Yves here. Medea Benjamin and Nicholas Davies provide an important service by chronicling some key belligerent actions of the Trump and Biden-Harris administrations and why both are sure to continue and extend US war-mongering. However, anti-war advocates too often seem to overlook opportunities to build strong alliances with other natural opponents of the military-industrial complex, such as environmentalists and green energy advocates and proponents of stronger social safety nets. It may be too much to ask given the urgency of the genocide in Gaza and the potential the Middle East conflicts and the war in Ukraine to trigger a nuclear exchange for peace advocates to up their game as organizers. But that is the task before them if they are to increase their base of support and ability to mobilize it.
Admittedly, a core problem, as the framing of the article makes clear, is the fact that American democracy is not all that democratic. Witness, for instance, the perverse way in which views that score well in polls are demonized as populist and more and more of our elites demand social media censorship. Former US Ambassador Chas Freeman, in a recent interview with Nima of Dialogue Works, points out that our “democracy” is similar to that of the much-pilloried “authoritarian” Iran [starting at 19:30]:
And I think probably Iranian voters, who after all do function in a guided democracy, it is a democracy, it is a guided democracy in which certain positions are ruled out of order for the elections, frankly although that is open and institutionalized in Iran, it’s not that different from other democracies. There are opinions in the United States, for example, the majority of people in the United States want an end to arms sales to Israel, do not want a war with Iran, do not want a wider war in the Middle East. Probably a majority now are against continuing to support Ukraine in the manner we have. And yet our political elite rules their views as out of order and proceeds as though they didn’t exist. So one of the phenomea that has emerged which is deeply disturbing everywhere is elite opinion ignoring popular opinion, manipulating it, but not taking it into consideration so there is a gap between the political establishment and the society as a whole, and this calls democracy into disrepute and it threatens it. And this is the case in almost every democracy that I know these days.
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, the authors ofWar in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022. Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq
On October 24th, a U.S. presidential candidate told an interviewer, “Our day one agenda… also includes picking up the phone and telling Bibi Netanyahu that the war is over, because it’s basically our proxy war. We control the armaments, the funding, the diplomatic cover, the intelligence, etc., so we can end this in the blink of an eye with a single phone call, which is what Ronald Reagan did when Israel had gone into Lebanon and was massacring thousands of people. So we can do that right now. That’s day one.”
Tragically, the candidate who said that was not Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, but Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Most Americans have been persuaded that Stein cannot win the election, and many believe that voting for her in swing states will help elect Trump by siphoning voters from Harris.
There are many other “third-party” candidates for president, and many of them have good policy proposals for ending the genocidal U.S.-Israeli massacre in Gaza. As the website for Claudia de la Cruz, the presidential candidate for the Party of Socialism and Liberation, explains, “Our tax dollars should be used to meet people’s needs — not pay for the bullets, bombs and missiles used in the massacre in Gaza.”
Many of the principles and policy proposals of “third-party” and independent candidates are more in line with the views of most Americans than those of Harris or Trump. This is hardly surprising given the widely recognized corruption of the U.S. political system. While Trump cynically flip-flops to appeal to both sides on many questions, and Harris generally avoids committing to policy specifics at all, especially regarding foreign policy, most Americans understand that they are both more beholden to the billionaires and corporate interests who fund their campaigns than to the well-being of working Americans or the future of the planet.
Michael Moore has published a flier titled “This Is America,” which shows that large majorities of Americans support “liberal” positions on 18 different issues, from a ceasefire in Gaza to Medicare For All to getting money out of politics.
Moore implies that this should be reassuring to Democrats and Harris supporters, and it would be if she was running on those positions. But, for the most part, she isn’t. On the other hand, many third party and independent candidates for president are running on those positions, but the anti-democratic U.S. political system ensures that they can’t win, even when most Americans agree with them.
War and militarism are the most deadly and destructive forces in human society, with real world, everyday, physical impacts that kill or maim people and destroy their homes, communities and entire countries. So it is deeply disturbing that the political system in the United States has been corrupted into bipartisan subservience to a military-industrial complex (or MICIMATT, to use a contemporary term) that wields precisely the “unwarranted influence” that President Eisenhower warned us against 64 years ago, and uses its influence to drag us into wars that wreak death and destruction in country after country.
