1980s, naming names (Abrams, North, etc)and telling the American people that most of the
refugees are coming from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, not Mexico. This morning I saw the clip of Gabbard taking apart Ryan and felt that she did pretty well
overall. I'm hopeful that interest in her will grow as I think she is one of very few in
Washington who are trustworthy.
Gabbard knows the primary race is rigged yet she stays in it and is remarkably measured as
she is both attacked and shunned by the "popular people". If the primary race bogs and she
stays in she could gain. I hope she is talking to Sanders.
As a Vietnam war veteran I found Tulsi Gabbard's antiwar war stance on target and thoroughly
refreshing. The only thing I am dismayed over was the short time she was given to make her
point.
I am sickened by the neocon chicken hawks, laptop bombardiers, armchair generals and
admirals who thank war veterans for their service while glorifying legalized murder and
mayhem at the same time.
There is a nauseating stench about war that cannot be dismissed nor
forgotten by anyone who has seen it and experienced it up close. Gabbard knows this from her
own tours of duty in Iraq and Kuwait. Nations do not become great by filling up their
cemeteries with the corpses of its potentially best and brightest.
I will eagerly vote for the first candidate to observe that U.S. lawmaking and U.S. elections
are hopelessly corrupt and worthless, and can't be used to fix themsleves or any other issue.
Unfortunately Tulsi Gabbard isn't that person, but she could not be ignored by the
Democrat oligarchs if she kept traveling and talking to foreign leaders, especially 'enemy'
ones. I hope she realizes that her 'Evil Assad lover' meeting is a gift that keeps on giving
to her. I doubt if I would even recognize her name today if that had never happened.
Can you imagine the heads that would explode if she went to China or Russia? Or went to
North and South Korea? And [sigh] Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel? Venezuela? She doesn't have
to do ANYTHING there. Just have a nice cup of tea with the leader and/or evil dictator and
listen for about half-an-hour, and then leave. Then come back and tell the NYT and WaPo that
she had a MOST interesting conversation with the leader but she would prefer not to discuss
details with the press. She would get instant 24x7 hate coverage by the MSM. Even
Trump would have to tweet about her.
Sometimes you just have to go guerilla in order to take on the 800 lb. swamp gorilla.
How would a media owned by munitions manufacturers behave any differently to someone whose
position threatens them making money off death and destruction? The 'national' media is owned
by the war industry, nothing more, nothing less.
Julian Castro, repeal of the federal law that makes "illegal entry"
Amy Klobuchar bashed Trump for saying he would bring down drug prices, something she said
the president has yet to do. "That's what we call at home all foam and no beer," Klobuchar
said.
Tulsi Gabbard, During a heated exchanged with Ryan, Gabbard pointed out that the Taliban
did not attack the World Trade Center on 9/11. "That's why I and other people joined the
military," she continued, "to go after Al Qaeda. Not the Taliban."
...and the losers, as:
Elizabeth Warren, seemed to disappear in the second half of the debate.
Tim Ryan, ran into Tulsi Gabbard
Beto O'Rourke, lacked substance in his answers.
----
Listened to the debate, too many issues that just allowed posturing without needing a real
policy response.
I like the part where Tulsi said that we can't say to the parents of the two US
service-men that had just been killed by the Taliban that we should just stay engaged, we
need to bring the troops home and, instead, spend the money on building up America.
-----
What is the biggest geo-politic threat facing America (framed as a specific foreign policy
question):
Delaney = China & Nuclear Weapons (no cheer)
Inslee = Donald Trump (biggest cheer)
Gabbard = Greatest risk of Nuclear War than ever before (no cheer)
Klobuchar = China & Iran (no cheer)
O'Rourke = Climate Change (modest cheer)
Warren = Climate Change (no cheer)
Booker = Nuclear proliferation & Climate Change (no cheer)
Castro = China & Climate Change (no cheer)
Ryan = China (half-hearted attempted applause)
De Blasio = Russia (2nd biggest cheer)
I think, Klobuchar noticed the response De Basio got and started to bash Russia later in
the debate.
-----
Closing statements:
Delaney (a bit spacey, wasn't paying attention, aspirational, American dream)
De Blasio (heart & soul of the party, track record, health care, working people first,
slogan = it matters)
Inslee (climate crisis, the only candidate to make this the top priority)
Ryan (oh, dear I won't even try)
Gabbard (against the rich & powerful, this must end, every single person gets the
health care they need, environment, well-paying jobs, justice for all)
Castro (immigrant story, health, jobs, slogan = adios to Donald Trump)
Klubacher (listens and acts, always wins, can beat Trump, not the establishment candidate,
not funded by corporate interests, slogan = govern for you)
Booker (rising to our best, he will beat Trump, best of who we are)
O'Rourke (emosh, for the children, new kind of politics)
Warren (emosh, great honour, modest background, American dream, we can make the country
work)
-----
I think Delaney and Ryan are toast. Unfortunately, De Blasio could go far on the anti-Russia dog whistle.
-----
Jackrabbit has a point about what can you expect from a single person being elected.
But he is wrong about Tulsi Gabbard's policy on military spending:
"Tulsi believes the United States would be far better off spending the trillions of
dollars wasted in interventionist wars on more pressing domestic issues in America, like
infrastructure, college debt, healthcare, etc."
The US is engaged in more conflicts than at any time since the end of WWII, at the same
time its military is beginning to fail, and its economy is on a precipice. There is no real
political movement anywhere in the US that is effectively addressing these issues.
I don't see Americans organising to take control of their government, to stop the wars or
anything like that.
The only hope that American's have is to send a message that the wars have got to stop, to
vote for a candidate that is committed and best able to stop those wars, and for those voters
to hold that candidate to account.
The only candidate that fits that bill is Tulsi Gabbard.
If you wish to opt-out, then organise, rise up and take control.....ehh, what's that?....I
thought not!
If all you are going to do is watch the TV, eat chips, drink beer and moan, then the very
least thing that you can do is vote for Tulsi Gabbard!
Tulsi Gabbard volunteered to go kill brown people on the other side of the world. If she
renounces her service to the Empire and regrets her part in mass murder, that would get my
attention.
But it doesn't matter. If she doesn't play ball she will get the Dennis Kucinich
treatment. Anybody remember him, or has he fallen down the memory hole? He loudly opposed
Uncle Sam's foreign policy and even introduced an impeachment bill against W Bush after the
2003 invasion of Iraq.
The Empire struck back by re-drawing congressional districts. That forced him to run
against another Dummycrat congressional incumbent in the primary, and he lost. All
politicians are required to get with the program; they are either co-opted or shoved out.
The only exception I can think of is Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting delegate in
Congress who represents the District of Columbia. The establishment can afford to ignore her
because her vote doesn't count, just like all the other D.C. residents.
The thirty-odd reactions here to Tulsi Gabbard are a perfect example of how & why the
left is so hopelessly fragmented.
People, for the umptieth time, it is impossible to ever find 100 point zero zero zero
percent overlap or coverage with any candidate for any office, ever.
But that fact does not justify throwing them all at the stake.
You are burning to ashes your own chances of ever seeing a society that even remotely
resembles your ideals.
Gotta love living in a Dollar Democracy where one dollar = one vote. Voting only legitimizes
an illegitimate regime. "None of the above" would be an interesting ballot option, and about
as realistic as retiring at age 55, which we were promised decades ago.
Hey, Trailer Trash. She was a medic. She did not volunteer to go kill people. Also, to the claim that she has no policy positions: good grief, are you capable of
navigating a site? She has tons of clearly worded policy positions.
Finally, the VoteSmart site is clearly compromised if that's what it is saying about
Gabbard. Her positions are vastly different from those stated.
>She was a medic. She did not volunteer to go kill people.
> Posted by: Linda Hagge | Jun 27, 2019 3:14:41 PM | 48
The entire purpose of US War Department is to kill people and break things when vassals
refuse to obey. Everybody who signs up understands and accepts that basic fact. My nephew
actually stated to me that he signed up for the Marines so he could kill people legally.
People who want to patch up the sick and wounded sign up for Médecins Sans
Frontières or similar, not Uncle Sam's mass murder machine.
@Virgile (21) If you think that Sen. Warren is "hysterical" and would not have a chance
facing off against Trump, then I can only assume that you have not seen her in action. She is
incredibly well-informed, quick on her feet and unflappable. She would make Trump look like
the clown that he is.
I recommend that all Americans actually visit a party caucus at the county of district
level to see how the party bosses "select" their presidential candidate. It is a sobering but
depressing experience.
As for those who are waiting for the perfect leader - remember that such a leader would
likely be murdered by those who have money in the game.
When Gabbard is forthright and hits hard with well-informed, well-thought out positions;
delivered calmly and with composure; regardless of how far from the mainstream they fall; she
scores. This is a boxer who can win. But Gabbard has to resist the temptation to fall in line
with political weaseling.
Politicians are told that they must go where the voters' are,
triangulating so as not to offend, trying to cover all the bases, trying to confirm voters'
biases (heavily propagandized and managed biases, via media, etc., so that it becomes an easy
game for those in on the game): a real leader speaks to where he or she knows that the people
need to go, relying on the people to catch up, relying on some kind of faith to keep going
when that takes a while to happen.
The forthright and courageous Tulsi Gabbard wins minds and hearts.
I would without doubt prefer Tulsi over any of the other candidates on that stage, but I
still don't know how seriously to take her. Sure, she talks a good game about ending
régime-change wars, but she also seems to think that the 'War on Terra' (as Pepe
Escobar used to call it) is an actual thing, when in fact, it's just a big psy-op . We
all know that 9/11 was a false-flag that was staged to justify the serial destruction of all
the mid-east countries that refuse to bow down before Tel Aviv and Washington; and that 'Al
Qaeda' is really just a Saudi-funded, CIA-trained dupe-group used either to justify our
presence in the ME, or else to directly attack countries like Syria.
Does Tulsi really not know this? If she doesn't, then she's stupid. And if she does and
she's choosing to keep quiet about it for some reason, then who's she fooling? The neocons?
Or us?
So that's what bothers me about Tulsi. Still, I think she'd be preferable to four more
years of Zion Don (though I realize that isn't saying much).
I have been watching Gabbard for a long time now. As you mentioned there is no perfect
candidate. But she is the lesser evil at this point. The elephant in the room is as usual Israel. Did she sign that pledge when she got into
office? How much money has she received from AIPAC. Being a CFR member is a problem as well.
Where does she stand with respect to the Palestinians?
Once she repeats the line of "Israel has a right to defend itself" nonsense, it's all
downhill from there. You cannot make a new foreign policy direction once you signed that
pledge. You have to continue with the master plan. Obama was told that, so was Trump. That
has been proven and it's not up for debate.
Sadly, I still believe this is all a show for the masses. Nothing will change. The country
is doomed and the Empire will take its direction either good or bad, without any inputs from
the rest of us.
Several years ago, we placed on the ballot a referendum to stop Big Timber from
indiscriminately using helicopters or other contrivances to spray insecticides onto us, all
we own and our natural surround. Big Timber outspent us @10,000:1 and employed the usual
campaign of corporate lies to get us to vote against our health and other interests, which
included editorials in favor of Big Timber by the leading Oregon newspapers. At least we had
the opportunity to vote on the issue. When living in Santa Clara County, California during
the 1970s, we had no choice and got sprayed daily with Malathion insecticide to try and
destroy drosophila--the common fruit fly--which we all knew was an impossible task and would
have lost if put to a vote. We won at the ballot box and preserved our health and that of our
communities and the visitors we need to attract to survive in our tourism heavy economy.
The bottom line is voting matters! Arguments to the contrary only serve the interests
of the Current Oligarchy. And I grow oh so weary of reading that crap on this site, which
makes the people writing such tripe to have the appearance of Trolls!
sorry, I see my links are a b repeat -- but hey she deserves the headlines
exiled off mainstree , Jun 27, 2019 6:43:32 PM |
83
While I agree with those who state that it is all a sham and that she doesn't have a chance,
I still think that she is a test to show the extent to which the yankee populace has been suborned into the structure's
propaganda bullshit.
I think that if they do sideline her she
should stand as a third party candidate. I also suspect that the more people actually see her
and that the more intelligent element will support her. The better she does, the more
difficult it will be for the structure to maintain absolute power. After all there is little
significant difference between corporate democrats and corporate republicans.
I wanted Tulsi to be genuine but in doing some research I am sharing just a little of what I found: she is a current member of
the Counsel on Foreign Relations ...
If you want to know about and understand US foreign policy or have any hope of influencing
that policy you need to take an interest in the Council of Foreign Affairs.
I have frequently read and sought out articles on their journal, I would imagine b and
many commentators here have done so.
If you want a President that can deal with foreign affairs then they have to engage with
the foreign affairs establishment and do it before you become President otherwise you don't
stand a chance.
"She stressed that she co-sponsored a House resolution reaffirming US commitment to "a
negotiated settlement leading to a sustainable two-state solution that re-affirms Israel's
right to exist as a democratic, Jewish state and establishes a demilitarized democratic
Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security."
That resolution also reaffirmed the US commitment to Israel and the US policy of vetoing
one-sided or anti-Israel UN Security Council resolutions, and condemned boycott and
divestment campaigns that target Israel."
Although she has condemned settlement activity, but sponsoring a bill to condemn BDS is a
nonstarter in my book. Too bad.
"... I thought she would stand out from the field as she is the only candidate who seems to GENUINELY think our "interventionist" foreign policy is madness, and beyond counterproductive. ..."
"... Now Ron Paul once stood out from the field in presidential debates, and also won all of these Drudge Report polls. At some point, the Powers that Be decided enough with that and succeeded in re-labeling him a kook, racist, pacifist, Russia lover, isolationist and traitor. ..."
"Of all the candidates who are running for president, I'm the one who is most qualified to
fulfill that responsibility to walk into the Oval Office and serve as commander-in-chief.
And
I think you heard tonight some of the reasons why those who lack the experience, lack the
understanding, and conviction would, unfortunately, put our country in a place where we'd end
up waging more wars, costing us more lives and tax-payer dollars .
This is why I'm running
for president, to be that person, to be that change in our foreign policy and those
regime-change wars, new cold wars nuclear arms races and invest our precious dollars into
serving the needs of our people. "
I thought she would stand out from the field as she is the only candidate who seems to
GENUINELY think our "interventionist" foreign policy is madness, and beyond
counterproductive.
She also seems to not be backing down from her positions and appears capable of defending
her position in easy-to-understand and grasp sentences.
Now Ron Paul once stood out from the field in presidential debates, and also won all of
these Drudge Report polls. At some point, the Powers that Be decided enough with that and
succeeded in re-labeling him a kook, racist, pacifist, Russia lover, isolationist and
traitor.
The Most Qualified to be Prezzy would be the first of these cockbags to admit that
Obobo weaponized the government against his opponents. But none of them will. And by ignoring
the 800 pound gorilla in the room, they ALL prove that none of them are even close to
"qualified" to lead anything.
As they
take the stage for the first Democratic debates of the 2020 presidential campaign, the 20
participating candidates should be ready for one frequently asked question: How will you pay
for it? Democrats often pledge to finance their most ambitious plans -- Medicare for All,
debt-free college, a Green New Deal -- with tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.
That is both sensible and fair. But candidates hoping to distinguish themselves in the
limited time they will be allotted should also consider taking a stand against the United
States' bloated defense budget.
This month, the House Armed Services Committee
advanced a $733 billion defense budget on a mostly party-line vote. According to
Defense News , the lack of Republican support for the bill
illustrated "the stark divide in defense policy between the two parties." Yet that divide
is far narrower than you might think. The bill's price tag is just $17 billion less than the
$750 billion that
President Trump requested ; it still was, as Representative Adam Smith (D-WA) boasted,
the "largest" defense budget in history. There remains a near-universal commitment in both
parties to massive defense spending -- a case of Washington bipartisanship that the country
would be better off without.
A timely new
report from the Center for International Policy's Sustainable Defense Task Force offers
an alternative path forward. In the report, "A Sustainable Defense: More Security, Less
Spending," the nonpartisan group of military and budget experts outlines a strategy that it
says would save $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years without harming national-security
interests. In fact, through a sober reassessment of the biggest threats to the United States
in the 21st century, including climate change and cyberattacks, the proposal would keep the
country safer than an outdated approach that relies on perpetual spending increases.
One more century of warfare like the 20th century, and the USA might be bankrupt
Notable quotes:
"... So her sell point of getting rid USA from useless wars off shore seems on pint but we all know that ain't gonna realized except takes a hike in her time, if she got a chance of course ..."
"... She can talk to her heart's content, but American forces won't go home as long as dollar is the world's favourite currency. ..."
"... If Gabbard can stay with the brain-dead false narrative that 'Crazed Arabs' took down the towers and building 7 in perfect free fall without taking months to plant and wire the bombs, then maybe the Zio-Cons may let her live. ..."
While it would appear that the mainstream media has crowned Senator Elizabeth Warren the winner of
last night's first Democratic primary debate, on a more quantitative and objective level, it would
seem there was another female candidate that stood out to the American audience.
Before the debate, Warren was indeed the 'most-searched' Democratic candidate on Google...
But as the debate began and the clown-show escalated, one candidate dominated the search...
As Fox News reports,
Tulsi Gabbard, an Army National Guard veteran who served
in Iraq, grabbed the attention of the viewers every time she spoke about foreign policy and the
military.
During the debate, she called for scaling back of U.S. military presence abroad and accused
"this president and his chicken hawk cabinet have led us to the brink of war with Iran."
Gabbard's military experience gave her authority in a harsh exchange with Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan,
who said the U.S. must maintain forces in Afghanistan to ensure the Taliban is kept in check.
"When we weren't in there, they started flying planes into our buildings," Ryan said.
"The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11, Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11," Gabbard replied.
The data show that
the moment that generated the most search traffic for Gabbard was
when she was making her closing argument
.
"Assuming the Google "trend" isn't a manifestation of their algorithms then it
appears that most adults are interested in a calm, stoic, but non-clown like candidate"
Tulsi got some agenda correct 90% others 10% among 99 problems,
you can't compromise one after another nor give away your gun
right for some hotchpotch noises
They promise big and bigger
in campaign times yes?
So her sell point of getting rid USA from useless wars off
shore seems on pint but we all know that ain't gonna realized
except takes a hike in her time, if she got a chance of course
If Gabbard can stay with the brain-dead false narrative that
'Crazed Arabs' took down the towers and building 7 in perfect free
fall without taking months to plant and wire the bombs, then maybe
the Zio-Cons may let her live.
Her mentioning the Saudis, (Israels
secret partner) however, was a little risky, unless the Zionists
are getting ready to throw the Saudis under the bus?
While I fully agree with the idea, heck, FACT, that it wasn't a
bunch of Bedouins in street clothes that took down the towers
it also has to be taken into account that the CIA uses proxies
all the time. I upvoted you, though. The 9/11 story is a
truly fascinating one.
the CIA uses proxies all the time' ....... agree, but
nothing hit building '7' the 47 story Solomon building , so
who were the proxies for that free fall controlled demo?
"... His problem has always been a lack of focus, vision and discipline. He may be generally against stupid wars, but like Obama he doesn't have the experience in dealing with the establishment or the strategic knowledge to push back against what can seem like very strong, common sense arguments in favor of intervention. ..."
Rand Paul: Trump's Antiwar Counterweight The president called off airstrikes against Iran, and we have the Kentucky senator
and Tucker Carlson to thank.•
The United States almost
started a war with Iran only for President Donald Trump to change his mind at the last minute. Reports
indicate that the usual suspect, National Security Adviser John Bolton, was the main advocate for airstrikes, with the backing
of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA head Gina Haspel, as well as encouragement from Senate war hawks Lindsey Graham and
Tom Cotton . Earlier on Thursday,
responding to news that Iran had reportedly downed an unmanned American drone, Trump
said , "Look, I said I want to get
out of these endless wars, I campaigned on that, I want to get out." Trump's cautiousness seemed as much a response to the Washington
chorus crying for military action as the event itself. More importantly, if the swamp wants war -- who has the president's back in
pushing peace?
This might be the most important question in American politics right now. Advertisement TAC 's Barbara Boland
reported in early June that the purpose of wedging the
now-outgoing
Patrick Shanahan into his acting defense secretary position was to put Bolton at the top of the foreign policy food chain (the incoming
Mark Esper could
fill a similar role). "He's likely to default to whatever Pompeo or Bolton wants," retired U.S. Army colonel and defense analyst
Douglas Macgregor said of Shanahan. "Pompeo and Bolton have agendas. They're not Trump's, but in the absence of strong leadership,
Shanahan is unlikely to put up much resistance." In mid-June, Pompeo blamed
alleged attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf
of Oman on Iran.
TAC
noted that Pompeo "did not cite specific evidence as to why the U.S. believes Iran, or its proxies, are responsible for the attacks."
One oil tanker owner said the
U.S. account
was wrong . Some
wondered whether
this could be another Gulf of Tonkin incident. Despite
claiming to not want
a military confrontation since joining the Trump administration, it's no secret that
Pompeo and
Bolton
have
wanted
war with Iran
for
some time .
Luckily -- as the world was reminded Thursday night -- one person who says he doesn't want war happens to be their boss. "I'm not
somebody that wants to go in to war, because war hurts economies, war kills people most importantly -- by far most importantly,"
Trump told
Fox News in mid-May when asked about Iran. The
likely death toll was reportedly
also a major factor in why the president called off airstrikes Thursday night.
Trump appears to understand the hawkish nature of the Washington foreign policy establishment that surrounds him. "Don't kid yourself,
you do have a military industrial complex. They do like war," Trump told Fox News. "I say, 'I want to bring our troops back home,'
the place went crazy . You have people here in Washington they never want to leave, they always want to fight." "No, I don't want
to fight," Trump added.
Trump's impulses, if not always his policy actions, are generally anti-war. Unfortunately, most in his immediate orbit do not
share those inclinations, with unrepentant Iraq war cheerleader Bolton topping the list. But as Bolton's influence reportedly
grows , who is
the only person the president talks to who shares his more restrained "America First" foreign policy vision?
"While Trump tolerates his hawkish advisers, the [Trump] aide added, he shares a real bond with Paul," Politico reported in August. "He
actually at gut level has the same instincts as Rand Paul," the White House aide reportedly said. (I
covered Politico
's revelations at the time for TAC. )
Politico noted, "Trump has stopped short of calling for regime change [in Iran] even though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Bolton support it, aligning with Paul instead, according to a GOP foreign policy expert in
frequent contact with the White House." "'Rand Paul has persuaded the president that we are not for regime change in Iran,' this
person said, because adopting that position would instigate another war in the Middle East," Politico reported.
That was 10 months ago. Today, in addition to almost bombing Iran on Thursday, the saber rattling and accusations are ratcheting
up along with the troop
deployments
, no doubt making Pompeo and Bolton happy and likely reflecting their handiwork. But despite these moves, Trump's gut still seems
to be closer to Paul's realism than what Republican hawks seek. Politico reported on May 20, "The
president has fashioned himself far more in the mold of Paul than the hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was shocked by Trump's
plans to pull out of Syria and only was able to convince Trump to leave a small force in the country."
Politico further noted: "Trump's hiring of John Bolton as national security adviser may have changed the approach inside
the White House, but Trump's dovish core hasn't changed, senators said. Perhaps that can't prevent conflict with Iran if it strikes
first, but they said they were confident that Trump's aggressive posture is far more about a Trumpian brand of diplomacy than it
is about marching to war." Let's hope. Amid the constant tug-of-war for Trump's favor between his hawkish advisers and his realist
champion s , the president still hasn't launched a war against Iran or anyone else. But Trump will continue to need sound minds and
advice.
The Daily Beast
reports
that in addition to Paul's counsel, the president might also be getting the right encouragement from Tucker Carlson. "A source
familiar with the conversations told The Daily Beast that, in recent weeks, the Fox News host has privately advised Trump against
taking military action against Iran," The Daily Beast notes. "And a senior administration official said that during the president's
recent conversations with the Fox primetime host, Carlson has bashed the more 'hawkish members' of his administration." The president
obviously needs all the backup he can get. Because unless I'm missing something and sane foreign policy thinkers like Andrew Bacevich
or Jim Webb have had some secret correspondence with the president, there is almost no one else talking to Trump who wants to avoid
war.
Rand Paul's continuing role as unofficial adviser to the president might be his most important. Some might ask what
one man could possibly accomplish. Just ask
John Bolton
.
Do remind me, who appointed Bolton, Pompeo, Bloody Gina, Abrams and the rest of the unindicted war criminals?
Who could fire all of the above with a single stroke of the pen, for any reason or no reason at all?
Who continues to sputter and rant about Iran, a country that scrupulously complied with the JCPOA until the United States unilaterally
abrogated it?
Who continues to gleefully assist the Saudi and Emirati tyrants to commit genocide in Yemen?
Who blocked the sale of landmine removal equipment to Syria?
Trump, that's who. And that is only a partial list of his crimes. And now this [expletive deleted] wants a medal for not starting
another stupid war?
Even taking his words at face value, what he did was the equivalent of waving a loaded gun in front of someone's house and
threatening to shoot the occupants, then expecting to be praised because he was persuaded to not actually open fire.
The problem is that the alternatives (95% of the establishment hawks in either party) would wave the gun, threaten to shoot, then
actually pull the trigger.
Yeah, it's not great that Trump had to be persuaded out of military action, but praise the Lord that America has a president
who *can* be persuaded out of militarism (and routinely has).
There's a lot of perfect being the enemy of good going around on this issue.
The troika of evil (Bolton, Pompeo, Bloody Gina) are set on ever more hemming in Trump's options. Trump simply has to get rid
of these sociopaths or he will be forced into a war which will probably cost him both his reelection and legacy.
I cannot comprehend how people can be saying that Trump's instincts are against going to war. Yes, it's nice that Rand Paul gets
to talk to the President, and Tucker Carlson, too. But the people that trump hired as his policy advisors are Bolton and
Pompeo. Not only are they well known warmongers who have been on record for a long time as advocating regime change in Tehran,
Bolton is probably the most extreme of them all. He practically makes Lindsay Graham look like a pacifist. How can you say that
somebody who hired Bolton and Pompeo has anti-war instincts? It makes no sense. Even Trump's most ardent critics don't think Trump
is that stupid . You have to assume that he basically endorses their approach, even if at a tactical level he might occasionally
disagree.
A part of the answer is that these were the only candidates available who were twisted enough to support Trump withdrawing from
the Iran nuclear accord. Even within Israel, while Netanyahu was lying to Trump, Congress and Americans about Iran cheating on
the deal, Israeli intelligence agencies and the IDF supported the nuclear accord and had enough assets in Iran to confirm that
Iran was not cheating. According to the then head of the IDF, Gadi Eisenkot, the nuclear agreement simplified the defence of Israel
and prevented Iran from getting nukes for another 10-15 years. Trump, unfortunately, had campaigned on withdrawing from the deal,
and, in order to satisfy pressure from Netanyahu (and to the detriment of Israel's security), withdrew from it. My take is that
Trump fundamentally disagrees with Bolton and Pompeo. He demonstrated this by calling off the attack on Iran and he demonstrated
this by discounting the "threat" to the US by N Korea testing short-range missiles. My worry is that Bolton has positioned the
US armada in place to deliberately create a hot zone just waiting for a spark, and he has assets in place to create false-flag
attacks, some of which we have already seen (flying US drones over Iranian territory, placing bombs on oil tankers, or worse).
Maybe he had them there to create a deterrent effect and aid his strong arm negotiation tactics. Could also be it was just on
the basis of recommendations by others in the establishment.
His problem has always been a lack of focus, vision and discipline. He may be generally against stupid wars, but like Obama
he doesn't have the experience in dealing with the establishment or the strategic knowledge to push back against what can seem
like very strong, common sense arguments in favor of intervention.
"... Trump plays politics by trying to appease two camps, the AngloZionists, as well as Americans that bought into his 'Middle East' wars were a mistake. ..."
"... There has never been a war won by air power alone, If Trump bombs Iran, they will fight back and it will take a ground invasion to subdue them. While that war will compete with Bush’s invasion of Iraq as being America’s stupidest war ever, it will be much more costly in American blood and treasure and could easily turn into WWIII. ..."
"... Yeah, sorry Trump, I support you but you are not going to sell me on war with Iran....HORRIBLE idea. HORRIBLE. One of the worst things you could do as president. ..."
"... Fix the potholes first. ..."
"... Sorry I voted for Trumpster. He Flip-Flopped on almost everything he campaigned on. Now he is DEEP STATE. SA sponsors most the terrorism but gets a pass. ..."
Trump basically acknowledges Bolton as warmonger on NBC, that has hawks and doves in his
administration 'likes to hear both sides'.
So here Trump plays politics by trying to appease two camps, the AngloZionists, as well as
Americans that bought into his 'Middle East' wars were a mistake.
Trump has become pure politician no longer the outsider, he's dancing on both sides when
he needs to like now in a re-election mode.
There has never been a war won by air power alone, If Trump bombs Iran, they will fight
back and it will take a ground invasion to subdue them. While that war will compete with
Bush’s invasion of Iraq as being America’s stupidest war ever, it will be much
more costly in American blood and treasure and could easily turn into WWIII.
Instead of starting a war no one wants over Iran merely acting like a sovereign nation, we
should remove all the sanctions and just leave them alone. Our meddling everywhere needs to
stop.
Yeah, sorry Trump, I support you but you are not going to sell me on war with
Iran....HORRIBLE idea. HORRIBLE. One of the worst things you could do as president.
Sorry I voted for Trumpster. He Flip-Flopped on almost everything he campaigned on. Now he
is DEEP STATE. SA sponsors most the terrorism but gets a pass.
Looks like Bolton is dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. He believes the United States can do what wants without regard to
international law, treaties or the роlitical commitments of previous administrations.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean ..."
...Zionists know what they want, are willing to work together towards their goals, and put their money where their mouth
is. In contrast, for a few pennies the goyim will renounce any principle they pretend to cherish, and go on happily proclaiming
the opposite even if a short while down the road it'll get their own children killed.
The real sad part about this notion of the goy as a mere beast in human form is maybe not that it got codified for eternity
in the Talmud, but rather that there may be some truth to it? Another way of saying this is raising the question whether the goyim
deserve better, given what we see around us.
Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean and prevent a Turko Egyptian and possibly Persian
invasion of Greece & the West
We must not let President Trump, John Bolton or any member of the State Department pull us
into war with Iran. Now, I've introduced a bill called the "No More Presidential Wars
Act" to stop Trump -- and all Presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike -- from pulling
us into a war without approval from Congress.
"... I can only assume that, as with so many of their other ideas, the internet / radio hosts promoting her ideas as the solution to the worlds problems have never actually read anything she said, or did, or possibly if they had, they have not understood it. ..."
"... Usually, with philosophers, you can see how it is not their words, but that someone has interpreted them for their own ends (Nietzsche etc), but in the case of Rand, no mis-interpretation is required, unless you are trying to portray her views as anything other than deeply misanthropic. ..."
I always view Ayn Rand as someone who most right wing dictators would place themselves
somewhere to the left of.
I have no idea how she became the poster child for the libertarian movement, I can only
assume that, as with so many of their other ideas, the internet / radio hosts promoting her
ideas as the solution to the worlds problems have never actually read anything she said, or
did, or possibly if they had, they have not understood it.
Usually, with philosophers, you can see how it is not their words, but that someone has
interpreted them for their own ends (Nietzsche etc), but in the case of Rand, no
mis-interpretation is required, unless you are trying to portray her views as anything other
than deeply misanthropic.
The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks
up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights
are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to
determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore,
reverts to the tribal concept of: one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's
gang.
Such a black and white view of reality. This is the entire problem with Rand's worldview,
reality is far too complex. Here, you talk about the level of "statism" - there are many
different methods of using the state to achieve goals which help improve your life and those
in the society around you.
For example, in Scandanavian countries, and other northern European ones, the state is
used to make up for distribution deficiencies in the market system - that is, to reign in
those at either end of the socio-economic scale to make the distribution more equal, which
has been scientifically shown to reduce all manner of social ills caused by a large amount of
economic inequality.
They do this whilst minimising the impact on economic freedom.
So it's erroneous to think statism = soviet russia style dictatorships.
As for individual rights - well, these are clearly important, but certainly not as a
blanket ideology behind society. Negative sides to individual rights are things like:
• Educational freedom - 2 + 2 can equal 5!
• Parenting - society has to deal with bad parenting as the child reaches adulthood, so
society deserves an equal say: I don't have to vaccinate my kids! (recent MMR jab a prime
example)
• I'm free to pollute the environment, make excessive noise because the government has
no place stopping me.
As a society, a balance needs to be maintained. A balance between a person's individual
liberty and the impact on the society around them. This is the main area where Rand's
philosophy fails - she simply does not acknowledge the very complex relationship humans have
with each other, with society as a whole, and the world around them.
"... This is the reduction ad absurdum that libertarianism is always reduced to. A subscription police force is an an idiocy, a bit like a subscription fire service. ..."
"... Even by the 18th Century, people had figured out that made no sense. How on earth could it work? A private police force would be beholden to its paymasters and no one else. ..."
"... As I have said many times, a pure libertarian society would be a warlord society, with the feeble or non-existent state unable to restrain the richest and most powerful people in that society. Truly a hell on earth. ..."
The basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a self-owner,
having absolute jurisdiction over his own body. In effect, this means that no one else may
justly invade, or aggress against, another's person. It follows then that each person
justly owns whatever previously unowned resources he appropriates or 'mixes his labor
with'. From these twin axioms -- self-ownership and 'homesteading' -- stem the
justification for the entire system of property rights titles in a free market
society."
That's all very well, but without the means to protect, defend and preserve these things
that one "owns", it amounts to very little. And that is where collectivisation comes in. For
what is the law but a series of codes that we collectively as a society agree to abide by.
Without the rule of law to protect me, whatever I own will soon be taken by someone stronger
and more aggressive that me. Individuals cannot assert their rights as individuals, for they
are not strong enough to do so. The irony, which is lost on libertarians, is that for
individual rights to be preserved we must sacrifice a little of our individualism to
collectively band together to defend those rights.
Then don't pay if you don't want to, that's my point. If you want police pay a
subscription. I suppose this is floating away from objectivism and more into
libertarianism. The principle is the same how ever.
This is the reduction ad absurdum that libertarianism is always reduced to. A subscription
police force is an an idiocy, a bit like a subscription fire service.
Even by the 18th
Century, people had figured out that made no sense. How on earth could it work? A private
police force would be beholden to its paymasters and no one else.
Presumably there would be
multiple such police forces - for free-market competition, of course. These police forces
would become de facto private armies. And from where would they derive their authority? From
he who pays them the most?
As I have said many times, a pure libertarian society would be a
warlord society, with the feeble or non-existent state unable to restrain the richest and
most powerful people in that society. Truly a hell on earth.
While there is certainly an element of Paul supporters, in my experience here in the
Bay/Central Coast is that it is predominantly Dems, liberals, progressives, socialists and
a surprising number of anarchists (many of which are not the typical window-breaking
stereotype).
I would guess its all of us who are suspicious of hierarchical state capitalism - whether
of the left or the right. Many Anarchists have a libertarian mindset, and seek cooperation
(rather than a competition in who can break the most windows), but reject the dominance and
structures of the elite, which are usually completely undemocratic.
People think of anarchy as equating with lawless selfishness because that's how it works
in real life.
No, that is not anarchy. That is a load of selfish bastards claiming to be anarchists and
using this as a justification for their being selfish bastards. I remember only too well the
cry of no small number of the trendy fashion-punk-anarchists of the 1980's to justify their
hedonism and lack of responsibility " I'm an Anarchist, me: I can do anything! ".And
my response to them? " Are you fuck!!! ".
Sadly, however, many like yourself choose to take the definition of anarchy which is a
total misrepresentation of it equating to chaos and disorder, and which as I noted in my
earlier comment, has been deliberately promulgated and used by the State and its supportive
media. And in doing so, you do the philosophy a disservice, as you only help spread this
representation, which eventually becomes the accepted understanding. And this is what the
State and the oligarchs desire most, as it keeps people away from those most dangerous of
thoughts, about actually trying to control their own lives.
"... Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets. ..."
"... "It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people." ..."
"... The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow the pain. ..."
"... But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress. Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent ..."
"... Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing. ..."
"... Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered by social programs. ..."
"... In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember. ..."
"... "We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'" ..."
"... "When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us. Poor people feel abandoned." ..."
On the ragged streets of the shantytown across the road, where stinking outhouses sit alongside shacks fashioned from rusted sheets
of tin, families have surrendered hopes that sewage lines will ever reach them.
They do not struggle to fashion an explanation for their declining fortunes: Since taking office more than three years ago, President
Mauricio Macri has broken with the budget-busting populism that has dominated Argentina for much of the past century, embracing the
grim arithmetic of economic orthodoxy.
Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting
Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the
power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets.
"It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people."
The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away
from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble
is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow
the pain.
Mr. Macri's supporters heralded his 2015 election as a miraculous outbreak of normalcy in a country with a well-earned reputation
for histrionics. He would cease the reckless spending that had brought Argentina infamy for defaulting on its debts eight times.
Sober-minded austerity would win the trust of international financiers, bringing investment that would yield jobs and fresh opportunities.
But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress.
Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the
same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and
joblessness is stuck above 9 percent.
Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing.
Far beyond this country of 44 million people, Mr. Macri's tenure is testing ideas that will shape economic policy in an age of
recrimination over widening inequality. His presidency was supposed to offer an escape from the wreckage of profligate spending while
laying down an alternative path for countries grappling with the worldwide rise of populism. Now, his presidency threatens to become
a gateway back to populism. The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck
above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
Image
The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts
a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
As the October election approaches, Mr. Macri is contending with the growing prospect of a challenge from the president he succeeded,
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who faces a
series of criminal indictments for corruption . Her unbridled spending helped deliver the crisis that Mr. Macri inherited. Her
return would resonate as a rebuke of his market-oriented reforms while potentially yanking Argentina back to its accustomed preserve:
left-wing populism, in uncomfortable proximity to insolvency.
The Argentine peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year, prompting the central bank to lift interest rates to a
commerce-suffocating level above 60 percent. Argentina was forced to secure a $57 billion
rescue from the International
Monetary Fund , a profound indignity given that the fund is widely despised here for the austerity it imposed in the late 1990s,
turning an economic downturn into a depression.
For Mr. Macri, time does not appear to be in abundant supply. The spending cuts he delivered hit the populace immediately. The
promised benefits of his reforms -- a stable currency, tamer inflation, fresh investment and jobs -- could take years to materialize,
leaving Argentines angry and yearning for the past.
In much of South America, left-wing governments have taken power in recent decades as an angry corrective to dogmatic prescriptions
from Washington, where the Treasury and the I.M.F. have focused on the confidence of global investors as the key to development.
Left-wing populism has aimed to redistribute the gains from the wealthy to everyone else. It has aided the poor, while generating
its own woes --
corruption and depression in
Brazil , runaway inflation and financial ruin in Argentina. In Venezuela, uninhibited spending has turned the country with the
world's largest proven oil reserves into a land where
children starve .
Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered
by social programs.
In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country
has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember.
"We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We
never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'"
Cultivating wealth
... ... ...
In the beginning, there was Juan Domingo Perón, the charismatic Army general who was president from 1946 to 1955, and then again
from 1973 to 1974. He employed an authoritarian hand and muscular state power to champion the poor. He and his wife, Eva Duarte --
widely known by her nickname, Evita -- would dominate political life long after they died, inspiring politicians across the ideological
spectrum to claim their mantle.
Among the most ardent Peronists were Néstor Kirchner, the president from 2003 to 2007, and his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,
who took office in 2007, remaining until Mr. Macri was elected in 2015.
Their version of Peronism -- what became known as Kirchnerism -- was decidedly left-wing, disdaining global trade as a malevolent
force. They expanded cash grants to the poor and imposed taxes on farm exports in a bid to keep Argentine food prices low.
As the country's farmers tell it, Kirchnerism is just a fancy term for the confiscation of their wealth and the scattering of
the spoils to the unproductive masses. They point to Ms. Kirchner's 35 percent tax on soybean exports.
"We had a saying," Mr. Tropini says. "'For every three trucks that went to the port, one was for Cristina Kirchner.'"
reduction in export taxes.
"You could breathe finally," Mr. Tropini, the farmer, says.
He was free of the Kirchners, yet stuck with nature. Floods in 2016 wiped out more than half of his crops. A drought last year
wreaked even more havoc.
"This harvest, this year," he says, "is a gift from God."
But if the heavens are now cooperating, and if the people running Buenos Aires represent change, Mr. Tropini is critical of Mr.
Macri's failure to overcome the economic crisis.
A weaker currency makes Argentine soybeans more competitive, but it also increases the cost of the diesel fuel Mr. Tropini needs
to run his machinery. High interest rates make it impossible for him to buy another combine, which would allow him to expand his
farm.
In the first years of Mr. Macri's administration, the government lifted controls on the value of the peso while relaxing export
taxes. The masters of international finance delivered a surge of investment. The economy expanded by nearly 3 percent in 2017, and
then accelerated in the first months of last year.
But as investors grew wary of Argentina's deficits, they fled, sending the peso plunging and inflation soaring. As the rout continued
last year, the central bank mounted a futile effort to support the currency, selling its stash of dollars to try to halt the peso's
descent. As the reserves dwindled, investors absorbed the spectacle of a government failing to restore order. The exodus of money
intensified, and another potential default loomed, leading a chastened Mr. Macri to accept a rescue from the dreaded IMF.
Administration officials described the unraveling as akin to a natural disaster: unforeseeable and unavoidable. The drought hurt
agriculture.
Money was flowing out of developing countries as the Federal Reserve continued to lift interest rates in the United States, making
the American dollar a more attractive investment.
But the impact of the Fed's tightening had been widely anticipated. Economists fault the government for mishaps and complacency
that left the country especially vulnerable.
.... ... ...
Among the most consequential errors was the government's decision to include Argentina's central bank in a December 2017 announcement
that it was raising its inflation target. The markets took that as a signal that the government was surrendering its war on inflation
while opting for a traditional gambit: printing money rather than cutting spending.
... ... ...
The government insists that better days are ahead. The spending cuts have dropped the budget deficit to a manageable 3 percent
of annual economic output. Argentina is again integrated into the global economy.
"We haven't improved, but the foundations of the economy and society are much healthier," said Miguel Braun, secretary of economic
policy at the Treasury Ministry. "Argentina is in a better place to generate a couple of decades of growth."
... ... ...
Their television flashes dire warnings, like "Danger of Hyper Inflation." Throughout the neighborhood, people decry the sense
that they have been forsaken by the government.
Trucks used to come to castrate male dogs to control the packs of feral animals running loose. Not anymore. Health programs for
children are less accessible than they were before, they said.
Daisy Quiroz, 71, a retired maid, lives in a house that regularly floods in the rainy season.
"When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us.
Poor people feel abandoned."
... ... ...
Daniel Politi contributed reporting from Buenos Aires. Peter S. Goodman is a London-based European economics correspondent.
He was previously a national economic correspondent in New York. He has also worked at The Washington Post as a China correspondent,
and was global editor in chief of the International Business Times. @
petersgoodman
George Monbiot is right: Rand was probably a female sociopath...
Notable quotes:
"... Through her novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course is pure self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to members of our own families. She described the poor and weak as "refuse" and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to assist them. Apart from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no role for government: no social security, no public health or education, no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax. ..."
"... Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss shows in his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was to the left: a demigod at the head of a chiliastic cult. Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged, and it now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year. ..."
"... the Tea Party movement has taken her to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards reading "Who is John Galt?" and "Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by the broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the guiding spirit of the Republicans in Congress. ..."
"... It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers them something that is crucial to every successful political movement: a sense of victimhood. She tells them that they are parasitised by the ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments. ..."
"... the most devoted member of her inner circle was Alan Greenspan , former head of the US Federal Reserve. ..."
"... As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a "superlatively moral system". ..."
"... Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the letter, cutting taxes for the rich, repealing the laws constraining banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and the derivatives trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is already documented, but Weiss shows that in the US, Greenspan has successfully airbrushed history. ..."
Her
psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like victims and turned millions of followers into
their doormats Comments
1,227 Illustration by Daniel Pudles I t has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the
postwar world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and
compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated
power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the
belief system constructed by Ayn Rand , who died 30 years ago today, has never
been more popular or influential.
Rand was a Russian from a prosperous family who emigrated to the United States. Through her
novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she
explained a philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course is pure
self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to members of our own families. She
described the poor and weak as "refuse" and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to
assist them. Apart from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no role
for government: no social security, no public health or education, no public infrastructure or
transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax.
Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, depicts a United States crippled by government
intervention in which heroic millionaires struggle against a nation of spongers. The
millionaires, whom she portrays as Atlas holding the world aloft, withdraw their labour, with
the result that the nation collapses. It is rescued, through unregulated greed and selfishness,
by one of the heroic plutocrats, John Galt .
The poor die like flies as a result of government programmes and their own sloth and
fecklessness. Those who try to help them are gassed. In a notorious passage, she argues that
all the passengers in a train filled with poisoned fumes deserved their fate. One, for
instance, was a teacher who taught children to be team players; one was a mother married to a
civil servant, who cared for her children; one was a housewife "who believed that she had the
right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing".
Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and
greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss
shows in his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was
to the left: a demigod at the head of a chiliastic cult. Almost one third of Americans,
according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged, and it now sells hundreds of thousands of
copies every year.
Ignoring Rand's evangelical atheism, the Tea Party movement has taken her
to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards reading "Who is John Galt?" and
"Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague
anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by the
broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the guiding spirit of the
Republicans in Congress.
Like all philosophies, Objectivism is absorbed, secondhand, by people who have never read
it. I believe it is making itself felt on this side of the Atlantic: in the clamorous new
demands to remove the 50p tax band for the very rich, for instance; or among the sneering,
jeering bloggers who write for the Telegraph and the Spectator, mocking compassion and empathy,
attacking efforts to make the word a kinder place.
It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers them something that is
crucial to every successful political movement: a sense of victimhood. She tells them that they
are parasitised by the ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments.
It is harder to see what it gives the ordinary teabaggers, who would suffer grievously from
a withdrawal of government. But such is the degree of misinformation which saturates this
movement and so prevalent in the US is Willy Loman syndrome (the gulf between reality and
expectations) that millions blithely volunteer themselves as billionaires' doormats. I wonder
how many would continue to worship at the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of
her life she signed on for both Medicare and social security. She had railed furiously against
both programmes, as they represented everything she despised about the intrusive state. Her
belief system was no match for the realities of age and ill health.
But they have a still more powerful reason to reject her philosophy: as Adam Curtis's BBC
documentary showed last year, the most devoted member of her inner circle was Alan Greenspan , former head of
the US Federal Reserve. Among the essays he wrote for Rand were those published in a book he
co-edited with her called Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal
. Here, starkly explained, you'll find the philosophy he brought into government. There is no
need for the regulation of business – even builders or Big Pharma – he argued, as
"the 'greed' of the businessman or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking is the unexcelled
protector of the consumer". As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients
guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains,
is a "superlatively moral system".
Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the letter, cutting taxes for
the rich, repealing the laws constraining banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and
the derivatives trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is already
documented, but Weiss shows that in the US, Greenspan has successfully airbrushed history.
Despite the many years he spent at her side, despite his previous admission that it was Rand
who persuaded him that "capitalism is not only efficient and practical but also moral", he
mentioned her in his memoirs only to suggest that it was a youthful indiscretion – and
this, it seems, is now the official version. Weiss presents powerful evidence that even today
Greenspan remains her loyal disciple, having renounced his partial admission of failure to
Congress.
Saturated in her philosophy, the new right on both sides of the Atlantic continues to demand
the rollback of the state, even as the wreckage of that policy lies all around. The poor go
down, the ultra-rich survive and prosper. Ayn Rand would have approved.
"... Well I saw/heard Tulsi on Joe Rogan too and was very impressed, her heart is in the right place and she is anti war. However what worries me most is that Israel is only waiting for one more surgical strike on it's enemies per Israel's shopping list revealed by Gen. Wesley Clark and we all know that is Iran. The US will probably have to sacrifice a warship to Mossad in October to kick this one off. ..."
Well I saw/heard Tulsi on Joe Rogan too and was very impressed, her heart is in the right
place and she is anti war. However what worries me most is that Israel is only waiting for
one more surgical strike on it's enemies per Israel's shopping list revealed by Gen. Wesley
Clark and we all know that is Iran. The US will probably have to sacrifice a warship to
Mossad in October to kick this one off.
Tulsi in all liklihood will be swept away by events and I have a sneaky suspicion she is
the 'wildcard candidate' insurance for the 'kingmakers' after all she has kissed the AIPAC
arse is member of CFR etc – she was after all on the fast track before she cried
'foul'.
She is far more honest than most but sadly is still compromised and there is no getting
around that one. She owes them and they never forget. My 'outside choice' is the formidably
'loose cannon' Robert David Steele and his partnering with Cynthia McKinney.
The Zionists are in open war with them both. If they can wake up the black voters en masse
to who runs America now it could cause the biggest shock to the US system since the McCarthy
purge. Steele is appealing to 'Truthers', independents, and Alt Right Constitutionalists and
McKinney to the working class and Black vote.
Trump is trying to exploit the same groups but next time around they will be wiser. The
problem now is the Evangelist 'Christian Zionist' rump. Kushner/Trump and Netanyahu have got
them all at fever pitch for the 2nd coming.
"... This is why it wouldn't matter even if we got Sanders/Gabbard by some miracle. If we got a Sanders/Gabbard presidency, you can be sure congress would start doing everything they can to make sure absolutely nothing happened to change the status quo. It would be like what the Rs did to Obama, but it would be both Ds and Rs pushing back and nothing would change. ..."
The Democrats engineered another win for Trump. Now why is that?
The why is because the democrats are not really against the things he is doing. Oh sure they
will give some speeches about how they don't like what he is doing, but so far enough democrats
have voted with republicans on almost every bill that has come up. The only one that they
didn't vote for was to rescind the ACA. Deregulation of the banks? Yup. More unconstitutional
spying on us? Yup. The military budget? Yup. Confirming his horrible cabinet picks? Yup again
except for DeVos. Warren voted for Ben Carson. Why? She said that she was afraid that Trump
would pick someone worse. How about just keep voting no until he chose someone qualified? His
horrible right wing judges? Yup. Schumer continues to make deals with McConnell to get them
done. DiFi and of course Manchin and other blue dawgs are right there voting with them. I don't
remember which democrat told McConnell that he should have let all of congress in on the tax
bill because he could have gotten 70 or more votes on it.
This after McConnell refused to let Obama's judges get a vote and then there's Garland and
the kabuki confirmation hearing for Kavanaugh.
Democrats are passing bills to keep Trump from pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and
Syria and we saw what happened when he tried to pull them out of Syria. And made nice with Kim
and Vlad.
So yeah if ByeDone or Warren doesn't get the nod then they will be just fine with Trump
again. And since ByeDone's latest gaffes they are now pushing Warren as coming from behind. I
think Harris was supposed to be the nominee, but she isn't going anywhere.
This is their world, after all. They're fighting for the future, and they have more of
it to fight for.
At the same time, I've noticed a flurry of anti-centrist and Biden-warning articles
coming from all directions.
What I know for sure, is that at this point Trump is set to win in 2020 and the backlash
from the Russia Hoax is just getting started. I don't think it matters which way Barr
decides to play it. The establishment is going to take the hit. There is an army of
potential voters out there who will not vote for more of the same, and that includes Trump.
Nor will they waste their votes on the established third party slush pile. Only a bold
vision from an uncompromising candidate will bring this army forward, and many voters will
join them. There are only a few candidates who can bring it. But they all pretended to fall
for the Russia Hoax. Or, maybe they are just that dumb.
There are enough Millennial votes to carry the win, and the Left will provide back-up.
Who knows with the so-called Progressives? In Congress, they'll vote for anything with a
back-end pay-off that keeps them in DC. On the street, they may be genuine and will vote
with the uncompromised. Tulsi Gabbard can carry this off. She is the first Millennial
presidential candidate -- if she can get past the media black-out.
Bottom line: The Democrats engineered another win for Trump. Now why is that?
up 32 users have voted. --
America is a pathetic nation; a fascist state fueled by the greed, malice, and stupidity
of her own people.
- strife delivery
Democrats are passing bills to keep Trump from pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and
Syria and we saw what happened when he tried to pull them out of Syria.
This is why it wouldn't matter even if we got Sanders/Gabbard by some miracle. If we got a
Sanders/Gabbard presidency, you can be sure congress would start doing everything they can to
make sure absolutely nothing happened to change the status quo. It would be like what the Rs
did to Obama, but it would be both Ds and Rs pushing back and nothing would change.
I give her and the Left a pass on that grey area. Tulsi has never embraced the Russia Hoax
to the extent that Sanders and Warren have -- and still do. One thing I don't need is a
purity pledge from members of the Left who try to climb on the political stage with the
American duopoly, who in turn throw every lie and ugly smear they can at them.
The Russia Hoax is falling apart on its own. The Democrats have been deeply stained by it.
Americans grow increasingly shocked and disgusted with the media monopolies. They have all
lost the trust of the American people. The candidates are trying to evolve as fast as they
can on this issue. It will come up in the debates. Answer wrong and watch out, but that will
change week by week as the public begins to realize what happened in 2016.
bringing the evidence, but my stars, the hundreds of subtweeters gave her an education.
okay, it's a grey area for you, as likely is her voting to sanction russia for stealing
crimea, sanctioning north korea for...whatever.
@Pluto's Republic Russiagate from early on, Prof Stephen Cohen, is a backer and
contributor to Tulsi Gabbard. If she's good enough for the Prof on this issue, she's good
enough for me.
She might be alone among candidates in calling for a substantial pullback in the hostility
directed at Russia by the US, a thawing of the new cold war. And how many of the Ds running
for prez have explicitly called out the undue influence of the MIC?
I see her overall as a young pol, still in her 30s, evolving in the right direction in a
number of areas. I wish she had been perfect on this issue from the get go, but I must take
my candidate with all her flaws.
They won't need to talk about Gabbard after the first debates, unless she can get polling
over 2% there will be no more for her. Like all the other 20 she will get her maybe broken 10
minutes of fame in the first debate, it won't be enough to really make a rational case for
anything probably. The Dems aren't generous like R's in having second tier debates, they cull
fast. Sanders yea he'll be around.
The problem with Warren's definition of capitalism, is when she describes herself as
capitalist, she pretends she literally has no idea what capitalism is. The ingenue! In her
description: it's about individuals trading, or corporations trading, or individuals trading
with corporations. When back in the world we live in it's about power and raw power
relations. Her definition of capitalism IS WAY WAY WAY more inaccurate than any definition
Bernie has of socialism which does approach some definitions of socialism. It's just zero
correspondence with reality for Warren.
Tucker Carlson asked whether someone can be elected if Google and Facebook don't want them
to be. His answer was No.
I think a similar question can be asked: "Can someone be elected if the DNC don't want
them to be?". Unfortunately for this election cycle I think the answer will also be No.
But it will set the stage for something bigger, and worse (from the PTB point of view).
Those who make gradual change impossible make revolutionary change inevitable" JFK
So if we haven't all been Raptured Up, 2024 is Year Zero for our New Thermidor.
Indeed she does. That New York Mag article was quite an accomplished hit-piece; now Tulsi
is possibly a Manchurian candidate from a twisted Krishna cult! Aside from the accurate quote
on the Blob cited by Lambert, this is perhaps the most disgusting piece of s**t on Gabbard
I've read yet -- and that's saying something. The reason is that it is so detailed and
skilled; it really demonstrates your point that they want to destroy her. The article
*pretends* to be sympathetic to her anti-interventionist stance in places (thus the Blob
quote), but the author actually draws selectively from her life -- mainly from past
acquaintances and relatives (who seem antagonistic) and almost nothing from Gabbard herself
-- to paint a picture of a strange and perhaps unstable character unknown to the general
public. Some of the questions raised might be legitimate, but that was not the purpose here.
Rather, bits and pieces of her life were selected to construct a finely crafted narrative
designed to destroy whatever credibility her anti-war position might have had among educated
liberal readers.
For those who want to know about Gabbard, watch the Joe Rogan interviews. For those who
want to deconstruct a first-rate character assassination, I highly recommend this article.
You are right, John. The nomenklatura are pulling out all the stops.
I agree, this article had "hit job" written all over it. The author spent as much time
discussing her father's guru as it did her from what I could tell. A piss-poor, and obvious,
attempt at Guilt By Association.
I actually went into "skim mode" after this leading paragraph statement,
Here are the details: Bashar al-Assad is a depraved dictator best known for his
willingness to murder his own people, including many children, with chemical weapons.
It was pretty obvious to me that the rest of the article would carry as much lie as this
statement so clearly did. It's too unfortunate that too many will fall for all this
tripe.
Gabbard (D)(1): "Tulsi Gabbard Had a Very Strange Childhood" [ New York
Magazine ]. " A Hindu veteran and millennial congresswoman of Samoan descent hailing from
Hawaii, [Gabbard] brings together disparate constituencies: most noticeably, Bernie Sanders
fans who love that she resigned from the Democratic National Committee to endorse him in 2016,
but also libertarians who appreciate her noninterventionism, Indian-Americans taken by her
professed Hinduism, veterans attracted to her credibility on issues of war and peace, and
racists who interpret various statements she has made to be promising indications of
Islamophobia.
That she is polling at one percent, sandwiched between Andrew Yang and Amy Klobuchar,
suggests that bringing together these constituencies is not nearly enough, but the intensity of
emotion she provokes on all sides sets her apart. When FiveThirtyEight asked 60 Democratic
Party activists whom they didn't want to win, Tulsi Gabbard came in first out of 17
candidates." • Also, Gabbard is a self-described introvert (a plus in my book). And then
there's this:
The most obvious obstacle between any noninterventionist candidate and mainstream success
is D.C.'s foreign-policy Establishment -- the think-tankers and politicians and media
personalities and intelligence professionals and defense-company contractors and, very often,
intelligence professionals turned defense-company contractors who determine the bounds of
acceptable thinking on war and peace. In parts of D.C., this Establishment is called "the
Blob," and to stray beyond its edges is to risk being deemed "unserious," which as a woman
candidate one must be very careful not to be.
The Blob may in 2019 acknowledge that past American wars of regime change for which it
enthusiastically advocated have been disastrous, but it somehow maintains faith in the
tantalizing possibilities presented by new ones.
The Blob loves to "stand for" things, especially "leadership" and "democracy." The Blob
loves to assign moral blame, loves signaling virtue while failing to follow up on civilian
deaths, and definitely needs you to be clear on "who the enemy is" -- a kind of obsessive
deontological approach in which naming things is more important than cataloguing the effects
of any particular policy.
It's fair to say that whoever The Blob is for -- ***cough*** Hillary Clinton ***cough*** --
should be approached with a hermaneutic of suspicion.
Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard took the media to task for what she called
biased and misleading coverage of her campaign, arguing the facts no longer matter to some
outlets. Speaking at an event in New York recently, Tulsi said the press had given up on any
semblance of balanced or accurate reporting, replacing news coverage with panels of jabbering
pundits.
Instead of factual reporting, she said: "We see opinions, we see panels of people on all
the news channels – I don't care which one you watch – sharing their
opinions."
tulsi mocking george stephanopoulos is one of the greatest things you'll hear from any
of the candidates pic.twitter.com/aIBxWyZ5t1
The 2020 hopeful also described what she said were intentional smear efforts against her
campaign in the media.
"Me and my campaign have been on the receiving end of very intentional smear efforts
trying to undermine our campaign coming through, you know, NBC News quoting articles that are
completely baseless," Gabbard said.
She referred to a recent interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, wherein the pundit
echoed the suggestion that Gabbard's campaign was boosted by "Putin apologists."
"Well, you know, this article in the Daily Beast says Putin supports your campaign,"
she said, imitating Stephanopolous's question in the interview.
An article "based on what?" she asked the audience in New York rhetorically.
"Nothing. Really, nothing."
The story in question intimated that Gabbard's presidential bid was backed by "Kremlin
sympathizers," such as the Nation magazine's Stephen F. Cohen, an expert in international
relations who argues for better ties between the US and Russia.
Gabbard has come under fire for her foreign policy positions, such as her call for detente
between the US and other nuclear-armed states like Russia. Tulsi's opposition to US regime
change policies have also made her a target in some quarters. After refusing to endorse
American efforts to topple the Syrian government, she was branded as an 'apologist' for Syria's
President Bashar Assad.
So Russiagater was not fired. Madcow was promoted to more freely spead her "Madcow desease"
(Neo-McCarthysim actually) into unsuspecting public ...
Notable quotes:
"... Almost none of the "celebrity" tv journalists have earned one sniff of their regard by having a sufficient amount of smarts, insight, and humility it requires to deliver the news. Especially in trying times like these. ..."
"... She's a borderline conspiracy theorist and more of a star than a newswoman. ..."
"... In what alternate universe does Maddow even have a hint of non-bias? She is not a journalist. ..."
"... maddow is all about opinion, hers, and the one given out to msm by the dem party everyday. aka : the meme of the day. maddow is an partisan idiot. always was, always will be ..."
On Tuesday, NBC announced that its lineup of moderators will include Rachel Maddow of
MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show , Lester Holt of NBC Nightly News and Dateline
NBC, José Diaz-Balart of Noticias Telemundo and NBC Nightly News
Saturday , Savannah Guthrie of Today , and Chuck Todd of Meet the Press .
... ... ...
UltraViolet Action co-founder and executive director Shaunna Thomas praised the moderator
decision to the Cut. "NBC's decision to ensure that four out of the five moderators for the
first Democratic presidential primary debate are women or people of color is a huge win for
representation at the debates and a welcome change from the status quo," Thomas said in a
statement. She also stated that she hopes other networks follow suit.
Cags
Almost none of the "celebrity" tv journalists have earned one sniff of their regard by having
a sufficient amount of smarts, insight, and humility it requires to deliver the news.
Especially in trying times like these.
joaniesausquoi, 3 hours ago
Whattya got against Rachel, Cags?
Cags, 2 hours ago
She's a borderline conspiracy theorist and more of a star than a newswoman.
Daxter , 6 hours ago (Edited)
In what alternate universe does Maddow even have a hint of non-bias? She is not a
journalist.
Having Rachel Maddow moderate is like having Sean Hannity moderate.
indigo710, 5 hours ago
maddow is all about opinion, hers, and the one given out to msm by the dem party
everyday. aka : the meme of the day. maddow is an partisan idiot. always was, always will
be . "lawer" is spelled "lawyer".
"... The one glaring example of how the media can deep six a political candidate is the story of Ron Paul's presidential run in 2012. After tying for first place in the Iowa Straw Poll with Michelle Bachman he was disappeared from the media completely . His name was never mention again, and the RNC stole his delegates. He became persona non grata. This is probably Tulsi's future. ..."
"... Moreover,our Neocon Warmongers eighteen year assault on the federal balance sheet , has been so massive, so larcenous and so protracted it has all but eviscerated the credit worthiness of the Nation. They have QUADRUPLED our ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT in a mere 18 years. IT IS BEYOND BELIEF. ..."
"... All while he sends more troops to the ME but not to our border. As a wag on ZeroHedge observed, Trump has spent more time at the Wailing Wall than on our southern border. ..."
"... Tulsi is my preferred candidate. That said, I'm disappointed that she "served" in Iraq, a country which we invaded and devastated on a total lie that it had nukes. Also, I believe now she has distanced herself from ring-wing US Hindu groups who are strong supporters of the genocidal Indian prime minster Modi. ..."
"... That said, I admire Tulsi for going against the grain of our Zionist-run Congress and our crypto Jewish prez. ..."
"... The war party has many tentacles. The mainstream media and cable are fundamentally just their propaganda service. Fellow corporatists supporting each other's revenue stream. Then RT comes along, and does journalism -- demonstrates some journalistic integrity -- and the world is turned upside down. All of a sudden the truth -- mostly -- is declared Russian propaganda. ..."
"... Not just Trump and O, but Clinton and Bush II as well. I recall Bush II's tag line of a "more humble foreign policy." How'd that work out? ..."
"... I remember in 2011, I believe it was, he was leading in the polls and I heard a radio talking head opining: "I think we can all stipulate that Ron Paul is not a viable candidate for the nomination, but " For a moment there I wondered why we could all stipulate that, and then it occurred to me to notice the commentator's last name. He was using the royal we, as in we the Chosen. RP not an Israel lickspittle? End of story. ..."
"... However, Sanders had always been anti-immigration until he started running against Hillary in 2016. He was both anti illegal immigration and anti H1b. The problem is, DNC candidates have to pander to the far left to win nomination ..."
"... Tucker said he supports Elizabeth Warren's national economic plan of bringing back manufacturing jobs to save the heartland, as Trump is trying to do. Warren also wants maximum legal immigration like Trump. What good are bringing back these jobs if we are just going to import more foreign workers to work in them? ..."
"... "Both Obama and Trump were elected as anti-war candidates, and look what happened?" ..."
"... As for Trump, war in fact has not "happened". Beside the silly nothing attack on an essentially unstaffed Syrian runway that was warned ahead of time, Trump has attacked no one. He talks a lot to placate Jews, but talk is not action. Obama? A true war monger who bombed & bombed, & bombed. ..."
Probably the only honest Democrat out there. OK Demo-dunces, when Dem primary comes around,
here is a candidate you can vote for without normal people saying What? Are you nuts? Dems
are honestly going to push for Feelsy Weelsy Biden, unless the Hildabeast thinks she can give
it another try.
Tulsi Gabbard needs to add one more thing to her campaign and she will win: promise a drastic
cut on immigration in favor of American workers.
America is hungry for a candidate who will actually deliver on the no-more-wars and
no-more-immigration pledge. Trump campaigned on that but has turned out to be a total fraud
who failed on both counts.
We need Tulsi to step into the void. Not only will she win over a lot of Trump voters, but
she will also win over a lot of those on the left who are sick of wars and not particularly
pro immigration.
Hilariously, the MSM trumpeted the message last time around that we simply MUST have a female
president, that it was long past time a woman was in charge, and that anyone reluctant to
vote for Hillary was an evil misogynist. Before that, we were told that we simply HAD to have
a noble Person of Color in the White House, that it was everyone's duty to vote for Obama and
not some old white guy.
Despite Gabbard ticking off both those boxes, wouldn't you know It? Suddenly the
importance of having a non-White or female President mysteriously vanishes! Suddenly it's our
duty to have the lecherous, creepy old white dude in office! Suddenly the importance of
Diversity ("diversity is our strength" don't you know?) vanishes into the ether when Tulsi
comes up.
I think she should use this to her advantage. Not resort to identity politics or faux
feminism, but simply point out the hypocrisy, draw attention to the inconsistency and get the
general public asking themselves why all this diversity / Girl Power shit suddenly gets
memory holed by the media when it's Tulsi, or any anti establishment figure, in the
spotlight.
I mat switch party registration just so I can vote for her in a primary. I wonder, however,
if once in office, she could implement her program against the Deep State
After Gabbard announced her (2020) campaign, the Russian government owned RT, Sputnik
News and Russia Insider together ran about 20 stories favorable to her. NBC News reported
that these websites were the same that were involved in Russian interference in the 2016
elections. Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, called the report by NBC a "transparent hit
piece". In The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald wrote that what he found "particularly unethical
about the NBC report is that it tries to bolster the credentials of this group [New
Knowledge] while concealing from its audience the fraud that this firm's CEO just got
caught perpetrating on the public on behalf of the Democratic Party."
@Tired of Not Winning Totally agree. To those who saw it, that's what Tucker's monologue
was all about last night. Anti-war with America-first anti-immigration is the winning ticket.
Unfortunately, from what I've been able to gather, take away her principled anti-war stance
and Tulsi's just another bleeding-heart liberal democrat. She did back Sanders after all.
Maybe Tucker, who has often had her on his show, can straighten Tulsi out.
Gabbard should switch parties and challenge Trump. I would vote for her. She has no chance at
all as a Democrat. Obviously she cannot be allowed to participate in the Democratic debates.
But her reasons for running probably do not include winning the nomination. I wish her
well. But I will never support a Democrat. Not even one I respect. I'm a white man. It's not
about the POC. My fear and loathing pertains to the white liberals.
@Diversity Heretic That's the $64,000 question, isn't it? Both Obama and Trump were
elected as anti-war candidates, and look what happened? The Deep State, i.e. the Permanent
Government, is probably more powerful than any elected president, who will be there for at
most 8 years. But who else out there beside Tulsi has the guts to take on the Hegemon? I
think she means what she says, while Obama and Trump did not.
We'll know she's being taken serious when, like Donald Trump in 2016, AIPAC summons her to
appear before the Learned Elders of Zion to pledge fealty to Israel and the holohoax.
● 'Immigration is a tremendous economic benefit for Hawai'i and our country as a
whole.'
● 'Trump's comments on immigrants fly in the face of aloha spirit, American
values.'
She has no chance and isn't going to go against immigration.
It doesn't really matter what they say anyway, because it's just lies to get elected.
Once elected they do what the nose tells them to do.
If she's CFR, she's an open borders globalist.
Trump was adamantly anti-war during his campaign, and then the nose stepped in and fixed
it.
I read that everything Trump said, all of those lies, all of those promises, were the
result of analytics.
I was dubious at first, but now I think it's true. He quite literally just mouthed what we
wanted to hear, and then did what the nose told him to do.
Obama got the peace prize and did more drone strikes than Bush.
Tulsi would be anti-war right up to her inauguration, then the reality that the nose OWNS
her entire party would sink in and she'd realize who's the boss.
Giraldi and his fans here are cool with mass Third World migration to the USA if it means
finally electing out and proud anti-Israel politicians like Ilhan Omar and the other
Congressmuslima.
Despite Gabbard ticking off both those boxes, wouldn't you know It? Suddenly the
importance of having a non-White or female President mysteriously vanishes! Suddenly it's
our duty to have the lecherous, creepy old white dude in office! Suddenly the importance of
Diversity ("diversity is our strength" don't you know?) vanishes into the ether when Tulsi
comes up.
But I will never support a Democrat. Not even one I respect. I'm a white man. It's not
about the POC. My fear and loathing pertains to the white liberals.
I like Tulsi a lot. We've almost forgotten what a serious person looks like, and she is one
of the 3 or 4 in Washington.
Her Democrat satanic baggage poisons the well, but she is still an inspiring figure, in my
view.
The one glaring example of how the media can deep six a political candidate is the story of
Ron Paul's presidential run in 2012. After tying for first place in the Iowa Straw Poll with
Michelle Bachman he was disappeared from the media completely . His name was never
mention again, and the RNC stole his delegates. He became persona non grata. This is probably Tulsi's future.
Right now, Tulsi is the only candidate who matters.
I hope she wins the nomination by a landslide.
The United States, due to the abysmal stewardship of our neocon oligarchs , is in a wholly
unprecedented and catastrophic situation.
They know it, I know it, and the majority of Americans are fast waking up to it.
Never before in US history, has so much taxpayer solvency been squandered through acts of
wanton criminal war.
The utter decimation being wrought upon countries around the world . which never attacked
us, AT ALL, is beyond human imagination.
Moreover,our Neocon Warmongers eighteen year assault on the federal balance sheet , has
been so massive, so larcenous and so protracted it has all but eviscerated the credit
worthiness of the Nation. They have QUADRUPLED our ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT in a mere 18 years. IT IS BEYOND BELIEF.
Even as I write this, steps are being taken by all the major world powers to eject the US
dollar as the worlds reserve currency.
If this happens, nobody will continue to buy our currency ..or our bonds.
The heinous 22 trillion dollar debt, created by our neocon warmongers, will not be
underwritten anymore, anywhere.
The US will have to turn "inward" to deal with this fiscal abomination , and dare I say
that when this happens a "solvency holocaust" will truly be upon us.
The greatest nation on earth, turned belly up, in a mere twenty years .all due to
pernicious .. Neocon ..War Fraud.
@Tired of Not Winning Total fraud is correct. He refuses to characterize the illegals as
invaders and to anchor any action in response in his responsibility under Art. IV, Sect. 4 to
repel invasion. He insists on pretending that his authority to act is founded in legislation
pertaining to "emergencies" of which we possess an infinite supply.
All while he sends more troops to the ME but not to our border. As a wag on ZeroHedge
observed, Trump has spent more time at the Wailing Wall than on our southern border.
And while every month 100,000 invaders are released into the interior of the US.
Tulsi is my preferred candidate. That said, I'm disappointed that she
"served" in Iraq, a country which we invaded and devastated on a total lie that it had nukes.
Also, I believe now she has distanced herself from ring-wing US Hindu groups who are strong
supporters of the genocidal Indian prime minster Modi.
That said, I admire Tulsi for going against the grain of our Zionist-run Congress and our
crypto Jewish prez.
@Lot So what's wrong with Ilhan Omar? Is that she's Muslim? Two people in Congress I
admire are AOC (who's to young of run for prez) and Omar. Both have cojones.
@anonymous India is a polluted shit-hole run by a genocidal, Hindu nationalist PM, with
almost half of parliament members under some kind of criminal charge.
The war party has many tentacles. The mainstream media and cable are
fundamentally just their propaganda service. Fellow corporatists supporting each other's
revenue stream. Then RT comes along, and does journalism -- demonstrates some journalistic
integrity -- and the world is turned upside down. All of a sudden the truth -- mostly -- is
declared Russian propaganda.
Awakening from the bad dream of neoliberal servitude will cause cognitive dissonance,
confusion, and distress. Learning the truth, even a little bit of Truth, is almost like
poison when, for a lifetime, you've been fed nothing but lies.
@Tired of Not Winning Agree, but . . . even if elected, she would run into the same AIPAC
and pro-cheap labor lobbies that have stymied Trump (assuming Trump wanted to do anything
about these issues). Even if she wanted to do something about War and Immigrants, she would
up against a united establishment from both parties. Having a D after her name would not
count for much.
@c matt You've already been destroyed. Omar and AOC had both the brains and the balls to
identify your real enemy. Your ass is owned buddy, lock, stock and barrel ..and it took two
women to say it .not a sign of a man with any balls in congress.
Florida's Governor just signed a bill that will censor criticism of Israel throughout
the state's public schools
News
Michael Arria on June 6, 2019 23 Comments
U.S. Congressman Ron DeSantis of Florida speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Gage Skidmore)
[MORE]
On May 31, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that prohibits anti-Semitism in public
schools and universities throughout the state. However, the legislation also equates
criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, effectively censoring the advocacy of Palestinian
rights.
Two days before DeSantis officially signed HB 741 into law in Florida, he carried out a
symbolic signing during a ceremonial state cabinet meeting in Israel. The session featured a
variety of Israeli speakers and culminated with Florida lawmakers issuing a declaration of
support for the country. "Since we're in Jerusalem, we may actually get some interest in our
Cabinet meetings for a change, which would be great," joked DeSantis during the meeting. A
number of news organizations filed a lawsuit against the state's government, claiming that
the meeting violated Florida's transparency law, as it took place in a foreign country and
wasn't made publicly accessible to journalists. Although they weren't officially listed as
members of DeSantis' delegation, he was accompanied by pro-Israel megadonors Sheldon and
Miriam Adelson.
HB 741 states that, "A public K-20 educational institution must treat discrimination by
students or employees or resulting from institutional policies motivated by anti-Semitic
intent in an identical manner to discrimination motivated by race." The bill identifies
anti-Semitism as calls for violence against Jews, Holocaust denial, or the promotion of
conspiracy theories that target Jewish people, but it also contains an entire section that
equates Israel critcism with the prohibited anti-Semitism. This includes, "applying a double
standard to Israel by requiring behavior of Israel that is not expected or demanded of any
other democratic nation." According to the bill's text, criticism of Israel is always
anti-Semitic unless it is "similar to criticism toward any other country."
"We know what could happen in Florida from the chilling effects we've already seen elsewhere:
human rights defenders will be smeared as antisemites, investigated by schools, and in some
cases punished. Events will be cancelled, or censored via bureaucratic harassment. Theses
will not be written. Debates in class will not take place. And many activists will
self-censor out of pure exhaustion," Palestine Legal's senior staff attorney Meera Shah told
Mondoweiss, "All of this profoundly diminishes Florida's ability to educate students to be
leaders in a global economy."
The House version of HB 741 was sponsored by State Representative Randy Fine, a rabidly
pro-Israel lawmaker who has held office since 2016. In April, after Sen. Audrey Gibson voted
against HB 741's companion bill and called it "divisive", Fine denounced the Senate
Democratic Leader and called on Democrats to "hold her accountable." "It is sad that in the
world propagated by Washington Democrats like Congresswomen Ihlan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and
Tallahassee Democrats like Audrey Gibson, fighting anti-Semitism is 'divisive', said Fine,
"In this time of rising anti-Semitism around both the country and globe, it is unconscionable
that the most powerful Democrat in the Florida Senate would vote against banning
discrimination based on anti-Semitism."
That same month, Fine made headlines for referring to a Jewish constituent as "Judenrat", a
term used to describe Jews who collaborated with the Nazis during World War 2. Fine used the
word in reference to Paul Halpern, a Palm Bay resident who organized a panel discussion
regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict. Fine took to Facebook to criticize the panel for
being anti-Semitic. "First, there is no 'Palestine,'" Fine wrote, "Second, having a bunch of
speakers who advocate for the destruction of Israel but promise that this one time they
won't, is a joke. We should not engage these bigots. We crush them." After Halpern pushed
back on this assertion and pointed out that the majority of the panelists were Jewish, Fine
responded, ″#JudenratDontCount..I know that Judenrat liked to keep tabs on all the Jews
in order to report back to the Nazis back in that time, but no one is making you continue
that tradition today."
"In my mind, Judenrat is the worst thing that you can call a Jewish person," Halpern told the
Huffington Post, "He's despicable as a representative and a person."
Governor DeSantis is a close ally of the President and some believe that the Israel trip
could help deliver Florida for Trump in 2020. "For a lot of Jewish voters, this trip puts an
exclamation point on the Republican Party's commitment to Israel and to Jewish people," the
Republican Jewish Coalition's Neil Strauss recently proclaimed, "We saw a nice rise in
support for Gov. DeSantis and we want to keep that going. Florida is the best example of
where if Republicans gain Jewish voters, it can make a real difference."
I remember in 2011, I believe it was, he was leading in the polls and I heard a
radio talking head opining: "I think we can all stipulate that Ron Paul is not a viable
candidate for the nomination, but " For a moment there I wondered why we could all stipulate
that, and then it occurred to me to notice the commentator's last name. He was using the
royal we, as in we the Chosen. RP not an Israel lickspittle? End of story.
