Sympathy for the Devils...

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:40 pm

Freedom Rider: Propaganda Won’t Get Rid of Trump
Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist 15 Jul 2020

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Freedom Rider: Propaganda Won’t Get Rid of Trump
The biggest threat to Biden’s chances is the continuing suppression of black votes and the refusal of the Democrats to do anything about it..

“The Democrats’ effort to sell the lackluster and problematic Joe Biden involves telling some outright lies.”

“Biden will win in a landslide.” “Trump will quit before election day.” These are just some of the tropes being spread by Democratic Party propagandists. It is true that Joe Biden can defeat incumbent Donald Trump in the November 2020 presidential election. However, the rosy scenarios painted by the corporate media don’t take into account the vagaries of the election process in this country. They are intended to give the appearance of an inevitable Democratic Party victory, a plan which failed miserably in 2016.

Like George W. Bush in 2000, Trump won in 2016 not because most voters preferred him, but because of the very undemocratic electoral college. Republicans use voter suppression and outright vote theft to dilute the impact of black voters, whose support for the Democrats remains in the 90% range. Hillary Clinton failed to target her campaign outreach accordingly, or frankly to do much outreach at all. She needed only 78,000 more votes in three key swing states in order to win. If Biden succeeds where she failed he can win the presidency. There is reason for the Democrats to be optimistic, but their effort to sell the lackluster and problematic Joe Biden involves telling some outright lies.

“Republicans use voter suppression and outright vote theft to dilute the impact of black voters.”

The propagandists give the same assurance in 2020 that was given in 2016. They announce with great fanfare that polls show Biden winning. They don’t explain how these polls differ from the 2016 polls which showed Hillary Clinton winning all the states she needed. They don’t explain what went wrong in 2016 or analyze the challenges that Biden faces.

The biggest threat to his chances is the continuing suppression of black votes and the refusal of the Democrats to do anything about it. Voter identification requirements, felon disenfranchisement, voter enrollment purges, and simpler schemes such as sending fewer machines to polling places in black neighborhoods all diminish the franchise. This year the COVID-19 pandemic will mean more voting by mail. But paper ballots are as problematic as electronic voting machines can be. There is a hodgepodge of rules which determine how and if paper ballots are counted, with differences varying even within the same state.

Most importantly there is no constituency that will increase its turn out for the sake of Joe Biden. He will get 90% of the black vote, but it is unlikely that he will benefit from the tremendous increase in that cohort that helped Barack Obama when he ran in 2008 and 2012. If the Biden campaign team doesn’t outperform Hillary Clinton’s lackluster get out the vote effort, Trump can squeak through a second time.

“There is no constituency that will increase its turn out for the sake of Joe Biden.”

But there is something else going on among the propagandists masquerading as journalists. Instead of dispassionately reporting on Trump’s chances they peddle a dubious kind of psy-op. Even Fox News jumps on that bandwagon with stories of “major players” and “Republican insiders” saying that Trump will quit before election day. These stories are accompanied by unflattering photos of a seemingly dejected Trump or reports of rallies that are sparsely attended. These anonymous insiders are as real as the “intelligence sources” who claim that Russia is paying the Taliban to kill Americans.

The subterfuge is intended to boost Biden, who is strangely absent in the midst of Trump’s failure to handle the worsening COVID-19 pandemic. States that failed to shut down public activity and decrease opportunities for the virus to spread are facing an upsurge in infections, hospitalizations and death. Biden ought to be much further ahead in the wake of Trump’s bumbling. But we don’t see him very often because his handlers don’t want him to be seen. Biden clearly has a health problem which has not been disclosed, but his inability to speak coherently and his penchant for strange outbursts means that he must be kept under wraps at the very moment that Trump is on the ropes.

“Biden is strangely absent in the midst of Trump’s failure to handle the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.”

Election day is in less than four months. In that time an economic downturn, a worsening spread of COVID-19 or a debate performance can make the difference. There would be greater certainty for Biden if he would campaign on an issue that the voters want. A new study indicates that 5 million workers have lost their health insurance since March. But Biden opposes a plan to give Medicare to all. Just in case anyone was fooled by his claims of being a progressive, Biden steadfastly refuses to consider what is a surefire election winner.

At this juncture no one should claim they know who the next president will be. Phony stories and wishful thinking won’t get Donald Trump out of the White House. Predictions of his political demise are rather premature.

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 16, 2020 12:57 pm

Democrats Will Never Choose Transformative Change – So Give Them No Choice
Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor 16 Jul 2020

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Democrats Will Never Choose Transformative Change – So Give Them No Choice

An existential political crisis for the racial capitalist order will only happen when the left puts forward a viable political alternative.

“There is no political crisis for the ruling order, unless ending their rule is on the agenda of significant social forces.”

The Covid-19 epidemic proved beyond all rational doubt that decades of bipartisan privatization and austerity had destroyed the U.S. “public” health care system, rendering the nation structurally incapable of coping with the viral onslaught. The late and geographically uneven lockdown succeeded only in creating Great Depression levels of unemployment without halting the spread of the disease, which has now devoured over 133,000 lives , with Blacks and Native Americans succumbing at five times the rate of whites, and Hispanic Americans dying at four times the frequency of whites. While home to only four percent of the Earth’s population, the United States accounts for 25 percent of the global coronavirus death toll – a proportion that precisely matches the U.S. share of the global prison population, with the result that U.S. prisons, packed with Black, red and brown inmates, are by far the biggest Covid-19 hotspots on the planet.

The nation that claims exceptional national – imperial! -- rights and privileges is exceptionally sick, gasping for air but still issuing threats and sanctions against much of the rest of humanity. The raging U.S. health and economic crises are vastly exacerbated by the ruling class’s four years-long, self-inflicted crisis of legitimacy, with one faction of the corporate oligarchy raving endlessly that the sitting U.S. president is a dupe of a foreign power. On top of that imagined illegitimacy, is the real failure of U.S. rulers to protect the population from a contagious disease that killed less than 5,000 people in China, its country of origin with a population of 1.4 billion, and which is abating in all the developed nations of the world. A state that cannot safeguard the lives of its citizens has failed a basic test of legitimacy.

In that sense, the U.S. state has never been legitimate for Black America. This chronic, historical condition became acute with the very public murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis cops on May 25. The monthlong outpouring of mass rage spread to every state and U.S. territorial possession and sparked demonstrations around the world in solidarity with U.S. Blacks.

“A state that cannot safeguard the lives of its citizens has failed a basic test of legitimacy.”

The scale of protest rivaled the tumultuous Sixties, but most remarkable was the scope of the public political transformation. “Black Lives Matter,” the premier slogan and movement of Black militancy, was at the center of what the New York Times called “the largest movement in the country’s history.” Even more amazingly, a Pew Research poll showed that two-thirds of Americans supported “the Black Lives Matter movement” and other polls confirmed that slim majorities of whites now believe that police are “generally more likely to treat black people unfairly than to mistreat white people.” For the first time in U.S. polling history, whites recognized that cops, the coercive forces of the state, systemically mistreat Black people.