Apart from brief wars to recover small neocolonial outposts in Grenada, Panama and Kuwait, all now many decades ago, the U.S. military has not won a war since 1945. It systematically fails on its own terms, while its nakedly lethal and destructive power only fills graveyards and leaves countries in ruins. Far from being an effective vehicle to project American power, unleashing the brutality of the U.S. war machine has become the fastest, surest way to further undermine America’s international standing in the eyes of our neighbors.
After so many wars under so many administrations of both parties, neither Republicans nor Democrats can claim to be a “lesser evil” on questions of war and peace, let alone a “peace party.”
As with so many of America’s problems, from the expansion of corporate and oligarchic power to the generational decline in living standards, the combined impact of decades of Democratic and Republican government is more dangerous, more lasting and more intractable than the policies of any single administration. On no question is this more obvious than on questions of war and peace.
For decades, there was a small but growing progressive wing in the Democratic Party that voted against record military spending and opposed U.S. wars, occupations and coups. But when Bernie Sanders ran for president and millions of grassroots Democrats rallied around his progressive agenda, the Party leaders and their corporate, plutocratic backers fought back more aggressively to defeat Bernie and the progressives than they ever fought to win elections against the Republicans, or to oppose the war on Iraq or tax cuts for the wealthy.
This year, flush with blood money from the Israel lobby, pro-Israel Democrats defeated two of the most progressive, public-spirited Democratic members of Congress, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman.
On the Republican side, in response to the U.S. wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, the libertarian Republican member of Congress Ron Paul led a small group of Republicans to join progressive Democrats in an informal bipartisan peace caucus in Congress. In recent years though, the number of members of either party willing to take any kind of stand for peace has shrunk dramatically. So while there are now over 100 Congressional caucuses, from the Candy Caucus to the Pickleball Caucus, there is still not one for peace.
After the neocons who provided the ideological fuel for Bush’s catastrophic wars reconvened around Hillary Clinton in 2016, President Trump tried to “make America’s military great again” by appointing retired generals to his cabinet and characteristically staking out positions all over the map, from a call to kill the families of “terrorists” to a National Defense Strategy naming Russia and China as the “central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security,” to casting himself as a peacemaker by trying to negotiate a peace treaty with North Korea.
Trump is now running against Biden’s war in Ukraine and trying to have it both ways on Gaza, with undying support for Israel and a promise to end the war immediately. Some Palestinian-Americans are supporting Trump for not being the VP for Genocide Joe, just as other people support Harris for not being Trump.
But most Americans know little about Trump’s actual war policy as president. The unique value of a leader like Trump to the military-industrial complex is that he draws attention to himself and diverts attention away from U.S. atrocities overseas.
In 2017, Trump’s first year in office, he oversaw the climax of Obama’s war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which probably killed as many civilians as Israel has massacred in Gaza. In that year alone, the U.S. and its allies dropped over 60,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,Yemen, Libya, Pakistan and Somalia. That was the heaviest bombing since the first Gulf War in 1991, and double the destruction of the “Shock & Awe” bombing of Iraq in 2003.
Most chillingly, the Iraqi forces who defeated the last remnants of ISIS in Mosul’s Old City were ordered to kill all the survivors, fulfilling Trump’s threat to “take out their families.” “We killed them all,” an Iraqi soldiertold Middle East Eye. “Daesh, men, women and children. We killed everyone.” If anyone is counting on Trump to save the people of Gaza from Netanyahu and Biden’s genocide, that should be a reality check.
In other areas, Trump’s back-pedaling on Obama’s diplomatic achievements with Iran and Cuba have led to new crises for both those countries on the eve of this election. By moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, bribing Arab despots with ‘Abraham’ deals, and encouraging Netanyahu’s Greater Israel ambitions, Trump primed the powder-keg for the genocide in Gaza and the new crisis in the Middle East under Biden.
On the other side, Harris shares responsibility for genocide, arguably the most serious international crime in the book. To make matters worse, she has connived in a grotesque scheme to provide cover for the genocide by pretending to be working for a ceasefire that, as Jill Stein and many others have said, the U.S. could enforce “in the blink of an eye, with a single phone call” if it really wanted to. As for the future, Harris has only committed to making the U.S. military even more “lethal.”
The movement for a Free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza has failed to win the support of the Republican or Democratic presidential campaigns. But this is not a failure on the part of the Palestinian-Americans we have listened to and worked with, who have engaged in brilliant organizing, gradually raised public awareness and won over more Americans to their cause. They are leading the most successful anti-war organizing campaign in America since the Iraq War.