Well a lot of the comments here are ridiculous it's like the guy who has cancer and somebody
comes along with a cure, but he says 'fuck it' because it doesn't involve ice cream
Yet these same morons support Trump who has only done things for Israel's benefit so far
and even though Trump supports legal immigration
Speaking of which why don't all these immigration zealots take up the issue with the real
bosses on the matter corporate America ?
It's the plutocracy that WANTS immigration at any and all cost because it creates a
surplus labor pool and drives wages down while driving shareholder profits up the same reason
is why industry is offshored, along with the jobs that go with it it's called labor
arbitrage
In other words this is what CAPITALISM is about yet here these monkeys are screaming about
'leftist' Tulsi because she wants Medicare for all, instead of a ripoff system that enriches
a few corporate parasites while we foot the bill
How much do the endless, unnecessary wars cost the taxpayer ? [they don't cost the
billionaire class anything because they don't pay taxes ]
How much does corporate welfare cost the taxpayer ? ask King Bezos how many billions he's
been gifted in 'tax holidays' and other such freebies
Tulsi's entire approach is a major win-win for ordinary folks right up to and including
high earning professionals
Anybody with half a brain would be overjoyed that we even have such a person in our midst
as if we don't have enough completely briandead zombies that are going to vote for Gore or
that gay guy, or that fake 'socialist' Bernie
@Sako Sako, yours is one of the best posts ever on this site. I am tempted to volunteer
for Tulsi's campaign on the basis of her anti-war position alone. I did about fourteen years
of active duty in the Army, and when I hear her refer to soldiers as her "brothers and
sisters," I actually get teary-eyed. I have to restrain myself from adoring her completely.
Excellent expose by Philip Giraldi, for one of our best candidates Tulsi Gabbard.
Indeed the enemy is "the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States."
@Tired of Not Winning Like me. Hopefully she is still in it when super Tuesday gets here.
I'm sick of the alt right (and their tangerine leader) and sicker of blm/reparations/open
borders. I now know why non voters don't vote.
Tulsi is a Hawaii democrat, a very corrupt group. Tell her to comment on the kealohas, the
police chief of Honolulu and his wife are being tried for corruption and drug dealing by the
feds. She and all the other dems here will not comment. She likes to rock the boat about war
at the federal level but no comment on her state evolving into a third world dump.
I think the local dems want her out, Mufi wants revenge.
@follyofwar Yep, it is a big if. She is pretty far to the left on immigration, which is
unfortunate. But I appreciate her being honest. We don't need another lying scum like Trump.
However, Sanders had always been anti-immigration until he started running against Hillary
in 2016. He was both anti illegal immigration and anti H1b. The problem is, DNC candidates
have to pander to the far left to win nomination. I'm holding out hope that he would revert
back to those pre 2016 immigration positions after winning nomination. He recently came out
and railed against the border invasion.
A Sanders-Gabbard ticket might be the winning ticket.
(assuming Trump wanted to do anything about these issues).
That's just the problem. I don't think Trump ever really wanted to reduce legal
immigration. He has said more than once that he wants to let "the largest number ever" of
immigrants come in because "we" need these workers as we have "all these jobs coming back",
i.e. employers need their cheap labor, except instead of keeping the cheap labor offshore, he
wants to bring millions of them to the US like the tech sector.
Tucker said he supports Elizabeth Warren's national economic plan of bringing back
manufacturing jobs to save the heartland, as Trump is trying to do. Warren also wants maximum
legal immigration like Trump. What good are bringing back these jobs if we are just going to
import more foreign workers to work in them?
In the end the rich will just get richer, while the rest of us have to put up with even
more immigration, more congestion, overcrowded schools, crime, poverty, unemployment,
underemployment, failed schools I say no thank you! Let's just send all the immigrants
packing. We already have plenty of jobs in America, they are just all going to
foreigners.
The only job program we need is one that calls for drastic cuts in immigration. Anything
else is bullshit.
"Both Obama and Trump were elected as anti-war candidates, and look what
happened?"
As for Trump, war in fact has not "happened". Beside the silly nothing attack on an essentially unstaffed Syrian runway that was warned
ahead of time, Trump has attacked no one.
He talks a lot to placate Jews, but talk is not action. Obama?
A true war monger who bombed & bombed, & bombed.
yet here these monkeys are screaming about 'leftist' Tulsi because she wants Medicare
for all, instead of a ripoff system that enriches a few corporate parasites while we foot
the bill
Sorry, I haven't seen anyone on this thread complain about Medicare-for-all. You must have
this website confused with Conservative Treehouse or something.
@Tired of Not Winning Tulsi Gabbard won't because She is waging Democratic Party race war
against the Historic Native Born White American Working Class Majority .Tulsi Gabbard would
massively increase the H1b L1b Visa Program .she is already courting the Hindu "American"
Democratic Party Voting Bloc ..
@Robert Dolan I believe you've summed it up well. I haven't voted in a "national"
election since W's first term because the ballot-box is a non-answer to the dilemma.
@Johnny Rottenborough Her positions on immigration disqualify her from consideration
regardless of how strong her foreing policy might be at this stage. Plus, she's made woke
statements on other social issues so in a lot of ways she's perhaps only slightly to the
right of Barack Obama with a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Trump betrayed anti-war votes. So he will not get the same voting blocks that he got in 2016.
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War. ..."
"... In a recent interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson, Gabbard doubled down on her anti-war credentials, telling the host that war with Iran would be "devastating, " adding that "I know where this path leads us and I'm concerned because the American people don't seem to be prepared for how devastating and costly such a war would be So, what we are facing is, essentially, a war that has no frontlines, total chaos, engulfs the whole region, is not contained within Iran or Iraq but would extend to Syria and Lebanon and Israel across the region, setting us up in a situation where, in Iraq, we lost over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform. A war with Iran would take far more American lives, it would cost more civilian lives across the region Not to speak of the fact that this would cost trillions of taxpayer dollars coming out of our pockets to go and pay for this endless war that begs the question as a soldier, what are we fighting for? What does victory look like? What is the mission?" ..."
"... Gabbard, and also Carlson, did not hesitate to name names among those pushing for war, one of which begins with B-O-L-T-O-N. She then asked "How does a war with Iran serve the best interest of the American people of the United States? And the fact is it does not," Gabbard said. "It better serves the interest of people like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia who are trying to push us into this war with Iran." ..."
"... In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and in 2016 she backed Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy. More recently, she has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, a very bold step indeed given the power of the Israel Lobby. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years, and that is why the war party is out to get her. Two weeks ago, the Daily Beast displayed a headline : "Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists." The article also had a sub-headline: "The Hawaii congresswoman is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood." ..."
"... Tulsi responded "Stephanopoulos shamelessly implied that because I oppose going to war with Russia, I'm not a loyal American, but a Putin puppet. It just shows what absurd lengths warmongers in the media will go, to try to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares oppose their warmongering." ..."
"... ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is loaded with a full complement of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation. ..."
"... for the moment, she seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform. It might just resonate with the majority of Americans who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States ..."
Voters looking ahead to 2020 are being bombarded with soundbites from the twenty plus Democratic would-be candidates. That Joe
Biden is apparently leading the pack according to opinion polls should come as no surprise as he stands for nothing apart from being
the Establishment favorite who will tirelessly work to support the status quo.
The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where
she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer
with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.
Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In
the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus
on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening
terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay
over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.
In a recent interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson, Gabbard doubled down on her anti-war credentials, telling the host that
war with Iran
would
be "devastating, " adding that "I know where this path leads us and I'm concerned because the American people don't seem to be
prepared for how devastating and costly such a war would be So, what we are facing is, essentially, a war that has no frontlines,
total chaos, engulfs the whole region, is not contained within Iran or Iraq but would extend to Syria and Lebanon and Israel across
the region, setting us up in a situation where, in Iraq, we lost over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform. A war with Iran
would take far more American lives, it would cost more civilian lives across the region Not to speak of the fact that this would
cost trillions of taxpayer dollars coming out of our pockets to go and pay for this endless war that begs the question as a soldier,
what are we fighting for? What does victory look like? What is the mission?"
Gabbard, and also Carlson, did not hesitate to name names among those pushing for war, one of which begins with B-O-L-T-O-N.
She then asked "How does a war with Iran serve the best interest of the American people of the United States? And the fact is it
does not," Gabbard said. "It better serves the interest of people like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi
Arabia who are trying to push us into this war with Iran."
Clearly not afraid to challenge the full gamut establishment politics,
Tulsi Gabbard had previously called for an end to the "illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government," also observing that "the
war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing
the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate
the refugee crisis, and pose a greater threat to the world." She then backed up her words with action by secretly arranging for a
personal trip to Damascus in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, saying it was important to meet adversaries "if you are
serious about pursuing peace." She made her own assessment of the situation in Syria and now favors pulling US troops out of the
country as well as ending American interventions for "regime change" in the region.
In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and in 2016 she backed Bernie Sanders' antiwar
candidacy. More recently, she has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Last May, she criticized
Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, a very bold step indeed given the power of the Israel Lobby.
Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years, and
that is why the war party is out to get her. Two weeks ago, the Daily Beast
displayed a headline
: "Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists." The article also had a sub-headline: "The Hawaii congresswoman
is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood."
The obvious smear job was picked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, television's best known Hillary Clinton clone, who
brought it up in an interview with Gabbard shortly thereafter. He asked whether Gabbard was "softer" on Putin than were some
of the other candidates. Gabbard answered: "It's unfortunate that you're citing that article, George, because it's a whole lot of
fake news." Politico the reported the exchange and wrote: "'Fake news' is a favorite phrase of President Donald Trump ," putting
the ball back in Tulsi's court rather than criticizing Stephanopoulos's pointless question. Soon thereafter CNN produced
its own version of Tulsi
the Russophile , observing that Gabbard was using a Trump expression to "attack the credibility of negative coverage."
Tulsi
responded "Stephanopoulos shamelessly implied that because I oppose going to war with Russia, I'm not a loyal American, but a
Putin puppet. It just shows what absurd lengths warmongers in the media will go, to try to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares
oppose their warmongering."
Tulsi Gabbard had attracted other enemies prior to the Stephanopoulos attack. Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept
described how NBC news published a
widely distributed story on February 1 st , claiming that "experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia
have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard."
But the expert cited by NBC turned out to be a firm New Knowledge,
which was exposed by no less
than The New York Times for falsifying Russian troll accounts for the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to suggest
that the Kremlin was interfering in that election. According to Greenwald, the group ultimately behind
this attack on Gabbard is The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), which sponsors a tool called
Hamilton 68 , a news "intelligence net checker" that
claims to track Russian efforts to disseminate disinformation. The ASD
website advises that "Securing Democracy is a Global Necessity."
ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund.
It is loaded with a full complement
of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol.
It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts
by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation.
No doubt stories headlined "Tulsi Gabbard Communist Stooge" are in the works somewhere in the mainstream media. The Establishment
politicians and their media component have difficulty in understanding just how much they are despised for their mendacity and unwillingness
to support policies that would truly benefit the American people but they are well able to dominate press coverage.
Given the flood of contrived negativity towards her campaign, it is not clear if Tulsi Gabbard will ever be able to get her message
across.
But, for the moment, she seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform.
It might just resonate with the majority of Americans who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related
frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States
OK. Maybe this
rules change isn't aimed directly at Tulsi Gabbard, but it certainly looks like she's in
danger of being it's biggest victim.
Presidential candidates looking to participate in the Democratic National Committee's
sanctioned primary debates initially had to meet one of two thresholds to be eligible:
achieving at least 1% in three separate DNC approved polls or obtaining at least 65,000
donations with minimum of 200 donors from at least 20 states. ... To appear at the recently-announced third set of debates in September, candidates must
achieve 2% in at least four DNC-approved polls and double the minimum of number of donors to
130,000. That quickly became a death sentence for candidates who for months have not even
cracked the first donor threshold.
To make this clear, the requirements for the
THIRD
debate went from "at least 1% in three separate DNC approved polls or obtaining at
least 65,000 donations" to " 2% support in four national or early voting state polls AND
130,000 unique donors to their campaign, including 400 unique donors from at least 20
states". For most of the candidates, unless they really score in the first two debates, they won't be in
any more debates.
To help put this into context, consider what the DNC has been up to recently. They chose
Chris Korge as the new finance chair of the Democratic National Committee. Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez went on a hair-on-fire
rant about Russiagate.
"We are at war right now with the Russians -- it is a cyber war -- [and] our
commander-in-chief is compromised," Perez said. "We should be able to rely on the federal
government for help from this. ... It is unconscionable that this administration has paid
such little attention to what Mueller acknowledged today, [which is] Russian interference. "
Yes, the DNC is busy looking out for what is important to you.
"... Tulsi: "While I agree that Russia is both directly and indirectly responsible for this downed plane shot down by the separatists, we've got to look at this in the bigger picture. We've got to look at Russia's incursion into Ukraine, Ukraine's sovereignty " ..."
"... "Not a single anti-aircraft missile system of the Russian Armed Forces has ever crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border," ..."
"... "the determination of the Dutch-led investigation to justifying its conclusions by solely using images from social networks that have been expertly altered with computer graphic editing tools." ..."
"... had been previously displayed by the infamous British online investigative activist group, Bellingcat. ..."
"... "the 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade based in Kursk in Russia". ..."
"... "the Dutch investigators completely ignore and reject the testimony of eyewitnesses from the nearby Ukrainian communities", according to the Defense Ministry. The testimonies, however, provided essential information "indicating the launch of a missile was carried out from a territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces." ..."
"... "comprehensive" ..."
"... "clearly indicate the involvement of the Ukrainian Buk anti-aircraft system units" ..."
Who Shot Down Flight MH17 over Eastern Ukraine in 2014?
span ted by wendy davis on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 11:19am
Well of course it was the Evil Russians! Didn't Russians also shoot Roger Rabbit? We'd been discussing this 2014 interview with
Tulsi Gabbard on my post ' analyses of the leaked 'Deal of the Century'
I/P peace plan '
that I'd found that day and posted in comments, mainly wanting to feature her anti-Palestinian Hasbara. As I remember it, this 'blame'
started the horrific sanctions on Russia.
Tulsi: "While I agree that Russia is both directly and indirectly responsible for this downed plane shot down by the separatists,
we've got to look at this in the bigger picture. We've got to look at Russia's incursion into Ukraine, Ukraine's sovereignty "
TravelerXXX had bookmarked this Eric Zuesse exposé that I'd vaguely recalled and brought it in:
'MH17 Turnabout: Ukraine's Guilt Now Proven', December 31,
2018,
strategic-culture.org
It's about nine yards long with zillions of hyperlinks, so long I don't even guess I'd ever finished it, which makes it hard
to figure out what, if any, nuggets to feature, but he did link to this:
'MH-17: the untold story', 22
Oct,
2014, RT.com, including a 27-minute video documentary.
"Three months after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down over Ukraine, there are still no definitive answers about
what caused the tragedy. Civil conflict in the area prevented international experts from conducting a full and thorough investigation.
The wreckage should have been collected and scrupulously re-assembled to identify all the damage, but this standard investigative
procedure was never carried out. Until that's done, evidence can only be gleaned from pictures of the debris, the flight recorders
(black boxes) and eye-witnesses testimonies. This may be enough to help build a picture of what really happened to the aircraft,
whether a rocket fired from the ground or a military jet fired on the doomed plane."
I'd later added to that thread, including some photos of a beaming Netanyahu holding a map of the Golan Heights that Herr Trump
had signed with his approval (indicating the leaked plan just may be The Real Deal) when Up Jumped the Devil:
'Where
is the evidence?' Malaysian PM says attempts to pin MH17 downing on Russia lack proof', 30 May,
2019, RT.com
"Malaysia has accepted the Dutch report that a 'Russian-made' missile shot down its civilian airliner MH17 over eastern Ukraine
in 2014, but has yet to see evidence it was fired by Russia, said Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
"They are accusing Russia but where is the evidence?" Mahathir told reporters at the Japanese Foreign Correspondents Club (FCCJ)
in Tokyo on Thursday.
"You need strong evidence to show it was fired by the Russians," the prime minister went on, according to the Malaysian state
news agency Bernama. "It could be by the rebels in Ukraine; it could be Ukrainian government because they too have the same missile."
"Mahathir was skeptical that anyone involved with the Russian military could have launched the missile that struck the plane,
however, arguing that it would have been clear to professionals that the target was a civilian airliner.
"I don't think a very highly disciplined party is responsible for launching the missile," he said.
The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), whose report last year blamed Moscow for shooting down MH17, barred Russia from
participating in the investigation, but involved the government of Ukraine. Although Malaysia is also a member of JIT,Mahathir
revealed that his country's officials have been blocked from examining the plane's flight recorders.
"For some reason, Malaysia was not allowed to check the black box to see what happened," he said. "We
don't know why we are excluded from the examination but from the very beginning, we see too much politics in it."
"This is not a neutral kind of examination," Mahathir added.
Rejecting the JIT accusations, Russia made public the evidence the Dutch-led researchers refused to look into, including the
serial number of the missile that allegedly struck MH17, showing that it was manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1986 and was in
the arsenal of the Ukrainian army at the time of the tragedy."
b of Moon of Alabama offered this whopping 55 minute press conference video with Malaysian PM Mahathir on Twitter
on May 31.
But aha! RT had later provided on the left sidebar:
May 24,
2018: 'No
Russian missile system ever crossed into Ukraine: MoD rejects Dutch MH17 claims', RT.com
"The Russian Defense Ministry has rejected new claims that flight MH17 over Ukraine was downed by a missile from a Russian unit,
urging the Dutch-led probe to focus on studying hard facts instead of social media images.
"Not a single anti-aircraft missile system of the Russian Armed Forces has ever crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border,"
the defense ministry said in statement.
The Russian military raised eyebrows over "the determination of the Dutch-led investigation to justifying its conclusions
by solely using images from social networks that have been expertly altered with computer graphic editing tools."
The ministry pointed out that
the images used in the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) press conference on Thursday were provided by the Ukrainian special
services and had been previously displayed by the infamous British online investigative activist group,
Bellingcat.
The Dutch-led probe announced that the missile that downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014 came from a Russian military
Buk system that crossed into Ukraine and then returned to its base in western Russia.
Investigators claim the missile system involved came from "the 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade based in Kursk in Russia".
The JIT essentially just repeated the conclusion made by Bellingcat a year ago.
The alarming part in the JIT probe is that "the Dutch investigators completely ignore and reject the
testimony of eyewitnesses from the nearby Ukrainian communities", according to the Defense Ministry. The testimonies, however,
provided essential information "indicating the launch of a missile was carried out from a territory controlled by the Ukrainian
Armed Forces."
The Russian side said that it provided the international probe with "comprehensive"evidence, including field tests,
which "clearly indicate the involvement of the Ukrainian Buk anti-aircraft system units" in the destruction of the plane
with 283 passengers and 15 crew members onboard."
This video that Eric Zuesse had up may be part of the referenced eye witness testimony.
Impeachment indeed would be a mistake. The Dems have been denigrating trump from the
beginning and what has that got them?
Also, remember Trey Gowdy and his endless investigations? Adam Shiff is nearly as
repugnant and should turn to other work in Congress.
Yes, SharonM, Tulsi is charismatic, as well as calm and collected. So far, though, she is
being ignored by the D.C. pundits. We should keep an eye on her positioning with respect to
the new DNC debate thresholds.
Trump promised to get the US out of "stupid wars." But now he and John Bolton are on the
brink of launching us into a very stupid and costly war with Iran. Join me in sending a strong
message to President Trump: The US must NOT go to war with Iran.
I think she could be a perfect President at given times for usa. She would save a lot of
American lives and will leave the white house a lot cleaner when she leaves.
It's a tragedy that Tulsi Gabbert is not number one in the polls right now. She's the only
one consistently right on all the issues. I can't wait for the debates.
NO More Wars! Give Peace a chance. Support Representative Tulsi Gabbard for President. A
True American Patriot and Veteran, fighting for Peace.
Tulsi2020.com
"... After that interview, Tulsi's Instagram account gained 11,000 new followers and her Twitter account gained 30,000 new followers. The more people watching her on a regular basis, the better! ..."
"... Ever since the Rogan interview, the number of times her name appears in a mainstream media (MSM) headline has seen a jump. Before the interview, she was getting a maximum of 1, sometimes rarely 2 headlines per day--often zero. Since the interview she has been in the 4 or 5 per day range. Today (May 19), she is ranked number 5 for all Democratic candidate name mentions in MSM headlines. ..."
"... the embedded video are very powerful as to why Tulsi is different from every other candidate of either party. ..."
"... she's a primary target of the DNC and establishment Democrats, possibly even more so than Bernie this time. Or maybe they're tied as targets? ..."
"... She called out the DNC's unfairness to Bernie well before wikileaks showed us exactly how correct she was. ..."
"... Oliver Stone and Stephen Cohen are of course two independent types who are most concerned about our deteriorated relations with Russia, based on fake news and Russophobic media hysteria. Cohen has largely been blackballed from the MSM, with the exception of Tucker Carlson's show and the semi-sane radio conservative John Batchelor. ..."
"... It was because of the latest McCarthyite smear piece on Tulsi Gabbard in the Daily Beast that I again donated to her campaign. Unlike Bernie, she is longer than a long shot to get the nomination, but it's important that her voice on FP be heard. While I also favor Bernie and Andrew Yang, their comments on FP, sadly, are merely occasional carefully crafted footnotes designed not to attract much attention or controversy. ..."
Tulsi's 2.5 hour interview with Joe
Rogan 6 days ago resulted in a solid attention bump.
The YouTube version of the video has so far garnered more than 1.6 million views, and on
average his podcast downloads are about double that number.
After that interview, Tulsi's Instagram account gained 11,000 new followers and her Twitter
account gained 30,000 new followers. The more people watching her on a regular basis, the
better!
Ever since the Rogan interview, the number of times her name appears in a mainstream media
(MSM) headline has seen a jump. Before the interview, she was getting a maximum of 1, sometimes
rarely 2 headlines per day--often zero. Since the interview she has been in the 4 or 5 per day
range. Today (May 19), she is ranked number 5 for all Democratic candidate name mentions in MSM
headlines.
Finally, Oliver Stone has sent out a Tweet, essentially endorsing Tulsi.
the embedded video are very powerful as to why Tulsi is different from every other
candidate of either party.
Since I was young, I knew I wanted to use my life to serve others. It's why I chose to
serve as a soldier & in politics. I've never had any ambition to "be president" -- it's
always been about doing my best to be of service and how I can make a greater positive
impact. pic.twitter.com/NfTSUhbFXX
...as I post this comment, but I do know--from a professional/political media
standpoint--that this commercial about the Iran situation is, by far and away, the best piece
of political media I've seen since Bernie's "America" commercial in 2016 .
If
she wants to punch through the crowd, right now (for the moment, because the Iran situation
will change, one way or another, and maybe rapidly, going forward), she should push this spot
early and often, as much as possible (as her campaign can afford it, and then maybe even a
little more than it thinks it can afford, too).
She has become my favorite candidate on policies, but being favored by Gravel and Stone
doesn't hurt, either, to say the least. Of the passengers in the Democratic clown car, I like
her and Bernie most. How I will vote may depend upon what polls in my state tell me just
before primary day about her and Bernie. Or, I may go ahead and vote for Tulsi, no matter
what. In that respect, I am undecided at this time.
Just checked my former message board. They are attacking her right and right (sic). (Not
"left and right:" Barely a leftist still posts on that board; and those who still do must
watch themselves.) So, she's a primary target of the DNC and establishment Democrats,
possibly even more so than Bernie this time. Or maybe they're tied as targets?
And, why not? She called out the DNC's unfairness to Bernie well before wikileaks showed
us exactly how correct she was.
a worthy podcaster who often has on interesting, independent thinkers and public figures
who go against the establishment grain. (see e.g. his several interviews with author Graham
Hancock) Not perfect or quite as good as I'd prefer, but far better than most.
Oliver Stone and Stephen Cohen are of course two independent types who are most concerned
about our deteriorated relations with Russia, based on fake news and Russophobic media
hysteria. Cohen has largely been blackballed from the MSM, with the exception of Tucker
Carlson's show and the semi-sane radio conservative John Batchelor.
It was because of the latest McCarthyite smear piece on Tulsi Gabbard in the Daily Beast
that I again donated to her campaign. Unlike Bernie, she is longer than a long shot to get
the nomination, but it's important that her voice on FP be heard. While I also favor Bernie
and Andrew Yang, their comments on FP, sadly, are merely occasional carefully crafted
footnotes designed not to attract much attention or controversy.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) said on Sunday that reports claiming pro-putin Russophiles giving
her 2020 presidential campaign a boost is
"fake news,"
though she added that
conflict with the Kremlin is not productive.
Speaking to
ABC'
s George Stephanopoulos, Gabbard said that deteriorating relationships
with nuclear-armed countries such as Russia and China "has brought us to a very dangerous point,"
reports
The Hill
. She added that, if elected, she would "end these counterproductive and
wasteful regime change wars
," and would "
work to end this new Cold War and
nuclear arms race.
"
On Friday, the
Daily
Beast
published a story claiming that Gabbard "is quickly becoming the top candidate for
Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood," based on people who had donated to her
campaign. (We somehow missed the
Daily Beast
article on
Hillary's alleged Saudi donors
in 2016, but we digress).
Donors to her campaign in the first quarter of the year included: Stephen F. Cohen, a Russian
studies professor at New York University and prominent Kremlin sympathizer; Sharon Tennison, a
vocal Putin supporter who nonetheless found herself detained by Russian authorities in 2016; and
an employee of the Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT, who appears to have donated under the alias
"Goofy Grapes." -
Daily
Beast
On Sunday, Stephanopoulos asked Gabbard about the
Beast
article, and noted that she met
with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as her defense of Russia's military presence in
Syria, and her comments suggesting that Russian election interference was on par with American
election meddling around the world.
"Is Putin a threat to national security?" he asked.
"You now it's unfortunately you're citing that article, George, because
it's a whole lot
of fake news
. What I'm focused on is what's in the best interest of the American people?
What's in the best interest of national security? Keeping American people safe," said Gabbard. "And
what I'm pointing out consistently,
time and time again, is our continued wasteful regime
change wars have been counterproductive to the interests of the American people and the approach
this administration has taken in essentially choosing conflict ... has been counterproductive
I continue to support her for that same reason. If there are
like minded people here on ZH consider donating just $1 as that
donation will help get her on stage where her anti-war thoughts
can be heard.
ditto. Trump said in the debates that "I want to be friends
with everyone, including Russia." The rest is history. The USA
wehrmacht is going after Tulsi now. We cannot have peace.
Have an idea for you on how to show true leadership
and finish what the Orange "six-sided star" liar said he would
pick up (
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/11/14/trump-im-reopening-911-investigation/
)
when he began his presidency and then... well...
lied
to
become a treasonous bag of **** just like the ones that preceded
him!...
Even Vlad Putin and the rest of the Russian Federation refuse
to "touch it". And if you did. You would be the only
representative in the U.S. House and Senate let alone the U.S.
Federal, State and local government(s) for that matter to do so.
All you would have to say is "we need an understanding why 2
planes demolished 3 building(s) at "Ground Zero" more then 18
years ago, and why the 9/11 Commission never mentioned the Solomon
Brothers Building 7 in it's official report?... I (Congresswoman
Tulsi Gabbard) certainly want to know!... Especially wearing the
uniform for what I believed was the reason I was given for
invading Afghanistan and Iraq and murdering over 3 million
people?... And I want to tell the American people ultimately "why"
Building 7 was omitted along with too many other details that
Robert Mueller famously dismissed by saying only that "
mistakes
were made
" ...
I've written to you several times about showing the courage to
be the only politician since Senator Wellstone to pick up where he
left off and support the 13 year endeavors of this organization (
https://www.ae911truth.org/
)
to demand an investigation of the fact(s) now that has the backing
of a Grand Jury by signing it's petition!...
But you won't. Because you are like every other "200lbs of
****" in a 100lbs bag that walks the halls of the Longworth
carrying the water for the "Tribe"!
Keep telling yourself surfer **** that the job will get both
easier and better by lying about that day and what it's done in
it's wake to every institution and business in the United States
of America let alone the laws of the land just like your mentor
the Langley Bath House "boy"!...
Yes, Putin knows that an island of sanity and decency in a
cesspit of bigotry and firearms is bound to be blown to pieces
before she has a chance to deliver. I fear for Tulsi even now.
Yes, the Russia nonsense is FAKE NEWS. So why is Trump allowing
the Israelis, a country that hates the United States, and which
has attacked us at least twice (USS Liberty, 9/11/2001), to
dictate our foreign policy? Israel is the real enemy!!
Let's
look at a quote from one of the former employees of the Mossad
front operation "Urban Moving Systems" (likely also the same
people who planted the explosives at WTC) had to say about his
time there:
In addition to the strange nature of some of the Israelis'
possessions in the van and on their person, the company that
employed them -- Urban Moving Systems -- was of special interest
to the FBI, which concluded that the company was likely a
"fraudulent operation." Upon a search of the company's
premises, the FBI noted that "little evidence of a legitimate
business operation was found." The FBI report also noted that
there were an "unusually large number of computers relative to
the number of employees for such a fairly small business" and
that "further investigation identified several pseudo-names or
aliases associated with Urban Moving Systems and its
operations."
The FBI presence at the Urban Moving Systems search site
drew the attention of the local media and was later reported on
both television and in the local press. A former Urban Moving
Systems employee later contacted the Newark Division with
information indicating that he had quit his employment with
Urban Moving Systems as a result of the
high amount of
anti-American sentiment
present among Urban's employees.
The former employee stated that an Israeli employee of Urban
had even once remarked, "Give us twenty years and we'll take
over your media and destroy your country"
(page 37 of
the
FBI report
).
This kind of thing makes one kind of hope for a war in which
Israel is bombed back to the stone age, which is clearly where
these evil, psychopathic Zionist filth belong!
This is a long article, but read it all the way through. It's
proof that Israel was indeed behind 9/11 and that they had
numerous operatives in the country who were gleeful about it,
having set up video cameras and celebrated the day before by
taking a photo of one of the operatives holding a lit cigarette
lighter up to the horizon....right in front of the still-standing
WTC twin towers.
And look at this. You won't see this in the MSM any time soon:
In addition to Urban Moving Systems, another moving
company, Classic International Movers, became of interest in
connection with the investigation into the "Dancing
Israelis," which led to the arrest and detention of four
Israeli nationals who worked for this separate moving
company.
The FBI's Miami Division had alerted the Newark
Division that Classic International Movers was believed to
have been used by one of the 19 alleged 9/11 hijackers
before the attack, and one of the "Dancing Israelis" had the
number for Classic International Movers written in a
notebook that was seized at the time of his arrest.
The
report further states that one of the Israelis of Classic
International Movers who was arrested "was visibly disturbed
by the Agents' questioning regarding his personal email
account."
"... What he said is, 'I Donald Trump am going to be a champion of the working class I know you are working longer hours for lower wages, seeing your jobs going to China, can't afford childcare, can't afford to send your kids to college. I Donald Trump alone can solve these problems.' What you have is a guy who utilized the media, manipulated the media very well. He is an entertainer, he is a professional at that. But I will tell you that I think there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic Party does business. It is not good enough to have a liberal elite. I come from the white working class and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people where I came from." ..."
"... when the Clinton team first learned that Wikileaks was going to release damaging Democratic National Party emails in June 2016, they "brought in outside consultants to plot a PR strategy for handling the news of the hack the story would advance a narrative that benefited the Clinton campaign and the Democrats: The Russians were interfering in the US election, presumably to assist Trump." ..."
"... After losing the election, Team Clinton doubled down on this PR strategy. As described in the book Shattered (p. 395) the day after the election campaign managers assembled the communication team "to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up and up . they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument." ..."
"... A progressive team produced a very different analysis titled Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis . They did this because "the (Democratic) party's national leadership has shown scant interest in addressing many of the key factors that led to electoral disaster." The report analyzes why the party turnout was less than expected and why traditional Democratic Party supporters are declining. ..."
"... Since the 2016 election there has been little public discussion of the process whereby Hillary Clinton became the Democratic Party nominee. It's apparent she was pre-ordained by the Democratic Party elite. As exposed in the DNC emails, there was bias and violations of the party obligations at the highest levels. On top of that, it should now be clear that the pundits, pollsters and election experts were out of touch, made poor predictions and decisions. ..."
"... The 2016 election is highly relevant today. Already we see the same pattern of establishment bias and "horse race" journalism which focuses on fund-raising, polls and elite-biased "electability" instead of dealing with real issues, who has solutions, who has appeal to which groups. ..."
"... The establishment bias for Biden is matched by the bias against Democratic Party candidates who directly challenge Wall Street and US foreign policy. On Wall Street, that would be Bernie Sanders. On foreign policy, that is Tulsi Gabbard. With a military background Tulsi Gabbard has broad appeal, an inclusive message and a uniquely sharp critique of US "regime change" foreign policy. ..."
"... Blaming an outside power is a good way to prevent self analysis and positive change. It's gone on far too long. ..."
An
honest and accurate analysis of the 2016 election is not just an academic exercise. It is very
relevant to the current election campaign. Yet over the past two years, Russiagate has
dominated media and political debate and largely replaced a serious analysis of the factors
leading to Trump's victory. The public has been flooded with the various elements of the story
that Russia intervened and Trump colluded with them. The latter accusation was negated by the
Mueller Report but elements of the Democratic Party and media refuse to move on. Now it's the
lofty but vague accusations of "obstruction of justice" along with renewed dirt digging. To
some it is a "constitutional crisis", but to many it looks like more partisan fighting.
Russiagate has distracted from pressing issues
Russiagate has distracted attention and energy away from crucial and pressing issues such as
income inequality, the housing and homeless crisis, inadequate healthcare, militarized police,
over-priced college education, impossible student loans and deteriorating infrastructure. The
tax structure was changed to benefit wealthy individuals and corporations with little
opposition. The Trump administration has undermined environmental laws, civil rights, national
parks and women's equality while directing ever
more money to military contractors. Working class Americans are struggling with rising
living costs, low wages, student debt, and racism. They constitute the bulk of the military
which is spread all over the world, sustaining continuing occupations in war zones including
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and parts of Africa. While all this has been going on, the Democratic
establishment and much of the media have been focused on Russiagate, the Mueller Report, and
related issues.
Immediately after the 2016 Election
In the immediate wake of the 2016 election there was some forthright analysis. Bernie
Sanders
said , "What Trump did very effectively is tap the angst and the anger and the hurt and
pain that millions of working class people are feeling. What he said is, 'I Donald Trump am
going to be a champion of the working class I know you are working longer hours for lower
wages, seeing your jobs going to China, can't afford childcare, can't afford to send your kids
to college. I Donald Trump alone can solve these problems.' What you have is a guy who utilized
the media, manipulated the media very well. He is an entertainer, he is a professional at that.
But I will tell you that I think there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic
Party does business. It is not good enough to have a liberal elite. I come from the white
working class and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people
where I came from."
Days after the election, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled "
Hillary Clinton Lost. Bernie Sanders could have won. We chose the wrong candidate ." The
author analyzed the results saying , "Donald Trump's stunning victory is less surprising
when we remember a simple fact: Hillary Clinton is a deeply unpopular politician." The
writer analyzed why Sanders would have prevailed against Trump and predicted "there will be
years of recriminations."
Russiagate replaced Recrimination
But instead of analysis, the media and Democrats have emphasized foreign interference. There
is an element of self-interest in this narrative. As reported in "Russian Roulette" (p127),
when the Clinton team first learned that Wikileaks was going to release damaging Democratic
National Party emails in June 2016, they "brought in outside consultants to plot a PR
strategy for handling the news of the hack the story would advance a narrative that benefited
the Clinton campaign and the Democrats: The Russians were interfering in the US election,
presumably to assist Trump."
After losing the election, Team Clinton doubled down on this PR strategy. As described in
the book Shattered (p. 395) the day after the election campaign managers assembled the
communication team "to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up and up
. they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian
hacking was the centerpiece of the argument."
This narrative has been remarkably effective in supplanting critical review of the
election.
One Year After the Election
The Center for American Progress (CAP) was founded by John Podesta and is closely aligned
with the Democratic Party. In November 2017 they produced an analysis titled "
Voter Trends in 2016: A Final Examination ". Interestingly, there is not a single reference
to Russia. Key conclusions are that "it is critical for Democrats to attract more support from
the white non-college-educated voting bloc" and "Democrats must go beyond the 'identity
politics' versus 'economic populism' debate to create a genuine cross-racial, cross-class
coalition " It suggests that Wall Street has the same interests as Main Street and the working
class.
A progressive team produced a very different analysis titled Autopsy: The Democratic Party in
Crisis . They did this because "the (Democratic) party's national leadership has shown scant interest in addressing many of
the key factors that led to electoral disaster." The report analyzes why the party turnout was less than expected and why
traditional Democratic Party supporters are declining. It includes recommendations to end the party's undemocratic
practices, expand voting rights and counter voter suppression. The report contains details and specific recommendations lacking
in the CAP report. It includes an overall analysis which says "The Democratic Party should disentangle itself – ideologically
and financially – from Wall Street, the military-industrial complex and other corporate interests that put profits ahead of
public needs."
Two Years After the Election
In October 2018, the progressive team produced a follow-up report titled "
Autopsy: One Year Later ". It says, "The Democratic Party has implemented modest reforms,
but corporate power continues to dominate the party."
In a recent phone interview, the editor of that report, Norman Solomon, said it appears some
in the Democratic Party establishment would rather lose the next election to Republicans than
give up control of the party.
What really happened in 2016?
Beyond the initial critiques and "Autopsy" research, there has been little discussion,
debate or lessons learned about the 2016 election. Politics has been dominated by
Russiagate.
Why did so many working class voters switch from Obama to Trump? A major reason is because
Hillary Clinton is associated with Wall Street and the economic policies of her husband
President Bill Clinton. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), promoted by Bill
Clinton, resulted in huge decline in manufacturing jobs in
swing states such as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Of course, this would influence their
thinking and votes. Hillary Clinton's support for the Trans Pacific Partnership was another
indication of her policies.
What about the low turnout from the African American community? Again, the lack of
enthusiasm is rooted in objective reality. Hillary Clinton is associated with "welfare reform"
promoted by her husband. According to this study from
the University of Michigan, "As of the beginning of 2011, about 1.46 million U.S. households
with about 2.8 million children were surviving on $2 or less in income per person per day in a
given month The prevalence of extreme poverty rose sharply between 1996 and 2011. This growth
has been concentrated among those groups that were most affected by the 1996 welfare
reform. "
Over the past several decades there has been a huge increase in prison
incarceration due to increasingly strict punishments and mandatory prison sentences. Since
the poor and working class have been the primary victims of welfare and criminal justice
"reforms" initiated or sustained through the Clinton presidency, it's understandable why they
were not keen on Hillary Clinton. The notion that low turnout was due to African Americans
being unduly influenced by Russian Facebook posts is seen as "bigoted paternalism" by blogger Teodrose
Fikremanian who says, "The corporate recorders at the NY Times would have us believe that
the reason African-Americans did not uniformly vote for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats is
because they were too dimwitted to think for themselves and were subsequently manipulated by
foreign agents. This yellow press drivel is nothing more than propaganda that could have been
written by George Wallace."
How Clinton became the Nominee
Since the 2016 election there has been little public discussion of the process whereby
Hillary Clinton became the Democratic Party nominee. It's apparent she was pre-ordained by the
Democratic Party elite. As exposed in the DNC emails, there was bias and violations of the
party obligations at the highest levels. On top of that, it should now be clear that the
pundits, pollsters and election experts were out of touch, made poor predictions and
decisions.
Bernie Sanders would have been a much stronger candidate. He would have won the same party
loyalists who voted for Clinton. His message attacking Wall Street would have resonated with
significant sections of the working class and poor who were unenthusiastic (to say the least)
about Clinton. An indication is that in critical swing states such as Wisconsin and
Michigan Bernie
Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary race.
Clinton had no response for Trump's attacks on multinational trade agreements and his false
promises of serving the working class. Sanders would have had vastly more appeal to working
class and minorities. His primary campaign showed his huge appeal to youth and third party
voters. In short, it's likely that Sanders would have trounced Trump. Where is the
accountability for how Clinton ended up as the Democratic Party candidate?
The Relevance of 2016 to 2020
The 2016 election is highly relevant today. Already we see the same pattern of establishment
bias and "horse race" journalism which focuses on fund-raising, polls and elite-biased
"electability" instead of dealing with real issues, who has solutions, who has appeal to which
groups.
Mainstream media and pundits are already promoting Joe Biden. Syndicated columnist EJ
Dionne, a Democratic establishment favorite, is indicative. In his article "
Can Biden be the helmsman who gets us past the storm? " Dionne speaks of the "strength he
(Biden) brings" and the "comfort he creates". In the same vein, Andrew Sullivan pushes Biden in
his article "
Why Joe Biden Might be the Best to Beat Trump ". Sullivan thinks that Biden has appeal in
the working class because he joked about claims he is too 'hands on'. But while Biden may be
tight with AFL-CIO leadership, he is closely associated with highly unpopular neoliberal trade
deals which have resulted in manufacturing decline.
The establishment bias for Biden is matched by the bias against Democratic Party candidates
who directly challenge Wall Street and US foreign policy. On Wall Street, that would be Bernie
Sanders. On foreign policy, that is Tulsi Gabbard. With a military background Tulsi Gabbard has
broad appeal, an inclusive message and a uniquely sharp critique of US "regime change" foreign
policy. She calls
out media pundits like Fareed Zakaria for goading Trump to invade Venezuela. In contrast
with Rachel Maddow taunting
John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to be MORE aggressive, Tulsi Gabbard has been
denouncing Trump's collusion with Saudi Arabia and Israel's Netanyahu, saying it's not in
US interests. Gabbard's anti-interventionist anti-occupation perspective has significant
support from US troops. A
recent poll indicates that military families want complete withdrawal from Afghanistan and
Syria. It seems conservatives have become more anti-war than liberals.
This points to another important yet under-discussed lesson from 2016: a factor in Trump's
victory was that he campaigned as an anti-war candidate against the hawkish Hillary Clinton. As
pointed out
here, "Donald Trump won more votes from communities with high military casualties than
from similar communities which suffered fewer casualties."
Russiagate has distracted most Democrats from analyzing how they lost in 2016. It has given
them the dubious belief that it was because of foreign interference. They have failed to
analyze or take stock of the consequences of DNC bias, the preference for Wall Street over
working class concerns, and the failure to challenge the military industrial complex and
foreign policy based on 'regime change' interventions.
There needs to be more analysis and lessons learned from the 2016 election to avoid a repeat
of that disaster. As indicated in the
Autopsy , there needs to be a transparent and fair campaign for nominee based on more than
establishment and Wall Street favoritism. There also needs to be consideration of which
candidates reach beyond the partisan divide and can energize and advance the interests of the
majority of Americans rather than the elite. The most crucial issues and especially US military
and foreign policy need to be seriously debated.
Blaming an outside power is a good way to prevent self analysis and positive change. It's
gone on far too long.
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist who grew up in Canada but currently lives in
the San Francisco Bay Area of California. He can be reached at [email protected] . Read other articles by Rick .
Great plan! From your mouth to Tulsi's ears! She needs to make a dramatic exit from the
Dems, preferably on national TV, with the message "stop the senseless regime change wars!"
That alone would make her a contender.
Rob Roy , May 16, 2019 at 17:09
Skip, notice that Tulsi scares the hell out of the MSM. Therefore, she will be vilified,
lied about, left out of poll line-ups, shoved to the side in debates, accused of being
Putin's or Assad's puppet and God knows what else by the major newspapers, MSNBC, ABC, CBS,
NBC, PBS, CNN etc., and this will spread even overseas. You can't be against war, corruption
and US Monroe Doctrine as our foreign policy and expect to get fair coverage. Personally, I
will counter the propaganda wherever I can.
Skip Scott , May 17, 2019 at 08:22
I had a "back and forth" with dailykos about not listing Tulsi on their straw polls with
her being the only candidate against "regime change" wars. I shamed them a bit by calling
them a bunch of latte-sippers who reek of the arrogance of privilege while our MIC goes all
around the planet killing poor people. Maybe I am giving myself too much credit, but they did
in fact include her name on the last poll.
John on Kauai , May 17, 2019 at 13:53
I can't reply to skip about his argument with KOS so it's here.
There is nothing to be gained by arguing with KOS other than to be banned from their website
as I was.
They are supporting a National Guard pilot to run against her in the 2020 HI-2 election.
I would not be surprised to find that they were instrumental in producing tulsigabbard.guru,
a site that has been recently taken down but which repeated (and I think originated) many
slurs against Tulsi that have now been picked up by the media.
I encourage you and everyone to publicize tulsigabbard.org which goes into great detail on
her positions on almost anything. Also, the Jimmy Dore and Joe Rogan interviews with Tulsi
that are available on YouTube.
Tulsi is my congresswoman. She is wildly popular here.
The HSTA (hawaii state teachers association) hates her. When challenged they repeat the lies that are on the .guru site
that was taken down. When you point out that they are lies, they cover their ears and chant "nah, nah, nah".
b.grand , May 17, 2019 at 16:29
Skip. this is re. to your re. to Rob Roy.
WaPo confirmed today that Tulsi is one of the 11 guaranteed a debate spot. She's making
solid progress, including major bumps from the Joe Rogan interviews. If she has hopes of
actually getting the Dem nomination, of course there will be no dramatic exit until that's
been decided. OTOH, an outside call for her to run as an Indy would be authentic, but also a
threat to the Dems, give her fair play OR ELSE !
So, maybe the movement for an independent run has to start at the bottom? I'd like to
bounce this off people who know more about politics than I do. There's also the implied
question, how could an Independent function if elected. Would there be support in Congress?
Would new ["Coalition"] candidates arise?
People talk about the populist movement in Mexico as represented by MORENA, however the
coalition was actually Juntos Haremos Historia ("Together We'll Make History"), which
included right wing evangelicals as well as leftists. Pretty remarkable, but a similar
cooperation has arisen in Unity4J (for Julian Assange) where journalists with radically
different ideologies focus on a single unifying principle.
Any thoughts?
John Zwiebel , May 17, 2019 at 18:19
Ask Nick Branna. He says "yes"
b.grand , May 17, 2019 at 21:10
John Z. –
Are you already familiar with Branna and the People's Party? Are they backing specific
candidates? What do you think I should ask him? Would he and the PP join a coalition? Or do I
misunderstand your suggestion?
All of the endorsers are leftists. The platform is all about wages and healthcare, but war
isn't mentioned. Maybe it's there, but it's not on the front page.
Here's what they say: "Together we're building a coalition of working people, unions, and
progressive groups for a nationally viable people's party."
Also, "We are working to build a coalition of groups on the left in order to create a new
party for working people."
This just seems like typical 'Progressives' who are fed up with Dems. Some of the
endorsers – Sheehan, Hedges, Martin and others – are known to be anti-war, but
it's concerning that peace and FP aren't prominent. Besides, we need to build bigger bridges
than "groups on the left." There are many – surprisingly many – on the right who
oppose constant militarism. And what about the center? There's a vast untapped demographic,
whether apathetic or genuinely discouraged by evidence that it makes no difference who you
vote for, the Deep State wins. Why approach them from a left-only perspective? Would you like
to clarify?
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is being underwritten by
some of the nation's leading Russophiles.
Donors to her campaign in the first quarter of the year included: Stephen F. Cohen, a Russian studies
professor at New York University and prominent Kremlin sympathizer; Sharon Tennison, a vocal Putin supporter
who nonetheless found herself detained by Russian authorities in 2016; and an employee of the Kremlin-backed
broadcaster RT, who appears to have donated under the alias "Goofy Grapes."
Gabbard is one of her party's more Russia-friendly voices in an era of deep Democratic suspicion of the
country over its efforts to tip the 2016 election in favor of President Donald Trump. Her financial support
from prominent pro-Russian voices in the U.S. is a small portion of the total she's raised. But it still
illustrates the degree to which she deviates from her party's mainstream on such a contentious and
high-profile issue.
Data on Gabbard's financial supporters only covers the first three months of the year. In that time, her
campaign received just over $1,000 from Cohen, arguably the nation's
leading intellectual apologist
for Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Tennison donated to Gabbard no fewer than five times, eventually reaching the per-cycle individual
contribution limit in mid-March. Tennison and her group, the Center for Citizen Initiatives, have long
worked to improve U.S.-Russia relations, in part by organizing junkets to the nation both before and after
the fall of the Soviet Union. She's also been an outspoken Putin supporter, dubbing him a "straightforward,
reliable and exceptionally inventive man" in a column last year. Tennison wrote that column in spite of her
detention in Russia
two years earlier, when she was accused of attempting to covertly advance U.S.
foreign policy interests in the country.
Gabbard also got a $1,000 contribution from "Goofy Grapes," who listed his or her occupation as
"comedian" and employer as Redacted Tonight, a current events comedy show on Russian state-backed
broadcaster RT. That show's host, comedian Lee Camp, told The Daily Beast that the person who made the
donation "is no longer an active member of Redacted Tonight. And separately, it is company policy to not
donate to political campaigns."
Camp, for his part, routinely promotes the Russian government line on major world affairs, most
notably the invasion of Ukraine, political unrest in Venezuela, and the Syrian civil war.
To the extent that those donors toe the Kremlin line on issues such as Syria, they're more squarely in
line with Gabbard's own views than those of any other Democratic presidential candidate. As a member of
Congress, she has
personally met
with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and
cast doubt
on widely accepted reports that he deployed nerve gas weapons against his own people.
Gabbard has also been one of the few prominent Democrats in the country to downplay the findings of
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. The report found
no evidence of a conspiracy by the Trump campaign to support that meddling. But it did provide extensive
details of that malicious influence campaign, and of the Trump administration's efforts to impede the
special counsel's investigation.
But while her House colleagues ramp up their own investigations, in part based on those findings, Gabbard
has called for the country -- and her party -- to move on. "The conclusion that came from that Mueller report was
that no collusion took place," she told Fox News last month. "Now is the time for us to come together as a
country to put the issues and the interests and the concerns that the American people have at the forefront,
to take action to bring about real solutions for them."
That reflects the attitude of a small set of the American left wing, a non-interventionist faction that
eyed collusion allegations with suspicion. And that's very much the school of thought from which Cohen and
other Gabbard donors hail.
But the list of controversial donors to Gabbard, as detailed by her filings with the Federal Election
Committee, doesn't end there.
Susan Sarandon, the famous actress who earned the enduring wrath of Democrats for her support of Green
Party candidate Jill Stein in the 2016 election, gave Gabbard $500.
Ali Amin, the president of Primex International, wrote two checks of $2,800 to Gabbard's campaign. Amin,
who runs the international food distribution company, pleaded guilty in 2015
to charges that
he'd transferred more than $17 million between Iran and the United States as part of an
unlicensed business transaction.
After being asked about those donations, Cullen Tiernan, a spokesperson for Gabbard, said the campaign
would be returning them. Tiernan also noted that Amin had given to fellow 2020 contender Sen. Kamala Harris'
(D-CA) Senate campaign in 2018. Ian Sams, a spokesman for Harris, said the Senator refunded Amin's donation
in July 2018.
Gabbard's campaign did not return a request for comment. Her election effort raised nearly $4.5 million
in the first quarter of 2019, but that included hefty transfers from her House campaign committee. She has
used that money to mount a rather unorthodox bid for the Democratic nomination. Gabbard had only one paid
staffer during that same three month period, choosing instead to hire consultants for key posts on her
campaign -- a staffing decision that seemed likely done to avoid making hefty payments for things like health
care coverage and payroll taxes.
Gabbard's media strategy has also been counterintuitive for a national Democrat. She has made several
appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, which, while being one of the most popular platforms on
that medium, is a haven for Trump-supporting guests. Gabbard also is among the few Democrats who has a
captive audience on Fox News, owed largely to her willingness to criticize Barack Obama, as well as her
party's planks on both Russia and foreign policy in general. Tucker Carlson, a primetime host on that
network, has publicly defended her.
Though she has not courted their support, some prominent figures in the white nationalist community have
flocked in Gabbard's direction. David Duke, the former KKK leader, has heaped praise on her. And on several
occasions, Richard Spencer, the avowed white supremacist, has tweeted favorably about her, including once
again this week.
"... United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old, it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting. That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are voting for. ..."
"... Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers. ..."
Uh, no, Tom, she won't be collecting a lot of voters, well, at least not near enough. Biden
has already been "chosen" like Hillary was over Bernie last time. You should know by now Tom,
we don't select our candidates, they're chosen for us for our own good. 2 hours ago
This is going to take a long time. You just can't turn this ship around overnight.
US Political System:
United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical
literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old,
it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a
system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the
nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be
fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting.
That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are
voting for.
This is not an accident. America was founded on the principle, explained by the Founding
Father that the primary goal of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against
the majority. That is how the US Constitution was designed sort of ensuring that there will be
a lot of struggle. US is not as the same as it were two centuries ago but that remains the
elites ideal.
Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of
capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of
elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made
possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of
political powers.
A republic is SUBORDINATE to democracy. Polyarchy can't be subordinated to any form of
Democracy. 2 hours ago Is the author, to use an English term, daft? Tulsi Gabbard won't get out
of the primaries, much less defeat Sanders or Biden. Farage achieved his goal (Brexit), then
found out (SHOCK!) that the will of the people doesn't mean anything anymore.
If Luongo had wanted to talk about the people's uprising, he should've mentioned the Tea
Party. 3 hours ago Gabbard appears to have some moral fibre and half a backbone, at least for a
politician, regardless of their views, Farage is a slimy charlatan opportunistic populist shill
3 hours ago (Edited) I like Tulsi Gabbard on MIC stuff (and as a surfer in my youth - still
dream about that almost endless pipeline at Jeffreys Bay in August), but...
On everything else?
She votes along party lines no matter what bollocks legislation the Democrats put in front
of Congress. And anyone standing full-square behind Saunders on his socialist/marxist
agenda?
Do me a favour. 1 hour ago (Edited) Farage left because he saw what UKIP was becoming...a
zionazi party.
Also Gabbard is a CFR member. 3 hours ago Gold, Goats and Guns? Certainly not guns under
President Gabbard! Here's her idea of "common sense gun control:"
I'm totally against warmongering, but I have to ask - what good is it to stop foreign
warmongering, only to turn around and incite civil war here by further raping the 2nd
Amendment? The CFR ties are disturbing as hell, too. And to compare Gabbard to Ron Paul? No,
just...no! 3 hours ago Always been a fan of Bernie, but I hope Gabbard becomes president. The
world would breathe a huge sigh of relief (before the assassination). 4 hours ago By this time
in his 1st term, Obama had started the US Wars in Syria and Libya and has restarted the Iraq
War.
Thus far Trump has ended the War in Syria, pledged not to get us dragged into Libya's civil
wars and started a peace process with North Korea.
Venezuela and Iran look scary. We don't know what Gabbard would actually do when faced with
the same events. Obama talked peace too.
It's sad to know that Tulsi bought Russiagate nonsense hook line and sinker. In a sense, she is also a compromise candidate as
her domestic platform is weak and inconsistent. She shines in foreign policy issues only.
But this compromise might still make sense. At least she is much better then Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... A consumer rights champion in name only, she did nothing to oversee predatory banking practices responsibly, nothing to urge prosecution of Wall Street crooks as Obama's interim Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP) head. ..."
"... "If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or ISIS, we would be thrown in jail. Yet the US government has been violating this law for years, quietly supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al Sham and other terrorist groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government." ..."
"... "The CIA has also been funneling weapons and money through Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and others who provide direct and indirect support to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda." ..."
"... She may be the only congressional member boldly stating the above remarks publicly to her credit. ..."
"... She considers US wars not authorized by Congress impeachable high crimes. ..."
"... The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CATSA) illegally imposed sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea. It passed the House and Senate near-unanimously – shameful legislation demanding opposition, not support. ..."
"... Hold the cheers on Gabbard and all other Republican and Dem presidential aspirants with a chance to be party standard bearers. The bottom line on them all is simple, no exceptions. If nominated and elected, either go along with the dirty system or be replaced by someone else who will – by impeachment or something more sinister. ..."
"... No matter who's elected president and to key congressional posts, dirty business as usual always wins. ..."
( stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman ) Tulsi 2020 is the official
website of her candidacy for US president – so far with no information other than saying:
"When we stand united, motivated by our love for each other and for our country, there is no
challenge we cannot overcome. Will you stand with me?" On Friday, she said "I have decided to
run and will be making a formal announcement within the next week," adding:
"There are a lot of reasons for me to make this decision. There are a lot of challenges
that are facing the American people that I'm concerned about and that I want to help
solve."
Besides access to healthcare for all Americans, criminal justice reform, and
climate change, (t)here is one main issue that is central to the rest, and that is the issue of
war and peace," she stressed. More on this below.
"I look forward to being able to get into this and to talk about it in depth when we make
our announcement."
Gabbard's record is mixed at best, things to like, others of concern, including
her Dem affiliation. She formerly served as DNC vice chair, resigning in February 2016 to
support Russophobe undemocratic Dem Bernie Sanders over Hillary. Throughout his political
career, he's been progressive in name only, his rhetoric and voting record most often at odds
with each other. He'll likely run again in 2020. After Hillary used dirty tricks in primary
elections to steal the Dem nomination, Gabbard supported her candidacy – a figure I
called the most ruthlessly dangerous presidential aspirant in US history, backing it up with
cold, hard facts about her deplorable record as first lady, US senator and secretary of state.
Elizabeth Warren already announced her 2020 candidacy. She's con man Sanders clone with a
gender difference.
A consumer rights champion in name only, she did nothing to oversee
predatory banking practices responsibly, nothing to urge prosecution of Wall Street crooks as
Obama's interim Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP) head.
She failed to criticize
his wars on humanity at home and abroad, terror-bombing seven countries in eight years,
force-feeding neoliberal harshness on America's most disadvantaged, letting protracted main
street Depression conditions fester – supporting what demanded condemnation. She
one-sidedly supports Israel, failing to denounce its apartheid ruthlessness, its Gaza wars on
defenseless civilians.
Like Sanders and other undemocratic Dems, she considers naked aggression
humanitarian intervention and democracy building. Her agenda is all about perpetuating dirty
business as usual – based on going along with the imperial, neoliberal GOP and Dem
agenda, supported by the vast majority of officials in Washington.
Gore Vidal explained how the
dirty system works, saying no one gets to be presidential material unless they've "been bought
over 10 times." The same goes for top congressional posts. Gabbard is suspect for similar
reasons, voting along party lines too often since elected to represent Hawaii's 2nd
congressional district in November 2012.
After the Obama regime's coup in Ukraine, replacing
democratic governance with fascist tyranny, she supported supplying the illegitimate,
Nazi-infested, putschist regime with military assistance, shamefully saying America can't stand
"idly by while Russia continues to degrade the territorial integrity of Ukraine." No "Russian
aggression" existed then or now. Yet Gabbard disgracefully claimed otherwise, urging "more
painful economic sanctions" on Moscow, pretending the regime in Kiev is a "peaceful, sovereign
neighbor." In July 2017, she unjustifiably supported legislation imposing illegal unilateral US
sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea. She's for US phony war on terrorism, the scourge
Republicans and most Dems support while claiming otherwise.
She's against what she called
"counterproductive wars of regime change," including in Syria. She earlier said targeting Bashar al-Assad for regime change was "a thinly veiled attempt to use the rationale of
'humanitarianism' as a justification to escalate our illegal, counterproductive war," adding:
"Under US law, it is illegal for any American to provide money or assistance to al-Qaeda, ISIS
or other terrorist groups."
"If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or ISIS, we
would be thrown in jail. Yet the US government has been violating this law for years, quietly
supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al Sham and other terrorist
groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to overthrow the Syrian
government."
"The CIA has also been funneling weapons and money through Saudi Arabia, Turkey,
Qatar and others who provide direct and indirect support to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda."
She
may be the only congressional member boldly stating the above remarks publicly to her credit.
In January 2017, she met with Assad in Damascus, toured parts of Syria, seeing firsthand how US
aggression harmed millions of civilians. She called all anti-government forces terrorists,
saying so-called moderate rebels don't exist, stressing "(t)hat is a fact," on return home
expressing "even greater resolve to end our illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government."
She considers US wars not authorized by Congress impeachable high crimes. She should have
explained that only Security Council members may authorize war by one or more countries on
other sovereign states – not US presidents, Congress or the courts. That's the law of the
land under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause (Article 6, Clause 2). All treaties,
conventions, and other international agreements to which the US is a signatory automatically
become binding US law.
To her credit in October 2017, Gabbard opposed reimposing sanctions on
Iran, at the time saying the Islamic Republic is fully complying with JCPOA provisions. At the
same time, she co-sponsored legislation opposing Iran's legitimate ballistic missile program,
imposing illegal sanctions on the country,
In 2015, she supported legislation endorsing extreme
vetting of Syrian and Iraqi war refugees, designed to deny them refugee status. The measure
failed to get enough Senate support for passage.
She opposed the National Defense Authorization
Act for FY 2019, 2018, and earlier, opposed reforming US border security and immigration,
opposed a proposed constitutional balanced budget amendment, opposed the GOP great tax cut
heist, supported CATSA.
The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CATSA)
illegally imposed sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea. It passed the House and Senate
near-unanimously – shameful legislation demanding opposition, not support.
Hold the
cheers on Gabbard and all other Republican and Dem presidential aspirants with a chance to be
party standard bearers. The bottom line on them all is simple, no exceptions. If nominated and
elected, either go along with the dirty system or be replaced by someone else who will –
by impeachment or something more sinister.
Washington's deeply corrupted system is too
debauched to fix. The only solution is popular revolution, voting a waste of time.
No matter
who's elected president and to key congressional posts, dirty business as usual always wins.
Stephen
Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University.
Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University
of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined
the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999.
Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting
followed.
Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network
three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world
and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican
Journalists Club international journalism award recipient.
Neoliberal "International for financial oligarchy" start showing cracks. Davos crowd no
longer can control ordinary people. Both Trump and Brexit are just symptoms of the large problem
-- the crisis of neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi Gabbard will collect a lot of voters sick to death of our foreign policy destroying the lives of millions, draining our spirit and emptying our pockets. ..."
"... As long as the political class maintains 1) the illusion of choice as to who are leaders are and 2) keep things running smoothly a small minority of us will complain, simmer and stew but we won't be able to convince anyone else it's worth upsetting the status quo. ..."
"... We'll stay below critical mass, until we don't. ..."
"... The original Brexit vote was that opportunity for the power elite to get it through their thick skulls that Britons didn't want to go where the EU was headed. ..."
"... Theresa May, Dominic Grieve and the rest of those in the Westminster bubble refused to accept that they no longer had control over the situation. Theresa May like an autistic monkey keeps putting forth vote after vote to get her Withdrawal Treaty past a parliament that has no business still presiding over the country ..."
"... French Poodle Emmanuel Macron cannot get control of the Yellow Vest Protests in France. And the EU itself cannot get control over Matteo Salvini in Italy. ..."
"... Trump is compromised because of his vanity and his weakness. There is not much hope going into 2020 unless Tulsi Gabbard catches fire soon and begins taking out contenders one by one. ..."
"... More likely she is, like Ron Paul, setting the table for 2024 and a post-Trump world. I fear however it will be far too late for the U.S. by then. Both she and Farage, along with Salvini and many others across Europe, represent the push towards authenticity that will change the political landscape across the west for decades to come. ..."
"... Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority’s decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers. ..."
There is a realignment coming in electoral politics. It began with Ron Paul in 2008 and has
been building for more than a decade. We know this story well.
That realignment will be about restoring not just national sovereignty but also personal
autonomy in a world the rulers of which are desperate to clamp down their control over.
The thing is I don't think we've quite come to terms with the rapidity with which change
comes. It builds slowly, simmering below the surface and then one day just explodes into a
maelstrom of chaos.
This is where things stand in Britain with the betrayal of Brexit. It is also where things
stand with Trump's daily betrayal of his pledge to end the needless wars and regime change
operations.
Tulsi Gabbard will collect a lot of voters sick to death of our foreign policy
destroying the lives of millions, draining our spirit and emptying our pockets.
You can see it happening, slowly and then all at once.
The signs of the chaos as we approach next week's European Parliamentary elections were
there if we were willing to look closely. More often than not, our being distracted or, worse,
our normalcy bias keeps us ignorant of what's happening.
Raising goats I've unfortunately witnessed this first hand and in a devastating way. Their
entire digestive tracts are simply big fermentation vessels, chocked full of different bacteria
working on what they've eaten.
When they're healthy, it's all good. The good bacteria digests the food, they absorb it and
they are vibrant, alert and annoying.
But, if one of those other bacteria begin to get out of control, they can go from healthy to
frothing at the mouth and dying overnight. The goat is the Taoist symbol for 'strong on the
outside, fragile on the inside.' Our political system is definitely a goat at this point.
Which brings me back to politics.
As long as the political class maintains 1) the illusion of choice as to who are leaders
are and 2) keep things running smoothly a small minority of us will complain, simmer and stew
but we won't be able to convince anyone else it's worth upsetting the status quo.
We'll stay below critical mass, until we don't. And the important point here is
that, like my goats, they can can act and vote perfectly normally one day and then in open
revolt the next and you have a very small window of time to make the right decisions to save
the situation.
The original Brexit vote was that opportunity for the power elite to get it through
their thick skulls that Britons didn't want to go where the EU was headed.
Theresa May, Dominic Grieve and the rest of those in the Westminster bubble refused to
accept that they no longer had control over the situation. Theresa May like an autistic monkey
keeps putting forth vote after vote to get her Withdrawal Treaty past a parliament that has no
business still presiding over the country .
She hopes by making her treaty legal it will stop Farage's revolution. I have news for her
and the technocrats in Brussels. If Farage wins the next General Election he will nullify her
treaty under
Article 62 of the Vienna Conventions on the Laws of Treaties.
French Poodle Emmanuel Macron cannot get control of the Yellow Vest Protests in France.
And the EU itself cannot get control over Matteo Salvini in Italy.
And they will only get it through their heads after Nigel Farage and the Brexit party unite
the left and the right to throw them all out in the EP elections but also the General one as
well.
The same thing happened in 2016 here in the U.S., both on the left and the right.
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were the vessels for our deep dissatisfaction with the D.C.
corruption. The realignment was staring us in the face in 2016.
The Davos Crowd haven't gotten the message. And they won't listen until we force them
to.
Trump is compromised because of his vanity and his weakness. There is not much hope
going into 2020 unless Tulsi Gabbard catches fire soon and begins taking out contenders one by
one.
More likely she is, like Ron Paul, setting the table for 2024 and a post-Trump world. I
fear however it will be far too late for the U.S. by then. Both she and Farage, along with
Salvini and many others across Europe, represent the push towards authenticity that will change
the political landscape across the west for decades to come.
And that is what the great realignment I see happening is. It isn't about party or even
principles. It is about coming together to fix the broken political system first and then
working on solutions to specific problems later.
Here's hoping Trump doesn't destroy the world by mistake first.
Trump has been limited by the Deep State bogus Russia collusion investigations aided by
MSM propaganda. If this author thinks Bernie or Tulsi Gabbard will not face special
prosecutors if they try and Rock the boat then he is naive.
Bernie rolled over and supported Hillary after it was proven she rigged the nomination
process, so to believe he could take on the swamp to any degree is laughable.
And Tulsi doesn't have the deep pockets like Trump to hire the lawyers needed to wage war
against The Swamp.
Voting for a woman because "it's time" or because she's a woman etc., has become a thing.
Those reasons seem stupid but that's the "logic." I see a lot of dem women jumping on the
bandwagon, trying to get lucky.
Tulsi to me is like Ron Paul was in 08. A sane voice pointing out the stupidity of US
foreign policy.
She aint no Ron Paul for sure but is at least the only one this cycle who supports as her
main position getting the US out of foreign entanglements.
She is never going to win just like rp coud never win. But Im sending her a few bucks
every month just to keep the message going.
xxx, 1 hour ago
"Tulsi Gabbard will collect a lot of voters sick to death of our foreign policy destroying the lives of millions, draining our
spirit and emptying our pockets."
Uh, no, Tom, she won't be collecting a lot of voters, well, at least not near enough. Biden
has already been "chosen" like Hillary was over Bernie last time. You should know by now Tom, we don't select our candidates, they're
chosen for us for our own good.
yyy,
2 hours ago
This is going to take a long time. You just can't turn this ship around overnight.
US Political System:
United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism).
Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old, it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is
a system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the nation. The educated and responsible class
of men. The rest of the population is to be fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting.
That’s it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are voting for.
This is not an accident. America was founded on the principle, explained by the Founding Father that the primary goal of government
is to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. That is how the US Constitution was designed sort of ensuring that
there will be a lot of struggle. US is not as the same as it were two centuries ago but that remains the elites ideal.
Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority’s decision making
is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination
made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers.
A republic is SUBORDINATE to democracy. Polyarchy can’t be subordinated to any form of Democracy.
zzz,
2 hours ago
Is the author, to use an English term, daft? Tulsi Gabbard won't get out of the primaries, much less defeat Sanders or Biden. Farage
achieved his goal (Brexit), then found out (SHOCK!) that the will of the people doesn't mean anything anymore.
If Luongo had wanted
to talk about the people's uprising, he should've mentioned the Tea Party.
bbb,
3 hours ago
Gabbard appears to have some moral fibre and half a backbone, at least for a politician, regardless of their views, Farage is a slimy
charlatan opportunistic populist shill
ccc,
3 hours ago (Edited)
I like Tulsi Gabbard on MIC stuff (and as a surfer in my youth - still dream about that almost endless pipeline at Jeffreys Bay in
August), but...
On everything else?
She votes along party lines no matter what bollocks legislation the Democrats put in front of Congress. And anyone standing full-square
behind Saunders on his socialist/marxist agenda?
Do me a favour.
ddd,
1 hour ago (Edited)
Farage left because he saw what UKIP was becoming...a zionazi party.
Also Gabbard is a CFR member.
eee,
3 hours ago
Gold, Goats and Guns? Certainly not guns under President Gabbard! Here's her idea of "common sense gun control:"
I'm totally against warmongering, but I have to ask - what good is it to stop foreign warmongering, only to turn around and incite
civil war here by further raping the 2nd Amendment? The CFR ties are disturbing as hell, too. And to compare Gabbard to Ron Paul?
No, just...no!
fff,
3 hours ago
Always been a fan of Bernie, but I hope Gabbard becomes president. The world would breathe a huge sigh of relief (before
the assassination).
ggg, 4 hours ago
By this time in his 1st term, Obama had started the US Wars in Syria and Libya and has restarted the Iraq War.
Thus far Trump has
ended the War in Syria, pledged not to get us dragged into Libya’s civil wars and started a peace process with North Korea.
Venezuela and Iran look scary. We don’t know what Gabbard would actually do when faced with the same events. Obama talked peace
too.
So in the past she was Obama style warmonger. Interesting... She is not stupid enough not to understand that this was a US
sponsored color revolution.
Does this mean that she is a fake like Obama was?
Notable quotes:
"... "We cannot stand by while Russia unilaterally degrades Ukraine's territorial integrity. We must offer direct military assistance -- defensive weapons, military supplies and training -- to ensure Ukraine has adequate resources to respond to Russia's aggressions and defend themselves. We cannot view Ukraine as an isolated incident. If we do not take seriously the threat of thinly veiled Russian aggression, and commit to aiding the people of Ukraine immediately, we will find ourselves in a more dangerous, expensive and disastrous situation in the future." ..."
Press Release Calls for U.S. to offer weapons, military training
assistance
Washington, DC – Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) today released the following
statement after the President's announcement of expanded sanctions against Russian
officials:
"Russia has violated the sovereignty and independence of the Ukrainian people, in direct
contravention of its own treaty obligations and international law," said Congresswoman Tulsi
Gabbard, an Army combat veteran and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "I support
the sanctions announced today, and I strongly urge the President to go further and consider a
broader range of consequences. If Russia is allowed to continue its aggressive push for control
in Ukraine, there will be long-term, serious, and costly security risks for the United States
and Europe. Russia must face serious consequences for their actions; the U.S. must consider
options that truly isolate Russia economically and diplomatically -- not just sanction a
handful of oligarchs -- and send a message of unity and strength from the international
community.
"We cannot stand by while Russia unilaterally degrades Ukraine's territorial integrity. We
must offer direct military assistance -- defensive weapons, military supplies and training --
to ensure Ukraine has adequate resources to respond to Russia's aggressions and defend
themselves. We cannot view Ukraine as an isolated incident. If we do not take seriously the
threat of thinly veiled Russian aggression, and commit to aiding the people of Ukraine
immediately, we will find ourselves in a more dangerous, expensive and disastrous situation in
the future."
In a House Foreign Affairs Committee mark-up of H.Res. 499 recently, the congresswoman
gained unanimous approval on including amendments on anti-corruption, and protection of civil
and political rights throughout Ukraine. She also supported the House passage of H.R. 4152,
which authorized loan guarantees for Ukraine.
Days before Trump's escalation of his illegal war in Syria, Congresswoman & war veteran
Tulsi Gabbard confronts Defense Secretary James Mattis on the unconstitutionality of such
missile strikes!
This Woman, whent against Hillary-establishement, Dems, She is smart & strong, I want
her running for Presidency, even some Republicans, would support Her, Right?? :-)
A brilliant statement by Tulsi Gabbard. Beto O'Rourke appears bored, unconcerned and
vaguely gormless when he rocks back and forth, bites his nails and extends his lower
lip.
"... I have high respect for Dr Paul especially on his foreign policies and I'm so glad that he has recognized Tulsi stances on ending these regime change wars and over stepping our bounds constitutional overseas. Please keep spreading the word on Tulsi our Republic depends on it. ..."
"... It doesn't surprise me in the least that Ron Paul feels well about Tulsi Gabbard - mostly in regards to her foreign policy. Tulsi can expect considerable support from Libertarians. ..."
I have high respect for Dr Paul especially on his foreign policies and I'm so glad that he
has recognized Tulsi stances on ending these regime change wars and over stepping our bounds
constitutional overseas. Please keep spreading the word on Tulsi our Republic depends on
it.
It doesn't surprise me in the least that Ron Paul feels well about Tulsi Gabbard - mostly
in regards to her foreign policy. Tulsi can expect considerable support from
Libertarians.
"... Tulsi continues to stack up very reputable endorsements. This time from a three time Presidential Candidate. ..."
"... Tulsi's momentum is going for critical mass, Its time for a true maverick! #Rogue2020 ..."
"... Ron Paul's endorsement is surprising and interesting, in that it seems sincere. Most repubs give bad-faith assessments of the dem candidates. ..."
"... It really should be seen as a general election endorsement if it came down to a run between Tulsi and Trump, why the hell there was not a follow up question asking Dr Paul who he would endorse Tulsi and Trump I am sure Paul would endorse Tulsi. ..."
I am as unlikely to vote republican as anybody but I admired Ron Paul's honesty when he
ran for the presidency. Admired enough that I actually voted for him although his economic
policies and gold standard kept me asking more questions than getting answers. I am stoked
that my favorite republican voice gives his support to Tulsi. It is yet another confirmation
of my choice for 2020.
It really should be seen as a general election endorsement if it came down to a run
between Tulsi and Trump, why the hell there was not a follow up question asking Dr Paul who
he would endorse Tulsi and Trump I am sure Paul would endorse Tulsi. At any rate this is a
big deal a lot of people respect Dr Paul and this endorsement will help Tulsi.
I hope that might be interesting to Tulsi supporters.
In this interesting speech "Fascism in the Age of Trump" Chris Hedges predicts 20 years to the US empire. So somewhere
around 2040 or when the age of "cheap oil" approximately ends and/or come under considerable stress.
He does not understands neoliberal social system well and does not use the term "neoliberarism" in his speak (which is
detrimental to its value) , but he manages to provide a set of interesting arguments, although the speech is full of exaggerations
and inconsistencies.
It also can explains the current Trump stance toward China as "Hail Mary" attempt top preserve the global hegemony by
suppressing China even at considerable cost for the USA population.
I really feel for Chris Hedges on a personal level. Unlike say Blyth, or Chomsky, whom
seem to revel in being intellectual bad boys, Hedges seems to be at heart a very conservative
man in the true sense of the word, driven to the extremes by the rabid greed and sociopathic
nature of mainstream politics. The corruption of it seems to visibly torture him. It takes a
special kind of courage to take an unpopular stand like he does.
President Eisenhower stated that the largest threat to our Democracy was/is the Military
Industrial Complex. He quickly terminated the Korean War that he inherited then kept us out
of foreign conflict. He believed in a strong Middle Class and promoted our economy with a
massive highway system. He kept the highest progressive tax rate at 90% discouraging CEO's
from massively overpaying themselves.
Good domestic policy suggestions and debate skills. Horrible understanding of foreign policy
(he completely subscribes to the Russiagate hoax)
His capitulation to Hillary in 2016 still linger behind his back despite all bravado. he
betrayed his followers, many of who put money of this while being far from rich. he betrayed them
all. As such he does not deserve to run.
Warren and Tulsi are definitely better options then Sanders for 2020.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., became a household name in 2016 when he ran a progressive
campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and came close to securing it. He's back
in the 2020 race, but this time up against more than 20 other candidates. Sanders sits down
with Judy Woodruff to discuss trade with China, health care, student debt, Russian election
interference and more.
In the midst of an interesting and wide-ranging discussion on the Joe Rogan Experience , Democratic
congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said that if elected president she would
drop all charges against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange.
"What would you do about Julian Assange? What would you do about Edward Snowden?"
Rogan asked in the latter
part of the episode.
"As far as dropping the charges?" Gabbard asked.
"If you're president of the world right now, what do you do?"
Rogan noted that Sweden's preliminary investigation of rape allegations
has just been re-opened , saying the US government can't stop that, and Gabbard said as
president she'd drop the US charges leveled against Assange by the Trump administration.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/fNuZWQgkgc4
"Yeah," Gabbard said when asked to clarify if she was also saying that she'd give Edward
Snowden a presidential pardon, adding,
"And I think we've got to address why he did things the way that he did them. And you hear
the same thing from Chelsea Manning, how there is not an actual channel for whistleblowers
like them to bring forward information that exposes egregious abuses of our constitutional
rights and liberties. Period. There was not a channel for that to happen in a real way, and
that's why they ended up taking the path that they did, and suffering the consequences."
This came at the end of a lengthy
discussion about WikiLeaks and the dangerous legal precedent that the Trump administration
is setting for press freedoms by prosecuting Assange, as well as the revelations about NSA
surveillance and what can be done to roll back those unchecked surveillance powers.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855
"What happened with [Assange's] arrest and all the stuff that just went down I think poses
a great threat to our freedom of the press and to our freedom of speech," Gabbard said.
