Sympathy for the Devils...

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 07, 2023 4:26 pm

Mental Competency Tests Idea ‘Ridiculous’ – Jill Biden
MARCH 6, 2023

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U.S. first Lady Jill Biden and President Joe Biden arrive for a reception celebrating Lunar New Year in the East Room of the White House on January 26, 2023 in Washington, DC. Photo: Getty Images/Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.

The US first lady was responding to calls for the examination from Republicans

US First Lady Jill Biden has dismissed concerns about her husband’s mental acuity after Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley called for mandatory mental capacity tests for political candidates above the age of 75.

“Ridiculous,” she said to CNN in an interview set to be aired on Monday. She cited Joe Biden’s rigorous travel schedule as evidence of his effervescence, mentioning his recent surprise visit to Kiev.

“How many 30-year-olds could travel to Poland, get on the train?” she asked rhetorically. “Go nine more hours, go to Ukraine, meet with President Zelensky? So, look at the man,” she added of her husband, who is 80 years old. “Look what he’s doing. Look what he continues to do each and every day.”

Asked if she believed her husband would ever take such a mental capacity test, Jill Biden responded, “We would never even discuss something like that.”

The first lady’s comments come after Haley, 51, said earlier this month that the US needed to “move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past” ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Her stance was seen not just as a salvo against the Biden administration, but also Donald Trump, who would be 78 at the time of the next election.

Should the race once again be between Biden and Trump, the winner would be the oldest candidate ever to be elected to the White House.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is 81, also pushed back against Haley’s suggestion, telling CBS News last month that such suggestions are “ageist.”

“We are fighting racism. We’re fighting sexism. We’re fighting homophobia. I think we should also be fighting ageism,” Sanders said. “Trust me, look at people and say, ‘You know, this person is competent. This person’s incompetent.’ There are a lot of 40-year-olds out there who ain’t particularly competent.”

Biden has yet to confirm if he intends to seek re-election in 2024. If he were to win a second term in Washington, he would be 82 years old on inauguration day.

https://orinocotribune.com/mental-compe ... ill-biden/

“Look what he’s doing. Look what he continues to do each and every day.” Indeed....That ain't no endorsement.

The blind can see that Joe ain't hitting on all cylinders. How much does 'he' matter anyways? Other than semi-demented sound bytes he don't do much, Blinken, Sullivan and Nuland(Three Stooges of Imperialism) are running foreign policy and the Chamber of Commerce seems to control domestic issues, as usual. A couple vacant warm fuzzies for the pathetic wretches who claim to be the 'left' of his party and that sums up this administration.

Incited war in Ukraine, worst threat of nuclear war since Cuba, shit all over rail workers(and look what's happening...), total reversal of environmental program, reversal of immigration program....Jill, perhaps you should have a Mental Competency Test too.

I would not suggest that another Trump regime would be an improvement; the damage he does domestically is insufferable. But despite being a vile sack of pus with myriad crimes under his belt, Trump, in his recent CPAC speech, flat out stated that he is an isolationist. He ain't no imperialist, and that's why he won't be president again.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Thu Mar 09, 2023 1:08 pm

Why Biden Stabbed D.C. in the Back
BY MARK JOSEPH STERN
MARCH 03, 20231:19 PM

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President Joe Biden at the House Democrats 2023 Issues Conference in Baltimore on Wednesday. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images

For the first two years of his presidency, Joe Biden positioned himself as a champion of statehood and home rule in the District of Columbia. The president urged Congress to make D.C. the 51st state—even as the Senate filibuster stood in the way—and vowed to defend District residents’ right to govern themselves through their limited local democracy. Any “denial of self-governance” in D.C., he proclaimed, is “an affront to the democratic values on which our Nation was founded.”

Then, on Thursday, he stabbed D.C. in the back. In a single tweet, the president reversed more than two years of staunch support for home rule—abandoning his principles the moment they became politically inexpedient. Biden announced that he would sign legislation nullifying the modernization of D.C.’s criminal code. His action will, perversely, make the District less safe, preserving an outdated 122-year-old criminal code whose ambiguities actually make it harder for prosecutors to charge violent crimes.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... rayal.html.

Actually Biden doesn't have any principles.

*************

The Incredible Shrinking Power of Joe Biden’s Welfare State

This month’s devastation of a popular food stamp benefit marks yet another reversal in the president’s once vaunted war on poverty.
BY ALEXANDER SAMMON
MARCH 07, 20235:50 AM

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In the first two years of the Biden administration, some very good progress was made in the so-called war on poverty. But those gains are receding quickly. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

On March 1, the federal government shut off enhanced SNAP benefits for 32 states, D.C., Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. SNAP, colloquially known as food stamps, gives monthly food stipends to low-income Americans, and was expanded as part of the COVID emergency response, increasing benefits for the program’s 42 million recipients.

Now, with those emergency allotments cut off, the average recipient will get about $90 less per month in food aid than they’d been getting for over two years; a family of four could see their monthly benefit cut by about $328 a month; and seniors could see their benefits drop from $281 a month to just $23. An estimated 31 million Americans have now been thrown off what’s been called “the hunger cliff.”

(more...)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... verty.html

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 10, 2023 4:21 pm

PSL Editorial – Biden’s budget proposal a reminder of the Democrats’ failure
Liberation StaffMarch 9, 2023 61 3 minutes read
Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... sts/111963

Today’s budget proposal that the Biden administration is attempting to present as a bold vision for social change is in fact little more than a bitter reminder of the Democrats’ failure over the last two years to implement their own agenda of progressive reform. Despite having a clear popular mandate, when it was actually possible to enact the measures included in Biden’s draft budget the Democratic Party leadership came up woefully short.

To become law, a budget must pass both houses of Congress, and there is no prospect that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will vote in favor of these proposals. Up until the midterm election, however, the Democrats were in the relatively rare position of controlling the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. Their failure in these critical years to pass major reforms has reduced their current proposals to little more than rhetorical statements of principles.

Much of what is in Biden’s budget proposal would indeed bring some welcome relief to working people. The draft includes provisions to restore the enhanced child tax credit that sends monthly checks to parents, reduce drug prices, increase subsidies to cover the cost of college tuition, and establish universal pre-K. It would also fund an expansion in the number of children who receive free school meals, and mandate paid family and medical leave up to 12 weeks.

It would pay for this by increasing taxes on the rich and corporations. This includes a 25 percent minimum tax on people with over $100 million, an increase in the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, and an increase in the tax on a financial maneuver favored by major companies called stock buybacks. It would improve the financial situation of a crucial component of Medicare with a tax hike on investment income brought in by households with an income above $400,000.

Especially amid the inflation crisis, these measures – along with much more dramatic steps like a universal healthcare system and the forgiveness of student debt – are urgently needed.

It should also be noted that there are highly reactionary, anti-worker parts of Biden’s proposal as well. The draft allocates a record $835 billion for the Pentagon, reflecting the administration’s commitment to its new Cold War policy that is bringing the world to the edge of catastrophe. The White House also brags in a press release that it, “includes funding to put 100,000 additional police officers on the street.”

