Sympathy for the Devils...

[blindpig]

Friends & Foes Alike Don’t Believe That Putin’s Endorsement Of Kamala Is Sincere

Andrew Korybko
Sep 05, 2024



Putin prefers dealing with the “devils that he knows” than risking a repeat of Trump’s unpredictability.

Putin confirmed on Thursday during the Eastern Economic Forum’s plenary session that his previously stated support for Biden now extends to Kamala, yet friends like the famous dissident Kim Dotcom and foes like the BBC’s Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg don’t believe him. The first tweeted that it’s a “Grandmaster Chess” move on the Russian leader’s part while the second speculated that this is being done to discredit the Democrats. The reality though is that Putin is being sincere.

It was explained earlier this year that “It’s Reasonable For Putin To Prefer Biden Over Trump” because “1) Biden has the support of the ‘deep state’s’ ruling liberal-globalists; 2) this faction is expected to remain in power even if Trump wins; and 3) they could carry out more anti-Russian provocations to discredit him in that case just like last time.” This insight still holds true and accounts for why he now supports Kamala since nothing has changed in the six months since he publicly backed Biden.

Friends struggle to accept this since they favor Trump’s policy towards the Ukrainian Conflict, hence why they believe that Putin does too, while foes are convinced that Putin helped Trump win in 2016 and is therefore trying to help him again by discrediting the Democrats with his endorsement of Kamala. What neither can understand is that Putin is an old-school statesman who appreciates predictability, especially among his geopolitical adversaries, and doesn’t like the chaos that accompanied Trump’s first term.

The permanent members of the US’ military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) whose foreign policy interests are represented by Kamala’s platform explicitly prioritize containing Russia over China. Those whose interests are represented by Trump’s platform agree with him that China’s containment should be prioritized over Russia’s, but there are still quite a few “Republicans-In-Name-Only” (RINOs) among them who could once again sabotage his plans just like they did last time.

From Russia’s perspective, it’s better for the US to stay the course in attempting to contain it through Ukraine and then decisively foil this plot than to let the US retreat, lick its wounds, and then possibly resume hostilities at a later time once its national strength that’s been sapped by this conflict recovers. There’s no credible indication that Trump would force Ukraine to agree to Russia’s demands for ending the conflict either, thus meaning that the US would then put more pressure on Russia to compromise.

To be sure, Putin has signaled that he’s open to compromising, but what Trump has in mind is to coerce a compromise from both him and Zelensky. It’s therefore possible that some of what he envisages won’t align with Russian interests and might even contradict them, in which case he could redouble support for Ukraine as punishment for Russia refusing to agree to whatever “deal of the century” he proposes. Putin would prefer to avoid that scenario and continue dealing with “devils that he knows” instead.

He and his country’s own “deep state” now understand America’s ruling liberal-globalist “deep state” much better than they do those members of the former who are more aligned with Trump’s thinking. Russia has accordingly formulated policy with the expectation that the US’ policies towards this conflict won’t change, and it doesn’t want to be caught off guard by whatever Trump’s proposed deal might be. He hasn’t articulated it in detail so it’s anyone’s guess what he wants to do or could be influenced to do.

It's therefore much better for Russia keep everything the way that it is with the Democrats than to risk some sudden surprises from Trump that could result in either coercing Putin into an uncomfortable compromise or punishing his country for rejecting the deal that’s ultimately offered. None of this is to imply that Putin is against Trump per se, and he might even be able to reach a mutually acceptable compromise with him, but he’d rather not rock the boat while Russia is winning.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/friends- ... nt-believe

*****

Fake news now at peak as Kamala faces CNN “interview”

Martin Jay

September 4, 2024

Harris is seen as the most suitable candidate to further the causes of America’s military industrial complex whose six main companies cannot slow production down

Wherever you look, it feels like we are being bombarded now with an unprecedented level of fake news. One reason may well be how the installed governments by western elites – military industrial complex and banking – are getting very skittish indeed about a shake up of world order in November when the airhead Kamala Harris takes on Donald Trump in the presidential elections. This new trend of installing a useful idiot into power has been around for decades across Africa and Asia where the U.S. and before that the UK installed their own despots to serve their own needs, so we shouldn’t be so shocked by someone like Harris having the landscape prepared for her.

To call Harris a ‘lightweight’ is understating her political verve. She has none of the conventional talents that politicians require like public speaking, or engaging with media, let alone having any ideas of her own which might make it one day to policy. For most Americans the choice in November is between Harris, who is essentially Biden 2.0 or Trump. Not exactly a tough call many might say since RFK endorsed Trump who traditionally he has not been a fan of; it’s as though he’s saying to Americans, “anything but Kamala. Do the maths”.

Media is of course playing a huge and certainly tawdry role in pushing her which is not generally noted by most Americans. For weeks she has ignored or avoided all serendipitous contact with journalists which surely must be orders from the elite who are controlling her. And there is good reason for this as the internet is awash with her talking gibberish. Or dancing.

Talking mumbo jumbo won’t help her at the polls against Trump who revels at the microphone and is not afraid to go head to head with journalists and unscripted interviews, despite him whining about how unfair the set-up is.

What he is alluding to is that left-wing media in America like CNN fake the news and as we saw recently almost certainly gave Kamala a print out of the questions she was going to face with her recent CNN interview where she was joined by her running mate just in case she did something which broadcast journalists call ‘gold fishing’ – an on-screen facial contortion where the lips and cheeks move, but nothing comes out of the mouth. In Kamala’s case, gold fishing might not be as bad as actually speaking, as she has shown us that there is not much between the ears. She is not overburdened with what many academics have of knowing too much and not being able to communicate in short sound bites. Harris doesn’t really know anything at all except a few talking points from Biden’s days. Her own people will be happy with the staged interview as they can at least counter oped writers who claim she is so lame that she avoids all press. Thanks CNN. Great jaaaabbbb.

Harris is seen as the most suitable candidate to further the causes of America’s military industrial complex whose six main companies cannot slow production down, unless they make job layoffs. The insatiable hunger of this machine is responsible for the lion’s share of U.S. foreign policy and Biden gave his cronies their one hundred Christmas’s when he created the Ukraine war and more recently Gaza. In Gaza the false reporting from western media is as repulsive as the images of children who have lost their entire brains and whose heads look like theatrical floppy props, which has become the day to day norm now when Israel bombs schools. Does anyone in the west in either camp still believe this is a “war” against Hamas fighters? With the recent invasion of West Bank and the rise of settlers stealing land there, surely the real story of Netanyahu’s campaign is there for all to see in plain light: ethnic cleansing on a grand scale to wipe Palestinians off the face of Israel. And still we read western journalists and op-ed writers parroting the line about ‘two state solutions’ and what the EU says, etc etc. By the time the chairs are arranged and the mineral water is put on the tables, there will not be a Palestinian left to even represent his or her own state. Everyone knows the two-state solution is a massive parody of diplo gibberish a bit like Kamala’s few media stints which are still good for a laugh today. And it’s an identical story in Ukraine. No western journalists can report on the true story of Ukrainian losses in Kursk and how the operation has blown up in Zelensky’s face. The omission of reporting key facts and data is just as bad as making up your stories, if not worse.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... interview/

Calling CCN left wing insults all birds, bats and pterodactyls. They are dead center, mebbe a little to the right.

******



Calling Harris A Communist Is An Insult To Communism

Calling Kamala Harris a communist isn’t wrong because it degrades Harris, it’s wrong because it degrades communism.

Caitlin Johnstone
September 5, 2024

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Republicans called Obama a communist, when all his worst actions as president were continuations and expansions of Bush’s policies. Democrats called Trump a Nazi when his worst acts were continuations and expansions of Obama’s policies. Now we’re back to calling Harris a communist, while she supports a genocide that Republicans also support.

Calling Kamala Harris a communist isn’t wrong because it degrades Harris, it’s wrong because it degrades communism.

❖

The Biden-Harris administration is knowingly helping the Israeli government wage a campaign of extermination in Gaza that has shocked and horrified the entire world, so obviously the real villain we need to focus on here is Jill Stein.


No serious person believes a bunch of socialists and peaceniks are going to vote for a capitalist warmongering party. Democrats don’t bitch about the Green Party because of lost votes, they do it because they hate being reminded that their party’s a lie and their values are fake.

Democrats saying the Green Party steals their votes makes as much sense as Republicans saying the Green Party steals their votes. The Democratic Party is not a left wing party. It’s a warmongering capitalist party that is presently engaged in genocide and nuclear brinkmanship.

Democrats say the Green Party never gets anything done while the Democratic Party “getting things done” looks like committing genocide in Gaza, facilitating the exploitation and ecocide of capitalism, and promoting nonstop war and militarism. It’s not enough to get things done; the things you get done actually need to be good things.

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“If Trump becomes president the genocide will be way worse!”

Oh yeah, how so?

“It’ll be the BAD kind of genocide!”

❖

Does anyone actually believe Harris would win if she committed to an arms embargo on Israel? Or is that just something people are pretending to believe to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians? Because I think the system is plainly much more corrupt than this.

If Harris pledged to stop sending weapons to Israel unless it ended its assault on Gaza, you’d see the entire pro-Israel faction and the entire military-industrial complex throw all its funding and all its narrative control into supporting Donald Trump. Wealthy donors who’d been lifelong Democrats would pivot Republican for this election. It would suddenly become a mainstream narrative that Harris hates Jews and loves terrorists. A large segment of the mass media would play along. Op-eds would be churned out by liberal Zionist Jews claiming they must now “reluctantly” vote Trump because Kamala Harris wants to kill them.

Does anyone honestly believe Harris could win an election in an information environment like that? Maybe she could, but it would be a lot harder than just continuing to toe the imperial line like she always has. Obviously a lot of people would switch to supporting Harris if she pledged an arms embargo, but would there be enough of them to compensate for all the voters she’d lose in a hysterical all-consuming information op claiming that she’s a closet Nazi? It wasn’t enough when this was done to Jeremy Corbyn.

Harris is a monster, and she’d happily strangle every Palestinian child to death with her own bare hands if it would win her the presidency. But she’s not the problem. She’s just one person. She’s just playing the tune and dancing the dance you need to in order to win a presidential election in the United States. If it wasn’t her it’d be some other monster playing the same tune and dancing the same dance. The real problem is a profoundly corrupt system which promotes the most evil agendas on earth and elevates the very worst people in society to positions of power and influence to ensure the facilitation of those agendas.

Harris isn’t the cause of Washington’s depravity, she’s a symptom of it, just like Trump, and just like Biden. Really the problem is the US empire itself, and all the corrupt mechanisms that keep its gears turning. The slaughter will continue, in one form or another, until the imperial machine is brought down.

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FYI it’s not okay to be a grown adult in September 2024 and still believe Israel’s actions in Gaza have had anything to do with trying to rescue hostages.

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Meanwhile things keep getting scarier and scarier in Ukraine. Reuters reports that the US is “close” to agreeing to give the Ukrainian military long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia, at the same time Russia says that it will be altering its nuclear doctrine in response to western aggressions.


The more land and troops Ukraine loses the more eager Kyiv and Washington get to escalate to previously unthinkable levels against a nuclear superpower.

❖

We’re seeing free speech eroded in the west as authorities suppress critics of the genocide in Gaza, just as we saw a huge spike in censorship with the NATO proxy war in Ukraine. They say these wars are to protect the west and its values, while ruining the west and its values in order to protect their ability to manufacture consent for these wars. War, genocide and tyranny are the west’s real values.

❖

All art is political. It either opposes the madness of the status quo, supports it, or distracts from it. Creating vapid diversions for people to sedate themselves with in a genocidal brainwashed dystopia on a dying world is a political act, whether you call it political or not.

An artist who says they “avoid politics” while living in the heart of a murderous tyrannical empire is lying. They don’t avoid politics. They are directly participating in politics. And they are participating on the wrong side.

All art either helps open people’s eyes or helps close them. Almost all art in mainstream culture helps close them — either by normalizing and celebrating the madness of this civilization, or by numbing people to the discomfort of it. This is not just political, it’s on the front line of politics.

Politics are downstream from culture, and if the culture you are helping to create is mindlessly drifting along with the current of oligarchy and empire, then you have responsibility for where that stream ends up carrying us.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/09 ... communism/

[blindpig]

PATRICK LAWRENCE: ‘Vote Joy’ — a Delusion of Nostalgia
September 6, 2024

Those populating the vice president’s joy-and-vibes crowd can pretend to celebrate a state of elation while acquiescing to their candidate’s approval of mass murder.


Balloons fall after Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech at the Democratic National Convention last month. (Chris Bentley, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News

Many commentators have attempted to describe the astonishing devolution of Democratic Party politics into sheer marketing: Kamala Harris as product, “new and improved” like a laundry detergent or a frozen dinner.

Vanessa Beeley calls it “cartoon theatrics,” and it’s as good as I’ve seen. In two words the British journalist captures from a useful distance the infantilism of the Harris-for-president campaign and the Hollywoodization of American politics.

I thought I’d seen everything in this line until a few days ago, but in this, the most unserious political season of my lifetime, it is incautious to make any such assumption.

There is always more — something worse — another step down into a sort of political nihilism that leaves the electorate stupefied as the imperium conducts its violent, illegal business.

A truly vulgar graphic artist named Kii Arens now gives us a Kamala Harris campaign poster that is a beyond-belief case in point.

This is “Kamala” against a pastel field, no surname necessary, the presidential candidate as a striding figure out of the 1960s counterculture, an heroic hippie. I hope you are ready for the tag line. It is “Vote Joy 2024.”

My mind was on other things when I first came across this poster. And it landed abruptly as an assault and an insult all at once.

Just glance at it for now: This is how some Democratic voters, and I suspect many, want to imagine a candidate who supports and advances, among various other late-imperial crimes, a genocide of world-historical significance.

The imagery seems, somehow, an almost criminal violation of human intelligence.

“There is always more, something worse, another step down into a sort of political nihilism that leaves the electorate stupefied as the imperium conducts its violent, illegal business.”

Kii Arens makes his living doing pop-art graphics — logos and such — for a lot of show business people and credits Saturday morning children’s television as his primary inspiration. Out in California he owns and runs the La La Land Gallery, which seems about right.

Kii Arens seems to take himself very seriously indeed. And it goes this way: Either Kii Arens has overestimated the gullibility, self-delusions and unconsciousness of liberal voters, especially those who consider themselves “progressive” or “left,” or I have underestimated the same.

I fear Kii Arens may have me on this one. “People are really excited about this poster,” he said in a brief video interview after giving away copies of it at the Democrats’ convention in Chicago. “People are connecting emotionally to my art.”

When I first saw the “Kamala” poster it was via a social media message Katrina vanden Heuvel sent out, with cheerful approval, on “X.”

Vanden Heuvel, as many readers will know, is the editorial director of The Nation. It is important to take note. In “Vote Joy 2024” we find the denouement of the long, pitiful story of what has become of the American “left” and why this term now requires quotation marks.

I have long thought politics can be usefully read as an expression of antecedent cultural and psychological phenomena.

Psychic Journey

This is how I view the Kii Arens poster and why I think it merits careful scrutiny: It is a window, or maybe a Rosetta Stone, in which we can read the coded interiority of the “left’s” psychic journey from the honorable commitments of earlier times to… to what?… to a state of willful political and intellectual immaturity.

Now study the poster for a good few minutes.

I JUST launched my Kamala print this morning! Here’s the link if you would like one… https://t.co/9gbF659uOi


— Kii Arens (@kiiarens) August 30, 2024

There is Harris, of course, in her standard pantsuit and pearls — the political candidate with whom we are familiar. She is serious and altogether credible, but wears that having-fun, sorority-sister smile that endears her to many Democratic voters.

There are the flowers splashed across the whole of the graphic. These are essential to the overall effect. They are the kind of flowers you see on the walls of grade-school art classes.

And they are “flower power” flowers. They bathe Harris in an aesthetic of innocence, with a subliminal suggestion of a childlike guiltlessness. Note Harris’s stride in this connection: It is purposeful, but with the air of a carefree girl walking in a garden.