"We look at what happened under the previous administration, under Obama. You know, they
were trying to find ways to go after Assange and WikiLeaks, but ultimately they chose not to
seek to extradite him or charge him, because they recognized what a slippery slope that
begins when you have a government in a position to levy criminal charges and consequences
against someone who's publishing information or saying things that the government doesn't
want you to say , and sharing information the government doesn't want you to share. And so
the fact that the Trump administration has chosen to ignore that fact, to ignore how
important it is that we uphold our freedoms, freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and
go after him, it has a very chilling effect on both journalists and publishers. And you can
look to those in traditional media and also those in new media, and also every one of us as
Americans. It was a kind of a warning call, saying Look what happened to this guy. It could
happen to you. It could happen to any one of us."
Gabbard discussed Mike Pompeo's arbitrary designation of WikiLeaks as a hostile non-state
intelligence service, the fact that James Clapper lied to Congress about NSA surveillance as
Director of National Intelligence yet suffered no consequences and remains a respected TV
pundit, and the opaque and unaccountable nature of FISA warrants.
Some other noteworthy parts of Gabbard's JRE appearance for people who don't have time to
watch the whole thing, with hyperlinks to the times in the video:
Rogan gets Gabbard talking
in depth about what Bashar al-Assad was actually like when she met him and what he said
to her, which I don't think I've ever seen anyone bother to do before.
The two discuss
Eisenhower's famous speech warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, and
actually pause their dialogue to watch a good portion of it. Gabbard points out that in the
original draft of the speech, Eisenhower had intended to call it the
"congressional-military-industrial complex".
Rogan asks Gabbard what
she thinks happens to US presidents that causes them to fail to enact their campaign promises
and capitulate to the will of the warmongering establishment, and what as president she'll do
to avoid the same fate. All presidential candidates should have to answer this question.
Rogan asks Gabbard how
she'll stand against the billionaires for the American people without getting assassinated.
All presidential candidates should have to answer this question as well.
I honestly think the entire American political system would be better off if the phoney
debate stage format were completely abandoned and presidential candidates just talked
one-on-one with Joe Rogan for two and a half hours instead. Cut through all the vapid posturing
and the fake questions about nonsense nobody cares about and get them to go deep with a normal
human being who smokes pot and curses and does sports commentary for cage fighting. Rogan asked
Gabbard a bunch of questions that real people are interested in, in a format where she was
encouraged to relax out of her standard politician's posture and discuss significant ideas
sincerely and spontaneously. It was a good discussion with an interesting political figure and
I'm glad it's already racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
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Important interview with Tucker (this video contain a large fragment) and an interesting discussions.
Notable quotes:
"... Left or Right, you cannot question Gabbard's patriotism and intelligence and in-depth knowledge on war issues. Great candidate. ..."
"... She is an amazing diplomat - I support her 100% ..."
"... The way she conducts herself is an inspiration. I really like her. ..."
"... Just donated to Tulsi. We need her anti-imperialism on the mainstream debate stage. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard is the only one I have seen who isn't an overly hyberbolic shill. She embodies the concept of "speak softly and carry a big stick". ..."
"... Holly shit, I've never seen anyone on Fox News let their guest talk as much this? Especially Tucker being so calm, this makes me feel good. It must be Tulsi's vibe, someone as diplomatic and disciplined as her must be running the White House. ..."
Wow!! The sound of the voice of common sense & truth, for a change. I don't care if
she is Democrat or Republican ... this lady is voicing what the majority of people actually
think & believe.
Holly shit, I've never seen anyone on Fox News let their guest talk as much this?
Especially Tucker being so calm, this makes me feel good. It must be Tulsi's vibe, someone as
diplomatic and disciplined as her must be running the White House.
Tulsi found an interesting way to stress he foreign policy credential -- The US President is
the Commander in Chief of the Nation.
Notable quotes:
"... Gabbard's transformation from cherished party asset to party critic and outcast was rapid, and was due almost entirely to her insistence on following her own belief system and evolving ideology rather than party dogma and the long-standing rules for Washington advancement. ..."
"... I'm a 70+ veteran who has never voted for a Democrat in my life. Tulsi Gabbard is the best, most qualified, most eloquent and thoughtful presidential candidate of my lifetime. She will catch on, and the MSM which hates her (they all get tons of money and support from war industry, Big Pharma, Big Ag, etc.), will try to ignore her or smear her, but in the end they will fail. She makes sense, and they don't. Regime change wars must end. Tulsi will be the shining light that makes it happen. ..."
Ever since Tulsi Gabbard was first elected to Congress in 2012, she has been assertively
independent, heterodox, unpredictable, and polarizing. Viewed at first as a loyal Democrat and
guaranteed future star by party leaders -- due to her status as an Iraq War veteran, a
telegenic and dynamic young woman, and the first Hindu and Samoan American ever elected to
Congress -- she has instead become a thorn in the side, and frequent critic, of those same
party leaders that quickly anointed her as the future face of the party.
Gabbard's transformation from cherished party asset to party critic and outcast was rapid,
and was due almost entirely to her insistence on following her own belief system and evolving
ideology rather than party dogma and the long-standing rules for Washington advancement.
Glenn Greenwald sat down with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to discuss a wide range of issues,
including the reasons she is running for president, her views on Trump's electoral appeal and
what is necessary to defeat it, the rise of right-wing populism internationally, the
Trump/Russia investigation, criticisms she has received regarding her views of Islam and
certain repressive leaders, and her unique foreign policy viewpoints.
This interview is intended to be the first in a series of in-depth interviews with
influential and interesting U.S. political figures, including but not limited to 2020
presidential candidates, designed to enable deeper examinations than the standard cable or
network news format permits.
I am Norwegian. I want to interfere in the next american presidential election. I want
Tulsi Gabbard as the next president of the USA. Love from Norway!
I'm a 70+ veteran who has never voted for a Democrat in my life. Tulsi Gabbard is the
best, most qualified, most eloquent and thoughtful presidential candidate of my lifetime. She
will catch on, and the MSM which hates her (they all get tons of money and support from war
industry, Big Pharma, Big Ag, etc.), will try to ignore her or smear her, but in the end they
will fail. She makes sense, and they don't. Regime change wars must end. Tulsi will be the
shining light that makes it happen.
How many presidential candidates have the guts to sit down for an interview with Glenn
Greenwald? Only one. Tulsi Gabbard. Excellent (and very challenging) questions from Greenwald
-- great responses from Gabbard.
Any candidate the Intercept finds worth interviewing is worth my time to look into. Still
a bit nervous about her glorification of military service but overall...
Great interview! Asked many questions I wanted to hear answers to. Gives a great sense of
Tulsi and where she stands on many issues with emphasis on foreign policy that seems to be
ignored everywhere else. Thank you Glenn.
Thank you for asking the tough questions Glenn. I really like Tulsi but the Modi questions
had been long in the waiting. I'm glad she answered them the way she did.
Tulsi is one in a generation natural born diplomat !!! She found an interesting way to stress the value of her foreign policy
credentials (which in general are not valued much by the US voters, who concentrate on internal problems) -- The US
President is the Commander in Chief of the Nation.
For the majority of Americans Tulsi stands out. There's no one coming even close. Bernie is a good talker, but totally
untrustworthy against DNC (folded in 2016 without a fight) as well as Israel's military aid and wars in ME.
Tulsi represents profiles in courage. She makes establishment candidate like Kamala look wanting. Of course the have support
of neoliberal MSM, while Tulsi is ignored. Even Democratic establishment (read neocons) are hostile toward Tulsi. Implicitly they
behave like "we don't want her muddying the waters".
Unfortunately there is a strong possibility that Tulsi will not be given a fair chance, the DNC under chairman Perez will
stick to party hierarchy even if he claims otherwise....
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi is the only candidate in my lifetime who has had an actual demeanor worthy of global leadership. ..."
"... I LOVE her demeanor. She handles herself so well. She is calm & wise & fair. She will run circles @ the debates & not break a sweat! ..."
"... i am 76 and have never seen a politician of her caliber! ..."
"... So much capital was wasted on RussiaGate, but a totally legit SaudiGate scandal went ignored. 😔 ..."
"... TuIsi is in a league of her own. We are blessed. ..."
Democrats don't want auditable elections because they're in on election fraud in the
districts of the party elites. Wasserman-Schultz is the queen of the sleazes.
Niko- I have a line of questions I'm hoping you will address with Kulinski tomorrow &
if it doesn't align with your perspective I respect that it's not something you want to ask
& I'd be interested in hearing from you directly why you view it differently: I'm
increasingly concerned over the weak opposition by many Sanders supporters over many of his
positions these last few years.
It appears to me that Medicare for All has taken precedent
over fighting the military industrial complex & the millions of lives abroad affected by
it. This is not a trade-off for voters like me. It is true that he is better than most &
he has a strong background but he used to push for 3rd parties. This has changed along with
many other issues & I think anyone being honest with themselves know this to be true.
Beyond the excuses for his endorsement of Kissinger's proTPP Clinton, he has whitewashed
Bush/Cheney, called Mad Dog Mattis "the adult in the room", gone along with Russiagate &
even suggested some of his followers on Facebook were Russian trolls, given lipservice to the
Venezuelan "humanitarian aid", been silent on Assange, & repeatedly ignored his base on
all of the above. My questions are: How can progressives like this honestly trust Sanders to
fight for truth on these fronts?
Why is getting Medicare for All more important than fighting
against endless war? Is it possible that progressive media has done a disservice to electoral
progress by framing it as Sanders being cheated in 2016 & not emphasizing that it was a
greater betrayal of the VOTERS who were cheated? Saying that they will continue to push back
on him in these areas where he is wrong strikes me as completely baseless given their
inability to sway him these last few years. I'm tired of excuses & hoping for better
answers than "it's his turn", "he had to tow the line", or "that's for Tulsi as VP/Secretary
of State to do". Please & thank you!
Do a 1 to 2 minute setup, show the main piece/clip, then pontificate/summarize. I got so
bored I left the PC, made coffee, came back and you still hadn't got to the point of the
video 5 mins in. If you're doing a long-form stream then go with whatever. For these shorter
topical videos you need a shorter intro or need to cut out the filler in the edit process.
The long setup and unnecessary dramatic effect pauses will only irritate people that just
want the important part of what you're presenting.
I think support for Tulsi and Bernie can (and should) be congruent, especially since
ideally for me, they are both on that ticket. Not gonna lie, I want him on the helm of it,
but that's because then she gets a shot at a 10-year presidency. We need them both in that
admin ASAP. Their policies are complimentary, not juxtaposed. They only make each other
stronger. It's not a binary. I would be emphatic to vote for either one of them.
If she is
still competitive on super Tuesday, she has my vote. Otherwise, I think if she does not carry
the torch to the end, we need to be prepared to aggressively throw our weight behind Bernie
Sanders in a stronger way than 2016. (I also like Marianne Williamson, but I don't think
that's gonna happen.She got my dollar.)
We cannot roll over again. If they nominate Beto or
Kamala or Booker, we have to walk. In droves. Bearing in mind 4 more years of Trump is better
than 40 more years of being exploited by the democratic party for votes while not being
heard. It's effectively (and literally) taxation without representation. It's aristocracy.
It's bullshit. And if they nominate a moderate, we're gonna know they didn't fucking get it
before.
Commentators like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson appeal to people who don't have the
intellectual capacity to know that they're being lied to by pseudo-intellectuals. I knew
Jordan Peterson was one of these, when I first heard his analysis of Dostoevsky's "Notes From
Underground," one of my favorite novels.
I love your show brother. I found #Tulsi2020 because of Bari
smearing her on jre. That led me to your show. Thanks for the help! Keep up the hard work.
#Tulsi2020
John
Doe1 day ago
What a true patriotic compassionate leader. Easily has my vote
111 112
View 15 replies Hide replies John Doe1 day
ago She can show the world how to lead. Tulsi 2020!!!!
58 59
View reply Hide replies Merwin ARTist1 day
ago Tulsi is awesome .. appreciate what she has to say about stopping these foolish regime
change wars! Respect!!! Tulsi2020
63 64
View reply Hide replies Fellow Citizen1
day ago They are terrified of Tulsi because they know that if people hear her they will
automatically vote for her. Tulsi: "...honour, respect, and integrity..." "Journalists":
"[clears throat at the prospect of competing on a fair playing-field]"
75 76
View 10 replies Hide replies Freedom Tribe1 day
ago Time is running out. We need this woman to lead us into the next epoch.
38 39
View reply Hide replies MR BOSTON1 day
ago I voted for trump but I would vote for her in a heart beat
57 58
View 6 replies Hide replies MoMo Bronx1 day
ago You just don't get more real than Tulsi I hope she win,the world need real
Leadership
31 32 Peace Harmony1 day
ago Tulsi is one of the few Democrats who isn't too scared to go on FOX News. And she is a
great candidate! A true patriot.
View 13 replies Hide replies Kedaar Iyer1 day
ago Make sure to get her to 100,000 individual donors so that she can be on the debate
stage!
www.tulsi2020.com
25 26
View 2 replies Hide replies lendallpitts1 day
ago Tulsi Gabbard is the most presidential of all of the candidates.
11 12 John Doe1 day ago
(edited) I love the compassion in the comments. That's what we're talking about. Service to
others, learn to love thy neighbor
12 13 Kostas K1 day
ago Honour Integrity and respect, qualities that the White House has never experienced so
far in it's history.
14 15 OTR
Trucker1 day ago
(edited) Thanks for running Tulsi. If we look at history it's Presidents without a military
background that get us into the biggest disasters. Veterans still get us into wars sometimes
but they are wars that are limited in scope and "winnable". Every open ended catastrophe we've
been in was from a non vet.
32 33
View 4 replies Hide replies Jeremy Chase1 day
ago I was speaking with an older couple yesterday. They obviously had a lot of MSM on the
brain. The woman said, I would like to see a woman in The White House. I said, Tulsi Gabbard is
your woman! Don't let the media lie to you about her. They just want their senseless wars. You
go, Tulsi! ✌
16 17
View reply Hide replies Michael Dob1 day
ago What a concept. Serve American interest instead of corporations and foreign
governments.
This was true about Iraq war. This is true about Venezuela and Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books , Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. ..."
"... Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. ..."
"... Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back to 1959 . ..."
"... Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.) ..."
Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small c rappy little country and
throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
- Michael
Ledeen , holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute
Actually, the U.S. had been beating Iraq's head against the wall for a dozen years, with
sanctions and bombing. The
sanctions alone killed over a million Iraqis, far more than have been done in by weapons of
mass destruction throughout history. But Ledeen's indiscreet remark, delivered at an AEI
conference and reported by Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online , does capture some
of what the war on Iraq is about.
And what is this "business" Ledeen says we mean? Oil, of course, of which more in a bit.
Ditto construction contracts for Bechtel. But it's more than that - nothing less than the
desire, often expressed with little shame nor euphemism, to run the world. Is there anything
new about that?
The answer is, of course, yes and no. In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books ,
Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had
excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when
earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. Anderson, who's edited New Left Review for years, but who has almost no
connection to actual politics attributed this strange explosion not to a popular outburst of
anti-imperialism, but to a cultural antipathy to the Bush administration.
Presumably that antipathy belongs to the realm of the " merely cultural ," and is of no great
political significance to Anderson. But it should be. U.S. culture has long been afflicted with
a brutally reactionary and self-righteous version of Christian fundamentalism, but it's never
had such influence over the state. The president thinks himself on a mission from God, the
Attorney General opens the business day with a prayer meeting, and the Pentagon's idea of a
Good Friday service is to invite Franklin Graham , who's pronounced Islam a "wicked and
evil religion," to deliver the homily, in which he promised that Jesus was returning soon. For
the hard core, the Iraq war is a sign of the end times, and the hard core
are in power.
Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also
recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. Though the
administration has been discreet, many of its private sector intellectuals
have been using the words "imperialism" and " empire " openly and with
glee. Not everyone of the millions who marched against the war in the months before it started
was a conscious anti-imperialist, but they all sensed the intensification, and were further
alarmed.
While itself avoiding the difficult word "empire," the Bush administration has been rather
clear about its long-term aims. According to their official national security strategy and the
documents published by the Project
for a New American Century (which served as an administration-in-waiting during the Clinton
years) their goal is to assure U.S. dominance and prevent the emergence of any rival powers.
First step in that agenda is the remaking of the Middle East - and they're quite open
about this as well. We all know the countries that are on the list; the only remaining issues
are sequence and strategy. But that's not the whole of the agenda. They're essentially
promising a permanent state of war, some overt, some covert, but one that could take
decades.
Imperial returns?
Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its
public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction
have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues
believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were
really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear
reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the
billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington
supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as
many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back
to 1959
.
Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why
it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much
tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.)
It now looks
fairly certain that the U.S. will, in some form, claim some large piece of Iraq's oil. The
details need to be worked out; clarifying the legal situation could be very complicated, given
the rampantly illegal nature of the regime change. Rebuilding Iraq's oil industry will be very
expensive and could take years. There could be some nice profits down the line for big oil
companies - billions a year - but the broader economic benefits for the U.S. aren't so clear. A
U.S.-dominated Iraq could pump heavily and undermine OPEC, but too low an oil price would wreck
the domestic U.S. oil industry, something the Bush gang presumably cares
about. Mexico would be driven into penury, which could mean another debt crisis and lots of
human traffic heading north over the Rio Grande. Lower oil prices would be a boon to most
industrial economies, but they'd give the U.S. no special advantage over its principal economic
rivals.
It's
sometimes said that U.S. dominance of the Middle East gives Washington a chokehold over oil
supplies to Europe and Japan. But how might that work? Deep production cutbacks and price
spikes would hurt everyone. Targeted sales restrictions would be the equivalent of acts of war,
and if the U.S. is willing to take that route, a blockade would be a lot more efficient. The
world oil market is gigantic and complex, and it's not clear how a tap could be turned in
Kirkuk that would shut down the gas pumps in Kyoto or Milan.
Writers like David Harvey argue
that the U.S. is trying to compensate for its eroding economic power by asserting its military
dominance. Maybe. It's certainly fascinating that Bush's unilateralism has to be financed by
gobs of foreign money - and he gets his tax cuts, he'll have to order up even bigger gobs. But
it's hard to see what rival threatens the U.S. economically; neither the EU nor Japan is
thriving. Nor is there any evidence that the Bush administration is thinking seriously about
economic policy, domestic or international, or even thinking at all. The economic staff is
mostly dim and marginal. What really seems to excite this gang of supposed conservatives is the
exercise of raw state power.
Jealous rivals
And while the Bushies want to prevent the emergence of imperial rivals , they may only be encouraging that. Sure, the EU
is badly divided within itself; it has a hard enough time picking a top central banker , let alone deciding on a common
foreign policy. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is already semi-apologizing to Bush for
his intemperate language in criticizing the war - not that Bush has started taking his calls.
But over the longer term, some kind of political unification is Europe's only hope for acting
like a remotely credible world power. It's tempting to read French and German objections to the
Iraq war as emerging not from principle, but from the wounded narcissism of former imperial
powers rendered marginal by American might. Separately, they'll surely hang. But a politically
united Europe could, with time, come to challenge U.S. power, just as the euro is beginning to look like a credible rival to the dollar.
(Speaking of the euro, there's a theory circulating on the net that the U.S. went to war
because Iraq wanted to price its oil in euros, not dollars. That's grossly overheated
speculation. More on this and related issues when LBO begins an investigation of the
political economy of oil in the next issue.)
An even more interesting rivalry scenario would involve an alliance of the EU and Russia.
Russia is no longer the wreck it was for most of the 1990s. The economy has been growing and
the mildly authoritarian Putin has imposed political stability. Russia, which has substantial
oil interests in Iraq that are threatened by U.S. control, strongly opposed the war, and at
least factions within the Russian intelligence agency were reportedly feeding information
unfriendly to the U.S. to the website Iraqwar.ru . There's a lot recommending an EU-Russia
alliance; Europe could supply technology and finance, and Russia could supply energy, and
together they could constitute at least an embryonic counterweight to U.S. power.
So the U.S. may not get out of Iraq what the Bush administration is hoping for. It certainly
can't want democracy in Iraq or the rest of the region, since free votes could well lead to
nationalist and Islamist governments who don't view ExxonMobil as the divine agent that Bush seems to. A
New York Times piece celebrated the outbreak of democracy in Basra, while conceding that
the mayor is a former Iraqi admiral appointed by the British. The lead writers of the new
constitution are likely to be American law professors; Iraqis, of course, aren't up to the task
themselves.
Certainly the appointment of Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner (Ret.) - one of the
few superannuated brass not to have enjoyed a consulting contract with a major TV network - to
be the top civilian official guiding the postwar reconstruction of Iraq speaks volumes. A
retired general is barely a civilian, and Garner's most recent job was as president of
SY Technology , a military
contractor that worked with Israeli security in developing the Arrow antimissile system. He
loves antimissile systems; after the first Gulf War, he enthused about the Patriot's
performance with claims that turned out to be nonsense. He's on record as having praised
Israel's handling of the intifada. If that's his model of how to handle restive subject
populations, there's lots of trouble ahead.
lightness
In the early days of the war, when things weren't going so well for the "coalition,"
it was said that the force was too light. But after the sandstorm cleared and the snipers
were mowed down, that alleged lightness became a widely praised virtue. But that force
was light only by American standards: 300,000 troops; an endless rain of Tomahawks,
JDAMs, and MOABs; thousands of vehicles, from Humvees to Abrams tanks; hundreds of
aircraft, from Apaches to B-1s; several flotillas of naval support - and enormous
quantities of expensive petroleum products. It takes five gallons of fuel just to start
an Abrams tank, and after that it gets a mile per gallon. And filling one up is no
bargain. Though the military buys fuel at a wholesale price of 84¢ a gallon, after
all the expenses of getting it to the front lines are added in, the final cost is about
$150 a gallon. That's a steal compared to Afghanistan, where fuel is helicoptered in,
pushing the cost to $600/gallon. Rummy's "lightness" is of the sort that only a $10
trillion economy can afford.
The Bush gang doesn't even try to keep up appearances, handing out contracts for Iraq's
reconstruction to U.S. firms even before the shooting stopped, and guarding only the oil and
interior ministries against looters. If Washington gets its way, Iraq will be rebuilt according
to the fondest dreams of the Heritage Foundation staff, with the educational system reworked by
an American contractor, the TV programmed by the Pentagon, the ports run by a rabidly antiunion
firm, the police run by the Texas-based military contractor Dyncorp , and the oil taken out of
state hands and appropriately privatized.
That's the way they'd like it to be. But the sailing may not be so smooth. It looks like
Iraqis are viewing the Americans as occupiers, not liberators. It's going to be hard enough to
remake Iraq that taking on Syria or Iran may be a bit premature. But that doesn't mean they
won't try. It's a cliché of trade negotiations that liberalization is like riding a
bicycle - you have to keep riding forward or else you'll fall over. The same could be said of
an imperial agenda: if you want to remake the world, or a big chunk of it, there's little time
to pause and catch your breath, since doubt or opposition could gain the upper hand. Which
makes stoking that opposition more
urgent than ever.
Losing it all
There's a feeling around that Bush is now politically invulnerable . Certainly the atmosphere
is one of almost coercive patriotism. That mood was nicely illustrated by an incident in
Houston in mid-March. A teenager attending a rodeo failed to stand along with the rest of the
crowd during a playing of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American," a dreadful country song
that has become a kind of private-sector national anthem for the yahoo demographic, thanks to
its truculent unthinking jingoism. A patriot standing behind the defiantly seated teen started
taunting him, tugging on his ear as an additional provocation. The two ended up in a fight, and
then under arrest.
There's a lot of that going around, for sure. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins get disinvited
from events, websites nominate
traitors for trial by military tribunal, and talk radio hosts organize CD-smashings. But things
aren't hopeless. A close analysis of Greenwood's text might suggest why. The song's core
argument is contained in its two most famous lines: "I'm proud to be an American/where at least
I know I'm free." But the oft-overlooked opening reads: "If tomorrow all the things were
gone/I'd worked for all my life," the singer would still be a grateful patriot. That's
precisely the condition lots of Americans find themselves in. More than two million jobs have
disappeared in the last two years. Millions of Americans have seen their retirement savings
wiped out by the bear market, and over a million filed for bankruptcy last year. Most states and
cities are experiencing their worst fiscal crises since the 1930s, with massive service cuts
and layoffs imminent. In the song, such loss doesn't matter, but reality is often less
accommodating than a song.
As the nearby graphs show, W's ratings are much lower than his father's at the end of Gulf
War I, and his disapproval ratings much higher. Their theocratic and repressive agenda is
deeply unpopular with large parts of the U.S. population. Spending scores of billions on
destroying and rebuilding Iraq while at home health clinics are closing and teachers working
without pay is potentially incendiary. Foreign adventures have never been popular with the
American public (much to the distress of the ruling elite). An peace movement that could draw
the links among warmongering, austerity, and repression has great political potential. Just a
month or two ago, hundreds of thousands were marching in American streets to protest the
imminent war. Though that movement now looks a bit dispirited and demobilized, it's unlikely
that that kind of energy will just disappear into the ether.
A really interesting discussion. the problem with discussion on new direction of the USA foreign policy is that forces that
control the current forign policy will not allow any changes. Russiagate was in part a paranoid reaction of the Deep State to the
possibility of detente with Russia and also questioning "neoliberal sacred truth" like who did 9/11 (to suggest that Bush is
guilty was a clear "Red Flag") and critical attribute to forrign wars which feed so many Imperial servants.
BTW Trump completely disappointed his supporters in the foreign policy is continuing to accelerate that direction
Here is how you chart a Progressive foreign policy stop treating the US intelligence
agencies of the CIA and FBI as orgs of integrity. Ban all foreign lobbying so no foreign
government can influence foreign policy.
Disband the Veto powers that the US holds over the UN
security council. Prosecute former Presidents and Government officials for the illegal regime
change wars.
Connect with other progressive politicians around the world such as Jeremy Corbyn,
Jean Luc Melenchon and Moon Jae In. End the arms race and begin a peaceful space race to
colonize the moon diverting funds from the military industrial complex into something
fulfilling.
What BULL while world under the fog of Berlin wall down, USA VP Bush attacks
Panama 8000 Marines kills 3500 panamanians , gives the banks to CIA, therefore Panama papers.
Another coup in Latin America. When V.P. Bush "we had to get over the Vietnam Syndrome". So
Killing 3500 people , to get over the loser spirit, suicidal influence from Vietnam. SHAME USA
more hate for Americans. And Now Venezuela, more Shame and Hate for Americans. Yankee go home,
Gringo stay home is chanted once more.
The audio is a little off especially for a couple speakers but this discussion is
great. Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform, but in his typical dishonest fashion, he
appointed people who are developing usable nukes like characters out of Dr. Strangelove.
Nuclear weapons and climate change are both existential threats that all the world needs to act
together to address.
17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6
trillion wars and the $750 billion annual Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving
Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the debate between Democratic
presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the
primary issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her
rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states.
Thanks for anything you can do.
Jim R2 months ago
President Eisenhower's farewell address warned us of the very thing that is happening today with the industrial military
complex and the power and influence that that entity weilds.
chickendinner2012, 2 months ago
End the wars, no more imperialism, instead have fair trade prioritizing countries that have a living wage and aren't
waging war etc. No more supporting massive human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE etc. and we need to get three
of the most aggressive countries the F UK US coalition that constantly invades and bombs everyone they want to steal from to
stop doing war, stop coups, stop covert sabotage, stop sanctions.
asbeautifulasasunset, 2 months ago
17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6 trillion wars and the $750 billion annual
Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the
debate between Democratic presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the primary
issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and
contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states. Thanks for anything you can do.
carol wagner sudol2 months ago
Israel today has become a nazi like state. period. That says it all. This is heart-breaking. Gaza is simply a
concentration camp.
Tom Hall, 2 months ago
All our post WWII foreign policy has been about securing maintaining and enhancing corporate commercial interests. What
would seem to progressives as catastrophic failures are in fact monumental achievements of wealth creation and concentration.
The billions spent on think tanks to develop policy are mostly about how to develop grand narratives that conceal the true
beneficiaries of US foreign policy and create fear, uncertainty and insecurity at home and abroad.
The real story behind this or any other presidency is Who could stand up to the deep
state/neocons?
Trump is an outsider who is up against powerful, entrenched forces who apparently do
whatever they want to do. (and they would be the same had Bernie won the presidency).
Bernie seems to lack the spine. Tulsi on the other hand is a tough cookie--but could she
ever find adequate military and DOJ support?
Look how Tulsi deal with really hostile interviewers. A real nasty attack dog.
Notable quotes:
"... That was absolutely disgusting. He didn't say should we "pull our forces out around the world." He said should we "take our boot off their necks." Warmongering imperialist. ..."
"... So rude he won't let her talk, Tulsi is awesome this guy is a joke he doesn't know history. ..."
That was absolutely disgusting. He didn't say should we "pull our forces out around the
world." He said should we "take our boot off their necks." Warmongering imperialist.
Damn, Tulsi totally smashed him. Now, his supporters gonna have a second thought as they
got a short taste of truth/facts on Saudi. Tulsi can easily defeat Trump.
Ordinary Human, 2 weeks ago
Intelligent, calm, speaks clearly qualities you look for in a leader.
Timothy Lavoie, 2 weeks ago
So rude he won't let her talk, Tulsi is awesome this guy is a joke he doesn't know history.
Tulsi Gabbard does have guts. I saw her in a recent interview with Shannon Bream. She said
the US basically needs to let Venezuelans handle their own internal political affairs. I
agree. She appears to be firmly opposed to US military intervention there.
With the new CNN poll showing Joe Biden representing the fossil wing of the Democratic party
with a 39% favorable rating as Bernie drops to 15%, it is eerily reminiscent of overstated
polls for HRC in 2016. Thanks to CNN, additional White House contenders have qualified for the
debate via the % option including former Colorado Gov John Hickenlooper who might take the
opportunity to inform the public why he attended the Bilderberg meeting in
2018 .
Given her almost totally hostile reception by every MSM outlet who deigned to interview her,
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has experienced, as an opponent of regime change wars, more bad manners and
outright personal antagonism than any other candidate. While Gabbard easily qualified for the
debates via the $65,000 requirement and continues to attract SRO audiences in NH, Iowa,
California and elsewhere, yet until the newest CNN poll, she failed to register any % of public
support.
Something here does not compute given the 'favored' polls past history of favoritism. If the
Dems continue to put a brick wall around her, Jill Stein has already opened the Green Party
door as a more welcoming venue for a Tulsi candidacy. The Dems, who tend to be unprincipled and
vindictive, better be careful what they wish for.
Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and
president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in
Colorado, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and staff member of the US House
of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter
@reneedove31
Dimly Glimpsed
The Democrat establishment hates Tulsi with a passion. There appear to be several factors:
1) she opposes all the neocon wars, and opposes intervention in Venezuela.
2) She refuses to kowtow to the bipartisan establish sacred cows (an apt metaphor for Tulsi), such as blind support for
Saudi Arabia and Israel;
3) She gave the DNC and Hillary the back of her hand when she resigned as a vice-chair of the DNC in 2016, citing the
reason as unethical bias by the DNC during the primaries. In other words, she resigned because the DNC was not neutral during
the primaries, and colluded with Hillary to cheat Bernie;
4) Tulsi is very progressive, favoring single payer health care, student debt relief, the Green New Deal, etc.
For an establishment democrat, those policies are like garlic to a vampire.
"... it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies? ..."
"... It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave markets? ..."
"... Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason? ..."
Please refrain in using the term "democracy" so easily. US is a republic with the surface of
elected representative system, and we know exactly how that works. See the election of Truman
as VP instead of Wallace in 1944 or so or very recently the election of Hillary Clinton as
democratic representative.
A true democracy is done via a sortition system that selects randomly from the roster of
eligible citizens to represent the will of the people.
Imagine that in the Second Amendment instead of "A well regulated Militia, being necessary
to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed" we would have: "A well educated Citizenry, being necessary to the security and
well-being of a free, moral, and ethically sound State, the right of the people to get a
sound Education in Philosophy, Ethics, Civics, Logic, Finance, and Health, shall not be
infringed".
it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies?
It is China that is gleefully assisting the Saudi tyrants to commit genocide?
It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave
markets?
Is China now that is frantically threatening war on Iran?
Russia must have been responsible for supporting jihadists to turn Syria into another failed
state, right?
For that matter, is it Russia and China that are threatening war on the elected and UN
recognized government of Venezuela?
Seriously, after America's long and bloody track record of failed and bloody
interventions, it baffles me that anyone could say something so ridiculous.
" fearmongering about the "Yankee" empire to the north."
What, this isn't justified?
Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some
kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very
reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason?
"... foreign policy scarcely moves the needle in the US electorate at large so that won't necessarily help Trump nor hinder Bernie except on the outer fringes. Americans are tired of endless wars so the Demotards should generally be favoured on this issue whether or not warranted so long as they play their cards right. ..."
"... US Presidential elections definitely turn on the economy. A slowdown or recession before 11/2020 and Trump is toast. Also, the conversation has clearly moved left on economic inequality and healthcare. Bernie owns these issues and to the extent he can make his way through the primaries he will stand a great chance of unseating Trump. ..."
"... Warren does too but as you stated she is not telegenic nor peronable. Her .01% Native American schtick really hurt her credibility. That was a dumb move. ..."
"... Gabbard is certainly telegenic and hasn't been blackballed as much as she is simply not well-known. She's in the field at the moment. Her chances appear more real farther down the road so running now could be seen as a first step in the eventual process. I doubt Bernie will choose her as VP but who knows? ..."
Russiagate will scarcely matter to most voters by election time 2020. Trump has already
received whatever positives he will receive courtesy of Barr's whitewashing. It is clear
among
a majourity of Americans that Trump obstructed justice and the drip drip of continued
information, hearings, etc will not improve his standing. May not hurt him but definitely
will not help him gain voters at the margins.
Likewise, foreign policy scarcely moves the needle in the US electorate at large so that
won't necessarily help Trump nor hinder Bernie except on the outer fringes. Americans are
tired of endless wars so the Demotards should generally be favoured on this issue whether or
not warranted so long as they play their cards right.
Trump may gain an advantage among more conservative-tinged independent voters if he
continues to work in concert with Russia and Israel on Middle East issues in the sense that
many may see these alliances as promoting strength and peace (whether warranted or not). The
coming deal with China on trade will benefit Trump too...as long as the economy keeps humming
along.
US Presidential elections definitely turn on the economy. A slowdown or recession before
11/2020 and Trump is toast. Also, the conversation has clearly moved left on economic
inequality and healthcare. Bernie owns these issues and to the extent he can make his way
through the primaries he will stand a great chance of unseating Trump.
Warren does too but as you stated she is not telegenic nor peronable. Her .01% Native
American schtick really hurt her credibility. That was a dumb move. Are some of her problems
related to gender bias? Without a doubt. However, as I have long said, the first American
female president will not come from the baby boom. The first American female president will
more likely be a millenial.
Gabbard is certainly telegenic and hasn't been blackballed as
much as she is simply not well-known. She's in the field at the moment. Her chances appear
more real farther down the road so running now could be seen as a first step in the eventual
process. I doubt Bernie will choose her as VP but who knows?
Sanders will rally the FSA but that will go nowhere in general election.
Gabbard is serious person. The fact that DNC does approve is one of her strengths. Of
course Wasserman will attempt a Tanya Harding but Tulsi can take her.
I hope she would not team with Biden.
I thing two good women might be powerful:
Behold: Gabbard/Omar.
Sanders is already hip deep in the Deep State, and there is no denying it. In absolute
terms he is an unacceptable candidate . But then a person recalls a famous Winston
Churchill quote:
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
After stating the obvious fact Sanders just isn't much good, you have to ask, compared
to what?
This election cycle it looks as if the Palestinians will be screwed yet again. But I can
imagine that while Sanders will be extremely protective of the Holy Cesspool, he will stop
the practice of kissing Netanyahu's ass to the point of inflammation.
As you say, if we get President Sanders we'd better not also be presented with Vice
President Neocon. In that event I'd expect something or other to happen so as to suddenly
have President Neocon.
Sadly, I think b is caught in a mental framework, like many socialist-leaning Europeans,
that prevents him from thinking critically about Sanders.
All the more strange because everyone can see how Obama and Trump failed to live up to
their rhetoric, how powerful monied interests and the Deep State conduct "managed democracy"
and give us the illusion of democracy . Yet some cling to the notion that democracy
works! making it possible that a socialist hero can be elected.
Until democracy itself is made an issue (akin to the Yellow Vest protests) , we
will continue to be played.
Bernie Sanders may well have the best chance to beat Trump on domestic policies. But he is
no progressive on foreign policy issues.
He has gotten better on this recently but he doesn't have the strength left in him to
properly challenge the lobby, particularly being Jewish his extended family/social circle is
a weakness they'll attack like with Goldstone.
Presumably he calculated that the infamously spiteful man won't be in office come January
2021 and that he can join in the scape-goating of Netanyahu as the unique 'bad-man' whose
policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians and other neighbours wasn't highly popular and endorsed
by Israeli society and we can all forget about it when somebody more presentable takes over
despite engaging in the same policies.
Bernie Sanders has been around in Washington. He knows that his domestic plans are
unaffordable in the Red Scare climate which he's been pushing himself , since all
money will go to the Deep State and the Armies of Mordor. The evidence is he's OK with that.
Anyway, why spend time on this old geezer; he's already lost and in the time since
then, he's exposed himself as a phony and liar.
Z Smith isnt it crystal clear by now...Jack Rabbit is working...very hard it seems...for the
re-election of Donald Trump.
The germane question: why? Is he falling back on the "same ol same ol" purity of the 3rd
party gambit (the same one that has never worked throughout US history and surely has even
less chance of success than ever in 2020)?
Is he ignoring or even against the plain fact that Democrats are trending leftier, less
white and more female thanks in large part to so-called "sheepdog" Bernie's 2016 campaign and
"movement"? Bernie far from being a sheepdog in fact played his hand rather intelligently and
with self-discipline in 2016 rather than lashing out angrily at being fucked over by the
party apparatus and reacting in a manner of which JR would surely approve...such as self
marginalising himself into yet another in an endless string of 3rd party losers who are now
footnotes in history at best.
There
is evidence that Bernie voters stayed home or voted Trump in 2016 in those MW states with
the slimmest margins for Trump. So the evidence indicates more that he fucked Hillary instead
of being her sheepdog... and of course had she won Bernie would not be in the 2020 game,
Obamacare would be solidified with the insurance companies, hospitals, physicians and drug
companies, DLC centrist politics would rule the land and we would not be talking so loudly
today about taxing the rich or advcating Medicare for all.
In several key states -- Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan -- the number of Sanders to
Trump defectors were greater than Trump's margin of victory, according to new numbers
released Wednesday by UMass professor Brian Schaffner.
Does JR simply believe electoral politics is a totally failed bit? I can grok that and
agree...to a point. Problem is he offers exactly nothing as a defined alternative
except...more of the same...vote 3rd party (like in, yawn, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016) or join a
"movement".
think the doom and gloomers in here decrying Sanders/Gabbard chances as securing the nom are
not being very sensible.
There is no doubt in my mind that Sanders will be the nom. Whether he picks Gabbard or not
will be telling.
Gabbard, so far, has been the straight-up most respectable, classy, and well-spoken
candidate hitting the media circuit. Whispers abound about her legitimacy and should not be
discounted.
And they already denied Sanders once. That was their free pass and you only get one of
those. Ask the Syria-interventionists and they will say the same: "We already burned through
the pass in Iraq and Afghanistan. Otherwise, Assad would have been publicly strung up and
hung on MSNBC by now."
There will be hell to pay if they deny Sanders again.
But this is all contingent on the fact that you don't already think that TPTB are setting
the table specifically for Sanders because he is already an owned man.
Here we go again with the same ol' question for the office of POTUS: "WHO ARE YOU?"
As long as Hunter Biden is still a director
of Burisma Holdings (which includes at least one other unpleasant individual on
the Board of Directors), there is always a chance that elements within or connected to the
Ukrainian government (even under Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Presidency, when he has his back
turned on his fellow politicians), the previous Poroshenko government or Poroshenko himself,
and / or the Maidan Revolution - Crowdstrike, Dmitri Alperovich and Chalupa sisters, we're
looking at all of you - might try to derail any or all of the Democratic Party presidential
candidates in attempts to have Joe Biden declared the official Democrat presidential
contender in 2020. The only question is how openly brazen these people are going to be in
order to save their pet project in Kiev before Ukraine erupts in civil war (and it won't be
civil war in the Donbass area) and the entire country goes down in flames.
As for the rest of the 20 candidates, I would prefer Tulsi Gabbard out of the lot. In this
respect India's general elections, already under way, are going to be important. Gabbard
needs to let go of Narendra Modi and his Hindutva BJP party - her friendship with Modi and
his association with Hindutva are sure to come under scrutiny as will also any connections
she and her office staff have with
The Science of Identity Foundation organisation.
I donated to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign so there would be one anti-war candidate in the
Presidential debates. Having served in the first one, the restart of the Cold War is gut
wrenching. Today it is far more dangerous than 40 years ago. "Détente" is archaic,
Inequality in the West has reached the Gilded Age levels. The USA occupies East Syria even
though its regime change campaign failed. With the estrangement of Western Allies, trade wars
and economic sanctions against Russia and Iran, plus Joe Biden's trench war in Ukraine, the
slightest misstep and the global economy will crash. If a conflict breaks out with Russia or
China, the Trump Administration is too incompetent and arrogant to back down to avoid a
nuclear war. The 2020 election may well be the last chance to save the earth.
The accountability that is on offer in the upcoming election is to alter the structure of
the Democratic Party. The deck was stacked against the progressive challenge in the last
presidential election. Only a candidate who has genuine "fire-in-the-belly" has a chance to
beat Trump. Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Elizabeth Warren are the only ones I see who
are holding these credentials. I think you are wrong when you say that Sanders is finished
evolving, --and despite his age-- he is the most dynamic, among the older people Americans
seem to prefer to be president. It would do him some good and improve his chance of success,
if he chose for his running mate someone whose passion was equally sincere.
Political sour grapes and fatalism offer us no hope of coming through the next few years
intact.
Sanders is NOT anti-estblishment. He's just good at hiding his support for the establishment
so that he can be used as foil / sheepdog / spoiler.
"Enough with the emails" - Bernie refused to raise "character issues" about Hillary despite
the fact that she would face those same issues in the general election;
faux populist sell-out Obama campaigned for Bernie;
Bernie admitted that Hillary "a friend of 25 years" ;
Schumer refused to fund any Democratic Party candidate that would run against Sanders in
Vermont;
Sanders votes with the Democrats >95% of the time.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
We can debate the merits of each establishment stooge until we're blue in the face but
establishment plans for gaming the race are likely to have already made. It's be another good
show that millions of American's tune in to watch.
My best guess: gay Mayor Pete gets most of the primary media coverage which focuses on his
oh-so-sensible agenda, Obama-like likeability, and "historic" (did I mention that he's gay?)
run for the Presidency. But Pete and his running mate Biden fail to unseat Trump.
2024: Mayor Pete loses Democratic nomination to a women (Chelsea Clinton? she'll be 44)
and she wins the Presidency.
Unless, that is, Americans wake up and demand a real democracy.
'Bernie Sanders may well have the best chance to beat Trump on domestic policies. But he is
no progressive on foreign policy issues'
He campaigned against the Vietnam war before he got elected, he later opposed the Iraq
invasion, and recently led the Senate to oppose US involvement in Yemen. What is your
standard for calling him a progressive? Does he have to be to the Left of Noam Chomsky (who,
incidentally, says Sanders has the best policies out of any candidate)?
Those who cheer Sanders are ignoring both the hidden-in-plain-sight evidence for
"managed democracy" (e.g. duopoly, money-based electoral system; lapdog media; and Imperial
Deep State) and in-your-face lived history: Obama and Trump have both sweet-talked
their 'base' but ruled as servants of the establishment and a member of the Deep State.
What's needed for real change is a Movement that is outside duopoly politics. That is what
the establishment really fears. And that's why we are being pressed to get emotionally
engaged in this sh*t show 18-months before the election. Because they don't want people to
think of alternatives. You enslave yourselves.
Both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are clowns. They do not have a chance to win against Pres.
Trump, who will be the bankrupcy president. No one else would be able to handle it and the
oligarchs know it. Democracy ? It stopped being a joke.
As for the rest of the 20 candidates, I would prefer Tulsi Gabbard out of the lot. In this
respect India's general elections, already under way, are going to be important. Gabbard
needs to let go of Narendra Modi and his Hindutva BJP party - her friendship with Modi and
his association with Hindutva are sure to come under scrutiny as will also any connections
she and her office staff have with The Science of Identity Foundation organisation.
Posted by: Jen | Apr 25, 2019 7:22:22 PM | 55
I checked out Jen's link regarding the Science of Identity Foundation - it is a very
skillfully written Republican hit job, complete with multiple references to Gabbard's
"support for foreign dictators" Putin and Assad, to her criticism of US fake allegations of
Assad chemical attacks, to her alleged Islamaphobia for arguing that genuine muslims be
differentiated from islamic terrorists, and her criticism of Obama for not bombing ISIS and
al-Qaida. In Part 1 the ultirior motives are relatively well hidden, but the start coming
into view in Parts 2 and 3, especially in her answers to comments in Part 3.
Interesting quote from Part 2 about Gabbard's guru Butler: "His father, the late Dr.
Willis Butler, was well-known locally for his far-left political activism and his staunch
opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign regime change wars, which he considered
counterproductive. Dr. Butler was particularly concerned about U.S. funding of groups in
Central America that he viewed as terrorists. " - sounds like at least Butler's father
had his head screwed on the right way round. If that is the origin in part of Gabbard's
opposition to regime change wars and US funding of terrorists then that at least was a
positive influence (although implicitly painted as negative in the article!)
Having said that, the article raises a number of important questions and is in that
respect an eye opener - it's just that the misleading and tainted manner in which the article
is written is dangerous without verifying the information - classic fake news.
I agree with Jen about the dangers of her support for Modi. I can't help suspecting she
sees the US (far-right) Indian-American elite as an important source of political funding for
her seat, and that I see as problematic.
PAUL JAY Can I–Can I just intervene for just a sec? The problem here is both on
Venezuela and Iran the Democratic Party foreign policy establishment is on the same page as
Trump. Netanyahu is on the same page as Trump. The Saudis are on the same page as Trump. When
Trump throws this missile, missiles into Syria after the supposed gas attack, Chuck Schumer
says finally Trump's acting president -- is a president. The problem is is that as much as
these guys vilify and are dangerous -- these guys meaning the Democrats and that whole
establishment are dangerous on Russia-
STEPHEN COHEN I don't disagree.
PAUL JAY They'll converge with Trump on some very dangerous stuff in Iran.
STEPHEN COHEN I don't disagree. But that brings me to my final point, I guess, because we
are at the time we are in. We now have, I think, at last count 19 or 20 Democratic would be
contenders for the presidential nomination; 19 or 20. We need to ask ourselves which, if any,
of these people see these dangers clearly, and ask them. But I have a feeling that the
mainstream media will not ask them, because these are uncomfortable issues for them. I also
think that the one candidate who has embraced a position similar to my own, Tulsi Gabbard, was
immediately attacked by NBC, as you know. Scurrilously.
That it's a question of what kind of discussion–because according to our democracy
these existential issues that you and I have discussed are discussed during presidential
campaigns. This is when we clarify and make our choices. It seems to me this is unlikely to
happen, partly because the mainstream media doesn't permit voices like mine any longer. Though
they used to welcome me. I used to work for them. It would be interesting to see how they treat
Tulsi Gabbard, who's the closest to this kind of anxiety about the new Cold War with Russia,
has taken positions on this. There may be others, but I haven't–I haven't noted that.
We'll see how they're–if there's an attempt to suppress her view, or to give her a fair
time. Now, she'll have to do well in a primary somewhere to get that. But it's a little
discouraging that of 19 or 20 Democrats, only one thus far has spoken with some clarity about
this, what I consider to be the number one existential issue; the danger of war with
Russia.
If our leaders & media want to protect our elections, not just score political pts,
first & most important thing we must do is institute b/up paper ballots by passing my
Securing America's Elections Act so no one can manipulate our votes & hack our
elections
apenultimate on Sat, 04/20/2019 - 2:45pm Hello All,
First, in response to others saying Leftists should support Bernie unless they have an
adversity to winning elections, I propose a couple of thoughts. The first is this link showing
Jimmy Carter's status in the Democratic primary race through June of 1975--he's almost exactly
where Tulsi is right now in polling, and guess what? He won against the giants of his time.
At this point, my advice is to support who you think is best, not who someone tells you is
the only realistic choice.
Here is another factoid for the caucuses/primaries--candidates who do not get at least 15%
of the votes do not get any delegates. Think of the strategic ramificaitons of that for a few
minutes. Assuming Biden enters the race, many of the Harris, Booker, O'Rourke, Buttigieg level
of candidates do not poll above 15% in many (or any) states, but if they remain in the race, it
depresses Biden's results. There are a lot of potential various outcomes there depending on how
things play out, and Tulsi staying in the race is not a major factor at this point.
In the past week, Tusli has made 8 stops in Iowa and 4 stops (including 1 today) in New
Hampshire on the campaign trail. Good to see her get out and stumping in the early states.
Some very good media things going on. Tulsi was on FOX News with Brett Baier, and she
handled it really well. As he tried to talk over her and twist her words, she essentially just
talked over him:
Finally, Tulsi will be on Jimmy Dore today (if she has not been already). Look for that
interview on YouTube in the upcoming week.
In two recent national polls--Emerson and Morning Consult--Tulsi is polling at 1%. This is
important as a second potential placement for the televised Democratic debates (needing to poll
at 1% or greater in at least 3 national or early primary state polls). If there end up being
more than 20 candidates with 65,000 unique donors or polling at least 1% in 3 polls, they will
allow only candidates that met both criteria. Tulsi seems to be there at this point--including
the 2 national polls above, and getting 2% in the last Nevada poll.
"... Much like Brexit, an antiwar/anit interventionist in the USA has nowhere to go. Both parties have substantial hawkish wings. Any move to peace/antiintervention by the party in power is immediately attacked by the party out of power. MSDNC is practically howling for war with Russia. ..."
"... Of course Trump wants to take the war side. Saudi wants war. Israel wants war. Nothing else counts. ..."
"... Tulsi won't surrender. But she obviously won't win the nomination either. ..."
"... Trump may have said 'no more wars' but he never acted on it. So, someone else came along and picked up the discarded slogan. It's not stealing ..."
"... I wish Tulsi could get more traction. I voted trump believing his anti war statements. Hate his veto of Yemen resolution ..."
"... don't underestimate the perpetual war power's grip on the Democrat party. Pro war liberals like the NYtimes aren't going away in fact they are getting louder. ..."
"... It is remarkable that neither Buchanan nor Khanna would ever consider the necessity to impeach Presidents like Bush, Obama, and Trump for their unconstitutional and criminal acts of aggressive war – or the responsibility of The People to replace the Congress of incumbents with representatives that have not already repeatedly and persistently broken their oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution. ..."
"... Instead, Buchanan delivers yet another installment of the Incompetence Dodge: if only the Czar wasn't a sociopathic criminal! If only he listened to us, his loyal supporters! ..."
"... Sanders never "stole" anything, Buchanan. What you're (slowly, dimly) realizing is that your boy Trump never cared a speck for a more sane, less bellicose U.S. foreign policy. ..."
"... I will never understand why Trump cultists ever believed he did. A clown who's big complaint about the Iraq war is that "we didn't take the oil" is an unlikely peace advocate. But to be a member of the Trump cult you have to engage in massive psychological projection, daily. ..."
"The president has said that he does not want to see
this country involved in endless wars . I agree with that," Bernie Sanders told the Fox News
audience at Monday's town hall meeting in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Then, turning and staring straight into the camera, Bernie added: "Mister President, tonight
you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia
should not be determining the military or foreign policy of this country." Sanders was talking about a War Powers Act resolution that would have ended U.S. involvement
in the five-year civil war in Yemen that has created one of the great humanitarian crises of
our time, with thousands of dead children amidst an epidemic of cholera and a famine.
Supported by a united Democratic Party on the Hill, and an anti-interventionist faction of
the GOP led by Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed
both houses of Congress. But 24 hours after Sanders urged him to sign it, Trump, heeding the hawks in his Cabinet and
National Security Council, vetoed S.J.Res.7, calling it a "dangerous attempt to weaken my
constitutional authorities." With sufficient Republican votes in both houses to sustain Trump's veto, that should have
been the end of the matter.
It is not: Trump may have just ceded the peace issue in 2020 to the Democrats. If Sanders
emerges as the nominee, we will have an election with a Democrat running on the "no-more-wars"
theme Trump touted in 2016. And Trump will be left defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and
civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Does Trump really want to go into 2020 as a war party president? Does he want to go into 2020 with Democrats denouncing "Trump's endless wars" in the Middle
East? Because that is where he is headed.
In 2008, John McCain, leading hawk in the Senate, was routed by a left-wing first-term
senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who had won his nomination by defeating the more hawkish
Hillary Clinton, who had voted to authorize the war in Iraq. In 2012, the Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who was far more hawkish than Obama on Russia,
lost. Yet in 2016, Trump ran as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war and an
anti-interventionist who wanted to get along with Russia's Vladimir Putin and get out of these
Middle East wars. Looking closely at the front-running candidates for the Democratic nomination of 2020 -- Joe
Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker --
not one appears to be as hawkish as Trump has become. Trump pulled us out of the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by Secretary of State John
Kerry and reimposed severe sanctions.
He declared Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, to which
Tehran has responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist organization. Ominously, the
IRGC and its trained Shiite militias in Iraq are in close proximity to U.S. troops.
Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the
consulate that dealt with Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to the Palestinians, recognized
Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967, and gone silent on Bibi
Netanyahu's threat to annex Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Sanders, however, though he stands by Israel, is supporting a two-state solution and
castigating the "right-wing" Netanyahu regime. Trump has talked of pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yet the
troops are still there. Though Trump came into office promising to get along with the Russians, he sent Javelin
anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced a pullout from Ronald Reagan's 1987 INF treaty that
outlawed all land-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles. When Putin provocatively sent 100 Russian troops to Venezuela -- ostensibly to repair the
S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged in recent blackouts -- Trump,
drawing a red line, ordered the Russians to "get out."
Biden is expected to announce next week. If the stands he takes on Russia, China, Israel,
and the Middle East are more hawkish than the rest of the field, he will be challenged by the
left wing of his party and by Sanders, who voted "no" on the Iraq war that Biden supported. The center of gravity of U.S. politics is shifting towards the Trump position of 2016. And
the anti-interventionist wing of the GOP is growing. And when added to the anti-interventionist and anti-war wing of the Democratic Party on the
Hill, together, they are able, as on the Yemen War Powers resolution, to produce a new
bipartisan majority.
Prediction: by the primaries of 2020, foreign policy will be front and center, and the
Democratic Party will have captured the "no more wars" political high ground that candidate
Donald Trump occupied in 2016.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan
and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at
www.creators.com.
By the way, Pat, do you know that Jimmy Carter did NOT get the US into any war, nor any
"intervention"? Have you showed him any appretiation for it? Or it was a time when you were
all for it as long as it was against Commies?
Prediction: by the primaries of 2020, foreign policy will be front and center, and the Democratic Party will have
captured the "no more wars" political high ground that candidate Donald Trump occupied in 2016.
Agree. But don't worry. On the second ballot, the super delegates will override the
obvious preference of voters for a "no more wars" candidate and give it to Biden. Who will
lose.
Much like Brexit, an antiwar/anit interventionist in the USA has nowhere to go. Both parties
have substantial hawkish wings. Any move to peace/antiintervention by the party in power is
immediately attacked by the party out of power. MSDNC is practically howling for war with
Russia.
No one to blame but himself. The anti-Russia insanity made it hard for him to stick to that
part of his program, but there is a lot more he could have done, starting by not surrounding
himself with war-mongering idiots like Pompeo and Bolton.
I mean, can we actually be honest here? The Neocons simply do not see Sanders as a genuine
threat. He has an unfair advantage. He can, for instance, criticize American foreign policy
without being accused of anti-semitism.
Those who wish Trump had maintained a more maverick
stance of foreign policy should ask themselves if they supported him energetically enough.
He's a survivor first and foremost. If you aren't working to offer him a legit life
preserver, this is all on you.
>>When Putin provocatively sent 100 Russian troops to Venezuela<<<
And this is why Trump is going to win on the 'national security' issue. As long as U.S.
troops don't actually fight and die in foreign countries the voters love U.S. 'being tough
with its enemies'.
As long as Trump confines his actions to tormenting 3rd world countries, like Venezuela,
Cuba, Nicaragua, Syria, and Yemen with sanctions and military assistance to other
belligerents any opposition will be portrayed as 'hating or apologizing for America the force
for good'.
Being objective, what is more provocative, sending a small number of specialists to
prevent cyber sabotage for the standing govt, or trying to install a new President, seizing
their assets and preventing their oil trade. We are the bullies and the day when we finally
squander our wealth we will find out that we have no friends despite being an alleged force
for good.
I thought that we determined a long time ago that taking something out of another persons
trash can was not stealing.
Trump may have said 'no more wars' but he never acted on it. So, someone else came along
and picked up the discarded slogan. It's not stealing
I wish Tulsi could get more traction. I voted trump believing his anti war statements. Hate
his veto of Yemen resolution. I still defend trump from unfair attacks but am not a supporter
any more.
Pat – good analysis. But don't underestimate the perpetual war power's grip on the
Democrat party. Pro war liberals like the NYtimes aren't going away in fact they are getting
louder.
Adriana "By the way, Pat, do you know that Jimmy Carter did NOT get the US into any war, nor
any 'intervention'? Have you showed him any appretiation [sic] for it? Or it was a time when
you were all for it as long as it was against Commies?"
No, but he did initiate funding for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan BEFORE the Soviet
"invasion," specifically to incite the Soviets to invade and get caught in their own Vietnam
War-like quagmire. President Carter succeeded in that effort, but the world has suffered the
unintended consequences of US funding for jihadist militants ever since.
Oh, and the Carter Administration also continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge as the
"legitimate" government of Cambodia after the Vietnamese Stalinists drove them from power in
1978. I'm sure this was partly done with Cold War calculations in mind – US ally
Communist China was an enemy to both the Soviet Union and its Vietnamese client state, and
the Khmer Rouge were clients of China – but I do not doubt that sticking it to the
Vietnamese who had so recently embarrassed the US played a part in that policy decision,
too.
The Reagan Administration maintained both policies, by the way, by continuing to fund the
Mujahideen and to uphold the fiction that the Khmer Rouge was still Cambodia's legitimate
government (kind of like the fiction that Juan Guaidó is Venezuela's "legitimate"
president).
You are right, if I had just more energetically supported Trump he wouldn't be giving Israel
and Saudi Arabia everything they want and trying to start a war with Iran. That poor guy.
Would just saying nice things about him have been enough or should I have completely drank
the koolade, MAGA hat and all?
Regarding Pat's argument as usual there is some truth here, but he keeps acting like this
is a complete surprise and that Trump has "become" a hawk. Yes some of the campaign promises
mentioned are accurate but he was talking about blowing up Iranian ships and tearing up the
nuclear agreement on the campaign trail. He was never an anti-war candidate, he was just
anti-whatever the previous presidents did candidate. Besides one statement about being
even-handed there was every indication he was going to be at least as reflexively pro-Israel
as any previous president and unsurprisingly he is more. Paul was the only
anti-interventionist candidate and anyone who thinks otherwise was either willfully ignorant
or not paying attention.
It is remarkable that Buchanan considers Trump's veto to be constitutional, but then, so
does Khanna. It is remarkable that neither Buchanan nor Khanna would ever consider the
necessity to impeach Presidents like Bush, Obama, and Trump for their unconstitutional and
criminal acts of aggressive war – or the responsibility of The People to replace the
Congress of incumbents with representatives that have not already repeatedly and persistently
broken their oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Instead, Buchanan delivers yet another installment of the Incompetence Dodge: if only the
Czar wasn't a sociopathic criminal! If only he listened to us, his loyal supporters!
It is difficult to decide which kind of unprincipled opportunist is worse – the kind
that successfully profits from Trump, like McConnell, or the kind that hopes in vain for
their paleolithic cause to benefit.
Besides breaking his "no more wars" campaign promises, Trump has not built a wall, jailed
Hillary, capped the deficit, re-instated Glass-Steagall, overturned Obamacare, controlled the
cost of prescription drugs, de-funded Planned Parenthood,
nor pushed legislation for the infrastructure of the country. The potential "peace president"
in 2016 is nothing more than another "perpetual war president".
Sanders never "stole" anything, Buchanan. What you're (slowly, dimly) realizing is that your
boy Trump never cared a speck for a more sane, less bellicose U.S. foreign policy.
I will never understand why Trump cultists ever believed he did. A clown who's big
complaint about the Iraq war is that "we didn't take the oil" is an unlikely peace advocate.
But to be a member of the Trump cult you have to engage in massive psychological projection,
daily.
Of course in Buchanan's case there's another excuse: He's been so dazzled by Trump's
relentless bigotry that everything else, every lie, every cheat, is simply a second- or
third-tier concern, something to explain away. How many pathetic exercises in blame-shifting
has The American Con published under Buchanan's byline since 2016? And all signs are that
they'll keep right on with it until the happy day when Trump is finally gone.
"People get into a lot of conversations about political strategies I might get in trouble for saying this, but what does
it matter if we beat Donald Trump, if we end up with someone who will perpetuate the very same crony capitalist policies, corporate
policies, and waging more of these costly wars?"
And just to drive home this point, quote:
"This is not a joke. This is not about me. This about all of us. This is about our future. About making sure we have
one."
Tulsi did get in to trouble. A day after the video posted on Twitter, it had been deleted by Twitter without explanation
Mark Dierking , April 18, 2019 at 15:53
Thanks to you any everyone that has responded for the thoughtful comments. If you are able to edit yours, a more accessible
link for the Safari browser is:
"People get into a lot of conversations about political strategies I might get in trouble
for saying this, but what does it matter if we beat Donald Trump, if we end up with someone
who will perpetuate the very same crony capitalist policies, corporate policies, and waging
more of these costly wars?"
And just to drive home this point, quote:
"This is not a joke. This is not about me. This about all of us. This is about our future.
About making sure we have one."
Tulsi did get in to trouble. A day after the video posted on Twitter, it had been deleted
by Twitter without explanation
Trump betrayed anti-war republicans. As the result he lost any support of anti-war
Republicans. That can't be revered as he proved to be a marionette of Israel lobby. How that will
influence outcome of 2020 elections remains to be seen.
"The president has said that he does not want to see this country involved in endless wars .
I agree with that," Bernie Sanders told the Fox News audience at Monday's town hall meeting in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Then, turning and staring straight into the camera, Bernie added: "Mister President, tonight
you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia
should not be determining the military or foreign policy of this country."
Sanders was talking about a War Powers Act resolution that would have ended U.S. involvement
in the five-year civil war in Yemen that has created one of the great humanitarian crises of
our time, with thousands of dead children amidst an epidemic of cholera and a famine.
Supported by a united Democratic Party on the Hill, and an anti-interventionist faction of
the GOP led by Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed
both houses of Congress.
But 24 hours after Sanders urged him to sign it, Trump, heeding the hawks in his Cabinet and
National Security Council, vetoed S.J.Res.7, calling it a "dangerous attempt to weaken my
constitutional authorities."
With sufficient Republican votes in both houses to sustain Trump's veto, that should have
been the end of the matter.
It is not: Trump may have just ceded the peace issue in 2020 to the Democrats. If Sanders
emerges as the nominee, we will have an election with a Democrat running on the "no-more-wars"
theme Trump touted in 2016. And Trump will be left defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and
civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
Does Trump really want to go into 2020 as a war party president? Does he want to go into
2020 with Democrats denouncing "Trump's endless wars" in the Middle East? Because that is where
he is headed.
In 2008, John McCain, leading hawk in the Senate, was routed by a left-wing first-term
senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who had won his nomination by defeating the more hawkish
Hillary Clinton, who had voted to authorize the war in Iraq.
In 2012, the Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who was far more hawkish than Obama on Russia,
lost.
Yet in 2016, Trump ran as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war and
an anti-interventionist who wanted to get along with Russia's Vladimir Putin and get out of
these Middle East wars.
Looking closely at the front-running candidates for the Democratic nomination of 2020 -- Joe
Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker --
not one appears to be as hawkish as Trump has become.
Trump pulled us out of the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by Secretary of State John
Kerry and re-imposed severe sanctions.
He declared Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, to which
Tehran has responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist organization. Ominously, the
IRGC and its trained Shiite militias in Iraq are in close proximity to U.S. troops.
Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the
consulate that dealt with Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to the Palestinians, recognized
Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967, and gone silent on Bibi
Netanyahu's threat to annex Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Sanders, however, though he stands by Israel, is supporting a two-state solution and
castigating the "right-wing" Netanyahu regime.
Trump has talked of pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yet the
troops are still there.
Though Trump came into office promising to get along with the Russians, he sent Javelin
anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced a pullout from Ronald Reagan's 1987 INF treaty that
outlawed all land-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
When Putin provocatively sent 100 Russian troops to Venezuela -- ostensibly to repair the
S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged in recent blackouts -- Trump,
drawing a red line, ordered the Russians to "get out."
Biden is expected to announce next week. If the stands he takes on Russia, China, Israel,
and the Middle East are more hawkish than the rest of the field, he will be challenged by the
left wing of his party and by Sanders, who voted "no" on the Iraq war that Biden supported.
The center of gravity of U.S. politics is shifting towards the Trump position of 2016. And
the anti-interventionist wing of the GOP is growing.
And when added to the anti-interventionist and anti-war wing of the Democratic Party on the
Hill, together, they are able, as on the Yemen War Powers resolution, to produce a new
bipartisan majority.
Prediction: by the primaries of 2020, foreign policy will be front and center, and the
Democratic Party will have captured the "no more wars" political high ground that candidate
Donald Trump occupied in 2016.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and
read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at
www.creators.com.
Money quote (from comments): This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with
Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling
pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.
Notable quotes:
"... As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials: ..."
"... After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do. ..."
"... Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies ..."
"... There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors. ..."
"... Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him. ..."
"... Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support. ..."
"... I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?! ..."
"... Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. ..."
"... The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it. ..."
"... I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel. ..."
"... To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye. ..."
"... Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation. ..."
"... All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into. ..."
As usual, Trump
made the announcement
of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials:
President Donald Trump's tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own
Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials.
U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week's meetings
between Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential
announcement this week.
No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump's decision, and the diplomats
responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark.
Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump's message.
After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone
that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably
sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do.
Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies and dealing
with the international fallout, and that is probably why so many of his policy decisions end up being exceptionally poor ones. The
substance of most of Trump's foreign policy decisions was never likely to be good, but the lack of an organized policy process on
major decisions makes those decisions even more haphazard and chaotic than they would otherwise be.
There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical
political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at
shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors.
Whatever short-term benefit Israel gains from it, the U.S. gains nothing and stands to lose quite a bit in terms of our international
standing.
There has been no consideration of the costs and problems this will create for the U.S. in its relations with other regional states
and beyond because Trump couldn't care less about the long-term effects that his decisions have on the country.
Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the
United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders
flatter and praise him.
Trump's bad decision can be traced back to Bolton's visit to Israel earlier this year:
Administration officials said that National Security Advisor John Bolton was instrumental to the decision, after visiting Israel
in January to assure officials there that the United States would not abandon them in Syria despite Trump's sudden withdrawal
of troops from the battlefield.
Nervous Israeli officials saw an opportunity. "It was an ask," one Israeli source said, "because of the timing -- it suddenly
became a relevant issue about Iran."
Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful
influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the
Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange
for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support.
Well, of course Trump puts America last. There is one and only one person he is interested in -- himself. As you say this is his
narcissistic personality at work.
My never ending question is always, "Why does any Republican with a conscience remain silent? Are they really all this shallow
and self absorbed? Is there nothing Trump does that will finally force them to put country before party and their own ambition?"
It's a really sad state of events that has put this country on the road to ruin.
Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. Straightening out all this stupidity will take
years. Here's hoping that Trump gets to watch his foreign policy decisions tossed out and reversed from federal prison.
The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders
of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it.
The administration says that a Russian missile violates the treaty but it will not tell us what the range of the missile is.
Nor will it allow its weapons inspectors to go and look at it.
The reason is clear: Fear that the weapons inspectors' findings would contradict the administration's claims.
I voted Republican ever since I started voting. I voted for Bush I, Dole, Dubya, and McCain. I couldn't vote for either Obama
or Romney, but I voted for Trump because of Hillary Clinton.
I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats,
for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks
to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm
bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain
sight with Israel.
To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite
so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off,
a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend.
Europoliticians tell that last one a lot. "We really don't want to but the Americans twisted our arms ZOMG Special Relationship
so sorry ZOMG!" Only with a lot more Eurobureaucratese.
I agree with the article's premise, but not because of this move regarding Israel.
Personally, I believe this move will have little impact on the outcome of the crisis in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the
other Arab monarchies are too focused on containing Iran and Turkey to give a crap about what Israel does. The only Arab states
that I can see objecting to this move are Syria (obviously) and the others who were already allied with Iran and/or Turkey to
begin with.
Right now, the REAL center of attention in the region should be Northern Syria. THAT's where the next major war likely will
begin. In that area, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are the ones doing the major escalations,
while Israel has virtually no role at all aside from sideline cheer-leading. And of course, Trump is doing nothing to stop what
could become the next July Crisis. What's "America First" about that?
Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war
with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye.
There is no way our international reputation will come out of this war unscathed, and odds are we'll be in a far worse position
diplomatically than we were at any point in our history, even during the Iraq war. When that happens, the American people will
be out to assign blame. Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism,
and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation.
All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused
on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either,
because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the
Middle East into.
@Thomm
That's so true that it's almost incredible, Andrew Anglin of the daily stormer has been
campaigning for Tulsi Gabbard & Andrew Yang for well over a month
He could be said to be instrumental in putting Yang on the democratic primaries and
possibly Tulsi as well all the while using his weaponized memes against Trump!! I'm in
disbelief.
Gabbard: Assange arrest is a threat to journalists
By Rachel Frazin – 04/11/19 06:10 PM EDT
Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) condemned the arrest of
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday, calling the arrest a threat to
journalists.
"The arrest of #JulianAssange is meant to send a message to all Americans and
journalists: be quiet, behave, toe the line. Or you will pay the price," Gabbard
tweeted.
The Democrat's remark came hours after police in London arrested Assange, citing charges
he is facing in the U.S.
Assange is accused of conspiring to hack into computers in connection with WikiLeaks's
release of classified documents from former Army private and intelligence analyst Chelsea
Manning.
span y apenultimate on Wed, 04/10/2019 - 7:09pm She did it, an hour ago!
Tulsi Gabbard now has enough individual donors to make it into the televised Democratic
debates! Thanks to those of you who helped, either by becoming a donor, or in spirit!
President Trump campaigned against regime change wars when he ran for President, but now he
bows to the wishes of the neocons who surround him, clamoring for the regime change wars that
he claimed to oppose--this time in Venezuela and Iran.
These powerful politicians dishonor the sacrifices made by every one of my brothers and
sisters in uniform, their families - as they are the ones who pay the price for these wars.
In fact, every American pays the price for these wars that have cost us trillions of dollars
since 9/11.
Every dollar that we spend on regime change wars or on the new cold war and this nuclear
arms race is a dollar coming out of our pockets dollars that should be used to address the very
real, urgent needs of our people and our communities right here at home.
Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia want to drag the United States into war with Iran, and Trump is
submitting to their wishes. The cost in money and lives will be catastrophic.
Tulsi is a really great polemist with a very sharp mind and ability to find weak points in the opponent platform/argumentation
and withstand pressure. In the debate she will probably will wipe the floor with Trump. IMHO he stands no chances against her in the
open debate
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is for socialism when it comes to taxpayers underwriting military contractors and arms manufacturers. The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country's infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity. ..."
"... While the paper hailed the fact that the Pentagon's budget increase allowed local workers to keep their jobs and encouraged a skilled workforce to move to a small town in rural Ohio, Gabbard apparently hinted that the whole story in fact described what amounted to re-distribution of money from taxpayers to a de-facto depressed area to save some jobs – a social-democratic if not outright socialist move indeed. ..."
"... In her post, Gabbard also added that the US might have had a better use for a $160 billion boost in defense spending over two years. “The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country’s infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity,” she wrote. ..."
US President Donald Trump, who has been relentlessly bashing everything linked to what he sees as 'socialism,' is himself no stranger
to using socialist principles to support the US arms industry, Tulsi Gabbard has claimed. One could hardly suspect Trump of being
a socialist in disguise.
After all, the US president has emerged as one of the most ardent critics of the leftist ideological platform.
Just recently, he announced he would "go into the war with some socialists," while apparently referring to his political opponents
from the Democratic Party.
But the president also seems to be quite keen on borrowing some socialist ideas when it fits his agenda, at least, according to
the congresswoman from Hawaii and Democratic presidential candidate, Tulsi Gabbard, who recently wrote in a tweet that "Trump
is for socialism when it comes to taxpayers underwriting military contractors and arms manufacturers."
Trump is for socialism when it comes to taxpayers underwriting military contractors and arms manufacturers. The same money
would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country's infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity.https://t.co/tcNqsNQVbN
She was referring to a
piece in The Los Angeles Times, which cheerfully reported that Trump's whopping military budget helps to breathe some new life
into a Pentagon-owned tank manufacturing plant somewhere in northwestern Ohio that was once on the verge of a shutdown.
While the paper hailed the fact that the Pentagon's budget increase allowed local workers to keep their jobs and encouraged a
skilled workforce to move to a small town in rural Ohio, Gabbard apparently hinted that the whole story in fact described what amounted
to re-distribution of money from taxpayers to a de-facto depressed area to save some jobs – a social-democratic if not outright socialist
move indeed.
It is very much unclear if Trump had this Ohio plant or any other factories like it in mind when he supported the record Pentagon
budget. After all, redistributing large sums of public money in favor of the booming US military industrial complex does not look
very much like socialism.
In her post, Gabbard also added that the US might have had a better use for a $160 billion
boost in defense
spending over two years. “The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country’s infrastructure and green economy,
and it would be better for humanity,” she wrote.
Trump, meanwhile, seems to be pretty confident that his policies indeed “make America great again” while it is those
pesky socialists that threaten to ruin everything he has achieved. “I love the idea of 'Keep America Great' because you know
what it says is we've made it great now we're going to keep it great because the socialists will destroy it,” he told an audience
of Republican congress members this week, while talking about the forthcoming presidential campaign.
"... Tulsi didn't join in the standing ovation for NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg during his warmongering speech to the US Congress on Weds. Good for her. ..."
"... Tracey has allowed Tulsi to explain the nuances of her foreign policy stands concerning regime change, war, and fighting terrorism. I do not believe any other interviewer has been able to bring out those distinctions. ..."
"... I hope people will take the time to listen to Tracey's interview. It is posted on YouTube, but it is an audio interview only. Tracey does a nice introduction to both parts of the interview which was conducted over two days. ..."
The Tulsi2020 campaign continues to gain unique donors, closing in on the
magic number. As of tonight, Tulsi has 61,029 of them, and needs only 3,971 more to get into the Democratic debates. That's only
97 new donors per day through May 14.
Tulsi didn't join in the standing ovation for NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg during his warmongering speech to the US Congress
on Weds. Good for her.
with Tulsi Gabbard so far. Tracey has allowed Tulsi to explain the nuances of her foreign policy stands concerning regime change,
war, and fighting terrorism. I do not believe any other interviewer has been able to bring out those distinctions.
I hope people will take the time to listen to Tracey's interview. It is posted on YouTube, but it is an audio interview only.
Tracey does a nice introduction to both parts of the interview which was conducted over two days.
RobinG
says: April 2, 2019
at 11:35 pm GMT 100 Words @Cloak And
Dagger What do they say about Tulsi? Please note in this interview when Cenk asks her
directly if she opposes the Occupation, she says Yes! A true Zio supporter (as some here have
accused her!) would object to even using the word. And she addresses the Adelson question. On
the conflict, her answer is pretty pablum, but probably as far as she can go strategically.
Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her. IMO it's
a very good interview. Can you picture for a moment, Tulsi in a debate with Trump? What are her
boosters doing to prepare her for that? She's handling all the animosity with equanimity, and
she'll arrive at the final contest battle-hardened.
Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her.
It is a good interview and she handles herself very well and her positions are well
articulated. I remain wary of her, however, but I will keep an open mind and watch her in the
months ahead to see where her funding comes from.
@JR ssaid:
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its
Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia",
"Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an
"realist" and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize
too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".
Except that Germany did not send Germans into the conquered territories during WWII,
though they wanted to do so.
I think Trump completely discredited himself in foreign policy due to appointment of Bush II team of neocon which drive it.
So the only chance for him to win is if US voters do not care about foreign policy. Demagogy will not work like in 2016 as
he now have a dismal record including attempt in regime change in Venezuela.
Notable quotes:
"... the vast majority of Americans don't give a hoot about issues of war, peace, and international diplomacy. Why should they care? It's not as though anything is asked of them as citizens. By cynically ditching the draft, Tricky Dick Nixon took the wind out of the sails of current and future antiwar movements, and permanently cleaved a gap between the U.S. people and their military ..."
"... Mothers no longer lose sleep over their teenage sons serving their country and they – along with the rest of the family – quit caring about foreign policy. Such it is, and so it will be, that the 2020 presidential election is likely to be decided by "kitchen-table" affairs like healthcare, immigration, race, and taxes. ..."
"... In 2016, he (correctly) made Hillary"regime change" Clinton out to be the true hawk in the race. Trump, on the other hand, combined tough guy bravado (he'd "bomb the shit" out of ISIS) with earthy good sense (there'd be no more "stupid" Iraq invasions. And it worked. ..."
"... Mark my words: if the DNC – which apparently picks the party's candidates – backs a conventional neoliberal foreign policy nominee, Trump will wipe the floor with him or her. ..."
"... If they want to stand a chance in 2020, the Dems had better back a nominee with a clear, alternative progressive foreign policy or get one the domestic-focused candidates up to speed and fast. ..."
"... So here's how my mental math works: a progressive candidate needs to win over libertarian-minded Republicans and Independents (think Rand Paul-types) by force of their commonsense alternative to Trump's foreign policy. ..."