But the aspects of the Biden administration’s agenda that are positive – which are rooted not in genuine concern for the people but fear that capitalist rule would be destabilized in the absence of concessions – can all be vetoed by the Republican majority in the House. This is a ridiculous state of affairs considering that most of these proposals are recycled from the “Build Back Better” social program expansion that Biden spent much of his presidency up to this point pushing.

Because they were unwilling to eliminate the anti-democratic “filibuster” rule in the Senate, Biden had to stake everything on a single bill passed as part of a budget procedure that is immune to the filibuster’s 60-vote requirement. But in order to succeed, he needed to force Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the two most right wing Democratic Senators, to go along with it. Rather than bringing to bear the pressure that can be generated by the most powerful political office on the planet, President Biden simply offered concessions and praised Manchin in public, emphasizing what great friends they had been for many years. This, unsurprisingly, amounted to nothing, and Manchin humiliated Biden by announcing on Fox News that he was withdrawing from negotiations with the White House.

Biden’s stated position on expanding social programs is highly popular. In all likelihood, voters would have rewarded the Democrats with expanded majorities in Congress if they had followed through on their campaign promises. But instead, the right wing now controls half of Congress and has the ability to use the “debt ceiling” government borrowing limit and the “government shutdown” budget deadlines to imperil what meager programs do exist. This is a situation that exists thanks to the total inability of the Democratic Party elite to keep their promises to the people.

https://www.liberationnews.org/psl-edit ... rationnews

This variation on 'bait & switch', where instead of 'switch' you get little to nothing describes not only the Biden regime but the Democratic Party's domestic tactics entirely. Is that not what Bernie Sanders has been doing for the last forever? Radical sounding speeches and proposals, all of which are bound to fail from Day One but isn't it glorious how he speaks truth to power? It's bullshit, he's done this a hundred times and there's damn little to show for it. The party is much the same, a bunch of progressive promises which are never pursued seriously which leads to defeat in the next election, rinse and repeat.

This is the party whose greatest recent triumph, 'Obama Care' was lifted whole from the Republicans, delivers marginal service relative to real national health care of every developed economy on the planet(and some under-developed ones too...) has proved a bonanza for the insurance bund and seems designed to fail in the medium term as 'Medicare Plus' undermines what little we got.

And people wonder why near half the electorate stays home on election day...Ya gotta wonder about the people who vote for the Dems expecting them to change anything... doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 14, 2023 3:14 pm

War buildup: Biden’s $1 trillion military budget
March 14, 2023 Gary Wilson

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Drone swarms. The Pentagon’s massive budget includes a new project, the Autonomous Multi-domain Adaptive Swarms-of-Swarms (AMASS), to launch automated, coordinated attacks by swarms of thousands of many types of drones that operate in the air, on the ground, and in the water.

The White House released its budget request for 2024. For the Pentagon, there is $824 billion. Adding armaments for military operations in Ukraine takes that figure to more than $950 billion.

Add the $24 billion Department of Energy budget item, as the department maintains nuclear bombs and related armaments. Hidden are the budgets for the CIA and other secret military forces. Biden’s total budget for world war totals well over $1 trillion.

The Biden administration has started a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. At the same time, it is building up toward war on China, including a possible U.S. invasion of Taiwan under some wild pretext, such as a threat from weather balloons.

Don’t laugh; that’s how every U.S. imperialist war started, like the sinking of the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor — the Maine sank because of a coal-bunker fire next to the ship’s gunpowder storage, not from mines planted by Spain, as was reported at the time. “Remember the Maine” became the battle cry for launching the war with Spain in 1898.

Like the “Gulf of Tonkin incident” in Vietnam, alleged attacks by the Vietnamese on U.S. ships that never happened but were used to authorize an all-out war on Vietnam. Like the “weapons of mass destruction” that never existed but were used to launch a war on Iraq.

As history has shown, a country that prepares for war is likely to go to war. Washington is engaged in a military buildup against China, diplomatic hostility including sanctions and trade barriers, and multiple semi-unreported operations such as basing a fleet of U.S.-crewed nuclear-powered attack submarines in Australia.

Also slipped through on March 13, the Biden administration extended U.S. capitalism’s war on the environment, approving a massive oil drilling project on federal land in Alaska.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... ry-budget/

But where will they find "Ukrainians" to fill the body bags? They can showcase the tech until the cows come home but only 'boots on the ground' can take and hold territory, like Taiwan. Whatcha ya gonna do Joe?

Just think what that money could do for people, their healthcare, our environment....

"What are you bp, some kind of commie?"

************

Biden approves massive oil drilling project in Alaska
By MINLU ZHANG in New York | China Daily Global | Updated: 2023-03-14 10:12

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US President Joe Biden. [Photo/Agencies]

US President Joe Biden on Monday approved a massive oil drilling project in Alaska, a move that drew criticism from environmentalists for its potential climate impact.

The Willow Project would be a decades-long oil drilling operation in the National Petroleum Reserve, a vast area of untouched land about 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle and owned by the federal government.

The project aims to extract up to 600 million barrels of oil, though that oil would take years to reach the market as the project hasn't been built.

Burning all that oil could result in the release of about 280 million metric tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, according to the US Interior Department.

The Biden administration has estimated that the project would generate about 9.2 million metric tons of carbon pollution annually, which is equivalent to the emissions produced by almost 2 million cars on the road each year, according to The New York Times.

The president also announced new protections for federal land and waters in Alaska, a move apparently aimed at tempering criticism over the Willow decision.

The administration moved to protect more than 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska from drilling. In all, the administration will move to protect up to 16 million acres from future leasing for drilling.

"It's insulting that Biden thinks this will change our minds about the Willow project," Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The New York Times. "Protecting one area of the Arctic so you can destroy another doesn't make sense, and it won't help the people and wildlife who will be upended by the Willow project."

Biden's approval was welcomed by Alaska's bipartisan congressional delegation, a coalition of Alaska Native tribes and groups, and a natural gas and oil industry group.

"Not only will this mean jobs and revenue for Alaska, but it will also be resources that are needed for the country and for our friends and allies," Republican US Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in a statement. "The administration listened to Alaska voices. They listed to the delegation as we pressed the case for energy security and national security.''

Frank Macchiarola, the senior vice-president of economics, policy and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a blog on the organization's website: "While we applaud the Biden administration for approving the Willow MDP project, we continue to see mixed signals on energy policy with its latest move to restrict the responsible development of federal lands and waters. By imposing these restrictions, the Department of the Interior appears to be treating their statutory obligations as a bargaining chip."

The Willow project was allowed to have three drill sites, which include up to 199 total wells. Two other drill sites proposed for the project would be denied.

Earthjustice, an environmental law group, is preparing to file a case against the project. They plan to argue that the Biden administration has the authority to protect the resources on Alaska's public lands, CNN reported.