The refusal of Trump or Harris to listen to the calls of Americans whose families are being massacred in Gaza, and now in Lebanon too, is a failure on the part of the corrupt, anti-democratic political system of which Trump and Harris are figureheads, not a failure of activism or organizing.
Whomever each of us votes for in the presidential election, the campaign to end the genocide in Gaza will continue, and we must grow stronger and smarter and more inclusive until politicians cannot ignore us, no matter how much money the Israel lobby and other corrupt interests throw at them, or at their political opponents.
Whomever we vote for, the elephant in the room will still be US militarism and the violence and chaos it inflicts on the world. Whether Trump or Harris is president, the result will be more of the same, unless we do something to change it. As legendary Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu famously said, “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
No American should be condemned for voting for a candidate of their choice, however successfully the Democrats and Republicans have marginalized the very concept of multi-party democracy that the U.S. claims to support in other countries. Whoever wins this election, we must find a way to put peace back on this country’s national agenda, and to make our collective voices heard in ways that cannot be drowned out by oligarchs with big bags of cash.
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Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver is great on peace issues, and I was pleased to vote for him.
I can’t say I was pleased to vote for him, but he was the only candidate on my ballot who called it genocide, so he got my vote. I don’t really like to write in candidates names.
Agree with your opening statements- this one “ peace advocates to up their game as organizers. But that is the task before them ” calls something to mind-
We’ve been studying the Quakers from the 1930’s, their approach. Richard Gregg wrote Pendle Hill pamphlet 5, Pacifist Program in Time of War Threatened War or Fascism in 1939. Newly applicable, in that it’s not a matter of who wins, it’s a matter of how well we organize.
The right thing is perfectly clear this election and it is neither Harris nor Trump but rather anyone else who would stop the genocide.
USA last fought on USA soil in the Civil War. Very high casualties.
All subsequent ‘Wars’ on poverty, drugs, alcohol etc have been lost.
Wars are very lucrative for those whose main mission is to divide.
Americans need to learn this, the hard way, it seems. Real war …?
Russia still has Freemasonry and is more united and successful than ever.
Draining Europe seems to be going well. Until they wake up and take advantage.
>All subsequent ‘Wars’ on poverty, drugs, alcohol etc have been lost
I don’t think it was officially declared but the war on the average citizen, against their constitutional rights, has been turning out to be a big win for the TPTB.
The third-party candidates need to form strong coalitions:
1. The coalition compromise on a popular candidate for president;
2. Each third-party candidate campaigns separately but voters must choose the figurehead;
3. Each third-party candidate becomes a top official according to the party interests and votecount.
A third party that will not so compromise is indeed only weakening the others.
The formation of a single coalition is the only way to defeat the bribed duopoly and restore democracy.
In New York state, at least, opportunities to cast a vote against “US militarism and the violence and chaos it inflicts on the world” are even slimmer this year than previously. In my district in Brooklyn, the Conservative party endorsed all federal-level Republican candidates; the Working Families party endorsed all federal-level Democratic candidates; only the LaRouche party was on the ballot in the U.S. Senator’s race. No Green party, no Socialist Workers party, no Rent Is Too Damn High party. The Democrats’ election lawyers must have reaped beaucoup duckets for clearing the ballot of those pesky dissidents. Anyone for whom I could vote would be supporting continued financing of Israel’s war in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank.
I live in Daniel Goldman’s (D-AIPAC/Hedgistan) district in NYC and was distressed to see no Left opposition, so I wrote in the name of the last real radical to represent NY in Congress, Vito Marcantonio, who’s been dead for seventy years.
I’ll vote as I always do. It’ll be for any party that tries to turn us around from the Thelma and Louise road we are on, going full on Wile E Coyote into WW3. And that looks like the Greens.
I know I would have better luck urinating into the wind and not getting wet, and it will make no difference in the scheme of things except to my conscience. The D’s and the R’s? Nope.
Thanks for letting me vent.
For American voters wanting peace, perhaps the 2024 Presidential elections should be called the Zugzwang elections. No matter who you vote for or even if you give the whole thing a miss, US foreign policy will remain exactly the same. It does not matter which clown is at the head of the parade, the whole circus always only marches off in one direction which is exactly why things are the way that they are.
I don’t know if it will be the same if Trump or Harris is elected. With Harris, the powerful will dictate what to do and I believe, even with her, the realists will begin to have more influence just as the realists became more powerful during the last two years of the Bush II administration. Trump would change things more with his alliance with some anti-war forces along the same lines–this is why I voted for Trump this election whereas I usually vote for alternate parties. But, either way, I think we are going to move away from war and begin to adapt to our “multi-polar” future which is a big deal since the whole neocon project of complete world-domination–ultimately, this will be led by the elites because I believe the finance/corporate oligarchs are gradually beginning to change their focus.