And then the typefaces. The “Vote Joy 2024” in the lower right immediately draws the eye. It is subtly but unmistakably a reference to the posters associated with the late – ’60s rock scene — a variation on Psychedelic Fillmore West and Psychedelic Fillmore East (which, believe it or not, are two recognized typefaces).

Kii Arens has added a couple of small touches I must mention for the sheer fun of them. He has inscribed a faint paisley pattern into Harris’s presidential pantsuit. Paisley. Dwell upon paisley for a sec and see what you think this means.

And beneath the pantsuit he has Kamala Harris wearing canvas sneakers — those flimsy black Converse things favored by young people who are, to put it charitably, casually dressed.

Sheer fun: and if you think about it, a very pure case of pointedly manipulated imagery.

If I were a certain kind of columnist, I would say the poster Kii Arens has made to express his enthusiasm for the Harris campaign (which he now sells for $47, extra for framing) is, as was just shouted to me from across the room, “a complete mind-fuck.”

But I am not that kind of columnist. I will not say this poster, with all its flower power iconography in behalf of a warmonger, is a complete mind-fuck.

I would say the physiologically ambitious intent of this poster is to perform the act of love on the cerebral cavity. Way more acceptable for a family publication such as Consortium News.

I do not know whether the Harris campaign commissioned this thing. I suspect they like it well enough but did not order it up. In the video interview mentioned above, Kii Arens comes over as an averagely guileless, averagely indoctrinated liberal with no clue of the diabolic cynicism with which the Democratic Party is inventing Kamala Harris of whole cloth.

My read: “Vote Joy 2024” comes straight out of Kii Arens’s unconscious, and this is what makes it interesting. It is fair enough, and useful, if we think of Arens as the id of those “progressive” and “left”–inclined voters the Harris campaign must seduce if “Kamala” is to win in November.

I do not know how many Democratic voters buy into the various signifiers Arens has inscribed into his poster. I suspect he speaks for very many — someone should check his sales — but let us set this aside.

His work is certainly a disturbing measure of the extent to which those who could well propel Harris to the White House in November are prepared to delude themselves into seeing things in Kamala Harris that are simply not there.

“My art is supposed to reflect positivity, hope, and joy,” Arens says in the videoed interview. There are a lot of Democrats looking for just these things in the figure of Kamala Harris. But this is not the remark of an aware or self-aware American in the late-summer of 2024. It is the remark of someone who is determinedly neither.

Kii Arens has slathered on the semiology in his “Vote Joy 2024” poster with a trowel. Semiology is the science of signs, of significations. In what signs is Kii Arens trafficking?

As an aesthetic object the Arens poster is crude, but this is of no matter. It is dense with many-layered signifiers, and these are what matter.

There are important insights to be gained as we examine these layers and discover what, taken together, they have to say — about the long regression at the left-hand end of America’s politics, about liberal and “left” voters’ fears, fantasies, and failures of nerve.

Here is the Brittanica definition of “flower power.” It is a good place to begin.

“Flower power: the belief that war is wrong and that people should love each other and lead peaceful lives — used especially to refer to the beliefs and culture of young people (called hippies) in the 1960s and 1970s.”

Instantly we learn something.

We have heard daily talk of “joy” and “vibes” since the Democratic Party’s elites and donors undemocratically imposed Kamala Harris as their 2024 candidate.

And now we find, via an admittedly goofy but probably representative Harris voter with an amateur gift for social psychology, that beneath all this compulsive “positivity” there seems to lie a strong streak of nostalgia.

Why, the obvious question, do the liberal voters for whom Arens speaks, or to whom he speaks, or both, indulge in a nostalgia for a time they never knew?

Why is it important that they identify so strongly with those whose political and cultural commitments, however gauzily recalled, gave the 1960s the reputation the decade has in the public consciousness.

Nostalgic Retreat


Harris at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, in August. (Gage Skidmore, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Why the historical reference? Answer this and we can see into the strange dynamic driving the wave of enthusiasm for the Harris campaign as it floats along on puffy clouds of joy and good vibes.

Nostalgia, I have long argued, is at bottom a symptom of depression. Nostalgists are those who retreat into the past as a refuge from a present they find in one or another way unbearable.

And here I offer a corollary thought: The sensation of powerlessness is a primary cause of depression. Any good psychiatrist would confirm this.

With this in mind, think about all those people “connecting emotionally” to Kii Arens’s iconography, and then all the others who may not have not seen it but would similarly identify with it. That these people are in some inchoate way nostalgic is beyond argument.

The follow-on conclusion seems to me equally evident: All the talk of joy and vibes is at bottom a mask for a more or less prevalent depression people cannot admit to themselves they suffer.

As the Britannica notes in its stuffy, wooden fashion, “peace” and “love” were among the totemic terms that characterized the 1960s counterculture Arens unsubtly references. But you cannot, plain and simple, walk around today talking of either and expect to be taken seriously.

Ours is not a polity that gives any credence to notions of peace and neighborly love. This is absolutely out.

Propagandists and ideologues have long since transformed mainstream American culture — since the Reagan years, I would say — into a culture of war and animus.

And so we return to joy and vibes. These are excellent terms for those given to fantastic readings of Kamala Harris.

To stand for peace and love 50 or 60 years ago was to challenge what people used to call “the establishment.” They had meanings, however angelic were those professing these things.

“Joy” and “vibes” have no meanings. This is why they have caught on like fires in a dry forest. They do not signify challenges to anything; they license an extraordinary flinch from everything.

Everything: American participation in a genocide, the proxy war in Ukraine, the incessant and increasingly dangerous provocations of China, the brutalizing sanctions against Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, and all such serious matters of policy.

“’Joy’ and ‘vibes’ have no meanings. This is why they have caught on like fires in a dry forest.”

There is no need to think about any of this. There is, indeed, an unwritten code that the crises of our time, America’s leaders responsible for all of them, are neither to be thought about nor mentioned.

It is brilliant, I would say, this mutilation of logic and reasoning. There is something for everyone in it.

For the Harris campaign the childish nonsense of joy and vibes is a diabolically effective blind. Behind it Harris’ people — and Kamala Harris is nothing more than the sum total of her advisers — can commit to the imperium’s foreign policies without the bother of public scrutiny.

Just leave all that to us: This is the message the Harris people have as they flatly refuse to take up any of the questions that matter most to the imperium’s citizens.

And for those subscribing to the joy-and-vibes ethos, from Katrina vanden Heuvel on down, this is a twofer.

They can persuade themselves they will stand against the established order by voting for the established order. Tell me you know anyone who has deceived himself or herself so cleverly as this.

And while arranging the wilted flowers in their hair, those populating the joy-and-vibes crowd can pretend to celebrate a state of elation while acquiescing to their candidate’s approval of mass murder.

This is important to these people, for they must at all costs avoid facing their utter powerlessness, and so their subliminal depression, as they succumb once more to voting for an evil it is a stretch to consider the lesser of anything.

Sacrifice & Risk

One question lingers as I glance again at the Kii Arens poster. What under the sun happened to the American left between its years at the barricades in the service of honorable causes and this, its time of weak-minded gutlessness?

When did it pass from left to “left”? There is a book in the answer to this, the interior history of several generations, but I will keep this brief.

One of the remarkable features of the antiwar and anti-imperialist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, along with the principled feminists of those years, was the willingness of so many people to accept the necessity of sacrifice. Sacrifice and risk, I would say.

“What … happened to the American left between its years at the barricades in the service of honorable causes and this, its time of weak-minded gutlessness?”

Such people understood: If you cannot stand for what you think is right and accept all the consequences attaching to being authentically who you are, your thoughts and being are of no use. You understood the necessity of living beyond the fence posts, having concluded nothing of worth could get done within them if your intent was to work for genuine change.

And so one gave up well-paid employment, or life in a good neighborhood, or holidays along the coast of Maine, or whatever else comprised one’s version of middle-class privilege.

A certain precarity often accompanied these choices. Your car was a clunker. The heat pipes clanked.

Gradually over many years, the energy and commitment — the commitment to committing, let’s say — faded.

I saw this in people younger than I as early as the mid–1970s. People wanted to think of themselves as “activist,” as “committed,” as standing for “change,” as — totemic word here — as “movement.” But careers came first. The thought took hold that one could get the worthy work done inside the fence posts and without taking any risks.


Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1939. (Bundesarchiv, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Deitrich Bonhoffer, the celebrated German pastor who paid with his life for his resistance to the Reich, used to speak and write of cheap grace and costly grace.

The former means, in secular terms, the pretense of an honorable life without sacrifice. The latter is the opposite: To earn costly grace means to live and work honorably and paying whatever price one must for it.

I am talking about the difference between the two as this came to be at the left-hand side of the garden over the past 50 or so years.

A book I began reading last spring bears very well on this question. Anne Dufournmantelle, a greatly respected psychoanalyst who died tragically at 53 in 2017, published Éloge du risque (Payott & Rivage) in 2011; Fordham University Press brought it out as In Praise of Risk eight years later. After sitting on my shelf for several years, this has made its way among the most important books of my life.

We cannot live authentic lives unless we accept the constant presence of risk, Dufourmantelle argued over the course of 51 brief chapters (which do not have to be read in order).

She means the risks inherent as we make all our choices — risks in relationships, risks in our victories and surrenders, risks in our public lives as well as our private, the risks altogether in how we live.

And the greatest of all risks, Dufourmantelle writes, is the first one we must take if we are to take all the others. This is the risk we take when we overcome our fear of life and determine to live.

It is, she says, “the risk of not dying.” And by not-dying she means refusing the death in life to which most people succumb as they surrender to conformity, or to inaction, or to our paranoiac addiction to total certainty.

And so to my concluding point.

Kii Arens is merely a product of his moment, not to be singled out as anything more. His poster is a cultural text. This is testimony to the vulgarization of American public discourse, but it nonetheless — or maybe for this reason — bears interpretation.

Among other things, the iconography of his poster reminds us that the Harris-for-president campaign is in considerable measure a psychological phenomenon.

I read “Vote Joy 2024” not as a celebration of the Harris-for-president project but as an implicit admission of what is absent from it. It is a document recording, in the simplest terms, the regret of those who have refused the risk of not dying while envying those before them who took it.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/06/p ... nostalgia/

I guess since 'Hope' worked for Obama they figure another go at vapidness is a sure winner.

"Cartoon Theatrics", great phrase and totally applicable to the 'assassination attempt' on Trump.

******



It’s The Trump Party Vs The Cheney Party

One of earth’s most evil living beings, Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney, has officially endorsed Kamala Harris for president.

Caitlin Johnstone


One of earth’s most evil living beings, Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney, has officially endorsed Kamala Harris for president. His daughter, Liz Cheney, has also endorsed Harris.

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” said the former vice president in a statement, adding, “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Cheney was a charter signatory to the notorious neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, and as vice president played a leading role in the George W Bush administration’s soaring warmongering, militarism and authoritarianism, including most famously the invasion of Iraq. He has the blood of millions of people on his hands, and he should be living out the rest of his miserable life in a cage.

His daughter Liz is an equally bloodthirsty warmonger who has spent her career pushing for mass military slaughter at every opportunity. After the Israeli assault on Gaza began last year she went on CNN to declare that all deaths which occur in the onslaught are “the responsibility of Hamas”, that protests against Israel’s actions are “antisemitic” in nature, and that the US should escalate against Iran and the Houthis because of their oppositional posture toward Israel.


The Cheneys join a growing list of formerly Republican warmongers who are migrating to the Democratic Party in droves to support Harris. Last month hundreds of staffers who served under Republicans George W Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney signed a letter endorsing Harris, saying that “re-electing President Trump would be a disaster for our nation.”

“Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies,” the group writes, adding, “We can’t let that happen.”

It is here worth noting that contrary to the narratives circulated in both mainstream Democrat-aligned media and mainstream Republican-aligned media, Donald Trump actually spent his entire term ramping up aggressions against Russia and helped pave the way to the war in Ukraine. He also promoted many longstanding warmongering agendas against official enemies of the US empire like Iran, Syria, and Venezuela. But even Trump’s insane hawkishness is insufficient for these freaks.

In June of 2022, author Sarah Kendzior made the following predictions on the Gaslit Nation podcast:

“I’m gonna wrap this up with a warning, which is that there is a new plan for our already broken two-party system. The plan is to have two parties. One, a batshit crazy MAGA party led by Trump or DeSantis that will bulldoze your rights. And the second one will be a far-right “respectable” party led by Liz Cheney that will also bulldoze your rights. They will call the Cheney party the Democrats and pretend that a creeping capitulation to a right-wing agenda is some kind of act of healing bipartisanship.”

…

“When I mentioned this possibility on Twitter, someone wrote to me, ‘Liz Cheney is not becoming a Democrat.’ And I replied, ‘I agree. The Democrats are becoming Cheneys.’”


This is more or less what appears to have been happening, and it actually started several years ago. During the 2016 Trump campaign a bunch of neoconservative warmongers switched from defending George W Bush as a saint and decrying Obama as an Ayatollah lover, and began pivoting to endorse Hillary Clinton instead. After Trump won, this coalition between Democrats and Bush-era neocons grew even stronger with the creation of new Democratic think tank projects led by Iraq-raping neocons like Bill Kristol.

So now we’re seeing two warmongering oligarchic parties shoving the Overton window of acceptable opinion as far in the direction of imperialism, militarism and tyranny as possible under the leadership of some of the very worst people alive. By doing this they ensure that these matters are never on the ballot, and that elections are always about issues the powerful are completely indifferent toward like abortion and trans rights instead.

Progressives who want healthcare and a ceasefire in Gaza are being dismissed and ignored while alliances are being made with the world’s most blood-soaked imperialists. Things have been shoved so far to the right that this election is now a showdown between the Trump Party against the Cheney Party, and no matter who wins, the empire wins.

A lot of fuss will probably be made about election-rigging after the results are announced in November, with the loser declaring that the results are the result of Russian interference or Deep State vote tampering depending on who that loser happens to be. But remember this: the worst election rigging is happening right out in the open, to ensure that oligarchs and empire managers are happy with either outcome.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/09 ... ney-party/

What more do ya need to know?

[blindpig]

Dick Cheney is a Horrible Human Being, and His Endorsement Should Be Seen as a Negative
Posted on September 8, 2024 by Lambert Strether

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Starting with the headline: “Harris ‘honored’ by endorsement from Republican Dick Cheney.” For those who came in late:

On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2001, after Justice Antonin Scalia had selected former Texas Republican Governor, dry drunk, ritually branded Yalie, and Christianist George W. Bush as President in Bush v. Gore (“good for one time only“), the country’s Vice President became former Secretary of Defense and Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney. (After Bush was nominated, he had set up a selection committee for Vice President, chaired by Dick Cheney, and, perhaps surprisingly, ended up picking Cheney himself.) 2018’s Oscar-winning Vice (with Christian Bale as Dick Cheney) despite — or perhaps because of — being a “political satire black comedy” gives a reasonably accurate high-level description of what happened next. From the Summary:

The story of Dick Cheney, an unassuming bureaucratic Washington insider, who quietly wielded immense power as Vice President to George W. Bush, reshaping the country and the globe in ways that are still felt today.

(Cheney has been described as Bush’s Chief Operating Officer, though Cheney himself concedes his influence waned in Bush’s second term). And the Synopsis:

The film returns to the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, as Cheney and Rumsfeld maneuver to initiate and then preside over the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, resulting in the killing of civilians and the torture of prisoners. As the War on Terror mounts, Cheney continues to struggle with persistent heart attacks. The film also covers various events from his vice presidency, including his endorsement of the Unitary executive theory, the Plame affair, the accidental shooting of Harry Whittington, and tensions between the Cheney sisters over same-sex marriage. Cheney’s actions are shown to lead to thousands of deaths and the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, resulting in him receiving record-low approval ratings by the end of the Bush administration.