"We are too late in the climate crisis to approve massive oil and gas projects that directly undermine the new clean economy that the Biden Administration committed to advancing," Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen said at a statement Monday.

"We know President Biden understands the existential threat of climate, but he is approving a project that derails his own climate goal," Dillen said.

Christy Goldfuss, who previously worked in the White House during the Obama administration and is a policy chief at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said she was "deeply disappointed" at Biden's decision to approve Willow.

The NRDC estimates that the project would produce greenhouse gas detrimental to the climate and the environment emissions equivalent to that of more than 1 million homes.

"This decision is bad for the climate, bad for the environment and bad for the Native Alaska communities who oppose this and feel their voices were not heard," Goldfuss said, according to The Associated Press.

Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, former mayor of Nuiqsut, a community of around 525 people that is closest to the proposed project, said she is worried about how the project could impact the caribou and the traditional subsistence lifestyle of the residents, AP reported.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... b4575.html

There ya go: another 'Environmental President', like every one since 1970 I think except Reagan and Trump. And it don't mean nothin' at all.

And we're supposed to thank our lucky stars that Trump ain't prez...jfc.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:48 pm

RAILROADED, BIDEN-STYLE
Posted by Chris Townsend | Mar 13, 2023

Image

When 50 railroad cars carrying highly explosive and toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3rd, it was international news. As the wrecked rail cars burned furiously, dense noxious smoke billowed high into the sky as the spreading chemical liquids ran into the local aquifer and poisoned the entire village. People living downwind and downstream, far into Pennsylvania, were warned to stay inside until the calamity dissipated. The Norfolk Southern train derailment will take many months to clean up; the full extent of adverse health effects are unknown but are expected to be chronic and painful for the residents and ecosystem of the entire area for years to come. Despite calls for President Biden to quickly visit the affected town he declined, instead opting to travel to Ukraine and deliver in-person billions more to prolong and expand the war.

The obvious public relations gaffe was exploited by former President Trump, allowing him to visit the site of the disaster first. In response, the Biden White House dispatched the hapless Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to somehow try to placate and appease the village’s victims, with predictably miserable results. The train wreck calamity illustrated among other things the complete failure of current rail regulation, or at least what is left of it. What we see live-time is the fruit of the two-party driven rail “deregulation” mania. Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, and now Biden have all worked to provide the rail companies with virtually everything they have dreamed of. But such is the magnitude of failure of the current railroad regulatory situation that it has bolstered a renewed clamor for total nationalization of the industry, led by Railroad Workers United (RWU). Support Public Ownership of the Railroads — Railroad Workers United The United Electrical Workers Union, with several thousand members who manufacture rail equipment and who provide transportation for rail crews also announced support for rail nationalization. Railroads Must Be Brought Under Public Ownership | UE (ueunion.org) It has been many decades since rail nationalization was heard from, and we can take it as an encouraging sign at least.

SECOND WHITE HOUSE RAIL FIASCO

The East Palestine debacle was the second railroad disaster for the President in almost as many months. Democrat Joe Biden cynically undermined and squashed the railroad worker strike late last year, crushing it before it had even started. Not because the strike was breaking the law, but because in the judgement of Biden it was untimely and possibly contrary to his political fortunes. Apologists for Biden loudly defended this shameful act, citing all manner of exaggerated economic consequences if the strike was allowed to proceed. The entire Democratic Party establishment worked overtime to justify Biden’s outrage, including AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. Her statement condoning the strikebreaking and promising mythical legislative action for the workers desperately needed sick time was certainly a preposterous new low point for a labor movement accomplished at reaching new lows. No matter that the rail operations workers were being held in virtual serfdom, doomed to toil until they fired themselves as a result of the draconian and dictatorial attendance policies of the rail bosses. Some among the very small left fringe of the Democratic Party spoke up to defend the rail workers, but it was short-lived. Privately, the phenomenally profitable rail monopolies and their political allies all rejoiced, having been rescued from a long overdue and justified strike by “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.”

DEMOCRATS WILL NOT CONFRONT RAIL COMPANIES

As the Biden rail strikebreaking and the East Palestine disaster clearly illustrate, the President and the Democratic Party are incapable of seriously confronting the runaway lawlessness of the rail companies. As the rail workers warned repeatedly, the dire labor relations situation was but a reflection of an endemic problem in the industry where public safety, service to shippers, and the lives of the workforce were all dangerously subordinated to the bottom-line profits of the rail companies. So saturated is the White House and Democratic Party apparatus with pro-corporate ideology and bias that it is unthinkable for them to challenge the rail corporations on even basic issues. They are instead treated as legitimate “partners” and are afforded “please and thank you” service at every turn. Throughout the rail negotiations the companies were afforded this friendly treatment as public statements reveal. Much of the clean-up costs in East Palestine – certainly to run into the hundreds of millions – will also be borne by taxpayers. With history as our guide, Norfolk Southern will not admit guilt no matter the ultimate evidence, and any fines or penalties assessed will in all likelihood be reduced to insignificance or dismissed altogether. The White House will occasionally talk tough to satisfy the public, but in the end the kid-glove arrangement will prevail.

In addition to the damage done in East Palestine, it is certainly troubling when one thinks that this railroad – Norfolk Southern – and the other 6 monopoly status Class 1 railroads – are all today toting the same sorts of dangerous cargo through towns identical to East Palestine, using the same worn-out equipment and perpetually fatigued workers. As the rail workers have warned over and over the deferred maintenance, longer and longer train sizes, and smaller and smaller crews all incline towards an inevitable number of derailments with toxic spillage and combustion among the consequences. But on the U.S. political scene the rail strikebreaking was barely noticed and the East Palestine conflagration is now in the rear view mirror. The probability of any significant pushback against the rail barons is almost nil given the current political chemistry.

ANOTHER LABOR MOVEMENT HUMILIATION

Rather than these two episodes being a catalyst for action, as they are in the wake of the even worse deadly corporate crimes represented by the passenger rail disaster in Greece, they are here further indicators of the political straitjacket worn by organized and unorganized labor alike. So diminished in political relevance is today’s labor movement that the twin U.S. rail disasters would have been in most countries a flashpoint for the entire labor movement – possibly even the larger working class. But here, our overall labor movement is largely habituated to defeat, knowing mostly subservience to the Democratic Party. The inglorious Biden bungling of the East Palestine wreck and the insults levied against the railroad union members were just fresh sorry chapters in a decades-long litany of rout and decay for the unions. No other labor movement in the industrial world is as numerically small, politically impotent, backward in methods, and conservative in orientation as is that in the United States.

The railroad brotherhoods exemplify this primitive and failed situation. As the rail negotiations developed and neared the moment of showdown the leadership of most of the rail unions worked hand-in-hand with the Biden apparatus in order to avoid the ultimate strike. Despite the fact that the strike was clearly supported by a majority of the membership – and urgently needed to win the needed time-off. The Biden regime made it clear from the start that they would use their considerable inside influence with the rail union leaderships to steer the negotiations for their benefit, not the benefit of the rank-and-file. The exact dealings of Biden with the rail companies during the negotiations remains unknown, although all the optics would lead one to conclude that the companies were fully supported by the President and all pushing towards surrender was aimed at the unions and not the corporations.