I agree. On Syria it’s possible that some of Trump’s underlings were actively undermining his intentions. Some have even boasted of doing so. Haley often seemed to be running her own little foreign policy over at the UN. Trump now says he picked bad staff members so perhaps next time would be different. For sure there’s a rumor of Pompeo as Sec State but for all we know Pompeo is putting that out himself.
Whereas on foreign policy Harris would be the more effective evil given that practically the entire establishment is pulling for her and eager to back her up.
And finally on Ukraine I’d say there’s a definite difference between Trump and the Dems. And Ukraine is the situation that is most threatening American with nuclear war.
I’ve just written a very long post to a friend on this very point who is appalled by the US’s complicity in the genocide conducted so viciously by the Israeli government and it’s Western supporters and the proxy war against Russia by the Kiev regime.
I think Trump is going to be a change president, partly because there’s some of the spirit of the JFK and RFK sixties in him, partly because of the people he’s gathered around him, partly because he is genuinely heroic and prepared to put everything on the line to make America great again by re-building it’s industries and middle class and by establishing it’s place in a multipolar world, but mostly because of the legacy he wants to create, the memory he wants to leave behind him. This is the first time I have felt positively – as opposed to hopefully – optimistic about American politics) since RFK won the California primary in 1968.
And then it all vanished…
True. But millions of conditioned, desperate people in deep denial WANT to believe it will be different this time. And this has happened every four years for the several decades I can recall. Fool me once, foll me a dozen times
Agree. There’s little reason to think Trump will be any better. He could’ve pulled out of Syria, for example, if he had actually wanted to, since he had the power to do so, as Commander-in-Chief.
So depressing to read all the rationalizations people even here come up with to justify voting for T (or H). Shows how truly family-blogged the US is. Sad!
This concept of “guided democracy” is interesting. Yet in the neoliberal regimes probably functions in ways different compared with Iran. Kind of a chaotic guidance. Probably conductive to disasters very much the same as the Valencia floods.
stochastic eugenics, one might say?
I shall not be casting a vote for president this year. The uniparty candidates are fervent supporters of Israel which means support for genocide. Jill Stein and others may oppose the genocide. One or the other of them might in some measure affect the outcome in one or the other state. In the end a genocidaire will be declared the winner while averting their eyes from the blood on their hands. In this election there is no “lesser evil” for whom to cast a vote. A pox on both your houses.
Most people want to go along to get along. Most people want to be told what to do and what to think by the authorities. This is fundamental social science. Those of us who believe in analyzing situations logically (a dwindling number) are left out in the cold whether we are against war or for it. Back during the Vietnam War era, only 15% opposed the war until Cronkite became skeptical so it was gradually ok to oppose the war particularly after the Pentagon Papers came out in the NYT and WaPo something that could never happen today as these outlets simply mimic whatever the National Security (Deep) State decrees. Democracy dies in darkness but the reality is most people want that comforting darkness so they ignore the obvious genocide and the systematic violations of almost every Geneva Convention on war that is official US policy–and it didn’t start with Palestine. My Lai was shocking when the story came out because Americans were led to believe that they were the good guys so Vietnam policy was doomed. Yet the US conduct of its wars after 9/11 was full of My Lais and no one cared thus only the 15% (I’m guessing) oppose US/Israel policy in the USA. If the NYT came out with consistent condemnation of US/Israel policy then people might drift into a more pacific position.
I remember reading that Jefferson was very bullish on America as long as the populace was educated and were independent economically. Americans, in my experience (across all class and educational distinctions) don’t want to fulfill Jefferson’s vision. This is why I see no future in “democracy” other than a semi-religious ritual we engage in every few years. We are increasingly dependent on the virtue or lack thereof of the powerful elites–I see no evidence of any sense among people that they want to live in a true democracy where citizens are independent thinkers and parts of vigorous communities on the national level–there is some hope on the local level which must be revitalized or their will never be anything like a liberal democracy in our future.
I have mentioned before that the Times hypes up the need for a war, watches it unfold badly, then has a retrospective on how they got it wrong.
The Times gets their war and then assuages its complicity in abetting it.
In the not too distant future, if Harris is elected and does some monumentally foolish actions, her supporters will chant “But Trump would have been worse” to justify their support.