In the US of A, where the Warrior Cop was invented to suppress, contain and mass incarcerate Black, brown and red people, that qualifies as a public perception sea change. However, these combined and overlapping crises – economic, public health, political legitimacy, and criminal justice – do not amount to an existential political crisis for the racial capitalist order, because there does not yet exist a viable political alternative. The corporate duopoly still rules, no matter how many people go to the polls in November, and no matter what happens in the interim in the streets.

“The Warrior Cop was invented to suppress, contain and mass incarcerate Black, brown and red people.”

Racial capitalism has undergone many crises, in the U.S. and globally, and outlived them. As a political economy, it is in its late stage, moribund and incapable of reversing its accelerating decline. But its ruling classes – even when catastrophically split and behaving self-destructively, as has been the case for the past four years – are not the least bit threatened with loss of power, much less their heads. Indeed, no significant social forces are even proposing to nationalize the banks, or to socialize any significant sectors of the economy. And even much of “Black Lives Matter” (the actual organization, with 14 chapters in the U.S.) has failed to actively support community control of the police, the only proposal that puts popular security in the hands of the people, not the agents of white supremacy and the corporate duopoly. That’s how we make the streets of our communities safe for organizing.

There is no political crisis for the ruling order, unless ending that rule is on the agenda of significant social forces. Yet Black people, the (now recognized) leading edge of the current upheaval and the most left-leaning, peace-loving, socialist-minded constituency in the nation, remain locked in the lethal embrace of the corporate duopoly through the Democratic Party, which is hegemonic in Black America.

Three-quarters of the 50 Black full-voting members of the U.S. House ought to be on Black Lives Matters’ shit list (the organization’s and the wider movement’s) as Class A Enemies of the People, based on their votes for the 2018 legislation that made cops a protected class and assault on police a federal hate crime. Black Democrats have for nearly half a century been the hands-on managers of mass Black incarceration, gentrification and austerity in Black America. They don’t give a damn about Africa, including the slaughter of six million Congolese at the hands of U.S. client regimes – the worst genocide since World War Two. They stand (or kneel) with Nancy Pelosi, who keeps the nation and world safe for the oligarchy.

“Black Democrats have been the hands-on managers of mass Black incarceration, gentrification and austerity in Black America.”

Joe Biden is a proud architect of mass Black incarceration, a friend and ally of segregationist politicians, and a warmonger of the lowest type who has promised to veto Medicare for All. No one in Congress is more loyal to the corporate class. But Angela Davis, an icon of the movement for prison abolition who also supports community control of the police, endorsed Biden. “I don’t see this election as being about choosing a candidate who will be able to lead us in the right direction,” said professor emeritus Davis. “It will be about choosing a candidate who can be most effectively pressured into allowing more space for the evolving anti-racist movement.”

Davis’ endorsement of the Democrat is consistent with Communist Party USA politics over the decades, even when they ran their own candidates for president and vice president. (Davis occupied the party’s VP slot in 1980 and ’84.) Back in 2012, Davis endorsed Barack Obama for a second term, shortly after the First Black President destroyed Libya, invaded much of the rest of Africa, made common cause with al Qaida in Syria and was busy attempting to reach a “grand bargain” with the Republicans on austerity. Davis told a conference on “empowering women of color” that Obama “identifies with the Black radical tradition” – a nonsensical statement that artificially grafted Obama into “a place he not only does not belong, but most profoundly does not want to be,” as I wrote at the time.

“No one in Congress is more loyal to the corporate class than Biden.”

This time around Davis puts political lipstick on the rightwing pig, Biden, who she says “is far more likely to take mass demands seriously” than President Trump. What does that mean? Biden had already rejected defunding of police – Black Lives Matter’s top demand. But Biden and the rest of the corporate Democrats do take Black demands seriously. It is their job, not white Republicans like Trump, to listen to the demands of the party’s most loyal constituency -- and then gut them. Davis and other radicals that endorse corporate Democrats legitimize the charade, and thus are far more useful to the Democrats than the Democrats are useful to the movement.

In Black America, radical politics has always been quite popular, and not just with the youth. The job of Black Democrats’ is to make radical politics appear idealistic but impractical. It’s alright to shout righteous demands in the street, but serious politics must be vetted by the Democrats to be acceptable. The truth is that transforming the police from defenders of capital and white privilege to facilitators of the Black community’s security needs will only happen when the rulers conclude that it is more costly to reject our demands than to accept them.

We must not wait on capitalist crises to further devastate our communities. Rather, the movement must create a political crisis for the ruling oligarchy by agitating to actually end their rule.

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 23, 2020 1:17 pm

Biden’s climate plan: tactic to win Sanders supporters or something more?
Tina LandisJuly 22, 2020

Democratic candidate Joe Biden recently announced a $2 trillion climate plan to be implemented over four years if he wins the presidential seat. The plan promises a 100 percent clean energy economy by 2050. A more moderate version of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal proposal, the plan eliminates more progressive goals, such as universal healthcare and job guarantees. The Biden plan would need approval by the Senate and House, which after the coming election may or may not be controlled by the Democrats.

Biden’s plan comes as the Trump administration continues to roll back environmental regulations that protect public health and the ecosystem — nearly 100 so far since he took office. While the Trump regime is particularly aggressive in its pro-business, anti-people/planet policies, are we really to believe that Biden is going to lead the charge toward meaningful climate action?

The main focus of the plan is to reinstate Obama-era programs like the Clean Power Plan and fuel efficiency standards with a commitment to clean energy research and development and rejoining the Paris Agreement. These Obama-era policies fell far short of what is needed to reduce the U.S. contribution of greenhouse gas emissions to levels that will avert a runaway scenario.

When you look at what Biden means by “clean energy,” he does not mean solar and wind energy, but is instead referring to nuclear and carbon capture technologies. Nuclear energy has the 3rd highest lifecycle emissions after scrubbed coal-fired plants and natural gas. This is not to mention the catastrophic risk of nuclear reactor failure and waste disposal. And carbon capture technologies actually create more emissions from building the facilities than those facilities can capture. Climate Solutions Beyond Capitalism

While campaigning, Biden made it clear that he will not end his support for fracking and recently hired Heather Zichal to help mold his climate plan. Zichal served on the board of the natural gas company Cheniere Energy from 2014 to 2018 — hardly an environmentalist position.

Fracking is incredibly detrimental to the environment, poisoning precious groundwater resources and leaking methane throughout the supply chain from wells to distribution to home appliances. More than 3 million oil and gas wells in the United States leaked nearly 281 kilotons of methane in 2018 alone! This is a major contributor to climate change since methane has 84 times the atmospheric warming potential than carbon dioxide.

The Biden plan also includes a boost in electric vehicle production and infrastructure expansion, as well as road and bridge upgrades, which is a promise to keep the unsustainable car culture firmly in place. All the emissions created in the resource extraction and production process for this mass upscale in EVs will likely cause more pollution than it will ever save.

