Sympathy for the Devils...

[blindpig]

The president-elect according to media projections in the United States has a long imperial record (Photo: Reuters)
A PROFILE
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE JOE BIDEN?


The president-elect according to media projections in the United States has a long imperial record (Photo: Reuters)

12 Nov 2020 , 8:09 am .

Joe Biden, the "projected" president of the United States , is 76 years old and has been a member of Congress for 36 years. He was vice president of the country for another eight during the Obama Administration. During the campaign that ended in the elections on November 3, he did his best to appear the antithesis of Donald Trump, his conservative adversary, also in his seventies.

At the same time that Trump danced, made noise with his political rallies without social distance and with few masks, Biden campaigned from his basement or appeared at events where attendees stood in white circles separated from each other.

Trump confronted journalists, answered their questions and was tirelessly investigated by them while Biden went almost two months without receiving reporters and they did not seem interested.

Whoever, in his first presidential campaign, in 1988, was accused of plagiarizing the speeches of British Labor leader Neil Kinnock, has always had a tendency to confront people at their rallies, to go off script and get into unnecessary quagmire. When he tried his luck again 20 years later, in 2008, he only obtained 1% of the votes, but this time his strategy was to keep quiet.

The equivalent to Juan Peña of the Venezuelan story " El Diente Roto " has not been presented as a change for US policy because it is not, rather its message is and has been "Build Back Better" or that the country go back to "being what you always were" with "... all those good things."

Let's see what it takes to be Joe Biden.

YOU NEED TO BE OF SERVICE TO THE ULTRA-RICH
During the 1980s Biden voted in favor of the landmark Reagan tax bill that lowered the top income tax rate from 70 to 50% and exempted many wealthy families from inheritance tax, a measure that cost the federal government $ 83 billion in annual revenue.

His alignment with corporate and financial interests is total, for which he had the support of the country's political and financial elite. This helped him to carry out a costly electoral campaign and with the national machinery of the Democratic Party.

Even when in the electorate and the rank and file of his party there are plenty of claims and positions in support of a popular agenda, he managed to maneuver between false moderate or center positions and the rescue of the corporate political establishment where he has played in favor of large companies, the banking, insurance companies, rising military spending, and financial deregulation.

While casino mogul Sheldon Adelson donated $ 40 million to Trump, Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York who spent more than $ 700 million this year on his aborted presidential bid, spent 85 more (0.15% of his fortune) in helping Biden win in the vital state of Florida (which he lost to Trump on November 3).


Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican who calls himself "independent," supported Biden financially (Photo: Politico)

It should be noted that the "projected" winner of the gringo elections promised in the campaign to raise their taxes, and yet they, the richest 1% of the richest 1%, were on their side. By early August, Biden had received donations from more than 130 Forbes-listed individuals with fortunes of more than $ 800 million, while Trump had convinced fewer than 100.

Biden raised nearly $ 1 billion in his election campaign by tripling Trump's funding , narrowly topping Obama's 2008 collection. The money comes from his top funders in Wall Street's elites.

Kamala Harris, his vice-presidential running mate, is highly appreciated by the big donors: in the primaries he was among the candidates who received the most money from the tycoons. The only limit that both have placed on their most generous supporters is not to accept money from oil or gas entrepreneurs, so as not to compromise the reforms they plan against climate change.

Wall Street pulled the strings of the Democratic Party and elected Biden, who had not won a single state primary election in his life, in the 72 hours leading up to Super Tuesday (the date on which one-third of the delegates who vote at the Convention are decided August National), before that his campaign was practically dead for being a hollow candidate, without enthusiasm.

It is a fundamental piece to advance in the Great Reset (Great Reset) planned by the World Economic Forum for its next annual meeting between January and February. It is a move by these elites that covers more than 50 fields of knowledge and practice, according to analyst Pepe Escobar . It interconnects everything from recommendations for the recovery of the economy to "sustainable business models", from restoring the environment to redesigning social contracts. Of course, all decided and imposed by 1%.


YOU NEED TO BE PROTECTED BY CORPORATE MEDIA
Given the circumstances in which his candidacy emerged, it was assumed that he would also be assured of favorable coverage by the large media and television networks. So it was, and it is not by chance, his relationship with the world of the mass media is not new.