There is no accountability as I watch Bush II and the Cheney family get rehabilitated.
Another upside of voting for Jill Stein and the US Green Party is that U S. campaign finance laws provide future access to public funding if a party earns more than 5% of the national vote in a federal election. This financial assistance (funded by that check-off donation box on individual tax returns) is currently rejected by both major party candidates because accepting it entails limits to private fundraising — a statutory attempt to get money out of politics which has failed miserably. Public funds would be a game-changer for the Green Party, though, since we don’t accept contributions from corporations or super-PACs.
As a peace voter first and foremost, I’ve been voting Green or third-party without regrets since 1996. Sometimes it has felt like a gesture, but every time I ‘ve done it it helps to keep the tiny flickering flame of multi-party democracy from being totally extinguished.
This year, it seems possible that enough people won’t be able to bring themselves to pull the lever for a “lesser evil” countenancing genocidal war crimes that there’s a chance of breaking the 5% barrier. (Of course, I thought that in 2016 as well and was disappointed.). Even if we don’t, a multi-party paradigm is definitely edging its way into cultural consciousness.
Dr Stein’s campaign is working hard for visibility in the final lead-up to the election, and the Democrats are likely only helping by acknowledging Greens as a threat, running negative ads and seeding critical opinion pieces by prominent Dem supporters. Just wanted to remind NC readers that voting for Dr Stein (even by write-in in those states where she was unable to surmount ballot access challenges) is a POSITIVE vote that could have tangible results. Systemic transformation is a slow process, but I feel like we’re on the verge of seeing the two traditional parties disintegrate (and good riddance).
AFAIK, John McCain was the last presidential candidate to accept federal funding. Obama rejected federal funding because he could raise more privately. Citizens United hammered the “nail in the coffin” for federal funding of major party presidential campaigns.
But how are the Greens going to achieve 5% of the national vote when they couldn’t get on the ballot in NY? It seems like a Catch-22 authored by the DNC.
Dr Stein was approved as a write in in NY.
Speculating here, I’m wondering if the only thing left holding our two legacy parties together is money. Ridding the political process of profit taking seems like the obvious first step.
There is no peace movement in the US anymore at least among democrats. Oh sure they may talk a bit but it’s so far down, it probably doesn’t make it on any list.
The MSM and project dem have become the party of war and all of my dem friends are 100% behind Israel, Ukraine, against Iran, very suspicious of China and fully support Taiwan.
I am still quite in disbelief about how Israel/gaza genocide has played out. It’s the rare exception if I bring up the genocide it’s met with anything other than they change the subject.
They still believe the muller report and Russia gate. That Trump is a Russian stooge.
If more voters vote stein then the greens have a better shot at next elections.
I had no expectations Harris isn’t exactly as she says she is. I did keep some hope there would have been a smart well thought out plan on how to both support Israel and the Palestinians, but as time went that became overwhelming clear, nothing will change from Biden/dem policy.
I’m voting my conscience not my fears.
Stein
I think the old party of what we thought of as Dems are gone. A strange new era.
Its been gone for several decades. Clinton finalized the basic DLC conquest of the DemParty. Obama conducted the final mopping-up operations.
Martin Shaw, Writing in “The Dialectics of War” echoes Yves’ appeal for broadening the base of the anti war movement:
“By the time nuclear war is even likely, war-resistance may be largely beside the point. The resistance to nuclear war has to be successful in the period of general war-preparation. The key question is the relationship between militarism and antimilitarism, and the wider social struggles of the society in which nuclear war is prepared.”
The U.S. anti-war movements of the late 20th Century may actually have been successful in this respect – very few young people are willing to sign up. The war money has been diverted to policing operations around the world that are sold as a form of peace-keeping, and to expensive toys that are supposed to avoid getting the operators killed but that don’t really work.
The Ukraine war and the Red Sea war demonstrated pretty conclusively that the United States does not have the capacity to wage a full scale war overseas. Even our nuke force is so out of date that it is impossible to predict whether a nuclear salvo would be effective.
Our biggest problem is that our demented leaders may not be capable of recognizing reality, so a current anti-war movement probably would come in handy.
Swap your vote is an option I started using in 2016 election. I voted third party in my “safe” blue state and my match my vote in swing state Florida for ugh war monger HC.
The same opportunity was created for 2024 election
It’s legit and everything is explained at SwapYourVote.org
https://www.swapyourvote.org/
Activism under Authoritarians. I’m with Yves here about building a peace, climate, environment and economic justice movement, starting after the election.