"... Still, there's more than a little reason for concern . Look at how "Nasty" Nancy Pelosi and the establishment Dems came down on Ilhan Omar for that representative's essentially accurate tweets criticizing the Israel Lobby. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard, though she still looks the long shot, remains intriguing given here genuine antiwar (and combat veteran) credentials. ..."
"... Then again, even Bernie has his foreign affairs flaws – such as reflexively denouncing the BDS movement and occasionally calling for regime change in Syria. Nevertheless, both Bernie and Tulsi demonstrate that there's some promise for fresh opposition foreign policy. ..."
The 2020 election will not turn on global issues – and more's the pity. After all, thanks to decades upon decades of accumulating
executive power in an increasingly
imperial presidency,
it is in foreign affairs that the commander-in-chief possesses near dictatorial power. Conversely, in domestic policy, a hostile
Congress can – just ask Barry Obama – effectively block most of a president's agenda.
Still, the vast majority of Americans don't give a hoot about issues of war, peace, and international diplomacy. Why should
they care? It's not as though anything is asked of them as citizens. By cynically
ditching the
draft, Tricky Dick Nixon took the wind out of the sails of current and future antiwar movements, and permanently cleaved a gap between
the U.S. people and their military.
Mothers no longer lose sleep over their teenage sons serving their country and they – along with the rest of the family –
quit caring about foreign policy. Such it is, and so it will be, that the 2020 presidential election is likely to be decided by "kitchen-table"
affairs like healthcare, immigration, race, and taxes.
Be that as it may, serious observers should pay plenty of attention to international strategy.
First, because the occupant of the Oval Office makes policy almost unilaterally – including the decision of whether or not
to end the human race with America's suicidal nuclear button.
Second, because 2020 is likely to be another close contest, turning on the votes of a few hundred thousand swing state voters.
As such, Trump's opponent will need to win every vote on every issue – including foreign affairs. What's more, there are still
some folks who genuinely care about a potential commander-in-chief's international bonafides.
So, while Dems can't win the White House with foreign policy alone, they can lose it by ignoring these issues or – oh so typically
– presenting a muddled overseas strategy.
This is serious.
Just in case there are any out there still underestimating Trump – I, for one, predict he'll win in 2020 – make no mistake, he's
no pushover on foreign policy. Sure he doesn't know much – but neither does the average voter. Nonetheless, Trump is no dope. He's
got the pulse of (white) voters across this country and senses that the populace is tired of spending blood and cash (but mostly
its cash) on Mideast forever wars. In 2016, he (correctly) made Hillary"regime change" Clinton out to be the true hawk in the
race. Trump, on the other hand, combined tough guy bravado (he'd
"bomb the shit"
out of ISIS) with earthy good sense (there'd be no more
"stupid" Iraq invasions. And it worked.
So, with 2020 in mind, whether you're a progressive, a libertarian, or just a Trump-hater, its vital that the opposition (most
likely the Dems) nominate a candidate who can hang with Trump in foreign affairs.
Mark my words: if the DNC – which apparently
picks the party's
candidates – backs a conventional neoliberal foreign policy nominee, Trump will wipe the floor with him or her. And, if the
Dems national security platform reads like a jumbled, jargon-filled sheet full of boring (like it usually does) than Joe the proverbial
plumber is going to back The Donald.
That's what has me worried. As one candidate after another enters an already crowded field, this author is left wondering whether
any of them are commander-in-chief material. So far I see a huge crew (Liz, Kirsten, Kamala, Beto) that live and die by domestic
policy; two potentially conventional foreign policy guys (Biden and Booker); and two other wildcards (Bernie and Tulsi). That's not
a comprehensive list, but you get the point. If they want to stand a chance in 2020, the Dems had better back a nominee with
a clear, alternative progressive foreign policy or get one the domestic-focused candidates up to speed and fast.
So here's how my mental math works: a progressive candidate needs to win over libertarian-minded Republicans and Independents
(think Rand Paul-types) by force of their commonsense alternative to Trump's foreign policy. That means getting the troops out
of the Mideast, pulling the plug from other mindless interventions and cutting runaway defense spending. Then, and only then, can
the two sides begin arguing about what to do with the resultant cash surplus. That's an argument for another day, sure, but here
and now our imaginary Democratic (or Third Party?) nominee needs to end the wars and curtail the excesses of empire. I know many
libertarians – some still nominally Republican – who could get behind that agenda pretty quickly!
Still, there's more than a little reason for concern . Look at how "Nasty" Nancy Pelosi and the establishment Dems came
down on Ilhan
Omar for that representative's essentially accurate tweets criticizing the Israel Lobby. Then there's Joe Biden. Look, he's
definitely running. He's also definitely been wrong time and again on foreign policy – like how he was
for the
Iraq War before he was against it (how'd that turn out for John Kerry in 2004?). And, for all the talk of a progressive "blue wave"
in the party ranks, Biden still polls as the
top choice for
Democratic primary voters. Yikes.
Behind him, thankfully, is old Bernie – who sometimes shows potential in foreign affairs – the only candidate who has both
backed Omar and
been consistent in a career of generally antiwar votes. Still, Bernie won his household name with domestic policy one-liners – trashing
Wall Street and pushing populist economic tropes. Whether he can transform into a more balanced candidate, one that can confidently
compose and deliver a strong alternative foreign policy remains to be seen.
Tulsi Gabbard, though she still looks the long shot, remains intriguing given here genuine antiwar (and combat veteran) credentials.
Still, she'll have her hands full overcoming
problematic skeletons
in her own closet: ties to Indian Hindu nationalists, opposition to the Iran deal, and sometime backing of authoritarians and Islamophobes.
Then again, even Bernie has his foreign affairs
flaws
– such as reflexively denouncing the BDS movement and occasionally calling for regime change in Syria. Nevertheless, both Bernie
and Tulsi demonstrate that there's some promise for fresh opposition foreign policy.
Here's (some) of what that would look like:
speedily withdraw all U.S. troops from the (at least)
seven shooting wars
in the Greater Middle East;
choke off excessive arms deals and expensive military handouts to Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other frenemies;
quit bombing or
enabling
the bombing of impoverished civilians in places like Yemen and Gaza; begin dismantling America's
"empire
of bases" overseas;
seek firm détente rather than conflict with Russia and China;
and cut defense and war-related spending down to size.
Our imaginary candidate would need to convey this commonsense course to a war-weary American people as plainly and coherently
as Trump can. No jargon, no Clintonian wonky crap – simple and to the point. Imagine it: a commonsense course for a clear-eyed country!
Less war and more investment at home. Less war and more middle-class tax cuts. Whatever. That fight will come and the progressives
and independents/libertarians will fight it out. For now, though, what's essential is checking the war machine and military-industrial
behemoth before its too late (it may be already!).
None of this will be easy or likely, of course. But count on this much: the establishment Democrats, media-mogul "left," and centrist
DC think tanks won't save us from the imperial monster or deliver a Trump-defeating strategy in foreign affairs. The Mueller-will-save-us,
Mattis-was-a-hero, reflexively anti-Trump, born-again
hawks like Rachel Maddow and the other disappointing chumps at MSNBC or CNN aren't on our side. Worse yet, they're born losers
when it comes to delivering elections.
All of this may be far-fetched, but is not impossible. Neither libertarians nor progressives can countenance Trump. Nor should
they. One of their only true hopes for compromise rest on foreign policy and a genuine antiwar message. It can be done.
Look, on a personal note, even America's beloved and over-adulated soldiers are reachable on this issue – that's how you know
the foreign policy alliance has potential! For every rah-rah war-fever cheerleader in uniform, there's an exhausted foot soldier
on his Nth tour in the Mideast. There's also a huge chunk (
40%! ) who are racial minorities – usually a reliably anti-Trump demographic. Finally, among the white men and women in uniform
I've personally met a solid core of libertarians. And the
data backs up my anecdotal observation – Ron Paul was highly popular among active-duty military members and their families. A
progressive foreign policy alliance with the libertarian wing of Republicans and Independents would sell better with these such voters
both in and out of uniform. You know the type: sick of war but just as sick of stereotypical liberal snowflakes.
So here's a plea to the "opposition" such at it is: avoid the usual mistakes – don't cede foreign affairs to the Trump and the
Republicans; don't nominate anyone remotely resembling Joe Biden; don't alienate libertarians and independents with wonky or muddled
international policy.
Try something new. Like winning
* * *
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and regular contributor to antiwar.com
. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point.
He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,
Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers,
Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet
.
Donald Trump's unorthodox US presidential transition continued on Monday when he held talks with one of the most prominent supporters
of leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders.
The president-elect's first meeting of the day at Trump Tower in New York was with Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic maverick who endorsed
the socialist Sanders during his unsuccessful primary battle with Hillary Clinton.
... ... ...
At first glance Gabbard, who is from Hawaii and is the first Hindu member of the US Congress, seems an unlikely counsellor. She
resigned from the Democratic National Committee to back Vermont senator Sanders and formally nominated him for president at the party
convention in July, crediting him with starting a "movement of love and compassion", although by then Clinton's victory was certain.
But the Iraq war veteran has also expressed views that might appeal to Trump, criticising Obama, condemning interventionist wars
in Iraq and Libya and taking a hard line on immigration. In 2014, she called for a rollback of the visa waiver programme for Britain
and other European countries with what she called "Islamic extremist" populations.
In October last year she tweeted: "Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won't bomb them in Syria. Putin did.
#neverforget911." She was then among 47 Democrats who joined Republicans to pass a bill mandating a stronger screening process for
refugees from Iraq and Syria coming to the US.
This should be the end of the
Democratic party. This dismal state of affairs is their fault, from the content of the leaked emails to their handling of it.
They have had choices on the way to clean up their act but, they have blankly refused at every juncture. Not one thing has
changed since the emails revealed that the DNC rigs its primaries, and yet here we are in the middle of another fake primary
with everyone going along with it like it's a real thing. It's weird. In a healthy democratic republic the party would be dead
already, and a new one would've taken its place fueled by fresh energy and enthusiasm but the donor-class corruption is so
deeply entrenched that that possibility has seemed like a fantasy.
Gregory Herr , March 27, 2019 at 19:30
As an old-fashioned labor-lefty who used to call himself a Democrat, I'd say the
alienation continues unabated.
No illusions about who and what the party represents. Bad enough at home, but shit, they also
drop bombs like no tomorrow and spout lines from Langley and Likud like the back of their
hand.
As an armchair goof playing early guessing games, I'd say Sanders will pull at least the
weight he did last time as the uninspiring field of corporatists will split Hillary's wing
and the wild card Gabbard may draw support widely.
SteveK9 , March 28, 2019 at 10:03
Lifelong Democrat here that saw the writing on the wall, one year into Obama's first term (gave up on MSM during the runup
to the Iraq invasion). Although, I could hardly have imagined how low the Democratic leadership would sink with Russia-gate.
Gabbard is inspiring, but they are already starting to wear her down. I can't see anyone winning against imperial propaganda
at this point, but I will support her as much as I can.
Gregory Herr , March 28, 2019 at 18:40
I'm sending a small donation to help her get into the Dem debates.
"... Unfortunately, in every way that matters, RussiaGate has been a complete success. ..."
"... Though Trump says he is a Nationalist, his every move in foreign policy shows him to be toeing the line for the interests of the PNACers, and whenever he bucks their interests, he has shown that he can be brought to heel as long as they don't trample his ego. ..."
"... Tell them how utterly abhorrent and degenerate this war of terrorism against the Syrian people has been... ..."
"... I think there will be a major smear campaign against Bernie and Tulsi. Wikileaks has shown that the DNC had plans to smear Bernie as an atheist in 2016, among other things ..."
"... They will say that Socialism will bankrupt the Nation, and if we don't keep bombing everyone the "terrorists" will win. Divide and conquer is the game plan. ..."
"... They have retained the superdelegates for the second ballot, and they are running so many candidates that they are purposely aiming for a second ballot, where the oligarchs will once again decide for the people. ..."
"... Next step for the MSM propaganda machine? Probably assisting the CIA in whipping up war fever against Venezuela. ..."
"... They've pounded "Putin evil!" into the heads of their party fanatics long enough that shouting "Putin plus Maduro!" at them will have the most ardent Democrat voter screaming to massacre all of Caracas. ..."
I posted this on Medium when this article first came out.
Unfortunately, in every way that matters, RussiaGate has been a complete success. When
Donald Trump said "wouldn't it be great to get along with Russia" RussiaGate was born. The
thought of detente was his cardinal sin. That possibility has been completely demolished.
The
MIC and its trillions of wasted dollars are safe. The Evil Empire's Forever War continues
unabated, and even has new horizons in places such as Iran and Venezuela. Nuclear
brinksmanship keeps the R&D money flowing to Lockheed Martin and the other death dealers.
Though Trump says he is a Nationalist, his every move in foreign policy shows him to be
toeing the line for the interests of the PNACers, and whenever he bucks their interests, he
has shown that he can be brought to heel as long as they don't trample his ego.
The DNC/RNC theater will go on, and the MSM will seek to ensure that our choice for 2020
will be corporate sponsored warmonger from column A or B.
... ... ...
The young people of today spend more time on the internet than they do watching network
television, and 42 percent of registered voters didn't bother to cast a ballot in 2016.
Therein lies our hope.
Gregory Herr , March 26, 2019 at 20:30
The time is ripe for leaving the Democrats, Skip. I think Tulsi should take your advice.
But I've a funny feeling she'll throw the support she builds to Bernie towards a VP slot on
the ticket.
Tulsi Gabbard is saying things fairly directly that Americans aren't used to hearing from
their politicians. I love hearing it. But I have to say I'm bothered by her handling of the
"Assad question". She could simply relate some of her experience in Syria, including her time
with Assad. She could, in point of fact, refer to Assad as the President of Syria.
She could
say that Syria's culture and political system are their own and that we would all do better
to seek understanding of that culture before we set about trying to destroy it by arming
terrorists.
She did say the CIA armed terrorists in Syria, didn't she? Come on Tulsi. Just part of the
truth isn't enough truth. Tell them they ought to go to Syria themselves. Tell them the
reporters aren't doing their jobs.
Tell them how utterly abhorrent and degenerate this war of terrorism against the Syrian
people has been...
Skip Scott , March 28, 2019 at 08:13
I think there will be a major smear campaign against Bernie and Tulsi. Wikileaks has shown
that the DNC had plans to smear Bernie as an atheist in 2016, among other things. They have
Bob Parry's "Mighty Wurlitzer" and a vast toolkit.
They will say that the progressives are
splintering the party, and that getting rid of Trump is all that matters, so you need to hold
you nose and choose warmonger from column B.
They will say that Socialism will bankrupt the
Nation, and if we don't keep bombing everyone the "terrorists" will win. Divide and conquer
is the game plan.
They have retained the superdelegates for the second ballot, and they are
running so many candidates that they are purposely aiming for a second ballot, where the
oligarchs will once again decide for the people.
That's why a real progressive needs to split
from the Dems in a dramatic fashion , go third party, and shoot for the 15% to make the
debates. In the end, that's the only venue that matters.
AelfredRex , March 26, 2019 at 06:31
Next step for the MSM propaganda machine? Probably assisting the CIA in whipping up war
fever against Venezuela.
They've pounded "Putin evil!" into the heads of their party fanatics
long enough that shouting "Putin plus Maduro!" at them will have the most ardent Democrat
voter screaming to massacre all of Caracas.
Zhu , March 26, 2019 at 01:44
US elections are like those in the Roman Empire: prestigious but meaningless.
Zhu , March 26, 2019 at 01:47
America. We are definitely a genocidal nation. In all ways we are to blame for your own
problems.
King of Faustian bargain of a US politician. Bernie showed his colors in the 2016 primaries. He can't be trusted...
What Bernie is doing is eliminating chances for Tulsi...
Notable quotes:
"... Thank you Jimi, for calling out even Bernie when he buys the corporate bullshit ..."
"... Seriously, if you still support this clown, you are part of the problem. ..."
"... There's nothing progressive about silence, tepidness, or even support for destructive policies abroad by the same forces -- & for the same interests -- that we claim to oppose at home. ..."
"... this is the bargain Bernie made to run as a Democrat ..."
"... Bernie lost credibility when he endorsed Hilary in 2016... Tulsi is the one for 2020... ..."
Aaron Maté tweets -- Do we need a new category for progressives whose progressive values stop at the US border?
There's nothing progressive about silence, tepidness, or even support for destructive policies abroad by the same forces --
& for the same interests -- that we claim to oppose at home.
Bernie lost credibility when he endorsed Hilary in 2016... Tulsi is the one for 2020...
pandastratton. 23 hours ago
Donate to Tulsi to get her on the debate stage!!!!
Dionysos, 19 hours ago
Jimmy I know Tulsi is the best candidate in terms of foreign policy, but Bernie is our only chance at getting a real progressive
in the White House!
People are suffering economically and that is the issue where the vast majority of support lies. If stuff like this splits
the progressive support and allows someone like Kamala to win in the primaries, things will get really bad.
Robert Rowland23 hours ago
Jimmy (God love ya), the Military Industrial Complex is the single most gut-wrenchingly ruthless, most awesome entity on the
planet. It has the ability to kill pretty much anyone they want without repercussion. No domestic political movement, even one
that holds the Whitehouse, is capable of bringing them down or even reining them in. They will eventually meet their demise through
bad management in combination with a series of misfortunes resulting in defeat in all-out global war. Until then, and while we
as a nation are still able, the best we common folks can hope for is this juggernaut (the true boss) to give us some measure of
these desperately needed social reforms. In other words, Bernie is just being realistic.
Meanwhile, Tulsi, The Real Deal Gabbard (God bless her soul), if successful, will be on a course to join the ranks of JFK,
RFK, and MLK.
Our much-vaunted democracy is a sham and our freedom isn't actually what it is represented as being. May I suggest you watch this
video and view it as a metaphor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8Rj5xkDPk
I am a former Trump supporter, hardcore Trump supporter but I got off the Trump train 2
years ago after he bombed Syria. I got fooled once but I will not be fooled a second time.
This country needs a real leader with real sincerity with a real heart for the American
people and that's Tulsi Gabbard!!!
The main stream media and pollsters are ignoring Tulsi. That means she is doing a lot
better than they are letting on. They will not be able to ignore her forever.
i love tulsi. something ive noticed a lot is her bipartisan support. both sensible
thoughtful republicans and sensible thoughtful democrats (yes they both exist) seem to be for
her. either way her anti war stance is something that i hope gets more coverage and people
see through the blantant mainstream media smear attempts. whether you vote for her or not,
it's refreshing and compelling to hear an iraq veteran take a strong stance against endless
regime change war.
Thanks for your thoughtful analysis. I agree that Tulsi would indeed be THE most
formidable opponent against "The Donald". She offers the greatest contrast to him and in
that, gives the electorate a clear defined choice. As a woman with a multi-cultural and
strong religious upbringing, a Gen Xer and a veteran, she has all the qualities that "The
Donald" lacks. In addition, her life long commitment to public service, as well as her
well-defined policy platform, puts the icing on the cake as the best "Anti-Donald"
candidate.
Some Democrats have been taking a lot of heat at town halls because they refuse to get
behind a 'Medicare For All' system. And it's not just that they're getting booed; their
constituents are literally calling for them to retire. Dianne Feinstein has been one of the
recipients of this outrage. Tulsi Gabbard, however, had overwhelming support from enthusiastic
constituents at her town hall because she actually pledged to support a 'Medicare For All'
system. In this segment, we juxtapose Feinstein's town halls with Gabbard's to illustrate
EXACTLY how you talk with your constituents about healthcare.
************************
The Humanist Report (THR) is a progressive political podcast that discusses and analyzes
current news events and pressing political issues. Our analyses are guided by humanism and
political progressivism. Each news story we cover is supplemented with thought-provoking,
fact-based commentary that aims for the highest level of objectivity.
Is Medicare "government take over of health care"? Hell no. People on Medicare visit the
doctor of their choice, and the doctors are private entrepreneurs - unlike the doctors in the
VA, they aren't paid a salary by the govt. Time to retire, Dianne!
Ecuador is a small country without the resources we have. They have single payer system.
In this country my medication, Xeralto, costs $300 a month. In Ecuador the cost is $90 a
month. I practiced medicine in Canada for two years. It is the way to go. It is less
expensive and provides better care.
Watching this old fartbag talk and STILL have a seat in the senate really boils my blood,
I can't watch this without my blood pressure rising which I'd get checked out if Medicare for
all was a thing lol
Tulsi will be the Bernie of the 2020 election. The problem is, the same corrupt sellouts
are still in control of the DNC. So unless something changes she will be shut down in favour
of people like Corey Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff.
I'm happy to say that my rep, Tim Ryan, was an early co-sponsor of HR676 and is a real
blue color progressive. However, I'm still calling and emailing others. Don't stop at your
own rep, folks. Please contact as many corporate dems as you have time for and let them know
that their job is on the line. The pressure must be turned up to 100!
Great 31 min presentation on Tulsi. Outstanding analysis of Tulsi as a candidate. Bravo
!!!
The idea the contrast between Trump and Tulsi will help Tulsi looks plausible. Trump is dumb,
corrupt, very rich and old chickenhawk. There can't be greater contract. She is almost 100%
opposite of Donald Trump.
In additional picking up voters disappointed with Trump she also will pick up large fraction
of voters that voted for Hillary.
The complication is the Bernie Sanders also runs and will attacks the same category of
voters.
True left was always anti-war, so Tulsi is the natural candidate of "true left"
In this video, I argue that Tulsi Gabbard could potentially make a very strong run in 2020
and that everyone who tries to dismiss her is vastly underestimating her potential.
Tulsi is my first choice, by a mile, for all the reasons you've mentioned. The #1
liability she has, only because of the fact that half of the American populace are ignorant
intolerant lunkheads, is her faith. She's a Hindu (which easily translates as being a Krishna
devotee.)
Only one correction. Assad isn't a dictator, he's been elected president of Syria in
democratic elections. And if you want to argue that the elections in Syria are rigged or that
the opposition candidates don't get impartial coverage in the press Well then I'd say that's
the same case of the USA and many other democracies around the world!
Tulsi Gabbard stands alone, she should form an independent party by asking the people to
donate to her cause. Bernie Sanders is a deferential failed candidate that is too worried
about the democratic party than winning for the people. It is too late to reform the 2
parties in charge since they are part of the cancer created by the Kakistocracy. Eventually
the masses will wake up, unfortunately they are in a catatonic state allowing the current
situation.
Surprised you didn't mention her religion: Hinduism. The left doesn't care, but you
mentioned that the right will have a hard time hitting her on traditional stuff... I think
that's wrong in one instance, religion. If she gets the nomination, the right wing
establishment will absolutely hit her on her religion, no question. I think you shoulda
mentioned that in your analysis.
I think your analysis is outstanding, many thanks! I haven't yet watched your other videos
but it's my intention. I agree with you almost 100% about Tulsi but am not yet convinced
Trump will be defeatable in 2020. I've been watching a lot of coverage from the conservative
right and he is way more popular than people on the left understand.
Michael Tracey (@mtracey) interviewed Democratic presidential candidate and Hawaii
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) in New Hampshire on March 23 and 24, 2019. They
discussed topics ranging from the farce of the Trump/Russia saga, her views on identity
politics, her religious background, her relationship with Bernie Sanders, and much more.
She is a real gifted politician. The question was very tricky. "Will you be able to pledge to
return any continuation of people who also donated to AIPAC"
Tulsi needs around 20000 more donors to be eligible for the Democratic debates. Please
donate a dollar to her campaign and tell your friends and family to do the same!
She will be dragged through so much mud by the establishment in the coming days, we saw a
glimpse of it in Colbert show, her training will help her a lot though
Rod, you just gained this subscriber excellent pointing this out! Once again Tulsi is
demonstrating she is on the right side of history and will even stand up to AIPEC like ilhan
Omar did sure would be nice to see Bernie make a similar stand!
Donate to Tulsi Gabbard campaign to help her get into the debates by donating to
tulsi2020.com you can donate more than once and they'll each count as a unique donation
even $1 at a time
AIPAC is a foreign terrorist organization that needs to be outlawed and any American that
takes their bribe money to do their bidding should be arrested for treason.
The more I hear Tulsi Gabbard speak the more I want her to win, and I am Irish living in
Dublin,
Ireland.You can tell by the reaction of the people there, what it means to them not to
have foreign government dictate their foreign policy
Trump is just looking for s big war, I think he reallys believe America can't be touched.
Meaning what he did with the golden Heights. Like really that's so wrong and you did it in
the open like it's not a bad thing. He's pissing off many countries and Russia is one of
them. Putin isn't happy ab the golden height thing.
Is there a website that list where candidates stand as far as the numbers they have and in
what states? I find it hard to believe that Tulsi hasn't reached the number yet, while other
less known candidates who entered after her have already blown past the needed 65K mark. If
this is something that is kept hidden, who's to know if more lying and cheating is going
on?
Tulsi Gabbard on AIPAC: "Our opportunity is to challenge leaders to see where we stand and
the policies we are pushing forward; and the kinds of debates and discussions we need to have
about our foreign policy and where our tax-payer dollars are going." My understanding: FP =
The US position on Israel 's policy vis a vis settlements and military entanglements.
Tax-Payer $$ = The money spent by the government in supporting the above.
This is, in my opinion, a very sane way to open the door to a healthy discussion about
such an important issue which up to now has been lopsided towards the Establishment's
position with little opportunity for the people to have a say in the matter.
The Daily Kos has made it their personal mission to make sure Tulsi has no success - or so
they said in an email just a couple of days after she announced. However, that didn't stop one
of the "Kosters" from putting out a more objective poll on Kos's website. 20k people voted in
this poll, and the results bode well for Tulsi.
Amazing level of polemic and diplomatic skills. That's really high class my fiends. Rare for
any US politician: most are suckers that can answer only prepared questions. MSNBC presstitutes
should be ashamed, but they have not shame. amasing !!!
In this segment, we look at Tulsi's savvy and brutally honest rebuttal when the Morning
Show hosts allege that "Russia" is looking to help Tulsi when the 2020 Democratic Primary
election
How it can be that there not 50K anti war people in the whole USA? Or they are waiting for something ? I do not know
what is the deadline, I do not understand why she still did not got 50K donations to bring her to debate. .
Tulsi needs about 20000 more unique donors to get to the debate stage! Tell your friends
and family to donate a dollar at
tulsi2020.com ! Even if she isn't their preferred candidate, they might still appreciate
a strong anti-interventionist voice on the debate stage!
A calm, thoughtful, anti-war progressive voice that we need to hear in the coming debates.
Please make a donation or buy something at
Tulsi2020.com She needs another 20,000 contributors to meet the DNC
requirement.
"... It gives a formal US stamp of approval to Israel's violation of international law, and, in particular of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. Roughly 20,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied Golan Heights today – now with the unambiguous backing of the US government. ..."
"... Jared Kusher's family is so close Netanyahu that the prime minister once slept in Kushner's childhood bedroom . Between the Trump administration's personnel and rightward lurch in Israeli politics, the pieces that would make the current one-state reality permanent are rapidly falling into place. ..."
No country in the world recognizes Israel's rule over the Golan Heights, occupied by
Israel in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981 – no country,
that is, until now.
Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation on Monday formally recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, still
considered Syrian territory under international law. Standing by President Trump's side during an address by the two heads of state
in Washington DC, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly called Trump's decision "
historic justice " and gifted the president a box of wine from the occupied territory. As they embraced, Israeli forces began
an aerial bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip after rockets launched from Gaza hit a house in a community north of Tel Aviv earlier
that day.
Trump's announcement is unmistakably an election-time favor for Netanyahu. Saddled with multiple corruption charges, including
one for bribery, Netanyahu and his Likud party have been flagging in the polls. Likud increasingly appears threatened by the center-right
Blue and White party, jointly headed by the taciturn retired general Benny Gantz and former TV personality Yair Lapid. Netanyahu's
desperation can be measured by the extremity of his rhetoric. He and his surrogates have spent the past several weeks waging a hateful,
vicious campaign, accusing the Arab political parties of supporting terrorism and explicitly warning that a Gantz and Lapid victory
would lead to dead Israelis.
Many in Israel, however, view Netanyahu, despite his flaws, as a talented statesman and skilled advocate for the country's interests
on the international stage, and Netanyahu has campaigned on achievements such as normalizing relations with the Gulf states and the
US embassy's move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Golan Heights declaration – which initially took even the secretary of state, Mike
Pompeo, who was in Israel at the time, by surprise – is likely meant to bolster this image.
Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights marks the total capture of US policymaking in the Middle East by pro-Israel right
But Trump's Golan Heights proclamation is not just a cynical political gambit. It is a dramatic change in US policy in the Middle
East that could have serious consequences. Trump, unlike his predecessors, has never even pretended to abide by international norms
and conventions. And yet the decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over territory that the international community nearly unanimously
considers occupied, or at the very least disputed, is unprecedented.
It gives a formal US stamp of approval to Israel's violation of international law, and, in particular of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. Roughly 20,000 Israeli settlers
live in the occupied Golan Heights today – now with the unambiguous backing of the US government.
This potentially paves the way for Israel's annexation, in part or whole, of the West Bank. It has long been a talking
point on the Israeli hard right that, despite the international community's protestations, there would be few consequences for extending
Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank . Trump's declaration,
it seems, has not only proven them right, but given them an added boost: unlike during the Obama years, they can be confident that
the global hegemon will take their side.
If Netanyahu's Likud wins enough seats on 9 April to form a government, it is very like that annexation, at the very least, will
be on the table for discussion. The Likud's central committee unanimously voted in 2017 in favor of annexing the West Bank. Naftali
Bennett, co-chair of the New Right party, has proposed a plan to annex parts of Area C of the West Bank. And the other rightwing
parties – the extremist Union of Parties of the Right and Moshe Feiglin's Identity party, both of which would almost certainly sit
in a future Likud government – have only more extreme proposals for dealing with "the Palestinian question", including the forced
transfer of Palestinians out of the West Bank and into Jordan.
Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights marks the total capture of US policymaking in the Middle East by pro-Israel right. US
ambassador to Israel David Friedman is an opponent of the two-state solution who previously operated the charitable arm of
a rightwing orthodox religious seminary in the West Bank settlement of Beit El. Jared Kusher's family is so close Netanyahu
that the prime minister once slept
in Kushner's childhood bedroom . Between the Trump administration's personnel and rightward lurch in Israeli politics, the pieces
that would make the current one-state reality permanent are rapidly falling into place.
It is important to remember this in light of the glitz and pablum of the AIPAC policy conference taking place this week in Washington
DC, where the PR hacks and policy flacks are working hard to launder Israel's image, to obscure the fact that there is one sovereign
state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that determines the lives of roughly 13 million people; that of those 13
million, only half – Israeli Jews – have full citizenship and social rights; and that the other half, the Palestinians, live under
a range of discriminatory systems, from codified discrimination but legal citizenship within Israel, to residency without the right
to vote in East Jerusalem, to military dictatorship in the West Bank.
Donald Trump , his administration, the pro-Israel lobby,
and Netanyahu all intend to keep it that way.
Joshua Leifer is an associate editor at Dissent. Previously, he worked at +972 Magazine and was based in Jerusalem
Tulsi Gabbard is less than 20K individual donations away from getting on the debate stage!
Help her get there by donating just $1 to her campaign!
Tulsi Gabbard 5:21 PM - 22 Mar 2019
Thank you! So far we have 44,255 unique donors of the 65,000 needed to get on the debate
stage! Almost 4,000 people contributed in the last 2 days. I'm humbled by your support. Stay
tuned for updates! pic.twitter.com/UOd5Ky39vf
U.S. out of Iraq. U.S. out of Syria. U.S. out of Afghanistan. U.S. out of South Korea.
U.S. out of Okinawa. U.S. out of Germany. U.S. out of Saudi Arabia. U.S. out of Cameroon.
U.S. out of Djibouti. U.S. out of Qatar. U.S. out of Niger.
Tulsi Gabbard Verified account @ TulsiGabbard Mar 17
For decades, Space has been a model of cooperation between global superpowers. But such
cooperation is the latest victim of the new Cold War. Trump/Neocon efforts to start a space
war/arms race will lead to destruction of our country and planet. #Tulsi2020
Tulsi Gabbard Verified account @ TulsiGabbard Mar 17
For decades, Space has been a model of cooperation between global superpowers. But such
cooperation is the latest victim of the new Cold War. Trump/Neocon efforts to start a space
war/arms race will lead to destruction of our country and planet. #Tulsi2020
Another example of Trump and Netanyahu putting their own political interests ahead of the
interests of our respective countries. Will escalate tensions and likelihood of war between
Israel/US/Syria/Iran/Russia. Shortsighted. https:// twitter.com/nytimes/status /1108783266075684865
Omani 1:12 PM - 21 Mar 2019
How long will this continue to go on? They must be stopped. #Tulsi2020
"So you ask what I will change? I will change our priorities so we stop wasting trillions
of our dollars on wasteful counterproductive wars and dedicate them to taking care of the
urgent needs of our communities across this country." #ServiceBeforeSelf#PeaceDvidend
Tulsi Gabbard 7:44 AM - 20 Mar 2019
"I'm not running for president to BE president. I'm running for president to be able to
bring about this sea change in our foreign policy that is so necessary for us and for the
world, and I'm most qualified to do that." #ServiceBeforeSelf#Tulsi2020pic.twitter.com/wk2M7O0CgR
This article was written 4 years ago, but the problem with Putin successor remains. Putin is a unique politician and his replacement
might be much weaker, causing troubles for Russia. This is not new problem for Russia, but this time it will be especially
acute. BTW this comment thread looks like "who is who" list for NATObots.
Notable quotes:
"... We could all use a real leader like Putin who takes no b.s. from anybody and is quick to adapt to any situation in a calm assertive way. He earns our admiration every day, the way he steers across an ever changing minefield and not because of his mucho image. We do not need leaders who deceit people by spewing relentless propaganda and no clarity. They fail as individuals and as a group because they are spineless. If multiple people repeat the same lie it does not make it true. It must be a club membership requirement to play the politics game and keep quiet about wrong things you see. ..."
"... Action man outwitting the Neocons in the international chess game. More surprises to come ..."
"... Karl Rove said "Empire creates its own reality". No wonder the mantra "Assad must go" is now enshrined in international politics by the Neocon alliance. They didnt figure on Putin obviously. ..."
"... It happens regardless, take the example in Volgograd (Vauxhall) two years ago. I am afraid that KSA and the Gulf States will be funding the usual mix of 'moderately terroristic shenanigans" in reprisal, but they did this before anyways. ..."
"... He making the US looked like whiny bitches. Good job; you alienate Russia and manage to strengthen the China-Russo relationrelationship. Sanctions that don't work, secret economic wars and multiple failed coup d'etat in Georgia and Ukraine [also do not work] ..."
"... Like US - Hospital - Afganistain. anyway ISIS are paid money by the CIA and don't care who they work for it's money that they are motivated by not ideology, that ideology stuff is made-up. Google it and dig, get yourself informed. ..."
"... Not quite sure why Mr Putin playing ice-hockey on his birthday is worthy of a story to open up for comments unless the Guardian is ' trawling ' to encourage some new anti-Putin Cold War rhetoric in the comments section. ..."
"... PS / Don't forget that nice Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu's birthday and how he celebrates it. Ensure you open it up for comment as I'm sure also that many will wish to voice an opinion. Will this now be a standard ' Birthday Feature ' for all world leaders in the Guardian, or has this newspaper just granted an exception for Mr Putin's birthday ? ..."
I wonder if everyone on the Guardian staff has the same "man crush" on Putin? Could explain all these obsessive articles. I
also wonder if he spent any time in the penalty box?
laticsfanfromeurope -> Extracrispy 7 Oct 2015 17:06
You prefer ISIS and Al-Nusra then the legitimate Syrian gov. and the legitimate help of Russia...not a surprise from stupid
western supporters!
pfox33 7 Oct 2015 17:05
There isn't one of our western politicians that wouldn't sell his fucking mother to be getting the attention that Putin's getting.
I thought he was supposed to be isolated.
So to keep the hockey thing going, Putin's stolen the puck in the neutral zone, split the Nato defensemen who were too far
forward and is on a breakaway.
I feel sorry for Obama because I think he's a good leader but when it comes to trying to maneuver in a geopolitical situation
like Syria he's fucked before he leaves the house. Putin can just act without trying to herd cats like Obama has to do with his
Nato minions. He doesn't have a bunch of recalcitrant GOP senators calling him everything but a white man and running their mouths
about what they would do.
... ... ...
filin led -> Braminski 7 Oct 2015 16:55
It's you who are a troll, sir. By what you say, anything can be dismissed as paid propaganda. That means, you are as likely
to be a paid agent yourself. So, if you can't come up with a constructive argument, stop commenting please.
Mordantdude -> Poppy757 7 Oct 2015 16:40
As Russians say: "Envy silently".
giacinto101 7 Oct 2015 15:59
We could all use a real leader like Putin who takes no b.s. from anybody and is quick to adapt to any situation in a calm
assertive way. He earns our admiration every day, the way he steers across an ever changing minefield and not because of his mucho
image. We do not need leaders who deceit people by spewing relentless propaganda and no clarity. They fail as individuals and
as a group because they are spineless. If multiple people repeat the same lie it does not make it true. It must be a club membership
requirement to play the politics game and keep quiet about wrong things you see.
SilkverBlogger 7 Oct 2015 15:54
Action man outwitting the Neocons in the international chess game. More surprises to come
CIAbot007 -> Poppy757 7 Oct 2015 15:39
Most of Aussies have a bit of common sense which says that you can't blame anyone before it is prooved. With Western MSM propaganda
machine blaming Russia and Putin even before anything happens you bet there's no such thing as balanced and unskewed reporting
and even will for any kind of such thing. Don't get fooled, use your brain or your brain will be used by someone else.
SilkverBlogger 7 Oct 2015 14:48
Karl Rove said "Empire creates its own reality". No wonder the mantra "Assad must go" is now enshrined in international
politics by the Neocon alliance. They didnt figure on Putin obviously.
PekkaRoivanen MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:30
In the West, we don't have a sycophantic press kissing the leader's backside:
Guardian: Barack Obama scores just 2 out of 22 basketball hoops - video
You wrote that Obama plays basketball and you prove it with this video where Obama wears dress shirt (tie removed :-D) and
scores badly.
Are you sure Obama plays basketball? Or is it just press kissing his backside?
Kev Kev Hektor Uranga 7 Oct 2015 14:28
the USA persecutes and kills people who speak out against it. Only difference is the USA does it in ways that nobody sees..
In other words the USA is the same as Russia only they do their work in the dark. When nobody is looking.
Abiesalba MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:26
That's the guy who is wishing Putin a happy birthday.
The US/UK duo have caused with their insane illegal wars more than a million deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and
counting.
I recommend you look up a little the complex history and present situation in Chechnya and the North Caucasus region.
ISIS (which the insanely aggressive US/UK duo have in effect created) is already spreading its influence INSIDE the Russian
Federation. So Putin has direct interests to defeat ISIS and stabilise Syria (and Iraq). In addition, the south of the Russian
Federation is on the map of territories which ISIS plans to conquer.
See for example:
-
8 ISIS supporters killed in N. Caucasus special op
(2 August 2015)
Russian security forces have foiled a terrorist group that recently pledged allegiance to ISIS in Ingushetia, in the Northern
Caucasus, according to the National Anti-Terror Committee (NAC). Security forces seized explosives, weapons and over 2,000 rounds
of ammunition.
-
How Russian Militants Declared A New ISIS 'State' In Russia's North Caucasus
(26 June 2015)
The Islamic State group announced the creation of its northernmost province this week, after accepting a formal pledge of allegiance
from former al Qaeda militants in the North Caucasus region of Russia.
-
-
It is true that at present, the Chechens are begging Putin to let them strike in Syria (and this is also closely linked to the
complicated history of North Caucasus), but Putin has not unleashed them. See for example here:
-
-
Kadyrov asks Putin to allow Chechen infantry to fight in Syria (RT, 2 October 2015)
-
The head of the Chechen Republic has asked the Russian president to send Chechen units to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)
in Syria, adding that his fighters have sworn to fight terrorists till the end.
"Being a Muslim, a Chechen and a Russian patriot I want to say that in 1999 when our republic was overrun with these devils
we swore on the Koran that we would fight them wherever they are," the Chechen leader said. "But we need the Commander-in-Chief's
decision to do this," he emphasized. According to the Russian Constitution, the president [Putin] is also the commander-in-chief
of the military forces.
BMWAlbert clanview46 7 Oct 2015 14:26
It happens regardless, take the example in Volgograd (Vauxhall) two years ago. I am afraid that KSA and the Gulf States
will be funding the usual mix of 'moderately terroristic shenanigans" in reprisal, but they did this before anyways.
Julian1972 MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:21
That was last year...also it was authored by a combination of the CIA and their right-wing 'Operation Stay Behind' cohorts...though,
if you don't know that by now you doubtless never will.
Abiesalba MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:16
Murderers, thieves and embezzlers stroking each other's egos.
Putin has a long way to go to match the US/UK.
-
-
Here is a recent report about 'collateral damage' compiled by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival
and the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War:
-
Body Count: Casualty Figures After 10 Years of the 'War on Terror' (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan)
(March 2015)
-
This investigation comes to the conclusion that the war has, directly or indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000
in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, i.e. a total of around 1.3 million.
NOT included in this figure are further war zones such as Yemen.
The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware of and propagated
by the media and major NGOs.
And this is only a conservative estimate. The total number of deaths in the three countries named above could also be in excess
of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely.
-
-
For more about civilian casualties due to the US-led coalition strikes in Syria and Iraq, see the Airwars website:
584 – 1,720 civilians killed:
To date, the international coalition has only conceded two "likely" deaths, from an event in early November 2014. It is also
presently investigating seven further incidents of concern; is carrying out credibility assessments on a further 13; and has concluded
three more investigations – having found no 'preponderance of evidence' to support civilian casualty claims.
More Power -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:13
He making the US looked like whiny bitches. Good job; you alienate Russia and manage to strengthen the China-Russo relationrelationship.
Sanctions that don't work, secret economic wars and multiple failed coup d'etat in Georgia and Ukraine [also do not work].
Just look at the World Bank, BRICS is on the door step. Happy birth day Putin. A badass mofo
blueskis -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:06
The vats majority of the 5500 killed have been civilians in East Ukraine killed by airstrikes ordered by kiev/washington, fully
justifying Russian intervention.
ooTToo -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:40
Like US - Hospital - Afganistain. anyway ISIS are paid money by the CIA and don't care who they work for it's money that
they are motivated by not ideology, that ideology stuff is made-up. Google it and dig, get yourself informed.
geedeesee -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:19
Russia is attacking what they said they'd attack, Tavernier. ISIS, al-Nusrah, and other terrorist organisations.
inconvenienttruth13 -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:18
No he isn't. Anybody with a functioning brain knows he had nothing to do with that. Unlike the US genocide in the Middle East
- over 2 million dead and counting - not to mention the deliberate and sustained attack on a hospital. Maybe you don' get to see
the news in your ward?
inconvenienttruth13 -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:13
The US created, funds, trains and arms ISIS - they are only supporting terrorists in their campaign to effect regime change.
Russia is responding to a request fro the Syrian government, so its actions are entirely legal. The faces that the USA and the
KSA are the biggest sponsors of terrorism in the world.
monteverdi1610 7 Oct 2015 12:22
Not quite sure why Mr Putin playing ice-hockey on his birthday is worthy of a story to open up for comments unless the
Guardian is ' trawling ' to encourage some new anti-Putin Cold War rhetoric in the comments section.
PS / Don't forget that nice Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu's birthday and how he celebrates it. Ensure you open it
up for comment as I'm sure also that many will wish to voice an opinion. Will this now be a standard ' Birthday Feature ' for
all world leaders in the Guardian, or has this newspaper just granted an exception for Mr Putin's birthday ?
Foreign policy is no longer controlled by the President of the USA. It is controlled by the Deep state.
This article is from 2015 but can easily be written about Trump administration
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, as Putin himself had proposed in his visionary October 2011 article, the Eurasian Union could have become one of the pillars of a huge harmonized economic area stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and based on the EU's single-market rules (acquis communautaire). ..."
"... First and foremost, because the self-proclaimed "exceptional" power (actually, a mere "outlying island" in the Atlantic, according to the founder of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder) and its dysfunctional "deep-state" officialdom did not want it to be. How could they have permitted such a thing? How could they have allowed other countries to get on with improving the lives of their citizens without being obliged to seek Washington's approval every step of the way? ..."
"... In order to make sure that they were not side-lined, the US elites had to intervene. The Western propaganda machine started churning out all sorts of nonsense that Putin is a new Hitler who is bent on restoring the Soviet empire and who is bullying Europe, while continuing to bang on about his "increasingly autocratic rule". ..."
"... Deadly attacks by chauvinistic proxies were launched on the Russophone people in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 and more recently in Ukraine. ..."
"... Stuck in an Orwellian nightmare, Europe has to demonstrate its unfailing loyalty to Big Brother and go along with the view that Russia, an intrinsic and valuable part of the European mainstream both historically and culturally, represents universal evil and that the Earth will not be safe until the Federation has been dismembered and Putinism wiped out once and for all. ..."
"... Having self-destructed in two world wars, it has become an easy and even willing prey to an arrogant, ignorant and power-drunk predator that has never experienced the hardships and horrors that Europe has. ..."
"... Even more terrifying, intellectually third-rate Washington viceroys such as Victoria Nuland and the freelancing armchair warrior Senator McCain are allowed to play God with our continent. ..."
"... Indeed, the damage extends beyond the economy. By aligning with the forces of chaos – such as chauvinistic extremists in Ukraine – Washington and its Euro-vassals are corrupting the moral (and intellectual) core of the West. ..."
"... 'My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: "Money, we give them money." "Foreign aid?" I asked. "No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale. We bought them. They report to us." Perhaps this explains Tony Blair's $50 million fortune one year out of office'. ..."
"... "We, the [CENSORED] people, control America and the Americans know it." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED] ..."
Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy... European
democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy
The avalanche of commentary since the Ukrainian crisis erupted a year ago has overshadowed any reflections on the immense forgone
benefits (technically speaking, the "opportunity cost") of what might have been if Washington had been working for peace and stability
instead of war and chaos.
Imagine the following: After the unraveling of the Communist bloc, Europe, in partnership with the US, had forged a new security
system in which Russia was treated as a valued and equal partner – one whose interests were respected. Russia, decimated by a century
of wars and Communist imperialism, would doubtless have eagerly reciprocated in kind. Most countries of the former Soviet Union would
have then proceeded to build a new Eurasian structure of which Russia would have served as the natural umbrella, given its long-standing
interaction with the region's diverse nations and cultures.
Indeed, as Putin himself had proposed in his visionary October 2011 article, the Eurasian Union could have become one of the
pillars of a huge harmonized economic area stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and based on the EU's single-market rules (acquis
communautaire).
The rising Far Eastern economic powerhouse, with the world's most populous country, China, at its centre, would have linked up
with the world's largest economy (the EU). An enormous Eurasian production and financial bloc would have been created – one that
drew primarily on secure supplies of Russian energy and other natural resources. Untold investment opportunities would have opened
up in Siberia and Russia's Far East as well as in Central Asia. Hundreds of millions of people in Eurasia and elsewhere would have
been lifted out of poverty. And, not least, the EU would have been refashioned as an integral part of the dynamic trans-Eurasian
economy (rather than as a German-centred empire, as appears to be the case today), thereby making a major contribution to overcoming
the ongoing global economic depression.
All of this was not to be, however. Why not? First and foremost, because the self-proclaimed "exceptional" power (actually, a
mere "outlying island" in the Atlantic, according to the founder of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder) and its dysfunctional "deep-state"
officialdom did not want it to be. How could they have permitted such a thing? How could they have allowed other countries to
get on with improving the lives of their citizens without being obliged to seek Washington's approval every step of the way?
European democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy
In order to make sure that they were not side-lined, the US elites had to intervene. The Western propaganda machine started
churning out all sorts of nonsense that Putin is a new Hitler who is bent on restoring the Soviet empire and who is bullying Europe,
while continuing to bang on about his "increasingly autocratic rule".
Deadly attacks by chauvinistic proxies were launched on the Russophone people in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 and more recently
in Ukraine.
And in what is eerily reminiscent of Stalinist "bloc discipline", the EU/NATO nomenclature was ordered to implement the absurd
strategy of severing the Russian economy from the EU. For their part, the cowering Eurocrats willingly obliged by imposing sanctions
on Russia that, perversely, have had a negative impact on their own economies (but, let it be stressed, not that of the US). No questions
raised and no public debate on the wisdom of such a strategy permitted.
Stuck in an Orwellian nightmare, Europe has to demonstrate its unfailing loyalty to Big Brother and go along with the view
that Russia, an intrinsic and valuable part of the European mainstream both historically and culturally, represents universal evil
and that the Earth will not be safe until the Federation has been dismembered and Putinism wiped out once and for all.
This abuse and humiliation of Europe is unparalleled. The continent that gave the world the wonders of the Antiquity, modern democracy,
the industrial revolution and what is arguably the greatest tradition of philosophy, fine arts and classical music is being bullied
by its oversized offspring. Having self-destructed in two world wars, it has become an easy and even willing prey to an arrogant,
ignorant and power-drunk predator that has never experienced the hardships and horrors that Europe has. War and extermination
camps are etched into the European DNA. America "knows" about them only from afar – and, not least, from the Hollywood entertainment
industry.
Even more terrifying, intellectually third-rate Washington viceroys such as Victoria Nuland and the freelancing armchair warrior
Senator McCain are allowed to play God with our continent. The so-called European "leaders" are colluding with them in plunging
Europe into the abyss and thereby risking nuclear confrontation.
America, too, is a loser
But this is not just a tragedy for Europe and Eurasia. We are also witnessing the wilful misrule of America and, by default, of
the entire West. Indeed, Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy. The
"democracy-promoters" running Washington's foreign-policy apparatus apparently do not understand that America has nothing to lose
and a lot to gain from the Eurasian economic project: the rising tide of global economic welfare would lift everyone's boats, including
its own. Why should it matter to Washington if the rising tide comes from other quarters beyond its control?
Indeed, the damage extends beyond the economy. By aligning with the forces of chaos – such as chauvinistic extremists in Ukraine
– Washington and its Euro-vassals are corrupting the moral (and intellectual) core of the West. If it continues to support such
forces against Russia, united Europe will lose not only its backbone but its very soul. The moral consequences of this loss will
be enormous and could lead to the precipitous erosion of Western democracy.
The 'autocrats' want to work with the West, not against it
US and EU leaders believe that the Russian and Chinese "autocrats" are out to destroy the West because the latter hate freedom
(as George W. Bush might have put it). And hence, they argue, the autocrats must be stopped in their tracks. The simple truth is
that Western leaders are too blinkered to understand that far from desiring to destroy the West, Russia and China want it to prosper
so that they can work with it to everyone's benefit. Having enjoyed a privileged position over several centuries and having attained
unprecedented prosperity in recent decades, the West simply cannot understand that the rest of humanity has no interest in fomenting
the "clash of civilizations" but rather craves peace and stability so that it can finally improve its economic lot.
Perhaps, however, all is not yet lost. It is still possible that reason – and economic forces – will prevail and force the West
to correct the errors of its ways. What we need, perhaps, more than ever is the ability to step out of the box, question our fundamental
assumptions (not least about Russia and China) and find the courage to change policies that have proved disastrous. After all, critical
thought, dispassionate analysis and the ability to be open to new ideas is what made the West so successful in the past. If we are
to thrive once again in the future, we must resurrect these most valuable and unsurpassed assets.
What I cannot understand is the naive belief that elected politicians would act in the interests of those whom they represent.
Under what other circumstances do we see human beings act with disinterested altruism? So why would a bunch of people who have
been ruthlessly selected for selfishness, arrogance, and callousness - a bunch of carefully chosen psychopaths, if you will -
behave in that way?
'My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to
my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: "Money, we give them money." "Foreign
aid?" I asked. "No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale. We bought them. They report to
us." Perhaps this explains Tony Blair's $50 million fortune one year out of office'.
- Paul Craig Roberts
jabirujoe
"Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy".
Not only it's foreign policy but it's domestic policy as well. Let's call it for what it really is. The Wall Street/Corporate
policy which is the driving force behind behind everything the US does
Toddrich
"We, the [CENSORED] people, control America and the Americans know it." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]
"When we're done with the U.S. it will shrivel up and blow away." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]
The welfare or future of the American people are not part of the equation.
"... There are numerous clues that point to the 2016 US Presidential Election as having been a set-up. Few seem willing to take a close look at these facts. But it is necessary for an understanding of the world we live in today. ..."
"... Sanders as sheep-dog Black Agenda Report called Sanders a sheep-dog soon after he entered the race . ..."
"... "Enough with the emails!" ..."
"... Not pursuing Hillary's 'winning' of 6 coin tosses in Iowa ..."
"... Virtually conceding the black and female vote to Hillary ..."
"... Not calling Hillary out about her claim to have NEVER sold her vote ..."
"... Endorsing Hillary despite learning of Hillary-DNC collusion ..."
"... Continuing to help the Democratic Party reach out to Bernie supports even after the election ..."
"... As one keen observer noted: Sanders is a Company Man . ..."
There are numerous clues that point to the 2016 US Presidential Election as having been a set-up. Few seem willing to take a
close look at these facts. But it is necessary for an understanding of the world we live in today.
Trump's first 100 days has come and gone and he has proven to be every bit the faux populist that Obama was (as I explained in
a previous post). In hind-sight we can see how a new faux populist was installed.
Sanders made it clear from the start that he ruled
out the possibility of running as an independent. That was only the first of many punches that Sanders pulled as he led his 'sheep'
into the Democratic fold.
Others were:
; "Enough with the emails!"
; Not pursuing Hillary's 'winning' of 6 coin tosses in Iowa;
; Virtually conceding the black and female vote to Hillary;
; Not calling Hillary out about her claim to have NEVER sold her vote;
; Endorsing Hillary despite learning of Hillary-DNC collusion;
; Continuing to help the Democratic Party reach out to Bernie supports even after the election.
She can serve in the army and still be anti interventionist because our military is
supposed to be a defense force not an offense force. You can be willing to fight to protect
your country without wanting to go running round the world creating conflict for oil and
regime change.
'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell
you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who
will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth.
NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket...
Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi.
"... The american entitlement, as if it is your buisness what happens in other countries to the point that you have a right to invade, kill, and oppress their citizens is disgusting. The U.S. sanctions are starving Venezeualans, as is the theft of billions of dollars by the wannabe puppet president. Sanders/Gabbard all the way. ..."
Why doesn't anyone say...Assad did not gas his own people...US backed rebels gassed the
Syrian people. It's called manufactured consent. Sometimes I really hate the ignorance too
many Americans choose.
Megan is such a lying fake news propagandist. Yes Assad is a brutal dictator. However, the
allegations of gassing his people are debunked fake news (her stating them as facts is fake
news). There was no ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria before the US backed regime change war.
Hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions displaced.
Her calm and poise in the face of these right wing hacks is impressive. The american
entitlement, as if it is your buisness what happens in other countries to the point that you
have a right to invade, kill, and oppress their citizens is disgusting. The U.S. sanctions
are starving Venezeualans, as is the theft of billions of dollars by the wannabe puppet
president. Sanders/Gabbard all the way.
I grew up watching and loving Colbert. Over the last few years I have not really liked him
or his views, but still had a sot spot in my heart for him. This interview makes me never
want to even watch another clip of his again. I felt disgust and anger after watching his
interrogation of Tulsi.
I have never before heard a politician give a straight yes or no answer to a direct
question and follow through with, "in my opinion". She is fantastic.
What Tulsi should point out is that we created the vacuum in the first place. If we had
not intervened there would be no power vacuum for China or Russia to fill. The first rule of
getting out of a hole: stop digging
China is going to become the worlds biggest super power because they're playing the long
game. Although you can say their building is a "debt trap" it's still business deals that the
other countries need and it's not like we Americans dont use credit cards and are in a bunch
of debt.
The US keeps losing trust in the world because of how we've gone about things. We
need someone like Tulsi to gain that trust back and actually do good in the world
Great video as usual. Stephen Colbert is a total disgrace and surprisingly really stupid.
However, it doesn't matter if Tulsi doesn't win the presidency in 2020. What is most
important is she becomes a part of Sander's team so that she can put a stop to the crazy US
military ambition.
Tulsi is perfect as the Sec of State. She can be the president a few years
into a Sanders presidency. Her time is not in 2020, but in 2024 or 2028. Her support will
grow over time.
Once again Tulsi Gabbard was smeared by War Friendly Agents this time it was The View's
Meghan McCain. Tulsi Gabbard explains her positions on a series of issues. #TulsiGabbard#TheView#TimBlackShow Pinned by
TBTV
Meghan McCain is a disgusting little Neocon warmonger who has been brought up in an elite
bubble she wouldn't have the guts or integrity to serve like Tulsi did. Tulsi handed this
with class.
For the record, I always cringe when Meghan McCain opens her mouth Anyone remember her
appearance on Bill Maher's show when she engaged Paul Begalla in a little debate on a
specific moment in history and she replied, "I wasn't born yet," and then Begalla immediately
stated, "I wasn't round during the French Revolution but I know about it"? Time to stop
employing the uninformed daughter of a deceased Senator, dontcha think? Especially one who is
so unmercifully unread.
The fact that Americans are still convinced the reasons they intervene in other countries
are humanitarian help and defending freedom and not economic or strategic reasons is
laughable. Get real, people, you are rarely the good guys. And no, the rest of the world do
not want you barging in and patronize them.
First time I've seen this beautiful intelligent compassionate lady named Tulsi. That
blonde haired land shark thinks she's smart because she has been allowed to masquerade as
some sort of respectable human for so long, she's just a fool even she's fooled by her own
foolishness
Damn! Tulsi Gabbard just gained my respect. She walked through minefield and came out
unscathed because she kept her composure and stuck to her beliefs. And she is right--Assad
has never threatened us!
hated the way Tulsi was attacked by these women there was literally hate on their faces
they were clearly biased unfortunate she had to be interviewed by them but kudos to her, she
answered every question and hell yes, there is vagueness in the green new deal Tulsi is
talking about environment since a long time now but there is suddenly a new deal and new
blood in Congress and all of a sudden ppl are noticing 'women' in Congress talking and making
valid points while women like Tulsi have been making their arguments and many valid points
w/o shouting
You're the only person that I've heard be honest enough to say that the Green New Deal is
just a framework. It is a starting point to a conversation. Thank you. Secondly, it is always
amazing to me when political Talking Heads say we can't pay for universal healthcare or free
higher education but are willing to fund regime changes in other countries. Willing to spend
unnegotiated billions of dollars and Wars and conflicts in other countries. Where's the sense
in that? And finally what would Meghan McCain have done had Hillary Clinton not accepted the
Electoral College results and declared herself president in the United States because she won
the popular vote? What would all of those Talking Heads and politicians have thought or done
at all had all of those voters marched against the White House and Congress to force Hillary
into the presidency? Hmmmm
wow. that was just wow. when she said "I am not someone who will go into the white house
and sit back and rely on the foreign policy establishment in Washington to tell me what to
do, I don't have to. I'm not intimidated by the stars that someone wears on their shoulders.
I am not intimidated by the military industrial complex and what they're pushing for." she
literally could have just dropped the mic. I bet the aforementioned military industrial
complex just peed themselves a little. This is why MSM and DNC hate her. And why we all love
her. I'm all in on #Tulsi2020 .
Hello, Mrs. Gabbard excuse my English which is my third language. I respect you so much,
I'm from Syrian, I live in SF you are the only one who really stood up for the Syrian people
by talking about the lies of the media toward my country, and also by meeting with The Syrian
President who is the legal representative of the Syrian people by election. You had the honor
to visit my country and saw the miserable situation caused by the war that was made and
supported by the US; please if you become the president end this war and end the suffer of
the Syrian people
99 year Old Mother, WWII ARMY Nurse Corp Vet on the Comfort when it was hit by a kamikaze,
"adores" you Tulsi. So moved when watching the CNN Town Hall. You are her hero!
I don't think I've ever seen a politician who I've listened to and said "This person, THIS
is the one I want to be our President. THIS is the one who will truly represent the people,
and lead this nation with a true vision and actually fight to do the things they say they
want to do". But when I see and hear Tulsi, I feel like I'm seeing just that, for maybe the
first time in my life.
Who should I support? An incredible woman who is a combat veteran with original ideas, or
a white skateboarder who pretends to be Latino and married a rich girl? #Tulsi2020
I was overwhelmed with so much warmth when I heard you speak, I swear I have never felt
this before. Thank You for all your hard work! No matter what happens, you have my full
support and my vote :)
I've been all in for Bernie but listening to Tulsi is equally if not more inspiring
given that her focus is on our insane interventionist foreign policy
No teleprompters, no notes, no platitudes or empty rhetoric. Calm and logical and
intelligent. No wonder the establishment is scared of her. GO TULSI!!!!
amazing, simply amazing. You need to watch this Town Hall in full to appreciate the skills she demonstrated in defense of
her principles. What a fearless young lady.
And this CNN warmonger, a prostitute of MIC was/is pretty devious. Question were selected with malice to hurt Tulsi and people who
ask them were definitely pre-selected with an obvious intent to smear Tulsi. In no way those were spontaneous question. This was a session
of Neocon//Neolib inquisition. Tulsi behaves like a modern Joan of Arc
From comments: "People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000
unique donors required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25"(mrfuzztone)
Notable quotes:
"... Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people are starting to get fed up with the show. About time ..."
"... WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CRONY CAPITALIST PYRAMID SCHEME AND CNN PLAYS IT'S PART TO KEEP THAT SYSTEM IN PLACE ..."
"... I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi. ..."
Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people
are starting to get fed up with the show. About time✌️ 😉
I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have
I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate
Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins.
Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi.
Tulsi handled these hacks like a pro LOOL Are you a capitalist? LOL What s stupid question.....CCN usually stacks there town
halls with corporate cronies. I bet Bernie picks her for a high position in his government.
People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000 unique donors
required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25.
CNN is just mouthpiece for intelligence community and MIC
The question of a type "did you finished to beat your wife" are very difficult to ask. So how
skillfully Tulsi handled those "sinking" question comment her skills.
The problem with Jimmy Dore is he has some kind of mental block or is somehow completely
unaware of the reasons we bomb countries that are hostile to Israel and located right on
their border or at least near them. You also have to be completely unaware of the power of
the Jewish lobbies and their obvious bias towards their own interests to ignore Jews role in
promoting wars that benefit Israel. It's not the "military industrial complex" Jimmy, it's
who controls that complex. Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN is a Jew, that like Jake Tapper (also
a Jew) sees any destruction of Syria as beneficial to Israel. The neo-Con Max Boot was born
in Russia and still wants to bomb Russia because he's a Jew that doesn't want Putin
preventing Jewish controlled US from destroying Syria. I can level some similar criticism at
Jimmy that he levels at the mainstream media.
Boeing Co. tumbled early Monday on heightened scrutiny by regulators and prosecutors over
whether the approval process for the company's 737 Max jetliner was flawed.
A person familiar with the matter on Sunday said that the U.S. Transportation Department's
Inspector General was examining the plane's design certification before the second of two
deadly crashes of the almost brand-new aircraft.
Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported that a grand jury in Washington, D.C., on
March 11 issued a subpoena to at least one person involved in the development process of the
Max. And a Seattle Times investigation found that U.S. regulators delegated much of the plane's
safety assessment to Boeing and that the company in turn delivered an analysis with crucial
flaws.
Boeing dropped 2.8 percent to $368.53 before the start of regular trading Monday in New
York, well below any closing price since the deadly crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on
March 10. Ethiopia's transport minister said Sunday that flight-data recorders showed "clear
similarities" between the crashes of that plane and Lion Air Flight 610 last October.
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration employees warned as early as seven years ago that
Boeing had too much sway over safety approvals of new aircraft, prompting an investigation by
Transportation Department auditors who confirmed the agency hadn't done enough to "hold Boeing
accountable."
The 2012 investigation also found that discord over Boeing's treatment had created a
"negative work environment" among FAA employees who approve new and modified aircraft designs,
with many of them saying they'd faced retaliation for speaking up. Their concerns pre-dated the
737 Max development.
In recent years, the FAA has shifted more authority over the approval of new aircraft to the
manufacturer itself, even allowing Boeing to choose many of the personnel who oversee tests and
vouch for safety. Just in the past few months, Congress expanded the outsourcing arrangement
even further.
"It raises for me the question of whether the agency is properly funded, properly staffed
and whether there has been enough independent oversight," said Jim Hall, who was chairman of
the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001 and is now an aviation-safety
consultant.
Outsourcing Safety
At least a portion of the flight-control software suspected in the 737 Max crashes was
certified by one or more Boeing employees who worked in the outsourcing arrangement, according
to one person familiar with the work who wasn't authorized to speak about the matter.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the inspector general's latest inquiry. The watchdog
is trying to assess whether the FAA used appropriate design standards and engineering analysis
in approving the 737 Max's anti-stall system, the newspaper said.
Both Boeing and the Transportation Department declined to comment about that inquiry.
In a statement on Sunday, the agency said its "aircraft certification processes are well
established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs," adding that the "737 Max
certification program followed the FAA's standard certification process."
The Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after it took off from Addis Ababa, killing all
157 people on board. The accident prompted most of the world to ground Boeing's 737 Max 8
aircraft on safety concerns, coming on the heels of the October crash of a Max 8 operated by
Indonesia's Lion Air that killed 189 people. Much of the attention focused on a flight-control
system that can automatically push a plane into a catastrophic nose dive if it malfunctions and
pilots don't react properly.
In one of the most detailed descriptions yet of the relationship between Boeing and the
FAA during the 737 Max's certification, the Seattle Times quoted unnamed engineers who said the
planemaker had understated the power of the flight-control software in a System Safety Analysis
submitted to the FAA. The newspaper said the analysis also failed to account for how the system
could reset itself each time a pilot responded -- in essence, gradually ratcheting the
horizontal stabilizer into a dive position.
Software Fix
Boeing told the newspaper in a statement that the FAA had reviewed the company's data and
concluded the aircraft "met all certification and regulatory requirements." The company, which
is based in Chicago but designs and builds commercial jets in the Seattle area, said there are
"some significant mischaracterizations" in the engineers' comments.
"... As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card , "essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan." ..."
"... For decades, the DoD's leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and drive the DoD's budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity ..."
"... That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control "we the people" have over our runaway government. ..."
Our nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is propped up by war
profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments.
America has so much to offer -- creativity, ingenuity, vast natural resources, a rich
heritage, a beautifully diverse populace, a freedom foundation unrivaled anywhere in the world,
and opportunities galore -- and yet our birthright is being sold out from under us so that
power-hungry politicians, greedy military contractors, and bloodthirsty war hawks can make a
hefty profit at our expense.
Don't be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for national
security and urgent military needs.
It's all a ruse.
You know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the government's
fiscal year? Government agencies -- including the Department of Defense -- go on a "use it or
lose it" spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the next fiscal year.
According to an investigative report by Open the Government, among the items purchased
during the last month of the fiscal year when government agencies go all out to get rid of
these "use it or lose it" funds: Wexford Leather club chair ($9,241), china tableware
($53,004), alcohol ($308,994), golf carts ($673,471), musical equipment including pianos,
tubas, and trombones ($1.7 million), lobster tail and crab ($4.6
million) , iPhones and iPads ($7.7 million), and workout and recreation equipment ($9.8
million).
Anyone who suggests that the military needs more money is either criminally clueless or
equally corrupt, because the military isn't suffering from lack of funding -- it's suffering
from lack of proper oversight.
Rest assured, however, that if Trump gets his way -- to the tune of a
$4.7 trillion budget that digs the nation deeper in debt to foreign creditors, adds
$750 billion for the
military budget , and
doubles the debt growth that Trump once promised to erase -- the war profiteers (and
foreign banks who "own" our debt) will be raking in a fortune while America goes belly up.
This is basic math, and the numbers just don't add up.
As it now stands, the U.S. government is operating in the negative on every front: it's
spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is
borrowing heavily ( from foreign governments
and Social Security ) to keep the government operating and keep funding
its endless wars abroad .
Certainly, nothing about the way the government budgets its funds puts America's needs
first.
The nation's educational system is pathetic (young people are learning nothing about their
freedoms or their government). The infrastructure is antiquated and growing more outdated by
the day. The health system is overpriced and inaccessible to those who need it most. The
supposedly robust economy is belied by the daily
reports of businesses shuttering storefronts and declaring bankruptcy. And our so-called
representative government is a sham.
If this is a formula for making America great again, it's not working.
The White House wants taxpayers to accept that the only way to reduce the nation's
ballooning deficit is by cutting "entitlement" programs such as Social Security and Medicare,
yet the glaring economic truth is that at the end of the day, it's the military industrial
complex -- and not the sick, the elderly or the poor -- that is pushing America towards
bankruptcy.
We have become a debtor nation , and the
government is sinking us deeper into debt with every passing day that it allows the military
industrial complex to call the shots.
Simply put, the government cannot afford to maintain its over-extended military empire.
To be clear, the U.S government's defense spending is about one thing and one thing only:
establishing and maintaining a global military empire.
Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world's population, America boasts almost
50% of
the world's total military expenditure , spending
more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined.
The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its
breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.
Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent
government officials, America's expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate
of more than $32 million
per hour .
The U.S. government is spending money it doesn't have on a military empire it can't
afford.
As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United
States has been fighting
terrorism with a credit card , "essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of
purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local
governments, and by countries like China and Japan."
For decades, the DoD's leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic,
unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and
drive the DoD's budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity. DoD has literally been
making up numbers in its annual financial reports to Congress -- representing trillions
of dollars' worth of seemingly nonexistent transactions -- knowing that Congress would rely
on those misleading reports when deciding how much money to give the DoD the following
year.
Unfortunately, the outlook isn't much better for the spending that can be tracked.
A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging
taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As
the report noted, the American
taxpayer paid :
$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a
dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another
tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000
percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the
tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.
That price
gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a
sad statement on how little control "we the people" have over our runaway government.
Mind you, this isn't just corrupt behavior. It's deadly, downright immoral behavior.
The U.S. government is not making the world any safer. It's making the world more dangerous.
It is estimated that the U.S. military
drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes . Since 9/11, the United States
government has directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000. Every one of those deaths
was paid for with taxpayer funds.
Those who call the shots in the government -- those who push the military industrial
complex's agenda -- those who make a killing by embroiling the U.S. in foreign wars -- have not
heeded Johnson's warning.
The U.S. government is not making American citizens any safer . The repercussions of
America's military empire have been deadly, not only for those innocent men, women and children
killed by drone strikes abroad but also those here in the United States.
The transformation of America into a battlefield is blowback.
All of this carnage is being carried out with the full support of the American people, or at
least with the proxy that is our taxpayer dollars.
The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying
the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer
dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.
As Martin Luther King Jr. recognized, under a military empire, war and its profiteering will
always take precedence over the people's basic human needs.
Similarly, President Dwight Eisenhower warned us not to let the profit-driven war machine
endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the
final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not
clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its
laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern
heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power
plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half
million bushels of wheat. We
pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it
is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. [ ] Is there no other way the world may live?"
We failed to heed Eisenhower's warning.
The illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government that Eisenhower warned
against has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation today.
It's not sustainable, of course.
Eventually, inevitably, military empires fall and fail by spreading themselves too thin and
spending themselves to death.
As long as "we the people" continue to allow the government to wage its costly, meaningless,
endless wars abroad, the American homeland will continue to suffer: our roads will crumble, our
bridges will fail, our schools will fall into disrepair, our drinking water will become
undrinkable, our communities will destabilize, our economy will tank, crime will rise, and our
freedoms will suffer.
So who will save us?
As I make clear in my book, Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , we'd better start saving ourselves: one by one,
neighbor to neighbor, through grassroots endeavors, by pushing back against the police state
where it most counts -- in our communities first and foremost, and by holding fast to what
binds us together and not allowing politics and other manufactured nonrealities to tear us
apart.
Start today. Start now. Do your part.
Literally and figuratively, the buck starts and stops with "we the people."
When we should be paying our seniors a generous amount of social security and pensions to
people who earned them, we are paying illegals and their kids to come to America and act like
parasites. Our children will be debt slaves because of Congress.
We are also paying trillions to the MIC and three letter agencies with absolutely no
oversight. We pay hundreds of thousands of totally useless government employees including the
military and over a 1000 bases on foreign soil.
Eisenhower warned against letting the MIC take control of the country.
What is weird, you spend that money on infrastructure, which would substantially improve
the economy through gained efficiencies and you can afford to waste it but if you waste it,
you can not spend it on infrastructure to be able to afford to burn it, blow it up, fire it
or just plain dump it.
Well, it is pretty clear, from the screams of the insiders, the reform is coming and they
know it. The louder the rants of screams of the establishment, the closer they are to
losing.
Look at what they do, they kill people for profit, if they could silence us by killing us,
they would, they can not, they have already lost, now it is just a matter of political grind
and legal process, to root them out and then investigate and prosecute them, en mass.
They had total control for decades and most knew nothing, now control is broken and most
people know.
Ditch the ABM and INF treaties. Extend NATO to Russia's borders. Regime change in Ukraine.
Demonize Putin/Russia. Then claim umpteen billions more needed for national defense.
Wonderful.
this article would not have seen the light of day on facebook or youtube, but thanks to
Tyler of zerohedge with his total respect for free speech, people can learn why their country
is bankrupt.
Its funny. Less than 40 years after the cold war and the Russian successor state is
putting on the same trick to the USSA that doomed the USSR. Russia is lean and mean now and its forcing the US to spend just truly insane amounts on
weapons.
War spending has always - ALWAYS! - since at least the late 19th Century - been an
instrument of wealth redistribution: from the poor to the rich.
The only question I have is: where did all that wealth go? It would be fun to collect the
dots and find out who now owns AT LEAST $3 TRILLION stolen from the Pentagon since 2001.
I don't get this stolen bit. Nothing is stolen from US tax payers. Its US debt holders
that get screwed. The US is one big worldwide theft of finished goods , resources and
capaital
nothing is lost or stolen, the defense department is totally careless with the people's
money.
$20 billions of weapons were left in Iraq after the us left but the funny part they were
left in far warehouses that only ISIS got hold of them.
If I was a conspiracy theorist , I would say they left these weapons on purpose for isis
to wage war and invade Syria which they did, but all this stuff was in vain as all these
weapons got destroyed by the Russians and the american people lost $20 billion.
Welcome to the New Rome, ruled by the Military Industrial Complex (M.I.C.) and the
Bansksters (Wall Street, FED, Treasury, Corporations, Insurers) and their bought corrupt
CONgress members.
"Save for retirement!" to pay the bonuses of the rats above.
"Support the Troops!" to die for the corrupt rats above.
"... Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president. ..."
"... Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells. ..."
"... Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars. ..."
"... "Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run. ..."
"... Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks. ..."
When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was
more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders,
said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004
liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals,
saying they would damage women's rights
in Afghanistan.
The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003,
warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill
Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.
Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal
viewers by peddling
wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist
Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck
standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that
nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."
The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic
presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC,
Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what
their liberal audiences currently want or will accept.
Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick
to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.
... ... ...
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with
Senator Rand Paul.
The antiwar movement is not a "liberal" movement. Hundreds of mainly your people addressed the San Francisco board of supervisors
asking them to condemn an Israeli full-fledged attack on Gaza. When they were finished, without objection from one single supervisor,
the issued was tabled and let sink permanently in the Bay, never to be heard of again. Had the situation been reversed and Israel
under attack there most probably would have been a resolution in nanoseconds. Maybe even half the board volunteering to join the
IDF? People believed Trump would act more objectively. That is why he got a lot of peace votes. What AIPAC wants there is a high
probability our liberal politicians will oblige quickly and willingly. Who really represents America remains a mystery?
"That abiding hatred will continue to play an outsized and often illogical role in determining what most Democrats believe about
foreign policy."
True, but the prowar tendency with mainstream liberals ( think Clintonites) is older than that. The antiwar movement among
mainstream liberals died the instant Obama entered the White House. And even before that Clinton and Kerry and others supported
the Iraq War. I think this goes all the way back to Gulf War I, and possibly further. Democrats were still mostly antiwar to some
degree after Vietnam and they also opposed Reagan's proxy wars in Central America and Angola. Some opposed the Gulf War, but it
seemed a big success at the time and so it became centrist and smart to kick the Vietnam War syndrome and be prowar. Bill Clinton
has his little war in Serbia, which was seen as a success and so being prowar became the centrist Dem position. Obama was careful
to say he wasn't antiwar, just against dumb wars. Gore opposed going into Iraq, but on technocratic grounds.
And in popular culture, in the West Wing the liberal fantasy President was bombing an imaginary Mideast terrorist country.
Showed he was a tough guy, but measured, unlike some of the even more warlike fictitious Republicans in that show. I remember
Toby Ziegler, one of the main characters, ranting to his pro diplomacy wife that we needed to go in and civilize those crazy Muslims.
So it isn't just an illogical overreaction to Trump, though that is part of it.
Won't happen. Gabbard is solid and sincere but she's not Hillary so she won't be the candidate. Hillary is the candidate forever.
If Hillary is too drunk to stand up, or too obviously dead, Kamala will serve as Hillary's regent.
The problem isn't THAT Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The problem is HOW Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria.
The Left isn't fighting about 'keeping troops indefinitely in Syria' vs pulling troops out of Syria'. Its a fight over 'pulling
troops out in a way that makes it so that we don't have to go back in like Obama and Iraq' vs 'backing the reckless pull out Trump
is going to do'.
For Democrats, everything depends on what the polls say, which issues seem important to get elected. They will say anything,
no matter how irrational & outrageously insane if the polls say Democrat voters like them. If American involvement in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan are less important according to the polls, Democratic 2020 hopefuls will not bother to focus on it.
For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally
right, & what is morally evil.
"I am glad Donald Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the intervention."
Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US
military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan
(!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells.
Kasoy: "For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is
morally right, & what is morally evil."
I think that needs the trademark symbol, i.e True Christians™
The Second Coming of Jack Hunter. Given his well-documented views on race, it's no surprise he's all in on Trump. That surely
outweighs Trump's massive spending and corruption that most true libertarians oppose.
Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in
Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars.
Of course, the left would come out against puppies and sunshine if Trump came out for those things.
But if they are smart, they'd recognize that on war, or his lack of interest in starting new wars, even the broken Trump clock
has been right twice a day.
The flip side of this phenomenon is that so many Republican voters supported Trump's withdrawal from Syria. Had it been Obama
withdrawing the troops, I suspect 80-90% of Republicans would have opposed the withdrawal.