In January 2012, the mansion of the owner of the Megaupload website in New Zealand was raided and both the collection of luxury cars and the data of 135 computers of the tycoon Kim Schimts (Kim Dotcom) were confiscated. The German-born millionaire was charged with copyright infringement and wire fraud for allegedly illegally uploading millions of songs to the file-sharing website


Biden ordered an illegal search of Kim Dotcom's home in New Zealand to protect the interests of the mass media (Photo: File)

A judge ruled that all the court orders used by the police in the search, invasion and search of Kim Schmitz's house, were illegal and therefore invalid. It was learned that Joe Biden, then vice president of the United States and best friend of former senator and head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Chris Dodd, gave the order to close Megaupload to his former lawyer and then district attorney Neil MacBride .

Dotcom claims to have evidence that in June 2011 there was a meeting in the West Wing of the White House that included Mike Ellis of MPAA Asia, an expert on extraditions and a former superintendent of the Hong Kong police. Ellis himself also met with then-Minister of Justice Simon Power in New Zealand.

In addition to Dodd, the meeting was attended by Barry Meyer (CEO of Warner Bros), Brad Gray (CEO of Paramount Pictures), Jeff Blake (vice president of Sony Pictures Entertainment), Ronald Meyer (president of Universal Studios) and Rich Ross (director Walt Disney), among others.

Last March, Biden's former assistant filed a complaint against him for sexual assault in 1993 with the Washington Metropolitan Police Department. From that date (days 24 and 25) the mainstream media practically ignored the story , the candidate had 10 presentations in 15 days and was never consulted about it until April 12, almost 20 days after the first publications.

The New York Times wrote an article that he summarized in a tweet that was later deleted due to the scandal it caused: "We did not find any pattern of sexual misconduct by Biden." Data from the Media Research Center revealed that, as of April 27, the total number of minutes of coverage the Tara Reade case received on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and MSNBC was 12 minutes and 25 seconds.

The CNN network began to cover the story until April 25 (15 minutes of coverage in total in those three days), 38 days later the program "Morning Joe" with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (May 1 on MSNBC), interviewed and consulted directly on Reade's indictment. Neither of those mentioned interviewed Tara Reade.

Recently the corporate media completely ignored the report of the New York Post on the activities of his son Hunter Biden in one of the private companies most important gas in Ukraine, Burisma Holdings. They attacked it as "dubious" (CNN), "misinformation" ( The Economist ), a "conspiracy" (NBC News), "fake news" ( The Guardian ) or part of a planned takedown of Biden (CNN).

CBS News reporter Bo Erickson was attacked by other journalists for asking the Democratic presidential candidate to comment on the Post's allegations .

IT IS IMPORTANT TO BE THE LIKE OF THE TECH GIANTS
Hunter Biden received a position as a member of Burisma's board of directors, earning $ 50,000 per month, shortly after the still vice president had threatened to withdraw the guarantees that the United States gave the European country for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to maintain. the credit mechanism that had been approved to that country since 2015.

Many emails and texts allegedly written to and from Hunter reflect his efforts to induce his father to take action as Vice President for Burisma's benefit, he had introduced his father to top executives at the energy company a few months before he lobbied officials of the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor Viktor Shokin who was investigating the company.


A report published by The New York Post implicates Hunter Biden, son of the president-elect "projected" by the US media, in influence trafficking with a Ukrainian company (Photo: redreporttoday.com)redreporttoday . com )

Neither Facebook nor Twitter users were able to share or link to the New York Post story , in fact, Twitter blocked the newspaper's account for two weeks in what Glenn Greenwald calls a "de facto union of media, giants of Silicon Valley and the intelligence community to suppress these stories. "

At least 69% of Americans use Facebook, and 43% (more than 140 million people) receive news from it. Twitter is also influential, with nearly a quarter of the country using the service. Therefore, the decision to completely censor the story of two of the most important news outlets was influential, especially since the Post continues to defend the veracity of its reports, betting its reputation on it.

The Facebook executive who blocked all negative evidence of Hunter and Joe Biden's corrupt activity in Ukraine is the same person who was coordinating the corrupt activity between the Biden family payments and Ukraine. This is Anna Makanju, who is currently in charge of Facebook's electoral integrity program.

She is a former non-resident senior member of the Atlantic Council, a seemingly non-partisan think tank that deals with international affairs. In fact, it is a decidedly partisan organization to which Burisma began paying a lot of money ($ 300,000) in 2016, just as Makanju was advising Biden on Shokin's resignation.

Biden said in a campaign that social networks like Facebook and Twitter have not done enough to control disinformation and hate speech, which critics of the companies say have helped amplify hoaxes and extremist views. The Trump administration filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google just weeks before the presidential election, which has been the federal government's most significant challenge to the tech industry in more than two decades.