The plan also commits to address the uneven burden of pollution on communities of color. It seems like Biden is hoping that voters will forget that throughout his career, he has backed policies that directly hurt the Black community — from his pro-segregationist position in his early career to supporting mass incarceration and most recently suggesting that police use less lethal force against Black people by shooting them in the legs instead. Are we really to believe that Biden is now somehow moved to address the long legacy of environmental racism in this country?

Biden has always been in the pocket of Wall Street. As of March, 94 billionaires had donated to his campaign with the majority of support coming from the finance sector — hardly a pro-environment anti-status quo grouping.

The Biden climate plan in the end is just an opportunist ploy by the Democtratic Party establishment to win over progressive and younger voters who would have voted for Bernie Sanders. He has absolutely no intention of disrupting business as usual, which must be disrupted if we are to solve the climate crisis.

His climate plan video dutifully follows the establishment line of putting the blame on the Global South for their emissions. He says he will be tough on China when in reality the United States is by far the largest per capita polluter on the planet; China comes in 10th. He overlooks the fact that China is in reality the global leader in investments in wind and solar power both domestically and internationally. And what about the Pentagon? He never mentions the massive emissions from the U.S. military, which is the largest unregulated polluter and the largest consumer of fossil fuels on the planet. Climate Solutions Beyond Capitalism

How can we address a global ecological crisis without cooperation between nations? The divisive imperialist policies of the U.S. and their European allies must be overturned to build a true global effort to tackle the crisis. International cooperation based on equality of nations is crucial, while taking into account the disproportionate responsibility of the wealthier nations for causing the crisis and the colonial legacy of undevelopment imposed on the Global South from centuries of plunder from the North.

To truly meet the challenge of climate change, the current mode of production must also be addressed. The cause and solutions go way beyond just fossil fuels. We simply cannot continue to determine what is produced based on the whims of a handful of billionaires when we live on a planet with finite resources.

To avert our own extinction and that of most other species, we need a socialist planned economy that produces what is needed for society with the capacity of the planet in mind. We need to immediately end fossil fuels and move to wind, water and solar energy, which is technologically possible right now! We need to uproot the destructive unsustainable system of capitalism that puts quarterly profits above the long term survival of humanity.

Instead of building machines to capture carbon that won’t actually reduce atmospheric CO2 levels in any substantial way, we need to restore the forests and oceans, which are by far the most efficient natural carbon capture and oxygen producing mechanisms in existence. We need to rethink how society functions, living, working and playing in close proximity, eliminating the need for long unsustainable commutes. We caught a glimpse of the benefits of this while the world was on lockdown from the COVID-19 pandemic this past spring.

This may sound utopian, but what is truly utopian is to think that we can avert climate catastrophe while making profits along the way.

In the absence of a mass sustained broad-based movement for climate action, business as usual will continue. We can see from the uprising for racial justice that protests are a very effective way to win the people’s demands and young people see that capitalism is not working for the vast majority. We need to expand this uprising to demand climate action and to remedy all the ills of capitalism that afflict the working class — most immediately for a comprehensive science-based response to the pandemic, a guaranteed wage for those unemployed by the crisis and universal healthcare.

The impending climate catastrophe makes our task more urgent by the day. We need to uproot the system of capitalism and build a socialist system based on cooperation, sustainability and restoration of the global ecosystem. We literally need socialism to save ourselves … a system where the workers determine what is produced based on the needs of society in alignment with the life-support systems of the planet rather than a handful of billionaires determining our fate based on what can make them the most profits.

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri Jul 24, 2020 1:40 pm

Who is the Most Dangerous Fascist?
Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor 23 Jul 2020

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Who is the Most Dangerous Fascist?
Most American leftists are incoherent on the term fascism, and Democrats have utterly destroyed the word’s meaning.

“In their cartoon politics, fascist simply means “Trump.”

After seizing an initial beachhead around federal buildings in Portland, Oregon, Donald Trump is threatening to send his Homeland Security über alles storm troopers into cities around the country that he says are “run by very liberal Democrats…by the radical left.” Next on the list is Chicago, where 150 federal agents are set to be deployed in coming days. Homeland Security agents have already been sent to Seattle and Washington DC, and Trump has mentioned the need to “dominate” the terrain in Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department plans to expand its “Operation Legend ” urban intervention, currently targeting local crime in Kansas City, Missouri.

Just as other U.S. presidents have historically used the military as re-election props, staging attacks on U.S.-designated “rogue” nations and “terrorists” to solidify their voter base, so Donald Trump is campaigning as the sheriff that will bring law and order to the vast areas of the nation occupied by the “Black Lives Matter”-inspired hordes, last month. Although Trump’s armed intervention in local and state affairs seems politically at odds with his Confederate sympathies , his mass deployment of agents appears legal. Their behavior on the streets, however, is another question. “Unidentified federal agents in unmarked vehicles are snatching peaceful protesters off the streets, transporting them to unknown locations, without informing them of why they’re being arrested, and later releasing them with no record of their arrest,” said Marjorie Cohn, a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. “These actions are reminiscent of dictatorships’ secret police who kidnap and 'disappear' opponents of the regime. They are calculated to deter people from exercising their First Amendment right to protest against racism and white supremacy.”

“Unidentified federal agents in unmarked vehicles are snatching peaceful protesters off the streets.”

Yes, “reminiscent” of secret police in other times and countries, but the Homeland Security agents are actually behaving much like local cops anywhere in the United States. Chicago police for years ran a not-so-secret torture center into which Black men disappeared until they confessed to crimes they didn’t commit. Cities around the nation routinely deploy “jump-out-squads” of plainclothes officers that leap from unmarked vehicles to snatch people from neighborhood streets. And most local cops assigned to suppress anti-police protests remove their badges and identifying markers. Both local and federal SWAT teams routinely wear masks to hide their identifies. This, too, is “reminiscent” of fascism, but it didn’t arrive with Trump in January, 2017.

Indeed, Trump is a relative amateur in the dark arts of domestic repression, his past experience limited to terrorizing tenants in his apartment buildings and “apprentices” on reality TV shows. The tools of state repression Trump deploys as The Mad White Avenger were already well-used by past presidents. Barack Obama’s FBI coordinated the national police crackdown on Occupy sites , nearly a decade ago – a huge roll-up of dissent involving the synchronized actions of a Black Democratic president and mostly Democratic mayors and their police chiefs. The Black woman mayor of Baltimore called the people that took part in the 2015 Freddie Gray rebellion “thugs ” – dehumanizing her own constituents -- as did Obama , whose U.S. attorneys demanded and got draconian sentences for defendants charged with property damage.

Obama made police state history when he got Congress to pass legislation allowing U.S. citizens to be indefinitely detained without benefit of trial or charge – a leap into the abyss that even George W. Bush dared not make.

“The tools of state repression Trump deploys as The Mad White Avenger were already well-used by past presidents.”