In this post, for those curious as to why Harris would be “honored” by Cheney’s endorsement, I want to dig a little bit deeper into a few of the more aromatic episodes of Cheney’s tenure, which started just prior to the emergence of the blogosphere. Here’s hoping none of the work done in those days has succumbed to link rot! In order of increasing damage to the country’s institutions and global standing, I will cover the Harry Whittington shooting, Cheney’s adoption of torture as a tool of statecraft, Cheney’s role in fomenting the Iraq War debacle using what we would today call disinformation, and the billions gushing to his former company, Halliburton. All this stuff was difficult and horrid for us “foul-mouthed bloggers of the left” to disentangle at the time, and to see Cheney “honored”… Well, it’s a bit much. Anyhow, here’s a photo of Cheney in case you want to hang it on your kitchen refrigerator or something:



The upward gaze into the brighter future that seems obligatory for Democrats these days…

Cheney Shoots an Old Man in the Face

From Dan Froomkin, back when he was a blogger at WaPo in 2006, with the best headline ever: “Shoots, Hides and Leaves“:

Why isn’t Dick Cheney on TV right now?

The vice president of the United States shoots someone in a hunting accident and rather than immediately come clean to the public, his office keeps it a secret for almost a whole day. Even then, it’s only to confirm a report in a local paper.

“The shooting occurred late Saturday afternoon while Cheney was hunting with Harry Whittington, 78, a prominent Austin lawyer, on the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas. Hearing a covey of birds, Cheney shot at one, not realizing that Whittington had startled the quail and that he was in the line of fire.”

Frank James asks in the Chicago Tribune Washington bureau’s new blog: “How is it that Vice President Cheney can shoot a man, albeit accidentally, on Saturday during a hunting trip and the American public not be informed of it until today? . . .

“When a vice president of the U.S. shoots a man under any circumstance, that is extremely relevant information. What might be the excuse to justify not immediately making the incident public?”

Greg Mitchell writes in Editor and Publisher that “it is not known for certain that Cheney’s office, the White House, or anyone else intended to announce the shooting” had it not been for a call from the local paper.

Why indeed? ‘Tis a mystery! (Fascinatingly, Whittington apologized to Cheney.) Seventeen years later, WaPo follows up with “The thing Harry Whittington refused to lie about” and gets the details of the accident:

When he returned, Whittington was holding an odd object on a hanger. It was an orange safety, slit down the side as if someone was in a hurry to remove it. There were brownish splotches of dried blood on it.

For the next few hours, he told me what happened that day — at least what he could remember of it before he’d passed out from his wounds.

Whittington barely knew Cheney; they weren’t “friends” or “hunting buddies,” as news accounts described them. They’d met only a few times before, and had been invited to the ranch by its owner, a mutual friend.

It was late, around 5:30 p.m., and the February light was fading when Cheney fired his errant shot. Whittington said he had been standing slightly downhill and off to Cheney’s right, his body angled in Cheney’s direction.

Though Whittington wouldn’t say so explicitly, his description suggested that Cheney had violated two fundamental safety protocols. First, in wheeling on a bird winging from the scrub, Cheney had fired without checking if his line of fire was clear. Second, he’d aimed downward, ignoring a rule obliging bird hunters to observe “blue sky” before firing..

The aftermath of the shooting was calamitous. The ambulance that carried the unconscious Whittington from the massive ranch to a hospital blew a tire. The trip took close to an hour.

The injuries he’d suffered were far worse than initially reported. The blast hit Whittington with more than 200 pieces of lead birdshot, causing scores of wounds across his eye socket, hairline, neck and torso. One piece lodged near his heart and caused a mild heart attack a few days later. One of his lungs collapsed. Another piece narrowly missed his carotid artery. He nearly bled out.

Whittington recounted these details without anger or sadness. It was an accident, he insisted, and Dick Cheney was a good man.

After talking for nearly 10 hours, I had one last question. Had Cheney ever apologized?

Whittington leveled his gaze at me.

“I’m not going to get into that,” he said after a short pause.

His face was set. I could sense his discomfort.

Harry Whittington wouldn’t lie. He was too gracious for that.

To me, the 24-hour delay reeks. And Cheney’s extraordinary arrogance and sense of privilege isn’t all that might have reeked, either. Perhaps hunters in the readership may with to comment on this. So, “honored.” Really?

Cheney Normalizes Torture

Once again, Froomkin in WaPo from 2008, “White House Torture Advisers“:

Top Bush aides, including Vice President Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement, according to an ABC News report aired last night.

Discussions were so detailed, ABC’s sources said, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft.

According to ABC, the CIA briefed the White House group on its plans to use aggressive techniques against Zubaydah and received explicit approval. Zubaydah is one of the three detainees the CIA has since confirmed were subjected to waterboarding, a notorious torture technique that amounts to controlled drowning.

Such techniques were later authorized in a controversial August 2002 Justice Department memo, signed by then head of the Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee. ABC reports that the memo “was referred to as the so-called ‘Golden Shield’ for CIA agents, who worried they would be held liable if the harsh interrogations became public.”

Nevertheless, even after the memo was in place, “briefings and meetings in the White House to discuss individual interrogations continued, sources said. Tenet, seeking to protect his agents, regularly sought confirmation from the NSC principals that specific interrogation plans were legal.

And the happy outcome:

Zubaydah, it turns out, was a mentally ill minor functionary, nursed back to health by the FBI, who under CIA torture sent investigators chasing after false leads about al-Qaeda plots on American nuclear plants, water systems, shopping malls, banks and supermarkets.

(It has always been my speculation that Cheney had videos of the torture sessions streamed directly to his office. He always did like his intelligence raw.) Cheney had previously arranged to “legalize” torture by securing guidance from a bent lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, John Yoo

So, [Cheney] established a back channel to John Yoo, the No. 2 man in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Little known to the public, that office tells the president and his subordinates what they can and can’t do under existing law. And with guidance from Cheney and his chief counsel, David Addington, Yoo wrote legal opinions that authorized everything from waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics previously considered torture, to domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency without first getting permission from the court set up to approve such surveillance.

(This post won’t even address Bush’s program of warrantless surveillance, which Obama voted to retroactively legalize as a Senator — after promising to filibuster it — and which paved the way for today’s Censorship Industrial Complex).

The Democrat Party platform in 2020 (PDF) rejected torture:



(On illegal, see here.)

The Democrat Party platform in 2024 (PDF) has nothing to say about it:



One might speculate Democrats are now silent on — i.e., accepting of — torture because they wish to attract the (unrepentant, pro-torture) Cheney wing of the Republican Party, or because they don’t want to upset Israel, which tortures routinely. Or perhaps they don’t want to offend Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel, since the Chicago Police Department’s torture center at Homan Square operated on his watch. Or all three!

On the morality of torture, I think the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy has a good all-round discussion of the topic, comparing and contrasting it to murder:

On the moral wrongness of torture as compared to killing, the following points can be made. First, torture is similar to killing in that both interrupt and render impossible the normal conduct of human life, albeit the latter – but not the former – necessarily forever. But equally during the period a person is being tortured (and in some cases thereafter) the person’s world is almost entirely taken up by extreme pain and their asymmetrical power relationship to the torturer, i.e. the torture victim’s powerlessness. Indeed, given the extreme suffering being experienced and the consequent loss of autonomy, the victim would presumably rather be dead than alive during that period. So, as already noted, torture is a very great evil. However, it does not follow from this that being killed is preferable to being tortured. Nor does it follow that torturing someone is morally worse than killing him….. A second point pertains to the powerlessness of the victims of torture. Dead people necessarily have no autonomy or power; so killing people is an infringement of their right to autonomy as well as their right to life. What of the victims of torture?

The person being tortured is for the duration of the torturing process physically powerless in relation to the torturer. By “physically powerless” two things are meant: the victim is defenceless, i.e., the victim cannot prevent the torturer from torturing the victim, and the victim is unable to attack, and therefore physically harm, the torturer. …

The conclusion to be drawn from these considerations is that torture is not necessarily morally worse than killing (or more undesirable than death), though in many instances it may well be. Killing is an infringement of the right to life and the right to autonomy. Torture is an infringement of the right to autonomy, but not necessarily of the right to life. Moreover, torture is consistent with the retrieval of the victim’s autonomy, whereas killing is not. On the other hand, the period during which the victim is being tortured is surely worse than not being alive during that time, and torture can in principle extend for the duration of the remainder of a person’s life.

As at Gitmo (and I’m so old I remember when Obama promised to close it. Oh well). I don’t want to sidetrack the post into a fruitless discussion of the “ticking bomb” scenario[1]. Pragmatically and in the moment, “honored”? We’re honoring torturers now? Really?

Cheney Foments the Iraq War

The post-9/11 2002-2003 run-up to the Iraq War was marked by a disinformation campaign run by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which orchestrated planting stories in the press (which we poor bloggers played whack-a-mole with, with great success, but with no effect on outcomes). Cheney didn’t chair the WHIG, but was above it on the masthead, and propagated its disinformation. From the Atlantic (2011), “Remembering Why Americans Loathe Dick Cheney“:

President Bush bears ultimate responsibility for the Iraq War, as do the members of Congress who voted for it. But Dick Cheney’s role in the run-up to war was uniquely irresponsible and mendacious. And after the invasion, he contributed to the early dysfunction on the ground. Even Iraq War supporters should rue his involvement.

The most succinct statement of his misdeeds comes from “The People v. Richard Cheney,” a 2007 article by Wil S. Hylton. The piece recounts how Cheney undercut the CIA by instructing subordinates in that agency to stovepipe raw intelligence directly to his office. He also worked with Donald Rumsfeld to establish an alternative intelligence agency within the Pentagon. Both of these actions directly contributed to the faulty information that informed the decision to go to war.

Hylton then lays out his most powerful argument:

(1) During the several months preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, and thereafter, the vice president became aware that no certain evidence existed of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a fact articulated in several official documents, including: (a) A report by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, concluding that “there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has—or will—establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.” (b) A National Intelligence Estimate, compiled by the nation’s intelligence agencies, admitting to “little specific information” about chemical weapons in Iraq. (c) A later section of the same NIE, admitting “low confidence” that Saddam Hussein “would engage in clandestine attacks against the U.S. Homeland,” and equally “low confidence” that he would “share chemical or biological weapons with al-Qa’ida.” (d) An addendum by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, asserting that Hussein’s quest for yellowcake uranium in Africa was “highly dubious” and that his acquisition of certain machine parts, considered by some to be evidence of a nuclear program, were “not clearly linked to a nuclear end use.” (e) A report by the United States Department of Energy, stating that the machinery in question was “poorly suited” for nuclear use.

(2) Despite these questions and uncertainties, and having full awareness of them, the vice president nevertheless proceeded to misrepresent the facts in his public statements, claiming that there was no doubt about the existence of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq and that a full-scale nuclear program was known to exist, including: (a) March 17, 2002: “We know they have biological and chemical weapons.” (b) March 19, 2002: “We know they are pursuing nuclear weapons.” (c) March 24, 2002: “He is actively pursuing nuclear weapons.” (d) May 19, 2002: “We know he’s got chemical and biological … we know he’s working on nuclear.” (e) August 26, 2002: “We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons … Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” (f) March 16, 2003: “We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

(3) At the same time, despite overwhelming skepticism within the government of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda—resulting in the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission that “no credible evidence” for such a link existed, and the CIA’s determination that Hussein “did not have a relationship” with Al Qaeda—the vice president continued to insist that the relationship had been confirmed, including: (a) December 2, 2002: “His regime has had high-level contacts with Al Qaeda going back a decade and has provided training to Al Qaeda terrorists.” (b) January 30, 2003: “His regime aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda. He could decide secretly to provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for use against us.” (c) March 16, 2003: “We know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the Al Qaeda organization.” (d) September 14, 2003: “We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on biological weapons and chemical weapons.” (e) October 10, 2003: “He also had an established relationship with Al Qaeda—providing training to Al Qaeda members in areas of poisons, gases, and conventional bombs.” (f) January 9, 2004: “Al Qaeda and the Iraqi intelligence services … have worked together on a number of occasions.” (g) January 22, 2004: “There’s overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government” (h) June 18, 2004: “There clearly was a relationship. It’s been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming.”

The piece also charges that “as the war devolved into occupation, the vice president again sabotaged the democratic system, developing back channels into the Coalition Provisional Authority, a body not under his purview, to remove some of the most effective staff and replace them with his own loyal supplicants—undercutting America’s best effort at war in order to expand his own power.”

And that’s before we get to PNAC, Curveball, the aluminum tubes… See the timeline: “Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq.” Cheney was up to his eyeballs in all of it. Why would anyone feel “honored” by the endorsement of such a person?

Cheney Hands Billions of Federal Dollars to His Former Firm, Halliburton

This charming old-school blog from an anonymous computer scientist at Cornell has a fine timeline:

2. Early 1990 to 1993. Cheney, as Secretary of Defense, commissions Halliburton to do a classified (secret) study concerning replacing the U.S. military’s logistics by work done by private companies. Halliburton says, yes, a company can do the work. In August 1992, with essentially no bidding, Halliburton is selected by the US Army Corps of Engineers to do all work needed to support the military for the next five years! Thereafter, Halliburton (or its subsidiary KBR) and its military logistics business escalated rapidly. In the ten years thereafter revenues totaled $2.5 billion.

3. 1995-2000. Cheney is CEO of Halliburton….

9. December 2001. KBR (Halliburton subsidiary) is granted an open-ended contract for Army troops supply and Navy construction, wherever U.S. troops go, for the next 10 years (so far, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Yemen, Iraq). This unique contract has no ceiling on cost. KBR is reimbursed for every dollar spent plus a base fee of 1 percent, which guarantees profit. Plus, they can get a bonus as a percentage of company costs.

As TruthDig wrote (2018), “The Blurred Line Between War and Business“:

In 2009, Rand Paul called out Dick Cheney for supporting the invasion of Iraq to benefit his former company, Halliburton, claiming that Halliburton had received a billion-dollar no-bid contract. KBR, or Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, was neck-deep in military contracts with the United States government, under a no-bid LOGCAP III (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) agreement, a contingency-based contract invoked at the convenience of the Army. Let’s not forget that the official narrative of weapons of mass destruction was the lie sold to the American people to justify an oligarchical class growing wealthier through creating war.

In November 2002, a $7 billion LOGCAP contract was given to KBR for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq. In 2003, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a public bid contract with a maximum value of $1.2 billion to KBR to continue repairing the oil infrastructure in southern Iraq. In 2004, the Army Corps handed KBR yet another contract, with the value of $1.5 billion, to cover engineering services in the U.S. Central Command’s area of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The contract had a $500 million ceiling for the first year and four one-year options, each with an annual ceiling of $250 million. In 2004, KBR received more orders under the LOGCAP contract for work in Afghanistan, which added up to $489 million. And then there is the $400 million in payments KBR made in subcontracting private securities services like Blackwater in Iraq.

In 2004, the public was made aware of Halliburton’s monopoly on billions of dollars in Iraq contracts and in the accumulation of tremendous influence over state matters. Or as Rand warned: the dangerous powers given to large corporations when they “get so big that they can actually be directing policy.” The funneling of vast fortunes to KBR was an egregious problem the government ignored. Major media also gave a pass to these contracts, with no questions asked about the larger structures within government that made this all possible.

In total, $138 billion was awarded in federal funds to private contractors for the Iraq War, with Halliburton receiving more than $39.5 billion of the federal contracts related to the Iraq military invasion and occupation between 2003 and 2013.

Back in 2004, Democrat loser John Kerry called out Cheney in the following terms. From the New York Times:

At a community center in Albuquerque on Sept. 17, Mr. Kerry declared: “Dick Cheney’s old company Halliburton has profited from the mess in Iraq at the expense of American troops and taxpayers. While Halliburton has been engaging in massive overcharging and wasteful practices under this no-bid contract, Dick Cheney has continued to receive compensation from his former company.”

But:

Mr. Cheney’s critics concede that there is no concrete evidence that he has pulled any strings on Halliburton’s behalf.

I think both Kerry and the Times have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. What the timeline I led with implies is that Cheney “set the table” as Defense Secretary for private contractors to make enormous profits from war, then arranged for compensatoin (deferred and otherwise) from one of those contractors, and then “furnished the war” as Vice President (which besides economic capital, surely gained him enormous social capital as well). Why would Cheney’s endorsement be “an honor?” It’s like being endorsed by Tony Soprano after a successful bust-out.