RAILROAD WORKERS UNITED (RWU) TAKES CHARGE

The multi-union and multi-craft Railroad Workers United (RWU) membership network distinguished itself multiple times during the rail crisis, one of the few high points of the situation for labor. For the past 15 years RWU has built solidarity among the badly divided rail unions, focusing on the need for real pushback against increasingly aggressive rail companies. RWU has advocated for unity of the 13 different unions, a common program for bargaining, and a resistance to the rail companies relentless drive for dangerous staff reductions and speedup. The rail monopolies have long sought another reduction crew size on a train from the current two, to one. Prior to the deregulation of the early 1980’s a crew consisting of five workers was the norm. Today, two is the contractually negotiated crew size, although regulators have allowed for mid-train and end-of-train locomotives to be operated robotically from the head end and by its two crew members. In certain rail yard situations entirely robotic operation of locomotives is now permitted. As this absurd and dangerous company-led drive to cut train crews in half renews yet again, despite the Ohio wreck calamity, RWU will be foremost among those resisting this.

Railroad company capture of the governmental railroad regulatory apparatus charged with supposedly protecting the public – and the other corporations who use the railroad to conduct their businesses – is nothing new. In 1909, researcher Gustavus Myers authored “The History of the Great American Fortunes”. A must-read for any student of the growth and corruption of U.S. corporate power. Entire sections of the book reveal the roles played by the various railroads in corrupting government and capturing and corrupting politicians and legislatures to win enormous grants of nearly free land; swindling the public and rail customers alike in the no-holds-barred drive for super-profits; watering stock offerings and engaging in endemic fraud and stock manipulations; arranging through corrupt means for massive taxpayer subsidies for their already profitable railroads; engaging in abominable labor practices leading to untold deaths and injuries among their workforces; and conveniently utilizing the police and military at no cost to put down numerous insurrections by their workforces were all common practices.

Today the situation is increasingly reminiscent of Myers’ appraisal of the rail industry more than 125 years ago. The profitability of the 7 U.S. and Canadian railroad monopoly companies is record-breaking. Money saved on huge employee reductions, with the remaining workers grossly overworked, and vast sums of money pocketed when maintenance is deferred even to dangerous levels, have led to gusher of profits. All 7 Class 1 railroads have experienced huge leaps in profits in the recent period. The Union Pacific company delivered a $7 billion dollar profit for 2022, and astonishingly management was also able to engineer a $6.3 billion dollar stock buyback scheme to benefit stockholders. Norfolk Southern, railroad of the East Palestine disaster, reported a $4.8 billion dollar profit for 2022, a record breaking 8% increase for the company. Last year found Norfolk Southern already in the midst of an eye-popping $10 billion dollar stock buyback scheme. This profit mad mania has also taken place while overall rail traffic has fallen 21% since 2006.

These stock and bookkeeping manipulations help management conceal profits, evade taxes, and deliver massive windfalls primarily to large stockholders. Myers documented similar financial scams of the rail owners in his epic History of the Great American Fortunes. He likewise detailed how government regulators even then possessed the tools to curtail these sorts of manipulations, but as we face today they refuse to use the tools available to them. Neither the Trump or Biden regimes have confronted this perverse situation where financial manipulations take the place of spending on manpower and maintenance, leading directly to deadly calamities and horribly abused and exploited employees.

In summary, the double rail disasters of the Biden regime yet again detail and expose the corruption and inaction of the White House when faced with these life-threatening situations. The Trump regime had no intention of confronting the rail bosses on any of these urgent matters either. Biden has likewise proven his willingness to accommodate the companies at the expense of the workforce and the public. Better press releases may be attributed to Biden, but for the working class the outcomes have been the same under either regime. Sadly so. On the left, our too frequent inclination to minimize, ignore, or remain silent about this reality is what has led to, among other things, a massive shift of working class support into the far right camp. Far from achieving any tangible positive results, the Democrats accommodation and subservience to the rail industry contributes directly to the worsening situation. To deny the obvious is to promote further rightward shift in our already dangerously far-right nation.

https://mltoday.com/railroaded-biden-style/

Check the list:

Union workers
Environmentalists
Immigrants
Advocates for peace
Poor folks(SNAP)
Black folks(DC)

Biden has shit on each and every one of those groups. So who is he aiming his re-election campaign at:'independents' and the burbs.He's hoping the threat of Trump and Trumpism will keep the aforementioned listed in line and recent history justifies this hope. Every election the Dems sidle more to the right, moving the goalposts in favor of plutocracy. And then the Republicans move even further to the right, just so their base doesn't get confused by two parties whose similarities out number their dissimilarities. How long....

Ditch the Dems!
There will never be a party that truly represents the working class until the Democratic Party is consigned to the ash heap of history.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Mon Mar 20, 2023 2:47 pm

Biden Led the Charge to Invade Iraq
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 19, 2023



Simes Dimitri Interviews Scott Ritter

Joe Biden led the charge to push the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, according to Scott Ritter, who served as the United Nations chief weapons inspector in the country from 1991 to 1998.

In the lead up to the war, then-Senator Biden used his position as chair of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help sell the George W. Bush Administration’s plans to a skeptical American public. He gave speeches and organized Senate hearings that promoted the administration’s false claims about Saddam Hussein’s WMD program. In October 2002, Biden spearheaded a joint resolution that gave Bush sweeping powers to use military force against Iraq.

“Joe Biden is one of the main reasons why the United States went to war in Iraq. He likes to pretend that he didn’t play such an important role, but I’ll say it now and I’ll say it forever: Joe Biden’s a liar.” he said. “Joe Biden’s a man who allowed thousands of Americans to be sacrificed for his pride, for his arrogance, for his narcissism, because he knew that one day he was going to be President of the United States.”

According to Ritter, Biden brushed moral and geopolitical concerns about invading Iraq aside because he did not want to face accusations that he was taking a “pro-Saddam” stance. Biden’s failure to speak out against the war, he added, helped result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, tens of millions displaced, and broader chaos in the Middle East.

The conflict was not cost-free for the United States either, resulting in thousands of American troops dead and tens of thousands maimed.

Sputnik News spoke with Ritter ahead of the twentieth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Over the course of a 50-minute long video interview, the former UN inspector explained how the US government created a false pretext for the war, sought to intimidate dissidents into silence, and why Washington failed to learn anything from its costly debacle.

Road to War

In August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait over the oil-rich monarchy’s refusal to forgive Baghdad’s debts from the Iran-Iraq War. Less than six months later, in mid-January 1991, the United States and its allies launched a massive aerial bombing campaign followed by a land offensive to dislodge Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Ritter told Sputnik that the main reason why the George H.W. Bush administration decided to militarily intervene because it feared that control of Kuwait combined with Iraq’s existing oil wealth would provide Hussein with disproportionate influence over global oil markets. The problem with this rationale, however, was that few Americans viewed it as a compelling enough reason to go to send troops abroad. The most popular anti-war chant of the era was “No American blood for oil.”