Civil libertarians are righteously upset that Trump’s Justice Department is coordinating with local police in using Facebook to charge George Floyd protesters with serious felonies—another harbinger of fascism. But local cops have for years used Facebook as a prime investigative tool. And federal-New York City police task forces under the heading of “Operation Crew Cut” largely depended on statements made in Facebook to indict over 100 young people at two Harlem public housing projects in 2014 , and 120 more Black and brown Bronx youth in 2016 – a raid billed as the largest “gang crackdown” in New York City history. Is it fascist to use Facebook against political dissidents, but OK when sucking the “usual suspects” (Black and brown youth) into the mass incarceration gulag? Or is it just fascist when Trump does it?

If most American leftists are incoherent on the term fascism, Democrats have utterly destroyed the word’s meaning. In their cartoon politics, fascist simply means “Trump.”

As I have written in previous articles (see “91ll Legacy:Two Contending Fascisms,” 15 Sept 2018), the southern U.S. Jim Crow system served as the model for Adolph Hitler’s racial state. Dixie’s totally racially regimented Jim Crow was actually a closer match with the widely held definition of fascism than most 20th century European fascisms:

* Extreme nationalism

* Frequent resort to mob rule

* Oppression of an internal “Other” as an organizing principle

* Militarism

* The political dominance of the most reactionary elements of the bourgeoisie

“The southern U.S. Jim Crow system served as the model for Adolph Hitler’s racial state.”

Donald Trump is an American fascist of the old, Jim Crow kind – but one who is also eager to utilize every modern tool of political and racial repression to preserve a capitalist system in fatal decline. Trump’s overtly racist politics, (as in “oppression of an internal ‘Other’ as an organizing principle”) makes him incompatible with the managerial “diversity” doctrine adopted of necessity by multinational corporations. He is, therefore, disruptive of capitalist rule in the 21st century – but extremely useful as a foil, which is why he was the corporate Democrats’ preferred opponent in 2016 and 2020. Having nothing to offer their base except endless austerity (“Race to the Bottom”) and war, the corporate Democrats have made Trump the sole issue of their campaigns.

Multinational capital and the national security state (CIA etc.) find Trump wholly undependable as manager of U.S. empire – which is why they cooked up Russiagate in collaboration with the Democrats.

The Republicans have for the past several generations been vassals of Big Energy, while the Democrats are the favored party of Finance Capital, which now dominates all the capitalist sectors, including the mass media and high technology. Within the electoral duopoly Blacks have no option but the Democrats, while about half of whites choose the Republicans, the overtly White Man’s Party even before the advent of Trump, the rash interloper. However, the corporate duopoly works best for all sectors of capital when the duopoly parties play “tag team,” periodically exchanging the reins of executive power with the least disruption to the capitalist order. {This is what they used to call the “genius” of the system.) Donald Trump’s humiliation of the Republican corporate establishment in 2016 – with the decisive assistance of the Democrats and corporate media – destabilized duopoly politics, the institutional mechanism that, along with corporate media, mediates the differences between capitalist sectors and constructs a common political narrative (lies) for popular consumption. The result was a very public and destructive split in the ruling class, with the national security state (CIA etc.) openly collaborating with Democrats to render a sitting president politically illegitimate.

“”The corporate duopoly works best for all sectors of capital when the duopoly parties play ‘tag team.’”

The good news is that the ruling class civil war has delegitimized, not just Trump, but the U.S. imperial order, itself. Once lost, political legitimacy can seldom be wholly reclaimed – and certainly not by a late stage capitalist order that is wracked with overlapping, accumulated, terminal contradictions, and whose imperial domain is steadily shrinking.

The bad news is, the U.S. Left is so weak, it has been unable to put forward a narrative that explains the multiple crises that have been so devastating to the American people, or to even minimally fulfill our obligations in solidarity with victims of U.S. imperialism around the world. Imagining fascism in cartoon terms personified by Trump, leftish Americans appear to believe that anti-Trump equals anti-fascist, when in fact Trump represents a Jim Crow atavism that the Lords of Capital have been trying to discard for half a century, in order to exercise power more effectively. They have, instead, been constructing a 21st century fascist order in which a tiny number of billionaires can rule without effective opposition, while much of the world is locked in a forced “Race to the Bottom” and all of humanity lives in terror of endless U.S. warfare.

President Obama was an operative of that fascism – which is no cartoon, and kills millions. So are all the corporate Democrats. They are the most dangerous because so few people conceive of them as fascists, despite their abject subservience to corporate dictatorship, the carceral state, and endless warfare. We will beat Trump, for the simple reason that he does not represent the actual capitalist ruling class. The oligarchy wants him beaten – and they want us to thank them for pursuing their own interests, and getting rid of their own problem: the kind of service that oligarch Michael Bloomberg performs when he buys control of the Democratic Party’s infrastructure and purchases the loyalty of a substantial section of the Black political (misleadership) class.

Some American leftists who are unable to escape cartoon-thought fear Donald Trump will refuse to relinquish the White House if the votes go against him in November. They imagine that U.S. military generals will back up Trump’s coup, in a “Seven Days in May ” scenario in reverse. How ridiculous! Any military coup would come from J-SOC, the Joint Special Operations Command , which oversees all the branches’ special operation troops, such as the (Army) Green Berets and (Navy) SEALS. Special operations units have always worked hand-in-glove with the CIA – indeed, the Green Berets are sometimes called “the CIA’s army.” Donald Trump, the “no more regime change” candidate in 2016, earned himself an implacable foe in the CIA.

If there is any coup-making in November, it will be on the Democrat’s behalf. And lots of folks that call themselves leftists will cheer, imagining the CIA as an ally in the fight against "fascism.”

https://www.blackagendareport.com/who-m ... us-fascist

Cartoon politics, indeed. From the gitgo most leftish criticism has been for superficial reasons. The kicker comes when they criticise Trump for wanting to withdraw troop from the Middle East. Whose side are they on?

We know.

And speaking of 'Dixie' and fascism, Southern society in the time of slavery was pretty much a police state with checkpoints, passes, roving patrols and a sliding scale of allowable freedom of movement based not only upon race but also gender and class. They told us in school that the Rebs had an initial military advantage because their society was more rural when in truth it was because they already were jackbooted thugs.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 06, 2020 2:08 pm

Trump RUINED our Venezuela Coup and Botched “Winning Play,” Cries Democrat Senator & Gets ROASTED Online

August 4, 2020 .- The Democratic Party’s gripes with President Trump are many, yet the latest may be the most bizarre to date. One Senator argued that Trump’s brash personality bungled a perfectly good, American-style coup in Venezuela.

If Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) had his way, opposition leader Juan Guaido would be occupying the Presidential Palace in Caracas right now, after the successful ousting of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Despite the weight the US threw behind Guaido last year, the young upstart’s planned coup was a failure, and Murphy blames Trump for that loss.

As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the debacle on Tuesday, Murphy laid out his list of complaints against the coup-bungler-in-chief.