After the 2016 election, a playwright who grew up in the Argentine dictatorship shared this tip: political activism can make gains if focused on issues such as war, toxics, etc, but political activism between elections against the dictator, e.g. T is a Fascist, was not as effective.
If Swap Your Vote is only set up for one party’s benefit, it should be challenged in court as an unconstitutional assault on the Electoral College.
Tom Doak, Good and fair question.
“The concept of vote swapping, also known as vote pairing, is simply a trust-based pledge between voters. The strategy is legally protected under freedom of speech, according to a 2007 court ruling — as long as no money or gifts are exchanged.”
Not sold on Harris over Gaza yet anti-Trump, some Pa. activists are asking blue-state voters to cast protest ballots on their behalf, Nov 3, The Philadelphia Inquirer
My opinion: vote swapping facilitates making a moral ethical vote. I have trouble voting for either war mongering party, but like Bernie Sanders and Angela Davis I believe we will have a better chance organizing and advocating for the environment, climate, economic justice and against war under Harris than Trump. However, I can sympathize with those who think Trump may take action to end the wars sooner than Harris, but I myself do not want to sacrifice the environment, climate, indigenous, and future generations on that gamble.
Perhaps more consequential vote swapping can help elevate and support third-party ballot access.
To Tom’s point, Trump voters can also use voteswapping in swing and safe states, but will need to take on with their own initiative a system to reach those interested, which they are free to do.
Phenomenal Nima interview with Ambassador Freeman. Thanks for this overall insightful posting.
Jill Stein made it very clear in our two interviews on Nima’s site that her position goes beyond being merely anti-war. The permanent danger, we argue, is that no real progress can be made until the Democratic Party is ended, at least as it now stands run by the Democratic National Committee and its Donor Class.
We acknowledge that voting against it will bring the (ugh) Republicans into office. But it is necessary to show that NO Democratic Party candidate can be elected without ending the right-wing, neocon and neoliberal deep state that would prefer to loose with Harris (as it preferred to lose with Hillary) than win with Bernie — or Jill.
Agreed. Thank you.
Tlazocamati
(Thank you)
💯 thank you
People who, like I, are intimidated by large bodies of work, would benefit greatly if you would publish a pamphlet or short book summarizing your work. Or perhaps a study guide. I think there are the makings of a “Hudsonian” political program, but I confess I am not up to studying all your works, or anyone’s, to put it together.
Thank you, well said.
And a vote for Dr. Stein is a vote for Dr. Stein and nobody else.
I still think that Sheldon Wollin’s concept of Inverted Totalitarianism best describes how debate has been circumscribed in what has become a “guided democracy” in the United States. The goal of the corporate/financial elites under Inverted Totalitarianism is to create a sense of powerlessness and political apathy in order to relieve themselves from “populist” pressure.
I fully expect next week’s election to mirror other low-turnout/low-engagement elections. Certainly progressives on the “left” have little reason to go to the polls; however, I think the evangelical conservative “right” also have little reason to hold their noses now that their single-issue goal of overturning Roe v Wade has been accomplished and a medieval Supreme Court is in place for a generation.
If the Dims lose, they will continue to fund raise. They always sound so much more progressive when OUT of power, when in power, they just do the Uniparty two step.
Here in Michigan the Libertarians usually out poll the Greens two to one, so voting for Jill doesn’t actually mean a loss for the Dims. I don’t think many Libertarians would actually vote for the Donkeys.
I’m down to a single issue: Gaza. There are many Muslims in my area. I’m with them.
i always have to point out that after 1945, free trade drove american policy. but the free traders were never able to completely take over american policy.
so the forever wars were not yet upon us. however, that all changed in 1993, yes bush jr. was a idiot, but he was not solely responsible for the carnage the world faces under the free trading oligarchs.
this is the guy who cemented the forever wars and regime change polices, to actually be official government policy. and its bill clintons legacy as to why americans cannot get out of this mess he made.
you would have to dismantle bill clintons offical policies. people wonder who set up these idiots to be in control of our foreign policy, and why can’t we get rid of them? its simple, by law they are there implementing the policies of bill clinton.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article197477.html
“An additional step has been taken with military preparations against Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador following Mexico, Colombia and British Guyana. The team responsible for co-ordinating these measures is from the former Office of Global Democracy Strategy. This was a unit established by President Bill Clinton, then continued by Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz. Mike Pompeo, the current director of the CIA, has confirmed that this unit exists. This has led to rumours in the press, followed up by President Trump, of a US military option.”
https://listverse.com/2014/02/05/10-reasons-bill-clinton-was-secretly-a-terrible-president/
““Extraordinary rendition” is when shady government operatives stuff a bag over your head and fly you off to some foreign country where they can legally torture you. It sounds like something Alex Jones might dream up in a paranoid frenzy, but it’s a well-documented phenomenon under both Bush, Jr. and Obama—and Bill Clinton was the guy who started it all.