“We had to reshape this conflict by focusing not on the geopolitical reality, but on creating a cartoon-like enemy out of Saddam Hussein,” he said. “When Bush addressed a fundraising crowd in Dallas, he said that Saddam Hussein was the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler, and that for his crimes against Kuwait, there would have to be a Nuremberg-like retribution. This was a decisive statement because now the United States was at war against evil.”

Although Iraqi forces fully withdrew from Kuwait in February 1991, the American propaganda campaign against Hussein continued moving ahead at full speed. The new focus was on Baghdad’s alleged weapons of mass destruction program, which Washington claimed posed a danger to the United States and the Middle East at large.

Although Iraq had indeed at one point sought to develop WMDs, there were two problems with this narrative, according to Ritter. The first was that even if Iraq possessed WMDs, they were not much of a threat since the US military had spent decades preparing to fight against potential adversaries who used chemical or biological weapons. Even more significantly, however, the US did not actually want to disarm Iraq.

“We UN inspectors were going into Iraq thinking that we had a job from the highest legal authority in the world to disarm Iraq, but then as we’re doing this job, we have [US] Secretary of State James Baker saying in public that even if Iraq complies with its obligation to disarm, sanctions will never be lifted until Saddam Hussein is removed from power,” he said.

Ritter explained that US policymakers pushed the WMD narrative because they were embarrassed about Hussein’s continued political survival despite sweeping sanctions against Iraq. They needed a pretext to keep the pressure up on Baghdad and push for regime change. After all, how could they allow a man that they had openly compared to Hitler remain in power?

“We [inspectors] were just there as a placeholder to create a political situation that allowed the continuation of sanctions,” he said. “It was never about disarmament, always about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. The problem is, after six months, Saddam was still there. Now, what do you do? What’s the next step?”

Ritter revealed that although there were back-channel communications between the transition teams of President-elect Bill Clinton and Baghdad about resuming relations, these negotiations were cut off after US intelligence agencies faked an Iraqi assassination attempt on George HW Bush, who had just left the White House, during a visit to Kuwait in April 1993. Clinton retaliated by firing missiles at Iraq and maintaining the sanctions regime against the country. In 1998, he signed the “Iraq Liberation Act,” which stated regime change was the official objective of US policy in Iraq.

Silencing Dissent

Despite this political background, Ritter’s team of UN inspectors worked to avert war by dismantling Iraq’s remaining WMDs. “We accounted for 95-97 percent of their weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “We were monitoring the totality of their industrial infrastructure so they couldn’t rebuild these weapons. Anything that wasn’t unaccounted for would have aged out, same goes for precursor chemicals.”

Yet the US government constantly tried to move the goal posts for the inspectors, demanding that they prove with 100 percent certainty that Iraq had no WMDs (an objective that was effectively impossible to achieve). Ritter sought to raise his concerns with senior US officials, including the director of the CIA, but was repeatedly brushed aside.

Things took a decided turn for the worse in 1996, when the FBI began harassing Ritter and his family, even threatening him with arrest. This persecution only intensified after Ritter resigned from his UN inspector role in 1998. On the very same day as his resignation, the FBI leaked a false allegation to CBS Evening News that Ritter had been passing on state secrets to Israel. In reality, Ritter had been engaged in an intelligence liaison activity that was approved by none other than the CIA itself.

Although the accusations against Ritter were obviously false, the CBS News report led to the Southern District of New York opening a three-year long investigation into him.

“So here I was, an American citizen trying to do the right thing and the FBI was investigating me for falsified crimes that carried the death penalty. That investigation went on for three years. I ended up winning and they dropped the charges, but I couldn’t get employment during that time,” he said. “Every opportunity that was provided to me was shut down because the FBI said, ‘He’s a spy, he’s a criminal, You can’t do business with him.’ That’s what the FBI, the U.S. government does to people who have the audacity to try and speak truth to power.”

Lessons Learned?

Twenty years after the Iraq Invasion, Ritter sees little evidence that the American foreign policy establishment has learned from its mistakes. He explained that US policymakers have absolutely no incentive to embrace realism and restraint since most of the major political donors support military interventionism abroad. This problem is compounded by the fact that there is no meaningful anti-war movement in America. Criticism of US foreign policy is usually driven not by principle, but by opportunistic party politics.

However, Ritter suggested that America’s era of political complacency may be coming to an end. He noted that the main reason why many Americans turned a blind eye to their government’s reckless foreign policy adventures was because they were able to isolate themselves in a “cocoon of consumer-driven comfort.” Yet this sort of escapism is becoming less and less viable. In the face of rapidly mounting political, social, and economic problems, Americans will be confronted with the choice between reforming their country or perishing.

“The nation that emerges [from this crisis] won’t look anything like the nation that exists today. It can’t because this nation is fundamentally broken, sick, diseased,” he said. “We have to cure the disease, heal the wounds, and recast ourselves as a nation of one of equals, one that can sit down at a table with the rest of the world and not try to dictate outcomes, but instead talk with people and negotiate outcomes that are mutually beneficial to all, but more importantly, that are beneficial to the American people instead of just the American political elite.”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... vade-iraq/

How soon we forget....Funny how none of this came upduring the 2020 election. Guess Trump didn't want to offend the military he was so enamored of.


Which reminds me, Putin is "worse than Hitler" too...
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri Apr 07, 2023 3:29 pm

There they go again...

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Hochul is helping her fossil fuel donors gut key climate law
By Julia Rock (Posted Apr 06, 2023)

Originally published: The Lever on April 4, 2023 (more by The Lever) |

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is pushing to gut the state’s signature climate law after raking in nearly half a million dollars from the corporations and lobbyists pushing the move, according to a Lever review of campaign finance records.

The governor’s office wants to place a provision into the state’s $230 billion budget that would change how the state counts methane emissions, allowing energy companies to include more natural gas in their energy mix while still complying with the state’s climate law.

“The governor and her administration’s track record of decisive action to move away from fossil fuels toward a zero-emission economy speaks for itself,” two Hochul administration officials wrote in an op-ed supporting the proposed change on Monday.

We’re confident that the final budget will shape up to include historic climate commitments–including an economy-wide cap-and-invest program, ways to accelerate our development of renewable energy and our transition to all-electric buildings–so we can ultimately reach our climate goals while ensuring affordability for New York families.

In 2019, New York passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which stipulated the most ambitious requirements in the country for how quickly the state should decarbonize its economy. The CLCPA requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

But Hochul is now backing a provision–first introduced by state Senate Energy Committee Chair Kevin Parker (D)–that would use an accounting trick to allow the state to continue burning natural gas for decades longer. Under the CLCPA, the state calculates the impact of climate emissions over a 20-year period–one of only two states that does so. Hochul’s proposed change would revise that to a 100-year period.