First, Trump failed to persuade Russia, Cuba, and China to abandon Maduro. Regarding Russia, Murphy claimed the President was “wrapped around” Vladimir Putin’s finger, and on China, Murphy scolded Trump for prioritizing US trade issues over interventionist adventures abroad.

What followed, Murphy said, was a “running comedy of errors,” from agitating for a failed uprising last April without securing military support for Guaido, to appointing open regime-change enthusiast Elliott Abrams as envoy to Venezuela, to having former national security advisor John Bolton issue vague threats of war at the Latin American country.

All valid points for any would-be coup plotter to bear in mind. Yet hearing Trump criticized by a Democrat for failing to overthrow a foreign leader by the book is a strange new development in the party’s ‘Orange Man Bad’ rhetoric.

Murphy was “furious” that America under Trump lost its “natural right” to control who governs Venezuela, journalist Glenn Greenwald remarked.

Socialist commentator Tom Wojcik quipped that Democrats under Biden will “aggressively prioritize and more competently mount another VZ coup,” all in the name of rewriting the legacy of Trump.

What Murphy’s thread illustrates, leftist journalist Ben Norton commented, is that the coup attempt in Venezuela was “bipartisan.” At least “this ‘progressive’ imperialist Democrat is being honest,” Norton quipped.

Trump’s unsuccessful foray into regime change in Venezuela marked a departure from his campaign-trail promise to withdraw the US from foreign conflicts and “regime-change wars” and put “America First.” Trump has since sacked Bolton and switched his focus from Venezuela to domestic concerns, as well as the ongoing economic conflict with China and occasional flare-ups in tensions with Iran.

In Caracas, Maduro remains in power, much to the chagrin of Murphy and the lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who thought they had a golden ticket in Guaido last year.

Guaido himself, along with a host of opposition politicians, has pledged to boycott Venezuela’s parliamentary elections in December, claiming Maduro will carry out “electoral fraud” to keep his party in power.

https://orinocotribune.com/trump-ruined ... ed-online/

The Democratic Party insists upon competent imperialism, undoubtedly one of the planks in Biden's platform. 'No more of this amateurish bullshit'.

Roasted? By who? A gaggle of leftish jackanapes who would be entirely 'with the program' were it couched nicely. The same gang who followed the State Dept lead in calling for the President of Syria's head until that became untenable, career-wise. Gotta guard yer 'brand', ya know. Those clowns are 'part of the problem' too.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 11, 2020 2:02 pm

William Saletan is at it again: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... eline.html. He really ought to have his own 'Asshole' thread. This Prince of Philstia and voice of the Democratic Party center has posted a long, searing indictment of the prez's Covid debacle. Shooting fish in a barrel, right? But the facts are never enough when ya got imperialist aggression to gin up too. And so:
“Everybody thought this summer it would go away,” said Trump. “They used to say the heat, the heat was good for it and it really knocks it out, remember? "

The person who had held out the false promise of a warm-weather reprieve, again and again, was Trump. And he hadn’t gotten the idea from any of his medical advisers. He had gotten it from Xi Jinping, the president of China, in a phone call in February.
Except that there is no direct quote from President Xi, just an unattributed statement mixed in with the usual disjointed tweet. But that's good enough for Bill, who mixes Dem politics with imperialist [policy like gin with vermouth. And jfc, who is not familiar with that bit of common lore?
Trump didn’t tell the crowd that he had heard this theory from Xi. But that’s what the record indicates. There’s no evidence of Trump peddling the warm-weather theory prior to Feb. 7, when he had an overnight phone call with Xi.
Correlation does not imply causation. Am I right?
In early January, Trump was warned about a deadly new virus in China. He was also told that the Chinese government was understating the outbreak. (See this timeline for a detailed chronology of what Trump knew and when he knew it.) This was inconvenient, because Trump was about to sign a lucrative trade deal with Beijing. “We have a great relationship with China right now, so I don’t want to speak badly of anyone,” Trump told Laura Ingraham in a Fox News interview on Jan. 10.
A quick look at the relevant posts in our China thread will put the lie to any thoughts of China downplaying anything. As evidence we are given unsupported second hand statements of Slate[i/] reporters with no verification...how different is this from Trump's own tweets?
The first mention of the coronavirus in the PDB came at the beginning of January, focusing on what at that point were troubling signs of a new virus spreading through the Chinese city of Wuhan, and the Chinese government’s apparent efforts to conceal details of the outbreak.


Umm...As I recall there was an initial problem with local authorities downplaying the situation, quickly rectified by the national authorities, with dismissals and other punishments for those screw-ups. To jack this up into a 'Communist conspiracy' is more than disingenuous...

It's all icing on the cake for Saletan, parroting unattributed squawks from spooks serves both political and policy purposes, Trump, China and Russia demonized in one fell swoop. The story they want us to know, the story that serves Capital, which is the true co-conspirator with Trump in tens of thousands of US deaths.

Why the surprise? Silent Cal laid it out 95 years ago, "The Business of America Is Business!" To think otherwise is naive, to understand this then begs the question, "What is to be done?"
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 14, 2020 1:52 pm

Image

A Vote for Biden is Not a Vote Against Fascism
August 13, 2020 John Beacham 2020 election, capitalism, Fascism, Joe Biden, Pandemic, Racism, Trump, US, vote, white supremacy
By John Beacham – Aug 11, 2020

Contents
A Biden win will trigger a conflict
Billionaire dictators and racism
Voting in 2020
Trump and the ruling class
Biden and the ruling class
The role of the democrats in the american system
Example 1: Pelosi enables the racists
Example 2: Obama enables the racists
Example 3: Let’s really think about the response to the pandemic
Clash of 2021?
1. The 2020 election is just not that important in terms of solving the underlying causes of the many epochal crises we face as a people and planet.

2. A vote for Biden is not a vote against fascism. Things are much more serious than that! We must raise the level of our struggle against the system.

3. Trump is not the cause of the troubles. He is a symptom—in part, a catalyst.

The cause of the instability, the reemergence of white supremacy—inside and outside government—and the uprisings and protests for justice is the capitalist and imperialist system we live under and its decades long program of austerity, wars of aggression and violent state oppression.

The ruling class war on the people has reached a point in which people’s backs are up against the wall. The fight is on and no outcome of the 2020 election will bring peace. The ship has sailed. The train has left the station.

Armed racists marching on capitals. The youth shutting down cities and facing off with the cops. Armed racists and cops killing protesters on the streets.

Which side are you on? Joe Biden is on the side of the billionaires and the racists.

A Biden win will trigger a conflict

If Biden wins, which is a substantial if, the white supremacists inside and outside of government will surely go on the war path. Ironically, if the ruling class wants more stability at this point in history, they probably should have opted for Sanders!

Will mass incarceration, rapist, war criminal Joe Biden and his establishment administration stand up to the white supremacists inside and outside of government? That seems highly unlikely, especially since his entire political career has been spent in coalition with racists, bigots and war criminals.