This does show that Republicans are listening to Trump more than Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio on foreign policy. But once
Trump leaves office, I fear the party will swing back towards the neocons.
"Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace
platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case?
At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run.
Dopey Trump campaigned on something different and has now surrounded himself with GOP hawks, probably because he's lazy and
doesn't know any better.
Bernie, much like Ron Paul was, 180 degrees away, is the only one who might do different if he got into office, and the rate
the left is going he may very well be the nominee.
Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't
go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks.
The least bad comment on Democrats is that everyone in DC is a hawk, not just them.
In this interview with Colbert, Tulsi Gabbard discussed what should be one of the biggest scandals of the 21st century
-- war in Syria and support of jihadists by the USA government
Tulsi demonstrated again "courage under fire". Evidently hostile Colbert is a more dangerous opponent then Megan McCain, even if
he asked basically the same questions. His popularity adds to the weight of the questions. .
Notable quotes:
"... America is not the "policeman of the world". It is the military enforcer of its multinational corporations. ..."
"... Oh my God Colbert. Hack and establishment stooge. Embarrassing line of questioning. ..."
"... They ALL try to pin her on Syria, Assad, how can she be non-interventionist and still support the military, etc etc etc. ..."
"... It's SERIOUSLY as though they're all reading from the same exact script verbatim. Someone could put together a soundbyte of all of the different anchors asking the same questions sycnhronized I bet. ..."
"... @Animus Nocturnus the same recycled questions about meeting Assad she has answered 1000 times before isnt journalism. Journalism is what you need to get NEW information. ..."
"... T his is just one hack beating the war drum. ( dog whistling I believe the new term is) and pushing American exceptionalism ..."
"... Wow.... Colbert is being quite the little imperialist! Thanks for nothing Colbert. ..."
"... Colbert did the Clintons bidding, again ... he tried to ambush Tulsi, but Tulsi was too good, and also right! I'm with Tulsi. I donated, and I want the USA to be involved in the world too, to be a force for good. GO TULSI GABBARD!! ..."
In this rare mainstream interview,
@
TulsiGabbard discussed what should
be one of the biggest scandals of the 21st century (which Colbert has never mentioned on his show):
In its war on Syria, the US armed and trained far-right Salafi-jihadist rebels, empowering al-Qaeda and ISIS
Yea Colbert is
bought and paid for by his NBC/corporate masters, anti-war pro peace is not allowed, we spend $700 billion dollars a year on
the military. They will smear anyone who tries to stop that gravy train and he's one of their puppets that does that
smearing.
8
Actually, that
was a great line of questioning. Instead of the wish-wash "how are you, how are the kids, what did you ate today"
bullshit, he asked real questions and she was able to give real answers. That's what journalism should look like, and
how people running for high government jobs should be interviewed.
Those are jobs that require people who know their
stuff instead of entertainers.
And you will only know about how the people runnig for those jobs will conduct
themselves if they get asked tough questions. And she did a great job answering those questions.
MawcDrums, 6 hours ago (edited)
@Animus Nocturnus
The thing is they "sound like" real questions, BUT, and this is a HUGE but, they
are the EXACT SAME questions she has received from every other mainstream media interview I've seen with her.
They ALL try to pin her on Syria, Assad, how can she be non-interventionist
and still support the military, etc etc etc.
And then some cute jab about Hawaii as if to say "Sorry about that". It's
despicable and it's happening to Bernie and all of the true progressive candidates (AOC as well).
It's SERIOUSLY as though they're all reading from the same exact script
verbatim. Someone could put together a soundbyte of all of the different anchors asking the same questions sycnhronized I bet.
dirtcom7, 4 hours ago
@Animus Nocturnus the same recycled questions about meeting Assad she has
answered 1000 times before isnt journalism. Journalism is what you need to get NEW information. Hence the NEWS.
This is just one hack beating the war drum. ( dog whistling I believe the
new term is) and pushing American exceptionalism
Ron Widelec, 23 hours ago
Wow.... Colbert is being quite the little imperialist! Thanks for nothing
Colbert.
Jesse Prevallet, 1 day ago
Colbert,
if you had any of your 3 kids serving in the military right now, you would not be
such a mouthpiece for the empire. Grow a spine and ask a real question instead of these CIA lapdog questions
Robert S, 23 hours ago
Colbert did the Clintons bidding, again ... he tried to ambush Tulsi, but
Tulsi was too good, and also right! I'm with Tulsi. I donated, and I want the USA to be involved in the world too, to be a force
for good. GO TULSI GABBARD!!
"... If the government can change the designation of Wikileaks from being a news organization (Obama Administration's designation of Wikileaks) to a 'hostile intelligence service' (Trump Administration's designation), then any entity – online and offline – is in danger of being designated a hostile intelligence agency if they carry out investigative reporting that the US government or a particular administration considers to be hostile to itself. ..."
"... This will have a chilling effect on investigative reporting of powerful government agencies or officials, including the president, intelligence agencies, etc. This is a serious breach of our constitutional freedoms and every American – Democrat, Republican or Independent – must stand up against it." ..."
"... This is a follow-up to similar statements she's made about WikiLeaks before. During an event in New Hampshire, she said the stolen information that WikiLeaks published had "spurred necessary change." During her Concord meet and greet she said: "Obviously the information that has been put out has exposed a lot of things that have been happening that the American people were not aware of and have spurred some necessary change there." ..."
If the government can change the designation of Wikileaks from being a news organization (Obama Administration's designation
of Wikileaks) to a 'hostile intelligence service' (Trump Administration's designation), then any entity – online and offline –
is in danger of being designated a hostile intelligence agency if they carry out investigative reporting that the US government
or a particular administration considers to be hostile to itself.
This will have a chilling effect on investigative reporting of powerful government agencies or officials, including the
president, intelligence agencies, etc. This is a serious breach of our constitutional freedoms and every American – Democrat,
Republican or Independent – must stand up against it."
... ... ...
You can see her Facebook post and the responses below.
... ... ...
This is a follow-up to similar statements she's made about WikiLeaks before. During an event in New Hampshire, she said the
stolen information that WikiLeaks published had "spurred necessary change." During her Concord meet and greet she said: "Obviously
the information that has been put out has exposed a lot of things that have been happening that the American people were not aware
of and have spurred some necessary change there."
Her response was an answer to a question about President Donald Trump's administration seeking to prosecute Julian Assange. Just
this week, Chelsea Manning was jailed for not
answering questions from a grand jury about Assange. She refused to testify before a grand jury investigation regarding WikiLeaks,
AP shared . She said she objected to the secrecy
of the grand jury process and had already shared everything that she knows. Because prosecutors granted her immunity for her testimony,
she said she couldn't invoke the Fifth Amendment to defend her right not to speak.
The emails from the DNC shared by WikiLeaks did indeed ultimately bring about some changes, including lesser power to superdelegates
in 2020. Donna Brazile, former DNC chairwoman, has said that the DNC primary in 2016 was "rigged" against Bernie Sanders. Brazile
herself had even leaked some debate questions to Hillary Clinton before her debate with Sanders. Brazile has said that the DNC worked
closely with Clinton's campaign in 2016 because it needed the money, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz let Clinton's campaign help cover
the DNC's debt in exchange for some level of control,
the Miami Herald reported
. The DNC is supposed to be impartial during Democratic presidential primaries, but Brazile said that was not the case.
... ... ...
In July 2016, Wasserman Schultz stepped down as chair of the DNC after WikiLeaks published DNC emails that showed the organization
strongly favored Clinton over Sanders during the primary. Brazile briefly served as interim chair before Tom Perez took over.
I asked and demanded Debbie Wasserman Schultz's resignation many, many months ago and I state that again. I don't think she
is qualified to be the chair of the DNC. Not only for these awful emails which revealed the prejudice of the DNC, but also because
we need a party that reaches out to working people and young people and I don't think her leadership style is doing that."
However, DWS was allowed to resign after the 2016 Convention, which angered some. Meanwhile, Clinton praised DWS and gave her
an honorary position on her campaign.
... ... ...
One of the emails that WikiLeaks leaked showed
a letter from Darnell Strom and Michael Kives to Tulsi Gabbard, saying they were very disappointed that she had resigned from the
DNC to endorse Bernie Sanders. The email read in part: "For you to endorse a man who has spent almost 40 years in public office with
very few accomplishments, doesn't fall in line with what we previously thought of you. Hillary Clinton will be our party's nominee
and you standing on ceremony to support the sinking Bernie Sanders ship is disrespectful to Hillary Clinton. A woman who has spent
the vast majority of her life in public service and working on behalf of women, families, and the underserved. You have called both
myself and Michael Kives before about helping your campaign raise money, we no longer trust your judgement so will not be raising
money for your campaign "
She doesn't have a policy ready yet on the issue, and it is an important one she needs to
address better than this. FWIW, she follows Wikileaks on Twitter and she is critical of the
Deep State- which is better than Bernie Sanders. It matters to me and most Americans, I
believe, that she would not pursue Julian Assange. It also matters that she believes in very
strong progressive taxation. Top marginal rate over a million needs to start at 50 percent.
Progressively increase the rate so it becomes impossible to become a billionare. This is
about fairness and making sure that a single person does not have control of that many
resources. I prefer to talk about resource distribution instead of wealth
inequality.
Tulsi is the bravest candidate for standing against war!! This should indeed be our first
consideration. Please donate to her effort, even if it's just $5!! She needs 65,000 donations
from different people in at least 30 states!! Please donate!! Go Tulsi!!!
Donated! - For once let's say 'No Wars', 'Yes to health care', 'Yes we like to spend our
$s here in the U S of A', 'Let's free ourselves from Employer health care bondage!'. Why not
divert billions of dollars that feed wars go to our health care, our schools. And yes to
retrain those people whom current system is forcing to go back into tunnels and dig dirt to
make money. America is great when her people are living great lives! -- Why not make funds
available to retrain these wonderful people in jobs above ground? Do you know the risks to
health working underground? At minimum you must heard of Radon gas in basements, right?
causes cancer. And basements are only a few feet deep!. Come on people do you really want
this work for your children and their children? no you do not. You deserve to have shot at
good life, a healthy shot!
Nikki2 comment on Youtube: "GUYS! Tulsi needs 65,000 individual donations to get into the
debates. Even if she's not your #1 candidate, please donate a small amount so she can bring the
foreign policy/regime change conversation to the debates"
@ChuckOrloski
Chelsea Manning is imprisoned (from the article you cited) "for refusing to testify in front
of a secretive Grand Jury." The regime is after Julian Assange, so they're trying to squeeze
Manning. Not happening!
Gabbard is set to lay out her vision for the country and her 2020 candidacy during a live
presidential town hall starting at 8 p.m. ET. The "Live From SXSW" event Sunday will be
moderated by CNN's Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. The event will air
live on CNN , CNN International and CNN Español channels.
Is America ready for a real antiwar candidate? Clearly the political establishment and the
media aren't. Criticism of presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard and anyone else who questions
foreign policy orthodoxies is swift and unrelenting. Fighting for peace has never been so
difficult.
CrossTalking with Daniel Faraci, Thomas Palley, and Philip Giraldi.
#RT (Russia
Today) is a global #news network broadcasting from
Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 1 billion YouTube
views benchmark.
I have met a surprising number of Republicans and Libertarians who support Tulsi, many of
them former Trump supporters. Bernie had a meeting with her in Vermont before she announced
that she is running. Many think that they plan to join forces at some point. They would be a
formidable team for the neoliberal neocons to beat.
its worse than stifling free speech. These neocons are criminals. Anyone who is always for
invading other countries to take control of resources & killing millions of people along
the way should be considered war criminals & enemies of the USA. They should be locked
up. Including the media fanboys.
The Democratic party is trying to keep Tulsi from the debates , they want her to have 60
something thousand individual donations to her campaign, it's the only way for her to
participate. They want her out of the way ...donate a dollar everyone...let's see her at the
debates. She is the only one that can take Trump on.
If just ONE MSM outlet held a show with such open,honest,invigorating discussion as
CROSSTALK allowing real analyst to present facts and reality into the discussion it would be
a totally different world this morning. Instead I need to go to Internet,go outside my own
countries news sources,even watch other countries governments relations on shadow banned or
plain censored sources. To find the facts,the truth in America today is to risk your own
freedom,Physically,Spiritually,or just plain Sanity. 1933 has collided with 1984 to bring us
2019.
No the sheep citizens of US are not ready for anti war establishment because the dual
nationals in congress won't let that happen who works for Israel not their own country.
People like Ron Paul are never elected in US who wants to work to fix the problems in his own
country and US citizens. They need war criminals and zionist puppets to promote the new
liberal world order and globalist agenda. Even now the Trump is not ending the wars. He is
just shifting the illegal wars from middle east to latin america which will also be a
disaster. This will create more chaos, economic and migrant crisis. US needs anti war leaders
or else one day world will be pushed to nuclear ww3 because of these parasites.
Peter your indignation over Tulsa's treatment is just a wonderful thing to see. She has
been treated horribly so far and I don't think it's ever going to stop. Although as far as I
stand right now she is who I will vote for. I just wish Bernie and Tulsi would run on a
ticket together and run on the Green Party. 47% of America voted for Independents last
elections. Bernie could win as an independent.
Thank you for this conversation. I never wanted to hug old white men so much. Ideas that
should be bought up and discussed and never are since everyone is in such a cult of
personality around that guy. These men should be regulars on your show since this was
riveting conversation. Spot On.
Well, what sort of "patsy" do you think the powers that be will use when they go to
assassinate Tulsi? That's my only question at this point. I assume they'll find some modern
version of Sirhan-Sirhan; that is, they'll find some foreign goofball who actually has a mild
political grudge against the candidate, have their Mossad agents to work him up with drugs
and hypnosis, drive him to wherever the candidate is visiting nearby, have an actual assassin
(paid-off security guard) shoot the candidate for real as soon as their drugged-up patsy
starts firing his gun. Only later do we learn the candidate was killed with 9 bullets while
the patsy's gun only held 8 rounds. In fact, I'll make a prediction of the sort of patsy
they'll use: It will be a Venezuelan emigre who dislikes Maduro's socialism and who believes
Tulsi wants to socialize all of America. However, he won't be able to recall where he was the
12 hours before the shooting. That, and one of the recently-hired armed security guards at
the building where she was speaking decides to quit his job and move to some farm in Peru or
Chile right after the assassination. And the mainstream media will give it only one headline
in their newspapers. After that, they'll go back to headlining sports events and whatever
alleged "hate crime" is in vogue this week.
Say what its is: the deepest cause of our political and societal problems is the MSM power
of international Zionism in America and Europe. To break this power at the current rate with
social media, will at least take another generation's time. But probably long before this
time the social media will be blocked for Zionism criticism by a new inquisition. Which we
are already seeing in progress. So what is left for us to shake off the Zionist yoke? Not
Trump!
Megan McCaine have the nerve to claim she supports the military yet here she is attacking
an actual military servicewomen who've lost her brothers and sisters in arms in Iraq for lies
such as WMD and fake Al Qaeda connection. The establishment media should and chickenhawks
should be called out for this treasonous labeling of Tulsi Gabbard.
Gabbard/Sanders or Sanders/Gabbard ~ I am INDEPENDENT and ready to move on for 2020. Trump
has NOT drained the swamp......EX: Reappoint COMEY = No..........But thanks Pres. Trump for
NOT giving us HRC! Dean K.
President Trump just a Robot in the White House and His Foreign Policies decided by Pro
Israel and Anti Russia WAR CRIMINALS,who are a Bullish,Lying and pro War.
Why isn't crosstalk talkin about AIPEC influence on Congress because the neocons And AIPEC
are basically controlling Congress and are the people responsible behind all the Middle East
War chicanery and Benjamin Netanyahu's influence on Congress is obscene and they actually are
passing laws now that if you speak up against AIPEC in anyway whatsoever you are immediately
smeared and called an anti-semite and your words are considered a hate speech crime... as in
the recent case of congresswoman Ilhan Omar... WTF is going on here??!!
Tulsi is on the same page as Bernie, if she aligns with Bernie and they are on the ticket
for the Dem's - they will win the election - zionists hate them both for the same reason they
are against war machine and want to look after the American homeland and people. Notice how
they are the only two in the US that want to pressure dotard through congress to not be able
to pull out of INF and rejoin the Iran deal. They are for peace .. something Americans want
and zionists don't
As a registered independent and former Trump supporter, she has my vote. I don't agree
with 80% of her platform but I do trust her to do her best to end the US perpetual war state.
However, if she should happen to do the obligatory trip to the wailing wall and pledge
allegiance to Israel, she will lose my support immediately. We'll know she's full of sh*t
when she bows to AIPAC.
MSM either makes ridiculous smears on tulsi or/and what's happening the most at the moment
is to COMPLETELY IGNORE her and act like doesnt exist, even when talking about all candidates
they will conveniently never mention her and pass though her name quickly sometimes even say
her name in a like quieter tone then change the subject, so frustrating! While shoving basic
bitches pro establishment pro war morons like Kamal Harris down our throats, no thank you. I
really hope ALL people see though this at very least most. And people still supporting trump
even after he turned on alot lf his main promises and pretending to be "anti interventionist"
while being compete opposite and wanting to invade any country he can see to benefit from,
how can they still Support him and not even call out his hypocrisy and lies. Hes just another
neocon warmonger.
Tulsi is amazing; she is the only dem I would vote for, all the rest are phonies or
brainwashed. Bernie is especially disappointing in his gullible acceptance of the fake Russia
collusion narrative, his voting for every war except the Iraq war, and his do nothing/say
nothing about election fraud. Tulsi is the real deal; in my opinion she is the only dem who
could beat Trump at this point. All the rest of the dems are scary and crazy, including
Bernie.
Peter, there should be more presentations and conversations about Tulsi on Cross talk and
the Duran as she, in my opinion, is the only person who will bring honesty and integrity to
US politics and restore America as a truly democratic country and restore the bad image that
the rest of the world has of the US apart from the current western alliance. I have listened
to her talks in New Hampshire and Iowa and can see her popularity increasing by the day. The
rest of the Democrats are part of the neocon group that supports war along with the
Republicans. When Trump was running in 2016 I thought it was a breath of fresh air compared
to Clinton. He has reneged on most things he promised to his base and has increased foreign
intervention. The world as a whole is looking for and needs peace.
Tulsi will not become the Democratic nominee, to low name recognition and not enough cash.
Donate to her, 1 USD is enough, she needs 65.000 individual donations to get on the televised
debates. She will drive other candidates to take a stance on US military interventions, a
good cause in itself. I would like to see, in the end, Bernie as POTUS, Warren in Treasury
and Tulsi as Sec State OR VP but think Sec State is better.
I love this show and amazing intelligent knowledgeable people as your guests. Excellent.
Please Keep going because you have 99% of humanity with you. The victory is certain and it
takes a bit more time to overcome evil that has built foundations for centuries but not
winning. You are the real champions not Old books or statues, and future generations will
play your each videos again and again and they will analyse it over and over again. What you
say and what you do is part of renaissance and foundation of future of the world. It is
important to say and do right things and be proud that you are making important history for
humanity. You will not have only statues or quotes also will have real videos to play it and
listen and see it. Children in schools, students at colleges and universities and
intellectuals politicians all will listen to your important brave opinions and views in this
curtail time of human history. I hope you realise the importance of this time and your moral
stands
Tulsi is going directly for the jugular of the ultimate origin of all this mess, she is
aiming at the core problem that generates, or makes worse, any other problem in our society,
ranging since: Climate Change on the top at planet level, down to bullying in schools at
street level. Not to mention, of course, that War Business means "Killing Humans by the
Thousands Business".
Tulsi Gabbard would do a better job than Bernie, who supports Government Intervention in
Venezuela and didn't expose the corruption of the DNC when he should have.
The only corporate US news reporter that doesn't try to "gotcha" Gabbard & smear her
is Tucker Carlson who gives her a chance to express her anti foreign intervention
message
So, Lindsey Graham, both Bushes, John McCain, and virtually all the other Republicans are
peaceniks and it's all the Democrats' fault? As to the baby boomers...I am a baby boomer and
have opposed US warmongering ever since Vietnam....ever heard of Jesse Ventura, or horrors!
Jill Stein? Partly, after they came home from Woodstock, it was back to business as usual.
Certainly a component of that is there. Many boomers sold out after the Civil Rights and anti
war movements. So, so far in this discussion, I am not hearing anything about what's left of
the real Left, such as Chris Hedges on RT, or Ventura and many other voices like Michael
Parenti, whom the Establishment either bought off or banished. Dennis Kucinich being a good
example. And let's not even talk about the Greens, who have always been anti war. Their
candidate--a female baby boomer was shackled so she couldn't be in the presidential debates!
And then accused by the Democrats of being a Russian bot.
Neo-Cons are Zionist partisans and former "Troksyists"(as Chris Hitchens would say), AIPAC
is the only foriegn lobby not registered under FARA....this network has infiltrated this
country on every government and social level since even before they accomplished a state,
Mossad is tied hip to hip with our intelligence agencies and have and continue to steal
secrets and material of all kinds.....btw the last president and attorney general to demand
inspections of Dimona, supported Palestinian right of return and gave the Zionist lobby 72
hours to register under FARA were Jack and Bobby Kennedy, read Michael Collins Piper's Final
Judgment if you wan't more about that but we should all know who the real problem is and that
problem comes out of Tel Aviv.....
Do not base your opinion of what the people want by looking at the 2018 mid term
elections. Between the astronomical amount of voter fraud and the sabotaging by Paul Ryan
(because he is one of those neocons or some would call RHINO"s) because Paul Ryan hates
Trump! 2020 will be a huge disappointment if you do. For starters there were about 40 seats
that dems ran completely unopposed!
Tulsi Gabbard does NOT align with Bernie Sanders at all. Sanders is PRO war. Do your
homework, jog your memory. As VP she wouild have zip power over foreign affairs or u.s. war
involvement. She is however, aligned with Rand Paul, if anyone. Sanders' association with
socialist DOMESTIC change has nothing to do with his unspoken position on imperialistic
occupation and regime change.
Its so comical to hear news hosts on all the mainstream media outlets criticizing Tulsi
for going to Syria yet none of them ever discuss Chelsea Manning let alone show the video of
the US Hellicopter gunning down 12 people and the American soldiers laughing after it.
Manning was imprisoned and tortured for her act of journalism. The networks still do not dare
show that video let alone discuss it.
Its so comical to hear news hosts on all the mainstream media outlets criticizing Tulsi
for going to Syria yet none of them ever discuss Chelsea Manning let alone show the video of
the US Hellicopter gunning down 12 people and the American soldiers laughing after it.
Manning was imprisoned and tortured for her act of journalism. The networks still do not dare
show that video let alone discuss it.
She will make an excellent VP. or Secretary of State if not the President ! I am tired of
being taken to war by people who haven't served . (Not even as Boy Scout) !!!
I wish Tulsi well..best candidate since Ron Paul. Unfortunately the stupidity of the
American public never ceases to amaze. Just YouTube a few of Mark Dice interviews when he
asks just the basic of questions...the responses are a scary but albeit reflection of why
America is doomed
"legacy media" !! a great phrase. Oh, I see. I thought legacy media was a reference to
sources like CNN and MSNBC. But it refers more to magazines and other publications (old
media).
The current and past agendas of the neocons can be easily identified as failures from the
viewpoint of making things better for humanity. But this is not their measure. The failure
you are seeing is actually success for them. Their interest is in war and destruction. See
how this cancer is spreading through their thought patterns. The total dismantling of their
military complex is the only way to bring this cancer to heel. This must happen from
within.
The curtains are being raised showing neo cons and neo libs on same team exposing war
mongers in media as well Tulsi Gabbard for president feel the aloha
Tulsi's voting record shows she will feed the DOD machine regardless of pork. She voted
yea on HR 695, HR 3364, HR 1301, etc., all for a DOD that is yet to be held accountable for
lost $ trillions.
What's wrong with Tulsi's fundraisers? They are not PAC money and $125/plate is not that
expensive. Tulsi has a huge disadvantage, because she isn't getting any coverage. Tulsi's
dinners are not sponsored by Corporate money.
Warren said to Cenk Uygur(in a NEW interview!) that her refusal of corporate donations
only extends to the primaries. She said [we] need corporate donations- or as she calls them-
"everything in our arsenal to beat Trump". Still want to lump her in with Bernie?
Never Completely Trust anyone, so thoroughly research everyone before supporting anyone on
anything to be fully aware of who benefits and how, since you may or may not benefit at all
11:16
hours Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, 26 February 2019
Interview is about forthcoming book "Peak
Trump" In "Peak Trump", Stockman goes after all the sacred cows: Military spending, entitlement spending, MAGA, Trump's tax cut,
the intelligence budget, and the Wall. Trump is a symptom of the problem. He wanted to drain the swamp but failed to do so. He never
really had a good chance of doing that, but he failed to make the most of the chance he had. We are where we are because of decades
of Congressional and monetary mismanagement
All in the name of empire... the Deep state in non-particular and Trump proved to be a "naked king"
At 15:49 min Ron Paul asks the question about Tulsi... She positioned herself as noninterventionists and has similar foreign policy
as Ron Paul used to have. Stockman answer was very interesting and informative.. MSM journalists are essentially federal contractor,
lobbyists of MIC.
He also mentioned that Trump falls from the bait. And the appointment of Elliot Abrams was real betrayal of his voters.
Notable quotes:
"... He was smart enough to understand that the commonplace observation codified as the Laffer Curve, while true, didn't mean that DC could just go on an endless spending spree and expect increased tax revenues to exceed the avarice of politicians, though. ..."
"... No, I don't think Stockman's rhetoric was a lie. He did end up getting shoved out of the Reagan regime, after all, precisely because he resisted giving every cabinet secretary all the money they wanted and, as you say, insisted that the tax cuts needed to be accompanied by spending cuts. ..."
"... But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy in the direction of central planning . Its premise is that instead of production being driven by diffuse demand, money should be concentrated in the hands of a few who "know better" what should be produced. ..."
"... And in practice, the "entrepreneurs" intended to benefit were the businesses who already had the clout to make themselves part of the political class, not the guy in his garage designing a better mousetrap. ..."
"... The Laffer Curve is an interesting but much over-used (and badly used) observation: There is a tax revenue curve with a top to it. That is, as you raise taxes, revenues go up ... until the taxation gets onerous enough that additional earnings beyond bare subsistence strike people as not worth the input, beyond which point tax INcreases produce revenue DEcreases. ..."
David Stockman was one of my conservative heroes during the Reagan years. He was the one person in the Administration who seemed
to have an honest understanding of economics. It's nice to see that his experiences with the reality of the DC swamp have made
him go all the way to describing himself as a libertarian, rather than a conservative.
He could have sold out, given up any modicum of principle, and simply become a multi-millionaire Republican Party establishment
hack.
I would venture to say he and I have some policy differences, but it's always nice to see when someone embraces their best,
rather than their worst, instincts.
My recollection of Stockman's economics from those years (based on e.g. The Triumph of Politics) was that he was all-in on
"supply side" economics, which is twaddle. He was smart enough to understand that the commonplace observation codified as
the Laffer Curve, while true, didn't mean that DC could just go on an endless spending spree and expect increased tax revenues
to exceed the avarice of politicians, though.
Yes, supply side is bogus, but my observations were that Stockman was quite critical of the spending increases that the Administration
put forth. He approved of the so called tax-cuts, but he did so with the understanding that there would be spending cuts along
with them.
My own recollections (I was alive back then, but not as politically conscious as I am now) were that Stockman was not endorsing
the supply side theory so much as his own idea that cuts in government spending were necessary, and that tax cuts would put pressure
on Congress and the administration to cut spending. The irony is that, for whatever reason, tax revenues overall increased by
60% in Reagan's two terms, yet spending increased almost 100%. This certainly disproves the idea that there was ever a revenue
problem, and that it has always been a spending problem.
In any event, Stockman was just about the only person with an official capacity in DC, who actually worked toward spending
cuts. Unless you are saying that his rhetoric was a lie, and he was just like all the others. If that is the case then, of course,
you could always be right.
No, I don't think Stockman's rhetoric was a lie. He did end up getting shoved out of the Reagan regime, after all, precisely
because he resisted giving every cabinet secretary all the money they wanted and, as you say, insisted that the tax cuts needed
to be accompanied by spending cuts.
But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy in the direction of central planning .
Its premise is that instead of production being driven by diffuse demand, money should be concentrated in the hands of a few who
"know better" what should be produced.
True, the central planning class in question was, broadly and not very honestly defined, "entrepreneurs" rather than government
bureaucrats, but the principle was the same. And in practice, the "entrepreneurs" intended to benefit were the businesses
who already had the clout to make themselves part of the political class, not the guy in his garage designing a better mousetrap.
"But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy"
Perhaps the most damning thing about it was that the stated goal was to increase the federal government's revenue. What person
in their right mind would wish to give even more money and power to the federal government?
The Laffer Curve is an interesting but much over-used (and badly used) observation: There is a tax revenue curve with a
top to it. That is, as you raise taxes, revenues go up ... until the taxation gets onerous enough that additional earnings beyond
bare subsistence strike people as not worth the input, beyond which point tax INcreases produce revenue DEcreases.
She folded under pressure, but what would you expect her to do. Being branded as an "Assad stooge", even if wrong, is a death sentence
for the campaign. This is was nasty and effective trick to keep her "in place". And it worked.
Off course, Megan McCain behaved like an angry alcoholic, but that does not change the situation much: all them were neoliberal/neocon
warmongers.
Notable quotes:
"... You know for a FACT that # Assad isn't a brutal dictator and that he never used chemical weapons against his people. You even went to Syria. Yet you're willing to lie just to please a bullying McCain of all people. What a shame. ..."
"... Melissa, when you come up with a reasonable alternative to al nusra, al qaeda and isis to govern the country and unite the syrian people, and have a game plan to impose it, please let us know. ..."
"... Well you have a big problem on your hands @ MeghanMcCain because your dads "moderate rebels" beheaded 2 of our family members in # Syria Not President Assad He has protected our family in the Christian Valley of Syria and we went to over 50 Reporters "experts" who refused to talk ..."
You know for a FACT that #Assad isn't a
brutal dictator and that he never used chemical weapons against his people. You even went to Syria. Yet you're willing to lie just
to please a bullying McCain of all people. What a shame.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard says "there's no disputing the fact" that Bashar Al-Assad is a "brutal dictator" who "has used chemical weapons"
against his people, but adds that amid the US's "regime-change war," the "lives of the Syrian people have not been improved"
http:// abcn.ws/2Ne74r9
NativeSF @dypraxia Replying to @melmel24 @TheView
Melissa, when you come up with a reasonable alternative to al nusra, al qaeda and isis to govern the country and unite the
syrian people, and have a game plan to impose it, please let us know.
Well you have a big problem on your hands @MeghanMcCain
because your dads "moderate rebels" beheaded 2 of our family members in
#Syria Not President Assad He has protected
our family in the Christian Valley of Syria and we went to over 50 Reporters "experts" who refused to talk
Bernie was a sheepdog. He has no real intention to fight for the presidency in 2016, and he gave up very despicably to Hillary
during the National convention.
At his age he is not a presidential candidate in 2020 (he was born in 1941). He just again play the role of sheep dog,
possibly helping to defeat Tulsi Gabbard. As The Atlantic
pointed out:" Sanders will hurt contenders whose support overlaps with his, reducing the pool of voters available for those who
are targeting the same groups most drawn to him, particularly young people, the most liberal activists, and independents who
participate in Democratic primaries. "
Sanders's entry could also influence his competitors' assessment of the earliest primary states, by causing other candidates
to view the New Hampshire contest as a regional showdown between him and Warren
Notable quotes:
"... "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders." – Hillary Clinton to investors in a paid speech given to Brazilian Banco Itau in 2013 ..."
"... Had primary voters known everything that was going on, including rigging of the primaries and laundering of money from state and local committees, and Bernie had actually hammered Clinton for those things like any normal candidate would, he'd have won the primary and might very well be President today. Her compromising of national security via email would've been the cherry on top. ..."
Bernie Sanders's quest for the Democratic presidential nomination was one of the biggest
surprises of the 2016 campaign, surpassed only by the election's
ultimate winner . The rumpled septuagenarian socialist senator from the tiny state of
Vermont, who had never even run for office as a Democrat before, went from decades of laboring
in obscurity to competing with Hillary Clinton on something approaching even terms. On Tuesday
he announced he wants to try again, this time in a race with no obvious frontrunner.
The closest parallel to Sanders's success was probably Ron Paul: elderly, ideological
veteran lawmakers who were beloved by younger voters inside the major political party to which
they were intermittently attached (Paul was the 1988 Libertarian Party nominee for president,
Sanders technically won all his elections as an independent or third-party candidate) when they
sought its presidential nomination late in their careers. Despite their vast differences on
economics, both men also wanted an end to perpetual war in the Middle East.
Yet Sanders thrived in a two-way race and came closer than Paul to the nomination, even if
he never quite threatened to pull off a Barack Obama-style upset against Clinton. With the
GOP's small government wing in
decline , Sanders also appears for now to have had more of a transformative effect on the
Democratic Party.
"Socialism" is no longer an epithet in American politics and Sanders proved there was
valuable ground to the left of Obama.
Can Sanders do it again? To get a sense of how the Bernie revolution might eat its own,
let's reflect on why he fell short the first time. Sanders is an old-school leftist who
believes in the centrality of class, not race.
Hailing from one of the whitest states in the country, he never made inroads in the
communities of color that have become such a large part of the Democratic primary electorate --
and the crucial reason Obama prevailed where Sanders' fellow Vermonter Howard Dean did not.
Sanders was pilloried for his refusal to support
open borders in a 2015 interview with liberal pundit Ezra Klein. "No, that's a Koch brothers
proposal," Sanders replied, later calling it "right-wing." He added, "It would make everybody
in America poorer -- you're doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don't think
there's any country in the world that believes in that." Klein's website then ran a piece with
a headline claiming "Bernie
Sanders's fear of immigrant labor is ugly -- and wrongheaded."
This left-wing economic nationalism might make Sanders attractive to the white working-class
voters who cast the decisive ballots for Donald Trump in 2016. So too would the fact that while
Sanders is reliably liberal on social issues, including the obligatory support for abortion on
demand, he is clearly not animated by them. The key swing voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and
Wisconsin are economically liberal but socially conservative.
What might be assets in the general election against Trump are huge liabilities in the
Democratic primaries, however. In an American progressivism increasingly defined by
intersectionality and identity politics, even a socialist who
honeymooned in the Soviet Union is something of a relic. Centrists and liberals alike
lobbed accusations of sexism against the "Bernie bros" supporting Sanders.
Now these Sanders critics will have liberal women -- in some cases, women of color -- to
choose from in the primaries. Even outside presidential politics, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
offers the same democratic socialism in a more attractive, internet-savvy, diverse, and woke
package. In the primaries, Sanders will have to share the left lane with others. Elizabeth
Warren can compete with him on economics, Tulsi Gabbard for antiwar street cred. Nearly all the
contenders now support "Medicare for All," with many signing up for the $42 trillion Green New
Deal.
If Democrats decide they want an aging white male for old times sake, Joe Biden could do the
trick. His eight years as vice president under Obama revived his political fortunes, as Trump
says in less flattering
terms . A crowded group of progressives could give an establishment icon who starts with
high name recognition a path to the nomination. And Biden could also vie with Trump for
blue-collar white voters.
Of course, Biden would be making much of that appeal on the basis of personality. Trump and
Sanders rail against bad trade deals and the Iraq war. Biden has an even longer record of
supporting such policies than Clinton did. Some of the other Sanders alternatives'
progressivism is of more recent vintage (Kamala Harris) and perhaps of questionable sincerity
(Cory Booker). Bernie is a true believer.
But the modern Democratic Party is like a parade marching leftward so rapidly that it is
hard for anyone, even Bernie Sanders, to keep up for long.
Interesting take on Bernie here,
yet, at the same time, I'm thinkin': The bad jokes continue on the American people, which is, for example, the two names toward
the end of this article.
Booker and Harris? These two intellectually hollow politicians are quite different from
Bernie.
They are opportunists using the labels 'liberal' or simply 'Democrats' to run for office.
And, cynically using the label of being a 'minority.' Come on now!
The joke I refer to is that these two, unlike Bernie don't give a rat's butt about anyone,
ii's all self serving bull.
The difference with Bernie? He, Bernie, is sincere and really cares for people, he has heart.
Now, would some of you care to read old articles, some in the San Francisco newspapers from
the bad old days when mayor Willie Brown was there and how he, married, was having ah,
regular 'get togethers' with Kamala Harris and how he got her high paid positions with
commissions and then helped her become Att. General. And, so they used the exact opposite of
what I and my generation (teens) in the mid-late 60's were told, which was: judge everyone by
THEIR character (as MLK also said). It doesn't matter whether you are of this or that, you
know, race, national origin and so on.
So Kamala Harris was using her ah, whatever to get ego
positions and money. These are facts and I'm being kind here. There's more, Brown himself
said, in recent interviews that he had the ah, affair(we know what that means and it's not
for discussions on Plato and Calvin, ha) with her. So, this clown Booker is running cause
he's black and that's it and Harris is using that too and that she's a female??
More jokes
from jokers on the American people. Again, a betrayal of myself and my fellow liberals from
the 60's and 70's. Run, brother Bernie run! At least you're real and not sleazy, can you all
dig what I'm sayin'?
If memory serves, significant numbers of black and Hispanic voters do not support open
borders either. Bernie should learn from his 2016 mistakes, and go for the jugular against
ex-prosecutor Harris and longtime foe of teachers and water carrier for the charter school
industry Booker. He might also note Gillibrand's flip flop on guns, if he hasn't done the
same.
He also needs to call out the Democratic establishment for supporting Medicare for All
in words, while undercutting it in deed.
And he must learn not to be so solicitous of
corporate Democrats, be they corrupt war criminals like Clinton (he should have kept his
mouth shut about the e-mails) or bait-and-switch types like Andrew Cuomo, who is pulling on a
state level with "free college" and an "increased" minimum wage exactly what Pelosi is doing
at the federal level with Medicare for All. Oh, and talk more about jobs for all, a shortened
workweek, restoring voting rights and the Voting Rights Act, and breaking up and controlling
the banks and near monopolies instead of wonking out about Big Money in politics (nowhere
near as visceral as closing down polling places and purging voter rolls, although
gerrymandering might be turning into a rare winning "wonk" issue).
Respect the voters, Bernie, lay out your records vs. your opponents in targeted
advertising, but treat your opponents as most of them deserve.
Nah. Ideology is meaningless. It's all about GANG POWER. Bernie is not authorized by the
Clinton Mob, so he can't win. Kamala is employed by the Clinton Mob, so she will win.
Re: Sanders was pilloried for his refusal to support open borders in a 2015 interview with
liberal pundit Ezra Klein.
This is lazy writing. Words have meaning and there's no support for "open borders" among
the Democrats either– which would mean tearing down all our border controls so that
travel into the US from either Mexico or Canada would be as unhindered, on our side, as
travel between Michigan and Ohio.
Re: The key swing voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are economically liberal
but socially conservative.
It would be better stated that they are socially moderate: generally in favor of abortion
rights (with limitations) and at peace with SSM, but not on board with the more extreme forms
of feminism or gay rights advocacy. The days of true social conservatism as the default
working class position are long gone. Mostly these people just want to be left alone–
by both SJWs of the Left and Bible thumping preachers of the Right. In that regard Donald
Trump seemed like a safe vote for them.
As someone who voted for Ron Paul 2008-12, , Bernie in the primaries and then for Trump
(reluctantly) in the general election, I will share what I see in Bernie: Honesty. Unbought.
Unbossed. No taint of scandal, lifelong devotion to his beliefs, went to jail over housing
desegregation, itinerate ne'er-d0-well supporting himself with home-made educational films
for schools and carpentry gigs, a gadfly who won his first election by 10 votes in a four-way
race, etc. , in other words, he's real. I don't share his views on social issues, but Trump's
judicial picks make it a lot easier to contemplate a Bernie Presidency, as the Senate and
courts would check and balance his more lefty impulses.
He's about as un-bought as any
politician in America, and having not been one of the cool kids means he's not beholden to
them.
Teamed with another outsider like Tulsi, Bernie would have a very good chance of
winning, and he's quite possibly do as much good, on balance, as anyone could hope for.
"My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders." –
Hillary Clinton to investors in a paid speech given to Brazilian Banco Itau in 2013
Rep. Jackie Speier: "I have said publically before that if what we're doing is build a
useless wall for a couple of years that we can then tear down, I'm willing to pay that price
to make sure these DACA kids can stay in the country."
zagonostra: "Wow, not one word on the corruption and collusion between HRC and DNC as
evidenced in Podesta emails and Donna Brazile's book."
Had primary voters known everything that was going on, including rigging of the primaries
and laundering of money from state and local committees, and Bernie had actually hammered
Clinton for those things like any normal candidate would, he'd have won the primary and might
very well be President today. Her compromising of national security via email would've been
the cherry on top.
Sorry, that was a very cheap shot to snidely refer to Socialist Bernie's Honeymoon in the
Soviet Union. He was mayor of Burlington, Vermont at the time and he officially visited the
town's sister city in Russia with his new bride. Did he have fun while he was there, God
forbid? Probably, as the video link clearly shows. Was he there to report to his Kremlin
masters?
Obviously not, since he has never been suspected of spying or of being a Russian stooge.
TAC in general -- but Pat Buchannan and Rod Dreher in particular -- continues to exaggerate
the portion of Democrats who are on the extreme far-left, and thus more "radical" than
Bernie. Clinton hangers-on and hardcore DNC insiders aside, most Democrats can easily square
their ideals and beliefs with Bernie's and have stronger incentives to do so than they did in
2016. Beyond the Democrats, those who saw him as too extreme in 2016 must re-calibrate and
consider him as a viable alternative to the fiasco of Trump. However, it's difficult to
imagine the extreme MAGA club defecting to Sanders, given how deeply they've entrenched
themselves in Trump's fakery and lies.
Re: Kent, "Then we will have a great national debate over what's more important: a wall to
keep out the Mexicans, or affordable healthcare."
Related to "affordable" healthcare, the Democrat Medicare for All proposal is a naive and
stupid illusion. The U.S. health care system based on the current fee-for-service model
cannot be reformed by moving the "who pays" food around the plate.
U.S. health care per capita costs of over $10,000 a year are 45% higher than German per
capita costs. The ONLY genuine reform would provide a significant reduction in the per cost
of health care to approach than of other advanced nations with some universal health care
model.
The ONLY way Medicare for All could work would be for the government to force massive fee
cram-downs on the health care Crony Cartels. Big Doctor, Big Hospital, Big Pharma, Big
Insurance would all have to be lined up for Big Haircuts.
Only nobody in Washington has the guts to do that. Or has the guts to propose a truly
transformational change in the health care model paradigm, e.g., a variation of the German
model.
The sad thing is that so many Americans are played for chumps by politicians spouting
their simplistic solutions that make no more sense than the obviously wired-for-failure
Obamacare.
Stick a fork in America with Dems running the show too – Because it's still
cooked.
All this concern-trolling from the Right and Center is really amusing.
Polls indicate that the actual voters want what Bernie is selling. Given the chance, he
will crush Trump, defeating ugly and vulgar cruelty with love and kindness.
"the crucial reason Obama prevailed where Sanders' fellow Vermonter Howard Dean did not"
Beyond all the bad faith toothless crushing of sour grapes in the article, this is an
interesting line.
Dean ran on an anti-war platform – against the Bush Doctrine – at a time when
no other Democratic "leader" dared, and Barbara Lee's resolution to disavow the doctrine of
preventive war got cobwebbed in the biparty Congress. His position – which contrasts
well with his pitiful shilling for MEK these days – challenged the blobbed US biparty
foreign policy "consensus" in much the same manner Primary Trump did, and the media and party
backstablishment rallied to derail Dean ASAP.
Obama had the foresight to speak out against the Iraq war without having to deliver a
Senate vote, and he postured as comprehensively dishonest as an anti-war candidate as Trump
did, and then implemented US impunitivism just as Trump does.
The difference was 4 years, from 2004 to 2008. The People, in their finite wisdom, saw fit
to elect a Supreme Court-selected GWB with popular majority, approving of illegal aggressive
war (as well as Congress' unconstitutional authorizations for that crime).
Incidentally, Barbara Lee refrained from re-introducing the disavowal of preventive war
during the Obama years. Presumably the party might have not actually voted for it as long as
they had that uncomfortable majority.
Since 2008, the anti-war "movement" has veritably sublimated, and Obama's continuation of
expansion of Bush's illegal wars has not been challenged and is – Syria, Yemen –
rarely mentioned by those who criticize Trump for delivering Bush 5th term. In this respect,
2012 and 2016 were as different from 2008 as 2008 was from 2004 – and frankly, Obama's
re-election in 2012 had the same "follow the leader" partisan stain that Bush's election in
2004 had: letters of indulgence to Presidents who had proven themselves liars and
criminals.
If there is one valid criticism of Sanders, it is that he has not committed in 2016 or
since to a full, open break with the blob and the foreign policy consensus, and he has not
taken a clear stand against illegal war, wasteful debt-backed military spending, and US
impunitivism.
No candidate for 2020 has committed to repealing the AUMF:
Nice guy, Bernie, though wooly-headed. I would like to think, however, that he truly believes
in what he is saying. Sometimes, however, I wonder if what he says is for public consumption
only and not reflective of what he really believes in–namely, garden variety Old School
Liberalism. If he had been a True Believer and given the way they cooked the books, he would
have flipped the bird to Madame and her DNC flunkies and run third-party (wouldn't THAT have
been fun!). In the end, however he copped out, which makes one wonder where he really stands.
If Sanders is denied the nomination of his party again–a distinct possibility as
suggested by Mr. Antle–let's see if he"bolts" and mounts a third-party candidacy. If he
does, he would be demonstrating the courage of his convictions–a rare commodity among
politicians.
If he doesn't and cops out yet again, falling meekly in lockstep behind the Democrat
nominee, then it says here that Bernie Sanders is just another phony politician.
"When we talk about the word 'socialism,' I think what it really means is just democratic
participation in our economic dignity and our economic, social, and racial dignity. It is
about direct representation and people actually having power and stake over their economic
and social wellness, at the end of the day."
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
"They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
Before the George Soros clones start the Revolution, they need to understand who owns most of
the guns and ammunition in this country and knows how to use them. If you ass wipes want to
dance, then start the music or shut the Hell up.
"Nah. Ideology is meaningless. It's all about GANG POWER. Bernie is not authorized by the
Clinton Mob, so he can't win. Kamala is employed by the Clinton Mob, so she will win."
Little known political trivia: in the 2008 primaries, there was a challenger to Clinton,
named Barrack Obama. He was stomped out of the race so fast that most people don't even
remember him.
I am not a fan of Trump, and believe the country would be better off with new leadership. But
the liberal-left wing of the Democratic Party -- well, is it a wing or the party proper,
that's the question -- is seriously delusional to think Bernie, Harris, Warren, Booker and
the rest could carry more than 5 states. My guess is that only Sherrod Brown of Ohio could
pull off a victory, if he has the chops to handle whatever slurs and nicknames Trump will
have for him. Maybe the Democrats should draft Michael Dukakis. He crushed Biden.
The problem for the Republicans is that we can't deny that the economy favors the wealthy,
not because they are creative, or because they are building factories, and providing jobs but
because they are able to borrow money at zero percent interest in order to keep the Wall
Street casinos going. Trillions of dollars have been transferred from savings and pension
plans to the wealthy in the form of bailouts and quantitative easing. And now the Fed has
decided to not unload its balance sheet which means the debt has been monetized. Soon there
will be lowering of interest rates and more quantitative easing. In short, we have a managed
economy that favors the wealthy. Capitalism is dead. Transferring money to the wealthy while
everyone else must bear the burden of austerity cannot, and should not last. The people will
not continue to accept it. The wealthy brought it upon themselves.
"The people will not continue to accept it. The wealthy brought it upon themselves."
Great! So what can the people do? Those wealthy have the ability to send unemployment
skyrocketing. They have the backing of both parties. Those people were progressive before
anything we have today. Those wealthy do not play by the same rules others do. You can blame
Republicans all you want, but many Dems are just as guilty and many Dem voters will feel the
pain. too.
You can't say it any clearer than that. Tulsi will get her chance to shine and break from
the pack in the first debate. She will stand out in stark contrast against the other war
party candidates in both parties. I am looking for Tulsi to come out of the debates as a
clear anti-war alternative while the others split the pro-war vote.
Unlike Trump you don't have to read between the lines to cherry pick anti war nuggets
while ignoring the other 90% of what Gabbard says. Nor do you need to ignore her vids about
"pussy grabbing" or her draft dodging or tabloid scandals and self-centered get rich schemes.
Tulsi is an Iraq War combat zone veteran with a genuine commitment to public service with
crossover appeal to red and blue voters. She would beat Trump head to head.
Trump barely beat Hillary despite Hillary's warmongering , poor judgment and scandalous
foundation. Tulsi has none of Hillary's baggage and would demolish Trump on national TV.
Would you rather your kids grew up to be like Tulsi or like Trump?
I hope Sanders understands that Gabbard will be a much more powerful candidate than he
could ever be, especially since he will be 79 before the 2020 election, he can't connect with
Black voters and has no military service.
Sanders should throw his support to Gabbard early and become her adviser or running mate.
Sanders' support could help Tulsi get off to a strong start in New Hampshire. Here's
hoping.
It's official today, Bernie is running. Even if he wasn't, he doesn't possess the backbone
to support a candidate this dangerous to the DNC. He didn't even have the backbone to stand
up for his own voters when Hillary mugged the vote. The man is on the record as a
Russia-bating, Hugo-bashing, drone-strike-socialist. He's an albatross around the left's
neck. Nobody needs another FDR. Nobody but the Military Industrial Complex that is. People
like Bernie only give such institutions a much needed "compassionate" makeover.
Bernie can shit in his hat. There is only one Democrat left committed to McGovern-style
anti-imperialism and that's Tulsi Gabbard . I left that party of dickless hypocrites
years ago and I have zero intention of ever returning but you can consider this an
endorsement. If you're gonna vote in 2020, vote for Tulsi. We gotta put an end to this
bomb-dropping shitshow we call a super-power. This is a start.
"... So, you can actually help to get her in the Debates by going to her Campaign Page and making a contribution, and encouraging others to do the same. It's the total number of contributions that matters, not the total amount, so anything will help toward the goal. ..."
"... Let's get Tulsi Gabbard on the stage for the first Democratic Primary Debate in June! Donate $5 today at www.tulsi2020.com to help Tulsi get her message out to America! ..."
"... Again, you're a young Hawaiian female. In a field of more than a dozen candidates, you have to quickly establish yourself as "top tier". Barring an endorsement from Bernie Sanders, the only way to do that is to look, speak, and act top tier. ..."
"... Like Ron Paul, Gabbard says things that desperately need saying but that establishment politicians rarely say. She not only says them. She makes them the centerpiece of her campaign, so I support her speaking tour rather than the campaign per se. ..."
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard released this 30-second video in her campaign for
the White House. It is one of the most clear and unequivocal statements I have ever heard
from a presidential candidate:
Please note that this is not an endorsement or statement of support. Antiwar.com is a
nonprofit organization and does not endorse or urge support for any candidates. We do,
however, provide news and commentary on campaigns.
Just because the talk gets tougher doesn't mean the policy will change. Especially from
the top down. We can hope, but if she's at all sincere I doubt she'll ever get close to the
debates since it would be an indictment upon the elite who stack the slate we vote from.
I hope she keeps saying what she's saying but it's abundantly clear to me the five eyes
countries are already beyond the point of no return as far as their sh*tty global debt
peonage and slavery utopia dream goes.......
Without mass civil disobedience this gal will either fade away or get JFK'd.
The rules say that they have to let her in the first Debate if she raises donations from
at least 65,000 people by then. She has to have raised these contributions from at least 20
States, with at least 200 contributors coming from an individual State in order for that
State to count toward the 20 State total.
So, you can actually help to get her in the Debates
by going to her Campaign Page and making a contribution, and encouraging others to do the
same. It's the total number of contributions that matters, not the total amount, so anything
will help toward the goal.
There is also a polling threshold in order to qualify for the
Debates, but you only have to meet one or the other. The polling threshold is too easy for
the Establishment to manipulate and rig. The donation threshold can't be faked, and is the
safer path toward getting her on that Stage.
https://www.tulsi2020.com/s...
I don't give money to politicians. That's how we got to this point remember ? All you're doing is paying consultants who used to work for the Clinton Mafia anyway.
Your comment is paradoxical. You either have hope for recovery or you believe all hope is
lost. You can't claim both.
I don't worry about the debates as each four years that pass reduces the hold the TV debates
have on Joe America and pumps up the internet which the Commission on Presidential Debates
has no control.
Thank you for your passionate comment.
I have no hope the current system will recover. I have hope something new will rise out of
the ashes of the old. The enemy is this stupid idea of there being an "elite" class among
us.
Interesting assertion you have there. I'd be interested if you know of any articles or
books that elaborate on your no elite class among us concept. Thank you for your reply.
Dave chimes in with his usual cynicism and the well worn " only massive civil disobedience
will work" trope. Read John McCarthy below for a solid and effective thing to do for Tulsi -
not that Dave seems to want to help in any way.
Is he cynical or lazy - and those are not mutually exclusive?
I'd say it's the more naive among us that believe that political stump speeches actually
have to mean something that are the lazy ones.
How come voting hasn't changed policy goals so far Cratylus ?
If people like you would pull your head out of your arses and quit supporting the two
funding arms of the war party we would be less likely to get "hope and change" over and over
again.
Here's a clue for you..... Politicians don't always mean what they say in stump
speeches......
Here's another clue for you..... You live in a plutocracy, please take note of this and
quit pretending you have representative government or anything close to a democracy.
FYI for those that don't have their dictionary handy.
The definition of a plutocracy is a political system where the wealthy govern. When the
richest people have all of the power in a society and make all of the political decisions,
this is an example of a plutocracy. YourDictionary definition and usage example.
"The definition of a plutocracy is a political system where the wealthy govern."
You repeat yourself. All existing States are governed by the (relatively) wealthy. It
cannot be otherwise. Once the State has been granted the legal authority to plunder, it is
only a matter of time before the wealthy become the biggest purchasers of the plundering
service.
That just means the state isn't the enemy, the "elite" are. Or in other words, the concept
of their being an elite. The state is just another benign entity like a religion that in
reality is the control mechanism of the so called elite.
Yes, the state is just another benign entity that murdered somewhere in the neighborhood
of 300 million people in the 20th century, excluding war deaths and incidental rather than
intentional killings.
If Trump can win, anything is possible. We're looking at a whole new ballgame here. I
generally prefer general strikes and direct action myself but if there's a ballot box just
lying there, I'm gonna pick it up and throw it through the nearest government window. Why the
f**k not? The brick and the ballot box, that's my motto. Put that shit on a T-shirt and sell
it.
For anyone to actually get elected President and THEN make major policy changes that
GREATLY benefit the American people, as USG policies should, would take a full-scale
revolution against the ruling classes! That is the REALITY of the USA today. All talk about
"freedom and democracy" and nothing but policies that suffocate these two things all over the
globe AND at home! A candidate can have 70% of the vote and STILL be prisoner to the Deep
State in some way.
Even if I didn't vote for her in the general election, I am certainly going to contribute,
as she will probably be the only major party candidate who is remotely antiwar. If she can
get her ideas some exposure, you are correct, she would mop the floor with Trump. My only
concern would be her coziness with Israel, but, perhaps, she will rethink those ties to be
consistent with her overall antiwar message.
Borg, I agree that Gabbard needs to articulate a clearer understanding of Israel and its
lobby in US wars. But she is the only candidate who would never put Israel's interest ahead
of the interests of the American people.
In less than 20 years Gabbard has grown from a homophobic Hawaiian surfer girl to the
youngest woman legislator in American history to a veteran twice deployed in an Iraq war zone
to a resolute critic of the eternal wars who condemned Obama and Trump alike for their neocon
foreign policies. She is still growing. I hope she comes to a deeper understanding of the
Zionist influence on US policy as well as a deeper appreciation of the foreign policy goals
of the Iranian regime. I am optimistic because her past record shows a capacity for change, a
commitment to honesty and the ability to respond effectively and courageously to diverse
challenges. If given the chance Tulsi would resolutely fight against the war mongers in both
parties.
We need Tulsi on that debate stage! She is the only candidate speaking about the issues of
war and peace. Once she gets the exposure, people will like her and her platform. Then she
has a chance to get to the White House.
We can help her!
Let's get Tulsi Gabbard on the stage for the first Democratic Primary Debate in June!
Donate $5 today at
www.tulsi2020.com to help Tulsi get her message out to America!
We need 65,000 supporters across the country to donate so we can meet the DNC's fundraising
threshold requirement to qualify Tulsi for the debate stage.
- Lose the lei. It's distracting and it subconsciously broadcasts that you're an
"other".
- You're a 37-year-old woman from a tiny state. People need to get to know you. Start with
a photo/video montage showing military career, family, speaking in the House, etc. while you
do a voiceover. Then switch to headshot video of you speaking directly to the viewer.
- Instead of attacking "warmongers in their ivory towers", connect with viewers by
explaining that you're a combat veteran who shares their war-weariness. Leave in the stuff
about the monetary and human costs of the wars.
- The "speech" setting for the ad doesn't work: if you're speaking to a crowd, where's the
applause? And the constant looking left and right (to, presumably, imaginary people) makes
you look nervous.
Again, you're a young Hawaiian female. In a field of more than a dozen candidates, you
have to quickly establish yourself as "top tier". Barring an endorsement from Bernie Sanders,
the only way to do that is to look, speak, and act top tier.
People were clapping, but the event was outdoors, and the clips don't feature applause
lines. The entire speech is online if you want to hear it.
Sanders doesn't excite me, and I don't think he'll fare as well in a crowded field, but
I'll be happy with Gabbard as his running mate. She's not remotely like Trump, but because
corporate media paint her this way, they'll help her draw votes from Trump.
I don't vote as a rule, and I don't support political candidates because I expect them to
win. Like Ron Paul, Gabbard says things that desperately need saying but that establishment
politicians rarely say. She not only says them. She makes them the centerpiece of her
campaign, so I support her speaking tour rather than the campaign per se.
The lei and aloha talk also seem overdone to me, but these superficial appeals don't
affect me one way or the other, and for all I know, they're effective for people who are
moved by them.
I think if Tulsi became President, we would know soon whether or not the Trump apologists
are full of crap that Trump is simply "playing 3D Chess" and doing everything in his power
for peace. Tulsi appears to be the real thing, and, if she actually followed through, we
would put an end to this talk of Trump - Peace - MAGA. Of course, there is always the slight
chance, no matter how small, that the Deep State actually does possess mind control weapons
which can morph any pro-peace President into another Trump, but I'd like to think it is not
that late yet.
I would be interested in a few reference links. If this is true, it would complicate
things, but, people, even politicians, can learn and change for the better. If I can be
redeemed after some of the lame headed things I've said and done, anyone can.
"Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have." Power is derived
from 2 main sources – money and people. "Have-Nots" must build power from flesh and
blood.
"Never go outside the expertise of your people." the result is confusion, fear, and
retreat.
"Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy." Here you want to cause
confusion, fear, and retreat.
"Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." You can kill them with this, for they
can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.
"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon ." It is almost impossible to counterattack
ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
"A good tactic is one your people enjoy." If your people are not having a ball doing it,
there is something very wrong with the tactic.
"A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag." Man can sustain militant interest in
any issue for only a limited time, after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment, like
going to church on Sunday mornings. New issues and crises are always developing, and one's
reaction becomes, "Well, my heart bleeds for those people and I'm all for the boycott, but
after all there are other important things in life" -- and there it goes.
"Keep the pressure on. Never let up." [use] different tactics and actions, and utilize
all events of the period for your purpose.
" The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. "
"The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a
constant pressure upon the opposition." It is this unceasing pressure that results in the
reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign. It should
be remembered not only that the action is in the reaction but that action is itself the
consequence of reaction and of reaction to the reaction, ad infinitum. The pressure produces
the reaction, and constant pressure sustains action.
"If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside
[positive] " this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative. We have
already seen the conversion of the negative into the positive, in Mahatma Gandhi's
development of the tactic of passive resistance.
"The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative." You cannot risk being
trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying "You're right -- we
don't know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us."
"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." the opposition must be
singled out as the target and "frozen." in a complex, interrelated, urban society, it becomes
increasingly difficult to single out who is to blame for any particular evil. There is a
constant passing of the buck. Obviously there is no point to tactics unless one has a target
upon which to center the attacks If an organization permits responsibility to be diffused and
distributed in a number of areas, attack becomes impossible.
So the next time you see a political movement or campaign in action, compare their tactics
to the list above and you'll know how you are being manipulated!
@onebornfree You are
probably the most whacked out idealist on this site. In your mind all the ills of society is
because of socialism.
Well next time your toilet backs up, don't use that socialist phone network to call a
plumber to clean those socialized drainpipes that keeps your stinky shit flowing down hill
and away to be socially treated – just move to certain parts of India where none of
that takes place – it's your idealist utopia. Wallow in it.
And please refrain from that socialized, government organized power grid – it's the
only thing that keeps you on this site spewing your nonsense. And stay off those socialized
roads.
Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was greeted with a "warm aloha" on the The View
Wednesday morning. But things didn't stay sunny for long.
As the
2020 Democratic presidential candidate began to lay out how her time serving in Iraq has
influenced her non-interventionist foreign policy position, Meghan McCain was just itching to
push back. "Can I interrupt you?" she asked.
After thanking Gabbard for her service, McCain told her, "When I hear the name Tulsi
Gabbard, I think of Assad apologist. I think of someone who comes back to the United States and
is spouting propaganda from Syria." The co-host was referring to a controversial trip Gabbard
made to Syria two years ago. While there, she met
with President Bashar al-Assad and defended him upon her return. More recently, she told
MSNBC's Morning Joe , "Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does
not pose a direct threat to the United States."
"You have said that the Syrian president, Assad, is not the enemy of the United States,"
McCain continued, "yet he's used chemical weapons against his own people 300 times." When she
says that "regime change" would be hurtful to that country but "gassing children isn't more
hurtful, it's hard for me to understand where you would come from a humanitarian standpoint if
you were to become president."
In response, Gabbard accused McCain of "putting words in [her] mouth," but she did not alter
her fundamental stance. Asked to clarify her position, she said, "An enemy of the United States
is someone who threatens our safety and our security."
"There is no disputing the fact that Bashar al-Assad and Syria is a brutal dictator,"
Gabbard added. "There's no disputing the fact that he has used chemical weapons and other
weapons against his people. There are other terrorist groups in Syria who have used similar
chemical weapons and other weapons of terror against the people of Syria."
Tulsi vs. the war propaganda machine of the US government and MIC. It was tough, but she made it (neocons are
just MIC prostitutes; they have zero independent in their views). I wish we have several anti-war candidates for
president, but we have only one and she has all my support.
This idea of ruling the world after the collapse of the USSR the neolib/neocon elite in Washington pushed
for the last 30 years proves to be a disaster for the country. See
Neocon foreign policy is a
disaster for the USA
I hope that all those despicable warmongers (which happen to be women) are chronic alcoholics because that's the only reliable method to
survive when you have no self-esteem and just parrot view of people who pay you money. That's just a different type of
prostitution...
Judging from her appearance, Megan McCain might have problem with substance abuse, though.
Notable quotes:
"... Meghan's father proudly advocated for the regime change wars in Iraq and Libya, both of which resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent civilians and gave rise to ISIS, which is still wreaking havoc in the Middle East today. He also advocated for the arming and funding of "moderate" rebels (a.k.a. terrorists) in Syria in an attempt to overthrow Assad. ..."
"... Wow didn't expect this candidate to tell the truth about America's intervention in the World. So refreshing ! I understand now why Meghan doesn't like her. ..."
McCain is such an angry interviewer... always thinking about her next attacking retort
without actually listening to the answer of a level-headed, thoughtful guest.
It's not Meghan's tough questions, because tough questions are much appreciated, its the
condescension and the juvenile behaviour. Its cringey, sooo cringey.
She made Meghan look so ignorant which she is. They say if you argue with a fool
from a distance no one knows who the fool is we know who the fool is this debate the
undisputed queen of ignorance Meghan McCain.
Meghan's father proudly advocated for the regime change wars in Iraq and Libya, both of
which resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent civilians and gave rise to ISIS, which
is still wreaking havoc in the Middle East today. He also advocated for the arming and
funding of "moderate" rebels (a.k.a. terrorists) in Syria in an attempt to overthrow
Assad.
Wow didn't expect this candidate to tell the truth about America's intervention in the
World. So refreshing ! I understand now why Meghan doesn't like her.
Tulsi is the person who can heal our deeply wounded national psyche due to the idiocy and
ignorance of the Trump Regime. I have the same feeling watching her that I did when I saw
Obama at the 2004 convention, only Tulsi is a progressive where I sadly learned Obama was way
too corporate. I need to live to see Tulsi Gabbard in the White House. It's the same God, the
Force in everything, and nobody should be forced away from their beliefs or non belief. It's
Time To Show People That NOBODY IS NOBODY!
Tulsi Gabbard, one of the very few good politicians. Too much focus on Left and Right
views. It's time for Right and Wrong to come to the fore. Tulsi will try to clean up the mess
that her predecessors have created. Stop the bullshit deep state wars. Sons and daughters
being sacrificed for gas and oil profits. The benefits then ironically never come
I so want to support Tulsi. Shall we ever get a progressive enough candidate to get a real
investigation on the events of 9/11...to determine why the dust of those buildings had
military grade nano thermite, in which all the evidence suggests an intentional demolition of
those towers, and when, oh when will we get a candidate that unequivocally works for all
money out of campaigns and publicly funded elections like our Canadian neighbors.
This is my prediction - Tulsi Gabbard in 2020 election is like what Trump was in 2016
Election. Eventually, Tulsi is going to strike a chord with American people and almost all
Democrats and Independents are going to vote her and few from Trump base is also going to
vote her and eventually elect her as President in 2020 election. This is too early to make
such prediction but I think majority of Americans are very fair minded people and will do the
justice to her by electing her as President.
Tulsi Gabbard is courageous and stands up against her own party regardless of the
political cost. Elizabeth Warren is a coward; she never stands up against her party; she only
fights the easy fights (GOP,Trump). Elizabeth Warren was a college professor she knows the
words the young kids want to listen and she says them often. Mark my words 'Elizabeth Warren
in 2020 will be the Walter Mondale of 1984'
Tulsi Gabbard. She supports Medicare for all and Elizabeth Warren does not. She's also
really pushing the fake Russia story all over MSNBC. Tulsi was the only one who didn't
endorse Hillary.
Liz voted to get rid of Habeas Corpus and we're going to put her up for president now?
Bernie and Liz will certainly maintain the Democratic Party line on the Middle East.
Mike don't be naive. The Democratic Party has learned NOTHING! They'd definitely cheat a
true progressive in 2020. Have you seen ANY changes? Do you hear what their lawyers say about
cheating Sanders on the record?
I'd take Tulsi Gabbard over Elizabeth Warren. Warren showed her true colors. Always too
little too late and she doesn't do it by mistake. Gabbard just does the right thing because
it's right. I don't think Warren could beat Trump. He can poke way too many holes in her.
"... Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes vote. ..."
"... how being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure, for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic? ..."
Foreign policy is more than just war and peace, it is a nuanced and complex issue that
directly affects us here at home. In this interview, Dr. Jane Sanders sits down with
Representative Tulsi Gabbard to talk about U.S. foreign policy and how it affects us here at
home.
Tulsi this is the first I've explored who you are. This conversation felt like a life
giving refreshment. The constant war and regime change policy of every administration since I
was a young child has been utterly confounding. We are bankrupting our society and
civilization with military expenditure exactly like a life destroying heroin addict except
it's on a global scale. These people in the powers that be together with the masses that back
them are literal sociopaths and they're entirely in control at both the highest and base
levels. The only other time I've felt as nourished by a public figure that somehow pierced
through the mainstream media was Bernie Sanders actually expressing the fact that we are an
oligarchy not a democracy. Like oligarchy, anti-war and imperialism is just not talked about.
US Americans won't acknowledge the scale of our imperialism.
Tulsi should run and both Sanders should follow her lead. As much as I love him, Bernie's
too old to be president - when it gets to the stage against Trump, we need a young, vibrant
face. Add onto that the fact that she's a veteran who actually asked to be deployed in
comparison to him, a draft dodger - he looks like an old fat pathetic septogenarian next to
an early 40s real populist. Ultimately it is up to Sanders whether this whole thing is about
a man or a movement. If he runs, he'll probably win the primary but it is not a guarantee
that he'd win - Tulsi would win and she'd be around for decades to come as a standard barer
too.
"Sensible politics" seems to be an oxymoron these days and pretty much throughout the
history of our country. It's so refreshing to see a politician who has a vision for the
future that the majority of us can get behind. It scares me though. I've read quite a bit
about JFK the past few years, and he amassed a number of very powerful and dangerous enemies.
They won't just stand by and allow someone in a position of influence to get the truth out
about our immoral and illegal wars. Tulsi, I support your efforts to bring peace to the
Middle East and elsewhere, but please do be careful. You're a fighter and I admire that, but
we all want you to be safe and healthy for many years to come.
Tulsi Gabbard, I am thrilled to have someone like you running for president. I am a fellow
Veteran dealing with disability and I am glad to have a candidate who understands the issues
Veterans are dealing with. I also realize that the voting public will support the person who
resonates with their personal lives and issues that don't exist in their life they will
disregard.Thank you for you're support.
The DNC will lie cheat and steal the election from Tulsi Gabbard just like they did Bernie
Sanders, and the 15 million Americans who Left the un-Democratic party will double and
triple....DEMEXIT
Tulsi Gabbard needs to be the president of the United States of America period. If she not
the president of our country will not survive. That is a fact, how stupid can our government
be. I guess very stupid, what else can I say. We don't hear that in main news media, the
reason we do hear it the media . The news media is totally brought, the main news media love
money and the devil, simple as that. How are you going to hear about wars from main news
media. They do care about the citizens or the country. We really don't have a real news
media, it all propaganda. All fake news, that why one doesn't hear anything from the new
medias.
Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one
responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime
change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes
vote.
WAKE UP, PEOPLE! Bernie is a sell-out - a sheeple-herder that never intended to win. He
was a gatekeeper for Hillary because she is AIPAC-beloved and he is an Israel-firster. He
threw his supporters under the bus as they told him in real time that the nomination was
being stolen. He's part of the con, and the sooner we realize this, the better off we'll be.
BERNIE WORKS FOR DEMOCRATS. Vote Third Party (REAL third parties, not the Bernie Sanders'
kind).
Kinky, 2 months ago
Tulsi - re your comment about our veterans who have "served and sacrificed for their country," could you clarify how
being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure,
for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our
country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic?
Jimmy, the whole Tulsi interview was a clinic on real journalism. It's efforts from TJDS
like this that make me wish I had more $ to give to the show than I do. Thank you for the
great work! And, while I was already a big supporter of Tulsi Gabbard, the way she spoke
honestly & addressed some tough questions & uncomfortable truths about the party
(& capitalism- that's what buying off pols is, an aspect of capitalism) just sent her
credibility sky high with me. Thank you Tulsi, & thank you Jimmy & the crew at TJDS.
Well done!
This entire interview, was nothing short of brilliant. Tulsi is the real deal. When Jimmy
mentions her & Bernie start a new party, her face said it all. She seemed genuinely
flattered and became very humble. Wish there was a "Tulsi Gabbard" in all 50 states. She
gives hope to people. Peace. And, thank you.
I hate to say it, but I remember another progressive politician who said all the right
things, at the right time: Barack Obama. I drank up that kool aid by the gallon, and voted
for him twice. Will Gabbard emerge from her first briefing as POTUS as a Stepford Wife of the
MIC, as Obama did? Will it be "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" yet again? By 2013,
specifically after Ukraine and vilification of Snowden (not to mention Libya, Syria,
Iraq/ISIS, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, etc) I vowed to never vote for a Democrat again, after
pulling the lever for dems my entire life. I would vote for Gabbard as an independent in a
hot second, but unfortunately have no hope for her or her seemingly progressive agenda if she
stays tied to the corrupt and warmongering DNC.
"... Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her ..."
"... Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn. ..."
"... The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic
cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her. She said:
" We must stand up
against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up
new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and
hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our
middle class."
It is too early to formulate a complete opinion on Gabbard, but she has said the right thing
so far. In fact, her record is better than numerous presidents, both past and present.
As we have documented in the past, Gabbard is an Iraq war veteran, and she knew what
happened to her fellow soldiers who died for Israel, the Neocon war machine, and the military
industrial complex. She also seems to be aware that the war in Iraq alone will cost American
taxpayers at least six trillion dollars.
[1] She is almost certainly aware of the fact that at least "360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans may have suffered brain injuries."
[2]
Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and
destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the
Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle
East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn.
The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both
parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about
you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that
matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of
the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you
should all agree with Gabbard here.
[1] Ernesto Londono, "Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion," Washington
Post , March 28, 2013; Bob Dreyfuss, The $6 Trillion Wars," The Nation , March 29,
2013; "Iraq War Cost U.S. More Than $2 Trillion, Could Grow to $6 Trillion, Says Watson
Institute Study," Huffington Post , May 14, 2013; Mark Thompson, "The $5 Trillion War
on Terror," Time , June 29, 2011; "Iraq war cost: $6 trillion. What else could have
been done?," LA Times , March 18, 2013.
[2] "360,000 veterans may have brain injuries," USA Today , March 5, 2009.
"We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new
places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy,
our security, and destroying our middle class."
"... US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class ..."
...Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the
power of the Israel Lobby to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the
Middle East and West Asia.
US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and
Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the
foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.
Wow, I absolutely love every point she made, what a breath of fresh air. Our less popular presidents that have lost their second
term elections have lost them because.. their opponent was a breath of fresh air. She's going to win by an embarrassing margin,
wish her the best!
Tulsi Gabbard's platform
is closely aligned with Senator Bernie Sanders' platform – the platform supported by millions and millions of American working class
during his 2016 presidential campaign.
In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:
Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and
the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump
Okay, in theory, a third option is possible (never say never!) but I see that as highly unlikely: Tulsi Gabbard follows in the
footsteps of Trump and gets elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House
she does what Trump failed to do and appeals directly to the people of the USA to back her in a ruthless campaign to "drain the swamp"
(meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially, when he came to power,
by the way. Frankly, for all her very real qualities she does not strike me as a "US Putin" nor does she have the kind of institutional
and popular backing Putin had. So while I will never say never, I am not holding my breath on this one
Finally, if Gabbard truly is "for real" then the Deep State will probably "Kennedy" her and blame Russia or Iran for it.
Still, while we try to understand what, if anything, Tulsi Gabbard could do for the world, she does do good posting messages like
this one:
I don't know about you, but I am rather impressed!
At the very least, she does what "Occupy Wall Street" did with its "1%" which was factually wrong. The actual percentage is much
lower but politically very effective. In this case, Gabbard speaks of both parties being alike and she popularizes concepts like
" warmongers in ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage and new places for people to die ". This is all very good and useful
for the cause of peace and anti-imperialism because when crimethink concepts become mainstream, then the mainstream is collapsing
!
The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't give a
damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans"
or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they
really care about.
Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are hell bent on power, empire and war. They
also will stop at nothing to prevent the USA from (finally!) becoming a "normal" country and they couldn't care less about the fate
of the people of the USA. All they want is for us all to become their serfs.
All of this is hardly big news. But this hysterical reaction to Gabbard's candidacy is a very powerful and useful proof of the
fact that the USA is a foreign-occupied country with no real sovereignty or democracy. As for the US media, it would make folks like
Suslov or Goebbels green with envy. Be it
the ongoing US aggression
against Venezuela or the reaction to the Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon, the diagnostics concur and we can use the typical medical
euphemism and say with confidence: "the prognosis is poor".
In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:
– Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign
– Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump
I think it is unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard caves in so soon. The way she has started her campaign, she is certainly aware that
she has cut off herself from the normal donors of Democrats, and the way she talks shows that she is not afraid of alienating
them even more because she won't get money from them, anyway. The plan is to do the same like Bernie Sanders 2016 and raise small
donations. Many Democratic candidates now say they don't take PAC money, but there are different ways of getting money from big
donors – Tulsi Gabbard is probably one of those who are more serious about avoiding reliance on big donors. It could work. In
2016, during the primaries, Hillary Clinton regularly had to interrupt her campaign in order to attend dinners with superrich
donors, while Bernie Sanders asked people to donate as a part of his campaign on social media, and Sanders regularly outraised
Clinton. Of course, 2016, we just saw that for the primaries, but it might also work for the general election (and numbers are
not everything, Hillary Clinton spent far more than Donald Trump and still lost, so even if small donations would lead to a somewhat
lower sum, she could still win with a popular message). And not only could it work, I think it would be the only way for Tulsi
Gabbard to succeed because she has probably already been too outspoken about some things to ever gain back the trust of the neocons
and their allies in the media and the billionaire donor class.
Of course, if Tulsi Gabbard advances in the primaries, she will be attacked most viciously in the media. I am not so sure what
the effect will be. On one hand, Trump's victory in the primaries and the general election showed that being hated by mainstream
media does not have to be an obstacle that cannot be surmounted, and as long as there are so many primary candidates, such vicious
attacks can also make her seem more interesting to some people. On the other hand, her main hurdle are probably the Democratic
primaries, and, according to polls, Democrats have lost trust in the mainstream media to a lesser degree than the general public.
But then again, vilifying her too much in the liberal media (as it has already started) is also a certain risk for them because
it could become too obvious to see that the decisive feature that leads to such attacks is that someone is not seen as reliably
pro-neocon, and that could also lead to doubts about the media in leftists who readily accepted the attacks on Trump because they
hated him for other reasons. Therefore, I think the main hope of the establishment is that Tulsi Gabbard can be treated as a „minor
candidate" and won't get far, in case she becomes a serious contender for the nomination, they are in trouble.
If Tulsi Gabbard wins the nomination, we can almost be certain that the pro-neocon establishment will a) see a re-election
of Trump as the lesser evil and b) they will support a pro-establishment third party candidate (already last time, Michael Bloomberg
threatened to run if the two major candidates are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, now Howard Schultz seems to have positioned
himself that way, though I think he is too ridiculous and ineffective and will be replaced by someone else if the establishment
needs a third party candidate because they lose the Democratic primaries). Such a third party candidate probably increases the
chances of Trump's re-election (probably a desired side-effect, many of these liberal oligarchs probably prefer Trump to Gabbard
and Sanders by far, but it would be difficult for them to support Trump in public, supporting a third party candidate is much
easier), but a populist campaign against both Trump and that third party candidate as representatives of a corrupt billionaire
class might well be successful.