Clinton and Gore signed off on the first rendition back in the ’90s, despite being aware that it breached international law. Until recently, rendered people frequently wound up in the prison cells of places like Mubarak’s Egypt or Gaddafi’s Libya, where they were tortured with electric shocks, rape, beatings, and even crucifixion. It can sometimes go hideously wrong: In 2003, the CIA snatched a terrorist off the streets and beat, tortured, and sodomized him, only to discover they’d accidentally grabbed the wrong man. The victim just happened to share a name with a wanted criminal. His suffering came care of the Clinton/Gore dream team.
8 Bombing A Pharmaceutical Factory
800px-Asch-Schifa,Khartum2008
Photo credit: Bertramz
On August 20, 1998, an American submarine locked onto a suspected chemical weapons factory in Sudan and launched a barrage of missiles. The attack had been authorized by the president himself in retaliation for a US embassy bombing in Nairobi. Within seconds, the factory had been obliterated, killing one person and wounding several others. It was only then that it was discovered that the factory wasn’t used for producing WMDs at all. It was one of only three pharmaceutical factories in the whole of Sudan.
In less than a second, the airstrike had wiped out Sudan’s ability to treat devastating illnesses like tuberculosis, malaria, and meningitis at a time when the country was swept by disease and civil war. To add insult to injury, there was no money to rebuild, resulting in epidemics sweeping the land and killing thousands. Faulty intelligence was blamed at the time, but by 2000, it was obvious that the field reports were too sketchy to warrant even a second look, let alone a surgical strike. It was a simple overreaction that wound up killing thousands of sick children.”
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https://theintercept.com/empire-politician/biden-iraq-liberation-act/
Jul 28, 2021, 11:14:16 AM
to
of course GORE would have invaded iraq, bill clinton signed that into law
1998 Iraq Liberation Act, see gore with bill and the generals
Joe Biden voted in favor of the act, which was signed into law by Clinton in October 1998.
we can never recover till bill clintons disastrous policies have been reversed
https://theintercept.com/empire-politician/biden-iraq-liberation-act/
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1996
Expanded U.S. Bombings in Iraq
Jeremy Scahill
April 27 2021, 1:39 p.m.
U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry points to the no-fly zone in southern Iraq during a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 3, 1996.
Photo: Jamal Wilson/AFP via Getty Images
In 1996, when President Bill Clinton expanded the no-fly zone bombings in Iraq, Joe Biden was an enthusiastic backer. Biden acknowledged that the U.S. had a “big stick” in the form of military power and said, “I think we should swing it hard enough to make sure we maintain the expanded fly zone, no-fly zone.”
He added that “the bottom line is that the oil supplies for the world are more secure today than they were yesterday, by the fact that we’ve expanded the no-fly zone.” In the same interview, Biden emphasized that “we need to hit in order to maintain the security of the oil supplies and the integrity of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.”
1998
Iraq Liberation Act
Murtaza Hussain
April 27 2021, 1:40 p.m.
President Bill Clinton speaks to Vice President Al Gore after meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff about U.S. military policy concerning Iraq on Feb. 17, 1998, in Washington, D.C.
Photo: Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images
In January 1998, the neoconservative Project for the New American Century sent a letter to President Bill Clinton calling on him to overthrow the Iraqi government and making that goal an official “aim of American foreign policy.”
The letter — signed by leading Washington hawks such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, John Bolton, and Elliott Abrams — charged that U.S. policy was being “crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.”
Less than a year later, that letter would form the basis for the Iraq Liberation Act, which codified changing the Iraqi regime as a goal of U.S. foreign policy and helped lay the groundwork for the eventual invasion. It also authorized increased support for Iraqi exiles, some of whom worked with the CIA.
Joe Biden voted in favor of the act, which was signed into law by Clinton in October 1998. In touting his support for the law, Biden said, “So it seems to me that we have a big problem. Saddam is the problem. Saddam is in place. Saddam is not going anywhere unless we do something relatively drastic. It is clear our allies are not prepared to do anything drastic.””