That seems highly unlikely when Biden has spent his entire political career working with the capitalist class to enact the measures and policies that have helped to create, exacerbate and prolong the crises we face.

That seems highly unlikely when Biden’s party would rather use the pandemic as an election talking point than really fight to defeat the pandemic and really fight for pandemic relief.

What is highly likely is that the instability of the capitalist, imperialist United States will continue to grow. Whoever wins the 2020 election, the people will not have won anything substantial, and white supremacy and far right reaction are sure to grow if not dominate politics in the short term unless an organized independent working-class movement with revolutionary leadership emerges.

Fascism has organic links to the ruling class and the capitalist system in the United States. Racism is vital to the dictatorship of the billionaires. That is why, for example, the democrats always seek consensus with even the most reactionary republicans while going to war with the socialists within their own party.

RELATED CONTENT: Biden – Harris: The Democratic Ticket to Defeat Trump


Think about it. Did the Obama/Biden administration stand up to the racist Tea Party or did they allow them to defeat immigration reform from a minority political position and take over the house, leading, eventually, to Trump’s victory and the victory of the open-up movement over the coronavirus response? They did!

How will voting for Joe Biden solve the environmental crisis, stop white supremacy, stop the pandemic (he’s not for universal healthcare) and stop world war 3 (he’s a war criminal)?

These interrelated crises must be solved in the shortish term. We have no choice in this matter. They will not be solved if white supremacy and reaction continue to have the upper hand. They will only be solved by a united international movement of workers and oppressed people. Joe Biden is not now, nor will he be, part of that movement. He will be an enemy of that movement. Status quo Joe.

Though many of the billionaires looked to other candidates or funded their own campaigns for a time because Biden’s campaign was a dumpster fire, they are beside themselves that it is Biden vs. Trump—that the elections no longer bring with them heightened expectations but only hysteria over another four years of Trump and a stifling pressure to, like Nina Turner said, “Eat shit” and vote for Biden.

In reality, the best outcome of the 2020 election would be the largest vote possible for a socialist third-party candidate. That type of vote would show that there are x number of people who will stand up to the system and reject capitalism and racism.

Billionaire dictators and racism

Both Biden and Trump are ruling class candidates.

Trump is trusted by less of the ruling class and more of a divider, while Biden is trusted by more of the ruling class at this point.

That’s not to say that a Biden administration and a Trump administration would manage the country in the same way, but the billionaires as a whole will continue to have a class ally in the white house.

The biggest difference between Trump and Biden is that Trump uses the office to compete with other rulers while Biden, like Obama, will try to facilitate a unity of the rulers.

Trump opportunistically yields racism to build power. Biden opportunistically uses Trump’s racism to win an election in the interests of the 1%.

Make no mistake, the imperial ruling class that allows Trump to keep the office even though he is using it to build a fascist following and coalition hopes that a Biden victory would lead to a pacification of protest and rebellions so that they can right the ship, continue to strengthen their grip on power and focus on aggression against China, Russia and the rest of the world.

Make no mistake, the billionaires would rather racist cops, armed racists and homeland security goons rule the street than a mass movement against capitalism any day of the week. That is why, as an emerging white supremacist coalition, or movement, has shockingly brutalized, killed, kidnapped and locked up protesters, there has been no attempt by the powers that be to shut this movement down.

And shut down it must be, or it will continue to grow.

Voting in 2020

For my part, I will not be voting for Trump or Biden. They are not my candidates and thinking that Biden will listen when (if) we protest—I don’t care what the billionaires, Angela Davis, Bernie Sanders, Carl Davidson or Bob Avakian say—is utter naivete and a complete misunderstanding of the political system we live under.

Do we really think the billionaires flocking to Biden’s campaign during these increasingly turbulent times is anything other than an attempt to quiet us down?

Not to mention his segregationist, sexist and war criminal history and present, Biden has spent his entire political career belittling, shushing, lecturing at and telling black people, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, workers, etc to shut up. Remember Anita Hill?

We will not go down on our knees. We will not shut up or be pacified!

Trump and the ruling class

Though Trump is seen by most billionaires as a bad to very bad manager of the capitalist system with too many horrid gaffs, heinous statements and bad policy decisions, many billionaires are very happy with his escalation of the wealth gap through tax cuts, deregulations and more.

To them white supremacy, the suffering of workers, they are never central concerns. Their central concern is that the president helps them hold onto and increase their power and profits.

The main fact that we all must be aware of is that the United States is not ruled from the white house, but from the board room. The president is a figure head that has a significant role in policy making only because the ruling class has fostered a powerful, permanent and reactionary state (the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, an unelected and unaccountable judiciary and so on) and, overtime, greatly increased executive power in an attempt to centralize decision making in an era where greater democracy—never a friend to a ruling class—is the expected norm by the majority of people.

After all, real democracy—majority rule over the economy and government—is the end of the ruling class and their profit first system. Genuine democracy is not an election for a head of state.

Of course, the fascist character of the Trump regime is not what the ruling class would prefer—all things being equal. They do, however, prefer Trump over the growing movement against racism and capitalism.

The likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have all shown that they are more than willing to unite with Trump. Gates, that liberal scion of the democratic party famously said—when it looked like Bernie Sanders had a shot—that he had not ruled out voting for Trump.

The ruling class consensus is vehemently opposed to any type of needed reformation or social democratic makeover of the system. No, their structural hold on power, greater than it has ever been, is not something they will give up without a real fight. That is why they closed ranks to stop the Sanders campaign.

In fact, the real cause of the reemergence of white supremacy on the streets and in government is not the growing people’s movement for social and economic equality, but the complete rapacity of the bankers, oil and tech bosses over the last forty years that has created greater economic instability and forced workers and oppressed people to fight for their very lives.

The Sanders phenomenon and other newly progressive and democratic socialist elected politicians, even though they represent a hopeful but rather mild rebuke of this rotten system that lynches black people and vultures all the wealth while people needlessly die from the pandemic, are entirely unacceptable to the ruling class at this point—especially considering that there is not an organized independent working class organization or movement (including internationally) that threatens the status quo and would force them to deal with the social democrats.


The protests and revolts—of vital importance in terms of putting the system on alert and increasing the political consciousness of large parts of the population—have yet to find leadership or the correct political form that can challenge the status quo.

Without or even with reforms—which we should continue to fight tooth and nail for out of necessity—the protest and rebellions will grow in intensity. What we need is greater and greater until absolute independence from the establishment.

A system that gives us Trump vs. Biden cannot, ultimately, be reformed. It must be done away with. We need to fight. Really fight.

Biden and the ruling class

As I said before, Biden, because of his great subservience and trustworthiness, is the candidate of those in the ruling class who are hoping the system can be better managed and less threatened by the internal struggle for justice.

Biden is not progressive. History will remember people like him and Hillary Clinton as people who tried to thwart change, save the obsolete and oppressive american empire and lost.