Then, if Tulsi Gabbard is elected, she certainly runs the risk of ending like JFK, but the fact that so many people now already
talk and write about this risk might also protect her to some degree – the danger is so obvious that many people won't believe
theories about a lonewolf terrorist easily (and blaming Russia and Iran after Tulsi Gabbard had been vilified as an Assadist and
Russian trolls' favorite candidate would also be difficult, if for some reasons relations with Saudi Arabia are not seen as so
important any more, the more realistic option of blaming Saudi terrorists may be chosen). Another option would be to impeach her,
though that could also be a big risk for the establishment, and depending on who would be her VP, it would not be enough. Of course,
there could be bipartisan agreement about blocking all of her initiatives.
Even if she is extremely smart and tough, alone against the united forces of the deep state, establishment media and the bipartisan
war party, Tusli Gabbard probably could not achieve very much – of course, she would still be commander in chief and probably
could prevent new wars, and she could open some people's eyes about who really holds power, but she could hardly achieve very
much. The question is whether she still might get some institutional support like Putin when he became president. I think that
is not so unlikely because there are indications that the deep state is internally divided (one small example is that the communications
of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were published) and that the neocons' grip on power is far from total. Therefore, it does not seem
impossible that with a combination of support in the general public (and she certainly has the potential of becoming very popular)
and the support of parts of the deep state that have not been subdued by the neocons, she might be successful – it would be a
very harsh power struggle.
As far as caving in to Israel is concerned, Tulsi Gabbard has never been too critical of Israel – there was some relatively
mild criticism of attacks on Gaza (in a way that is fairly common among progressives), but in general, she has not been too critical
of Israel and has also had some friendly contacts with the pro-Israel lobby. So, while she is very strong and consistent in rejecting
neocons and their regime change wars, as far as Israel and Palestinians' rights are concerned, people should probably not expect
too much from her. But if she is serious about fighting the neocons and limiting the power of the military-industrial complex
and still could win an election, that would already be a big achievement.
After witnessing the temper tirades and the teeth gnashing of the deep states media minions after the anti-war-lite Donald Trump
got elected, I'm guessing Tulsi Gabbard is in for one of two things:
1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom
to most debates.
I don't think American Democracy(AKA Empire) is in any mood for another spoiler
By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here:
http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/
. This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!
This is one of the few things I agree with Ilhan Omar about. Abrams is a felonious, warmongering prick.
She is very photogenic. So is Kamala Harris.
Projecting an anti-war position against promoting the bonafides of her army service will be quite the balancing act of cognitive
dissonance, but opposite the hyper-masculine affect a candidate like Trump or Hillary must emote to neutralize an absence of military
experience in their résumé.
Then there's that first husband and her family's political machine.
But damn, Tulsi and Kamala photograph impeccably well from every angle.
What are the chances outside of India that three potential presidential candidates of the female persuasion all share a common
ethnic background, Nimrata Haley, Tulsi and Kamala? No coincidence there.
Finding all this information below takes less time than burning a cigarette.
United Christians for Israel, founded and led by pastor John Hagee, have millions of members and call themselves "the largest
pro-Israel charity in the United States." The organization was an important factor in the decision of US President Donald Trump
in 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to transfer the US embassy there.
Gabbard sponsored the resolution of the Congress criticizing Amnesty International for revealing Israeli atrocities against
civilians in his blitzkrieg in Gaza in 2014. The resolution stated that Israel "focuses on terrorist targets" and "goes to extraordinary
efforts to attack only terrorist actors". https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/22/gaza-and-the-bi-partisan-war-on-human-rights/
Zionism and Islamophobia Gabbard have gained recognition and support from all kinds of unpalatable characters – like right-wing
billionaire and Zionist Sheldon Adelson, who loudly declared that "all Muslims are terrorists".
In addition to Israel's loyal defender, Gabbard has also proved to be a credible servant of Adelson's business interests. Introduced
regulations against online gambling to protect the casino's empire from competition on the Internet. Adelson thanked her, giving
her the Champion of Freedom award. http://time.com/3695948/sheldon-adelson-online-gambling/
Her prejudices against Islam directly stem from her Hindu fundamentalism. Gabbard became one of the main American political
supporters of Narendra Modi, the leader of the Hindu sectarian party Bharatiya Janata (BJP) and the current Prime Minister of
India.
Being the main minister of the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, Modi helped spark a pogrom against Muslims, in which they killed
2,000 people and displaced over 200,000 people in the ethnic cleansing campaign. Since his victory in the 2014 elections, Modi
has been a decidedly pro-Israeli Indian politician and has strong relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the invitation of Modi, Gabbard traveled through India for three weeks during which various Hindu fundamentalists greeted
her as their American master. In probably the worst part of the tour, the India Foundation, a formation tuned to the Hindu fascist
group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), hosted Gabbard to discuss the future of Indian-American relations. After the reactionary
lovefest, the Indian newspaper Telegraph called it "the American Sangha mascot" https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/sangh-finds-a-mascot-in-american-tulsi/cid/1579985
After returning to the USA, Gabbard defended Modi against any criticism. She was one of the few democrats who spoke against
the federal government's decision to refuse a Modi visa in 2014 because of his abolition of religious freedom
As with other leading liberal democrats, Gabbard's alleged progressive values do not extend to the Palestinian struggle for
freedom. While she may support the resistance of Indian Native at Standing Rock, she will not support the indigenous people of
Palestine and her struggle for self-determination against Israeli colonialism. http://socialistworker.org/2014/08/13/liberal-champions-of-apartheid
Yawn. Tulsi, Bernie, Corbyn – doesn't matter. The ruling elites have the power to co-opt, demonize or kill them. And, that regime
is desperate enough to do this.
We are all waiting for the tectonic impact of some external shocks. Because the system is fragile, over-ripe. Collapse of debt
bubbles, an infectious disease epidemic, a rogue general fires off some nukes. Whatever. Just passes the Global Tipping Point,
then, everything disintegrates. The centre cannot hold. And at that point the tensions release and people go nuts. The regime
divides against itself; the roof falls in. The whole world is waiting, expecting this to happen in some way or form.
Go and max out your credit card, get hard stuff, don't pay, stop buying anything. A few millions doing that. Empty your bank
account. Stop paying your mortgage and car loan. Make them chase you. Work to precipitate the Big One. Help tear the fabric beyond
its tensile strength. Do your bit.
Don't expect to see Tulsi on your side of the barricades.
@Rich1234
Nimrata Randhawa Haley is of Punjabi Sikh ancestry on both sides, genetically closer to southern Europeans than to most Indians.
Kamala Harris is descended from South Indian brahmins on her mother's side. You can't get more Aryan than that – look up the
word. And she is Jamaican on her father's side. I haven't seen a picture of him but I imagine he's about as black as fellow Jamaican
Colin Powell. An octoroon to use that old-fashioned term. But Negro blood was considered so polluting that just a smidgeon put
you with the lower race. It's still working like that, but in victim politics less is more.
Tulsi Gabbard had a WASP mother who became a member of Swami Bhaktivedanta's Krishna devotees. Her father was Polynesian. There's
no genes from India. It's a mistake to think of her religion as Hindu, but it's her mistake as well as that of many Indians. Hinduism
is not *a* religion because Hinduism is the liberating realization that the idea of *a* religion is very shallow. It is a pleasure
to see Tulsi, in videos, going about her devotions.
.. "drain the swamp" (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially,
when he came to power, by the way.
a good article, overall.
Especially:
USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism and war; folks who
don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside the USA
and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.
Apparently, US public figures like Gabbard and Trump still don't understand the simple fact that NO amount of grovelling
will EVER appease the Neocons or the Ziolobby
the so-called "liberals" don't give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities,
don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what
they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about.
It's interesting to see the prompt [13] Democrat party oppo based on the "right-wing Indian agent" smear. It's exactly analogous
to Democrat/CIA attack on "Russian puppet" Trump, when Democrats had absolutely nothing to offer in lieu of a famous loathsome
TV asshole they hand-picked to beat like a drum and then lost to.
If it were the case that Tulsi were an Indian fifth-column traitor, like Rubio is a Israeli fifth-column traitor, So what?
Objective indicators of world-standard state responsibilities show that the state of India is more developed, more legitimate,
and more entitled to responsible sovereignty than the US government. India exceeds US performance on most of the top-level human
rights indicators.
You can see for yourself, in whatever level of detail you desire, with NGO input exhaustively compiled by elected independent
international experts acting in their personal capacity.
Tulsi's exposure to superior Indian human-rights compliance is likely to build her capacity in terms of Responsibility to Protect
Pillar 2. She will have a better understanding of rights and rule of law than provincial goober candidates with no international
exposure. That will necessarily influence her evolving stance on systematic and widespread Israeli extermination of Palestinian
indigenous peoples.
I have never voted for a Democrat. I plan to vote for Gabbard. I have contributed to her campaign. I cringe at her progressive
agenda, but I fully support her positions on non-intervention.
@der einzige
Hope is such a frail and tenuous emotion.
That said, l'm investing some of my dwindling reserves of hope in Tulsi. Your comments are very considered, and l share your concerns
for peace with the current play of Theo-politics. Modi is an unapologetic Hindu chauvinist who has successfully incited brutal
communalism for electoral gain. But my personal loathing of him has ameliorated over time (I shock myself!) because he has steered
a pretty independent course for India, maintaining friendly relations with China for example,despite U.S. pressure to use India
as a wedge. His Hinduva ideology appears to be a domestic political tool. This is a cunning but pragmatic approach and is distinct
from a religious ideology with global ambitions. The latter is the province of Zionism which is not really a religion but has
(other) religious affiliations or "allies",including Hinduism but most importantly Christian zionism (or evangelicism or dispensationalism
et al). It seems to me that a lot of what Trump is doing re. "Jerusalem as the capital of Israel" is to appease the Christian
Zionists who comprise a large chunk of his support base, and not American Jewry.(They are democrats as a foregone conclusion).There
is great irony in this if you follow the fantastical narrative of the Christian evangelical apocalypse.
Political ambitions are the scourge of religion.I attend an Anglican Church,very traditional, because my preferred form of worship
is hymn singing-the sung mass for Eucharist.I do this in contradistinction(!) to evangelicism. Unfortunately Islam too undergone
a political makeover in recent history which has led to un utter corruption of prophet Mohammad's words.It's apogee is Wahhabism,
a fad made manifest through money and power and war. Shia is also Islam, but not according to Wahhabis,who do not even relate
to Shia as "self-hating Moslems."And do not imagine that the Moslem brotherhood is any better for all the acceptable styling.
Sunnism needs to detach itself from ideology.God is in the poetry and not the small print.
Thanks for your patience with my digression. The Saker suggests we examine the Tulsi phenomenon as a diagnostic tool.
This may be useful. But Tulsi as a Hindi wooden horse?
She cannot be anti war without being anti Israel. Her candidacy is going nowhere.
It would be nice to have an anti war voice in the debates but Gabbard will be adrift in a sea of idiots. How many candidates
will there be for the Democratic nomination? Twenty? Eighty? All of them competing for who hates whitey the most. Featuring as
a side show Biden and Bernie expressing their shame at their skin color.
If Gabbard wants to be heard she should switch parties and primary Trump. Let him defend his Israel first foreign policy.
She is the only prominent politician in the commander-in-chief discussion who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Is there a poll
on her standing with the military demographic? An argument can be made that her credibility on fighting more war or fighting less
war is an order of magnitude higher than a dozen Trumps, Clintons, et al all put together.
She has seen firsthand the pointlessness of the waste of blood and treasure. How can you root against Gabbard? She is near
the only elected official to get any positive press at anitwar.com.
I have a somewhat contrary analysis although admittedly, it's not based on much.
Tulsi's speech patterns closely resemble Hillary Clinton's. I put this down to various leadership classes they attended which
likely have a common source. I think we are seeing a divergence of opinion in the Deep State with some wanting Globalism, while
others are unwilling to accept the destruction of the United States as a price for Globalism. Call them the Fortress America
wing of the Deep State. They want to rebuild America and preserve its wealth and autonomy while moving toward a world government.
In other words, Tulsi could emerge as the candidate of the MAGA section of the Deep State.
As for Trump, he is waist deep in the Swamp fighting for his life against pretty much everybody. If Omar had her way he would
be impeached. Trump's support among Republicans is the only thing keeping from being impeached. His partisan attacks are probably
designed to signal his willingness to lead the fight for Republicans, hoping they will defend him in return.
You make such a convincing case that you've painted yourself into a corner. Your point is that the Ziocons or whatever you call
them are so bent on war and empire that they'll destroy anyone who tries to get in their way.
To be credible, because your claim is so extreme, you'd need to explain the abnormal psychology that drives this will to domination.
Can you do that? If not, your article -- and a number of your others -- come off as routine Jew- and liberal-bashing. The bashing
may or may not be deserved depending on your point of view. But that would be all it is: standard prejudice and bigotry in what
you seem to take as a good cause.
We see from where we've been. I supported Ron Paul. He was ignored, and then cheated.
Voting for Washington wannabes is like watching just the "good programs" on TV, or patronizing the non-disgusting movies that
manage to emerge from Hollywood. Those doing so endorse and prop up the tottering, rotten Establishment.
Another very important thing Tulsi is doing is being a completely different person from Trump but hammering home the same Trump
campaign message against the war-lusting elites.
If it wasn't for her, the media and elite mafia could marginalize this entire argument. They'll never let the population vote
on these points because then, the jig will be up.
A media blackout of Tulsi will only work if people continue to get their information from the boob tube and newspapers. Why is
anyone still expecting to get the truth from the MSM? Anyone with half a brain and an internet connection should be able to follow
her. Tell all of your grandparents, uncles, and other old fogies to throw away CNN, NYT, Fox, WaPo, NBC, etc. and find the truth
online.
@jacques
sheete The Anti-federalist's never had a chance, nor would Aloha Tulsi. The Boston tea party itself was a false flag attempting
to pass blame on to the Indians. How typically American. Lexington was caused by the that same Sam Adams and his free masons from
the green dragon, who were firing at both the British and the Militia's, just like they did in Maidan 5 years ago. The US revolution
in 1776 was just another Masonic color revolution on behalf of the Rothschild's. These are the same guys who killed Kennedy and
pulled off 9/11. Now they have Trump 100% corralled and black balled, and he is one of them anyway.
That was when Wonder Woman Tulsi came surfin' into the Washington swamp, all ready to drain it.
True – "The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't
give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking
our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire
and war. That they really care about. Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are
hell bent on power, empire and war."
The average Liberal voter thinks that Conservatives love Empire while Liberals oppose empires. Likewise, the average Middle
American Republican voter thinks America is anything but the new British Empire and that America is always fighting against those
bad empires and so must be very active globally to do good and prevent even worse bad.
True – "As for the US media, it would make folks like Suslov or Goebbels green with envy."
The Anglo-Zionist Empire: the inherent fruit of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism that was not stopped dead in its tracks.
It will get worse before it can get better. It cannot be corrected without a rejection of WASP culture, which is replaced with
an authentically Christian culture.
Tulsi Gabbard presents bill to stop Trump from pulling out of INF treaty
Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has introduced a bill to Congress which would prevent President Donald Trump
from withdrawing the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
Speaking at a press conference on Friday morning, Gabbard said that Trump's decision to pull out of the 1988 treaty was
"reckless," was "exacerbating a new Cold War" with Russia, and could spark another arms race.
"Walking away from this agreement doesn't solve our problems, it makes them worse. It doesn't bring us closer to peace,
it moves us closer to war," she said.
I am hoping that Gabbard is the next president because it would mean Hindus beat Jews to the White House, and if she serves a
full term she will be the first nonprotestant* president to serve a full term, take that Catholics. She will be sworn in with
her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, bah ha hah ha. The Evangelicals will go berserk (I hope). She declared herself Hindu as a teen,
was she baptized?
* Jimmy Carter was 'born again' so he might be the first non main line Protestant or even nonProtestant.
@JL
I think both the anti-war Left and anti-war Right are sizeable and growing. Speaking of the Dissident Right, which I am more in
tune with, we just need a courageous leader to rally around. Right now the Dissident Right is more reliably anti-war than any
other faction.
But, really, the dissident right is not doctrinaire right at all as they are against Big Business and reject Libertarianism.
Tulsi probably doesn't even want the open support of the dissident right (very few are racist white supremacists, although the
media has tarred us all with that brush)...
@Biff1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom
to most debates.
But what about social media? The MSM mostly ignored Bernie Sanders but he got a huge boost.
I think the real problem with Tulsi is she comes across as too calm for politics. She's not low-energy like Jeb, but she lacks
fire.
Also, I'm not sure most progs would be interested in her anti-war platform. They liked Bernie because his message was mostly
domestic: Free Stuff!
Americans are anti-war only when too many Americans are getting killed overseas. In the Obama yrs, the US perfected a new way
of Open Borders War where US uses proxies to destroy other nations. So, most Americans don't care.
@Robert
Bruce It's the same 'bait and switch' strategy, that occurs every 4 years. Why change a strategy when the old one works so
well? To date, Trump holds the record for fooling the largest number of people, with anti-war candidate, John Kerry coming in
a distant 2nd.
I suppose there is also a fourth option: Tulsi Gabbard keeps her no-war stance, and follows in the footsteps of Trump and gets
elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House she does what Trump did
and caves.
A very interesting interview. You need to listed to it in full to appreciates. Probably best interviewer so far interviewed
Tulsi, and Tulsi is really impressive. Cool, definitely high intellect, deep understanding of current US problems
Notable quotes:
"... I'm not a Democrat. I would vote for this person. Just saying. Elizabeth Warren didn't even support Bernie while Tulsi resigned to support Bernie ..."
"... Intellectually gifted. Well prepared. Emotionally stable. Able to change her ideas as life goes on, taking each issue as it comes. Vs a bunch of 70 year old maniacs who have never told the truth, never served, and have made deal with the devil to get where they are. Game over ..."
"... If the establishment weren't smearing her, I wouldn't trust her. They are, which means that she'll fight for working people, and against the neoconservative chickenhawks! ..."
"... Tulsi is the General Smedley Butler of today, someone who knows how war works and is brave enough to tell the truth. Please read his short book "War Is A Racket". Even though it was written in the 30's, as long as things are this way, it'll never go out of style. ..."
"... Let's put our egos aside and work together as citizens! Tell your friends to do the same to overthrow corporate establishment Kamala ..."
I'm a libertarian and love hearing Tulsi!! She's the antithesis of Hillary. Only dem I would support in 2020. Agree 100% with
her foreign policy views.
Combat vet, Currently serving in the Guard, rank of Major. Intellectually gifted. Well prepared. Emotionally stable. Able to change
her ideas as life goes on, taking each issue as it comes. Vs a bunch of 70 year old maniacs who have never told the truth, never
served, and have made deal with the devil to get where they are. Game over
B. Greene, 1 week ago
If the establishment weren't smearing her, I wouldn't trust her. They are, which means that she'll fight for working
people, and against the neoconservative chickenhawks!
Howard Sexton, 2 months ago
Damn! I am republican but she has my vote 🗳! I have never heard a politician talk this long without blaming the opposing
party. Just impressed
Zwart Poezeke, 1 week ago
Man she's smart, critical and actually comes off as honest. She really would be an inspiring leader. Guys I'm from Belgium,
so I can't vote, but do me a favor and vote for her
a_g60, 2 weeks ago
Tulsi Gabbard is the ultimate woman. That's why the DNC is colluding against her.
she's articulate and highly educated
she's extremely attractive
she was a combat medic
she's young
she has a great family
she gets all the attention of men
she's presidential
This is what a candidate looks like. Take notes!
Matthew Mauldon, 1 month ago
She is amazing and I would vote for her as president. It is very disturbing how she sheds light on how Saudi Arabia uses
our us military and how Saudi Arabia murdered many innocents and we said nothing and continue to support them. Also the level
of corruption of our politicians and how they mis use our troops without a care in the world. We need to wake up folks this is
not right
The Scapegoat Mechanism, 1 month ago
Obama was the thesis. Trump was the antithesis. Gabbard will be the synthesis.
Chris Jones, 5 months ago
I absolutely adore this woman. She gave up her Vice chair position in the DNC when she saw they were stealing the
nomination from Bernie. That's integrity.
Paul Peart-Smith, 1 week ago
Tulsi is the General Smedley Butler of today, someone who knows how war works and is brave enough to tell the truth.
Please read his short book "War Is A Racket". Even though it was written in the 30's, as long as things are this way, it'll
never go out of style.
algo, 5 days ago
See Joe, this woman has INTEGRITY, unlike that zionist warmongering shill Bari Weiss regurgitating her fed opinions which
she didn't even know the meaning of!
savita purohit, 2 months ago
this is what 1st female president of US should be like, not Clinton or that virtue signaling Warren, not Nikki either
Ryan Hamilton, 1 day ago (edited)
I'm a conservative, Republican, combat vet. I would follow her into combat. I would vote for her because she's a
pragmatist, puts America first, is skeptical of US foreign policy, and stands up for the little guy. There is some remarkable
overlap between the anti establishment populist left and anti establishment populist right.
Loro sono umano, 2 days ago
Don't forget to change party to Democrat to vote her in the primaries if you're Green, libertarian, independent, or
conservative, even if its temporary. Let's put our egos aside and work together as citizens! Tell your friends to do the
same to overthrow corporate establishment Kamala. Dont let the establishment get their way
Chico Christe Pace, 1 week ago
damn, I never thot there is an American politician who thinks this way. she sees the whole picture and made sense to it.
this lady is kick ass! :) you guys shd keep voting for her :) put her on the top seat, she can be the real hope for the US of
A :)
bestrainingtechnique, 4 months ago
So let me get this straight I don't know much about this woman, but from what I've seen in this interview she seems to be
very intelligent, rational, experienced, has military experience, extremely well spoken, and doesn't trust the mainstream
media and realizes that there are elements of our government that are basically unhinged and looking for war?? And is there
anyone on earth that wouldn't vote for her as president??? Would we really rather have an orange face reality star buffoon or
a war mongering lunatic who has no real experience except being married to a former president?
I really hope she runs as an independent, I think she would win in a landslide, since I think it is the perfect time in our
country where I think a non-Republican or Democrat can definitely win! The two party system needs to go!
Skemoo, 1 week ago
I came back after MSM and Jews started smearing her including Sam Harris. I cant sense any form of malevolence or evil in
her words or body language.. she seems like a sweet empathetic lady.
Im fuking angry that these ppl are smearing her. Im not an american but you ppl better wake the fuk up and vote her into
office i think she is fit to be the first female president. Hope Rogan doesnt do 180 and betray her . im surprized Sam harris
hates her.
David Paley, 1 week ago
If they can keep everyone in need of working 3 jobs just to make ends meet, and make healthcare too expensive to afford
proper care, the people will always be too busy, tired, and worn-out, to actively participate in the electoral process; the
only thing that might change things for the better. The elites know exactly what they're doing, so now they see this woman as
an existential threat, and the smear campaigns have already begun. I hope the sensible people in your country can support her
as much as she is trying to support you. Good luck in 2020, both to Tulsi, and America.
Every soldier knows this simple fact: If you don't know your enemy, you will not be able to defeat him. Tulsi
Gabbard Simple , Soldier , Enemy "'Knives are out': Hawaii Dem faces backlash for taking on Obama over 'Islamist' extremism".
Interview with Malia Zimmerman, www.foxnews.com. February 28, 2015.
Through my time in the military and my deployments, I have recognized the importance of having a Commander in Chief who will
not only go after those who threaten the safety and security of the American people, but who will also exercise good judgment
and foresight in stopping these failed interventionist wars of regime change that have cost our country so much in human lives,
untold suffering, and trillions of dollars. Source:
www.glamour.com
>The cost of war impacts all of us - both in the human cost and the cost that's being felt frankly in places like Flint, Michigan,
where families and children are devastated and destroyed by completely failed infrastructure because of lack of investment. Source:
www.glamour.com
Students are suffering under incredibly high tuitions and high student loan interest rates. They graduate from school, and
they're having a very difficult time finding a job. They don't feel as though there are honest leaders who are listening to them,
and who will be a part of the solution. Source:
www.glamour.com
It makes no sense for us to consider going back there and getting involved in what truly is a religious civil war. What real
difference would it make on the ground? And secondly, is it in the best interests of the United States to do that? I would say
that those questions are not being answered in a compelling way that would cause me to support that.
"Gabbard: Back to Iraq 'makes no
sense'" by Jonathan Topaz, www.politico.com. June 13, 2014.
Hawaii is a special place because we have a very diverse population there, who are very respectful and tolerant of those who
have differing opinions and different views.
A military mindset is objectively analyzing a planned course of action and anticipating the likely consequences before you
take that action. Source:
www.glamour.com
It's easy to say, let's go in and get the bad guys. But you have a divided country of Sunnis and Shias. The United States goes
and takes action there on behalf of the Iraqi government. You've got Iran coming in and saying we're going to stand with Iraqi
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, so now we're aligning ourselves with Iran, and if we do air strikes, becoming de facto air force
for them. "The Lead with Jake Tapper", www.cnn.com.
June 12, 2014.
I'm not a political pundit, and I don't follow these things probably as closely as others, but there are polls that have shown
that Senator Bernie Sanders can beat Donald Trump and, I believe, some of the other Republican candidates as well. Source:
www.glamour.com
As a soldier, I've served with the most brave people in an institution that's built on integrity, honor, and duty. This is
why I'm working very hard to support Senator Bernie Sanders - not only to get through the Democratic primary, but also to win
the presidency. He is the only candidate on both sides who understands the cost of war, who has that foresight to keep our country
safe, and who will make sure that our military power is not being when and where it shouldn't be. Source:
www.glamour.com
I volunteered to deploy to Iraq. I was one of the few soldiers who were not on the mandatory deployment roster - close to 3,000
Hawaii soldiers were.
Hopefully the presence in Congress of an American who happens to be Hindu will increase America's understanding of India as
well as India's understanding of America.
"... Due to her antiwar stance in Syria, Gabbard was at one point rumored to be a potential candidate to head Trump's State Department, and even met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in November 2016, but nothing came of it. ..."
"... In January 2017, she traveled to Syria on a fact-finding trip, outraging the Washington establishment. She has also proposed a bill to outlaw US weapons sales to terrorists. ..."
"... It is unclear whether Gabbard will get much traction among the establishment Democrats, who she has frequently disagreed with on foreign policy issues. ..."
"... So many entrenched bipartisan interests fear the foreign policy debate her presence on the campaign trail will provoke. Look for more obsessive attacks in Omidyar's the Interventionist, republished in his local Hawaii paper. ..."
Due to her antiwar stance in Syria, Gabbard was at one point rumored to be a potential candidate to head Trump's State Department,
and even met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in November 2016, but nothing came of it.
In January 2017, she traveled to Syria on a fact-finding trip,
outraging the
Washington establishment. She has also proposed a bill to
outlaw US weapons
sales to terrorists.
Gabbard first sparked rumors of a 2020 run
in December , when she toured Iowa and New
Hampshire, the first two states to host nationwide party primary elections.
Inspired by the party's strong showing in the November midterms, a number of Democrats are eager to challenge Trump in the 2020
presidential election.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) announced on New Year's Eve that she was forming a presidential exploratory committee.
Julian Castro, former Housing and Urban Development secretary in the Obama administration, has also toured Iowa and is expected to
announce his candidacy this weekend.
It is unclear whether Gabbard will get much traction among the establishment Democrats, who she has frequently disagreed with
on foreign policy issues.
Ostensibly, Tulsi Gabbard checks all the correct "diversity boxes" that Democrats claim they want: young, female, minority.
But weirdly, she won't benefit from satisfying these (fake) criteria, because she's hated for unrelated political reasons. So
that should be fun.
Tulsi Gabbard is a really next-level politician. Any amateur can be a traditional US racist politician, but it takes skill
to succeed in America as a Hindu-nationalist racist / tankie Assad apologist.
Say what you want about Tulsi Gabbard (I have my own criticisms) but this is probably an accurate prediction of how opposition
to her campaign from other Democrats will play out https://t.co/xEhdD1ZmyN
So many entrenched bipartisan interests fear the foreign policy debate her presence on the campaign trail will provoke.
Look for more obsessive attacks in Omidyar's the Interventionist, republished in his local Hawaii paper. Also, not sure what
this means for a Bernie run. https://t.co/RD7pCRRkTW
Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii announced she will
launch a presidential campaign for 2020. Her campaign is likely to distinguish itself from
other Democratic campaigns by making wars and broader United States foreign policy a major
issue.
Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii state legislature in 2002. She joined the Hawaii Army
National Guard a year later and voluntarily deployed to Iraq, where she completed two tours of
duty in 2004 and 2005.
She was elected to the House of Representatives in 2012, and according to her own website,
she was "one of the first two female combat veterans to ever serve in the U.S. Congress, and
also its first Hindu member."
During Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, Gabbard gained notoriety after she
resigned from her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee so she could
openly support Sanders. She spoke at Sanders campaign rallies to help him distinguish his
foreign policy from the much more hawkish foreign policy of Hillary Clinton.
Gabbard was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2018. She won 83 percent of the vote in the
Democratic primary election.
Most progressives are not as outspoken against U.S. military interventions or what she
refers to as "regime change wars." She witnessed the impact of regime change on the people of
Iraq, as well as U.S. troops, and that inspired her to talk more about the human cost of war
and challenge the military industrial-complex.
Gabbard has persistently called attention to the war in Syria. She traveled to Aleppo and
Damascus in January 2017 to see some of the devastation Syrians have endured since 2011. Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad invited her to a meeting, and she accepted.
"Originally, I had no intention of meeting with Assad, but when given the opportunity, I
felt it was important to take it. I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there's a
chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much
suffering," Gabbard
declared .
Supporters of the Syrian war -- the same people who do not want President Donald Trump to
withdraw U.S. troops -- seized upon Gabbard's meeting with Assad to discredit her, and it has
fueled the backlash among Western media pundits to her decision to run for president.
Yet, in spite of a smear campaign encouraged by the political establishment, Gabbard has not
backed down from protesting U.S. support for terrorists in Syria. She sponsored legislation,
the Stop Arming Terrorists Act.
During an
interview for the Sanders Institute in September 2018, Gabbard said, "Since 2011, when the
United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and these other countries started this slow drawn-out
regime change war in Syria, it is terrorist groups like al Qaida, al Nusra, and Hayat Tahrir al
Sham, these different groups that have morphed and taken on names but essentially are all
linked to al Qaida or al Qaida themselves that have proven to be the most effective ground
force against the government in trying to overthrow the Syrian government."
Gabbard opposes what she calls a "genocidal war" in Yemen, and she is one of the few
representatives, who has worked to pass a war powers resolution in the House to end U.S.
military involvement since Congress never authorized the war.
"The United States is standing shoulder to shoulder supporting Saudi Arabia in this war as
they commit these atrocities against Yemeni civilians," Gabbard said during the same Sanders
Institute interview.
Another war Gabbard questions is the war in Libya. In an interview for "The Jimmy Dore Show" on September 11, 2018,
she spoke about the devastating consequences of pursuing regime change without considering what
would happen after Muammar Gaddafi was removed from power.
"After we led the war to topple Gaddafi, we have open human slave trading going on, in open
market. In today's society, we have more terrorists in Libya today than there ever were
before."
Gabbard is also one of the few elected politicians to oppose weapons sales, especially to
Saudi Arabia. She recognizes the military industrial-complex benefits the most from Congress
not exercising its authority over war-making by presidents, whether they are Republican or
Democrat.
She spoke out against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he refused to revoke support for
Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen because it would jeopardize a $2 billion arms deal.
Not many Democrats are willing to be optimistic on North Korea, but Gabbard sees potential
for peace and does not view Trump's meeting with Kim Jong-un as an act of treason.
Gabbard said during the Sanders Institute interview, "For years, I've been working in
Congress and calling for direct engagement with North Korea with Kim Jong-un to be able to try
to broker a peace agreement that will result in de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and
and finally bring about an end to the Korean War."
"So I think that the recent engagement that we have seen -- both the historic meeting
between a sitting U.S. president and the leader of North Korea -- is certainly a positive step
in the right direction. We have to be willing to have these conversation to promote peace,"
Gabbard said. And, "I think the continued engagement between North Korea and South Korea is
positive."
Gabbard acknowledged there are a lot of details that have to be worked out, but that does
not make her hostile to the entire process, which is the attitude of many pundits and Democrats
in the establishment.
Joe Rogan interviewed Gabbard in September 2018. He
raised the issue of Russian troll farms and Facebook's failure to deal with them. She had a
sober response to his concerns.
"The United States has been doing this for a very long time in countries around the world,
both overtly and covertly, through these kinds of disinformation campaigns," Gabbard contended.
"Not even counting like the regime change wars, like we're going to take you out."
She continued, "I think it is very hypocritical for us to be discussing this issue as a
country without actually being honest about how this goes both ways. So, yes, we need to stop
these other foreign countries -- and Russia's not the only one; there are others -- from trying
to influence the American people and our elections. We also need to stop doing the same thing
in other countries."
Such positions on war and U.S. foreign policy effectively make her a pariah to establishment
media pundits and the political class. But her anti-establishment politics do not end
there.
Gabbard has advocated against superdelegates, which are Democratic party insiders that have
an outsized role in influencing the outcome of presidential primaries. She favors open
primaries and same-day voter registration. She is outspoken against the influence of money in
politics, and she is audacious enough to question members of her own political party.
"We have to dig a few layers deeper as people are running for office, say what do you
actually stand for?" she said on "The Jimmy Dore Show." "What is your vision for this country?
That's the debate that we will have to have in Congress should Democrats win over the House or
win more seats in the Senate."
"Otherwise, it will be more of the same status quo, where you'll have lobbyists who have
more of a seat at the table writing policies that affect healthcare and education and Wall
Street and everything else rather than having a true and representative government by and for
the people," she concluded.
She was also critical of self-described progressives, who are pro-war, while on "Jimmy
Dore":
You have these individuals and groups of people who call themselves progressive but are
some of the first to call for more war in the guise of humanitarianism. They look at these
poor people suffering -- and there are people suffering in the other parts of the world.
Let's go drop more bombs and try to take away their suffering. And when you look at example
after example after example, our actions, U.S. policy, interventionist regime change war
policy, [has] made the lives of people in these other countries far worse off than they ever
were before or would have been if we had just stayed out of it.
***
Gabbard was much closer to an establishment politician prior to her resignation from the
DNC. She accepted tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from political action
committees (PACs).
The Center for Responsive Politics noted, "One of the largest contributing sectors was the
defense industry. While Gabbard has gained a following for her
anti-interventionist stances , yet, her 2016 campaign was given $63,500 from
the defense sector . In fact, the campaign
received donations of $10,000 from the Boeing Corporation PAC and from Lockheed Martin's
PAC, two of the biggest names in the military-industrial complex."
In 2017, Gabbard announced she would no longer accept PAC money. She raised $37,000 from
labor associations and trade unions.
Gabbard was "conflicted" over whether to support the Senate report on CIA torture. She said
in 2014 that she thought there were "things missing or it was incomplete." She also endorsed
the "ticking time bomb" scenario that officials use to justify torture, and it is unclear what
her view would be now, if asked about the issue.
She has taken a position on Israeli occupation of Palestine that is
common among Democrats. She supports a two-state solution and describes Israel as the U.S.'
"strongest ally." But it may be shifting. In the last year, she condemned Israel for its
violence against the people of Gaza, and she was reluctant to vote for a House resolution that
condemned the UN Security Council for criticizing Israeli settlements.
Journalist Eoin Higgins
questioned Gabbard's support from the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), which he described
as right-wing. She has garnered criticism for her trip to India in 2014, when she met with
India prime minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist.
But HAF believes this criticism of Gabbard is unfair because other members of Congress, like
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have attended gatherings with Modi. They also point to financial records
and maintain they are a U.S. organization without ties to any organizations in India.
When she was much younger, Gabbard helped her
father's organization mobilize against a same-sex marriage in Hawaii. The organization,
Alliance for Traditional Marriage, backed conversion therapy
However, there is evidence to suggest that Gabbard has abandoned much of the bigotry that
she probably learned from her father. She backed Edith Windsor when she challenged the Defense
of Marriage Act (DOMA).
"Let me say I regret the positions I took in the past, and the things I said. I'm grateful
for those in the LGBTQ+ community who have shared their aloha with me throughout my personal
journey," Gabbard stated, responding to media coverage of this aspect of her past.
She noted that she has since supported "the Equality Act, the repeal of DOMA, Restore Honor
to Service members Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Safe Schools Improvement
Act, and the Equality for All Resolution," and added, "Much work remains to ensure equality and
civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, and if elected President, I will continue to
fight for equal rights for all."
There are powerful forces in American politics that will seize upon her past opposition to
LGBTQ rights and meeting with Assad to neutralize her presidential campaign before she even has
an opportunity to tour the country and meet with potential supporters. They fear the impact she
could have if voters gravitate to her campaign, which will likely promote her
anti-imperialism.
Often Democrats do not bother to connect foreign policy to domestic issues. Gabbard is
likely to run a rare campaign, where she makes the case that they are intertwined -- that in
order to make investments in universal health care, education, infrastructure, etc, the massive
investment in war must be severely curtailed.
Gabbard also aware of the disenchantment among voters, who do not believe either political
party has the answers. She understands President Trump is a symptom of what ails the
country.
As she said on "Jimmy Dore," "If we look at the lead-up to the 2016 election, and if we
actually listen to and examine why people chose to vote the way they did, it points to much
bigger problems, a much bigger disaffection that has been building for quite some time, that
voters have against the establishment of Washington, the political establishment within both
parties."
The problem here is the progressive votes is split between Bernie, Warren, and Tulsi. That means that all three of them
now can be eliminated be invertionaist Dems.
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi Gabbard is scary to Republicans because a lot of us center-right folks would be tempted to support her ..."
"... Would love to see a Tulsi - Trump debate. She'd be a formidable opponent. ..."
Well, as we all saw, the putatively "liberal" legacy Ziomedia hates Tulsi Gabbard with a passion. Maybe not as much as that legacy
Ziomedia hates Trump or Putin, but still – the levels of hostility against her are truly amazing. This may seem bizarre until you
realize that, just like Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard has said all the right things about Israel, but that this was not nearly "enough"
to please the US Ziolobby. Check out the kind of discussions about Gabbard which can be found in the Israeli and pro-Israeli press:
This is just a small sample of what I found with a quick search. It could be summed up "Gabbard is not pro-Israel enough". But
is that really The Main Reason for such a hostility towards her? I don't think so. I believe that Gabbard's real "ultimate sin" is
that she is against foreign wars of choice. That is really her Crime Of Crimes!
The AngloZionists wanted to tear Syria apart, break it up into small pieces, most of which would be run by Takfiri crazies and
Tulsi Gabbard actually dared to go and speak to "animal Assad", the (latest) "New Hitler", who "gasses his own people". And this
is an even worse crime, if such a thing can even be imagined! She dared to disobey her AngloZionist masters.
So, apparently, opposing illegal wars and daring to disobey the Neocons are crimes of such magnitude and evil that they deserve
the hysterical Gabbard-bashing campaign which we have witnessed in recent times. And even being non-Christian, non-White, non-male
and "liberal" does not in any way compensate for the heinous nature of "crimes".
What does this tell us about the real nature of the US society?
It is also interesting to note that the most vicious (and stupid) attacks against Gabbard did not come from "conservative" media
outlets or journalists. Not at all! Most of the attacks, especially the more vicious ones, came from supposedly "liberal" sources,
which tell us that in 2019 USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism
and war; folks who don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside
the USA and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.
"... Morning Joe presents the largest collective of Media Shills that think with one Corporate brain(trust). MSNBC and CNN commits the greatest threat to the dumbing down of America, and in the longterm, nothing impacts our American freedoms and World Peace than such lowly, deceptive, shills. Everybody has to make a buck, but come on MSNBC; you guys could stand some old school mothering and have those dirty little pie-holes washed out with soap. ..."
The concerned look on everyone's face, acting like they are coming from a moral high
ground because they support war. Corporate media is garbage! They will never cover her fairly
so its up to us to do so!
Saudi Arabia offered to pay for us to take down Syria. We are aiding Al Qaeda and their
related groups, proxies for Saudi Arabia, in their war against Syria. It's about money and
oil period. The 'humanitarian crisis' has nothing to do with this war and is just as likely
to have been staged by Al Qaeda if not more likely.
Morning Joe presents the largest collective of Media Shills that think with one
Corporate brain(trust). MSNBC and CNN commits the greatest threat to the dumbing down of
America, and in the longterm, nothing impacts our American freedoms and World Peace than such
lowly, deceptive, shills. Everybody has to make a buck, but come on MSNBC; you guys could
stand some old school mothering and have those dirty little pie-holes washed out with
soap.
Neoliberal Dems -- Clinton wing of the Party (and
thedailybeast.com
is Hillary bulletin board) doe no like Tulsi. that's expected.
What what they really fear is that Tulsi can get support of considerable part of former Trump voters and repeat the
maneuver that Trump accomplished in 2016 elections.
Notable quotes:
"... In a Monday evening segment, featuring anti-war leftist journalist Glenn Greenwald, the Fox News host argued that Gabbard had been unfairly maligned because of her deep skepticism about intervention in Syria and willingness to talk to Assad. ..."
"... "There's something so stealthy and feline and dishonest about the way they're attacking her," Tucker said. "If you don't like her foreign policy views, let's just say so. But no one ever really wants to debate what our foreign policy should be. They just attack anyone who deviates from their own dumb ideas." ..."
"... In May 2015, the National Review implored readers to "Meet the Beautiful, Tough Young Democrat Who's Turning Heads by Challenging Obama's Foreign Policy." The conservative outlet touted Gabbard as having "endeared herself to right-wing hawks" by challenging Obama's "rudderless" foreign policy. "I like her thinking a lot," American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks was quoted as saying. ..."
"... And earlier this month, after she accused her fellow Democratic senators of engaging in "religious bigotry" for asking questions about a Trump judicial nominee's faith, she received yet another round of Fox News praise ..."
When she ran for re-election in 2018, she had the backing of liberal groups
including
the AFL-CIO and Planned Parenthood, yet she was briefly considered as a potential member for
Trump's cabinet, and cheered on his diplomatic overtures to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Since
announcing her bid for the presidency, Gabbard has faced a torrent of criticism for some of her more
eccentric politics, zeroing in on her equivocations on Assad and
her past homophobic comments
.
And, in the process, she has earned one prominent defender: Tucker Carlson.
In a Monday evening segment, featuring anti-war leftist journalist Glenn Greenwald, the Fox News host
argued that Gabbard had been unfairly maligned because of her deep skepticism about intervention in Syria
and willingness to talk to Assad.
"There's something so stealthy and feline and dishonest about the way they're attacking her," Tucker
said. "If you don't like her foreign policy views, let's just say so. But no one ever really wants to debate
what our foreign policy should be. They just attack anyone who deviates from their own dumb ideas."
Gabbard first became
an in-demand
Fox News guest in 2015 after she criticized Barack Obama's unwillingness to use the label
"radical Islamic terrorism." Her media tour explaining that position earned her positively-tilted coverage
in right-wing outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Caller -- a trend that continued when she later expressed
skepticism of Obama's Iran nuclear deal.
One person with direct knowledge told The Daily Beast that in the wake of her Obama criticism of Obama,
Gabbard became an increasingly requested guest for Fox News hosts and producers to appear on-air. They
weren't the only ones in television news who took notice: senior executives at Sinclair Broadcasting made
appeals for Gabbard to appear on their networks after she rebuked Obama.
And her emergence as a left-wing Obama critic further put Gabbard on the map in conservative media.
In May 2015, the
National Review
implored readers to "Meet the Beautiful, Tough Young Democrat
Who's Turning Heads by Challenging Obama's Foreign Policy." The conservative outlet touted Gabbard as having
"endeared herself to right-wing hawks" by challenging Obama's "rudderless" foreign policy. "I like her
thinking a lot," American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks was quoted as saying.
Gabbard has also maintained friendly relationships with high-profile, right-leaning television
personalities, including Carlson and Fox News colleague Neil Cavuto, a long-time anchor and Trump skeptic
who leans conservative on business issues.
And earlier this month, after she
accused
her fellow Democratic senators of engaging in "religious bigotry" for asking questions about a
Trump judicial nominee's faith, she received yet another round of Fox News praise. Todd Starnes, a Fox
pundit with a
long history
of anti-gay comments,
wrote in an op-ed
that he found Gabbard's comments "encouraging."
charley15z
1 month ago
The
establishment left and blue checkmarks on Twitter are gonna go after her HARD. But I will support her, purely on her
policies.
Marcy Clay
1 month ago
She would get
independents and some Republicans to cross over. She is already being attacked by the left, and right for some old remarks
that were homophobic, and for meeting with Assad. I like her better than Warren or Harris by far..
lrein077
1 month ago
I had the
opportunity to meet Tulsi in person and she was the most approachable & genuine person. Congratulations Tulsi.
Jimmy Russle
1 month ago
I'm a Trump
supporter, but she certainly has a better resume than Trump. Her most important issue is peace among nations, I'm all on
board.
27
Thank you to @RepMcGovern@repmarkpocan & @IlhanMN for cosponsoring H.R. 1249, the INF Treaty Compliance Act, to prevent
taxpayer dollars from being used for weapons that would breach the INF treaty. This is one step
Congress can & must take now toward national security and peace
The first day Tulsi arrived at her camp in Iraq, she saw a large sign at one of the gates
that read, "Is today the day?" It was a blunt reminder that today may be the day that any of
the soldiers would be called to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. It caused her to
reflect on her own life and the reality that each of us could die at any moment.
While serving in a base in the Sunni Triangle at the height of the war, Tulsi had the
heart-wrenching daily responsibility of going through the list of every injury and casualty in
the entire theatre of operations, looking to see if any soldiers in her unit were on the list,
so she could ensure they received the care they needed and their families were notified.
She was hit with the enduring pain and hardship of her brothers and sisters in uniform, and
the stress and pressure on their families. She wondered if those who voted to send soldiers to
Iraq really understood why they were there -- if lawmakers and the President reflected daily on
each death, each injury, and the immeasurably high cost of war.
Having experienced first-hand the true cost of war, she made a personal vow to find a way to
ensure that our country doesn't continue repeating the mistakes of the past, sending our troops
into war without a clear mission, strategy, or purpose. In Congress
Serving over 6 years in Congress, and as a member of the Armed Services, Homeland Security,
and Foreign Affairs Committees, Tulsi has been a leading voice fighting to end regime change
wars and instead focus our military efforts on defeating the terrorist groups that attacked and
declared war on the United States. She has approached every issue through the lens of what will
best serve the American people, secure our country, and promote peace.
She is a champion for protecting our environment, ensuring clean water and air for
generations to come, investing in infrastructure and a green energy economy, healthcare for
all, civil liberties and privacy, support for small businesses, criminal justice reform,
sustainable agriculture, breaking up the big banks and she needs your help!
Regime change wars are bankrupting our country and our moral authority. We need to redirect
those resources into a renewable, sustainable economy that works for everyone and bring about
an era of peace. We must put service above self and reclaim our great democracy from the forces
of hatred and division.
This is a very important point. She can bring a large part of Trump voters (all anti-war votes and most of promiddle
class voters) and part of Sanders voters together.
Notable quotes:
"... As long as we're talking Hawaii, I have found my candidate for President: Tulsi Gabbard. I guess I'm late to the party, and she sure is hated by the intelligentsia, boy do they hate her, but she's really, really electable for President and she would, more than any other candidate, actually start to heal this country. Aloha. ..."
"... I don't believe the Democrats will nominate her. They'll use the electability canard to dismiss her candidacy, much like how Ron Paul was treated by the GOP. ..."
As long as we're talking Hawaii, I have found my candidate for President: Tulsi Gabbard. I
guess I'm late to the party, and she sure is hated by the intelligentsia, boy do they hate
her, but she's really, really electable for President and she would, more than any other
candidate, actually start to heal this country. Aloha.
I don't believe the Democrats will nominate her. They'll use the electability canard to
dismiss her candidacy, much like how Ron Paul was treated by the GOP.
However, she seems to have an agenda I would back.
And the corollary is true as well. Individuals whose predictions were right-on received
absolutely no boost in prestige for their prescience. Ron Paul is the most obvious example.
Every warning Paul made about these "interventions" happened.
So those whose predictions were wrong, and whose policy recommendations turned out to be
disasters and tragedies advance and suffer no consequences for being incredibly wrong. They
still obtain high positions (See Bolton).
Those who happened to be right – and took courageous, contrarian positions – are
still outcasts and dismissed as "kooks" by the establishment. Sigh.
The goal of any "peddler" is to move product. When perpetual war is the product, then any
rationale that leads to more sales will do. Enemies become interchangeable. The only thing to
apologize for is the lack of sales.
These two hucksters are not experts on the product itself, but rather experts at selling
the product.
Pres. Eisenhower, a genuine "authority on armed conflict", warned us of such peddlers.
"... Because DC is bought and paid for by the defense industry. Constant wars are good for the bottom line, so winning is not the right strategy. Loosing doesn't work either. A constant low level set of global conflicts is perfect. ..."
"... The goal of any "peddler" is to move product. When perpetual war is the product, then any rationale that leads to more sales will do. Enemies become interchangeable. The only thing to apologize for is the lack of sales. ..."
Why Are These Professional War Peddlers Still Around? Pundits like Max Boot and Bill
Kristol got everything after 9/11 wrong but are still considered "experts."
1. The goal of the neocons was to exploit 9/11 to destroy countries in the Middle East
that posed a threat to Israel. As Wesley Clarke told us a long time ago, they were going to
"do" Iraq first, and after that, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon and finally Iran. Most
of this has been accomplished. We are now in the end game and Iran is in their
cross-hairs.
From the perspective of the neocons, everything has gone their way.
2. The only people who got everything thing wrong were useful idiots like Rod Dreher,
Tucker Carlson and Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones who were too dense to see what the neocons
were really up to. You did not a PhD from Harvard to see that Bush and Blair had no evidence
to back up their claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction or to figure out the true
intentions of the neocons.
So why are Boot and Kristol still around? Because Iran is not yet reduced to an ash-heap,
courtesy of USA!USA!USA! so they still have work to do.
Why have they paid no price? Let's all pretend like we don't know the answer to this. And
don't forget to condemn Ilhan Omar for her tweets just to be on the safe side.
It's difficult to live in a post-America America where American interests are subordinate to
Israel and AIPAC and lunatics like Bolton and Pompeo, now have replaced the president in
matters of foreign policy.
Trump has done a 180 and given in completely.
I like Tulsi Gabbard
and hope that she might have a chance of winning the Democratic nomination in spite of the
fact that she now is being attacked by members of her own party, along with the
representative from Minnesota who has the courage to talk of the power of the Israel lobby
that functions solely in the interest of Israel. It seems the Democrats are not so tolerant
of strong women after all. And its time for everyone to stop being intimidated by the charge
of anti-Semitism. When Israeli interests are not those of America and Americans.
Because DC is bought and paid for by the defense industry. Constant wars are good for the
bottom line, so winning is not the right strategy. Loosing doesn't work either. A constant
low level set of global conflicts is perfect.
The goal of any "peddler" is to move product. When perpetual war is the product, then any
rationale that leads to more sales will do. Enemies become interchangeable. The only thing to
apologize for is the lack of sales.
These two hucksters are not experts on the product itself, but rather experts at selling
the product.
Pres. Eisenhower, a genuine "authority on armed conflict", warned us of such peddlers.
Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into
an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously
pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our
republic.
Even you, Tucker Carlson, mock the efforts of Ilhan Omar for criticizing AIPAC and
Elliott Abrams.
I don't personally care for many of her opinions but that's not what matters:
if we elect another neocon government we won't last another generation. Like the lady asked
Ben Franklin "What kind of government have you bequeathed us?", and Franklin answered "A
republic, madam, if you can keep it."
Gabbard is going nowhere, and while it's true that the powers that be will try to bury her,
they don't need to. The simple truth is this: the American public largely doesn't care about
the wars and never has. There hasn't been an anti-war movement of any significance since Bush
left office, and that was mostly a phony anti-war movement in the first place. It was
primarily an anti-Bush movement, and the bulk of the people screaming 'no blood for oil'
would've just been screaming some other anti-Bush slogan had our current path of destruction
through the Mideast never occurred.
Yes, there has always been a small, independent-minded minority on both the right and left
who genuinely oppose American interventionism.
The vast majority of voters, though, don't care much, don't have strong opinions and will
largely just follow their leaders. Rank and file Democrats now oppose drawing down from Syria
and Afghanistan and want to 'contain' Russia.
This is solely because Trump has made noises in the opposite direction, even if he hasn't
done much of anything. And a good portion of the Republicans who say they want out of these
wars would support them if Jeb or Rubio were in the White House.
There is a fair bit more genuine antiwar sentiment on the right now than there was 15
years ago. But it's not a dominant issue for many people on the right who didn't always
oppose the wars from the get-go. And the mainstream left, again, has totally abandoned the
issue.
Only a tiny proportion of the American public considers the endless wars to be the most
important issue facing America today.
You don't win campaigns focusing on issues that are regarded as unimportant and where most
of the voters in your party oppose you on this point. There is no real antiwar movement.
Another full-scale invasion of a previously stable country would generate some serious
opposition, sure, but the current slow bleed of endless occupations and occasional
opportunistic attacks on already destabilizing regimes can continue forever with little
pushback from the public at large.
How anyone could live through the last 15 years of American politics and not realize this
is beyond me.
That one trick happens to the most important trick that America is facing.
No Art, that would be unchecked legal and illegal immigration and as far as I can tell
Tulsi Gandhi is pretty dreadful on that subject. True, the likudniks in the diaspora don't
like her because she would be bad for an expansionist Israel...
If elected Tulsi would probably become a Jew tool just like Trump has become. If not, then
they'll have another special counsel ready to take her down. That's how the (((deep state)))
operates.
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attacked Donald Trump for his tweet praising Saudi Arabia after
the CIA report which found the country's crown prince was behind the murder of journalist Jamal
Khashoggi.
Democratic Rep. Gabbard, a National Guard veteran who did two tours in the Middle East,
branded the president 'Saudi Arabia's b**ch' after he announced the U.S. would stand by the
nation.
'Hey @realdonaldtrump: being Saudi Arabia's bitch is not '"America First,'" Gabbard
tweeted.
"... Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War. ..."
"... Gabbard has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which many progressive Democrats boycotted. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
"... What's her angle about immigration? This: https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1197137/rep-tulsi-gabbard-calls-on-congress-to-pass-the-dream-act#.XGXEplUza1s Not optimistic. ..."
"... What's her angle about "outsourcing" jobs overseas? This: https://www.votetulsi.com/node/25011 Not bad, but, still .. ..."
"... Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. ..."
"... Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. ..."
"... She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. ..."
"... Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war" ? ..."
"... Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back ..."
"... Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater. Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance. ..."
"... De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What a load of crap that turned out to be ..."
"... Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following. ..."
The lineup of Democrats who have already declared themselves as candidates for their party's presidential nomination in 2020 is
remarkable, if only for the fact that so many wannabes have thrown their hats in the ring so early in the process. In terms of electability,
however, one might well call the seekers after the highest office in the land the nine dwarfs. Four of the would-be candidates –
Marianne Williamson a writer, Andrew Yang an entrepreneur, Julian Castro a former Obama official, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congressman
John Delaney – have no national profiles at all and few among the Democratic Party rank-and-file would be able to detail who they
are, where they come from and what their positions on key issues might be.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has a national following but she also has considerable baggage. The recent revelation
that she
falsely described herself as "American Indian" back in 1986 for purposes of career advancement, which comes on top of similar
reports of more of the same as well as other resume-enhancements that surfaced when she first became involved in national politics,
prompted Donald Trump to refer to her as "Pocahontas." Warren, who is largely progressive on social and domestic issues, has been
confronted numerous times regarding her views on Israel/Palestine and beyond declaring that she favors a "two state solution" has
been somewhat reticent. She should be described as pro-Israel for the usual reasons and is not reliably anti-war. She comes across
as a rather more liberal version of Hillary Clinton.
And then there is New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, being touted as the "new Obama," presumably because he is both black and progressive.
His record as Mayor of Newark New Jersey, which launched his career on the national stage, has both high and low points and it has
to be questioned if America is ready for another smooth-talking black politician whose actual record of accomplishments is on the
thin side. One unfortunately recalls the devious Obama's totally bogus Nobel Peace Prize and his Tuesday morning meetings with John
Brennan to work on the list of Americans who were to be assassinated.
Booker has carefully cultivated the Jewish community in his political career, to include a close relationship with the stomach-churning
"America's Rabbi" Shmuley Boteach, but has recently become more independent of those ties, supporting the Obama deal with Iran and
voting against anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) legislation in the Senate. On the negative side, the New York Times likes
Booker, which means that he will turn most other Americans off. He is also 49 years old and unmarried, which apparently bothers some
in the punditry.
California Senator Kamala Harris is a formidable entrant into the crowded field due to her resume, nominally progressive on most
issues, but with a work history that has attracted critics concerned by her hard-line law-and-order enforcement policies when she
was District Attorney General for San Francisco and Attorney General for California. She has also
spoken at AIPAC , is anti-BDS, and is considered to be reliably pro-Israel, which would rule her out for some, though she might
be appealing to middle of the road Democrats like the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi who have increasingly become war advocates. She will
have a tough time convincing the antiwar crowd that she is worth supporting and there are reports that she will likely split the
black women's vote even though she is black herself, perhaps linked to her affair with California powerbroker Willie Brown when she
was 29 and Brown was 61. Brown was married, though separated, to a black woman at the time. Harris is taking heat because she clearly
used the relationship
to advance her career
while also acquiring several patronage sinecures on state commissions that netted her hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where
she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer
with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.
Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In
the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus
on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening
terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay
over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.
Not afraid of challenging establishment politics,
she called for an end to the "illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government," also observing that "the war to overthrow Assad
is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government
of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis,
and pose a greater threat to the world." She then backed up her words with action by secretly arranging for a personal trip to Damascus
in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, saying it was important to meet adversaries "if you are serious about pursuing peace."
She made her own assessment of the situation in Syria and now favors pulling US troops out of the country as well as ending American
interventions for "regime change" in the region.
In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and more recently has criticized President Donald
Trump's withdrawal from the deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, but one presumes that,
like nearly all American politicians, she also has to make sure that she does not have the Israel Lobby on her back. Gabbard
has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation
that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon
Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which
many progressive Democrats boycotted.
Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless
in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only
genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years.
What Tulsi Gabbard is accomplishing might be measured by the enemies that are already gathering and are out to get her. Glenn
Greenwald at The Intercept
describes how NBC news published a
widely distributed story on February 1 st , claiming that "experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia
have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard."
But the expert cited by NBC turned out to be a firm New Knowledge,
which was exposed by no less
than The New York Times for falsifying Russian troll accounts for the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to suggest
that the Kremlin was interfering in that election. According to Greenwald, the group ultimately behind
this attack on Gabbard is The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), which sponsors a tool called
Hamilton 68 , a news "intelligence net checker" that
claims to track Russian efforts to disseminate disinformation. The ASD
website advises that "Securing Democracy is a Global Necessity."
ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is
loaded with a full complement of Zionists
and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims,
innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia
to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation.
For the moment, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform.
It might just resonate with the majority of American who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related
frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States. We the people can always hope.
Just those two. We can leave the rest of "globo-homo" agenda off the table, for the moment. And, the last but not the least,
that nagging angle about automation and (paid) work in general. Let's not get too ambitious here. Those two, only, should suffice
at the moment.
I like Tulsi. but she hasn't been tested in a presidential campaign yet. At least we will have someone who could put peace on
the ballot. She should write a book pulling her policies together and use it to get some publicity.
Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. 2008, an important reason for Obama's victory against
Hillary Clinton and John McCain was that he had been against the Iraq war. 2000, George W. Bush said he was against nation building.
Then, after they are elected, the neocons remain in power. Something similar again with Donald Trump who campaigned against stupid
wars in the Middle East and now has surrounded himself with some of the most extreme neocons.
Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates
in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should
be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. However, if she is serious about this and is elected,
she will be fought by the deep state and its allies in the media much more harshly than Trump, who isn't even consistently anti-neocons,
just not reliably pro-neocon. What they would probably do to her would make spygate, the Russiagate conspiracy theory, and the
Muller investigation look harmless. She might end like JFK (a VP who is just as anti-neocons might increase the chances of survival).
But despite all the risks, I think it is worth trying. If the US was a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation
and the neocons had their own party, it would hardly have more than a handful of seats in Congress. Although they don't have,
a significant base of their own, neocons have remained in power for a long time, whoever was elected. At the moment, Tulsi Gabbard
is probably the best hope for ending their long reign.
She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate
which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. She won't
have a chance. Besides, the Dem party has gotten radical and out of touch with the majority of Americans so who really wants them
in? There's no cause for optimism anywhere one looks.
Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war"
? Greenwald himself has questionable backers and the WWF good guy/bad guy character creations (like Trump's pre-election
talking points concerning illegal wars , now stuffed down the memory holes of many), all the FAKE and distracting "fights" etc
etc
Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist
guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'"
and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back.
Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater.
Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance.
In that way she calls the bluff of her opponents: Just how confident are they that in the end the public will prefer war to peace?
These points add up to a realistic chance of success but given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a
long shot.
De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What
a load of crap that turned out to be, but I do understand that not all politicians are cut from the same dung heap, so it
is probably best to find out who is funding the little pricks while they are campaigning – for once they are elected, payback
is due.
In the case of Obama it was Robert Rubin( of Goldman Sachs) who bankrolled him, and of course, once elected it was bank bailout
time. Then once Ghaddaffi's gold back Dinar became a monetary powerhouse, he committed another crime for the bankers.
"Is she the real deal?"
Elect her and you'll find out, and there lies the problem – you get to find out when it's too late. On the other hand, she
could actually be honest and sincere, but that alone disqualifies her as a politician (the kind that Americans are used to anyway).
NTL, she's got people's attention and if for anything else – the people are anti-war, but the monied power brokers are definitely
not which begs the question – will democracy actually happen?
Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get
into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following.
She will need to use tactics from both the Sanders & Trump play-books. She will need to appeal to a good number in both the
Sanders & Trump constituencies. Regardless, she will need an iron-will & tsunami of charisma .
@Biff Obama was a creation
of the Pritzker and Crowne families, although the puppet did decide he wanted to somewhat act on his own. Gabbard is certainly
taking flak from the Israel firsters, and her debating Trump on foreign policy in a US Presidential election would be a real paradigm
shift.
@renfro Where do you get
this "obsessive hatred of Muslims and Islam?"
She's been [insistent and consistent] using the term 'radical Islamic terrorists' which, unfortunately, is an accurate description
of ISIS (the bane of the ummah). OTOH, last year Tulsi was a featured speaker at a Moslem conference in NJ, and she has been outspoken
about freedom of religion and mutual respect. If you've got some evidence that she excludes Islam from that, please show it.
[Gabbard's] policy views are already too good to be true.
Not really. Too good to be true would be if she understood Putin in the context of the US and oligarch rape of Russia in the
1990's and how he has restored the Russian economy and dignity; and if she recognized (openly) the US role in the Maidan coup
and accepted the validity of the Crimean decision to return to Russia.
Unfortunately, even though she's taken a brave position on ending US regime-change war on Syria, in many other respects she
remains quite conventional. She also promotes fear of DPRK, and who knows what she thinks about China.
she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater.
Aggressive? Composed, confident, yes. Aggressive, no. Calm under fire is more like it. Take a look at the whole interview on
Morning Joe. She really outclasses those squirming bitches. BUT, notice her (short) responses on Putin and Assad ("adversary"
and "no"), real Judas moments. Does she believe that, or is she clinging to the Overton Window? https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/rep-gabbard-assad-is-not-an-enemy-of-the-us-1438093891865
Tulsi's presidential timber but she's wasting her life with the Democrats. Their consulting apparatchiks are going to stuff a
bunch of incoherent slogans up her butt. If she wants a real antiwar platform she should steal it wholesale from Stein and Ajamu
Baraka. Baraka built a complete and consistent law-and-order platform. He's the only real antiwar candidate in this country.
Of course the Democrat's CIA handlers will crush Tulsi if she starts to make sense, so she's going to have to take her supporters
and jump to the Greens.
She will lose, but arbitrary forcible repression of the party will discredit bullshit US electoral pageantry once and for all.
Then we move into the parallel government zone in conformity with world-standard human rights law and destroy the parasitic kleptocratic
USA.
@jack daniels You know .there
IS one thing nobody wants, really, to talk about.
.given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a long shot
Why, in this age, the "stronghold on the media" is so decisive? A person who gets the most of media exposure wins? That's how
it works?
Or, do anyone reading and posting here gets his/her information from the "media"? I'd say not.
Isn't the bottom, the very heart of the matter NOT a Deep State, Dem Joos, Anglo-Saxons, Masons, Illuminati and .whatever but
simple, eternal, laziness and stupidity of an average person?
Or, even worse: the real, true, needs and wants of an average person are simply "breads and circuses". Nothing more.
Combine those two and here we are.
I am aware that throws the spanner into works of those into Aryans, White supremacy, Western man and similar stuff, but, the
conclusion seems inevitable.
That's the heart of the problem "we" face at the moment. How to fix it, or even is it possible, I don't know. Have some ideas,
of course.
CIA Giraldi probably has more Cherokee DNA than Warren. Another fact he failed to provide to the Government during the security
clearance process. The troll has supported the republican establishment all his career, this distinguishes him from the trolls
that support the democratic establishment all of their careers. The fact that people can debate the relative merits of political
leaders from the dark lagoon reveals their complete lack of rational thought. No politician decides anything important.
@Anonymous No, then she is
toast in Hawaii politics, and she is probably running not because she plans on winning, but to raise her profile and perhaps open
doors for herself on the national or state level, which won't happen if you shoot yourself in the foot at the same time.
Besides, leaving aside Krishna consciousness, she is too close to Sanders to get any traction among the Republicans. I suppose
getting the bipartisan support of the Internet kook vote is something, but hard to translate into political office.
You're never going to get anything worthwhile from a Democratic politician because they're indoctrinated worse that the brightest
little Pioneer in Juche class. Take Ro Khana's meaningless pap.
What is this 'we should' crap? The law is perfectly clear. The right to self-defense is subject to necessity and proportionality
tests, and invariably subject to UN Charter Chapter 7 in its entirety. See Article 51. Instead of this 'restraint' waffle, just
say, the president must commit to faithfully execute the supreme law of the land, including UN Charter Chapter 7 and Article 2(4).
That means refrain from use or threat of force. Period.
Second, national security is not a loophole in human rights. Khana uses the legally meaningless CIA magic word 'threat.' Under
universal jurisdiction law, it is a war crime to declare abolished, suspended or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and
actions of the nationals of the hostile party. Domestic human rights are subject to ICCPR Article 4, HRC General Comment 29, and
the Siracusa Principles. Instead of CIA's standard National Security get-out clause, state explicitly that US national security
means respect, protection and fulfillment of all human rights. To enforce that, ratify the Rome Statute or GTFO.
Third, internationalism is OK as far as it goes, but Ro Khana doesn't deal with the underlying problem: CIA has infested State
with focal points and dotted-line reports, and demolished the department's capacity for pacific resolution of disputes. You have
to explicitly tie State's mission to UN Charter Chapter 6, and criminalize placement of domestic CIA agents in State.
Fourth, Congressional war-making powers are useless with Congress completely corrupted. Bring back the Ludlow Amendment, war
by public referendum only, subject to Article 51.
Tulsi is a far Left democrat. She supports raising taxes to pay for free college for people earning less than 125K and universal
health care, she actually joined protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline, has a 100% rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood,
supports homosexual marriage (changed her previous position in 2012), and has an F rating from the NRA. She's a Lefty. Not for
me, anyway.
I like the one on here who says the Democrat party has "gotten radical."
I assume this is sarcasm, but there is no denying the fact that the neocons(radical whack jobs) have jumped ship from the Republicans
and attached themselves to the Democrats (although there are filtering back into the Trump administration – drunk with power they'll
suck up to anyone)
The DNC NeverTrump crowd is all but calling for a nuclear exchange with Russia because they colluded with Trump to throw the
election, and they pose a National Security threat to the United States(in their head). Hillary also went on to say that Russians
Hacking the DNC is another 9/11. The radical Antifa crowd is made up of 99.999999% of Democratic voters.
"... They divide us with race, sex, and religion. If we came together all the working class people, from every race, you'd see the oligarchs true face. They'd innact martial law in a heartbeat, and run to their underground base in the Ozarks. That's the painful truth. ..."
"... That's why Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery that has evolved into a volunteer armed forces. We were nearly the verge of another civil war in this country. ..."
"... So Jimmy, once again, hit it out of the ballpark with this podcast on why the war hawks fear Tulsi ..."
"... She really scares the war hawks and just as importantly she scares the huge profits these war hawks and allied corporations (the parent company of GE which owns MSNBC makes turbine engines for the military) have made off these unnecessary and tragic wars since the 9/11 attacks. ..."
They divide us with race, sex, and religion. If we came together all the working class
people, from every race, you'd see the oligarchs true face. They'd innact martial law in a
heartbeat, and run to their underground base in the Ozarks. That's the painful
truth.
I served in Vietnam (31 May 1967 - 31 May 1968), so I'm approximately around the same age
as Phil. I told everyone I knew that if we invaded Iraq - this was during the lead-up in 2002
to vote on GWB's Iraq War resolution - having just a volunteer armed forces in the strategic
sense, let alone the invasion of Iraq would violate international covenants against illegal
wars of aggression - we would eventually have down the road a military blunder and a foreign
policy debacle that would rival the one we had in the Vietnam War.
If GWB had somehow
convinced the American people and the Congress to bring back the draft after the 9/11
attacks, I assure you we would have withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq long, long ago. But
the war hawks in Congress and the Pentagon love their private, (essentially) quasi-mercenary
volunteer armed forces after how badly they got burnt during the anti-war protests against
the Vietnam War.
That's why Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery that has evolved
into a volunteer armed forces. We were nearly the verge of another civil war in this country.
So Jimmy, once again, hit it out of the ballpark with this podcast on why the war hawks fear Tulsi. Remember they can't smear her based on the fact that she was an officer who did two
tours of duty in the war zone, so they try to smear her because she is supposedly a puppet of
Putin, that is, a fifth columnist or fellow traveler as they did during the Red Scare in the
McCarthy era. I would definitely vote for her as a fellow war veteran for president, but she
has a very hard road to travel to win the nomination.
She really scares the war hawks and
just as importantly she scares the huge profits these war hawks and allied corporations (the
parent company of GE which owns MSNBC makes turbine engines for the military) have made off
these unnecessary and tragic wars since the 9/11 attacks.
"... Establishment NeoCons and Neolibs are going to erase Tulsi's candidacy by not mentioning her, not including her in polls, and not letting into debates. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich received this treatment in 2008/2012 ... because of their Antiwar stance. ..."
Establishment NeoCons and Neolibs are going to erase Tulsi's candidacy by not mentioning her,
not including her in polls, and not letting into debates. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich
received this treatment in 2008/2012 ... because of their Antiwar stance.
I get goosebumps every time I listen to this lady speak, even without the dramatic music.
Happy Valentines day to the heart of America, Tulsi Gabbard!!
I really don't think Bernie is going to run. and tulsi should announce
early on that her pick for vp is bernie. bernie for domestic solutions and tulsi for foreign
ones. That's the winning ticket.
If the dnc rigs the election again then i think the people
should conduct our own regime change here with tulsi as our commander-in-chief of the
peoples' army. this nonsense has to stop.
"... I'm not American but after seeing how Tulsi Gabbard conducted herself in this (so called) interview I urge ALL thinking Americans to put all of their support behind her candidacy for the Presidency. ..."
I'm not American but after seeing how Tulsi Gabbard conducted herself in this (so called)
interview I urge ALL thinking Americans to put all of their support behind her candidacy for
the Presidency.
I am a Syrian and I appreciate everything Tulsi Gabbard is trying to do to stop regime
change. The US media is criminal and responsible for the blood shed in Syria and many other
places. Assad was never an enemy to the US or other western countries.
Gabbard is young, but her metal shows in this clip as she just smiles at the msnbc
stupidity. She doesn't even take these jokers seriously, and that is going to allow her to go
over their heads and connect directly with the public. This is actually awesome.
I am a Trump supporter on the right but truly appreciate Jimmy Dore. I am hopeful that the
left & right can unite against these pro-war establishment propagandists. Let's stop
foreign wars, neocon/neolib policies & MSM deceit ... then we can debate progressive vs
conservative issues.
Putin actually said that, other than the cold war, Russia and the U.S. have always been
allies, and that's what he wants. I have two recent videos where Putin is calling for peace
and good relations with America. Do I really need to find the links and post them here? I'm a
busy man. Let's all help Jimmy, Ron and Steph by doing some homework. Americans should stop
smearing good people and start applying some critical thinking skills. "Putin-puppets"?
What
about " military industrial complex puppets" who robotically repeat false Russian collusion
accusations in order to silence honest dissent? Talk about the pot calling the kettle
black.
Hey Jimmy, hey Jimmy! Have you seen the vid of Putin talking to the western press? I think
it was 2015 or so. He's calmly talking about NATO and weapons being put on Russia's borders
and how bad it would be if this goes ahead and Russia has to respond. He's practically
pleading with them to let the American people know this doesn't have to happen. I saw him
saying much the same thing in a Charlie Rose interview before Rose moved into the Big Bucks
on network TV. Yet as things were heating up about Russia Rose never mentioned this as he sat
at that morning show desk.
MSNBC and especially the panel of Morning Joe are some of the most shameless tools in
America. If DC is a sewer inhabited by big fat sewer rats; then Kasie (and her ilk), are the
plague-infected fleas that take their blood-meals from those rats.
This is a good reason to vote for her the only thing she represents is good and they want her gone it seems, she has the majority
of America on her mind.
I was a huge Bernie fan in the last election, but I would love it if he holds a huge press conference to announce his plans
and instead gives a HUGE endorsement to Tulsi. That would be a great way to stick it to the media and give her more coverage.
They need to make sure Tulsi won't make it to any debates, because they can't allow the discussion that would ensue about expensive,
illegal and useless military adventures that we need to stop. And in a debate, they can't simply interrupt her like they can in
an interview. That's not a discussion they can allow because people could think they might actually have a choice in the matter.
For war mongers, they sure are chicken-shits who obviously don't even have any confidence in their own arguments in favor of it.
Politics as usual. Voters always end up with two oligarch picks that have been groomed to mouth what they are told. MSM employees
are not independent thinkers either. The two party system has been around for a long time, although in reality it is one party
with a and b choices.
Press Release Washington, DC -- Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) joined a
coalition of over 160 lawmakers in introducing legislation that would create a national paid
family and medical leave program. The Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, known as the
FAMILY Act, would ensure that every American worker can take up to 12 weeks of paid leave for a
pregnancy or the birth or adoption of a child, to recover from a serious illness, or to care
for a seriously ill family member.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said: "Across the country, people are working hard every day, living
paycheck to paycheck, barely making enough to get by. When a crisis arises, like a parent who
falls sick, a personal health crisis, or a newborn child, the demands of balancing a job and
family needs can be too much. Without a national family leave policy, millions of Americans are
forced to make an impossible choice between their family's health, and their financial
security. Our legislation will provide the security our working families need to care for their
loved ones, without risking their ability to keep a roof over their heads and food on the
table."
Background: The FAMILY Act establishes a national family and medical leave insurance
program. Receiving paid leave benefits allows workers to take time away from their jobs to
address their most-pressing needs. Specifically, the legislation would provide eligible
employees up to 12 weeks of partial income to address:
A serious personal health condition, including pregnancy or childbirth,
A family member with a serious health condition,
A newborn, newly-adopted child, or a newly-placed foster child, or
"... So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under. ..."
"... Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly). ..."
"... Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela. ..."
"... And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. ..."
Maybe Donald Trump isn't as stupid as I thought. I'd hate to have to admit that publicly,
but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time.
Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn't help but notice a significant decline in the
number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and "
the brink of fascism " that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton
lost the election.
I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn't find a single
editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the U.S. Constitution, dissolve
Congress, and
proclaim himself Führer . Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz , or any other Nazi
stuff which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria
has been a standard feature of the official narrative we've been subjected to for the last two
years.
So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He
did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the
bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist
empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live
under.
I'm referring, of course, to Venezuela, which is one of a handful of uncooperative countries
that are not playing ball with global capitalism and which haven't been "regime changed" yet.
Trump green-lit the attempted coup purportedly being staged by the Venezuelan "opposition," but
which is obviously a U.S. operation, or, rather, a global capitalist operation. As soon as he
did, the corporate media immediately suspended calling him a fascist, and comparing him to
Adolf Hitler, and so on, and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to
overthrow the elected government of a sovereign country.
Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing
their gold, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist "international
community" is not exactly what most folks thought Trump meant by "Make America Great Again."
Many Americans have never been to Venezuela, or Syria, or anywhere else the global capitalist
empire has been ruthlessly restructuring since shortly after the end of the Cold War. They have
not been lying awake at night worrying about Venezuelan democracy, or Syrian democracy, or
Ukrainian democracy.
This is not because Americans are a heartless people, or an ignorant or a selfish people. It
is because, well, it is because they are Americans (or, rather, because they believe they are
Americans), and thus are more interested in the problems of Americans than in the problems of
people in faraway lands that have nothing whatsoever to do with America. Notwithstanding what
the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous,
self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were
brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he
sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was
supposed to mean, exactly).
Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a
fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less
buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever.
What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a
decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national
governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces,
media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in
Venezuela.
The entire global capitalist empire is working in concert to force the elected president of
the country out of office. The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark,
Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have officially recognized
Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that no one elected
him. Only the empire's official evil enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other
uncooperative countries) are objecting to this "democratic" coup. The global financial system
(i.e., banks) has frozen (i.e., stolen) Venezuela's assets, and is attempting to transfer them
to Guaido so he can buy the Venezuelan military. The corporate media are hammering out the
official narrative like a Goebbelsian piano in an effort to convince the general public that
all this has something to do with democracy. You would have to be a total moron or hopelessly
brainwashed not to recognize what is happening.
What is happening has nothing to do with America the "America" that Americans believe they
live in and that many of them want to "make great again." What is happening is exactly what has
been happening around the world since the end of the Cold War, albeit most dramatically in the
Middle East. The de facto global capitalist empire is restructuring the planet with virtual
impunity. It is methodically eliminating any and all impediments to the hegemony of global
capitalism, and the privatization and commodification of everything.