Conclusion

I didn’t even get to the Energy Task Force. Sorry.

Dick Cheney is a torturer, a lying weasel, and corrupt to the bone. (Plus, he’s bad with a gun.) He’s everything that we innocent bloggers, back in 2003, thought that Republicans were, and that Democrats could never be. Cheney is certainly far worse than Trump, and arguably worse than Obama (I’m not sure how to weigh rebooting the financial system after the Great Financial Crash vs. the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). As those peaceniks over that the Babylon Bee put it: “‘Never Has America Faced A Greater Threat Than Donald Trump,’ Says Guy Who Started Two Wars And Shot A Dude In The Face.” Yet here we are. Democrats are all aflutter:

Protect Kamala Harris
@DisavowTrump20
·
Follow
NEW: The entire Cheney family is voting for Kamala Harris.

RETWEET if you stand with the Cheneys against Donald Trump!

(Ah, “stand with,” no less focus-grouped than “fighting for.”) The Democrats are even hoping for a Bush endorsement:

Claude Taylor
@TrueFactsStated
·
Follow
Hello? Isn’t there something you need to say? Everyone is waiting…

Sadly, no.

I remain baffled at the use of the word “honored.” How could anyone feel “honored” by the endorsement of such a person? Honor: “honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions.” Though I suppose it depends on what your beliefs, if any, actually are. Hamilton Nolan writes:

I believe Dick Cheney’s own explanation that “We have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.” Before you scoff, please allow me to explain. Dick Cheney is one of America’s best living representations of the fluidity of establishment power. Congressional staffer, White House staffer, presidential assistant, White House Chief of Staff, Congressman, Secretary of Defense, corporate CEO, vice president. Dick Cheney is not so much “a Republican” as he is “a man in power.” He ascended the ranks of government power in a friendly administration and then when the administration was gone he got elected to Congress and then he leveled up in another friendly administration and then when that was gone he slid over to running a major corporation that was wholly intertwined with the United States government and finally he leveled up into the White House by standing behind a more likable patsy who he could control.

All of us who vote for Democrats need to understand what we are getting. Our feeling of moral superiority on domestic policy—we are the ones against racism and poverty! We are the ones who protect women!—is at all times floating atop an unmentioned sea of weapons pointed at millions of less powerful people outside of our own borders.

Even among Democrats, the baseline assumption that America must have enough guns to exert our will on the entire world is not questioned. Kamala Harris may push for paid family leave, but she is not going to dismantle the United States intelligence agencies.

It’s not that Donald Trump has any ideological opposition to this commitment, which the Republicans have always embraced with relish. It’s just that he’s insane [disagree] and an unpredictable egomaniac [agree] and therefore cannot be counted on to fulfill his role on this matter [hard agree]. Trump has found himself in a feud with America’s intelligence agencies strictly out of personal vanity and prickliness. He is the sort of man who might undermine the CIA or fuck up the Army’s plans for the stupidest, most childish reasons imaginable. This possibility is more than the sort of people who live in that world can tolerate. They may prefer a Republican, but they need, above all, someone predictable. Someone who will not try to undermine the entire system. In this race, that person is Kamala Harris. And so Dick Cheney and the men like him will support Kamala Harris.

Yes, but honor?!

NOTES

[1] In the cases we are discussing, what gives the ticking bomb scenario an aura of credibility is the presence of the State (surely privatized torture is never, ever moral). But what that means is that there is always a torturer, and always an order-giver. I think the default setting for the order-giver is that they are power-crazed fools, for whom our system is optimized. If all state systems are similarly and inherently so optimized, then torture can never be moral, not even under the most exigent circumstances, because no order-giver can rightly treat the circumstances as known (see Zubaydah above).

APPENDIX Cheney’s Endorsement Statement

Cheney’s statement:



https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09 ... ative.html

Bolding added

[blindpig]

Democrats Don’t Care If You Vote For Them And Don’t Care If They Lose

Now that the election is closer and the Democrats have switched out Biden for Harris, I feel like I should reiterate my position that you’re not actually punishing the Democrats if you refuse to vote for them in November. I often see people talking…

Caitlin Johnstone
September 10, 2024

Now that the election is closer and the Democrats have switched out Biden for Harris, I feel like I should reiterate my position that you’re not actually punishing the Democrats if you refuse to vote for them in November. I often see people talking about making the Democratic Party pay a price for Gaza and for ignoring calls from progressives to end the genocide, but it doesn’t actually work that way. They don’t care.

They don’t care if you don’t vote for them. They don’t care if they lose. Their political careers will be fine either way.

It’s entirely okay and legitimate to not vote for Democrats, but don’t let that act dupe you into thinking your vote matters. It doesn’t matter how you vote, and it doesn’t matter how you don’t vote. The US power structure is set up to be completely unaffected by voters. Acting like you could teach the Democrats a lesson by refusing to vote for them only feeds into the illusion that voting matters inside a power structure that has been deemed too important to be left to the hands of the voters.

There’s a viral tweet from Glenn Greenwald going around that says “The US has no functional president and has not had one for months, and it’s barely noticeable and barely matters because there’s a permanent unelected machine that runs the government.”

Greenwald is correct. Nobody with any real power cares all that much who the president is. The president doesn’t even need to have a functioning brain. This whole show is being run by people who don’t ultimately care all that much whether Democrats or Republicans are in office, including the party leadership of the Democrats and the Republicans.

You think Democrats have enjoyed playing the face of the evil empire these last few years? You think they’ve enjoyed having their political rallies interrupted by anti-genocide protesters and having their feel-good progressive image completely discredited in front of everyone? They’d all be having a lot more fun if the terrible things being perpetrated by the Biden administration were being done by Trump instead, so they could go back to playing the good guys.

They’re happy to lose, which is why they’re acting like they’re happy to lose. They’re doing absolutely nothing to appeal to progressives or energize their base. They’re not articulating any real policies besides more of the same. They’re not changing anything about any of the stuff that makes normal people hate Democrats in the year 2024, and if they lose again in November they will continue to not change anything.

Americans don’t live in the kind of country where votes matter. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. Vote or don’t vote however you want, but don’t make the mistake of believing you’ll be teaching the Democrats any kind of lesson that they will actually learn by doing so.

If real change comes to the United States, it won’t be because of how any Americans chose to vote or not vote in any of their fake elections. There are no solutions to these problems in electoral politics. Other solutions are needed.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/09 ... they-lose/

[blindpig]

Harris And Trump Debate Whatever

Tonight the U.S. will have an election debate and the media will accompany it with their usual horse race reporting.

The pre-debate attack on Donald Trump claims that his rambling way of public talking is a sign of his old age:

At 78, former President Donald J. Trump exhibits more energy and speaks with more volume than President Biden does at 81, but he, too, has mixed up names, confused facts and stumbled over his points. Mr. Trump’s rambling speeches, sometimes incoherent statements and extreme outbursts have raised questions about his own cognitive health and, according to polls, stimulated doubts among a majority of voters.

In 2016, during his first campaign, Trump also held rambling speeches, confused facts and stumbled over points. It was and is his special way of talking to crowds and his followers love him for it.

To now claim that this very unchanged style is a sign of old-age Trump is inconsistent with that history.

But the point will be repeated as soon as the debate is done.

Trump's program, as far as he has one, does not differ much from his previous one. Some social red meat for cultural conservatives and economic lunacies for libertarians. Add a few crud ideas he will soon forget about. I generally like his somewhat isolationist stand on foreign policy but there is little chance that any of it will be implemented should he win the election.

The be-partisan foreign policy blob which rules in Washington will sabotage any attempts to make peace with Russia and/or to discard NATO.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, is an empty vessel. Voters have never liked her. I have seen her nicknamed Incitata. It fits. The favorite horse of Roman Emperor Caligula was named Incitatus (from Latin 'incitare' - 'to encourage'):

According to Suetonius, in the Lives of the Twelve Caesars (121 AD), Caligula planned to make Incitatus a consul, and the horse would "invite" dignitaries to dine with him in a house outfitted with servants there to entertain such events. Suetonius also wrote that the horse had a stable of marble, with an ivory manger, purple blankets and a collar of precious stones.

Calligula's idea was to mock the Senate.

The blob is doing likewise with the public by offering someone who has no initiative of her own but will faithfully defend the implementation of anything the blob will desire. She is the most more-of-the-same candidate I can think of.

Harris and Trump are the two politicians with the most negative public ratings. That they are the only choices available makes the whole theater a mockery of the public.

One can conclude that U.S. is some form of oligarchy with a facade that is supposed to look like - but is not - a democracy.

Posted by b on September 10, 2024 at 16:51 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/09/h ... l#comments

*****

Harris and Trump Debate Maintenance of the Status Quo
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 11 Sep 2024


Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris shake hands before a presidential debate in Philadelphia, on September 10, 2024. Photo: Saul Loeb | AFP via Getty Images

The debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump featured a rehash of neo-liberal and imperialist talking points. Both are committed to disastrous policies domestically and internationally.

The United States' decline under oligarchic rule is brutally exposed every four years, as the duopoly parties differ on fewer issues and agree that the people’s needs stay far away from the political agenda. The 2024 election is no different, as the quality of candidates continues its downward trajectory with a former president who is hated by half the country but beloved by millions more running against a current vice president that no one voted for as a presidential candidate. Their September 10 debate was highly anticipated but not for very good reasons.

Kamala Harris entered the debate one day after finally putting cursory policy platform information on her website which had nothing but merchandise for sale and donation buttons for fifty days. It is hard to understand why she needed so much time to do what was an obvious copy and paste version of Joe Biden’s campaign website, but the odd decision-making is emblematic of this bizarre campaign season and her own lack of gravitas.

Just four days before the debate former vice president Dick Cheney endorsed Harris. Cheney was once a villain to liberals , the de facto president when he served under George W. Bush and the driving force behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Not only did he help to kill 1 million people, but it was a war from which he personally profited due to his connections to the Halliburton corporation, a major military contractor.

Cheney was loathed by liberals until January 6, 2021, when he and his congresswoman daughter Liz Cheney were quite vocal in their condemnations of Trump. True to form, liberals developed collective amnesia about their prior Cheney hatred and they suddenly elevated the right-wing family to revered status. Harris didn’t run from the endorsement, instead, she declared herself, “honored to have their endorsement” and praised the Cheneys for “putting the country before party.” Dick Cheney would not endorse someone who wasn’t pledged to continue the neo-liberal and imperialist project and clearly Harris sees the endorsement as being beneficial. Why shouldn’t she? KHive and Blue MAGA democrats continue being so completely indoctrinated that they don’t want to hear anything negative about her and corporate media are fully on her side.

Donald Trump sometimes rambles incoherently and gives the impression that he is experiencing cognitive decline like Joe Biden. Kamala Harris is younger and healthier, but she has also been promoted beyond her skill set and laughs nervously or has strange outbursts when she is unsure of herself. Trump often goes off script and Harris stumbles when speaking off the cuff. Debate anticipation was less about policy prescriptions than about who would make the better impression.

But ultimately good preparation was enough to win because the so-called moderators from ABC news had their thumbs firmly on the scale of orthodoxy when they posed questions about U.S. policy around the world. There was no effort to actually engage in debate. Instead, there were leading questions that asserted that the U.S. cannot be questioned in its actions. One example is this statement which was a clear expression of support for the idea that the U.S. should be the world's hegemonic and unipolar power. “Mr. President, it has been the position of the Biden administration that we must defend Ukraine from Russia, from Vladimir Putin, to defend their sovereignty, their democracy, that it's in America's best interest to do so, arguing that if Putin wins he may be emboldened to move even further into other countries.” Trump answered correctly when he said the war in Ukraine can and should end with negotiation. Harris of course revived Russiagate allegations by saying Trump would end the proxy war by just “giving up” Ukraine and that if Trump were president, “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv.”

It was Trump who brought up the fact that Biden’s actions regarding Ukraine could lead to World War III. Of course, he incorrectly said that “millions” of people have died in Ukraine but he also mentioned the very real threat of nuclear weapons. However, he did not mention that he, like every president of the last 20 years, unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from long-standing nuclear agreements with Russia and helped to create a very dangerous situation today.

While the moderators engaged in scaremongering about Vladimir Putin, Harris and Trump both went out of their way to express devotion to Israel. Harris claims she is working for a ceasefire in Gaza while simultaneously promising to continue weapons and money for Israel. She repeated calls for a two-state solution which Israel has repeatedly rejected and added threats against Iran for good measure. Trump dispenses with pretense and says he is and will remain Israel’s guy and claims that Harris “hates Israel.” He predicted that if Harris is elected, “...Israel will not exist within two years from now.”

Putin was cast as the all-purpose villain and Chinese president Xi Jinping also came in for criticism. Both Harris and Biden pledged to make the U.S. number one in chip production and Harris even blamed Xi for the spread of covid.

The subterfuge of alleged differences was not confined to Israel, Russia or China. Harris went out of her way to say that she wouldn’t ban fracking. Of course, fracking ought to be banned because it produces fossil fuels, contaminates water supplies, and even produces earthquakes. Harris went on to claim that democrats are concerned about climate change while simultaneously pledging to continue oil production. The moderators did not call out the inconsistency.

Overall the debate was a very sad affair. Trump made immigration the centerpiece of his remarks, claiming that crime is up in the U.S., even though it isn’t, because criminal aliens are amongst us. He repeatedly debunked claims of immigrants eating dogs and cats and being drug dealers and terrorists who will all try to vote. It was vintage Trump, meaning embarrassing, and Harris could only say that she favored a bipartisan immigration bill that featured the worst aspects of Trump policy that has resulted in more deportations under Biden than under Trump.

Supporting Israel will be a high-priority goal of a Harris or Biden administration. Democratic presidents have failed to codify the Roe v. Wade decision when they controlled Congress and could have done so. Harris’s claim of passing federal legislation rings hollow while Trump ranted that democrats were executing babies.

Perhaps the Kamala Harris image makers are right. She need only talk about joy while Trump says that protesters burned down Minneapolis, a city that actually still exists, while mentally ill immigrants run amok. The donors who as Trump says, “Threw Biden out of the campaign like a dog,” may have been right. Enough money and good press might be enough to put Kamala Harris in the white house.

https://blackagendareport.com/harris-an ... status-quo

If it were true that Israel would cease to exist 2 years after Harris is elected I'd proly vote for her...holding my nose.

[blindpig]

The Debate Was Two Assholes Bragging About What Murderous Empire Sluts They Are

If you missed the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, this was pretty much the tone of it: Trump: She’s a communist. She’s literally a Marxist. Harris: Actually Goldman Sachs loves me. Trump:…

Caitlin Johnstone
September 12, 2024

❖

If you missed the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, this was pretty much the tone of it:

Trump: She’s a communist. She’s literally a Marxist.

Harris: Actually Goldman Sachs loves me.

Trump: I saw her eat a cat. It was on the TV.

Harris: Dick Cheney loves me too.

Trump: She won’t kill any Palestinians at all.

Harris: I’ll kill way more Palestinians than he’ll kill.

Trump: I will kill the most Palestinians. I’ll kill more Palestinians than anyone.

Harris: You couldn’t kill even one Palestinian. You are weak.

Trump: I am not weak I am strong. I am the strongest.

Harris: You’re a weak little girl and you’ll let China win.

Trump: She’s gonna start a nuclear war with Russia.

Harris: I will invade Russia myself and I’ll kill Putin with my bare hands. I am the strongest and you are the weakest.

Trump: It’s not true. It’s not true.

Harris: I will also do the most fracking and drill the most oil. Many Republicans have said I’m the strongest.

Trump: No. No. She’s weak on immigration.

Harris: I kick immigrants in the balls for fun.

[commercial break]

❖

The presidential debate sucked and they were both horrible, but Harris clearly came out looking more coherent and in control. In other words, Harris did what anyone debating Trump should have been able to do on day one. The fact that it’s taken three whole election cycles to see a candidate dominate Trump in a basic presidential debate shows what braindead morons the Democrats have been serving up all these years.