He is not now nor has he ever been part of any movement. He is a career politician who is responsible for mass incarceration, the militarization of the border and the gestapo deportation machine, the war on civil liberties, the massive wealth gap, and so much more. He is a hawk—a war criminal. He is sexist, a rapist and a bully.

Progressive people hope his election will lead to a better outcome in terms of white supremacy and the war on immigrants, women, LGBTQ people—a better outcome in terms of the economy, workers rights, the pandemic and so on.

Let’s be frank. Whoever wins in 2020, the crises we are facing have been decades in the making. The Clintons, Obamas, Pelosis and Bidens (all very rich people, btw) of the world have not only done zero to help prevent the Great Crisis that is emerging, they have actively carried out policy that has greatly contributed to our problems. They have also, with the backing of the 1%, purposefully “capitulated” time and time again to the worst political forces in human history when they are not in power.

The democrats have, in fact, championed mass incarceration, wars for world domination, a war on the workers and the poor and so much more.

The role of the democrats in the american system

Let’s just talk in concrete examples. Here are three:

Example 1: Pelosi enables the racists

Donald Trump was stopped in his tracks and on his heels in the face of the largest protest movement in history in 2017. The wall was stopped. The Muslim ban was stopped. The attack on Obamacare was stopped, etc.

Then the democrats and the media pushed hard on Russia-gate and made the resistance over into a save america from the foreign menace spectacle circus of lies and dead ends.

In tandem, everything became about—as Trump bombed Syria, moved to overthrow governments in Latin America, cut taxes for the rich, loosened environmental protections, locked children up in cages and so much more—electing democrats in 2018. As a result, Trump, with less street resistance, went on a rampage that has greatly emboldened the billionaires, the cops and white supremacists.

Pelosi, the most powerful democrat in the country, called virtually everything Trump has done a distraction (including concentration camps for children), saying a democratic house in 2018 was the answer to everything. Has a democratic house prevented the pandemic, the Trump regime’s genocidal response and the accompanying economic crises from ravaging the country, Trump’s rule by fiat or anything else, really? No.

In fact, the right-wing has been emboldened in the wake of the 2018 electoral strategy. With little resistance, the armed racist open-up movement took to the streets and won. Republican officials joined the movement and opened up the states they controlled. Democratic officials relented to the pressure from the most reactionary forces in their states and opened up their states as well!

In other words, the 2018 electoral strategy of the democrats was a pandemic genocide enabler!

The irony is that the democrats would have served the 1% better—helped out the economy—if the country stayed on and extended the lockdown and got the virus under control!

At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement has been brutally oppressed. How exactly has a democratic house come to the aid of the people during the uprising? They have not! Biden has even given his tacit approval of the repression against the uprising by using the same tired trope of violent protesters as Trump.

Expecting a Biden administration to do anything about white supremacy unless it is forced to by the militancy and strength of a mass movement is extreme wishful thinking. The protests in 2017 show how we can beat white supremacy. They showed the only way.

Remember, from Charlottesville to Boston to Chicago to DC to everywhere, the white supremacists were driven from the streets by mass counter-protests when they tried to assert themselves in 2017 and 2018. These protests were organized mainly by socialists and BLM and not the democrats who just wanted us to get out of the streets.

The democrats ignore, placate and join white supremacy. They do not oppose it.

Example 2: Obama enables the racists

In 2008 when Barack Obama was elected, he promised immigration reform. It didn’t happen.

Recalling the full story behind the opportunism of the Obama administration and the democrats from 2009 to 2016 and beyond is very, very important. It is a truth that must become our truth.

In 2006 and 2007, the United States witnessed the largest protests in its history up until 2017. Millions of people, over and over, marched to defend immigrants, for equality for immigrants and for a path to citizenship (immigration reform). At the time, those marches effectively shut down federal legislative attacks on immigrants.

The leadership of the rebublican party, the democratic party as a whole and the public were now for immigration reform. Immigration reform won Obama the 2008 election! The democrats won the white house and congress. They swept into power and could have passed any bill they wanted to. They promised immigration reform. It did not happen.

In 2007, the democrats and Obama said to the movement: let’s win in 2008 and then we can pass immigration reform. Obama and the democrats, road to power on the backs of the immigrant rights movement which mobilized to get out the vote.

The 2008 election also saw the Republican party teetering on collapse. The attacks on immigrants and the protest movement drove latinos out of the republican party.

A small minority of virulently anti-immigrant legislators—backed by racist Tea Party street protests that filled the vacuum ceded by the immigrant rights movement and the democratic party were allowed to scuttle immigration reform.

Buoyed and emboldened by the Tea Party success at defeating immigration reform and by the lack of democratic party resistance, the racist Tea Party took over the house in 2010.

The democratic party could have smashed the racist wing of the republican party—and maybe even the republican party—by taking definitive action on immigration when they had power and the backing of the vast majority of the population. Instead, the democratic party is responsible for the rise of white supremacy and the election of Trump just as much as any other entity.

Example 3: Let’s really think about the response to the pandemic

Is the genocidal failure of this system during the pandemic really all Trump’s fault? Of course not!

Let’s go over the timeline:

The pandemic emerges. The Trump regime carries out genocidal policies with no national plan. Most republican governors do the same. Some dem politicians, governors eventually do some good things. Curve starts to flatten in some places. The Trump army—some armed—descends on state capitals. Dems capitulate. Dem governors start opening up to soon. Pandemic escalates.

At the precise time when the democrats could have continued to carry out pandemic measures that might have swung the public will in the right direction through actual successes they did not stand up. They capitulated to a minority movement of white supremacist pandemic deniers and the Trump administration.

Feeling emboldened, a growing fascist coalition of armed racists, small business owners and middle-class professionals, some billionaires, parts of the armed state and Trump are violently attacking and killing protesters.

Again, will Biden stand up to this growing faction of society that is organically and historically linked to the ruling institutions of this country—institutions of which Biden is a lifelong servant, promoter and defender. You tell me!

The democrats serve the one percent, the ruling class which has always partnered with movements like the pro-business open-up movement when they need a counterweight to a people’s movement. Don’t be fooled. Biden would choose Trump over BLM any day of the week. That is his concrete history.

The times are serious. There is still more then enough time, but fascism could ascend to power unless we fight it in the streets, workplaces and schools.

The Clash of 2021?

While the day could have some consequence, nothing that happens on election day 2020 will alter the fact that large parts of the population will continue to seek political change. The political extremities are growing. The elites have no united will to solve the runaway crises of greed, environmental destruction, war for empire, racism and so much more.

2021 and beyond will be an era of greater clashes and, ultimately, a battle over the future of the planet. Fascism will continue to grow. It is an existential threat because capitalism is an existential threat. The people’s movement for justice will not be stopped and the ruling class will seek to hold onto their power through greater state violence and repression. The fascists will be incorporated into that violence and repression organically and likely in some kind of coordination with the state.

Our job is to be ready. To be organized. To be in highly disciplined movements and organizations that understand the nature of a system that can only be fixed through a socialist revolution.