Venezuela is one of these impediments. Overthrowing its government has nothing to do with
America, or the lives of actual Americans. "America" is not to going conquer Venezuela and
plant an American flag on its soil. "America" is not going to steal its oil, ship it "home,"
and parcel it out to "Americans" in their pickups in the parking lot of Walmart.
What what about those American oil corporations? They want that Venezuelan oil, don't they?
Well, sure they do, but here's the thing there are no "American" oil corporations.
Corporations, especially multi-billion dollar transnational corporations (e.g., Chevron,
ExxonMobil, et al.) have no nationalities, nor any real allegiances, other than to their major
shareholders. Chevron, for example, whose major shareholders are asset management and mutual
fund companies like Black Rock, The Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, Geode Capital
Management, Wellington Management, and other transnational, multi-trillion dollar outfits. Do
you really believe that being nominally headquartered in Boston or New York makes these
companies "American," or that Deutsche Bank is a "German" bank, or that BP is a "British"
company?
And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. Ask yourself,
honestly, what have the "American" regime change ops throughout the Greater Middle East done
for any actual Americans, other than get a lot of them killed? Oh, and how about those bailouts
for all those transnational "American" investment banks? Or the billions "America" provides to
Israel? Someone please explain how enriching the shareholders of transnational corporations
like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin by selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabian
Islamists is benefiting "the American people." How much of that Saudi money are you seeing?
And, wait, I've got another one for you. Call up your friendly 401K manager, ask how your
Pfizer shares are doing, then compare that to what you're paying some "American" insurance
corporation to not really cover you.
For the last two-hundred years or so, we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as the
citizens of a collection of sovereign nation states, as "Americans," "Germans," "Greeks," and
so on. There are no more sovereign nation states. Global capitalism has done away with them.
Which is why we are experiencing a "neo-nationalist" backlash. Trump, Brexit, the so-called
"new populism" these are the death throes of national sovereignty, like the thrashing of a
suffocating fish before you whack it and drop it in the cooler. The battle is over, but the
fish doesn't know that. It didn't even realize there was a battle until it suddenly got jerked
up out of the water.
In any event, here we are, at the advent of the global capitalist empire. We are not going
back to the 19th Century, nor even to the early 20th Century. Neither Donald Trump nor anyone
else is going to "Make America Great Again." Global capitalism will continue to remake the
world into one gigantic marketplace where we work ourselves to death at bullshit
jobs in order to buy things we don't need, accumulating debts we can never pay back, the
interest on which will further enrich the global capitalist ruling classes, who, as you may
have noticed, are preparing for the future by purchasing luxury
underground bunkers and post-apocalyptic compounds in New Zealand. That, and militarizing
the police, who they will need to maintain "public order" you know, like they are doing in
France at the moment, by
beating, blinding, and hideously maiming those Gilets Jaunes (i.e., Yellow Vest) protesters
that the corporate media are doing their best to demonize and/or render invisible.
Or, who knows, Americans (and other Western consumers) might take a page from those Yellow
Vests, set aside their political differences (or at least ignore their hatred of each other
long enough to actually try to achieve something), and focus their anger at the politicians and
corporations that actually run the empire, as opposed to, you know, illegal immigrants and
imaginary legions of Nazis and Russians. In the immortal words of General Buck Turgidson, "I'm
not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed," but, heck, it might be worth a try, especially
since, the way things are going, we are probably going end up out there anyway.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
He not only acknowledged early on that his initial support for the Iraq war was wrong, but
spent the rest of his career fighting for a more restrained and peaceful foreign policy. Rep.
Jones was one of the original Republican co-sponsors of
the first House antiwar resolution to end
U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen . He co-authored an op-ed with
Reps. Khanna and Pocan in 2017 in support of their resolution:
We believe that the American people, if presented with the facts of this conflict, will
oppose the use of their tax dollars to bomb and starve civilians in order to further the
Saudi monarchy's regional goals. Our House resolution is a first step in expanding democracy
into an arena long insulated from public accountability. Too many lives hang in the balance
to allow this American war to continue without congressional consent. When our bill comes to
the floor for a vote, our colleagues should consider first the solution proposed by the
director of Unicef, Anthony Lake, for stopping the unimaginable suffering of millions of
Yemenis: "Stop the war."
It is unfortunate that Rep. Jones did not live to see the House pass that resolution to end
U.S. support for the war, but when a new version of that resolution passes later this month it
will be thanks in no small part to his leadership.
Jones became a reliable scourge of
unnecessary and unauthorized foreign wars wherever they happened to be
. He saw the continuation of open-ended and illegal wars as an attack on the Constitution and
an abuse of the men and women who volunteered to serve their country. His opposition to these
wars earned him the enmity
of Republican hawks , who repeatedly and
unsuccessfully sought to unseat him through primary challenges. Whatever their disagreements
with him may have been over the years, his constituents recognized and appreciated his
integrity and his dedication to the country.
The cause of peace and restraint has lost one of its great defenders, TAC has lost
one of our good friends, and America has lot one of its most honorable and decent public
servants. May his memory be eternal.
I hope that good and true Americans inspired by his example will pick up the colors he
carried so long and faithfully, carry them forward, renewing his dogged efforts to rein in
military intervention and preserve true freedom.
For all that, you may be certain that somewhere the vermin are jumping for joy, because
when it comes to their vile wars and meddling they brook no dissent, and Jones's voice was
strong and sure, grounded in truth and "the better angels of our nature".
Very sorry to have lost this good and valuable American. Hats off also to the people of
his district, many of them soldiers or families of soldiers, who kept sending him back to
Washington. May they find someone to replace who has the same gumption, character, and
commitment to basic Americanism.
If there were more people like him in Washington, we wouldn't be in the state we're in. I
wrote him a "fan" letter back in 2006 or thereabouts, about his regrets about the Iraq war
and writing to all the families of those KIA. Also appreciated him being one of the few in
Congress that actually tried to follow the Constitution and do something about our national
debt. He also was all about constituent service,especially for veterans and those in Eastern
North Carolina affected by the recent hurricanes. Eternal rest, grant him, Oh Lord, and let
perpetual light shine upon him.
The inimitable CN commenting system just ate my detailed reply to your question of who
else besides Gabbard has spoken up, and won't let me repost it. But the short version is that
Rep. Ilhan Omar came out with a decent statement, like
Tulsi.
Rep. Ro Khanna hedged his bets by insulting Maduro while criticizing the coup attempt.
Saint Bernie came out with something that was two-thirds State Department talking points
followed by limp disapproval of U.S. sponsored coups in general. Classic Sanders.
Saint Alexandria doesn't want to talk about it.
As far as I know, everybody else is on board the regime-change express, enjoying the bar
car.
Summary: Tulsi rocks.
KiwiAntz, February 12, 2019 at 7:04 am
Trump & his corrupt Administration with the Troika of morons such as Pompeo, Bolton & Abrams, are the most dangerous bunch
of idiots ever to be in power?
Hopelessly inept & out of his depth, Trump doesn't have a clue about Foreign Policy & his stupid Regime change
antics are going to blow up in his & his meddling Nations face!
This buffoonish Clown is really accelerating America's downfall & declining Hegemonic power & turning the World away from
the corrupt US Dollar, Petrodollar system with other Countries, actively moving away from this tyranny?
"... Now the Times acknowledges: "The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans' care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher More than 2.7 million Americans have fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members-and nearly 8,000 private contractors-have been killed. More than 53,700 people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs." ..."
"... Kagan has a great deal invested in the Afghanistan war. He and his wife Kimberly served as civilian advisers to top generals who directed the war and elaborated the failed strategies of counterinsurgency (COIN). He has been a vociferous supporter of every US war and every escalation, arguing most recently for the US military to confront Russian- and Iranian-backed forces in Syria. ..."
"... A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women ..."
"... Aside from costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan women, the US war has left women, like the entire population, under worse conditions than when it began. Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school, 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate, and 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16. ..."
"... The attempt by the likes of Smeal and leading elements within the Democratic Party to cloak the bloodbath in Afghanistan as a crusade to "liberate" women and promote "democracy" is itself a criminal act. ..."
"... Afghanistan is a shitshow due to elite meddling. This editorial was nothing more than virtue-signaling to those that still hate war. But the anti-war movement is effectively dead anyway. There are anti-war people, but no anti-war movement. That's the crowd that the New York Times was appealing to. This is a stunt; nothing more. ..."
"... It was USA imperialism (under Carter and Brzezinski) which first had made Afghanistan a hell for women, but colonial feminists do not care for the facts. ..."
"... That is very true. "Death by a thousand cuts" was Brzezinski's scheme to destroy the Soviet Union in Central Asia. A few years ago, he was interviewed by a journalist from PRC who asked if he had any regrets with all the destruction and death it caused. Brzezinski said, "None". ..."
An editorial published by the New York Times on February 4 titled "End the War in Afghanistan" has provoked a backlash from prominent
supporters of the decades-long US "war on terrorism" and the fraud of "humanitarian intervention."
The Times editorial was a damning
self-indictment by the US political establishment's newspaper of record, which has supported every US act of military aggression,
from the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the US wars for regime change in Libya
and Syria beginning in 2011.
The editorial presents the "war on terror" as an unmitigated fiasco, dating it from September 14, 2001, when "Congress wrote what
would prove to be one of the largest blank checks in the country's history," i.e., the Authorization for Use of Military Force against
Al Qaeda and its affiliates, which is still invoked to legitimize US interventions from Syria to Somalia, Yemen and, of course, Afghanistan.
On the day that this "blank check" was written, the Times published a column titled "No Middle Ground," which stated "the Bush
administration today gave the nations of the world a stark choice: stand with us against terrorism, deny safe havens to terrorists
or face the certain prospect of death and destruction. The marble halls of Washington resounded with talk of war."
It continued, "The nation is rallying around its young, largely untried leader-as his rising approval ratings and the proliferation
of flags across the country vividly demonstrate "
This war propaganda was sustained by the Times, which sold the invasion of Afghanistan as retribution for 9/11 and then promoted
the illegal and unprovoked war against Iraq by legitimizing and embellishing the lies about "weapons of mass destruction."
With the first deployment of US ground troops in Afghanistan, the Times editorialized on October 20, 2001: "Now the nation's soldiers
are going into battle in a distant and treacherous land, facing a determined and resourceful enemy. As they go, they should know
that the nation supports their cause and yearns for their success."
Now the Times acknowledges: "The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans'
care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly
all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher More than 2.7 million Americans have
fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members-and nearly 8,000 private contractors-have been killed. More than 53,700
people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who
served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs."
The massive loss of life, destruction of social infrastructure and vast human suffering inflicted by these wars on civilian populations
are at best an afterthought for the Times. Conservative estimates place the number killed by the US war in Afghanistan at 175,000.
With the number of indirect fatalities caused by the war, the toll likely rises to a million. In Iraq, the death toll was even higher.
What does the Times conclude from this bloody record? "The failure of American leaders-civilians and generals through three administrations,
from the Pentagon to the State Department to Congress and the White House-to develop and pursue a strategy to end the war ought to
be studied for generations. Likewise, all Americans-the news media included-need to be prepared to examine the national credulity
or passivity that's led to the longest conflict in modern American history."
What a cowardly and cynical evasion! Three administrations, those of Bush, Obama and Trump, have committed war crimes over the
course of more than 17 years, including launching wars of aggression-the principal charge leveled against the Nazis at Nuremberg-the
slaughter of civilians and torture. These crimes should not be "studied for generations," but punished.
As for the attempt to lump the news media together with "all Americans" as being guilty of "credulity" and "passivity," this is
a slander against the American people and a deliberate cover-up of the crimes carried out by the corporate media, with the Times
at their head, in disseminating outright lies and war propaganda. The Times editors should be "prepared to examine" the fact that
journalistic agents of the Nazi regime who carried out a similar function in Germany were tried and punished at Nuremberg.
The Times editorial supporting a US withdrawal reflects the conclusions being drawn by increasing sections of the ruling establishment,
including the Trump administration, which has opened up negotiations with the Taliban. It is bound up with the shift in strategy
by US imperialism and the Pentagon toward the preparation for "great power" confrontations with nuclear-armed Russia and China.
The Times ' call for an Afghanistan withdrawal has provoked a heated rebuke by defenders of the "war on terrorism" and "humanitarian
intervention," who have denounced the newspaper for defeatism. Such a withdrawal, a letter published by the Times on February 8 argued,
would "accelerate and expand the war," "allow another extremist-terrorist phenomenon to emerge," and "result in the deaths and abuse
of thousands of women."
The signatories of the letter include Frederick Kagan, David Sedney and Eleanor Smeal.
Kagan has a great deal invested in the Afghanistan war. He and his wife Kimberly served as civilian advisers to top generals
who directed the war and elaborated the failed strategies of counterinsurgency (COIN). He has been a vociferous supporter of every
US war and every escalation, arguing most recently for the US military to confront Russian- and Iranian-backed forces in Syria.
Likewise Sedney, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense responsible for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, now working
at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Married to a top lobbyist for Chevron who worked extensively
in Central Asia, he has his own interests in the continuation of US military operations in the region.
Smeal is the president of the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMD) and a former president of the National Organization for Women
(NOW), who is widely described as one of "the major leaders of the modern-day American feminist movement."
A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan
as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women. In 2001, Smeal and her FMD circulated a petition thanking the Bush
administration for its commitment to promoting the rights of women in Afghanistan. After the bombing began on October 7, she declared,
"We have real momentum now in the drive to restore the rights of women." A few days later, she and representatives of other feminist
organizations showed up at the White House to solidarize themselves with the US war.
Urging on the conquest of Afghanistan, she wrote, "I should hope our government doesn't retreat. We'll help rip those burqas off,
I hope. This is a unique time in history. If you're going to end terrorism, you've got to end the ideology of gender apartheid."
Aside from costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan women, the US war has left women, like the entire population,
under worse conditions than when it began. Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school, 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate,
and 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16.
Recent reports suggest that the maternal death rate may be higher than it was before the war began, surpassed only by South Sudan.
While USAID has poured some $280 million into its Promote program, supposedly to advance the conditions of Afghan women, it has done
nothing but line the pockets of corrupt officials of the US-backed puppet regime in Kabul.
The attempt by the likes of Smeal and leading elements within the Democratic Party to cloak the bloodbath in Afghanistan as a
crusade to "liberate" women and promote "democracy" is itself a criminal act.
On October 9, two days after Washington launched its now 17-year-long war on Afghanistan and amid a furor of jingoistic and militarist
propaganda from the US government and the corporate media, the World Socialist Web Site editorial board posted a column titled "Why
we oppose the war in Afghanistan." It rejected the claim that this was a "war for justice and the security of the American people
against terrorism" and insisted that "the present action by the United States is an imperialist war" in which Washington aimed to
"establish a new political framework within which it will exert hegemonic control" over not only Afghanistan, but over the broader
region of Central Asia, "home to the second largest deposit of proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world."
The WSWS stated at the time: "Despite a relentless media campaign to whip up chauvinism and militarism, the mood of the American
people is not one of gung-ho support for the war. At most, it is a passive acceptance that war is the only means to fight terrorism,
a mood that owes a great deal to the efforts of a thoroughly dishonest media which serves as an arm of the state. Beneath the reluctant
endorsement of military action is a profound sense of unease and skepticism. Tens of millions sense that nothing good can come of
this latest eruption of American militarism.
"The United States stands at a turning point. The government admits it has embarked on a war of indefinite scale and duration.
What is taking place is the militarization of American society under conditions of a deepening social crisis.
"The war will profoundly affect the conditions of the American and international working class. Imperialism threatens mankind
at the beginning of the twenty-first century with a repetition on a more horrific scale of the tragedies of the twentieth. More than
ever, imperialism and its depredations raise the necessity for the international unity of the working class and the struggle for
socialism."
These warnings and this perspective have been borne out entirely by the criminal and tragic events of the last 17 years, even
as the likes of the New York Times find themselves compelled to admit the bankruptcy of their entire record on Afghanistan, and their
erstwhile "liberal" allies struggle to salvage some shred of the filthy banner of "human rights imperialism."
"The failure of American leaders -- civilians and generals through three administrations, from the Pentagon to the State Department
to Congress and the White House -- to develop and pursue a strategy to end the war ought to be studied for generations. Likewise,
all Americans -- the news media included -- need to be prepared to examine the national credulity or passivity that's led to the
longest conflict in modern American history."
What the New York Times should propose is a Nuremberg-style trial for the war criminals responsible for the genocide of millions,
the devastation of of the Middle East and Africa, and the looting of the US Treasury by war profiteers and the political duopoly.
If these criminals are NOT held accountable for their actions NOTHING will be learned and the violence, death and destruction
will continue.
"The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law, acted as Head of State or responsible
government official, does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."
Gore Vidal rightly named America as the United States of Amnesia. They NEVER learn from their own history and they are never told
about what their terrorist government does in their name.
Eleanor Smeal's comment about "ripping off those burqas" in Afghanistan reminds me of Louisiana congressman John Cooksey's post-9/11
suggestion that police should pull over and question anyone with ''a diaper on his head''. Both use religious intolerance to increase
the power of the state.
"A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan
as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women."
wouldn't it be more correctly "Janey comes lately" ..as in "Johnny come lately"..?
The completely insane fraud of waging imperialist war for "women rights" has been , unfortunately, extensively documented..the
US occupation has strengthened not weakened the Taliban
"The WSWS stated at the time: "Despite a relentless media campaign to whip up chauvinism and militarism, the mood of the American
people is not one of gung-ho support for the war. "
Not really in agreement with this statement although, everything has changed in almost 20 years.....
There are always elements that are gung ho for war. And I'll agree that the number was abnormally high for Afghanistan. But I
do think the majority still reluctantly agreed to the war as a necessary measure to fight "terrorism" as the more-than-likely-to-be-a-false-flag
9/11 event was very fresh in everyone's mind.
Afghanistan is a shitshow due to elite meddling. This editorial was nothing more than virtue-signaling to those that still
hate war. But the anti-war movement is effectively dead anyway. There are anti-war people, but no anti-war movement. That's the
crowd that the New York Times was appealing to. This is a stunt; nothing more.
What's more interesting is that the liberal elites will probably do their best to continue on with the war. But either way,
the USA will likely lose. In fact, it's already lost the war. The Taliban have won this one. That the elitists can't see that
shows just how far gone they are.
It was USA imperialism (under Carter and Brzezinski) which first had made Afghanistan a hell for women, but colonial feminists
do not care for the facts.
That is very true. "Death by a thousand cuts" was Brzezinski's scheme to destroy the Soviet Union in Central Asia. A few years
ago, he was interviewed by a journalist from PRC who asked if he had any regrets with all the destruction and death it caused.
Brzezinski said, "None".
"... "Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you didn't come across as crazy so... ..."
This woman had NO CLUE what she was talking about. She thought she was on a show that would just tow the party line and let
her get away with wrong statements. She's just repeating what critics say with no idea of the truth. What a fool. As a woman,
THIS IS WHY I WON'T JUST VOTE FOR ANY WOMAN. We are just as capable of being stupid as anyone else.
Bari: "I think Tulsi Gabbard is an Assad toadie." Joe: "What do you mean by toadie?" Bari: "Oh, I don't know what that means."
Joe: "Okay, I looked it up, and it's like a sycophant." Bari: "Then Tulsi is like an Assad sycophant." Joe: "So what do you mean
by that?" Bari: "I'm not sure what sycophant means either." Joe: "I looked up the definition, it's like a suck-up." Bari: "All
right, Tulsi is an Assad suck-up." Joe: "Could you explain that further?" Bari: "I don't know what suck means." Joe: "It's what
you're doing right now."
"Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job
is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and
the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you
didn't come across as crazy so...
I will be very surprised if neocons would not frame her Putin toady as well. This is how this
system works. It eliminates undesirable to the neoliberals candidates with 100% efficiency.
They
serve as local STASI and some former STASI official might well envy neocons efficiency of
silencing opponents (with much less blood and overt repression, by pure magic of neocon
propaganda ).
Notable quotes:
"... She has "monstrous ideas, she's an Assad toady," Weiss tells Rogan. ..."
"... Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven -- known -- about her." ..."
"... When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant, Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details." ..."
"... Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January 2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in the country's civil war as "terrorists." ..."
"... She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile attacks by the US and its allies against the country. ..."
Monday to discuss current events, but
things got embarrassing when she went in on Gabbard, a progressive Democrat whose foreign
policy positions have turned more than a few heads.
Neocon NY Times columnist Bari Weiss smeared Tulsi Gabbard (who bravely opposed regime
change and US support for Salafi-jihadist contras) as an "Assad toady," then couldn't
spell/define toady or offer any evidence to prove her smear. Embarrassingly funny pic.twitter.com/m0MLaHFPiX
When Rogan asks for clarification, she says, "I think that I used that word correctly." She
then asks someone off camera to look up what toady means. "Like toeing the line," Rogan says,
"is that what it means?" "No, I think it's like, uh " and Weiss drones off without an answer.
She then attempts to spell it, and can't even do that. "T-O-A-D-I-E. I think it means what I
think it means "
Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters
or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss
exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven --
known -- about her."
When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant,
Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details."
"We probably should say that before we say that about her -- we should probably read it,
rather, right now, just so we know what she said," Rogan notes. "I think she's, like, the
motherlode of bad ideas," Weiss then says. "I'm pretty positive about that, especially on
Assad. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I'm wrong." It seems to us here at Sputnik that such
claims should be made with a bit more confidence than this. So let's set the record
straight.
Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts
of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January
2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in
the country's civil war as "terrorists."
She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's
government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile
attacks by the US and its allies against the country.
"Initially I hadn't planned on meeting him," Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, told CNN's Jake
Tapper following the meeting. "When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so, because I
felt it's important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their
suffering, then we've got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a
possibility that we could achieve peace. And that's exactly what we talked about."
"I have seen this cost of war firsthand, which is why I fight so hard for peace," Gabbard
said. "And that's the reality of the situation that we're facing here. It's why I have urged
and continue to urge [US President Donald] Trump to meet with people like Kim Jong Un in North
Korea, because we understand what's at stake here. The only alternative to having these kinds
of conversations is more war."
Moreover, in a March 2016 speech before Congress, Gabbard called Assad
"a brutal dictator," noting that her opposition to what she called a "war bill" was over the
legal ramifications that she feared would lead to the overthrow of Assad, which she opposes on
anti-interventionist grounds.
"[T]oppling ruthless dictators in the Middle East creates even more human suffering and
strengthens our enemy, groups like ISIS and other terrorist organizations, in those countries,"
Gabbard
said at the time.
Gabbard has been thoroughly demonized for her pro-peace views by global liberal media, as
Trump has been for his moves to end the war in Syria and avoid another on the Korean Peninsula.
For example, The Daily Beast's
article announcing her candidacy called Gabbard "Assad's Favorite Democrat" in its
headline; a Haaretz
headline from last week say she had "Tea With Assad," and the Washington Post has
called her "Assad's Mouthpiece in Washington." The UK Independent
called her a "defender of dictators."
It's not clear what Weiss had in mind when she called Gabbard a "sycophant" and a "toady,"
since the congresswoman's rhetoric about Assad has consisted of skepticism and opposition to
intervention, and she hasn't hesitated to call the Syrian president a "brutal dictator." What
Gabbard's treatment has demonstrated is that a Democrat who steps out of line from the party's
pro-regime change agenda in Syria and who condemns Muslim extremists associated with Daesh and
al-Qaeda should be prepared to suffer for it in the mainstream media.
"... As a Trump supporter from 2016, this is probably the only Democratic candidate that I would seriously consider abandoning Trump over. The rest, I wouldn't give them the time of day - even Bernie. ..."
I trust Tulsi on
foreign policy more than I trust just about anybody else. Some people don't like her because she won't just say that we
should stop all military under any circumstances. She's been in the military. She understands the military. She understands
that the military is not evil. Drones are not evil. They're just currently being misused. We need to cut military spending,
but not eliminate it. We need to end offensive wars and withdraw from countries that aren't attacking us. But that doesn't
mean we don't need a military and don't need to be ready to defend ourselves.
I'm from the Uk
as soon as I heard Tulsi was running I got excited....a chance for real change and dismantling of the military industrial
complex.....could it be?
Why do you
worship Bernie Sanders so much? What does he have that Tulsi Gabbard doesn't in terms of policy? May I note that Sanders is
more pro-Israel and actually more for war than Gabbard is. It means something when it's coming from a vet who actually served
and visited war-torn countries.
As a Trump
supporter from 2016, this is probably the only Democratic candidate that I would seriously consider abandoning Trump over.
The rest, I wouldn't give them the time of day - even Bernie.
That's nice. I
always liked her, but I was worried about her military policy, good that she got rid of that doubt right away. Now we just
need these people to actually follow through and not become another Obama with his "change" and "hope". Not that any of this
is going to really make a difference or anything unless all the sycophants in the opposition suddenly dies, but it' still
nice that someone seems to care.
I love Tulsi; her ad was great. She's the only dem I would vote for at this point. Kamala is an evil hypocrite. And Tulsi's
right, love is the most powerful force in the planet.
Wake up folks -Tulsi would not have run if Bernie was going run. Bernie will endorse her early on and she will have a much
tougher fight than he did, because while Sanders caught the corporate establishment sleeping in 2016, they are now frightened
and see Gabbard coming. They will use every dirty trick at their disposal to keep her from catching fire -and that begins with
dividing progressives like us. Tulsi is not perfect because no one is perfect. But she is young, bright and fucking fearless compared
to other politicians about putting the long term good of the American people above the moneyed interests who think they own our
media and our government. This is why the establishment despises her more than even Sanders. 2020 will reveal weather or not we
can retake ownership of our media and our government. That fight will require all of us - so Kyle get on the bus!
Tulsi is an amazing candidate in her own right, but IMO she would be a perfect VP pick for Bernie. She has the amazing foreign
policy cred and would really shore up Bernie's weakest areas.
Tulsa Gabbard's ad doesn't mention the people who die in the countries we invade. That's 600k people in Iraq for example. A
significant omission me thinks.
The Aloha Spirit Law is a big deal in Hawaii. Government officials are required to approach dignitaries from other countries
or states with the spirit of aloha. "Aloha" means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation
in return. Aloha is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence.
I think that's what we want in a President or a diplomat.
She's great and unique as she doesnt fall back to identity politics and sjwism as much as the standard left politicians. I
hope she doesnt bend her ethics when the sjws come for her. I'm putting my trust in her. I hope she wins. And if she isn't in
the race, i wont be voting.
The question I would love her to address specifically is will her campaign focus on decreasing military spending like Bernie
Sanders? She has a military background and the US loves war. This ad is good but it is tip toing around the MIC ( military industrial
complex) She can be non interventionist but not decrease military spending is what worries me
This is why we need Gabbard on the debate stage. She will push the Overton window on revealing to the public what our military
is actually doing overseas. She's also a staunch progressive. Bernie/Tulsi 2020. Their weakness match well with each other, and
Tulsi was one of the first to jump ship on the sinking DNC ship when Hillary got caught cheating being the DNC. Keep small donations
going into your favorite progressive candidates to hear their voice. It doesn't work any other way folks.
Intervention isn't only an issue about morality. As Dwight Eisenhower put it (even though he himself was far from an anti imperialist),
you can't have an endless stream of money dedicated to military endeavors AND a sufficient investment in domestic public priorities.
This easily explains why we have increasingly decrepit infrastructure, increasingly worse performing education, increasingly worse
performing health care, absurdly insufficient regulation between government and business (although the pay to play system certainly
is the top reason) and a generally decaying public atmosphere. Beyond the fact that getting involved everywhere creates humanitarian
crises, countless dead people, hopelessly destroyed countries, and so much more, even if other countries haven't in return bombed
our shores from sea to sea, even if generally speaking those who consider not only the US but Americans the "enemies" haven't
overwhelmed with non stop attacks, this non stop and ever growing appetite for more money for more war priorities has created
the very decline we see in our country today. Until there is a change in priorities in general, these problems in the US will
only continue to get worse.
Man, Tulsi made me tear up. She's my girl. This message reminds me more of the message of Jesus than many of the fundamentalists.
She's not even Christian, yet represents Christ very well. I love this woman.
Prepare for BAE, Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other weapons corporations and their bum lickers to launch a viscous
smear campaign against her suggesting she's somehow a Neo Nazi communist anti Semitic islamophobic islamist.
Tulsi 2020 she's saying some of the same things Trump said in his 2016 campaign. Unfortunately, he didn't deliver. Per the
corporate Democrates, making America better is a bad thing.
Tulsi can actually beat Trump...if she gets the nomination. The wars are the elephant in the room, and whoever is willing to
take that on full force, can win.
The freezing of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England is a signal to all countries out of
step with US interests to withdraw their money, according to economist and co-founder of
Democracy at Work, Professor Richard Wolff. He told RT America that Britain and its central
bank have shown themselves to be "under the thumb of the United States."
"That is a signal to every country that has or may have difficulties with the US, [that
they had] better get their money out of England and out of London because it's not the safe
place as it once was," he said.
"... "As commander-in-chief, I will work to end the new cold war, nuclear arms race and slide into nuclear war. That is why the neocon/neolib warmongers will do anything to stop me . ..."
"... In short; NBC relied on a known propagandist who created a Russian bot "false flag" to meddle in an election, who claims to track pro-Kremlin Twitter activity, in order to smear Tulsi Gabbard as a Putin puppet. ..."
"... It's uncanny what lengths the establishment will go to in order to eliminate threats. For example, take a look at this Vanity Fair hit piece from Jan 30, which uses perhaps the most unflattering photo Gabbard has ever taken and starts off (emphasis not ours): ..."
"... One question remains; will Gabbard become a Democrat puppet like Bernie Sanders if the DNC colludes with their chosen candidate to cheat against her? ..."
"... Obey or die ... that's the ethos of the U.S. elite, these days ... Tulsi can't fight that. ..."
"... I wonder if Ron Paul feels jealous that Tulsi is getting all the hate he used to get when HE ran for president on the peace platform? ..."
"... I thought Social Security was "the third rail of politics" but obviously it is now "perpetual war". Anyone daring to touch it is going to be zapped by the corporate media, whose owners are likely majority stockholders of the military industrial complex. ..."
"... Orange wants to run against some crazy like Hitlery... easy pickings ... he can't win against a sensible person ..."
"... The term "neoliberal warmongers" is thus born ... ..."
"... Yes, good to add that term to "neoconservative warmongers" because of the degree to which almost all successful politicians have become puppets of the best organized gangsters (due to the long history of the vicious feedback loops of the funding of all aspects of the political processes.) The false fundamental dichotomies and related impossible ideals associated with "liberal" versus conservative" are manifestations of the methods of divide and conquer, which methods are being pushed towards oblivion with their excessive indulgence in the demonization of Russia. ..."
"... All of those may be viewed as manifestations of "false flag attacks" whereby the ruling classes drive the people they rule over to fight against boogie men, in ways which therefore backfire badly, by causing the "blowbacks" which those "false flag" presentations of the "public enemies" were originally designed to cause! ..."
"... Tulsa Gabbard shares the same views on Israel that most of the world outside of the US hold ... that there really is zero difference between the apartheid South Africa regime of 3 decades ago and present day Israel. ..."
"... Now that the evil SA apartheid is ended, the natives are rising up and showing their sadism and hatred for all manner of civilization. They sing and chant about how much they want to "kill de white man!" But they have NO IDEA what to do once they've done that. ..."
"... Too bad, the rabid dogs are firmly in charge of the US government. ..."
"... she could beat orange ... orange is afraid of her... so are the zio elite ..."
Tulsi Gabbard Slams "Neocon/Neolib Warmongers" After NBC Propaganda Exposed
by Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/04/2019 - 11:31 525 SHARES
Tulsi Gabbard lashed out at "neocon" and "neolib warmongers" after NBC News was exposed
trying to smear her as a Kremlin stooge. The network was called out over the weekend for
relying on a Democrat-run firm that created fake Russian twitter bots to stage a "false flag"
campaign against Republic Roy Moore in the 2017 Alabama special election - New Knowledge.
To justify its claim that Tulsi Gabbard is the Kremlin's candidate, NBC writes:
"analysts at New Knowledge, the company the Senate Intelligence Committee used to track
Russian activities in the 2016 election, told NBC News they've spotted 'chatter' related to
Gabbard in anonymous online message boards, including those known for fomenting right-wing
troll campaigns."
Only to be called out hard by journalist Glenn Greenwald:
After Greenwald fingered NBC for relying on New Knowledge - run by Jonathan Morgan (who also
developed the technology behind "Hamilton 68" Russian bot-tracking propaganda website that refuses
to disclose its methods) - Gabbard chimed in, tweeting:
"@ggreenwald exposes that @NBC used journalistic fraud to discredit our campaign. But more
important is their motive: "to smear any adversary of the establishment wing of the Democratic
Party – whether on the left or the right – as a stooge or asset of the
Kremlin.""
She later added:
"As commander-in-chief, I will work to end the new cold war, nuclear arms race and slide
into nuclear war. That is why the neocon/neolib warmongers will do anything to stop me .
Disturbingly, the Senate Intelligence Committee has relied on a
report by New Knowledge on Russian social media election interference, while the firm has
created a "Hamilton 68" offshoot, "Disinfo2018" referenced in the NBC article, which claims
that three of the top URLs propagated throughout social media by Kremlin bots were about
Gabbard.
In short; NBC relied on a known propagandist who created a Russian bot "false flag" to
meddle in an election, who claims to track pro-Kremlin Twitter activity, in order to smear
Tulsi Gabbard as a Putin puppet.
It's uncanny what lengths the establishment will go to in order to eliminate threats. For
example, take a look at this Vanity
Fair hit piece from Jan 30, which uses perhaps the most unflattering photo Gabbard has ever
taken and starts off (emphasis not ours):
The presidential campaign of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the renegade Democrat known as much for
her chummy relationship with Bashar al-Assad as for supporting Bernie Sanders , is
beginning to resemble the candidate herself: confusing, disorganized, and, according to
Politico
, falling apart. - Vanity
Fair
One question remains; will Gabbard become a Democrat puppet like Bernie Sanders if the DNC
colludes with their chosen candidate to cheat against her?
I thought Social Security was "the third rail of politics" but obviously it is now
"perpetual war". Anyone daring to touch it is going to be zapped by the corporate media,
whose owners are likely majority stockholders of the military industrial complex.
Tulsi Gabbard for 2020 is not enough. You will also need a group of truly knowledgeable,
experienced and courageous reformers to fill the cabinet. People who dare to take on the CIA,
the MIC, and the pro-Israel lobby. People like Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Edward Snowden,
Julian Assange ...
Orange wants to run against some crazy like Hitlery... easy pickings ... he can't win
against a sensible person... mericans are tiring of orange... he may be one term if he
doesn't deliver on ****.. just get some wall... cheap wall, any wall... move on
Yes, good to add that term to "neoconservative warmongers" because of the degree to which
almost all successful politicians have become puppets of the best organized gangsters (due to
the long history of the vicious feedback loops of the funding of all aspects of the political
processes.) The false fundamental dichotomies and related impossible ideals associated with
"liberal" versus conservative" are manifestations of the methods of divide and
conquer, which methods are being pushed towards oblivion with their excessive indulgence in
the demonization of Russia.
Welcome To The Wile E Coyote Phase Of American History:
Alcohol Prohibition and the War on Drugs were insane &
War on Terror was perhaps thousands of times more so,
Demonizing Russia is thousands of times more insane.
All of those may be viewed as manifestations of "false flag attacks" whereby the ruling
classes drive the people they rule over to fight against boogie men, in ways which
therefore backfire badly, by causing the "blowbacks" which those "false flag"
presentations of the "public enemies" were originally designed to cause!
Running against the fake news is pretty effective. She's pretty effective at staying rational. She needs to establish a bipartisan core who will support her once elected. And some decent appointees. If she has family that she likes she'll need to get them in protective situation. And divest of any assets. I don't know why she would want this task - it's unwinnable.
Tulsa Gabbard shares the same views on Israel that most of the world outside of the US
hold ... that there really is zero difference between the apartheid South Africa regime of 3
decades ago and present day Israel.
With that said, there is fuckall chance of her ever getting either party's support.
Sad, because if America changed course on their blind support of Israel today, the
backlash would be less extreme than what the future holds when Americans finally realize that
they've been duped into supporting a pariah state.
...there really is zero difference between the apartheid South Africa regime of 3
decades ago and present day Israel.
Yup. That would be the result when you're in the same region with a severely low IQ
culture.
Now that the evil SA apartheid is ended, the natives are rising up and showing their
sadism and hatred for all manner of civilization. They sing and chant about how much they
want to "kill de white man!" But they have NO IDEA what to do once they've done that.
It's a failed state in the making, and it's happening FAST. If you wanted to horrify me by bringing up the wicked nasty apartheid of SA... Wow.
Ah, so they steal the land, put the indigenous people in "homelands" and then wonder why
those same people are pissed ? I'm neither a black South African living under the Apartheid
regime of yesteryear, or a Palestinian driven from his home; but I'm pretty certain that if I
had been either; I would have been packing a AK47 and a limpet mine staking out the occupiers
shopping malls.
mericans voted for orange for certain reasons... health care, no more war... he is not
delivering very well... too much time on the wall.. orange is sucked into the wall **** by
dems...
Japan has medicare for all. Doctors and nurses are paid by the government. You are sick..
you go to the hospital.. you get treated..and you go home. There is nothing wrong with that.
If Japan can pay the doctors, if Germany, France, Nederland, Sweden, England, China, etc, can
pay the doctor's salaries, why can't the USA?
Currently, they spent $50 billions a year destroying Syria. They spent trillion destroying
Iraq. They spent billions a year maintaining a military base in Japan while Japanese foot the
medical bills of its citizen. Don't you see there something wrong with this picture? If it's
to deploy soldiers all around the world and kill people, we have the money. No one
complains.
Yes, medicare for all. Every developed nations does it. And their citizens are not sicker
than us. Some of the French, Japanese, German living here in the USA, go home to get treated
when they have serious illnesses. They don't want the huge medical bills.
US Sanctions as a Tool To Perpetuate Neocolonialism
by Nauman
Sadiq Posted on
February 02, 2019 January 31, 2019 It's an evident fact that neocolonial powers are ruled
by behemoth corporations whose wealth is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, far
more than the total GDP of many developing nations. The status of these multinational
corporations as dominant players in international politics gets official imprimatur when the
Western governments endorse the congressional lobbying practice of so-called "special
interest" groups, which is a euphemism for corporate interests.
Since the Western governments are nothing but the mouthpiece of business interests on
international political and economic forums, therefore any national or international entity
which hinders or opposes the agenda of corporate interests is either coerced into accepting
their demands or gets sidelined.
In 2013, the Manmohan Singh's government of India had certain objections to further
opening up to the Western businesses. The Business Roundtable, which is an informal
congregation of major US businesses and together holds a net wealth of $6 trillion, held a
meeting with the representatives of the Indian government and literally coerced it into
accepting unfair demands of the Western corporations.
The developing economies, such as India and Pakistan, are always hungry for foreign direct
investment (FDI) to sustain economic growth, and this investment mostly comes from the
Western corporations. When the Business Roundtables or the Paris-based International Chamber
of Commerce (ICC) form pressure groups and engage in "collective bargaining" activities, the
nascent and fragile developing economies don't have a choice but to toe their line.
State sovereignty, that sovereign nation states are at liberty to pursue independent
policies, particularly economic and trade policies, is a myth. Just like the ruling elites of
the developing countries which maintain a stranglehold and monopoly over domestic politics;
similarly, the neocolonial powers and multinational corporations control international
politics and the global economic order.
Any state in the international arena which dares to transgress the trade and economic
policies laid down by neocolonial powers and multinational corporations becomes an
international pariah like Castro's Cuba, Mugabe's Zimbabwe; or more recently, Maduro's
Venezuela.
Venezuela has one of the largest known oil reserves in the world. Even though the
mainstream media's pundits hold the socialist policies of President Nicolas Maduro
responsible for economic mismanagement in Venezuela, fact of the matter is that
hyperinflation in its economy is the effect of US sanctions against Venezuela which have been
put in place since the time of late President Hugo Chavez.
Another case in point is Iran which was cut off from the global economic system from 2006
to 2015, and then again after May last year when President Donald Trump annulled the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), because of Iran's supposed nuclear ambitions. Good for
Iran that it also has one of the largest oil and gas resources, otherwise it would have been
insolvent by now.
Such is the power of Washington-led global financial system, especially the banking
sector, and the significance of petrodollar, because the global oil transactions are pegged
in the US dollars all over the world, and all the major oil bourses are also located in the
Western financial districts.
The crippling "third party" economic sanctions on Iran from 2006 to 2015 have brought to
the fore the enormous power that the Western financial institutions and the petrodollar as a
global reserve currency wields over the global financial system.
It bears mentioning that the Iranian nuclear negotiations were as much about Iran's
nuclear program as they were about its ballistic missile program, which is an equally
dangerous conventional threat to Israel and the Gulf's petro-monarchies, just across the
Persian Gulf.
Despite the sanctions being unfair, Iran felt the heat so much that it remained engaged in
negotiations throughout the nearly decade-long period of sanctions, and such was the
crippling effect of those "third party" sanctions on Iran's economy that had it not been for
its massive oil and gas reserves, and some Russian, Chinese and Turkish help in illicitly
buying Iranian oil, it could have defaulted due to the sanctions.
Notwithstanding, after the brutal assassination of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate
in Istanbul on October 2, and the clear hand of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in the
murder, certain naïve political commentators of the mainstream media came up with a
ludicrous suggestion that Washington should impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia.
As in the case of aforementioned Iran sanctions, sanctioning Saudi Arabia also seems
plausible; however, there is a caveat: Iran is only a single oil-rich state which has 160
billion barrels of proven oil reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per
day (mbpd) of crude oil.
On the other hand, the Persian Gulf's petro-monarchies are actually three oil-rich states.
Saudi Arabia with its 266 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and 10 mbpd of daily crude
oil production, and UAE and Kuwait with 100 billion barrels of proven reserves, each, and 3
mbpd of daily crude oil production, each. Together, the share of the Gulf Cooperation
Countries (GCC) amounts to 466 billion barrels, almost one-third of the world's 1477 billion
barrels of total proven oil reserves.
Therefore, although imposing economic sanctions on the Gulf states might sound like a good
idea on paper, the relationship between the Gulf's petro-monarchies and the industrialized
world is that of a consumer-supplier relationship. The Gulf states are the suppliers of
energy and the industrialized world is its consumer, hence the Western powers cannot sanction
their energy suppliers and largest investors.
If anything, the Gulf's petro-monarchies had "sanctioned" the Western powers in the past
by imposing the oil embargo in 1973 after the Arab-Israel War. The 1973 Arab oil embargo
against the West lasted only for a short span of six months during which the price of oil
quadrupled, but Washington became so paranoid after the embargo that it put in place a ban on
the export of crude oil outside the US borders, and began keeping sixty-day stock of reserve
fuel for strategic and military needs.
Recently, some very upbeat rumors about the shale revolution have been circulating in the
media. However, the shale revolution is primarily a natural gas revolution. It has increased
the probable recoverable resources of natural gas by 30%. The shale oil, on the other hand,
refers to two starkly different kinds of energy resources: firstly, the solid kerogen –
though substantial resources of kerogen have been found in the US Green River formations, the
cost of extracting liquid crude from solid kerogen is so high that it is economically
unviable for at least a hundred years; secondly, the tight oil which is blocked by shale
– it is a viable energy resource but the reserves are so limited, roughly 4 billion
barrels in Texas and North Dakota, that it will run out in a few years.
More than the size of oil reserves, it is about per barrel extraction cost, which
determines the profits for the multinational oil companies. And in this regard, the Persian
Gulf's crude oil is the most profitable. Further, regarding the supposed US energy
independence after the purported shale revolution, the US produced 11 million barrels per day
(bpd) of crude oil in the first quarter of 2014, which was more than the output of Saudi
Arabia and Russia, each of which produces around 10 million bpd. But the US still imported
7.5 million bpd during the same period, which was more than the oil imports of France and
Britain put together. More than the total volume of oil production, the volume which an
oil-producing country exports determines its place in the hierarchy of petroleum and the
Gulf's petro-monarchies constitute the top tier of that pyramid.
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused
on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and
petro-imperialism.
When Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
announced her candidacy for the presidency on CNN last month, I had a feeling I'd be
writing about her a fair bit. Not because I particularly want her to be president, but because
I knew her candidacy would cause the narrative control mechanizations of the political/media
class to overextend themselves , leaving them open to attack, exposure, and the weakening of
their control of the narrative.
Mere
hours before her campaign officially launched, NBC News published an astonishingly blatant smear piece titled "Russia's
propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard," subtitled "Experts who
track websites and social media linked to Russia have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of
support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard." One of the article's authors shared it on Twitter with the
caption, "The Kremlin already has a crush on Tulsi Gabbard."
The article reported that media outlets tied to the Russian government had been talking a
lot about Gabbard's candidacy, ironically citing as an example an RT article which
documented the attempts by the US mainstream media to paint Gabbard as a Kremlin agent. The
article's authors cited the existence of such articles combined with the existence of "chatter"
about Gabbard on the anonymous message board 8chan (relevant for God knows what reason) as
evidence to substantiate its blaring headline. Even more hilariously, the source for its weird
8chan claim is named as none other than Renee DiResta of the narrative control firm New
Knowledge, which was
recently embroiled in a scandal for staging a "false flag operation" in an Alabama Senate
race which gave one of the candidates the false appearance of being amplified by Russian
bots.
This pathetic, juvenile language from one of the authors of that astronomically awful NBC
News article gives you a sense of what they're trying to accomplish here. Smear campaign
fully underway https://t.co/jvl5pFRr0P
This article is of course absurd. As we
discussed recently , you will always see Russia on the same US foreign policy page as
anti-interventionists like Tulsi Gabbard, because Russia, like so many other nations, opposes
US interventionism. To treat this as some sort of shocking conspiracy instead of obvious and
mundane is journalistic malpractice. There are many, many very good reasons to oppose the war
agendas of the US-centralized empire, none of which have anything to do with having any loyalty
to or sympathies for the Russian government.
But we will continue to see this tactic used again and again and again against any and all
opposition to US-led interventionism for as long as the Russiagate psyop maintains its grip
upon western consciousness. And make no mistake, these smears have everything to do with
anti-interventionism and nothing to do with Russia. There will never, ever be an antiwar voice
who the political/media class and their centrist followers espouse as good and valid; they'll
never say "Ahh, finally, someone who hates war and also isn't aligned with Russia! We can get
behind this one!" That will never, ever happen, because it is the opposition to war and
interventionism itself which is being rejected, and in the McCarthyite environment of Russia
hysteria, tarring it as "Russian" simply makes a practical excuse for that rejection.
All the biggest conflicts in the world can be described as unipolarism vs multipolarism: the
unipolarists who support the global hegemony of the US-centralized empire at any cost, versus
the multipolarists who oppose that dominance and support the existence of multiple power
structures in the world. The governments of Russia, China, Iran and their allies are
predominantly multipolarist in their geopolitical outlook, and they tend to be more in favor of
non-interventionism, since unipolarity can only be held in place by brute force and aggression.
Unipolarists, therefore, can always paint western anti-interventionists as Russian assets,
since the Russian government is multipolarist and opposed to the interventionism of the
unipolarists.
The nonstop propaganda campaign to keep the coals of Russia hysteria burning white hot at
all times can therefore be looked at first and foremost as a psychological operation to kill
support for multipolarism around the world. It can of course be used to manufacture consent for
escalations against Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, Iran etc as needed, but it can also be
used to attack the ideology of anti-interventionism itself by smearing anyone who opposes
unipolar oppression and aggression as an agent of a nefarious oppositional government.
The social engineers have succeeded in constructing a narrative control device which
encapsulates the entire agenda of the unipolar world order in a single bumper sticker-sized
talking point: "Russia opposes Big Brother, therefore anyone who opposes Big Brother is
Russian." This device didn't take an amazing intellectual feat to create; all they had to do
was recreate the paranoid insanity of the original cold war, and they already had a blueprint
for that. It was simply a matter of shepherding us back there.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, there emerged a popular notion of a " peace dividend " in which defense
spending could be reduced in the absence of America's sole rival and the abundant excess funds
used to take care of the American people instead. The only problem was that a lot of people had
gotten very rich and powerful as a result of that cold war defense spending, and it wasn't long
before they started circulating the idea of using America's newly uncontested might for a very
expensive campaign to hammer down a liberal world order led by the beneficent guidance of the
United States government. Soon the neoconservatives were pushing their unipolarist narratives in high levels
of influence with great effect, and shortly thereafter they got their " new Pearl
Harbor " in the form of the 9/11 attacks which justified an explosion in defense spending,
interventionism and expansionism, just as the neoconservative Project for a New American
Century had called
for . And the rest is history.
And now our collective consciousness is planted right back in the center of that paranoid,
hawkish political environment of the first cold war. The main difference now is of course that
Russia is nothing remotely like a superpower today, and that the establishment Russia narrative
is made entirely out of narrative, but the most important difference is that this time the
establishment narratives are not taking place within the hermetically sealed bubbles of major
news media corporations. People are able to communicate with each other and share information
far more easily than they were prior to the fall of the Berlin wall, and westerners are able to
easily access Russian media and anti-interventionist narratives if they want to.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, as I never tire of saying. This
difficulty in replicating the hermetically sealed media environment of the original cold war
poses a severe challenge for narrative control, and it is for this reason reason that there is
now so much skepticism of the establishment Russia narrative. It is also the reason for the
establishment's aggressive maneuvers to censor the internet, to demonize Russian media, and to
smear anti-interventionist perspectives.
But we can't keep living this way. We all know this, deep down. The people at the helm of
the unipolar world order are advancing an ecocidal world economy which is stripping the earth
bare and filling the air with poison while at the same time pushing more and more aggressively
against the multipolarist powers, one of which happens to have thousands of nuclear warheads at
its disposal. The unipolarity so enthusiastically promoted by the neoconservatives and their
fellow travelers has reached the end of the line after just a few short years, and now it's
time to dispense with it and try something else. They will necessarily smear us with everything
but the kitchen sink for saying so, but we are right and they are wrong. The state of the world
today proves this beyond a doubt.
* * *
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"... Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote. ..."
"... taken at face value, it inverts Congress's constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace. ..."
"... When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude ..."
"... The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of withdrawal. ..."
"... Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen, Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat. ..."
"... Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company throughout the country than he thinks. ..."
"... Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it one way, while his administration does something completely different. ..."
"... I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. ..."
Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday
behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to
advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan and Syria.
Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything
but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and
women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It
doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the
Senate vote.
The resolution is non-binding, like the Democrats' toothless measures to stop George W.
Bush's Iraq "surge" over a decade ago. Still, taken at face value, it inverts Congress's
constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while
frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace.
When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude
d. Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward's book repeats the president's probing questions
about how long we must stay in Afghanistan with an air of disbelief better suited to "fake
news" shared on Facebook. Trump's call late last year to bring troops home from both war-torn
countries elicited bipartisan criticism and the abrupt resignation of Pentagon chief James
Mattis.
To make matters worse, only three Republican senators -- Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of
Louisiana, and Mike Lee of Utah -- voted to stand with their president against these endless
nation-building exercises. Kentucky's Rand Paul, who was not present for the vote, would surely
have been a fourth. Even Chuck Schumer, the third straight Senate Democratic leader to have
voted for the Iraq war, opposed this anti-withdrawal amendment.
During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff.
He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or
he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional
duties.
Trump may find that he has unlikely allies in his would-be 2020 Democratic presidential
foes. The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren,
Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of
withdrawal. How many ambitious Democrats will vote to give a Republican president a blank
check for war as an election year approaches?
GOP lawmakers will have to decide whether they stand with their president -- who wants to
cut America's multi-trillion dollar losses in the Middle East -- and
rank-and-file Republican voters in ending these wars. Those who want to stay in Syria and
Afghanistan quite likely cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.
Up until now, Trump's big fight with the establishment has been over immigration and the
border wall. Amid his belated turn towards the more populist parts of his program, he should
not forget to spend political capital on America's wars as well. Trump
now says Republican congressional leaders misled him on the wall. It has been even worse on
foreign policy.
Partisans are dug in on the border. But on war, Trump has some opportunities to win over
converts. Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sit stone-faced behind him as he agrees with the
Progressive Caucus on foreign policy?
Much is riding on whether a course correction is possible in Afghanistan and Syria.
Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen,
Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his
presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives
who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat.
Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes
withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company
throughout the country than he thinks.
Mearsheimer has some main tenets of realist foreign policy include:
The lobby and its fellow travelers are not used to being told no. Time for them to create
and fund volunteer corps and do their own dirty work on their dime and at their own risk.
Trump should demand Congress debate and authorize the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It
would be good policy and good politics. And good for the Constitution.
Wouldn't hold my breath on Trump doing any such thing on ending of the Middle Eastern Wars.
Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's
serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual
warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it
one way, while his administration does something completely different.
The article states: "Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington
closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the
Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from
Afghanistan and Syria."
-- -- -- -
I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both
political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked
America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. More info at link
below.
I am extremely disappointed that both of my State's Democratic Senators voted to keep the wars
going.
However, I'm sure they did so only to spite Trump.
They don't either of them support more Long War. Of course, they don't want to be blamed
either in the case of another terrorist attack for not being tough enough. But this vote was
not one of principle.
That means they would not fight for it. They just did it. I suspect much of the vote in the
Senate was like that, and that the rather large number of non-votes is because of that.
During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff.
He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or
he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional
duties.
Would that he would but he won't.
Mr. Trump shan't read this good advice because it seems he only reads what the Kushners put
in front of him and (for the most part) hires only people who despise him–people who are
married to the pro-war Blob in DC.
"... Capitalism has at different times or in different places offered concessions to mobilisations of the working class. It offers the fiction of political choice and representation. It provides a fig-leaf of regulation to impinge on the very worst excesses of the free market and private accumulation ..."
An anti-Trotskyist rationale for supporting imperialist war The war for regime change waged in Syria by the NATO powers, in
alliance with Al Qaeda, behind the backs of the peoples of America and Europe, is the outcome of three decades of US-led wars across
the Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.
These crimes of US and European imperialism have not only claimed millions
of lives and turned more than 60 million people into refugees. They have exposed the fact that the basic contradictions of capitalism,
which led to world war and the October Revolution in the 20th century, remain unresolved.
Despite the deep unpopularity of these bloody wars, which have cost trillions of dollars amid the deepest economic crisis of capitalism
since the 1930s, attempts by voters to end or limit them, by voting governments out of office in America and Europe, have failed.
Successive governments of all political colorations have, on the contrary, stepped them up, and it is clear that this has become
a policy endorsed by an entrenched ruling class. When the Syrian regime invited Moscow to help it fight the NATO-backed opposition
militias in 2015, for example, NATO escalated the war into a military standoff with Russia, a nuclear power. A century after the
outbreak of World War I and the Russian Revolution, the capitalist system is teetering on the brink of a nuclear conflagration.
The paragraphs quoted from Hensman in which she extols Western capitalist states providing democratic mechanisms through which
the working class can "fight back" - notwithstanding the 4 decades of unbroken counterrevolution that bring us into the present
- don't just embody the political dead end reached by those who broke from international revolutionary solidarity and Trotskyist
struggles against both Stalinism and imperialism.
They do something much worse and, in my view, more fundamental. They highlight how the thinkers that cluster around groups
like the ISO have completely lost - if they ever had it - the ability to think dialectically. Their political conclusions lead
me to conclude in turn that they actually don't comprehend the most essential principles of Marxist critical analysis of capitalism
or how dialectical materialism builds a complete picture of the totality that is our socio-economic environment.
Capitalism has at different times or in different places offered concessions to mobilisations of the working class. It
offers the fiction of political choice and representation. It provides a fig-leaf of regulation to impinge on the very worst excesses
of the free market and private accumulation.
But - and this is the key thing! - it is in its essence, in the most primitive, unchanging logic of its momentum and inexorable
development, always but always a system in which the privileges and power of capital will be elevated above those of workers.
It is constitutionally organised around that core function. If you don't understand that, every analysis that follows will be
useless.
By proceeding in his analysis from revolutionary concepts of class struggle, exploitation, alienation, and the material basis
for historical development, Marx was able to build - brick by brick - a critique of capitalism itself. Pseudo-left groups like
the ISO or the DSA do the exact opposite - they start from false principles and work towards over-elaborated false conclusions.
It isn't in other words just the case that they err on this or that detail. The whole premise and therefore all the conclusions
are useless - and must be rejected wholesale!
"... Are unions, political parties, elections, and social movements like Occupy examples of "spontaneous order" -- and if not, why not? ..."
"... Is a libertarian willing to admit that production is the result of many forces, each of which should be recognized and rewarded? ..."
"... Is our libertarian willing to acknowledge that workers who bargain for their services, individually and collectively, are also employing market forces? ..."
"... Is our libertarian willing to admit that a "free market" needs regulation? ..."
"... Does our libertarian believe in democracy? If yes, explain what's wrong with governments that regulate. ..."
"... Does our libertarian use wealth that wouldn't exist without government in order to preach against the role of government? ..."
"... Does our libertarian reject any and all government protection for his intellectual property? ..."
"... Does our libertarian recognize that democracy is a form of marketplace? ..."
"... Does our libertarian recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedoms? ..."
"... Does he think that Rand was off the mark on this one, or does he agree that historical figures like King and Gandhi were "parasites"? ..."
"... If you believe in the free market, why weren't you willing to accept as final the judgment against libertarianism rendered decades ago in the free and unfettered marketplace of ideas? ..."
We aren't suggesting every libertarian is a hypocrite, but there's an easy way to find out.
Libertarians have a problem. Their political philosophy all but died out in the mid- to late-20th century, but was
revived by billionaires and corporations that found them politically useful. And yet libertarianism retains the
qualities that led to its disappearance from the public stage, before its reanimation by people like the Koch
brothers: It doesn't make any sense.
They call themselves "realists" but rely on fanciful theories that have never predicted real-world behavior.
They claim that selfishness makes things better for everybody, when history shows exactly the opposite is true.
They claim that a mythical "free market" is better at everything than the government is, yet when they really need
government protection, they're the first to clamor for it.
That's no reason not to work with them on areas where they're in agreement with people like me. In fact, the unconventionality
of their thought has led libertarians to be among this nation's most forthright and outspoken advocates for civil liberties and
against military interventions.
Merriam-Webster defines "hypocrisy" as "feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not." We aren't suggesting
every libertarian is a hypocrite. But there's an easy way to find out.
The Other Libertarianism
First, some background. There is a kind of libertarianism that's nothing more or less than a strain in the American psyche, an
emotional tendency toward individualism and personal liberty. That's fine and even admirable.
We're talking about the other libertarianism, the political philosophy whose avatar is the late writer Ayn Rand. It was once
thought that this extreme brand of libertarianism, one that celebrates greed and even brutality, had died in the early 1980s with
Rand herself. Many Rand acolytes had already gone underground, repressing or disavowing the more extreme statements of their
youth and attempting to blend in with more mainstream schools of thought in respectable occupations.
There was a good reason for that. Randian libertarianism is an illogical, impractical, inhumane, unpopular set of Utopian
ravings which lacks internal coherence and has never predicted real-world behavior anywhere. That's why, reasonably enough, the
libertarian movement evaporated in the late 20th century, its followers scattered like the wind.
Pay to Play
But the libertarian movement has seen a strong resurgence in recent years, and there's a simple reason for that: money, and
the personal interests of some people who have a lot of it. Once relegated to drug-fueled college-dorm bull sessions, political
libertarianism suddenly had pretensions of legitimacy. This revival is Koch-fueled, not coke-fueled, and exists only because in
political debate, as in so many other walks of life, cash is king.
The Koch brothers are principal funders of the Reason Foundation and
Reason
magazine. Exxon Mobil and other corporate
and billionaire interests are behind the Cato Institute, the other public face of libertarianism. Financiers have also seeded a
number of economics schools, think tanks, and other institutions with proponents of their brand of libertarianism. It's easy to
explain why some of these corporate interests do it. It serves the self-interest of the environmental polluters, for example, to
promote a political philosophy which argues that regulation is bad and the market will correct itself. And every wealthy
individual benefits from tax cuts for the rich. What better way to justify that than with a philosophy that says they're rich
because they're
better --
and that those tax cuts help everybody
?
The rise of the Silicon Valley economy has also contributed to the libertarian resurgence. A lot of Internet billionaires are
nerds who suddenly find themselves rich and powerful, and they're emotionally and intellectually inclined toward libertarianism's
geeky and unrealistic vision of a free market. In their minds its ideas are "heuristic," "autologous" and "cybernetic" -- all of
which has inherent attraction in their culture.
The only problem is: It's only a dream. At no time or place in human history has there been a working libertarian society
which provided its people with the kinds of outcomes libertarians claim it will provide. But libertarianism's self-created mythos
claims that it's more
realistic
than other ideologies, which is the opposite of the truth. The slope from that
contradiction to the deep well of hypocrisy is slippery, steep -- and easy to identify.
The Libertarian Hypocrisy Test
That's where the Libertarian Hypocrisy Test comes in. Let's say we have a libertarian friend, and we want to know whether or
not he's hypocritical about his beliefs. How would we go about conducting such a test? The best way is to use the tenets of his
philosophy to draw up a series of questions to explore his belief system.
The Cato Institute's overview of
key
libertarian concepts
mixes universally acceptable bromides like the "rule of law" and "individual rights" with principles
that are more characteristically libertarian -- and therefore more fantastical. Since virtually all people support the rule of law
and individual rights, it is the other concepts which are uniquely libertarian and form the basis of our first few questions.
The Institute cites "spontaneous order," for example, as "the great insight of libertarian social analysis." Cato defines
that principle thusly:
" (O)rder in society arises spontaneously, out of the actions of thousands or millions of individuals who coordinate their
actions with those of others in order to achieve their purposes."
To which the discerning reader might be tempted to ask: Like
where
, exactly? Libertarians define "spontaneous order"
in a very narrow way -- one that excludes demonstrations like the Arab Spring, elections which install progressive governments, or
union movements, to name three examples. And yet each of these things are undertaken by individuals who "coordinated their
actions with those of others" to achieve our purposes.
So our first hypocrisy test question is,
Are unions, political parties, elections, and social movements like Occupy
examples of "spontaneous order" -- and if not, why not?
Cato also trumpets what it calls "The Virtue of Production" without ever defining what production
is.
Economics
defines the term, but libertarianism is looser with its terminology. That was easier to get away with in the Industrial Age, when
"production" meant a car, or a shovel, or a widget.
Today nearly 50 percent of corporate profits come from the financial sector -- that is, from the manipulation of money. It's more
difficult to define "production," and even harder to find its "virtue," when the creation of wealth no longer necessarily leads
to the creation of jobs, or economic growth, or anything except the enrichment of a few.
Which seems to be the point. Cato says, "Modern libertarians defend the right of productive people to keep what they earn,
against a new class of politicians and bureaucrats who would seize their earnings to transfer them to nonproducers."
Which gets us to our next test question:
Is a libertarian willing to admit that production is the result of many forces,
each of which should be recognized and rewarded?
Retail stores like Walmart and fast-food corporations like McDonalds cannot produce wealth without employees. Don't those
employees have the right to "coordinate their actions with those of others in order to achieve their purposes" -- for example, in
unions? You would think that free-market philosophers would encourage workers, as part of a free-market economy, to discover the
market value for their services through negotiation.
Is our libertarian willing to acknowledge that workers who bargain for their services, individually and collectively, are
also employing market forces?
The bankers who collude to deceive their customers, as US bankers did with the MERS mortgage system, were permitted to do so
by the unwillingness of government to regulate them. The customers who were the victims of deception were essential to the
production of Wall Street wealth. Why don't libertarians recognize their role in the process, and their right to administer their
own affairs?
That right includes the right to regulate the bankers who sell them mortgages. Libertarians say that the "free market" will
help consumers. "Libertarians believe that people will be both freer and more prosperous if government intervention in people's
economic choices is minimized," says Cato.
But victims of illegal foreclosure are neither "freer" nor "more prosperous" after the government deregulation which led to
their exploitation. What's more, deregulation has led to a series of documented banker crimes that include stockholder fraud and
investor fraud. That leads us to our next test of libertarian hypocrisy:
Is our libertarian willing to admit that a "free
market" needs regulation?
Digital Libertarians
But few libertarians are as hypocritical as the billionaires who earned their fortunes in the tech world. Government created
the Internet. Government financed the basic research that led to computing itself. And yet Internet libertarians are among the
most politically extreme of them all.
Perhaps none is more extreme than Peter Thiel, who made his fortune with PayPal. In one infamous rant, Thiel complained about
allowing women and people he describes as "welfare beneficiaries" (which might be reasonably interpreted as "minorities") to
vote. "Since 1920," Thiel fulminated, "the extension of the franchise to (these two groups) have turned 'capitalist democracy'
into an oxymoron."
With this remark, Thiel let something slip that extreme libertarians prefer to keep quiet: A lot of them don't like democracy
very much. In their world, democracy is a poor substitute for the iron-fisted rule of wealth, administered by those who hold the
most of it. Our next test, therefore, is:
Does our libertarian believe in democracy? If yes, explain what's wrong with
governments that regulate.
On this score, at least, Thiel is no hypocrite. He's willing to freely say what others only think: Democracy should be
replaced by the rule of wealthy people like himself.
But how did Peter Thiel and other Internet billionaires become wealthy? They hired government-educated employees to develop
products protected by government copyrights. Those products used government-created computer technology and a government-created
communications web to communicate with government-educated customers in order to generate wealth for themselves, which was then
stored in government-protected banks -- after which they began using that wealth to argue for the elimination of government.
By that standard, Thiel and his fellow "digital libertarians" are hypocrites of genuinely epic proportion. Which leads us to
our next question:
Does our libertarian use wealth that wouldn't exist without government in order to preach against the role
of government?
Many libertarians will counter by saying that government has only two valid functions: to protect the national security and
enforce intellectual property laws. By why only these two? If the mythical free market can solve any problem, including
protecting the environment, why can't it also protect us from foreign invaders and defend the copyrights that make these
libertarians wealthy?
For that matter, why should these libertarians be allowed to hold patents at all? If the free market can decide how best to
use our national resources, why shouldn't it also decide how best to use Peter Thiel's ideas, and whether or not to reward him
for them? After all, if Thiel were a true Randian libertarian he'd use his ideas in a more superior fashion than anyone else -- and
he would be more ruthless in enforcing his rights to them than anyone else.
Does our libertarian reject any and all
government protection for his intellectual property?
Size Matters
Our democratic process is highly flawed today, but that's largely the result of corruption from corporate and billionaire
money. And yet, libertarians celebrate the corrupting influence of big money. No wonder, since the same money is keeping their
movement afloat and paying many of their salaries. But, aside from the naked self-interest, their position makes no sense. Why
isn't a democratically elected government the ultimate demonstration of "spontaneous order"?
Does our libertarian recognize
that democracy is a form of marketplace?
We're told that "big government" is bad for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is too large to be responsive. But
if big governments are bad, why are big corporations so acceptable? What's more, these massive institutions have been conducting
an assault on the individual and collective freedoms of the American people
for decades.
Why
isn't it important to avoid the creation of monopolies, duopolies and syndicates that interfere with the free market's ability to
function?
Libertarians are right about one thing: Unchecked and undemocratic force is totalitarian. A totalitarian corporation, or a
totalitarian government acting in concert with corporations, is at least as effective at suppressing the "spontaneous order" as a
non-corporate totalitarian government.
Does our libertarian recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedoms?
Extra Credit Questions
Most libertarians prefer not to take their philosophy to its logical conclusions. While that may make them better human
beings, it also shadows them with the taint of hypocrisy.
Ayn Rand was an adamant opponent of good works, writing that "The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a
parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves." That raises another test for our libertarian:
Does he think that
Rand was off the mark on this one, or does he agree that historical figures like King and Gandhi were "parasites"?
There's no reason not to form alliances with civil libertarians, or to shun them as human beings. Their erroneous thinking
often arises from good impulses. But it is worth asking them one final question for our test.
Libertarianism would have died out as a philosophy if it weren't for the funding that's been lavished on the movement by
billionaires like Thiel and the Kochs and corporations like ExxonMobil. So our final question is:
If you believe in the free
market, why weren't you willing to accept as final the judgment against libertarianism rendered decades ago in the free and
unfettered marketplace of ideas?
The MSM and its allies in the controlled alternative media, and the global private-interest
financial, investment and banking system, are a tag-team, indispensable to each other.
Control of money and control of information. The first narrowly concentrates wealth and thus
power and influence. The second through agenda-driven selection, lies, censorship, spin,
misdirection and so on – disinformation – controls people's sense of what is real
and possible, thus dis-empowering them.
The American military and CIA have provided most of the overt and covert 'muscle' for that
control system.
The combined effort of narrowly controlled and narrowly advantaging globe straddling
finance, media, and muscle has facilitated the development of a near global Empire. In common
with traditional Empires this new Empire had totalitarian ambitions: but since its reach was
global, this is really a first attempt at global totalitarian control.
Russia under Putin – leaving aside China – has developed enough strength to
attempt alternative modes of communication and finance and development, not as adjuncts or
subordinates to the Empire's efforts in those regards. And their military is antidote and
opposition to the totalitarian project.
The forgoing is pretty obvious stuff, but I think that the Saker's concluding paragraph
provides a limiting summary of how the issue can play out.
"But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really want to live in a
western-style capitalist society (with all the russophobic politics and the adoption
of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a
"social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and
economic
justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.
You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics."
This is a simplistic way of looking at the choices available. We are all caught up in
transitional culture processes, no matter where we live. The conjunction of the cornucopia of
new technology and unprecedented environmental and social challenges is everywhere at play,
leading who knows where?
What the Russian people have been given, and this is near singular on Earth, is a
protected and enhanced opportunity of developing a culture in which honest national discourse
is a predominant feature. This is in complete contrast to the predominant 'fake news' system
of discourse control that is in place in so many countries. And full and honest discourse
will create its own original cultural developments.
The Russian adoption of more honest discourse is already having global influence. An
example is Russia Today, which far from perfect and all that, still provides an enormous
advance over the extremely controlled western mass media, and a powerful foe to 'fake
news'.
Perhaps the most visible exemplar of rationale discourse has been Putin himself, with for
example his marathon annual Q and A with the Russian people, or his articulate well
considered sallies on many issues
And with that – if Russia can use unfettered reason writ large as a prime ingredient
of cultural and political development, as a basic developmental 'steering tool' – then
the simple dichotomy of "western-style capitalist society" vs "a society in which social and
economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits"
, as much as I'm sympathetic to the latter, seems to me to be a limiting way of expressing
the range of potential beneficent possibilities.
"... I venture to guess, since Anne goes here several times. The 'militarists', unrelated to LGBT, faction of the DNC will use LGBT comments from Gabbard's past...... to show she is not liberal enough to defend the party's permanent war profiteering plank! ..."
Tulsi Gabbard, Democratic Presidential Candidate,
Apologizes for Anti-Gay Past https://nyti.ms/2HhUDev
NYT - Liam Stack - Jan. 17, 2019
Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who last week announced she was running for
president, apologized Thursday for her history of anti-gay statements and her past work for
an anti-gay advocacy group -- issues that have emerged as an early obstacle as she pursues a
long-shot bid for the Democratic Party's nomination.
I venture to guess, since Anne goes here several times. The 'militarists', unrelated
to LGBT, faction of the DNC will use LGBT comments from Gabbard's past...... to show she is
not liberal enough to defend the party's permanent war profiteering plank!
"... Darnell Strom, a Hillary Clinton fundraiser , sent an email to Tulsi Gabbard on Feb. 2016 to express his big disappointment about the fact that she had chosen to endorse Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... The tone of writing reveals a lot of anger for the fact that Gabbard had clearly chosen to join the Bernie Sanders camp instead of that of Hillary Clinton. And it's quite impressive that in the end, Strom straightly clarifies that he will not help Gabbard to raise money for her campaign! Strom wrote (emphasis added): ..."
Searching the Podesta emails inside WikiLeaks we found a rather disturbing fact about Tulsi Gabbard who recently announced that
she will run for the 2020 US presidency. Iraq War Veteran, Jon Soltz, chairman at VoteVets at the time, sent an email on Aug. 2012
to Hillary Clinton top lobbyist, John Podesta, in order to thank him for his contribution to Gabbard's campaign in Hawaii.
Soltz wrote (emphasis added):
This morning, we are one step closer to making history. In Hawaii, VoteVets PAC-endorsed Iraq veteran Tulsi Gabbard has
won her primary, in a stunning come-from-behind victory. If she wins in November, she along with Tammy Duckworth (who we also
feel very good about), would be the first female combat veteran ever elected to Congress in United States history! This is
happening because of you. Your tens of thousands of dollars in donations for Tulsi's campaign, through VoteVets PAC , allowed
her to run a first-rate effort.
[...]
VoteVets Action Fund was the first group to step up to help her close that gap. In all, VoteVets Action Fund spent over
$317,000 promoting Tulsi's incredible biography . Now, we're even closer to sending another incredible veteran to Congress,
to add to the growing voice of today's progressive veterans in the halls of power. From all of us at VoteVets.org, I want to
thank you for helping to make this all possible .
While it's quite annoying the fact that one of the most promising progressives for the US presidency, have won back then, to some
extent, thanks to Podesta's money, it is clear that she didn't receive that money directly from Clinton's top lobbyist.
The money was used by VoteVets Action Fund to boost Gabbard's campaign, and there is no evidence that she had direct connections
with the Clinton mechanism.
Furthermore, there is additional evidence about the fact that Gabbard upset the elites inside the Democratic party, as she has
subsequently chosen to adopt more progressive positions and join permanently the Bernie Sanders progressive faction.
For example, Darnell Strom, a
Hillary Clinton fundraiser , sent an email to Tulsi Gabbard on Feb. 2016 to express his big disappointment about
the fact that she had chosen to endorse Bernie Sanders.
The tone of writing reveals a lot of anger for the fact that Gabbard had clearly chosen to join the Bernie Sanders camp instead
of that of Hillary Clinton. And it's quite impressive that in the end, Strom straightly clarifies that he will not help Gabbard to
raise money for her campaign!
Strom wrote (emphasis added):
We were very disappointed to hear that you would resign your position with the DNC so you could endorse Bernie Sanders,
a man who has never been a Democrat before . When we met over dinner a couple of years ago I was so impressed by your intellect,
your passion, and commitment to getting things done on behalf of the American people.
For you to endorse a man who has spent
almost 40 years in public office with very few accomplishments , doesn't fall in line with what we previously thought of you.
Hillary Clinton will be our party's nominee and you standing on ceremony to support the sinking Bernie Sanders ship is disrespectful
to Hillary Clinton . A woman who has spent the vast majority of her life in public service and working on behalf of women,
families, and the underserved. You have called both myself and Michael Kives before about helping your campaign raise money,
we no longer trust your judgement so will not be raising money for your campaign .
This is probably the best proof that, at that moment, Tulsi Gabbard had cut ties with the Clinton mechanism permanently. A very
hopeful sign.
Recall that Gabbard
introduced
the Stop Arming Terrorists act to prohibit taxpayer dollars for being used to support terrorists. She is probably the
only one from the US Congress who dared to tell the truth about Syria by stating that " ... the US government has been violating
this law for years, directly and indirectly supporting allies and partners of groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, with money, weapons,
intelligence and other support in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government. "
"... If Gabbard's candidacy catches on enough for her to become a threat to prevailing interests within the Democratic Party, expect to hear more about how her policies are of a piece with Assad's, the demon of the hour, and also, of course with Vladimir Putin's, the devil incarnate in the eyes not just of Clintonite liberals, but also of the anti-Trump "conservatives" who have overrun CNN and MSNBC (=MSDNC), and of the national security state "experts" whom one sees at all hours of the day and night on those increasingly unbearable cable networks. ..."
"Gabbard seems to think of international relations in a different register, seeing states as
rational agents pursuing their national interests – mainly in self-preservation and
self-defense. Academics call this way of thinking about geopolitics 'realism'; it is
old-fashioned Realpolitik projected onto the global stage .
If Gabbard's candidacy catches on enough for her to become a threat to prevailing interests
within the Democratic Party, expect to hear more about how her policies are of a piece with
Assad's, the demon of the hour, and also, of course with Vladimir Putin's, the devil incarnate
in the eyes not just of Clintonite liberals, but also of the anti-Trump "conservatives" who
have overrun CNN and MSNBC (=MSDNC), and of the national security state "experts" whom one sees
at all hours of the day and night on those increasingly unbearable cable networks.
Worse still, expect to hear more about how Gabbard's views coincide with Trump's. If anyone
really is the devil incarnate, he's the man. But face it: when he's right, he's right, and
compared to Clintonite Democrats, on more issues than foreign affairs – on trade, for
example -- he's often more right than they. Better a leftwing realist, which is what Gabbard
seems to be, than a Clintonite moralist." • Indeed.
"New Trump campaign hires to focus on convention delegates, party organization" [ Politico
]. "The new hires will help run the campaign's delegate and party organization arm, which is
waging an elaborate nationwide campaign to ensure the delegates selected to attend the
nominating convention are staunch White House allies -- not Never Trump Republicans.
The group
will be focused on delving into the granular state-by-state battles that will ensue in the
coming months and which will determine the composition of the convention delegation."
Wall Street gives money to the Dems not to help Dems win; it's to make sure Wall Street
doesn't lose.
Notable quotes:
"... I like Tulsi Gabbard a lot. She knew that Hillary Clinton was a real menace so she not only endorsed Bernie Sanders but quit her vice-chair post at the DNC in order to do so since the DNC laws insisted that the DNC stay neutral (if only she knew then what we know now). Also, it will be delicious to watch the Hillary mouthpieces and stooges - who contended that any criticism of Hillary Clinton was just down to her being female - attackdog Tulsi Gabbard, oblivious to their rancid hypocrisy. ..."
"... Warren's got many bridges and fences to mend with the US left but I think that she knows and that's why she's declared early. I think that she'll be the last progressive standing; that she should run with Sanders as her vice-president for 2020 and then with the now-of-age Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as vice-president for her second term. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard for president! Nobody's perfect but at least she isn't a lawyer! ..."
"... As well, such a law should permanently eliminate the revolving door through which many politicians scamper to become a lobbyist for Wall Street after he "retires" from politics and the law should block all former lobbyists from running for an office that would have a bearing on legislation that would affect the corporation for which he or she worked. ..."
"... Wall Street gives money to the Dems not to help Dems win; it's to make sure Wall Street doesn't lose. ..."
"... That will allow capitalists to focus their attention on candidates such as Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have shown a real willingness to abandon the traditional
coziness of the Democratic party with the finance, insurance and real estate industries
......".