As a debater, she did her job. As a presidential candidate, she showed why so many warmongering Republicans have been so eager to support her. She showed that she’s a Republican with pronouns in her bio, talking about how tough she’s going to be on China and how much she loves fracking and oil and Israel and how many Republicans have endorsed her and her policies.

This is what the “left wing” looks like in the world’s most powerful government. US politics is so intensely stupid.

❖

If Dick Cheney ever endorsed anything I was doing, or even spoke vaguely positively of it, I would immediately stop doing that thing.

❖

The Israeli military is claiming that one of its snipers probably did shoot an an American activist in the head while she was protesting Israeli atrocities in the West Bank last week, but claimed it was “indirect and unintentional”.

And, I mean, of course that’s what they’re saying. It was either that or try to say she had a Hamas base in her skull.

❖

“If you’re anti-war than why don’t you support Trump?”

Because I fucking paid attention when he was president.

I watched the warmongering and militarism rolled out by his administration instead of mindlessly ingesting right wing media like a drooling idiot.

I watched the evil things he did in nations like Yemen, Venezuela, Iran and Syria.

I watched him ramp up cold war aggressions against Russia and pave the way to the war in Ukraine.

I watched him assassinate Soleimani and shred the Iran deal.

I watched him lock up Assange.

I watched him veto attempts to save Yemen.

I listened to him say he’s keeping troops in Syria “to keep the oil”.

I watched him starve Venezuelans to death while staging the most transparent foreign coup attempt in history.

I watched him appoint bloodthirsty PNAC neocons like Elliott Abrams and John motherfucking Bolton to high positions within the US murder machine.

I listened to Mike Pompeo say they’re squeezing Iranian civilians with starvation sanctions in the hope that it will spark a civil war.

I listened to Rex Tillerson brag about boats full of dead North Koreans washing up on Japan’s shores because US sanctions had successfully starved them to death.

I watched him shamelessly facilitate agendas that had long been promoted by the worst neocons and war whores in Washington while you dopes who are now asking me “why don’t you support Trump?” were letting Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson tell you how to think.

I don’t support Trump because I spent four years of my life staring right at the administration he was running and writing about what I saw unfiltered by the lens of party politics instead of letting a bunch of asshole pundits confirm my biases for me like you did. That’s the one and only reason we see him differently.

❖

Democrats said if Trump was re-elected in 2020 he’d unleash hell on earth, then Biden was elected and he unleashed hell on earth. Democrats will blame everyone but themselves if they lose in November, but it will be nobody’s fault but their own.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/09 ... -they-are/

*****

Tim Walz on Russia and Ukraine
September 11, 2024
Russia Matters, 8/20/24

Since Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate on Aug. 6, the U.S. press has published dozens of newsstories on what qualities make the Minnesota governor most appealing to American voters concerned with domestic issues. Significantly less, however, could be found in American media on Walz’s record and views on foreign policy issues in general, and U.S. policies in the post-Soviet space in particular. This RM compilation is meant to remedy that lack, detailing Walz’s views on this region, as expressed since first serving as a member the U.S. House of Representatives, and later as the governor of Minnesota. The compilation also details what bills and edicts related to post-Soviet Eurasia he co-sponsored and signed while a Congressman and a governor, respectively.

Born on April 6, 1964, in Nebraska, Walz grew up there before enlisting in the U.S. Army National Guard at 17. In 1989, he graduated from Chadron State College, after which he spent a year teaching, and then served full-time as an Army National Guardsman. He then became a high school teacher and football coach. In February 2005, he submitted documents to represent Minnesota’s 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives, before retiring from the National Guard in May of that year after 24 total years of service. Walz won that election and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007–2019. While still in Congress, he ran for governor of Minnesota in 2018, won, and was reelected in 2022.

The first evidence of Walz’s public support for Ukraine in its interaction with Russia dates back to his first term in the U.S House of Representatives. In September 2008, Walz co-sponsored H.Res.1314: “Remembering the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–1933.” Walz then repeatedly acted in support of Ukraine in his subsequent years in Congress. For instance, in 2015, he co-sponsored a bill to authorize assistance and sustenance to the military and national security forces of Ukraine. He remained supportive of the Ukrainian course upon leaving Congress to take up his post as the governor of Minnesota.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, the governor instantly condemned the attack as “unprovoked,” adding “It’s time to unite, protect democracy and work together to hold Russia accountable.” In 2022, Walz also issued an executive order to compel Minnesota state agencies to terminate any contracts with Russian entities over Russia’s war against Ukraine.

In 2023, Walz met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying it was “an honor” to speak with the Ukrainian president and to promise Minnesota’s “unwavering support.” Speaking on the two-year anniversary of the invasion in February 2024, Walz declared that Minnesota supports Ukraine as it fights “to defend freedom and democracy.” That same month, Walz signed an agricultural deal between his state of Minnesota and the north Ukrainian region of Chernihiv, saying “It’s a really important showing of friendship and a real important showing of ties.”

It’s worth adding that Walz’s long support for Ukraine, and his repeated criticisms of Russia, have not gone unnoticed in either Ukraine or in Russia. Just this month, Walz has been praised by Oleksandr Merezhko, Ukrainian foreign affairs chairman, who described Walz as “very pro-Ukrainian and our press and our people, they view him as a friend, as a true friend of Ukraine,” and the Kyiv Independent described Walz as an outspoken Ukraine supporter. And in comments given to European Pravda, a Ukrainian online newspaper, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova praised Walz’s record on Ukraine. “Governor Walz is definitely one of the leaders of such support and a reliable friend of our country,” Markarova said. His long record of support for Ukraine in Congress and as Minnesota’s governor also landed him a spot on a list of 77 newly sanctioned U.S. nationals unveiled by the Russian Foreign Ministry in February 2023, and which bans these individuals from travelling to Russia for being involved in arms supplies from the U.S. to Ukraine.

What emerges from a review of Walz’s foreign policy views and votes in Congress and as governor is that like his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, Walz believes that Ukraine deserves support for aspiring to develop as a democracy under the shadow of a predatory Russia. Like most American foreign policy thinkers of the post-WWII generation, he also shares the American view that economic growth and trade go hand-in-hand with healthy democratic governance. This explains the consistency of his positions on U.S. trade and security assistance with Ukraine.

In addition to being staunchly pro-Ukrainian in the conflict between Kyiv and Moscow, Walz has also once confessed that concerns related to Russia and nuclear security keep him awake at night and called for lifting Moscow’s restrictions on exports of American dairy products to Russia. Walz also co-sponsored the International Human Rights Defense Act of 2018, which established in the Department of State a permanent Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI individuals, a move that could not have possibly pleased Vladimir Putin—who seeks to portray himself as an international defender of traditional values.

The compilation of Walz’s views on various issues, which you can find below, is part of Russia Matters’ “Competing Views” rubric, where we share prominent American figures’ takes on issues pertaining to Russia, U.S.-Russian relations and broader U.S. policies affecting Russia. All sections may be updated with new or past statements. The quotes below are divided into categories similar to those in Russia Matters’ news and analysis digests; reflecting the most pertinent topic areas for U.S.-Russian relations broadly, and for the drivers of the two countries’ policies toward one another. Text that is not italicized or in brackets is a direct quote from Walz.

I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda
Nuclear security and safety:
Asked during a 2010 Star Tribute Editorial Board endorsement interview to identify a global threat that kept him up at night, U.S. Rep. Tim Walz pointed to Russia and nuclear security. (Star-Tribune, 03.24.14)
North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:
No significant statements could be found.
Iran and its nuclear program:
No significant statements could be found.
Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:
When a sovereign nation is threatened, each and every one of us stands up, fights back and does right by humanity and peace in this world …We cannot stand idly by; we all must do our parts [to help Ukraine]. (AP, 03.07.22)
[When inking an agricultural deal between Minnesota and the north Ukrainian region of Chernihiv:] It’s a really important showing of friendship and a real important showing of ties. (Al Jazeera, 08.07.24)
[During a virtual meeting with Zelenskyy in 2024:] It was an honor to hear from President Zelenskyy firsthand and offer him our unwavering support. (Al Jazeera, 08.07.24)
Military and security aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:
We stand with Ukraine and condemn Russia for these unprovoked and unlawful attacks. (Office of Gov. Tim Walz, 02.25.22)
Military aid to Ukraine:
Walz co-sponsored H.R.955 that was to authorize assistance and sustainment to the military and national security forces of Ukraine. (Congress’ official web site, 02.12.15)
Walz voted in support of H.Res 162, “Calling on the President to provide Ukraine with military assistance to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” (GovTrack.us, 03.23.15)
We stand ready to support the federal government in guiding our nation through this violent time, and I am committed to standing together with leaders at all levels of government, regardless of political party, to work towards peace. It’s time to unite, protect democracy, and work together to end this violence and hold Russia accountable. (Office of Gov. Tim Walz, 02.25.22)
Punitive measures related to Russia’s war against Ukraine and their impact globally:
[When signing Chapter 43, HF 4165 into law to condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine in his capacity as a governor:] Today, I was proud to sign this bipartisan bill into law to help ensure that our state does not aid the Russian government’s illegal aggression against Ukraine … Ukrainians are our friends, family and neighbors and we continue to stand firmly with our Ukrainian community here in Minnesota and abroad. (Gov. Walz’s official site, 04.01.22)
[When issuing Executive Order 22-03 in March 2022, directing more than two dozen Minnesota state agencies to terminate any contracts with Russian entities:] Minnesota stands firmly with Ukraine and strongly condemns the Russian government’s actions….I encourage other individuals, companies and organizations to stand with their Ukrainian neighbors and end support to Russian entities. (Star-Tribune, 08.05.22)
Ukraine-related negotiations:
No significant statements could be found.
Great Power rivalry/new Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:
No significant statements could be found.
China-Russia: Allied or aligned?
No significant statements could be found.
Missile defense:
No significant statements could be found.
Nuclear arms:
No significant statements could be found.
Counterterrorism:
No significant statements could be found.
Conflict in Syria:
The Assad Regime, which is backed by Putin’s Russia, committed an unconscionable war crime against the Syrian people when it carried out a chemical attack killing innocent men, women and children. I condemn Assad’s use of chemical weapons in the strongest possible terms… Assad must be brought to justice, but we cannot enter into another perpetual war. If we are to take further military action in Syria, we owe it to our brave service members to provide them a clear directive, an unquestionable path to victory and a coalition of allied forces to fight by their side. (Congressional Documents and Publications, Twin Cities Pioneer Press, 04.07.17)
Cyber security/AI:
No significant statements could be found.
Elections interference:
[A statement released by Congressman Walz following reports of communication between the White House and the FBI concerning potential Russian ties to U.S. political operatives during the 2016 election:] The fact that any communication whatsoever took place between the White House and the FBI on the pending investigation in question is further grounds for the necessity of an independent, nonpartisan commission to investigate the Putin-Russia attack on our electoral system, including but not limited to any potential ties between U.S. political operatives and Russian intelligence agents. We must get to the facts to restore faith in our democracy. The American people deserve to know the truth. (Congressional Documents and Publications, 02.24.17)
At the very least, it appears [Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Devin] Nunes’ ability to independently investigate Russia’s attack on our democracy is compromised. As the credibility of any congressional investigation relies on a commitment to bipartisanship and the independence of those conducting it, I call on Chairman Nunes to immediately recuse himself. (Congressional Documents and Publications 03.31.17)
Walz co-sponsored H.Con.Res.47: Expressing the sense of Congress that until the conclusion of the FBI’s criminal and counterintelligence investigations into the nature of the Russian connection to the Trump campaign, the Trump Administration is acting under a “gray cloud” of the appearance of a conflict of interest, and, as such, should refrain from taking any actions or making any changes to United States policy that could be seen as benefitting President Putin or his inner circle. (Congress.gov, 04.05.17)
Former FBI Director James Comey‘s testimony today raises serious questions and concerns about the President’s actions and what appears to be his attempt to personally influence the investigation into the Russian attack on our 2016 election. I am deeply alarmed that President Trump seems to be more concerned about clearing his own name than on preventing future attacks on our democracy. Russia’s attack on our electoral process isn’t a political or partisan issue. It’s an American issue. The American people need and deserve the whole truth. We need to establish an independent commission immediately. (Congressional Documents and Publications, 06.08.17)
Energy exports:
No significant statements could be found.
Climate change:
No significant statements could be found.
U.S.-Russian economic ties:
[A letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging them to make full use of all of the World Trade Organization‘s tools to address issues that have continued to prohibit U.S. dairy exports from having fair access to the Russian market:] When [the bill] is signed into law and the U.S. permanently grants Russia normal trade relations, the United States will be able to use the WTO’s mechanisms to address Russia’s non-science based sanitary and phytosanitary barriers to American dairy exports. We strongly urge you to consider using the WTO’s mechanisms to reopen these markets and ensure that American dairy producers and processors have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field in the Russian market. (Office of Rep. Ron Kind, 10.20.12)
Walz voted against a House resolution authorizing the extension of non-discriminatory trade relations with the Russian Federation. (GovTrack.us, 11.15.12)
Walz voted to support a bill prohibiting the Department of Defense from purchasing equipment from Russian arms dealer Rosoboronexport unless it could be shown that the firm was cooperating with a U.S. defense contractor. (GovTrack.us, 06.14.13)
U.S.-Russian relations in general:
Walz voted to support H.R.6156, better known as the Magnitsky Act, which was intended to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. (GovTrack.us, 11.16.12)
Walz co-sponsored the International Human Rights Defense Act of 2018 which established in the Department of State a permanent Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex) individuals. (Congress.gov, 06.07.18)
II. Russia’s domestic policies
Domestic politics, economy and energy:
Don’t associate citizens [such as Russians] with their governments in many cases. (Star-Tribune, 08.05.22)
Defense and aerospace:
No significant statements could be found.
Security, law-enforcement and justice:
No significant statements could be found.
III. Russia’s relations with other countries
Russia’s general foreign policy and relations with “far abroad” countries:
No significant statements could be found.
Ukraine:
Walz co-sponsored H.Res.1314: “Remembering the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian Famine (Holodomor) of 1932-1933 and extending the deepest sympathies of the House of Representative to the victims, survivors, and families of this tragedy, and for other purposes.” (Congress.gov, 09.23.08) [An estimated 3–5 million Ukrainians lost their lives due to starvation during the Soviet Union’s first forced collectivization campaigns. Russia does not recognize this famine as a consequence of Soviet policy.]
Walz voted in support of H.Res 447, “Supporting the democratic and European aspirations of the people of Ukraine, and their right to choose their own future free of intimidation and fear.” (GovTrack.us, 02.10.14)
Walz voted to support H.R. 4152, “Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act of 2014” and H.R. 4278, the “Ukraine Support Act.” (GovTrack.us, 03.06.14, GovTrack.us, 03.27.14)
Walz voted to support H.Res 348, “Supporting the right of the people of Ukraine to freely elect their government and determine their future.” (GovTrack.us, 10.20.15)
Walz declined to vote for or against H.R. 1997, “Ukraine Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2017.” (GovTrack.us, 02.07.18)
I’m proud to declare today as Ukrainian Solidarity Day in Minnesota …We stand with our Ukrainian community here in Minnesota and abroad as the brave and resilient people of Ukraine continue to defend freedom and democracy against this unlawful, unprovoked Russian invasion. (Office of Gov. Tim Walz, 03.06.22)
To our Ukrainian Minnesota communities, you are woven into the fabric of this state. Without Ukrainian Minnesotans there is no Minnesota, and today, we are all Ukrainians. (AP, 03.07.22)
One year ago, Russia attacked Ukraine—an independent, sovereign, and democratic state. And as long Ukraine must defend freedom against tyranny, Minnesota will continue to stand with our Ukrainian community and the people of Ukraine. (Walz’s X account, 02.24.23)
This week, I visited the Ukrainian Embassy to reaffirm our ongoing commitment to Ukraine. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Minnesota stands with the people of Ukraine as they fight to defend freedom and democracy. (Walz’s X account, 02.24.24)
Other post-Soviet republics:
One of Walz’s first votes as a Congressman was to table a motion to reconsider H.Res.1166, “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding provocative and dangerous statements and actions taken by the Government of the Russian Federation that undermine the territorial integrity of the Republic of Georgia.” (Congress.gov, 05.07.08) [Walz was one of the two-thirds ‘aye’ votes needed for the special resolution to stand.]