The ruling class, the capitalist system must be overthrown. The sooner the better.


(Mass-Action)

https://orinocotribune.com/a-vote-for-b ... t-fascism/

I don't think that racist reaction will be a great issue at the national level immediately after the election because they lack serious support from the ruling class, however the bosses might sympathize white terror will, at this point be more destabilizing than stabilizing. So we ain't there yet. If the protest movement grows and achieves organization that could easily change. Should Trump lose there will no doubt be incidents of violence and death, probably a few counties will secede... but they will be stomped on because There Must Be Order.Further down the line things will get more dangerous.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:34 am

Why Has Joe Biden Chosen Kamala Harris?
Can anyone explain to me why Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as running mate?

I find nothing that makes her an attractive candidate:

We just had a summer during which Democrats applauded to Black Live Matters and cheered anti-police riots. Harris has the well deserved (vid) reputation of being a hard line prosecutor and is unlikely to be sympathetic to the issue. Stocks of private prison companies went up when Harris was confirmed as vice president candidate.
Harris comes from California. She will not attract critical swing state voters.
Her campaign during the primaries was chaotic. She polled at some 2%, about the worst number of all candidates.
She has little governing and zero foreign policy experience. As Joe Biden has obviously (vid) mental problems a more experienced potential replacement would have been more assuring.
Kamala means "horrible, terrible" in Finnish.
In my view the choice of Harris as VP candidate increases the already high chance that Biden will lose the presidential election.

So what was the real reason for this choice?

Image

The Wall Street Journal headline hints to a potential answer but my hunch is that there is more to it.

Posted by b at 17:10 UTC | Comments (146)

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/08/w ... l#comments

Potential answer, indeed: Anything but Communism. The Sanders wing is given the ultimatum: our way or Trump. The Dems assume this a 'no-brainer', I refer you to the original post of this thread...There will be no universal health care, the 'Green New Deal will be a greater travisty than originally proposed, just the 'normalcy' of imperialism and capitalist exploitation. The Bernie-ites should get serious or drop the pretenses.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Wed Aug 19, 2020 1:04 pm

DNC: Conservative forces dominate opening night; security state apparatus dominates streets in Milwaukee
Robert PennerAugust 18, 2020 207 3 minutes read
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On the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, purportedly hosted in Milwaukee, but mostly taking place online, conservative voices and messaging predominated, demonstrating yet another shift to the right for the Democratic Party. It appears that instead of embracing the increasingly progressive energy that has developed as millions of working people have taken to the streets to protest the violent, racist system of U.S. capitalism.

While paying lip service to Black Lives Matter and racial inequality, the personalities rolled out to deliver statements of support were anything but inspiring to those ends, considering their records. These included conservative Democrats such as former Republican Governor of Ohio and Presidential candidate John Kasich, Minnesota Senator and former prosecutor Amy Klobuchar, former Republican Congresswoman from New York Susan Molinari, ultra-conservative millionaire CEO Meg Whitman, right wing conspiracy theorist and Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, pseudo-progressive New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and of course, presumptive nominee Joe Biden himself.

Bernie Sanders, who addressed the convention well after the conservatives had already delivered their lengthy addresses, took a conciliatory approach, urging voters to set aside their apprehensions about Biden’s conservative platform, and appealing for unity on the basis of Biden simply not being Donald Trump. His address did little to push the Biden/Harris ticket, or the Democratic Party as a whole, to the left, as many of his long standing supporters had hoped.

In her speech, former First Lady Michelle Obama invoked former conservative Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, both war criminals, as unifying figures for Democrats and potentially anti-Trump Republicans to coalesce around.

The true nature of the Democratic Party is on display not only through the digital convention, but on the ground as well. In Milwaukee, the footprint of the Democratic National Convention is extremely obvious, and resembles a police state checkpoint with swarms of heavily armed local and federal police, tall metal fences, attack dogs, helicopters and armored vehicles. This display of overt authoritarian tendencies is the result of the Democratic Party’s knowledge that they do not enjoy the support of the masses of working people and that major protests are being planned in Milwaukee as a direct result of the Democrat’s right-wing shift.

On March 11, 2019, as soon as it was revealed that Milwaukee would be hosting the Convention, progressive and revolutionary forces in the city united to form the Coalition to March on the DNC. This coalition went from being a handful of activists to a large organization that has collected hundreds of endorsements from groups across the country, as well as dozens more locally. The major organizing victories the Coalition had wracked up since forming, including a massive march of more than 1,000 people against Donald Trump, when he appeared in Milwaukee on January 14, 2020, showed clearly that the march on the DNC would enjoy a great deal of popular support.

Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic intruded, causing massive devastation around the world and costing thousands of lives. Because of the dangerous nature of the pandemic and President Trump’s lackluster response to its ravages, the Democratic National Convention has proceeded as a mostly digital event, though the security infrastructure of a physical convention remains in place. While the Coalition does not expect a massive showing of people from all over the country, it will nevertheless be marching on the DNC on August 20. It will make the voice of working and oppressed people heard, that we oppose the conservatism and reactionism of the Democratic Party and that we demand fundamental social, political and economic reform.

We invite all progressive, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist forces to join us for this march, which is demanding an end to U.S. wars and interventions, community control/defunding of the police and an end to police terror, legalization for all and no more deportations, taxation of the rich, Medicare for all, action on climate change, expanding unions and worker’s rights, peace, justice, and equality for all, and for the Democrats to wage war on poverty, not the poor.

While these demands are directed at the Democrats, there is not an enthusiastic expectation that they will take our platform seriously. That is why we are also directing our message outward to the masses of working and oppressed people to let them know that there are political parties and organizations aside from the Democrats and Republicans, that will stand up for their ability to access the necessities of life and against racism, imperialism and institutional violence of capitalism. Marching on the DNC is only a step toward building a movement that can usher in the fundamental changes that are needed in the imperialist core of world capitalism, the United States.

https://www.liberationnews.org/dnc-cons ... rationnews

There will not be political progress in the US until the Democratic Party is utterly discredited in the eyes of the working class. Voting for 'the lesser of two evils' effectively endorses the Democratic Party which postpones the desired realization. Would a second Trump term be 'worse' than a Biden White House? Probably so, particularly domestically. Should we participate in kicking the can down the alley yet again?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 21, 2020 3:05 pm

The acceptance speech was such Dem Party boilerplate that analysis is superfluous. The pundits gushing over it should all be kneecapped and NPR gets particular notice for their 'fact-checking' of the transcript, which amounted to supportive footnotes.Happily for Biden, NPR's 'facts' did not cover omissions, such as Obomber robbing Social Security to fob off us peons just as Trump now proposes or the fabulous gift the ACA was to the insurance Bund, guaranteeing them millions of customers with minimal service provided. And it wouldn't be a big league Dem without some old fashion Cold War rhetoric based on zero facts, though I'm sure it came from the heart...To be inspired by this palp is to be brain dead or hypnotised.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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