The provision would benefit natural gas producers and utilities, because it would impact how methane, the primary component of natural gas, is treated by the law. While methane lingers in the atmosphere for a much shorter time period than carbon dioxide, the gas has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it is released.

Under the current accounting, the state’s climate law requires a rapid transition from gas to renewable sources, especially in buildings, which are the state’s primary source of emissions and largely heated by gas. Changing the accounting window from 20 to 100 years would mean projecting methane to contribute less to warming than it currently is–allowing more natural gas to be burned while still complying with the law’s emissions requirements.

“[Hochul’s] proposal is indistinguishable from something a Governor Lee Zeldin would have tried to get away with,” said Pete Sikora, climate and inequality campaigns director at New York Communities for Change. Zeldin was Hochul’s Republican opponent in the 2022 election.

This isn’t really that complicated: Instead of trying to gut the law on behalf of the gas lobby, she should implement it.

Hochul’s office told Politico that the accounting changes are necessary to keep costs low for utility customers. Her office also said that the cost of the CLCPA hadn’t been fully analyzed.

During her 2022 campaign, the governor received more than $480,000 in donations from utility and fossil fuel executives and lobbyists who could benefit if Hochul’s proposed changes end up in the budget, according to a Lever review.

John Hess, CEO of the oil and gas giant Hess Corp, and his wife gave Hochul a combined $117,000 last election cycle. John Catsimatidis, the CEO of United Metro Energy, which provides gas to New York City and Long Island, donated $94,000. The CEO of National Fuel, New York’s largest gas-only utility, donated $5,000. The CEO of Consolidated Edison, a gas and electricity utility, donated $10,000, and the CEO of National Grid, also a gas and electric utility, donated $1,000.

National Grid’s state and federal employee political action committees (PACs) donated a combined $13,500 to Hochul. National Grid and National Fuel have previously supported changes to the accounting framework under the climate law.

The energy company Avangrid, which owns the utility New York State Electric and Gas, donated $160,000 to Hochul through its employee PAC, while individual executives at the firm donated $4,500.

National Grid, National Fuel, and Avangrid are all members of the front group New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, which has been fighting the CLCPA for years.

Daniel Ortega, the executive director of New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, told The Lever his group didn’t yet have a stance on Hochul’s proposal. But, he said,

We’re very happy that Sen. Parker is thinking about this issue and making sure that the voice of New Yorkers is heard when it comes to affordability and making sure that these ideas are moving forward at the right pace.

Lobbying firms representing utility companies and fossil fuel companies additionally donated tens of thousands of dollars to Hochul’s campaign.

https://mronline.org/2023/04/06/hochul- ... imate-law/

Thank gawd for them Dems addressing Climate Change. Good of them to respond to the needs of their constituency...

Jesusfuckingchrist people, anyone who votes Democratic in the vague obscure hope that something 'progressive' happens ain't nothing but a mark. And don't say "better than nothing." It isn't, not when the cumulative negatives continue to pile up, rendering whatever puny positive that has been 'achieved' moot and pathetic.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Tue Apr 11, 2023 4:35 pm

Trump’s Idling Plane Got More TV Coverage Than Biden Cutting Healthcare for 15 Million
BRYCE GREENE

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CNN: Trump About to Take Off for NY Ahead of Arraignment

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The Column (4/3/23): “Because the gutting of pandemic-era welfare programs is bipartisan in nature—and President Biden is making no case to protect them—the topic is thus not a partisan conflict.”
Last spring, the Biden administration and a Democratic House approved a policy that would kick 15 million people off of Medicaid. States are now set to begin dropping people from the rolls, reversing the record-low uninsured rate reached early last year. But if you were watching TV news, you might have missed it.

Adam Johnson, a former FAIR contributor and co-host of the media criticism podcast Citations Needed, analyzed the coverage in an article for his Substack (The Column, 4/3/23). As Johnson notes:

None of the agenda-setting Sunday morning shows—NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation and ABC’s This Week—mentioned the expiration of Medicaid coverage for the poorest, most vulnerable Americans in recent weeks.

He did find scattered mentions on TV news: MSNBC ran a two-minute segment that mentioned it, ABC News aired a minute-and-a-half segment, and CBS Evening News spent all of 19 seconds on it. But reporting on the Medicaid cuts was almost nonexistent compared to the mountains of coverage given to Trump’s indictment and arraignment–the top media story of the week.

One analysis from Media Matters (4/3/23) found that over an hour-and-a-half period before Trump’s arraignment, CNN aired 48 minutes of B-roll of the idling Trump plane and motorcade, along with shots of Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago. MSNBC aired 66 minutes of similar footage. As Media Matters noted, this kind of coverage is similar to when networks regularly aired footage of Trump’s empty podiums (FAIR.org, 3/16/16).

The reader can decide what’s more important: A Democratic administration taking healthcare from 15 million, or a con-man war criminal being indicted for some of the least important of his crimes.

Writing in Current Affairs (3/30/23), Rhode Island state Sen. Sam Bell pointed the finger at progressives who didn’t even try to make this a central issue:

A few brave policy experts did speak up, but there was no real, organized campaign. Progressive lawmakers didn’t send out a flood of tweets, speeches and op-eds. They didn’t even threaten to vote no and then cave. They made no noise. The big progressive advocacy groups didn’t run campaigns. Even Representative Ocasio-Cortez, the only Democrat to vote no, didn’t discuss the Medicaid and SNAP cuts at all in her statement on her no vote.

While Trump’s arraignment is historic news, it has almost no effect on the lives of ordinary Americans. Stories that affect millions of lives deserve far more than a few collective minutes of coverage. Media have long privileged sensational news over important policy shifts, leaving audiences in the dark about the forces that shape their lives. This, like many other instances, demonstrates the importance of alternative and adversarial media organizations and outlets.

https://fair.org/home/trumps-idling-pla ... 5-million/

The press(which indicates the weight of the ruling class) has been running cover for the Dems since 2016. This does not indicate that either Trump or the Dems are the Good Guys or the Bad Guys, just the faction fighting among the bourgeois. Only a 'progressive' could believe that the Dems are qualitatively or morally superior to Trump in any but the most banal ways. Holy shit, look at all Biden has not accomplished in relation to his campaign. Nada, zilch, garnicht. And don't go blaming this on Machen or others, Biden is a pro, he knows all these scum(he's one of them) and knew the buzz saw that he happily walked into. Progressives handily forget that speech he made to a bunch of rich assholes at the beginning of his campaign: ' that under his administration nothing would change'. Mission Accomplished!

We must run from these charlatans like scalded cats and build something without ruling class participation, a genuine socialist agenda and build the mass movement to carry it through. Theory must be marshalled, and then work, work, work.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri Apr 14, 2023 2:51 pm

United States: Biden’s Defense Budget Beyond the One Trillion Mark
APRIL 13, 2023

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Photographic composition showing: Joe Biden (center), portrait of Benjamin Franklin (left), a war tank and a war plane (right). Photo: Al Mayadeen.