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/09/tim ... d-ukraine/

******

Harris and Trump Debate Maintenance of the Status Quo

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 11 Sep 2024


Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris shake hands before a presidential debate in Philadelphia, on September 10, 2024. Photo: Saul Loeb | AFP via Getty Images

The debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump featured a rehash of neo-liberal and imperialist talking points. Both are committed to disastrous policies domestically and internationally.

The United States' decline under oligarchic rule is brutally exposed every four years, as the duopoly parties differ on fewer issues and agree that the people’s needs stay far away from the political agenda. The 2024 election is no different, as the quality of candidates continues its downward trajectory with a former president who is hated by half the country but beloved by millions more running against a current vice president that no one voted for as a presidential candidate. Their September 10 debate was highly anticipated but not for very good reasons.

Kamala Harris entered the debate one day after finally putting cursory policy platform information on her website which had nothing but merchandise for sale and donation buttons for fifty days. It is hard to understand why she needed so much time to do what was an obvious copy and paste version of Joe Biden’s campaign website, but the odd decision-making is emblematic of this bizarre campaign season and her own lack of gravitas.

Just four days before the debate former vice president Dick Cheney endorsed Harris. Cheney was once a villain to liberals , the de facto president when he served under George W. Bush and the driving force behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Not only did he help to kill 1 million people, but it was a war from which he personally profited due to his connections to the Halliburton corporation, a major military contractor.

Cheney was loathed by liberals until January 6, 2021, when he and his congresswoman daughter Liz Cheney were quite vocal in their condemnations of Trump. True to form, liberals developed collective amnesia about their prior Cheney hatred and they suddenly elevated the right-wing family to revered status. Harris didn’t run from the endorsement, instead, she declared herself, “honored to have their endorsement” and praised the Cheneys for “putting the country before party.” Dick Cheney would not endorse someone who wasn’t pledged to continue the neo-liberal and imperialist project and clearly Harris sees the endorsement as being beneficial. Why shouldn’t she? KHive and Blue MAGA democrats continue being so completely indoctrinated that they don’t want to hear anything negative about her and corporate media are fully on her side.

Donald Trump sometimes rambles incoherently and gives the impression that he is experiencing cognitive decline like Joe Biden. Kamala Harris is younger and healthier, but she has also been promoted beyond her skill set and laughs nervously or has strange outbursts when she is unsure of herself. Trump often goes off script and Harris stumbles when speaking off the cuff. Debate anticipation was less about policy prescriptions than about who would make the better impression.

But ultimately good preparation was enough to win because the so-called moderators from ABC news had their thumbs firmly on the scale of orthodoxy when they posed questions about U.S. policy around the world. There was no effort to actually engage in debate. Instead, there were leading questions that asserted that the U.S. cannot be questioned in its actions. One example is this statement which was a clear expression of support for the idea that the U.S. should be the world's hegemonic and unipolar power. “Mr. President, it has been the position of the Biden administration that we must defend Ukraine from Russia, from Vladimir Putin, to defend their sovereignty, their democracy, that it's in America's best interest to do so, arguing that if Putin wins he may be emboldened to move even further into other countries.” Trump answered correctly when he said the war in Ukraine can and should end with negotiation. Harris of course revived Russiagate allegations by saying Trump would end the proxy war by just “giving up” Ukraine and that if Trump were president, “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv.”

It was Trump who brought up the fact that Biden’s actions regarding Ukraine could lead to World War III. Of course, he incorrectly said that “millions” of people have died in Ukraine but he also mentioned the very real threat of nuclear weapons. However, he did not mention that he, like every president of the last 20 years, unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from long-standing nuclear agreements with Russia and helped to create a very dangerous situation today.

While the moderators engaged in scaremongering about Vladimir Putin, Harris and Trump both went out of their way to express devotion to Israel. Harris claims she is working for a ceasefire in Gaza while simultaneously promising to continue weapons and money for Israel. She repeated calls for a two-state solution which Israel has repeatedly rejected and added threats against Iran for good measure. Trump dispenses with pretense and says he is and will remain Israel’s guy and claims that Harris “hates Israel.” He predicted that if Harris is elected, “...Israel will not exist within two years from now.”

Putin was cast as the all-purpose villain and Chinese president Xi Jinping also came in for criticism. Both Harris and Biden pledged to make the U.S. number one in chip production and Harris even blamed Xi for the spread of covid.

The subterfuge of alleged differences was not confined to Israel, Russia or China. Harris went out of her way to say that she wouldn’t ban fracking. Of course, fracking ought to be banned because it produces fossil fuels, contaminates water supplies, and even produces earthquakes. Harris went on to claim that democrats are concerned about climate change while simultaneously pledging to continue oil production. The moderators did not call out the inconsistency.

Overall the debate was a very sad affair. Trump made immigration the centerpiece of his remarks, claiming that crime is up in the U.S., even though it isn’t, because criminal aliens are amongst us. He repeatedly debunked claims of immigrants eating dogs and cats and being drug dealers and terrorists who will all try to vote. It was vintage Trump, meaning embarrassing, and Harris could only say that she favored a bipartisan immigration bill that featured the worst aspects of Trump policy that has resulted in more deportations under Biden than under Trump.

Supporting Israel will be a high-priority goal of a Harris or Biden administration. Democratic presidents have failed to codify the Roe v. Wade decision when they controlled Congress and could have done so. Harris’s claim of passing federal legislation rings hollow while Trump ranted that democrats were executing babies.

Perhaps the Kamala Harris image makers are right. She need only talk about joy while Trump says that protesters burned down Minneapolis, a city that actually still exists, while mentally ill immigrants run amok. The donors who as Trump says, “Threw Biden out of the campaign like a dog,” may have been right. Enough money and good press might be enough to put Kamala Harris in the white house.

https://blackagendareport.com/harris-an ... status-quo

******

Craig Murray: That Harris-Trump Debate
September 11, 2024

While various nonsenses spouted by the former president were “fact-checked” by the moderators, the vice president’s completely clueless propaganda was endorsed and reinforced.


Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on Tuesday. (C-Span)

By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.uk

I just sat through a recording of the Trump/Harris debate. Ignoring the merits of their political stances, I agree with the general consensus that Vice President Kamala Harris “won” in performance terms, but only because former President Donald Trump was awful.

Both were of course terrible on Palestine. While I appreciate that that is of most interest to perhaps a majority of my readers, and that it is a key issue for a significant slice of U.S. voters, it is not what this post is about. I am considering more broadly the prospects for who becomes U.S. president.

Trump’s ability to make a coherent argument appears to have deserted him and he was easily sidetracked by Harris into irrelevant quibbles, notably on rally attendances.

Harris said nothing even vaguely impressive herself and was wide open to attack on her own record. Trump did not seem sufficiently in command of the logic of debate effectively to counterpunch.

I suspect that the debate will have done very little to affect public support, because Trump’s attack messages on immigration will motivate his followers regardless, and he kept banging them out.

But I wanted to focus on the shameless bias of the moderators in favour of Harris. The framing of questions to each candidate was far more hostile towards Trump. Let me take the first four questions asked — two to each candidate:

David Muir to Trump:

“Mr President, I do want to drill down on something you both brought up. The vice president brought up your tariffs, you responded, and let’s drill down on this. Because your plan, it is what she calls, it is essentially, a national sales tax.

Your proposal calls for tariffs, as you pointed out here, on foreign imports across the board. You recently said that you might double your plan, imposing tariffs of 20 percent on goods coming into this country.

As you know, many economists say that with tariffs at that level, costs are then passed on to the consumer. Vice President Harris has said it will mean higher prices on gas, food, clothing, medication, arguing it will cost the typical family nearly $4,000 a year. Do you believe Americans can afford higher prices because of tariffs?”

Note what is happening here. Muir twice quotes Harris and validates her assertion that a tariff is a sales tax: “it is what she calls, it is essentially, a national sales tax.”

He then quotes Harris again on it costing American families $4,000 a year. His question then to Trump is not framed as whether he agrees with Harris’ assertion, but the much more loaded question of “Do you believe Americans can afford higher prices?”

I am in general inclined towards free trade myself, but a tariff is not simply a sales tax, and the $4,000 a year claim is utter nonsense.


Muir and Trump. (C-Span)

The average U.S. household spends only about 11 percent of its consumption on imported goods. That equates to about $8,000 worth of imported goods per household per year.

Even if Trump were to slap a 20 percent tariff on all imported goods — which is not his plan — and even if all those goods currently enjoyed zero tariff — which is certainly not the case — and even if there were no import substitution and the entire cost was passed on to the consumer — neither of which would be the case, it plainly is not remotely possible that a 20 percent tariff on part of $8,000 of spending could cost $4,000.

But whereas various nonsenses spouted by Trump were “fact-checked” by the moderators, Harris’s completely clueless propaganda was endorsed and reinforced.


Trump however ought to have been able to counter by talking of the purpose of promoting domestic production and encouraging domestic industry and agriculture. His inability to do so — and indeed to counterpunch with logical refutation on anything — made this deeply unsatisfying watching.

Linsey Davis to Trump

“I want to turn to the issue of abortion. President Trump you have often touted that you were able to kill Roe v Wade last year. You said that you were proud to be the most pro-life president in American history. Then last month you said that your administration would be great for women and their reproductive rights. In your home state of Florida you surprised many with regard to your six-week abortion ban because you initially said that it was too short and said (quote) “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.”

But then the very next day you reversed course and said that you would vote to support the six-week ban. Vice President Harris says that women should not trust you on the issue of abortion because you have changed your position so many times. Therefore why should they trust you?”


Davis and Trump. (C-Span)

Note the aggression in the phrasing of this question, and the use of the negative connotation verb “touting” in the setup. Also the use of amplifier phrases… “the very next day.”

Now contrast the tone with the superficially “combative” questions to challenge Harris.

David Muir to Harris:

“We are going to turn now to immigration and border security. We know it’s an issue to Republicans, Democrats, voters across the board in this country. Vice President Harris, you were tasked by President Biden with getting to the root causes of migration from Central America.

We know that illegal border crossings reached a high in the Biden administration. This past June, President Biden passed tough new asylum restrictions. We know the numbers since then have dropped significantly. But my question to you tonight is why did the administration wait until six months before the election to act, and would you have done anything differently from President Biden on this?”

This is fascinating because plainly the intention is to appear to be tackling Harris, while the entire framing of the question is slanted to favour her.

The characterisation of Harris’ role is precisely the framing of her campaign team: she was not in charge of border control or immigrant policy, but rather of tackling “the root causes” of immigration. This is exactly how Harris wants it put, but not really true.

Furthermore the problem is presented as essentially solved, again an extremely dubious proposition, and the question is basically — why did it take you so long?

After a couple of exchanges between the candidates Muir leapt in to interject and reinforce a point already made by Kamala Harris.

David Muir:

“President Trump on that point I am going to invite your response”

Trump:
“Well I would like to respond”

David Muir:
“Let me just ask though, why did you try to kill that bill, and successfully do so, that would have put thousands of extra agents on the border?”


(C-Span screen shot)

Let us then look at the framing of another “challenging” question to Harris:

Lindsey David to Harris:

“Vice President Harris, in your last run for president you said you wanted to ban fracking, now you don’t. You wanted mandatory buyback programmes for assault weapons, now your campaign says you don’t.

You supported decriminalising border crossings, now you are taking a harder line. I know you say that your values have not changed, so then why have so many of your policy positions changed?”

Note how, with both questions to Harris, the answer is provided within the question.

The immigration question was presented as solved and the flip flop question as reflecting consistent values. Harris did grab on to the proffered lifeline and banged on about her values as a “middle class kid” and all the hard luck cases she claimed to have been inspired to help.

On Palestine, naturally both vied to present themselves as the staunchest supporters of Israel. Kamala Harris did genuflect towards protection of Palestinian civilians and the Palestinian right of self-determination, but this was so obviously a token gesture from Israel’s chief armers and funders as to not need further comment.

All in all, extremely dispiriting. Harris came over as an entirely unprincipled political operator who will adopt whatever positions serve her career, but is rather more intellectually competent than previously expected. Trump came over as a loose cannon which nobody has loaded.

As with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, there is no doubt that Harris is the Deep State shoo-in candidate, and the priming of the debate in her favour is hardly unexpected.

It does require an effort of textual analysis to pin it down, and I hope I have given you a start on that.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/11/c ... mp-debate/

No shit Craig, the MSM out to get Trump, whudda thunk? And tariff, while not 'simply a tax', effectively are a tax for the buyer. The seller may absorb some of the tariff for the sake of competition but that can only go so far.

[blindpig]

[img]https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/wp-cont ... png?w=1024[/ig]

Biden Didn’t “Fail” To Get A Ceasefire; He Never Tried

He could have ended it with a phone call. The killing continued because he and his handlers wanted it to.

Caitlin Johnstone
September 21, 2024

❖

The Wall Street Journal reports that senior US officials don’t think the Biden administration will secure a ceasefire in Gaza before Biden’s term is up. Anyone who told you that Biden or Harris were seriously working on a ceasefire lied to you.

I’ve seen some people calling this a “failure” on the part of the Biden administration, and that needs to stop. It’s not a failure. You can only fail at something you tried to do. Biden and Harris didn’t “fail” at anything, they SUCCEEDED at their goal of helping Israel destroy Gaza.

Biden could have ended this at any time by withholding weapons, or even by simply threatening to. He could have ended it with a phone call. The killing continued because he and his handlers wanted it to.

❖

Israel apologists have been amazingly defensive about its latest acts of terrorism in Lebanon. It’s extremely important to them that everyone believe it’s awesome and good to turn electronic devices into thousands of bombs placed throughout unsuspecting civilian populations.

❖

Hezbollah are vastly morally superior to the IDF. The one and only reason you see the former called “terrorists” and the latter framed as legitimate defense forces is because one works against the strategic interests of the Pentagon while the other aligns with those interests.

❖

Podium goons like State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller are still refusing to acknowledge that Israel was behind the terror attacks in Lebanon when asked about them by the press, which is absolutely insane. Literally everyone knows it was Israel. Mainstream media outlets are publishing reports citing US officials saying they know it was Israel.

This is the same as lying. They’re looking us right in the eye and lying, knowing full well that we all know they’re lying.

❖

The claim that Israel’s terror attack in Lebanon was super duper “targeted” against enemy combatants is the dumbest thing we’ve been asked to believe about Israel in weeks.

❖

A group of 27 Israeli ministers and Knesset members have sent a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu urging him to order an evacuation of northern Gaza in order to “cleanse” the area via siege warfare.

They’re just coming right out and saying it now.

❖

Whenever a liberal denounces the western-backed genocide in Gaza and then says “but”, everything they say after “but” can be mentally replaced with “I don’t see Palestinians as fully human.”


❖

I have seen the insides of too many dead kids to take seriously the idea that extending the Biden-Harris administration would be any kind of “harm reduction”.

❖

Pay less attention to the two candidates the Democrats and Republicans have offered you to choose from, and pay more attention to the choices they HAVEN’T offered you.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will stop funding the genocide in Gaza.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will end US warmongering, militarism, or imperialism.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will fight against the destruction of our ecosystem.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will end homelessness and care for the needful.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will ensure that everyone working 40 hours a week can afford a decent place to live.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will get money out of politics.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will break up monopolistic megacorporations.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will fight the exploitative imbalance of power the capitalist class has over workers.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will roll back the authoritarianism, surveillance and police militarization you’ve been seeing in your country.

They haven’t offered you a candidate who will end the war on drugs.

They haven’t even offered you a candidate who will give your country a normal functioning healthcare system.

You can learn a lot more from looking at what ISN’T on the ballot than you can by looking at what is.

Peace, justice and equality are not on the ballot. Ending ecocide, ending poverty or ending corruption are not on the ballot. The only viable candidates do not offer these things. The candidates who do offer any of these things will be prevented from coming anywhere close to victory.

This fact has orders of magnitude more direct impact on you and those around you than the relatively superficial differences between Harris and Trump ever will.