I cannot hold my nose and vote for genocide as L. Wilkerson suggests in an interview with Paul Jay in swing states (i do not live in one).
There is a story to be told, though, before counting eggs, of how the European and particularly German Greens became warmongers and essentially anti-environment. One suspects a full deep state targeting operation – clearly successful – in time to support NATO expansion of its proxy war in Ukraine and the most intensive GHG emissions activity of all human activities – war.
“…Admittedly, a core problem, as the framing of the article makes clear, is the fact that American democracy is not all that democratic…”
As David in Friday Harbor and others have referenced the classic Democracy Inc. from Sheldon Wolin to dispel the myths.
Depending on how one defines “democracy” I would say that the US has a Public Relations Democracy only. When SCOTUS defines money as free speech and political bribery legal, we can stop right there. There are a whole raft of other barriers to democratic accountability, but this one should make it crystal clear.
But few care, that’s boring, and no one wants some annoying gadfly to point out that the sacred civil religion of the nation is based on lies and illusions. Yet, no matter which representatives of oligarchy control Congress and the WH, conditions continue to worsen, just as they have for decades. Doing the same thing but expecting a different result….insanity?
And it is not just “peace” candidates. Ron Paul, although I don’t agree with everything he says, has pointed out that the US was not designed to be a global empire, it is supposed to be a republic with the rule of law and all that. Jimmy Carter said that the US is now an oligarchy with no functioning democracy, but the mass media and most people ignored that.
And the corruption is institutionalized for all to see, yet we don’t WANT to see it. Atrocities of historical proportions are being done with our public resources, yet few give a toss.
The Election Derangement and Collective Stockholm Syndrome are deeply entrenched, the hysterical masses tilt at windmills while their interests are destroyed. The MassMedia tell us what to think about, how to think about it and which corrupt sociopath is a “viable” candidate. And the masses dutifully obey and pretend that they have a choice, when it is obvious that there is no meaningful choice. Notice that neither candidate is talking about infrastructure, health care, housing crisis, genocide, etc. just emotional BS hysteria. It is entertainment and distraction, not a choice. (But maybe half the population who do not vote understand this)
Even Ed Bernays would be in awe: millions of people are routinely convinced to act against their own interests. No matter what happens on Tues; kleptocracy, oligarchy, genocide, institutional corruption, and the Washington Consensus will continue, as always.
I have been called arrogant, extreme, negative, pessimistic, cynical etc. for pointing things out by both the D and R faithful. Shoot the messenger mentality means that most are still in the denial phase. The cold reality is that the US is a declining power and it will be almost impossible to reverse the trend.
If people want real improvement, they will have to engage in mass civil disobedience, and non-cooperation. History is very clear on this. That won’t happen because most don’t know who their enemies are and are directed to fight themselves instead of the oligarchy behind the thin curtain.
It looks like political violence will be more likely as time goes on, the US has one of the most heavily armed civilian populations in the world. Interesting times ahead
Ambassador Freeman is so spot on with his observations. He is as clear a thinker as you will find these days. His last comments about the internal affairs of the United States are particularly good.
Peace Voters have been SOL since WW2. The US war cost with Iraq and Afghanistan was over 6 trillion dollars. What could the US have done with that instead of using it to destroy things?
The problem with Defense (really war) as with Universal Heath care is how it affects the US economy.
How can the businesses that make money with this survive. Jesus, Eisenhower warned us about
the military industrial complex in friggen 1960.
It can be done, but, oh that money!
This election, a choice between two poisons, unless one votes independent. Harris seems to be an empty hologram of Biden, so who knows who actually would make and execute foreign policy. A Trump victory is a wild card. He talks ‘anti war’, but if his staff remains neo-con, then SOS. If he purges the likes of the Nulands, the Blinkens, the Sullivans, the Pompeos, the Boltons, the Haleys, the Grahams etc; then who knows. The potential is interesting. I can easily imagine a call to Putin “Let’s talk Ukraine.”; and a response “While at it, let’s put West Asia on the table.” A mere discussion with Putin would drive the neocons apoplectic. However, the outcome in the last century for a US President , JFK, who dared discuss ‘peace with a Russian, did not end well. Nothing has changed in my lifetime. Read 1960’s satire, “Report from Iron Mountain”, whose conclusion was that “if peace broke out the world economy (US) would collapse.”