By Atilio A. Boron – Apr 10, 2023

There are several factors driving this exorbitant expansion of military spending in the United States.

Until a few years ago it was common to read what military experts and international analysts of the United States have written and conclude that, according to them, the total defense budget would never exceed the trillion-dollar mark. However, these calculations and projections suffered from a serious defect because they never included in the military budget the enormous expenses that originated in the medical and psychiatric care of the troops that returned from the “foreign wars” and that should be considered as military expenses since they originated in the combats waged in multiple parts of the earth.

But the proposal raised by President Joe Biden for the year 2024 easily exceeds that mark. Indeed, according to a report written by William Hartung, a systematic count of the item requested by the White House reaches, in a first evaluation, 866,000 million dollars. Yet, Hartung notes that Congress typically adds a few billion more to what the Administration is asking for, especially in situations like the current one where there is a war going on in Ukraine that is being almost entirely financed by the United States. Taking this situation into account, our author concludes that the budget that will surely be approved by Congress will rise to 950,000 million dollars. This includes funding for the Pentagon’s 750 publicly recognized military bases on every continent except Antarctica; 170,000 troops permanently stationed abroad and the personnel dedicated to counterterrorism operations officially conducted in 85 countries as reported by Brown University’s Costs of War Project. If to the former we add the 325,000 million dollars allocated for the Department of Veterans Affairs for the next year we will learn that the supposedly unattainable mark of one trillion dollars has been largely surpassed.

In principle, there are several factors driving this exorbitant expansion of military spending in the United States. In the first place, Washington’s pretense of continuing to be the global sheriff of the world is trying to reverse the undeniable decline of its supremacy in the various areas of the international scene. This claim is reiterated without pause by all American presidents, a country whose citizens believe they have been called by the Providence (thus with a capital P) to sow democracy, justice, and freedom throughout the planet. This messianism that hides imperial rapacity plays a very important role in justifying this gigantic volume of the defense budget. But this factor is combined with another one: the intimate link between the “military-industrial-financial” complex (and that of “financial” is an aggregate of recent decades, which was not considered in President Dwight Eisenhower’s classic 1961 farewell speech) and the obscene private financing of the American political process. In it, the huge companies in that sector (the “big five”: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamic) literally buy at will the wills of congressmen, governors, and presidents by making huge contributions for their expensive political campaigns.

The progressive NGO Open Secrets, which monitors political campaign spending, cites a report issued by Taylor Giorno that shows that the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers (R-AL) received more than $511,000 from weapons makers in the most recent election cycle, while Ken Calvert (R-CA), the new head of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, followed close behind at $445,000. There are no words emphatic enough to underscore the degree of structural corruption that this situation implies for US politics. It is also understandable, as Hartung points out, that the military and diplomatic bureaucracy of that country goes out of its way to find enemies that justify the insane volume of military spending. Thus, a report released by the National Defense Strategy late last year managed to find the potential for overlapping the conflict virtually everywhere on the planet and called for preparations to win a war with Russia and/or China, inciting fights against Iran and North Korea, and continue to wage a global war on terror, which, in recent times, has been redubbed “countering violent extremism.” Let us say that the Rogers and Calvert cases are just two to which hundreds could be added in the years after World War II.

A third element that drives military spending is, without a doubt, the radical instability that has shaken the international system, paradoxically since the collapse of the Soviet Union. If before there was a “balance of terror” between the nuclear weaponry of the United States and the USSR, now the multiplication of states that have nuclear arsenals and the suspicion that many non-state actors may also have this lethal weapon has boosted military escalation worldwide, although no one has reached the heights of United States figures. The People’s Republic of China for instance, which comes in second place in defense budgets, spends some 225 billion dollars for this purpose, less than the American Veteran Department and a quarter of the total defense budget of the United States. No comments are needed to underline the risks of this weapons asymmetry.

The conflicts and hazards that emanate from the sheriff and tutelary self-assigned role of Washington as the dominant global power burst in with all their might during the bygone years of unipolarism, at the end of the past century, by the conservative theorist Samuel P. Huntington. In his own words, he asserted that …“[In] the past few years the United States has, among other things, attempted or been perceived as attempting more or less unilaterally to do the following: pressure other countries to adopt American values and practices regarding human rights and democracy; prevent other countries from acquiring military capabilities that could counter American conventional superiority; enforce American law extraterritorially in other societies; grade countries according to their adherence to American standards on human rights, drugs, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, missile proliferation, and now religious freedom; apply sanctions against countries that do not meet American standards on these issues; promote American corporate interests under the slogans of free trade and open markets; shape World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies to serve those same corporate interests; intervene in local conflicts in which it has relatively little direct interest; bludgeon other countries to adopt economic policies and social policies that will benefit American economic interests; promote American arms sales abroad while attempting to prevent comparable sales by other countries; expand NATO initially to include Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic and no one else; undertake military action against Iraq and later maintain harsh economic sanctions against the regime; and categorize certain countries as “rogue states,” excluding them from global institutions because they refuse to kowtow to American wishes.”i

It goes without saying that when a superpower acts in this way, it will only be a matter of time before the rest of the nations, or at least the major power contenders, will try to put an end to such an infamous situation and struggle so as to build a more equitable and stable international order. Unfortunately, neither the war in Ukraine and the ones that are being fought in Nagorno-Karabakh, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Ethiopia, and The Sahel, nor the economic and military resilience of Russia nor the growing global weight of China in the world economy and the international politics allow us to assume that the American escalation of military spending is going to stop. This exceptional and regrettable militaristic race unleashes a reflex effect among the main world powers, which places our planet on the threshold of a nuclear apocalypse. In that ominous situation, there would be no winners because everyone, even those who are the first to initiate a nuclear attack, would be mortal victims of a tragedy that could put an end to humanity all around the globe.


i “The Lonely Superpower”, in Foreign Affairs, Mar/Apr 1999, Vol. 78, Issue 2


(Al Mayadeen – English)

https://orinocotribune.com/united-state ... lion-mark/

While it is most likely that a Republican president would do the same, as the imperialist program is bigger than any individual or party, is this something you would vote for?

And if it is Trump's corruption, racism and misogyny that twists your undies do you think for a second that other ruling class pimps are any different off camera? Funny how all those stories about the current prez manhandling women went down the memory hole with his nomination. Or hid boy's antics in Ukraine....

Has anyone checked to see if Biden has a little jockey on the lawn of one of his Delaware homes? Just wondering....

Anyway, can you imagine the amount of good that could be done with that money?

(Caption for that pic: "You commies get off my lawn or I'm going to push this button!")

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Mon Apr 17, 2023 2:42 pm

In Chicago the Left Embraces Democrats and Celebrates Brandon Johnson’s Victory
APRIL 15, 2023

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Bernie Sanders (left) and Chicago’s mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson (right) at Credit Union 1 Arena on March 30, 2023. Photo: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago.