If you look at the entire global behavior of the US empire as a whole, the difference between what it would look like if Trump were president and what it would look like under Harris is probably something like one tenth of one percent — and even that’s being generous. Whereas if either party ran candidates who stood for peace, justice, equality and a healthy environment, the world would be so drastically changed as to become almost unrecognizable.

Which is why neither party ever runs such a candidate. Both parties exist to maintain the corrupt, abusive, warmongering, imperialist, ecocidal capitalist status quo. The oligarchs and empire managers who really run the US government will do whatever they need to do to ensure that only candidates who’ll preserve that status quo ever get anywhere near the Oval Office.

Elections are a phony performance put on every few years to let Americans believe they have some meaningful control over the most important decisions that will be made by their government. Looking at what ISN’T on the ballot instead of looking at what is makes this immediately obvious.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/09 ... ver-tried/

[blindpig]

EDITORIAL: Criticize Clinton, but Beat Bush, Manning Marable, 1992
Editors, The Black Agenda Review 25 Sep 2024



Vote for Harris, because Trump. Vote for Clinton, because Bush. Manning Marable shows when it comes to right-wing Democrats, it’s deja vu all over again.

Angela Y. Davis has been pilloried by progressive groups for her recent comments on the upcoming US election. And rightly so. Last week, she was a featured guest at La Fête de l’Humanité , a festival organized in the southern suburbs of Paris by the French Communist Party newspaper, l’Humanité. Speaking to a crowd of tens of thousands Davis asserted that a Kamala Harris victory over Donald Trump (who she did not name, referring only to “the person leading the Republican Party”) was critical. For Davis, the push for a Kamala Harris victory is not because of her race or gender, but because her presence in the White House would enable “those of us who are more radical than Kamala Harris to put anti-capitalist and anti-racist programs forward.”

Of course, it is not difficult to be “more radical” than Kamala Harris, a figure who, true to the right-wing Democratic Party she represents, stands far to the right of Ronald Reagan. She is also currently presiding over the expansion of fascism at home and imperialism and genocide abroad. Why should we believe, then, that, once in office, Harris – who, to date, has received endorsements from Wall Street, Dick Cheney, and a large number of former staffers from the George W. Bush regime – would suddenly find her “radical” self and open up space for humane policies and radical programs?

Barack Obama, who Davis characterized as a figure who was able to mobilize and inspire young people, certainly didn’t. Davis, somewhat quixotically, acknowledged this fact during her remarks at La Fête: “When Obama was elected, that was a very important victory,” she stated, but “it was not a victory in relation to what he actually accomplished during his presidency…” It is significant that she doesn’t acknowledge that Obama’s “victory” was really a victory for Wall Street, its oligarchs, and US imperialism. If she had, she would not have turned around and endorsed an even more belligerently right-wing Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Yes. Angela Davis also told us to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Davis is not that naïve. She knows full well that she is asking us to settle for a Democratic party that gets more right wing and more fascist by the year. So, then, what’s the point? Vote for Kamala because she’s not “the person leading the Republican Party” with the hope she will open up a space for “anti-capitalist and anti-racist programs” when Davis very well knows that she will not?

It doesn’t make sense. It does, however, encapsulate the kind of twisted, pretzel logic that the Democrats have been pushing every four years for the last few decades. A logic that people like Davis, and their unthinking minions, have accepted and deployed. Vote for Harris, because Trump. Vote for Clinton, because Trump. Vote for Obama, because Bush. Vote for Clinton, because Bush.

But Davis follows a well-worn pattern of presumably “radical” Black scholars asking us to vote for Democratic Party presidential candidates even as the party shifted rapidly rightward. In fact, the late historian Manning Marable made this exact argument back in 1992 in his nationally-syndicated newspaper column. In an editorial titled “Criticize Clinton, but beat Bush,” Marable carefully maps out how far right the Democratic Party had drifted under the Reagan years, arguing that Bill Clinton was far more right wing than Jimmy Carter — whom Marable attacks for his “aggressive cuts in social programs.” Marable writes: “For progressives, the real question presented by the Clinton-Bush electoral contest boils down to a simple alternative: Do I vote for Clinton, or do I stay home on November 3?”

His answer? “African Americans must vote against Bush by voting for Clinton – but we must be prepared to struggle every day against the conservative policies of a Clinton administration.”

Clinton beat Bush. Many Black folk celebrated. But the progressive openings and the radical programs never came. In victory, Clinton and the Democratic Party were emboldened to abandon African Americans and the working class while appeasing the white middle class and their corporate sponsors. “White liberal guilt is dead,” a dour Marable wrote soon after the 92 election, in a column called “Why Bill Clinton has no ‘mandate’ for change.”

Since 1992, meanwhile, the Democratic Party has moved so far rightward, stealing all the right-wing talking points and draconian policies of the Republican Party – from immigration to genocide – that it has left the Republicans with only brute racism to rally its white troops.

It is a futile Sisyphean move to suggest, as Angela Davis did, that a vote for Kamala Harris will open up space for radical movements, especially as the Biden-Harris administration is currently cracking down on radical movements, increasing US military belligerence around the world, and funding a genocide. It is suicidal to think that a Harris victory would somehow give her a progressive mandate for change when change has not been on the horizon during the last four years – or the last 40.

And it is nothing less than an extraordinary and willful act of forgetting that we once again find ourselves in the position of being harangued and browbeaten into voting for a candidate who is not the “lesser evil,” or even “the more effective evil” but, quite simply, just evil. To break the amnesia, read Manning Marable’s “Criticize Clinton, but beat Bush.” It is reprinted below.

Criticize Clinton, but beat Bush
Manning Marable

The presidential campaign of 1992 seems in many respects a replay of 1976. In both campaigns, a moderate Democratic governor from a Southern state emerges from the middle-class hinterland to seize his party’s nomination from the liberal establishment.

An embattled, frustrated Republican president presides over a major economic recession, driving his popularity polls into the basement. The Republican incumbent is even challenged unsuccessfully by a leader of the right wing of his own party in the primaries.

In November 1976 Jimmy Carter narrowly defeated Gerald Ford. This November Bill Clinto should narrowly defeat George Bush— but nothing in politics is predictable.

The historical analogy breaks down when we consider the social and ideological forces behind Carter and Clinto respectively. Carter ran in 1976 with the Democrats having won seven of the previous 11 presidential contests and with the national disgrace of Watergate tarnishing the Republicans.

Nevertheless, Carter was unable to transform the Democrats into an explicitly “centrist” party, despite his aggressive cuts in social programs.

But after a decade of Reaganism, the political cultures of both major parties have shifted decisively to the right. It was in this context of reaction that Clinton and the conservative cabal, the Democratic Leadership Council, seized control of the party’s national apparatus.

Their conservative agenda represents a sharp break from New Deal Great Society liberalism. Clinton’s basic strategy is to speak primarily to two key constituencies: Reagan Democrats, the White blue-collar workers who abandoned the party of Roosevelt and Kennedy over affirmative action, busing for school desegregation, and welfare—and younger, suburban White professionals who were attracted to the candidacies of Gary Hart in 1984 and Paul Tsongas earlier this year.

The DLC’s objective is to win the support of at least 47 percent of the overall White electorate. Clinton is painfully aware that since 1948 the Democrats have captured the majority of White votes only once in any presidential election.

In the three presidential elections in the 1980s, Republican candidates won 33 million more votes than the Democrats, with an eight-to-one margin in electoral votes.

This explains Clinton’s determination to avoid being characterized as a “tax-and-spend liberal,” of the Kennedy-Mondale-Dukakis tradition Preaching “family values,” “patriotism” and “personal responsibility,” he frequently sounds like Republic evangelist Pat Robertson. Rainbow Coalition chief strategist Jack O’Dell suggests that a Clinton presidency would be roughly similar to the administration of Harry S. Truman.

For progressives, the real question presented by the Clinton-Bush electoral contest boils down to a simple alternative: Do I vote for Clinton, or do I stay home on November 3? At times, when I watch Clinton speak on C-Span, his words almost make sense, but I know he’s not talking to me. I fear that a Clinton White House would be even further to the right than that of Jimmy Carter.

Despite these misgivings, I would still advise African-Americans, other people of color and progressives to criticize Clinton and to beat Bush this election year.

We must ask ourselves, whether a substantial, critical distinction can be made between Clinton-Gore and a second-term for Bush-Quayle? Millions of women, threatened with the loss of their freedom of choice on the issue of abortion, can certainly understand the dangers of a Bush victory over Clinton.

People of color recall that Bush vetoed the 1990 Civil Rights Act and turned Willie Horton into Michael Dukakis’s unofficial running-mate.

If fewer than 50 percent of Black voters go to the polls in November, the Arkansas Democrat will probably lose, regardless of the White vote. African Americans must vote against Bush by voting for Clinton-but we must prepare to struggle every day against the conservative policies of a Clinton administration.

https://blackagendareport.com/index.php ... rable-1992

The Cautionary Tale of Angela Davis
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 25 Sep 2024


Angela Davis expresses excitement over Kamala Harris nomination in 2020. Image: Reuters videos

There are very few true revolutionaries. Allowing ourselves to pretend that Angela Davis is among them is a grave mistake.

“When we engage in electoral politics, it can’t be just because a particular individual is running for office, it is to enlarge the terrain of mass struggle, to guarantee a space for the trade union movement to win victories, for the women’s movement to win victories, for people of color to win victories, for working and poor people to win victories.”
Angela Davis

Angela Davis is certainly correct in speaking these words. They are an important reminder of how we must view and relate to the electoral process. But unfortunately, she followed those remarks with highly questionable assertions which put at risk all that she says she seeks to achieve.

Davis has a habit of engaging in some very grave contradictions, which we have analyzed over the years here at Black Agenda Report. In 2012 Angela Davis felt compelled to give fulsome praise to Barack Obama, including claiming that his rise to the presidency showed a connection with the Black radical tradition. The false statement was quite alarming, as Davis ignored the obvious, that the Obama campaign was a creation of the neo-liberal and imperialist elites who needed a more attractive face in a moment of crisis. Our late comrade Glen Ford observed that, “The ‘delusional effect’ that swept Black America with the advent of the First Black President has warped and weakened the mental powers of some of our most revered icons – and it has been painful to behold.”

It is inexplicable that Davis would claim that Obama emerged victorious in 2008 “despite the power of money .” Obama raised $750 million in his presidential campaign that year. His war chest was so full that he was able to reverse his pledge to seek public campaign financing, unlike his opponent John McCain, who raised a mere $238 million from donors and $38 million in public financing. Surely Dr. Davis was capable of researching the same easily accessible information. Y she insisted on making claims that are plainly untrue.

Davis’ recent comments diminish her and show that she has become just another acolyte of Democratic Party policy. “It’s not just about electing Kamala Harris. … it’s about opening space for those of us who are more radical than Kamala Harris to put anti-capitalist and anti-racist programs forward and increase the pressure for change, especially in the first place when it comes to the genocide being inflicted on the people of Palestine.“

Her comments border on outright delusion. Kamala Harris brags about the republicans who support her and “welcomes” an endorsement from Dick Cheney. She pledges to include a republican in her cabinet while saying nothing about including more progressive democrats. How would anti-capitalist and anti-racist programs be put forward under such an administration?

This columnist advised ignoring Davis altogether when she declared support for Hillary Clinton in 2016: “I’m not so narcissistic to say that I wouldn’t vote for her.” The defensive and embarrassed tone of the comment was obvious, as if Davis couldn’t bring herself to be clear about her choice to vote for the war criminal who destroyed Libya and insisted that Haiti redo an election in order to get her desired result.

Again, in 2024, Davis talks out of both sides of her mouth, stating that she is still a communist and declaring, “We have to challenge capitalism; it is the enemy of all progressive movements and struggles in the world.” Indeed we must, but that certainly can’t happen while simultaneously supporting Kamala Harris, who pledges no opposition to capitalism and who is therefore, by Davis’ definition, unworthy of support.

As Black Agenda Report has pointed out many times, Kamala Harris is the latest mediocrity to grace the political sphere, put forward by rich donors hoping for a new Obama effect. She is neither intelligent nor talented in any way. Her milquetoast liberalism has given way to right wing policy making, giving slight nods to reproductive rights or other issues that are bright red lines for millions of people.

But Davis also showed herself in 2020 when she was strangely thrilled by the choice of Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate. She supported Biden and Harris despite calling them both “problematic ” while concluding, “It’s really a question of who we will be able to pressure.”

There is no evidence of Angela Davis doing anything to pressure Biden or Harris on any issue. The failure of political imagination afflicts the casual voter and the erstwhile radical icon too, who pop up in election years to declare their surrender to the forces they otherwise claim to oppose.

No one is above reproach, regardless of their history. Those who remember the days of the “Free Angela” movement may be stunned by her ongoing slide into political irrelevancy. Yet that is the position that Angela Davis has chosen for herself. Now she offers empty nostalgia, political confusion, and cautionary tales about heroes with feet of clay. It seems that ignoring Angela Davis is still a sensible decision.

https://blackagendareport.com/cautionar ... gela-davis

******

"A criminal in possession of a firearm"
September 24, 21:15



An interesting detail in the biography of Ryan Routt, who recruited mercenaries for Ukraine (Routt himself recruited more than 70 people for the war, of course with the knowledge of American intelligence services) and made an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Trump.
During a search of the home of the son of the "fighter for Ukraine", large amounts of child pornography were found.

The mass media associated with the Democrats continue to try to present Routt as a crazy loner, while it has already been established that Routt had been in the FBI's sights for many years, which considered him a "criminal who owns a firearm".

The United States has extensive experience using such characters to assassinate unwanted politicians, including in their own country.
And then they are all declared "lone lunatics".

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9402396.html

Google Translator

OK, child porn while repugnant and illegal, is beside the point and just throwing shade. Some people who oughta know better, like Boris here, jump to imply that the Dems are behind these failed splat jobs. Yes, the spooks often have patsies in place to fit the narrative, but they also have ringers in place to do the real job. Were that the case Trump would be dead. It's not that the Dems don't wish Trump dead, only that it would be very difficult to get away with 'cleanly' given how Trump has positioned himself, all the more so now.

No, I think what we got here is a Stupid Nazi. And that's why the pro-Dem media goes with the Standard Script. Because an anti-Trump assassin will be assumed to be pro- Dem, at least portrayed as such by the opposition which could be damaging and might even re-open the whole Maidan can of worms. "Nazis for Harris' is not a good look.

[blindpig]

“So You Don’t Like Trump or Harris – Here’s Why It’s Still Best to Vote for One of Them”
Posted on October 11, 2024 by Yves Smith

Yves here. This post very much annoyed me, and so I thought it might be entertaining for similarly annoyed readers to take it apart. The fact that it starts by arguing that protest voting is “bad for the democratic process,” as if what we have in the US is a democracy as opposed to an oligarchy, is par for the piece. It therefore also sees all third party candidate votes as bad because they might serve as spoilers.

My two observations: the author does not consider that a protest vote is a form of altruistic punishment, as in something you do for not gain that does (here only might) impose costs on you. Here the tacit assumption is if you make a protest vote against the Dems by not voting, leaving the top of the ballot empty, or voting for Jill Stein, you are helping Trump. It’s not as if voters who are considering one of those actions have not heard that argument a zillion times and do not care. Many readers voice views that indicate they would rather have Trump than keep reinforcing Democratic party sellouts. Or they might want to get the Greens to a high enough percentage nationally so that they could qualify for a debate position someday or otherwise get more press attention and get different policy ideas into the debate, and again won’t be cowed by “But ZOMG you are helping Hair Furore.”