Yes and who's been on the end of media hit pieces recently? Not Booker, Harris, Gillibrand
and the like but Sanders, Warren and Gabbard.
I like Tulsi Gabbard a lot. She knew that Hillary Clinton was a real menace so she not
only endorsed Bernie Sanders but quit her vice-chair post at the DNC in order to do so since
the DNC laws insisted that the DNC stay neutral (if only she knew then what we know now).
Also, it will be delicious to watch the Hillary mouthpieces and stooges - who contended that
any criticism of Hillary Clinton was just down to her being female - attackdog Tulsi Gabbard,
oblivious to their rancid hypocrisy.
There actually is plenty to go on - Gabbard's links to Modi; her past comments about guns,
about immigration, about gay rights when she was under the wing of her Dad's jaundiced
outlook and her appalling comments about torture and that fictional 'ticking time bomb'
scenario - but that's as nothing (and a lot of it probably has crossover appeal and shows an
independent mind) compared to Hillary's decades of moral bankruptcy. Yet critiques of Clinton
were inherently sexist, apparently.
They've never forgiven Gabbard for her righteous stand against the moral hazard of the
Clintons. I think, and as others have said, that she's probably running for vice-president,
at best, or to lay the groundwork for future runs and/or obtain a cabinet position. For 2020,
Democrats will make it their business to take her down after they've invalidated Bernie
Sanders. The current trick is beautiful in its simplicity. They shriek that Sanders will be
divisive and their shrieking will be proof of that contention: quod erat demonstrandum.
Sanders and Gabbard would have a much, much easier time in the general election than in the
'kill switch' Democratic primaries. Those primaries will be brutal beyond belief.
Warren's got many bridges and fences to mend with the US left but I think that she knows
and that's why she's declared early. I think that she'll be the last progressive standing;
that she should run with Sanders as her vice-president for 2020 and then with the now-of-age
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as vice-president for her second term.
ID,
Could you be a conservative projecting your desire for the Dems to select a more
conservative candidate?
A progressive would stomp Trump in the rust belt if they ran on the issues where the
public agrees with progressives. Medicare for all. No more bullshit foreign wars. Do
something about higher education cost/debt. Decriminalize low-level pot offenses. Etc.
All it takes is disobeying the laws that corporate/Wall Street write for Dem
candidates.
I'm sure Wall Street will be quite happy to see the Republicans face some
purer-than-pure left wing candidate at the next Presidential election.
Bernie would have cleaned Trump's clock in the 2016 general election and Wall Street knows
it.
Trump would get curb-stomped by a genuinely left and competent candidate. It's the
standard issue GOP-Lite Democrat that will have a harder time against him (although probably
still win).
The best way to determine if one claims to be a Progressive is to fact-check the
candidate's claim.
The first and foremost question that should be asked and researched: Does this
candidate have as one of his or her top priorities to eliminate corporate/private/labor
money in politics? This would require a major federal campaign finance reform
law that would establish public funding for all campaigns, permanently bar corporate/labor
union/private-entity money (including funding media-attack ads) from any political influence
and require all broadcast/cable networks to allow every candidate equal air time to state his
opinions, policies, promises, and to state why he believes he is the best candidate for the
working class and/or corporations.
As well, such a law should permanently eliminate the revolving door through which
many politicians scamper to become a lobbyist for Wall Street after he "retires" from
politics and the law should block all former lobbyists from running for an office that would
have a bearing on legislation that would affect the corporation for which he or she
worked.
As well, such a law should bar any politicians or family members from purchasing or
selling stocks in corporate entities that would be affected by the legislation on which
the politician is working (insider trading).
Think about it. The lure of big bucks can, and does, corrupt politicians such that they
will work mainly for the donor (corporate, labor, and/or private) and provide for just enough
benefit politicians' the voters (America's working class) to make them think he cares most
about them. Much of that money is hidden in super-pacs where the donor's identity is hidden.
Too, super-pacs would have to be eliminated.
A Progressive should advocate for a large infrastructure project . Our bridges and
highways are now in a state of disrepair. Other nations such as Japan now have high-speed
bullet trains, the fastest so far is Shanghai Maglev and can travel 267.8 mph. The U.S.
has none.
Poverty would be a major focus of Progressives. Corporations will pay as little as
they can get by paying. So there must be a minimum wage boost to a living wage. To
keep corporations from moving to a part-time labor force with less pay, part-time workers
must make the same hourly wage as full time workers. As well, universal, proactive
healthcare must become law (Medicare for all).
Another major way to eliminate poverty would be to reform the income tax structure
such that those individuals whose income exceeds ~$10 million would be taxed at 70%. I would
also suggest that every dollar exchanged on the Stock Exchange would be taxed at 3%.
Using a greater influx of money into the public coffers, education should be a top
priority for lawmakers. College tuition in public schools would be no cost, thus
providing completely tuition free higher education and allowing every student equal
access. A major bill should be passed to provide money to modernize/upgrade all secondary
schools to provide a better learning environment for study. Every primary school should
have a child psychologist on staff. Every High School a psychologist as well as every public
college.
There are other Progressive policies--such as reversing the conservative's trickle-down
economics (also called supply-side economics) such that we return to demand-side
economics--that would be highly beneficial to the working class and to the future
intellectual strength of the U.S., especially by providing a course structure that equips
students to face the quick shift of industry to electronics and robotics. Currently, those
will little technical training are being left behind. We must end this or face a HUGE poorly
educated working class that will have no place to work.
Quite likely, both the RNC and the DNC (Wall Street's favorite politicians) will be
against such measures. They'd rather have more billionaires and an unfettered Wall Street
than eliminate poverty. The only way, however, to have a truly just society is to push
for and vote for a progressive government. But before any of the above can happen, we MUST
eliminate corporate/private/labor money from our government.
"... Here's a good reason to support Tulsi Gabbard. Look at who opposes her. Jacob Wohl Claims Everyone In The Pro-Israel Lobby, Including Himself, Will Interfere With Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign She's taking flak from the Enemy of Mankind. ..."
American are so tired of foreign wars, that if DNC will not derail her with some "Putin agent" smears, and she wins the
Primary, she has a chance against Donald Trump, who completely discredited himself by his actions and can defeat
only opponent to the right of him (which with Hillary absence for the race now is difficult to find) like Obama against
Romnay
Notable quotes:
"... During an interview for the Sanders Institute in September 2018, Gabbard said, "Since 2011, when the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and these other countries started this slow drawn-out regime change war in Syria, it is terrorist groups like al Qaida, al Nusra, and Hayat Tahrir al Sham, these different groups that have morphed and taken on names but essentially are all linked to al Qaida or al Qaida themselves that have proven to be the most effective ground force against the government in trying to overthrow the Syrian government." ..."
Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii announced she will
launch a presidential campaign for 2020. Her campaign is likely to distinguish itself from
other Democratic campaigns by making wars and broader United States foreign policy a major
issue.
Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii state legislature in 2002. She joined the Hawaii Army
National Guard a year later and voluntarily deployed to Iraq, where she completed two tours of
duty in 2004 and 2005.
She was elected to the House of Representatives in 2012, and according to her own website,
she was "one of the first two female combat veterans to ever serve in the U.S. Congress, and
also its first Hindu member."
During Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, Gabbard gained notoriety after she
resigned from her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee so she could
openly support Sanders. She spoke at Sanders campaign rallies to help him distinguish his
foreign policy from the much more hawkish foreign policy of Hillary Clinton.
Gabbard was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2018. She won 83 percent of the vote in the
Democratic primary election.
Most progressives are not as outspoken against U.S. military interventions or what she
refers to as "regime change wars." She witnessed the impact of regime change on the people of
Iraq, as well as U.S. troops, and that inspired her to talk more about the human cost of war
and challenge the military industrial-complex.
Gabbard has persistently called attention to the war in Syria. She traveled to Aleppo and
Damascus in January 2017 to see some of the devastation Syrians have endured since 2011. Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad invited her to a meeting, and she accepted.
"Originally, I had no intention of meeting with Assad, but when given the opportunity, I
felt it was important to take it. I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there's a
chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much
suffering," Gabbard
declared .
Supporters of the Syrian war -- the same people who do not want President Donald Trump to
withdraw U.S. troops -- seized upon Gabbard's meeting with Assad to discredit her, and it has
fueled the backlash among Western media pundits to her decision to run for president.
Yet, in spite of a smear campaign encouraged by the political establishment, Gabbard has not
backed down from protesting U.S. support for terrorists in Syria. She sponsored legislation,
the Stop Arming Terrorists Act.
During an
interview for the Sanders Institute in September 2018, Gabbard said, "Since 2011, when the
United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and these other countries started this slow drawn-out
regime change war in Syria, it is terrorist groups like al Qaida, al Nusra, and Hayat Tahrir al
Sham, these different groups that have morphed and taken on names but essentially are all
linked to al Qaida or al Qaida themselves that have proven to be the most effective ground
force against the government in trying to overthrow the Syrian government."
Gabbard opposes what she calls a "genocidal war" in Yemen, and she is one of the few
representatives, who has worked to pass a war powers resolution in the House to end U.S.
military involvement since Congress never authorized the war.
"The United States is standing shoulder to shoulder supporting Saudi Arabia in this war as
they commit these atrocities against Yemeni civilians," Gabbard said during the same Sanders
Institute interview.
Another war Gabbard questions is the war in Libya. In an interview for "The Jimmy Dore Show" on September 11, 2018,
she spoke about the devastating consequences of pursuing regime change without considering what
would happen after Muammar Gaddafi was removed from power.
"After we led the war to topple Gaddafi, we have open human slave trading going on, in open
market. In today's society, we have more terrorists in Libya today than there ever were
before."
Gabbard is also one of the few elected politicians to oppose weapons sales, especially to
Saudi Arabia. She recognizes the military industrial-complex benefits the most from Congress
not exercising its authority over war-making by presidents, whether they are Republican or
Democrat.
She spoke out against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he refused to revoke support for
Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen because it would jeopardize a $2 billion arms deal.
Not many Democrats are willing to be optimistic on North Korea, but Gabbard sees potential
for peace and does not view Trump's meeting with Kim Jong-un as an act of treason.
Gabbard said during the Sanders Institute interview, "For years, I've been working in
Congress and calling for direct engagement with North Korea with Kim Jong-un to be able to try
to broker a peace agreement that will result in de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and
and finally bring about an end to the Korean War."
"So I think that the recent engagement that we have seen -- both the historic meeting
between a sitting U.S. president and the leader of North Korea -- is certainly a positive step
in the right direction. We have to be willing to have these conversation to promote peace,"
Gabbard said. And, "I think the continued engagement between North Korea and South Korea is
positive."
Gabbard acknowledged there are a lot of details that have to be worked out, but that does
not make her hostile to the entire process, which is the attitude of many pundits and Democrats
in the establishment.
Joe Rogan interviewed Gabbard in September 2018. He
raised the issue of Russian troll farms and Facebook's failure to deal with them. She had a
sober response to his concerns.
"The United States has been doing this for a very long time in countries around the world,
both overtly and covertly, through these kinds of disinformation campaigns," Gabbard contended.
"Not even counting like the regime change wars, like we're going to take you out."
She continued, "I think it is very hypocritical for us to be discussing this issue as a
country without actually being honest about how this goes both ways. So, yes, we need to stop
these other foreign countries -- and Russia's not the only one; there are others -- from trying
to influence the American people and our elections. We also need to stop doing the same thing
in other countries."
Such positions on war and U.S. foreign policy effectively make her a pariah to establishment
media pundits and the political class. But her anti-establishment politics do not end
there.
Gabbard has advocated against superdelegates, which are Democratic party insiders that have
an outsized role in influencing the outcome of presidential primaries. She favors open
primaries and same-day voter registration. She is outspoken against the influence of money in
politics, and she is audacious enough to question members of her own political party.
"We have to dig a few layers deeper as people are running for office, say what do you
actually stand for?" she said on "The Jimmy Dore Show." "What is your vision for this country?
That's the debate that we will have to have in Congress should Democrats win over the House or
win more seats in the Senate."
"Otherwise, it will be more of the same status quo, where you'll have lobbyists who have
more of a seat at the table writing policies that affect healthcare and education and Wall
Street and everything else rather than having a true and representative government by and for
the people," she concluded.
She was also critical of self-described progressives, who are pro-war, while on "Jimmy
Dore":
You have these individuals and groups of people who call themselves progressive but are
some of the first to call for more war in the guise of humanitarianism. They look at these
poor people suffering -- and there are people suffering in the other parts of the world.
Let's go drop more bombs and try to take away their suffering. And when you look at example
after example after example, our actions, U.S. policy, interventionist regime change war
policy, [has] made the lives of people in these other countries far worse off than they ever
were before or would have been if we had just stayed out of it.
***
Gabbard was much closer to an establishment politician prior to her resignation from the
DNC. She accepted tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from political action
committees (PACs).
The Center for Responsive Politics noted, "One of the largest contributing sectors was the
defense industry. While Gabbard has gained a following for her
anti-interventionist stances , yet, her 2016 campaign was given $63,500 from
the defense sector . In fact, the campaign
received donations of $10,000 from the Boeing Corporation PAC and from Lockheed Martin's
PAC, two of the biggest names in the military-industrial complex."
In 2017, Gabbard announced she would no longer accept PAC money. She raised $37,000 from
labor associations and trade unions.
Gabbard was "conflicted" over whether to support the Senate report on CIA torture. She said
in 2014 that she thought there were "things missing or it was incomplete." She also endorsed
the "ticking time bomb" scenario that officials use to justify torture, and it is unclear what
her view would be now, if asked about the issue.
She has taken a position on Israeli occupation of Palestine that is
common among Democrats. She supports a two-state solution and describes Israel as the U.S.'
"strongest ally." But it may be shifting. In the last year, she condemned Israel for its
violence against the people of Gaza, and she was reluctant to vote for a House resolution that
condemned the UN Security Council for criticizing Israeli settlements.
Journalist Eoin Higgins
questioned Gabbard's support from the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), which he described
as right-wing. She has garnered criticism for her trip to India in 2014, when she met with
India prime minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist.
But HAF believes this criticism of Gabbard is unfair because other members of Congress, like
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have attended gatherings with Modi. They also point to financial records
and maintain they are a U.S. organization without ties to any organizations in India.
When she was much younger, Gabbard helped her
father's organization mobilize against a same-sex marriage in Hawaii. The organization,
Alliance for Traditional Marriage, backed conversion therapy
However, there is evidence to suggest that Gabbard has abandoned much of the bigotry that
she probably learned from her father. She backed Edith Windsor when she challenged the Defense
of Marriage Act (DOMA).
"Let me say I regret the positions I took in the past, and the things I said. I'm grateful
for those in the LGBTQ+ community who have shared their aloha with me throughout my personal
journey," Gabbard stated, responding to media coverage of this aspect of her past.
She noted that she has since supported "the Equality Act, the repeal of DOMA, Restore Honor
to Service members Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Safe Schools Improvement
Act, and the Equality for All Resolution," and added, "Much work remains to ensure equality and
civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, and if elected President, I will continue to
fight for equal rights for all."
There are powerful forces in American politics that will seize upon her past opposition to
LGBTQ rights and meeting with Assad to neutralize her presidential campaign before she even has
an opportunity to tour the country and meet with potential supporters. They fear the impact she
could have if voters gravitate to her campaign, which will likely promote her
anti-imperialism.
Often Democrats do not bother to connect foreign policy to domestic issues. Gabbard is
likely to run a rare campaign, where she makes the case that they are intertwined -- that in
order to make investments in universal health care, education, infrastructure, etc, the massive
investment in war must be severely curtailed.
Gabbard also aware of the disenchantment among voters, who do not believe either political
party has the answers. She understands President Trump is a symptom of what ails the
country.
As she said on "Jimmy Dore," "If we look at the lead-up to the 2016 election, and if we
actually listen to and examine why people chose to vote the way they did, it points to much
bigger problems, a much bigger disaffection that has been building for quite some time, that
voters have against the establishment of Washington, the political establishment within both
parties."
Earlier tonight I spoke with my friend Van Jones about the challenges we face and the
future of our country.
He asked me bluntly whether I'll run for president, and I told him straight: I've
decided to run and will make a formal announcement next week.
There are many reasons I'm offering to serve you as President -- to ensure every
American gets the healthcare they need, to bring about comprehensive immigration reform, to
make sure we have clean water and clean air for generations to come, to fix our broken criminal
justice system, to end the corrupt influence of special interests in Washington, and so much
more.
But the main reason I'm running has to do with an issue that is central to the rest --
war and peace. I look forward to talking with you more about this in the coming days.
When we stand together, united by our love for each other and for our country, there is
no challenge we cannot overcome.
Aloha,
Tulsi
************************
I received this email from Tulsi Gabbard's office tonight. No, we don't know each other. I
signed up for her updates over two years ago because of my interest in her. We've talked about
her over the years within this committee of correspondence, always on a positive note as I
recall.
As I'm sure you remember, she left the DNC leadership in 2016 because of their high-handed
treatment of Bernie Sanders. She caused quite a stir for meeting with Bashar Assad when she
visited Syria in early 2017. She is still an Army major in the Hawaiian National Guard and
advocates for a strong defense, including a robust ballistic missile defense. Not unusual
considering she represents Hawaii's 2nd Congressional District. As a Progressive, she calls for
an end to all our overseas wars including Syria and Yemen. But I think she's more of a Teddy
Roosevelt Progressive
Before delving into her politics, I recommend an article Tulsi wrote back in October 2017
entitled "My Spiritual Journey." I think it says a lot about her and her upbringing. She is
definitely a committed member of the Hawaiian ohana.
In my few short years there, I was most
impressed by this spirit. I saw it in my neighbors in Mililani Town, my friends and
counterparts in Company C, 1/299 Infantry (HI ARNG) on Maui and in the pig hunters/pakalolo
growers of the Koolau Mountains. I think the DC swamp can use a little more aloha spirit.
Shaka, brah!
"... If anything, Trump and the GOP have finally shown common decent folk what the democratic experiment in America has become: a system that looks alot like feudal systems of the past. Including walls! ..."
"... There is no such thing as a free market. Let me repeat it again for effect: there is NO such thing as a free market. Whether one calls it libertarianism or neoliberalism, the idea is pretty much the same: if we just unleash the power of human greed, the market will equal everything out, and we'll all be freer because of it. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Our government gives huge incentives to large corporations with the idea that wealth will trickle down into middle class jobs and prosperity. But guess what? Those corporations keep most of the incentives and profits for themselves and their shareholders. The comparatively minuscule recent tax cuts for the middle class pale in comparison to the huge corporate cuts that added $2 trillion to our national deficit. The only thing stopping corporate excess and monopolies is government. Many libertarians cry "starve the beast." Well, they shouldn't complain if they get food poisoning because their food wasn't properly inspected by a government they loath. And neither should President Trump complain, if, like most Americans, his next Big Mac doesn't agree with him. ..."
"... Anarchy is oligarchy. The rule of law -- law crafted by dedicated public servants, who are elected by sober and informed citizens -- is the closest we can come to freedom. ..."
"... The libertarian philosophy is this: while you're young and healthy and productive, you can help make money for your boss. However, once you are old and no longer capable of making a contribution to someone else, it is your obligation to simply die. ..."
"... Privatizing Social Security so that investment firms can get a piece of the action, privatizing Medicare so that insurance companies can get a piece of the action, and privatizing the military, so that private paramilitary companies can get more than their fair share of the action. It's theft in plain sight. We can't believe it, because it's so obvious. ..."
"... Paraphrasing Marie Antoinette "Let them eat contaminated cake" ..."
"... Funny how libertarians never argue for privatizing the military, or law enforcement. ..."
"... I cannot enumerate the number of rich Republicans who tried to get the government to support their elderly while the children of those elderly got the money. I could tell you stories, including one about a certain Republican Governor of Pennsylvania who tried to put his adult, but mentally handicapped child on Medicaid. ..."
"... Cutting tax rates on the wealthy are stealing from the rest of us. We make contributions every hour of every day which are hoovered up by the wealthy and the powerful. Meanwhile we cannot afford the cost of living, which has skyrocketed vs wages and benefits. The cost of an apartment is exorbitant. The cost of health care is exorbitant. Meanwhile the commons suffer. Infrastructure suffers. Sidewalks are a menace. There is lead in the water. Rich people who do not pay their fair share of taxes are stealing from the people in so many ways it's impossible to count them. But count them in years lost, in lives cut short, in lives blighted. ..."
"... Republicans aren't against government, it has grown more under every Republican president including Reagan himself. They simply have their preferences as to who benefits from it. ..."
"... As the saying goes, you never miss your water until your well runs dry. ..."
That said, the truth is that libertarian ideology isn't a real force within the G.O.P.; it's
more of a cover story for the party's actual agenda.
In the case of the party establishment, that agenda is about redistributing income up the
scale, and in particular helping important donor interests. Republican politicians may invoke
the rhetoric of free markets to justify cutting taxes for the rich and benefits for the poor,
or removing environmental regulations that hurt polluters' profits, but they don't really care
about free markets per se. After all, the party had little problem lining up behind Trump's
embrace of tariffs.
Meanwhile, the philosophy of the party's base is, in essence, big government for me but not
for thee. Stick it to the bums on welfare, but don't touch those farm subsidies. Tellingly, the
centerpiece of the long G.O.P. jihad against Obamacare was the
false claim that it would hurt Medicare.
And as it happens, many of the spending cuts being forced by the shutdown fall heavily and
obviously on base voters. Small business owners are much
more conservative than the nation as a whole, but they really miss those government loans.
Rural
voters went Republican during a Democratic midterm blowout, but they want those checks.
McConnell may have trash-talked food stamps in the past, but a sudden cutoff would have a
catastrophic effect on the
most Republican parts of his home state.
I had an idiot,er, libertarian friend once who actually believed the market would take
care of food safety, because people wouldn't buy food from a source if that source was known
to have sold tainted food. "What about the people who die in the meantime?" I asked. "Well,
it's up to people to decide what to eat. The government shouldn't tell people what to eat."
"But how are you supposed to know? How much tainted food has to be sold and eaten before
people even know to avoid it? People get sick or die.
What about people's lives?" "Argh,
'people's lives.'" (Eye roll.) "Liberals are always talking about 'people's lives.'" I swear
this is an actual conversation that I repeated so many times I have it
memorized.
One of the big obstacles I've observed is that conservatives, in general, have to
experience negative consequences directly to understand the link between cause and effect.
Liberals, in general, are better at imagining negative consequences and taking preventive
action before they directly experience it. It has to do with empathy and solidarity, I think.
Liberals see someone suffering, and they think, "We should find out what caused that and fix
it so it doesn't happen to the rest of us." Conservatives see someone suffering, and they
think, "That guy must be a terrible person. He totally deserves what happened to him. It can
never happen to me because I'm a good guy." It is only when the negative thing does directly
happen to the conservative that he may reconsider. That's when it is important to find a
scapegoat- illegal immigrants, minorities, Jews- to blame in order to obscure the causal
link.
Libertarianism attracts the finest stunted teenaged and hypocritical minds that are either
disconnected from reality or that suffer from cognitive dissonance that allows hypocrisy and
selfishness to flourish like mutant bacteria. Taxes and good government are the price of any
decent civilization...and both of these concepts are completely demonized by Republicans even
though Republicans are some of the greatest welfare queens in the nation. Productive, modern,
blue Democratic state federal tax dollars have long subsidized rural, religious Republican
states that hate the federal government....they curse they horse that feeds them and then
they curse even more when the federal teat is turned off. America's 0.1% Robber Barons and
crony vulture capitalists curse 'high tax rates' that aren't particularly high compared to
the rest of the world while using America's infrastructure, legal system, government-funded
research and technology, and corrupted electoral system to make parasitic profits that dwarf
those of foreign corporations who pay their fair share of taxes to countries with
increasingly better infrastructure and educational systems. The libertarian theology followed
to fruition is Somalia-like; an unregulated anarchy of human misery. Decent human beings
understand that healthy taxes produce healthy civilization. Today's version of libertarian
Republicanism is a demented form of arrested emotional development that's been destroying the
USA since 1980. Nice GOPeople.
Senator Mitch McConnel said that the food stamp program is "making it excessively easy to
be non productive." Well, Mitch McConnel is not on the food stamp program and he manages to
be one of the most "non productive" senator in the history of the US Senate. Congratulation
Senator!
Almost unfailingly, the stoutest Republican supporters seem to be the biggest
beneficiaries of government: the military, farmers, pensioners or small business owners.
Growing up in a military family, I remember subsidized gas, medical treatment for free and
school trips paid by the DoD. Yet anytime there was a Democratic president, it sounded like
there would be a coup when our military parents met at picnicks and had a few beers. If
anything, Trump and the GOP have finally shown common decent folk what the democratic
experiment in America has become: a system that looks alot like feudal systems of the past.
Including walls!
There is no such thing as a free market. Let me repeat it again for effect: there is NO
such thing as a free market. Whether one calls it libertarianism or neoliberalism, the idea
is pretty much the same: if we just unleash the power of human greed, the market will equal
everything out, and we'll all be freer because of it. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.
Our government gives huge incentives to large corporations with the idea that wealth will
trickle down into middle class jobs and prosperity. But guess what? Those corporations keep
most of the incentives and profits for themselves and their shareholders. The comparatively
minuscule recent tax cuts for the middle class pale in comparison to the huge corporate cuts
that added $2 trillion to our national deficit. The only thing stopping corporate excess and
monopolies is government. Many libertarians cry "starve the beast." Well, they shouldn't
complain if they get food poisoning because their food wasn't properly inspected by a
government they loath. And neither should President Trump complain, if, like most Americans,
his next Big Mac doesn't agree with him.
For those who despise government regulations, I offer 3 observations: 1. I lived near
Muskegon, MI, prior to the EPA, when 3 foundries were constantly belching smoke and foundry
dust into the air. Breathing the air was equivalent to smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day.
2. I lived in Cairo, Egypt for 3 years. I purchased 4 pairs of prescription eyeglasses before
finally giving up. None of them were right - and no regulations meant that I had no recourse.
3. I lived in Accra, Ghana for 3 years. No construction codes meant that the brand new luxury
apartment building I moved into suffered numerous problems with plumbing, resulting in mold,
flooded floors and sudden loss of water pressure.
In Cairo and in Accra, there was no social
safety net. Beggars were a constant. Often they would be horribly disfigured and with no
family what were they to do? I am happily retired now, back in Western Michigan, thoroughly
enjoying the clean air, safe food, and clean parks. Obama said it best - it's not the size of
government, it's the effectiveness of it. And if it's not working, that's on us - we're the
ones who put those people in office. 2020 can't arrive soon enough.
The Trump voter in my family was a libertarian before switching to the Party of Trump and
still believes that government is an interference. One conversation we had was about
electricians needing to be licensed. He said electricians did not need to be licensed because
if their work led to customers being injured or killed due to a fire, that information would
circulate and those electricians would be forced out of the market. I asked him if he cared
about the people injured or killed, he shrugged his shoulders and said that's just the way
things are. I then asked him what if he was one the customers injured or killed. He looked
rather shocked at that question and immediately dropped the subject. That is all that I ever
needed to know about libertarianism.
"Libertarianism" according to the GOP means that YOU need the discipline of the "free
market," but I deserve all the protections and support of the nanny state (financed with your
tax dollars, thank you very much.)
As George Lakoff reminded us, what the anti-government folks call "regulations" are, for
the most part, "protections." We shouldn't let the Kochs, Trumps, McConnells, and Ryans frame
the discussion. "The term "regulation" is framed from the viewpoint of corporations and other
businesses. From their viewpoint, "regulations" are limitations on their freedom to do
whatever they want no matter who it harms. But from the public's viewpoint, a regulation is a
protection against harm done by unscrupulous corporations seeking to maximize profit at the
cost of harm to the public." https://georgelakoff.com/2017/01/28/the-publics-viewpoint-regulations-are-protections
Michael McLemore Athens, Georgia Jan. 11 Times Pick
At some point the American people need to realize that conservative/libertarian pundits
are just on-air hucksters selling a product. Instead of selling Vegematics, Ginsu knives or
non-stick cookware, they are peddling right-wing bile for a profit. And the profits derived
from their corporate advertisers are huge. Forget truth or journalism, Rush Linbaugh openly
proclaims himself to be an "entertainer" and not a "journalist" (mainly to make it more
difficult to sue him for falsehood). Ann Coulter similarly declares herself a "polemicist".
Forget for a moment the subversive influence of Russian money and hacking on American
politics. Our own homegrown corporate advertisers are eagerly subverting America by
underwriting glib purveyors of corrosive right-wing propaganda, who will slyly proclaim the
gospel of unbridled greed and not of social responsibility. Of course drug companies don't
want the FDA. Why would they want oversight to keep the public safe, when safety costs them
money? Why would banks want regulation to safeguard the financial system and consumers, when
regulation interferes with short-term profits? The Koch brothers don't want pesky
interference from the EPA in regulating their mega-refinery in Minnesota. Their family homes
are in Aspen, Palm Beach and Manhattan, so why should it concern them if effluent rolls
through St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans? Don't dare call this something so plain as
"greed". Wrap it in a bow and call it "libertarianism".
FunkyIrishman member of the resistance Jan. 11 Times Pick
Republican mantra (even Libertarian) is to be left alone, so long as THEIR way of life is
left alone, and they are subsidized by you for living that way. That may mean a MASSIVE
military to be a deterrent, or to go invade some other country to keep the oil flowing. That
may mean subsidizing all sorts of industries, businesses and the like, because they cannot
compete at all on a truly free open market. That might mean support for all sorts of social
programs, health programs, education programs and the like as well, because bootstraps only
take you so far. I would use the word hypocrisy, but that would entail that many know what
they speak of when describing what Libertarian, or Socialist. or another ''ist'' form of
government actually means. We are all in this together or we are not. There is no in between,
but many would have you believe it is possible. It is not.
@Bill Once you our you loved one eats salmonella contaminated lettuce and nearly dies,
good luck going after, or even finding, the agra-business across the country who caused
it.
European food is heavily regulated, uh, by governments. Much tastier and doesn't contain
known carcinogens. Watching the train wreck of the United States.
Will Schmidt perlboy on a ranch 6 miles from Ola, AR Jan. 10
@C Wolfe This rings so true for me too. I majored in economics at UICC in the early
seventies. My favorite prof was a PhD candidate at U of Chicago, and one of his advisors was
Milton Friedman. Being at UICC, I did not study under the great man, but I did under one of
his acolytes, who was close to tenure (ABD, if I remember correctly), and I thought, a very
intelligent one. One of his two areas of doctoral specialty (you had to have two; his other
was labor) was macro, and I took him for among other things, money & banking. In fact, I
took M&B twice, because the first time (I got an A) was from a Keynesian, and I wanted to
get it from a Quantity Theory guy; another A.) Because my prof was a diciple of M.F., I got
to attend several special lectures at UC, and partake of the kool-aid. Well, I heard directly
from the horse's mouth how consumers would boycotte inferior suppliers and only the best
would survive. The free market would favor the best and punish the worst. Of course, this
required perfect information. Unfortunately, no good case was made how a perfect information
economy could be achieved nor how consumers could afford to acquire perfect information. The
price of discovering bad suppliers of tainted food would surely include the deaths of some
number of consumers before that information became generally available. We debated perfect
markets and perfect information but never did get a convincing case for abandoning government
inspection of food products.
The famous Republican philosopher Grover Norquist once said that he's want to have
government so small that one could drown it in the bathtub. Right now, nearly one million
government workers are facing the prospect of drowning in debt. Trump suggests that they
could make do like he always used to, namely declare bankruptcy or go to daddy for a loan.
All this while court jester Pence 'handles' the negotiations. His idea is to make more
requests while staying firm on a wall.
Perhaps the GOP base will finally learn just how dependent they really are on the
government they profess to hate. Trump loving farmers and small town business owners are in
for a particularly nasty surprise. It's not just farm subsidies. As described by Michael
Lewis in "The Fifth Risk": "As the U.S.D.A.'s loans were usually made through local banks,
the people on the receiving end of them were often unaware of where the money was coming
from. There were many stories very like the one Tom Vilsack told, about a loan they had made,
in Minnesota, to a government-shade-throwing, Fox News-watching, small-town businessman. The
bank held a ceremony and the guy wound up being interviewed by the local paper. "He's telling
the reporter how proud he is to have done it on his own," said Vilsack. "The U.S.D.A. person
goes to introduce herself, and he says, 'So who are you?' She says, 'I'm the U.S.D.A.
person.' He asks, 'What are you doing here?' She says, 'Well, sir, we supplied the money you
are announcing.' He was white as a sheet." There are rural counties in this country that are
only viable with government money. Trump counties. It's going to be an expensive and painful
education. Trump University lives.
If ever there was a group that lives in a fantasy world, it's the libertarians. In another
article in another newspaper that dealt with "intrusive" government, I submitted a comment
saying that I wouldn't be surprised if Libertarians would be opposed to STOP signs and
traffic lights because these would constitute an unnecessary infringement on their freedom.
Wouldn't you know that a person of that persuasion actually replied to my comment and
confirmed my suspicion. Working in an IT position for three decades I dealt with this type
daily. Many were 30-something white males, often both cognitively and physically well above
average, who had learned to program computers. They were blessed with being raised in
two-parent families. I acknowledge the hard work they did to learn to wrestle with computers,
but they lacked the perspective to realize that they had not hit a home run but rather had
been born on second or third base due to the intellectual and physical gifts they possess
that many others don't.They could not understand why others in society could not emulate
their success. In one conversation about affirmative action, one such person asked "Why do we
need that anymore? There are laws against discrimination.". Many of this type get bit in the
behind when some government regulation is repealed then it turns out that THEY are the ones
adversely affected by the repeal. But don't waste your breath trying to pierce the fantasy
balloon. They hold tight to those fantasies.
I'm waiting for Grover Norquist and the other small government proponents to relocate to
Somalia, home of no real government. Why it's not thriving without the yoke of onerous
regulations is surprising.
"...making it excessively easy to be non-productive." -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell. The irony is too rich here. While he and his president and the "non-productive"
Republican Senators draw a paycheck for soaking up the public dime, kids will go hungry;
start-up hopefuls will lose loans; farmers will feel the bite; food will become contaminated
and people will fill hospital ER's and strain their health insurance. For openers. The Right
is getting its own back on FDR's New Deal. All because "government is the problem." Talk
about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A relatively minor point: "Maybe you believe that private companies could take over the
F.D.A.'s role in keeping food safe, but such companies don't exist now and can't be conjured
up in a matter of weeks." Such inspection companies could only exist if they were funded by
the food companies they were inspecting. Competition among inspection companies would then
obviously lead to grade inflation: hire some other company that is more likely to give you a
passing grade, who in turn will be happy to lower standards to attract more customers. This
is not an avenue for effective replacement of the FDA. Libertarianism is for chumps and
fanatics, no one else.
We lived in a small West African nation for 25 years. There were no collectable taxes
because the tax collectors kept what they could extort from poor people, no safety nets such
as social security or medicaid/medicare, no fire fighters, no functional road departments, no
regulation of pharmaceuticals, an unprepared and unarmed military, no paid federal, regional
of local police forces, no judges who were not bought by the highest bidder, no standards for
the public hospitals, no communication systems, no running water in major cities, no electric
power that functioned more than 4-6 hours a day, and not a single government official who was
not on the take.
What we did have were cholera epidemics that killed 5000 people, annual measle epidemics that killed children under 5 years old , villages burned to the ground by
wildfire, a school system which did not pay its teachers and finally a 12 year civil war
which killed over 200,000 people and a [post war ebola epidemic which killed 12,000 more.
The
proper use of taxes was not even a dream. Now in the USA, the "leadership" under its current
president and his sycophants are playing personal and infantile grade school games with your
and my tax dollars and the congress is helping them do it. Amazing! I feel like I am back
home in my 3rd world village .
Anarchy is oligarchy. The rule of law -- law crafted by dedicated public servants, who are
elected by sober and informed citizens -- is the closest we can come to freedom. Governance
that provides basic order and rules and a safety net for when people fail (either from
behavior that is unwise or from ill fortune) is part of the rule of law. There are also
necessary things that the government can provide (without a profit motive) better than either
charity of for profit organizations. Roads and basic science are good examples. Other things
are best left alone by government -- things like sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. These should be
principles that we all can live by, but it seems like the so-called conservatives believe
quite the opposite. They believe in unregulated guns, flows of money to unregulated trusts,
defunded public goods, and violent repression of sex, drugs, and free
expression.
@earlyman correct. The first thing those large corporations responsible will do is use
their lobbying power to legislate liability caps on what they have to pay in settlement
costs. That's the way the real world works. We're not living in some libertarian
utopia.
James Wallis Martin Christchurch, New Zealand Jan. 10
Problems with the food industry in the US isn't just a new issue since the Trump
administration, it has been an issue for decades. The problems of Big Ag and Food
Manufacturers lobbying has been so bad, that whenever I see doctors in Germany and New
Zealand, the first question they ask is have I been and eaten food in the US in the last six
months, when they are trying to ascertain health issues". When the medical community around
the world asks about US food intake, you know corporate libertarianism has run afoul and at
the cost of the health of America. The fact that foods that can't be sold in Europe for
health reasons are dumped in the US just highlights how it is no longer the United States of
America, but rather the Corporate States of America. When will the people demand for
Separation of Corporation and State?
I had serious Libertarian leanings up until a few years ago when my family and I moved to
Bangalore, India to work for three years. It was an eye opening experience to see what
actually happens when you don't have a strong central government regulating things like the
air you breathe, the water you drink, and the food you eat.
Bangalore was once known as the
Garden City and is considered the Silicon Valley of India, but corporate greed, unchecked
expansion, and government corruption, along with no meaningful environmental laws that are
actually enforced, has turned it into a nightmare-- or maybe into what Libertarianism looks
like in the real world, outside of Ayn Rand novels.
The river beside our street was so
polluted it had layers of chemical foam that would reach ten feet in height and blow across
the road, stopping traffic.
The nearby lake would literally catch on fire, burning for days.
Open sewers ran into nearby water sources. Forget tap water, it would make Flint, Michigan's
water crisis seem desirable by comparison. Food safety? Roll the dice and take your chances.
Within a year any trace of Libertarian beliefs were wiped clean from my mind and I longed for
strong government regulations to protect me and my family. This U.S. shutdown isn't even a
minor taste of what it truly means to live without powerful and enforceable government
regulations and protections.
@Bill it is important to keep in mind that contaminated food can kill you before you even
have a chance to pursue remedies. The critical elements for us now leaving much longer than
our ancestors involve personal and public hygiene (e.g. safe food, sewer systems), medicine
and healthy environments (e.g. pollution controls). I recommend watching the Trashopolis
series, its quite informative.
@C Wolfe Decades ago I had a very similar conversation with a doctrinaire libertarian,
though it was about a less essential question. I also repeated it many times. The incredulity
factor is large. I mean, I couldn't believe the degree to which rationality
disappeared.
On the bright side, a federal judge just ruled Iowa's so-called Ag-Gag law to be
unconstitutional, making it easier to expose the filthy and inhumane conditions on factory
farms. So agribusiness will be smacked with the double whammy of losing their corporate
welfare checks and bribery payments, and having their own cruelty exposed at the same time.
It's obvious that Trump's tantrum of a shutdown is the latest episode of disaster capitalism,
or what Naomi Klein has dubbed the Shock Doctrine. Create a crisis, like neglecting New
Orleans levees, or most recently, the criminally negligent homicides of Hurricane Maria
victims in Puerto Rico, and you allow the vulture capitalists to swoop in and cash in. The
entire school system of N.O. is now privatized, and libertarian billionaires are buying up
huge chunks of Puerto Rico at bargain basement prices to create palaces. With walls, of
course. The trash and overflowing toilets at our national parks are just the ticket for
corporations to take them over and charge exorbitant admissions... before selling out to
ranchers and drillers to further speed up the Anthropocene. The other semi-bright upshot of
this disaster capitalism is that rich conservatives will get just as sick from eating tainted
food as the poor. Trump probably figures he is immune, because he likes the polluting cow
flesh he consumes to be well-done to burnt. But without getting paid, how long will the White
House chefs continue to serve him? : -)
Exactly so. It has been my experience that my libertarian friends are only able to be
libertarian because they have been protected all their lives (at great expense, they would
argue) by the very government they deride.
What's fascinating about all of this is how the Gutless Obnoxious Popinjays refuse to take
any responsibility at all for the problems. It's always the Democrats fault. I'm surprised
that none of them have pointed a finger at Obama. After all, he didn't try to build a wall so
it must be his fault that Trump is demanding money for a beautiful wall that will protect all
Americans from the outside world. It's fascinating to realize that McConnell, Pence, Trump,
and the rest of the obnoxious crowd are getting paid by the government they want to drown.
They are contributing to the very cycles of misfortune that they blame people for. Are they
going to write letters for every federal employee who loses a home, falls farther behind on
loan payments than they should, who can't afford to pay for medical care or the premium? No.
The GOP has no plans to share the misery it's causing. Trump doesn't understand or care. This
is what happens when a complete incompetent is elected to run a country: chaos, uncertainty,
and worse. The party that abhorred communism and the Russians now has a president who may be
owned by the Russians. Even if he's not, the entire debacle that is Trump's presidency must
warming the hearts of Putin and his "friends" each day it continues. As Obama said, elections
have consequences. This is one of them. I don't know about the GOP and the libertarians but I
prefer to eat, drink, and breathe safely. It's why I like a functioning
government.
The libertarian philosophy is this: while you're young and healthy and productive, you can
help make money for your boss. However, once you are old and no longer capable of making a
contribution to someone else, it is your obligation to simply die.
If you look at all the
proposals of the Republicans, this seems to be the guiding force. Privatizing Social Security
so that investment firms can get a piece of the action, privatizing Medicare so that
insurance companies can get a piece of the action, and privatizing the military, so that
private paramilitary companies can get more than their fair share of the action. It's theft
in plain sight. We can't believe it, because it's so obvious.
It's the chaos this president keeps thrusting on all of us. We can't keep up day to day of
his lack of self control, his lack of understanding how government works, the principles of
the constitution, the rule of law that has sustained us through the years. He seems to
believe that he has the support to destroy everything that keeps us safe. The foundation that
made this a great country is at risk. I'm old now and can not believe what I see every day
from this American President.
@Zhou "I'll sue the company producing it". How will you do that in the absence of any
governmental mechanism to enforce compliance with a law suit? And how will you prove
contamination in the absence of any recognized standard to show it is present?
@Bill So, you prefer the pound of cure known as a lawsuit to a regulatory ounce of
prevention. Personally, I'd prefer to avoid both the discomfort of food poisoning and the
expense of a lawsuit. Besides, do you really think you'd win? None of the many people
poisoned by contaminated vegetables at Taco Bell stores a few years ago had any chance of
even bringing a lawsuit, much less winning one and gettting compensation. It took regulatory
agencies, public health departments, and the national Center for Disease Control simply to
track down the offending vegetables and force Taco Belll to clean up its act. As for your
checks and balances, most of the checks go from lobbyists to congressmen, and that throws any
balances way out of whack. Your annual deficit figure of $1 trillion is out of date. The
latest Trump tax cuts raised it to $1.5 trillion. So, start worrying real fast. But, I'd
start worrying more not merely about the deficit, but about how money is being spent. You
seem to worry more about the comparative peanuts spent on the FDA (which, by the way, also
regulates drugs and medical devices) or the USDA (which also helps regulate food safety).
than on the far larger amounts spent on the military (e.g. latest technology F-35 jets that
can't fly in the rain), US taxpayer funding of arms sales to foreign countries that neither
share our values nor help keep us safe (e.g. Saudi Arabia).
I work with alot of big Ag companies -- they're constantly raging about government regs
and the red tape, etc, etc., but they have HUGE lobby and political power. On an average
year, they get an amazing amount of subsidies coming in all kinds of forms, from direct
compensation packages to float an industry a la corn, or from electric rates that are lower
for them at the expense of the other rate classes. And when any hint of hardship comes,
nevermind true hardship, they're front and center for the hand-outs. And they get plenty. All
this before we even address immigrant labor! Ha! Libertarian Ag would look WAY different out
in the fields. And one thing that would surely be needed: Cheap immigrant (sometimes illigal)
labor. You get what you vote for.
@michjas Except the Republicans could reopen the government if they chose to. They could
pass the same bill they passed in December, and then override the President's veto. Their
conspiracy is that they won't do that.
So the party of fiscal responsibility which is already running up the deficit insists on
building a wall over 2000 miles of border, seizing private property along the way . When we
stopped teaching Geography and Citizenship and dismissed literature as irrelevant to getting
a good job, we created an electorate that could be gulled by such propaganda and conned into
thinking that fear is our avatar: fear of otherness, fear of government, fear of taxes, fear
of liberals, fear of fear itself.
@Aoy when food is contaminated, the FDA is able to locate "ground zero" with utmost
efficiency--Food Science 101. Without the FDA--which was established under T. Roosevelt's
administration--there is no coordination between the food chain and the population. You can
wash your lettuce to your heart's content, but if it was grown in contaminated soil, the
cells within are contaminated. So, yes, the FDA is extremely necessary.
"Government," declared Ronald Reagan in his first Inaugural Address, "is not the solution
to our problem, government is the problem." Yup, Republicans say government is the problem
and then they get in power and prove it. The Party of Problem
Government.
Anyone who thinks enforced food safety is unnecessary should go to India and eat in a
restaurant anywhere but a first-tier hotel for foreigners. Your odds of getting sick are very
high. Ditto in Alexandria, Egypt, and other places I've experienced where profit is important
and product is, well, less so. Remedies? Seriously? How will you prove anything? Especially
when all the restaurants have the same cavalier attitude toward washing food and hands. You
ate the salad? More fool you.
I wish that shutdowns were actually that-- shut things down. That means no air traffic
controllers, no TSA, no border agents. Wonder how quickly the politicians would solve their
differences if they couldn't rely on slave labor from unpaid federal employees forced to
work?
Funny how libertarians never argue for privatizing the military, or law enforcement. When
they think it's really important, even libertarians come running back to government. The
facts are that markets are only free if they are transparent, and in all of history nobody
has come up with a better way than government regulation to make markets transparent. We
tried unregulated markets in food production, and it was a disaster - which is why we have
federal regulation of food production today. We tried unregulated labor markets and it was
also a disaster - which is why we have child labor laws, minimum wage laws, and the full
range of other labor regulations we have today. politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
People forget that government workers are themselves participants in the economy. They buy
cars and houses. They go to the grocery and the hardware store. When they don't get paid, the
businesses they patronize -- private businesses -- also go without. Yesterday, I had lunch at
a famous old restaurant right near the federal plaza in Chicago's Loop. One of the workers
there told me that because of the shutdown the place's business had fallen way off. (And
that's with the federal courthouse still open. Just wait until the courts shut, too.) It's a
closed system, folks.
Spot on. Naïveté about libertarianism runs deep. It was brought home to me
when I worked with programmers in Silicon Valley in the 1980s. A fair number espoused
libertarian ideas. Yet they had all had their computer science degrees paid for by the
Defense Department, many at state universities. I was not too sophisticated myself but even I
could see the disconnect between the ideas they were pushing and the real world
implications.
Have you ever actually tried a personal injury case? For a food borne illness? I ask those
questions rhetorically because I can tell from your comment that you haven't. As a lawyer,
who doesn't often get involved in personal injury cases, I can tell you that people often
think they aren't hurting anyone by cutting corners, and are only restrained from doing
things like serving contaminated food or doing illegal gas line plumbing by the threat of
fines if caught cutting those corners. It's not the lawsuit that makes them take
care.
The gilded age of the 1890's seem like a wonderful time for libertarians. The productivity
of the nation was high and gaining. But, it came with dirty air and water, bad food and
medicine, quackery and robber barons. It was followed by the Roaring 20's where stocks grew
without limits and borrowed money paid for it. That did not end well, either. Finally, in
FDR's first 100 days, government stepped in and wrote the rules that made life good for most
of us. The GOP does not know history and forgot what happened when there was a libertarian
society. They are getting an education, finally.
One of the things that might end is the Indian Health Services. The government made
contracts with tribes that in exchange for their land, the federal government would provide
education and healthcare. It's not a welfare program. It is payment for millions of acres of
land. If Indian Health Services ends, that's the same as reneging on a contract. Trump may
see tribes going to court to get what was promised to them in exchange for land and
lifestyle. If the shutdown continues, lots of people may be taking Trump to
court.
Do you believe in magic? Religious extremists do. So do Libertarians. And so do
Republicans though what they believe is a variant of magic that might be called delusion or
magic mixed with whisky and soda, which we call cynicism. What they all have in common is a
collective inability to see the forest from the trees: central to their emptiness is the
absence of humanity and all the messy ambiguity that entails, instead substituting a bogus
certainty that's nothing more than a palliative for existential panic at the absence of self
identity grounded in community. Bertrand Russell called it cosmic anxiety. It drives the
compulsion for religion, ideology, in fact all systems of coping that avoid the crushing
weight of freedom that comes without compass or owner's manual. Whether the god of the
invisible hand that directs the market, or the god of clubs with exclusive membership and
status, or the god of ancient fables told and retold for a millennium of successive
generations, all are rationales for the irrational aversion of responsibility to do the work
necessary to make freedom meaningful without making it meaningless for others. The two
bargain bins in the basement of modern life are religion and ideology. Libertarianism can be
found on the clearance rack for one size fits all.
Paul, you included this quote from Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader... When
talking about Food Stamps he has denounced the program for "making it excessively easy to be
nonproductive." He has no business being so judgmental. Being productive implies a positive
result for society. When it comes to being productive, his entire career is in
question.
@ebmem You don't know anything. For one thing, you are DEAD WRONG. Medicare DOES NOT PAY
FOR NURSING HOME CARE AT ALL! MEDICAID DOES, but only for the poor. It is WEALTHY REPUBLICANS
who "Medicaid Plan" their assets so the government will cover their living expenses so they
can preserve wealth for their heirs. How do I know this to be the truth? I spend 23 years as
a government regulator for Medicaid (Medical Assistance) in the state of Pennsylvania.
I
cannot enumerate the number of rich Republicans who tried to get the government to support
their elderly while the children of those elderly got the money. I could tell you stories,
including one about a certain Republican Governor of Pennsylvania who tried to put his adult,
but mentally handicapped child on Medicaid.
It is remarkable how farmers, who are particularly reliant on federal government programs
to buy seed, equipment, get loans, get crop subsidies, and market their food, still support
Trump, even though these programs are shut down and he's started a trade war. One farmer in
today's issue supports Trump, saying "we need some border security", even though it means he
might lose his farm. What kind of politics is this where people support a President who
intentionally ruins their prospects and their way of life? It reminds me how dictators keep
power through propaganda, rewriting history and painting its leadership as heroic. Fox News
is like North Korean TV rewiring Republican brains to believe that Republicans, no matter how
bone-headed, are always good, and Democrats are always bad, so much so they are willing to
lose the farm, like North Koreans are willing to starve.
@Mark Nuckols all the government programs that help business mean that the wealthy owe
some money back. when 5000 workers of a large corporation all drive the company trucks on
free public roads built with tax dollars, when those roads need repair, it sure should be
taxes on the company that helps pay, along with the gas tax we all pay. Your mistake is in
thinking that the income of the company owner was earned by him and him alone, but in
reality, the taxpayers helped him plenty every step of the way. You just did not see it
all.
The article focuses on food inspections, but what about drug inspections? Is the FDA
inspecting pharma manufacturing houses? Are they inspecting precursor chemicals commonly
imported from, say, China? Libertarians (along with the rest of us) may be in for much more
consequential disappointments than bad lettuce.
Well, at this point it certainly comes as no surprise that the narrowly tailored
ideological conceit republicans like to think of as - laughably - 'Libertarianism' was little
more than an economic grubsteak to the plutocratic interests. Indeed, it makes my head spin
to think how quickly the so-called libertarians of the republican party would support
rollbacks on women's reproductive liberties, not to mention the liberties of minorities and
the LGBTQ community, not to mention how they would import the Christian Right's version of
theology into the public domain. (Ah yes, get government off our backs, but shove God into
every home.) The issue that looms broadly over all this, however, is the republican's intent
to liquidate this nation's status as technologically advanced, industrialized liberal
democracy. Apparently the maintenance/perpetuation of modernity is not compatible with right
wing notions of 'liberty,' let alone libertarianism.
The first libertarian I knew was a slum landlord who did not want the Government
regulations concerning maintenance of apartments and the like. This seems like a common trait
among the political group as I think libertarians are more interested in
profit.
No one complains more loudly and more often about attempts to curtail his first amendment
rights "guaranteed by the constitution," than my libertarian friend, who refuses to pay
taxes, then expects the government he won't support to protect his freedoms. If you really
miss those debate club arguments from jr. high school, go try to talk sense to some
libertarians. For the rest of us, plain old Republicans are a perfectly adequate source of
flawed reasoning.
@Mark Nuckols Wrong! Cutting tax rates on the wealthy are stealing from the rest of us. We
make contributions every hour of every day which are hoovered up by the wealthy and the
powerful. Meanwhile we cannot afford the cost of living, which has skyrocketed vs wages and
benefits. The cost of an apartment is exorbitant. The cost of health care is exorbitant.
Meanwhile the commons suffer. Infrastructure suffers. Sidewalks are a menace. There is lead
in the water. Rich people who do not pay their fair share of taxes are stealing from the
people in so many ways it's impossible to count them. But count them in years lost, in lives
cut short, in lives blighted.
Republicans aren't against government, it has grown more under every Republican president
including Reagan himself. They simply have their preferences as to who benefits from
it.
I'm surprised that the air traffic controllers haven't all called in sick. They have the
collective power to bring air travel to a standstill. I've long felt that a general
nationwide strike would finally get the attention of our corporate overlords. After all, all
they care about is money--just like Trump and the GOP.
When two elephants fight, its the grass that gets uprooted. In this show of arrogance and
egos its the lives of many ordinary Americans that is adversely affected. I only wish that
this crisis comes to an end soon to the relief of many.
@jrinsc, exactly right with an academic exception. Adam Smith and his ideas of free market
competition assumed that there would be large number of companies competing with each other
with their sole means of competition being consumer satisfaction, price and employee
efficiency. Anyone who couldn't compete went out of business, hence "free market". The
government's only role is to enforce anti-trust laws to keep businesses small and
competitive, and assure that the competitive triangle of business, labor, and consumer are
kept in balance. Fundamentally big business is bad, always! What real "free markets" DO NOT
include is the idea that a small number of huge companies pay the government to create a
competition free environment. The term "free market" has been stolen to mean that companies
can do anything they want to succeed, including creating laws with profitable loopholes, laws
to inhibit labor participation in the competition, and laws that inhibit consumers from using
fraud laws to suppress shoddy products. In reality there is no "free market", as @jrinsc
said, except to mean that big companies are free to do whatever they want to be
profitable.
My first lecture in economics dealt with free. The professor, then the Chief Economist at
the Cleveland Fed, made the point that nothing was free: no free lunch; no free air; no free
love. The point that he made was that somebody always pays. For everything; maybe not you,
not now; but somebody does. So every time that I hear this Republican rant about free
markets, I begin to laugh.
I am wondering if Mitch McConnell and his close Republican allies have been living off
food stamps because it seems to me they all have been incredibly unproductive for years which
he sights as a consequence of anyone using food stamps.
@Joel Sanders This is completely specious reasoning. There are any number of non-state
food groups that compete to set, e.g., organic, standards for food... for their participants.
And they can restrict anyone from using their seal of approval without meeting their
requirements. What they can't do, and the State can, is to require tainted products to be
removed from distribution. Having the power of the State depends on law that transcends
private agreement. And in the case of food, drugs, highways, airlines, and a number of other
avenues of social life, that strikes me as a valuable thing. Why is this SO difficult for
you, Mr. Sanders?
I once heard a conservative economist give a speech in which he denounced the FDA for its
suppression of competition in the pharmaceutical industry. I asked him what would protect the
consumer if the market replaced the Feds as regulator of new drugs. He responded that, if my
wife died from the effects of a toxic drug, I could always sue the firm that produced it. I
found this notion deeply comforting. I might lose my wife, but the drug company would have to
compensate me with a pile of dollars, assuming I could prove its negligence. For this
libertarian, a life and money weighed equally in the scales of justice.
The people who support libertarianism are like those who support biblical literalism
(fundamentalism). The libertarians want to get rid of some laws and regulations but not all
of them. Just the ones they don't like. Usually these are laws which make corporations and
businesses sell clean and safe food, treat employees fairly, pay taxes, etc. The libertarians
don't want to get rid of laws which help business, corporations, and the well-to-do. They
want to be sure that Boeing, Lockheed, and others get cushy defense contracts, the petroleum
companies get subsidies, Big Pharma gets to charge a lot for drugs, etc. It is just a new
name for the same old playbook -- make things tough on the weak and poor -- those with dark
skins, immigrants, etc. All the while being solicitous for the well-off and powerful.
Religious literalist do the same -- pick out the Bible verses which support the desired
message. Ignore those which don't. So many things don't change. We get give them a new
name.
Actually, Krugman didn't confuse Libertarians and Republicans. He said that Republicans
used Libertarian rhetoric but weren't true Libertarians, and he didn't accuse Libertarians of
favoring Republican policies across the board.
@Bill: See Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9, which covers the Flint water crisis in depth.
These people didn't even know they were drinking contaminated water until a health worker
broke ranks and made it public. THEN nothing was done.....(Oh, the state provided bottled
water for a while, to drink).... The children of Flint were suffering IRREVERSIBLE brain
damage due to lead in the water.....would suing 20 years later fix that? AND why did this
happen at all? The Republican governor of the state wanted to help his buddies make a lot of
money....
@Goodglud Excellent link! We need to call it what it is. No more reduce "regulations"
which people hear as reducing red tape. Make them advocate to "reduce
protections."
@AndyE, Berkley, MI: Nice turn on Jennings' corollary to Murphy's Law (the chances of the
toast falling buttered side down on the carpet is directly proportional to the cost of the
carpet).
Money talks louder than reason. So long as moneyed libertarians like the Koch Brothers buy
political influence, they will purchase an agenda to benefit themselves at our
expense.
"In the case of the party establishment, that agenda is about redistributing income up the
scale, and in particular helping important donor interests. Republican politicians may invoke
the rhetoric of free markets to justify cutting taxes for the rich and benefits for the poor,
or removing environmental regulations that hurt polluters' profits, but they don't really
care about free markets per se." Head of nail, meet hammer. The US used to be the world's
beacon of democratic values. No longer. The political system has been severely corrupted by
PACs, Super PACs, self-funding billionaire politicians, skewed campaign funding rules,
cynical electoral manipulation, self-interest and a lack of statesmanship amongst the
political classes. You'd think a credible third political party would be able to drive a bus
straight through the middle of this division. Two choices, left or right, just can't be
enough to sustain a democracy.
@Will Schmidt perlboy "We debated perfect markets ..." Like in engineering somebody would
design a car without engine because there is no friction and you just have to give it a push
to get around. I am so happy I am an engineer, forces me into reality.
"Knowing that the food you're eating is now more likely than before to be contaminated,
does that potential contamination smell to you like freedom?" Exactly. One of the most thing
I appreciated of being in the EU is a strong consumer protection and safety regulations. But
I guess, it's to "socialist" for some. Let's wait and see how the UK consumers will enjoy
post-Brexit "freedom".
In answer to to Bill from Michigan, the problem with food and water contamination is that
it may take years to find out that the food or water is actually contaminated, and then
additional time for the public to be informed. After all this time passes, the damage is
already done and lives are irreversibly damaged. As an example, the FDA has very strict
limits on the amount of mycotoxin and bacterial contamination in our food supply. While E.
coli contamination may be detected due to severe acute health effects, the carcinogenic
effects of mycotoxin contamination may not be detected in years. The Flint Michigan lead
contamination occurred in 2014 and wasn't declared an emergency until two years later, when
public health officials alerted the public in 2016. Although this was largely a local issue,
the H.R. 4470, the Safe Drinking Water Act Improved Compliance Awareness Act, mandates that
consumers be informed. So, personally I'd rather have the Federal Government be on the side
of the public and not rely on greedy lawyers.
@ebmem Republicans get in office and go to work to prove that Government doesn't work and
is the problem. Government works fine as long as Republicans are not in charge. The sabotage
any effort to resolve or solve a problem. They complain about the debt and deficit until they
are in office and then they blow the budget to smithereens with invented reasons for war so
they can enrich themselves. They are the problem, not Government.
@Bill, good luck with that. If you survive long enough to sue--and if you can prove the
source of your cancer or other illness--you'll find that personal injury lawsuits get you
nowhere. The big boys always win. Your best remedy is prevention. Don't let yourself or your
loved ones ingest or breathe toxins. Don't let toxins into your groundwater or soil. How do
you do that without government regulation?
Today, medical expenses are stratospheric. Meanwhile, the conservative movement strangles
the welfare state so that nearly everyone in the middle class (regardless of political
affiliation) who wants to live on more than $900 a month must go through legalized fiscal
contortions to be able to pay for adequate care.
@TM Exactly the correct response to libertarians. They like to talk about what "would"
happen, as though lack of government were a theoretical that can be calculated. There are
plenty of real world examples of what "would" happen. There are historical examples too, but
they "would" be different, of course.
@Aubrey Excellent analogy, although we can also use a good old-fashioned term to describe
these 'libertarians', 'conservatives' and religious types -- -- hypocrites ..... of the
highest despicable order.
What courts? Courts are set up, run by and paid for by government. No government means no
court system. You, the little, dying from tainted food, up against a huge agricultural
corporation with deep pockets. Libertarianism is a bully system. Those with the money win and
the rest die. That's it.
@jrinsc How quickly we forget, of course sometimes it isn`t that we forget but rather our
memory is clouded by the smoke from the fires set by vulture capitalism. Upton Sinclair The
Jungle should be required reading for all congress critters and all incoming Presidents. The
Jungle is a mirror to where todays American Nobility, the 21st century Robber Barons, would
like to take us. A disposable population for profit.
Where you see Libertarians, I see people who are so self-unaware and entitled that they
believe the only apt government subsidies are the ones that benefit them. Remember the ACA
debate line - "keep government out of my medicare?" Most people have no idea of what the
government does! What about the staunch GOP voters who nonetheless complain when the
government doesn't provide immediate aid to them after a disaster, but hesitate when the aid
is going to others? And do they comprehend that all disasters - even those claimed to be
"natural" - are actually man made? And do those that value privacy and their right to do what
they want - do they really think that corporations and businesses will keep their products
fair and safe? No, because corporations and businesses take the short view, while fairness
and safety - both of which contribute to the health of the nation and its people - take the
long view. Libertarians and their ilk are self-entitled peoples who only think about the
immediate impact on themselves and their wallets. They change their tunes quickly when
government is needed to help their bottom line.
What people with GOP/libertarian leanings should realize is that government regulations
were ONLY put into place in response to the horrifying abuses of laissez faire
capitalism.
@Bill You keep right on believing. THE FACTS ARE that people who would sell you
contaminated food have ways of covering up all the evidence. Besides, they could always hide
behind the fact that the USDA and FDA inspectors weren't working and "they didn't know"
because of that. You would lose any lawsuit because the inspectors didn't reveal any problems
and the business owner "did not know to the best of his/her knowledge." EVERYTHING would be
blamed on the shutdown, and you would LOSE>
Boy howdy, but it's easy to spout the libertarian line when the FDA, FTC, SEC, EPA, etc.
do what they do, day in and day out. Government succeeds quietly! Many post smack about what
seem like excesses, while they enjoy safe food and drugs, modest limits on fraudsters, clean
air and water, etc.: Now, maybe, we'll see what happens when those who mouth off get the
freedom they have demanded for decades. With a months' long shutdown lives will be lost, but
those who disparage the regulatory state might get their come-uppance. The coming months, if
they involve a partial shutdown, will highlight the value government offers. Opportunities
like this one don't appear often. This writer, for one, hopes it represents a crisis which
won't be wasted.
@C Wolfe I made friends with Libertarian from Texas in college my freshman year. He got me
to read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. My first take was that Ayn Rand was a
pretty weak writer and clearly had serious empathy issues to the point of being a bit creepy.
My friend insisted that everyone should be self reliant and was responsible for their own
destiny until the day he flunked out because his academically weak high school left him
unprepared to survive in our highly selective college. I really felt sorry for him but he was
so far behind I could not help him. I have no idea where he ended up.
As the saying goes, you never miss your water until your well runs dry. A very big part of
me says this is the only way red states will learn how to stop biting the hand that feeds
them: they've been blindly following a party that made no secret that it wished to "starve
the beast". This is what it looks like. This new perspective has delighted me even as I worry
for my friends, family and colleagues who are feeling the effects. I hope our nation survives
this president and learns from the mistakes.
The problem I have with libertarian utopias is that 'the market' isn't going to work to
address all conflicts. So you need to hire enforcement, since government isn't doing it... or
are we keeping the courts? And if the courts rule for you, and the other party just refuses
to pay, now you have to go get your payment. Good luck with that. It all seems likely to
devolve into a 'might makes right' series of standoffs, until people band together into
unified groups to collectively agree to a set of rules, and work together with those rules.
Sounds a lot like government. Or you can just hire some soldiers and go take what you want.
Dare the other guys to take it back. Sounds a lot like anarchy. Libertarians always seems to
me like trying to cherry-pick what they like about government, what benefits them, and then
dump the rest, the stuff that costs them but they can't see the benefit for. Maybe they'll
understand better if they get some contaminated lettuce next time they go grocery
shopping...
@Bill Who exactly administers said courts that you would turn to for justice? Oh that's
right, the government. I hope the irony is not lost on you. Libertarians seem to forgot that
no man is an island to himself.
The people I have met who (loudly) espouse libertarian ideas tend to be of three types -
all of whom benefit from this philosophy at the expense of others: 1) wealthy heirs like
tRump who don't want to pay their taxes since it reduces their ability to live large AND pass
on a dynasty to their heirs. 2) those with the luck to obtain the particular skills and
education that provide a secure job with high remuneration. (Yes, it is usually a lot of
luck) 3) good looking women who are confident that they can latch on to one of those
described in 1) or in a pinch, 2) 2) will complain bitterly when the job market shifts - as
it did for many in computer science after the glory years of the 80s. 3) will complain if
their lawyer doesn't get them a big enough divorce settlement and their looks will no longer
give them a second chance. A good economic system works equally for all people, not just
those benefiting as members of the lucky gene club.
@Socrates Amen. Something also came to mind in reading your comment: Productive modern
blue states subsidize receiving red states, who then, thanks to their outsize representation
via the electoral college, bludgeon the blue states with red policies like deregulation and
taking of health care etc. Like I am paying someone to punch me. "Something is rotten in the
state of Denmark."
We don't see the few inspectors who quietly keep our food safe, the EPA folks testing our
air and rivers. The impact will be felt much later, and with no one to do the forensics, the
story won't be told until well after the shutdown ends. I'm wondering how long the shutdown
will last when visible folks start to go on strike. Will the federal employees who will
perform the promised IRS, Food Stamp and farm distributions go to work, or ally themselves
with their less visible brethren? With transportation, chaos will be most evident. After no
paycheck on Friday, what if TSA doesn't shows or they picket Atlanta, OHare, JFK, SFO, IAD
and DFW? Ditto for their compatriots in the Control Towers. Chaos. Who benefits? Perhaps
we'll learn from Michael Cohen.
We as a nation are in this condition because the American character is one of greed,
selfishness, one who does not think for himself/herself, and one that is controlled through
fear. Maybe once our empire crumbles it will be divided into smaller countries that are
easier to manage like the western European countries. I will move to one of the new countries
that support a balanced budget, hates the concept of Citizens United and K Street lobbyists,
wants to educate their masses, and provides healthcare for everyone rich and not so rich. An
ignorant populous is easier to control and manhandle. The US is a good
example.
@hen3ry "It's fascinating to realize that McConnell, Pence, Trump, and the rest of the
obnoxious crowd are getting paid by the government they want to drown." When you go the rest
of the way you finally get a true sense of how perverted these people are.
Thank you Dr. Krugman for a great perspective. It reminds me of the saying "be careful of
what you wish for" ... for it may actually come true. Save for the sacrifice of many good
Americans who depend on jobs and government benefits and the public in general, this may be
the medicine those Republicans need to cure themselves of their hands off
philosophy.
@Bill I don't believe for a nano-second you would be willing to expose your family to
contaminated or adulterated food on the chance you might be able sue someone after the fact.
It could take you years and many thousands of dollars to get justice that way. There is a
good reason we have agencies like the FDA. Many years before you were born, we in fact had
the very situation you say you would be fine with. It was buyer beware for all foodstuffs.
You could not trust food producers to put on the label what was actually in the can or
bottle. Meat packers were packing and sending out absolute filth. If you want a hint of what
it would be like here without these protective agencies, do a little research on food safety
in China. It will make you sick when you see what the Chinese are exposed
to.
@C Wolfe Libertarian or not, in this country money is always more valued than human life.
Again, it took Western Europe more than 2,000 years to become somewhat civilized and it will
take this continent at least that long.
@Eleanor How will you get around this? Reagan said, 'The nine most terrifying words in the
English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."'
@ebmem I am an employee of Medicaid who sees countless fellow workers toil long after
quitting time to cover the most people, with the least potential harm or burden to them, to
get the best services and quality of life possible, AND doing all that earning maybe half the
compensation of a comparable private sector position. It saddens me that even the program
ensuring our loved ones - or ourselves! - have care at the end of life is not safe from this
kind of bitter, distorted partisan anger.
@Bill Two words for you: Blue Milk. Look it up. Food contamination is an old story, as old
as tort law. The FDA was created because tort law was unequal to the task. If you think the
modern day is different, how is that romaine lettuce lawsuit going for you? As far as I know,
no one knows where the contamination came from, much less who to sue. The romaine situation
illustrates another flaw in your libertarian fantasy. The individual harm is collectively
huge but individually small. Any action -- preventive or retributive -- requires collective
action. Which, actually, is what democracy is, and why democracy created the
FDA.
@Linda You said it, Linda. I just returned from Europe. And I could not believe again how
much tastier the meat and produce was - not only in restaurants but in humble meals in the
country. Commercial food produced in the United States is terrible, tasteless, and full of
pernicious additives. Ma and Pa Kettle have become inured to it, and don't know any
better.
@Wilbray Thiffault "Well, Mitch McConnell is not on the food stamp program, and he manages
to be one of the most 'non productive' senators in the history of the US Senate." Correction:
Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans are indeed on the food stamp program, the best one
ever, and the government shutdown is not preventing them all from being paid. They will never
give it up willingly.
Prof. Krugman says, "Meanwhile, the philosophy of the party's base is, in essence, big
government for me but not for thee." I totally agree. It is indeed Trump and the Republican
party who is disrupting the free market. The free market can be sustained only when it is run
by smart and fair-minded people including top-notched economists and politicians. Otherwise,
the socialism-monster would threaten and collapse the free market anytime. What I mean by
'the socialism-monster' is not the economies of Northern European countries such as the
Netherlands, Sweden, etc. Some Americans call their economies 'socialism', but that's very
wrong; their economies are indeed one of the most advanced capitalistic systems. How can't
they be? Capitalism in a sense started from there, i.e., the business markets of the
Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, etc. Only when capitalism is truly advanced can well-rounded
safety nets exist. In any case, genuinely socialist countries such as North-Korea and China
do not protect human rights and thus prohibit freedom. The real problem with Trump and his
allies is that they offer the strongest momentum for socialism by killing the chance for
developing truly healthy free market. Trump, with Putin, is turning the whole world back into
the days of nationalism, ideologism, and colonialism. They all champion big , huge, monstrous
government. If there is any American crisis, it is not border security but gun violence. But
Trump underwrites the NRA.
If [neoliberal] left is understood as Clinton DemoRats, then it's just a second war party. Just look at Hillary. Such an
anti-war hero.
Notable quotes:
"... For decades, a common myth pervading the American political arena has been that the left is anti-war. ..."
"... But they are as much opposed to war as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – at least he is honest about his appetite for blood and desire for perpetual regime change, no matter who occupies the Oval Office. So, from where did this mendacity come? ..."
"... In 2008, the United States was entrenched in an election battle and two major wars – Afghanistan and Iraq. The Democrats portrayed themselves as the anti-war party, promising to correct the foreign disasters of the incumbent administration. Since then, it's as if former President George W. Bush never departed. The Democrats have championed military interventions, twiddled their thumbs under President Barack Obama, and nominated a hawk to lead the party in 2016. ..."
"... Today, the [neoliberla] left has united with the neoconservatives in opposition to President Donald Trump's decision to bring 2,000 troops home from Syria and potential plans to withdraw from Afghanistan. Because they loathe Trump so much and don't want him to be portrayed as a more peaceful president than his predecessor, leftists demand that U.S. forces permanently stay in the region, facing death or serious injury. ..."
"... Attempting to locate a handful of consistent anti-war Democrats is like trying to spot Vice President Mike Pence with a woman other than his wife at a restaurant: It's never going to happen. ..."
"... For the last century, virtually every war, invasion, and occupation have been given the stamp of approval by Democrats. President Woodrow Wilson dragged the U.S. into one of those wars-to-end-all- wars fiascos. President Harry Truman sent thousands of young men to their deaths in Korea, setting the stage for perpetual global interventionism. President Lyndon Baines Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam. The Democratic leadership approved of the Iraq War, and Obama destabilized an entire region, killed American citizens, and intensified the drone bombing campaign. ..."
"... Outside of Capitol Hill, the predominantly left-leaning mainstream media have never seen a war it didn't like. In the last two years alone, the vacuous TV commentators have employed the same two strategies: Demand action against Russia (eh, Paul Begala ?) and oppose President Trump for using diplomacy and other tactics to institute peace ..."
Otto von Bismarck once said, "People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or
before an election." For decades, a common myth pervading the American political arena has been that the left
is anti-war.
But they are as much opposed to war as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – at least he is
honest about his appetite for blood and desire for perpetual regime change, no matter who
occupies the Oval Office. So, from where did this mendacity come?
In 2008, the United States was entrenched in an election battle and two major wars –
Afghanistan and Iraq. The Democrats portrayed themselves as the anti-war party, promising to
correct the foreign disasters of the incumbent administration. Since then, it's as if former
President George W. Bush never departed. The Democrats have championed military interventions,
twiddled their thumbs under President Barack Obama, and nominated a hawk to lead the party in
2016.
Progressives, the same ones who, under Republican administrations, routinely held massive
anti-war rallies on days that ended in "y," have been eerily silent for the last ten years.
Today, the [neoliberla] left has united with the
neoconservatives in opposition to President Donald Trump's decision to
bring 2,000 troops home from Syria and potential plans to
withdraw from Afghanistan. Because they loathe Trump so much and don't want him to be
portrayed as a more peaceful president than his predecessor, leftists demand that U.S. forces
permanently stay in the region, facing death or serious injury.
Is this a case of Freaky Friday politics, or has the left always been
pro-war?
Anti-War Democrats, Please Stand Up
Attempting to locate a handful of consistent anti-war Democrats is like trying to spot Vice
President Mike Pence with a woman other than his wife at a restaurant: It's never going to
happen.
Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the man who switches from Independent to Democrat when it
suits the occasion, has come out of the closet on occasion as a hawk. In addition to
supporting the so-called Little War in Kosovo in the 1990s, Sanders
revealed to ABC News in September 2015 that the U.S. could use its military forces when not
attacked and apply sanctions on adversaries.
For the last century, virtually every war, invasion, and occupation have been given the
stamp of approval by Democrats. President Woodrow Wilson dragged the U.S. into one of those
wars-to-end-all- wars fiascos. President Harry Truman sent thousands of young men to their
deaths in Korea, setting the stage for perpetual global interventionism. President Lyndon
Baines Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam. The Democratic leadership approved of
the Iraq War, and Obama destabilized an entire region, killed American citizens, and
intensified the drone bombing campaign.
Outside of Capitol Hill, the predominantly left-leaning mainstream media have never seen a
war it didn't like. In the last two years alone, the vacuous TV commentators have employed the
same two strategies: Demand action against Russia (eh, Paul
Begala ?) and oppose President Trump for using diplomacy and other tactics to institute
peace.
So, how exactly is the left anti-war?
The Born-Again Right
When it comes to foreign policy, there are now three wings of the GOP: hawks, doves, and
those who realize the doctrine of the last 20 years has failed.
One of the biggest surprises since Trump's election is that the right has become
increasingly more cautious about seeking dragons to slay and erecting Old Glory on every plot
of land in the world. House Republicans have
slashed foreign aid in the billions, Senate Republicans have voted to end America's
role in Yemen's humanitarian crisis, and prominent figures in the White House have asked one
simple question: Why should the United States be the policeman of the world?
Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the president, recently
dismantled the hawkish Counterfeit News Network when he told Wolf Blitzer:
"What I'm talking about, Wolf, is the big picture of a country that through several
administrations had an absolutely catastrophic foreign policy that cost trillions and
trillions of dollars and thousands and thousands of lives and made the Middle East more
unstable and more dangerous. And let's talk about Syria. Let's talk about the fact -- ISIS is
the enemy of Russia. ISIS is the enemy of Assad. ISIS is the enemy of Turkey. Are we supposed
to stay in Syria generation after generation, spilling American blood to fight the enemies of
all those countries?"
Comments that should draw praise from the left have been met with mockery and
scorn.
US Foreign Policy
H.L. Mencken was right when he said that "every decent man is ashamed of the government he
lives under." There is no other area in government that should instill more shame in the
population than foreign policy.
The political theater of sending young men and women overseas to fight in wars is a
tragicomedy: a comedy for those who don't have to wield a weapon and a tragedy for those who
do. It is easy and comfortable for politicians and pundits, a paltry few of whom have ever done
any of the fighting, to shout platitudes as if they were reincarnated John Waynes.
It's clear that politicians of all stripes have blood on their hands. The only difference is
that some policymakers showcase this human flesh with pride, while others pretend to be
benevolent. Trump's foreign policy has not been perfect, but it has been far superior to what
has transpired over the years. To rebuke the president's withdrawal of soldiers in an NPC-like
manner makes you complicit to atrocity.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
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euro is beginning to look like a credible rival to the dollar.
© AFP 2018 / Timothy A. CLARY Congresswoman
Tulsi Gabbard Speaks the Truth on Syria, Gets Smeared by the Mainstream Media
© AP Photo / Marco Garcia 'Assad's
Mouthpiece in Washington': Controversial Dem. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Announces 2020
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© REUTERS / Omar Sanadiki US Lawmakers
Call for Syria Strategy Where Assad Leaving Post, Russian Military Pulls Out
©
AP Photo/ J. Scott Applewhite
House Democrats Will Expand Russiagate in 2019 to Push Trump Toward War