By Stansfield Smith – Apr 14, 2023


Brandon Johnson, a progressive black community activist, union organizer, and former teacher, won the Chicago mayoral election against Paul Vallas, the corporate Democrat opponent. Johnson’s victory expressed popular rejection of neoliberal privatization and respect for progressive unions, in particular the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). Johnson was outspent two to one, but not out-organized, winning 52-48%. The election displayed once again the power and organizing skills of the CTU, and showed that people, when they are involved, can upend election predictions.

His campaign also showed how easily leftists can slide from opponents of the corporate rule of America with their two parties to fervent supporters of Democrats when a progressive or liberal candidate seems likely to win an election. We saw this before with their enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders in 2016, then again in 2020, even after Bernie had kowtowed to the billionaires’ candidate. We see it with AOC, who is morphing from a socialist into a corporate shill. And before that, leftists had been enthralled with Mr. Hope and Change, Barack Obama.

The “socialist” journal Jacobin enthused over Johnson’s mayoral victory: “A week ahead of the April 4 election, Johnson rallied alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders in Chicago, who declared, ‘The fundamental issue is: What side are you on? Are you on the side of working people or are you on the side of the speculators and the billionaires? And I know which side Brandon is on.’”

This is dishonest – both by Bernie and by the Jacobin – the Democrats are on the side of the 1%, not the 99%. Bernie made this perfectly clear in his 1989 article “We Can’t Tail After the Democrats.”

“We need a new, progressive political party in the US because on almost every important issue the Democratic and Republican Parties, both controlled by Big Money, are indistinguishable … We need a new, progressive political movement in this country because the Democrats and Republicans are not only incapable of solving any of the major problems facing this country, they are not even prepared to discuss them … The boldness and clarity that we need to articulate can never be done through the compromised and corrupt Democratic Party – dominated by Big Money.”

At his election victory celebration, Johnson declared, “Tonight is the beginning of a Chicago that truly invests in all of its people … a city where no one is too poor to live. There’s more than enough for everyone in the city of Chicago.” Certainly there is, but since the corporate CEOs run the city – a fact Johnson does not address – this will not happen.

How would working class leftwing activists view this election? They would explain that Chicago is owned by the business, banking and real estate elite. They would explain that elected officials are not the city’s decision-makers. It matters little what some politician says and promises while campaigning: even if they meant what they said, they do not call the shots. The corporate built and controlled political and economic structure does. They would explain that liberal Democrats like Brandon Johnson are obligated primarily to the Democratic Party chiefs and their billionaire bosses, not to the people who elected them. They would explain that even if a Brandon Johnson ran and won, not as a Democrat, but as a representative of an independent popular movement, his electoral victory would result in roadblocks placed in his way by the ruling class to thwart every progressive move his movement made.

Brandon Johnson, as mayor, plans to bring about expanded social programs to benefit the people funded by raising taxes on wealthy elites. His campaign website called for safe, vibrant neighborhoods, affordable housing, healthcare for all, fully funded schools. Any leftist knows it is naïve, if not dishonest to propagate the view that these can be achieved under the neoliberal capitalist system we are trapped in.

The corporate owners of Chicago possess numerous weapons to housebreak a mayor, such as lowering the rating of municipal bonds, threatening to move their business out of the city, whipping of fear of crime (causing people to leave the city and undermining the city as a tourist destination – with $15 billion spent by tourists in 2017).

The power of the media, the banks, the police, the courts, the real estate companies, the billionaires’ corporations vastly outweighs that of Johnson’s supporters. Their Chicago City Council is aligned against him; a majority support Johnson’s pro-corporate neoliberal opponent, Paul Vallas, and are able to vote down any unwelcome measure he proposes. Nor does Johnson have great influence in the Democratic Party machine.

A working class leftwing would explain that Brandon Johnson’s campaign promises must be okayed by Chicago’s business leaders to become a reality. Their power could only be countered by an on-going mass movement of the people, who would have to fight hard for any substantial social change. Yet, as Bernie Sanders’ campaigns illustrated, the loosely organized movement behind him was disbanded after his campaign was over.

It is no surprise to any leftist that the owners of the corporations are the ruling class. Nevertheless, they seem forever willing to throw this ABC of Marxism out the window if some progressive Democrat is a serious contender for elected office, and act as if significant social and economic change can occur through the ballot box.

This scenario of leftists campaigning to elect some liberal or “socialist” Democrat, forever ending in some electoral defeat or capitulation to the Democratic bosses, repeats itself over and over. The Jacobin, “socialist” media for the Democratic Party, propagates this pipedream that the “people” can capture a power base in the Democratic Party, as if the people could capture a corporation. It declared this nonsense: “Chicago’s left scored its biggest victory in recent memory;” “a watershed moment for the progressive movement.”

Out of one side of their mouth leftists will proclaim, as Bernie did in 1989, that we need a working class party because the Democrats and Republicans are owned by the ruling rich. Out of the other they still hold that real social change can come through electing these people.

Marxists must be honest, must not mislead the people, must explain to people the class structure of US society, and the hard work we face if we want to end global warming and Martin Luther King’s three evils of society: war, racism and poverty,

Unions such as the CTU and other teachers unions, the SEIU, National Nurses United, did support and provide most of the funding for Brandon Johnson’s campaign. Jesse Jackson, Bernie Sanders, and the most progressive City Council person, Byron Sigcho-Lopez, actively supported his campaign. This did not make it a working class campaign, but a labor for the Democratic candidate campaign.

Let’s not overlook that his opponent, Paul Vallas, was endorsed by over 15 unions, and also built a base in the Black and Latino and Asian communities, one that included Bobby Rush.

Johnson no longer calls for defunding the police. This change reflects the diversion of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement into a vote against Trump campaign. The ruling class has since been able to shift the sentiment of millions who demonstrated against police brutality. They had the police slack off in combating crime, crime rates rose, and fear of crime was whipped up. Now, just over two years after Blue Lives Matter was viewed as almost fascist, a common sentiment today is for more police.

Brandon did say “Any speech or any effort to delegitimize Israel and its right to exist, that’s how I view antisemitism.” He is opposed to BDS. “The divestment movement is not aligned with my values,” he said. Rumor has it he privately apologized for these reactionary statements defending Israeli apartheid.

Brandon was congratulated by Obama, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. Chicago was rewarded with hosting the 2024 Democratic National Convention days after his victory. Thus, leftists for Johnson played a role in cloaking the Democratic convention in a faux progressive aura, where Biden or some other neoliberal warmonger will be nominated.

Leftists may pretend there are progressive Democrats in opposition to neoliberal Democrats, but Democratic elected officials see themselves as all belonging to the same tent, the same tent that includes Republicans. No leftist conjuring up “Our Revolution,” no Democratic Socialists, no United Working Families is going to alter that.

https://orinocotribune.com/in-chicago-t ... s-victory/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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