In addition, there are some voters who find the support of both parties for genocide in Gaza and now planned for Lebanon unacceptable, and as a matter of conscience cannot vote for either of the two major parties. As yet another reminder of the slaughter, I just got this note from a Lebanese friend who is also an American citizen:

yeah my bro #6 ran into a friend while driving up to the mountain up north for a min , stop by to say hi n a truck driving by to was hit by an Israeli drone n my bro flew up in the air 8-9 feet n half of his head was blown off of his head n all his bikes broken dead instantly n 4-5 cars full of families trying to escape the fighting got blown by the missile , last sat , they r just killing everyone , they can’t get to the fighters , they start blowing up buildings n bridges infrastructure n innocent people. , n American gov behind it all , unfortunately , they want their Israeli army base puppets to control the region n build the rail road from India to Emirates to haifa to EU n control all shipping n gas to EU n u have those sick evil phony monarchies on it with Israel n against the resistance , they want the resistance gone any price n ways , their puppets of the west n created by the west N Brit’s got them to do their evil jobs to control n create animosity within the Arab countries n they’ve done good job n last of it Iraq Syria n Yemen n now Lebanon n Gaza

I doubt he will vote for Team D or R if he votes at all. And he has lots of company.

By Daniel F. Stone, Associate Professor of Economics, Bowdoin College. Originally published at The Conversation

Many Americans are not thrilled with either of the two major-party candidates for president. As of Oct. 4, 2024, polls showed that 46.5% had an unfavorable opinion of Kamala Harris and 52.6% felt unfavorably toward Donald Trump.

Some of these unhappy voters are considering voting for a third-party candidate, or not voting at all. They may be thinking of those actions as a form of protest against the two-party system dominant in the United States, or against these two particular candidates.

For example, in a September poll 3.5% of Michigan voters said they planned to vote for a candidate other than Harris and Trump.

At first glance, these choices might seem perfectly reasonable: If you don’t like a candidate, don’t vote for that person. But my work as a scholar of cognitive biases – systematic errors people make in their thinking – makes me fear that this option does not best serve the interests of those voters.

Instead, protest voting is in fact likely to harm the democratic process, potentially leading to the election of the candidate the majority of voters overall, and protest voters specifically, most dislike. There are several reasons protest voters might make this mistake.

How Much Does One Vote Matter?

It’s clear that any one vote is very unlikely to swing the presidential election. And some might say that if one vote doesn’t really matter, then voters may as well vote however they want, or not bother to vote at all. Here’s why that’s flawed thinking:

Suppose there are 10,000 voters in a state who feel unhappy with both candidates. But they almost surely dislike one candidate more than they dislike the other. Perhaps they disagree with some of Harris’ views but fear Trump. Or maybe it’s the other way around. They don’t have to agree on why they’re unhappy about the candidates either – some who are unhappy with Harris but prefer her over Trump may think Harris is too far left, while others may think she’s not enough of a leftist.

Now suppose the rest of the state’s voters – those who are happy to vote for one of the two major candidates – are very narrowly split. Perhaps the gap is 5,000 votes. So, if the 10,000 unhappy voters do vote for one of the two major-party candidates, they can swing the election.

Again, these unhappy voters really do have a preference – they like one of the major candidates better than the other. So while each individual unhappy voter wants to keep their hands clean and not vote, they would each like the other 9,999 unhappy voters to step up and swing the outcome in favor of their preferred candidate.

Parents teach the Golden Rule to kids – do unto others as you would have them do unto you – and most people do actually believe in it and try to act accordingly. In this case, following the Golden Rule means that if you’re an unhappy voter and would like other unhappy voters to hold their noses and vote for the major candidate they least dislike, you should be willing to do the same thing yourself.

But not all unhappy voters think this way. Some are led astray by their intuition and choose to protest-vote even when their own values would indicate they shouldn’t.

A Boycott Error

One reason a person might still think a protest vote makes sense is because of the assumption that boycotting something they don’t like is an effective means of contributing to positive change.

A boycott against a person or organization you have a problem with often makes good sense. For instance, if there’s a restaurant in town with a reputation for being discriminatory, or just for being slow to get the food out, don’t go to it. Maybe it will close and make room for another business with better performance. Or maybe it will make some changes in hopes of growing its customer base.

But when you cast a vote, whether on Election Day or beforehand, boycotting the viable candidates isn’t going to help. One of them is going to win whether you like it or not. Boycotting in this context is an example of a misapplied heuristic – a rule of thumb that’s often, but not always, helpful. Boycotting here doesn’t help you achieve your goal of eliminating or improving something you don’t like.

Omission vs. commission

Another reason people might choose a protest vote is because of a phenomenon in which people prefer to make mistakes of inaction – omission – over making mistakes that involve taking action – commission. People feel less guilty when they haven’t acted directly in support of a bad outcome. But both action and inaction can be errors, and both can deliver undesired results that constitute bad outcomes.

The omission bias can help explain why some people are hesitant to get vaccinated against serious diseases: If they chose to get vaccinated and the vaccination led to a health problem, that would be a mistake of commission. Not getting vaccinated also might lead to a health problem, but that would be a mistake of omission. People tend to prefer the latter.

Similarly, voting for a candidate you’re unsatisfied with could feel like a mistake of commission. Not voting, or voting for a third party, risks a mistake of omission – an error often assumed to be less significant. But choosing the possibility of an error of omission over one of commission doesn’t ensure you aren’t making a mistake – it just changes your mistake to one that’s intuitively more appealing.

False Equivalence

A final reason people might opt out of voting or choose to back a third-party candidate is that they object to the assumption that they dislike one candidate more than the other. Instead, these people claim the two main options are equally bad.

But regardless of what your actual values and policy preferences are, that’s almost certainly untrue. The two candidates hold very different views on a wide range of issues, and have different records of what they have done – and not done – when in office.

People who claim the two different candidates are basically the same are misusing another mental shortcut: the human tendency to think in categories. Grouping distinct items in the same category can simplify thinking, but it can ignore substantial differences.

Some people think about 1-in-10 chances and 1-in-a-million chances as both being in the category of “possibilities.” But they’re very different: If you’re flipping a coin repeatedly, one is about equal to your chance of getting heads three times in a row, and the other is how likely you are to get heads 20 times in a row.

Seeking Your Most Desired Outcome

During the 2000 presidential campaign, I recall a friend said he wasn’t voting for Democratic candidate Al Gore because he thought Gore and Republican nominee George W. Bush were equally bad. But after winning – partly because of third-party voters who cast ballots for independent Ralph Nader – Bush withdrew the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol to limit global carbon emissions, invaded Iraq, and passed tax cuts favoring the wealthy.

All of those were actions Gore would almost certainly not have taken. The two candidates were very far from being the same, and even though my friend didn’t see it beforehand, he should have been able to.

The U.S. will have a new president on Jan. 20, 2025: Trump or Harris. A third-party winner is not a real option.

In some states voters can rank candidates in order of preference, more clearly expressing their choices without wasting their vote on a candidate who can’t win. People who believe it would be nice to have more choices with realistic chances of winning could work to adopt that system – known as ranked-choice voting – in their communities, or seek to adopt other methods that could eventually yield more viable options in the future. But it won’t happen in time for this election.

Whether you like it or not, you face a binary choice: Vote for one or vote for the other. And please vote.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10 ... -them.html

This from the comments:

Fireminer
October 11, 2024 at 1:49 am
Why am I not surprised that this drivel was published by The Conversation? That site will publish anything. This “article” is a listicle of everything that liberals have been pushing every single election that ever happened in my life. And look where that got us to? The author is wishy-washy about ranked choice voting, but does he actually think that by voting in this election, whoever win will bring about a better voting system? Of course not. Why should they change something that brings them so much wealth and power?

The author talked about not voting is not useful if you want to influence the political system. Why didn’t he talk about all the dark money being spent on primaries to deny entry to progressive candidates? And why didn’t he talk about the helplessness of Democratic voters who saw the very candidates they voted for doing something completely against their wish, yet these voters couldn’t do anything to them?

And I question if the author have truly lived through the 2000 election. What does he know about Al Gore? He would’ve had pushed for the Afghanistan war. He would’ve had pushed for the Patriot act. He would’ve had pushed for financial deregulation and tax cut for the wealthy. You can just look at Gore’s record as a senator and Bill Clinton’s vice president. In fact all the things the author said that Al Gore wouldn’t have done, it’s actually Ralph Nader who wouldn’t.

This is bottom-of-the-barrel punch-clock academia. You can’t even make a case that the author tried to talk simplistically to the mass. He is either too dumb and believes all the dumb things that go off his mouth, or he is just cynical.

Frankly speaking, if the Democrats and Republicans really want apathetic voters to cast their ballots, the best thing they can say is: “There will be no revolution. Neither you or me are willing to risk our skin. Nothing will get better. But at least you’ll feel good voting. It’s least amount of effort to feel like you’re actually pushing for a change. So just shut up and queue up. May we get all of this over soon so that we can get back with our lives.”

[blindpig]

Another Phony Biden PR Stunt About Humanitarian Aid In Gaza

The Biden administration is performing another PR stunt about getting humanitarian aid into Gaza as election day approaches. The White House has given Israel a 30-day notice that it needs to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip or risk losing military aid—a deadline…

Caitlin Johnstone
October 16, 2024


The Biden administration is performing another PR stunt about getting humanitarian aid into Gaza as election day approaches.

The White House has given Israel a 30-day notice that it needs to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip or risk losing military aid—a deadline which you will notice conveniently falls after US election day on November 5.

Rather than releasing this information itself, the Biden administration published it in its customary manner by laundering it through Axios as a letter that was “obtained” by the outlet and its Israeli intelligence insider Barak Ravid, thereby framing this as a news story and not a White House press release.

Not only does the 30-day deadline fall after election day, it also falls after Israel’s planned attack on Iran in response to Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on Israel. Anonymous officials have told The Washington Post that Israel will be launching this attack before the election in the US.


This narrative the Biden administration is trying to insert into public consciousness is already falling apart. The Washington Post’s John Hudson reports via Twitter:

“Biden’s spokesmen at the White House and State Department declined to say the U.S. will restrict arms sales to Israel if it continues to block aid, raising doubts for some about the seriousness of the U.S. warning.”

Hudson also cited the analysis of former senior Biden administration official Jeremy Konyndyk, now the president of Refugees International, regarding this development:

“After the past year, Netanyahu will be understandably skeptical that Biden will put real teeth behind this sort of warning. He has blown through every guardrail the U.S. has tried to erect, and has done so with total impunity so far.”

If this was a real thing with real teeth and not an incredibly cynical eleventh-hour election ploy, it would have happened a full year ago. As with all words the US government releases about Israel, it can be safely ignored without missing out on anything of value. The Biden administration’s actions speak for themselves, and have done so for a year.

Ignore their words. Watch their actions. If you just look at the material actions of the US government and Israel and mentally mute all their mountains of verbiage about it, you simply see a big country pouring weapons into a little country who uses them to attack its neighbors.

If you tune out all the words expressing “concern” for the people of Gaza, about how Israel must do more to get humanitarian aid to civilians and try to kill fewer people, about how sad and tragic and unfortunate this whole thing is but it’s oh so very important that Israel has the ability to “defend itself”, and plus Hamas and Hezbollah are hiding behind the civilians and blah blah blah blah — if you tune all that out and just look at the raw data of what’s happening, you just see a state raining hellfire on civilian populations packed full of children and using siege warfare to starve hundreds of thousands of people.

Ignore their words and watch their actions. That’s how you sort out fact from fiction in an information environment that’s saturated in propaganda and manipulation — not just with Israel, but with everything. Watch where the war machinery is going, where the money is going, and where the resources are going, and ignore all the words about why it makes perfect sense for this to be happening. Do this and you’ll have an infinitely better understanding of what’s going on in the world than you could ever hope to glean from watching CNN or Fox News.



This is a great way to see through the manipulations in your personal life as well. If you’re in a relationship with someone who keeps letting you down in various ways and always has sensible-sounding reasons for doing so, but when you look at where the resources and/or relaxation and/or pleasure are going in your relationship you see it’s mostly going toward your partner, that tells you what’s really going on there. It tells you you’re in an unequal and exploitative relationship, regardless of what words they use to explain why they keep getting their way at your expense.

Manipulators understand that you can trade words for real material benefits. Say the right words in the right way and you can get people to agree to let you commit mass atrocities. You can get them to give you control over their material circumstances. You can get them to consent to wildly unfair economic and political systems. You can persuade them to let you destroy the biosphere they depend on for survival. You can get them to give you power, money, sex, egoic gratification — whatever it is you’re after — just by saying the right words in the right way.

And that’s basically our entire problem as a species right now. That’s why the world looks the way it looks. A few clever manipulators have figured out how to use mass-scale psychological manipulation to get us to trade away real material benefits for empty narrative fluff. That’s the only reason this genocidal, ecocidal, exploitative, bat shit insane political status quo has been permitted to exist by people who vastly outnumber the few who benefit from it.

This will keep happening until humanity becomes a conscious species. To become a conscious human is to awaken from the trance of the believed narratives in your skull and begin perceiving life as it truly is.

The difference between our mental stories about how life is happening and how it really is could not be more different — which is why manipulators are able to extract so much benefit from manipulating our mental stories about how life is happening. Manipulators will always have the ability to do this until we make the necessary adaptation as a species from believing mental narratives to perceiving life as it truly is.

Every species eventually hits an adaptation-or-extinction juncture as its conditioning runs into changing material realities on this planet. We’re at ours right now, and unlike other species who have gone extinct before us, our own behavior is responsible for the changing material realities we are running up against. Since our behavior at mass scale is being driven by mass-scale psychological manipulation via the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed, in order to see a change in the way humans behave on this planet, we’re going to have to see a mass-scale shift in our species’ relationship with mental narrative.

It is possible for an individual to stop imbuing their mental chatter with the power of belief and start seeing life as it is, and if it is possible to do this individually it is possible to do it collectively as well. We all have this potentiality sleeping within us. It will either awaken and carry us beyond the adaptation-or-extinction juncture we now face, or we will go the way of the dinosaur.

That’s where we’re at right now. We have the freedom to go either way.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/10 ... d-in-gaza/

*******

Elections at a time of growing war budget and shrinking wages
October 16, 2024 Gary Wilson


Boeing strikers demand a 40% raise over 4 years just to keep up with inflation. The company’s “final offer” was 30%, which would mean a pay cut.
The polls published by the mainstream media all say that the presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is extremely close.

The money race is not so close. In the big money competition between the billionaires, the Harris campaign had raised more than $1 billion as of Oct. 9, three times as much as the Trump campaign had raised. While billionaire Elon Musk has made a public show of buying into Trump, Harris is still getting most of the big money from the billionaires and millionaires so far.

Trump could win anyway.

In the U.S., the Electoral College decides the presidential election, not the popular vote. Harris could win the popular vote — though it’s not guaranteed — yet still lose to Trump in the electoral college.

This system has dominated presidential elections this century. In 2000, Al Gore received more votes than George W. Bush, but the Supreme Court intervened and gave Bush the Electoral College selection. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received almost three million more votes than Donald Trump, but the Electoral College gave Trump the presidency.

Donald Trump is counting on the Electoral College system to put him back in the White House. (Read more about the Electoral College from 2016 when it gave Trump the presidency in “Black voter suppression near 1950s level.”)

Because of the restrictions imposed by the Electoral College system, the presidential election is now said to hinge on just six “swing states” — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada. These states will essentially override all votes in the rest of the country.

Enforce an Israeli ceasefire now

Harris could win these “swing states” if the Biden administration would enforce an Israeli ceasefire right now. Instead, Harris has repeatedly declared that she supports Israel’s war. That’s commonly known as support for genocide.

Nobody missed the fact that when Israel escalated its war, expanding into Lebanon, Biden responded by increasing the delivery of weapons systems and, for the first time, openly deploying U.S. troops in support of the expanded war.

When hurricanes Helene and Milton hit the Southeast, devastating Florida and the Appalachian region of North Carolina, there was no similar response. FEMA responded, but more was needed. But there was no bonus equivalent to the $billions in bunker-buster bombs going for hurricane relief.

Harris’ militarism and enthusiasm for Israel’s war are costing her votes in the swing states, where a majority support an immediate ceasefire and an end to the war.

During an interview on ABC News’ “The View” on Oct. 8, when asked if she would have approached anything differently than President Biden, Vice President Harris said that “there is not a thing that comes to mind.”

Any worker watching the show might have said “Wow” and politely changed the channel. Many likely cursed the TV screen.

(More...)

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/ ... ing-wages/

'Red' added.