What could be a years-long battle could force Google to spin off parts of its business empire if the government ultimately prevails, plus an eventual Biden Justice Department is expected not to pursue this particular lawsuit.

Democrats in Congress who support the Trump administration's action against the company include Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who oversaw a 15-month investigation into the monopoly power of big tech companies, however the venture capitalist and consultant Politician Bradley Tusk predicts that Biden's Justice Department could simply drop the federal lawsuit and hit the reset button.

IT IS ESSENTIAL TO SERVE AS AN EFFICIENT WAR MACHINE
Biden has been the subject of criticism for his votes in the Senate, especially those that defined whether or not wars like the Gulf were started in 1991, when he voted against it, but in 2003 he provided political cover for the massive military attack on Iraq authorized. by Republican President George Bush.

He is said to have done more than any other Democratic senator to give the invasion the green light from his powerful position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and shielded by the theory of possession of weapons of mass destruction.

The Plan Colombia , which was originally presented as "a proposal for peace and development" by the then President of Colombia, Andres Pastrana, in 1999, the Clinton administration made him a massive militarization of Colombian society that only benefited the industrial- complex military.

Joe Biden brags

"I'm the guy who put together Plan Colombia".

#PlanColombia used murderous, failed drug war policies as cover to destabilize democracy in South America, arming right wing death squads so openly that Congress had to force it to stop with an amendment.
https://twitter.com/CPDAction/status/12 ... -joe-biden

Biden successfully lobbied for 80% of the $ 7.5 billion total to go to the Colombian Military Forces; Much of the weapons came into the hands of far-right paramilitary squads linked to the government.

In the post-9/11 era, drug traffickers were renamed "narco-terrorists" as a justifying narrative for US interference. Biden was one of its key architects. "I'm the guy who drew up Plan Colombia," he declared, adding that he "straightened out that government for a long time."


What was heralded as a major anti-drug push turned into a war against the population, with the Colombian government carrying out a regime of massive chemical defoliation, forcing large numbers of people to abandon the land and clearing it for multinational corporations.

More than 10,000 innocent civilians were killed by paramilitaries, the government disguised them as narco-terrorists, and their number was used to obtain more funds from the United States on the grounds that the corpses equaled progress in the fight against drugs.


The false positives and mass graves are the result of the implementation of Plan Colombia, a militaristic initiative promoted by Biden (Photo: El Espectador)

The United Nations estimates that 7.4 million Colombians are internally displaced to this day due to the ongoing civil war and Plan Colombia, and millions more are leaving the country entirely. The stated goal of the drug reduction plan did not even work, as cocaine producers simply crossed the border into other Andean countries unaffected by the war and returned when the violence subsided. By 2017, national coca production reached an all-time high, according to the UN.

It goes without saying that the Obama / Biden duo used preventive war, that is, they used Bush's preventive doctrine to justify their military policy in the Middle East. Biden exhibits a three-headed hydra that would surely participate in an eventual government.

The female trio made up of Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State with Obama and currently head of the Democratic Party; Susan Rice, former ambassador to the UN and also former National Security Advisor during the Barack Obama terms; and Michèle Flournoy, undersecretary of defense under Obama, are responsible for sending 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan instead of drawing soldiers, supporting the Pentagon's plan to leave a remaining force of 10-20,000 US military personnel in Iraq, and lobby for the United States to channel arms to rebels in Syria's civil war.

These people and others from the Biden environment figure in the intervention and destruction of the Libyan state, the support for the Saudi aggression in Yemen, the war of the drone wars , the indefinite detention without trial in Guantánamo, the prosecution of whistleblowers and torture laundering. They have used their connections to earn huge salaries at consulting firms and others in the private sector that feed off government contracts.

"SUPPORT" CIVIL RIGHTS BUT NOT
The veteran politician has a history of outspoken advocacy of neoliberalism and expertly evades his position on class inequalities. His good relationships with established elites in the African American sectors and the union world do not mean that he has real acceptance or ancestry over the workers or the so-called black or Latino communities.

In the 1970s, he led against desegregating schools through public transportation by promoting nearly a dozen laws aimed at placing strict limits on federal agencies and the ability of courts to order buses to achieve racial integration in the schools.

He was the only member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to block two black appointments to the Justice Department and maintained a close relationship with arch-segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond, who left the Democratic Party and became a Republican due to his vehement opposition to the Civil Rights Law.

He defeated a 1977 amendment that would have removed all restrictions on federal funding of abortions and produced the "Biden Amendment," which prohibited US aid from being used for abortion-related biomedical research.

Throughout the 1980s, he and Thurmond worked on a series of bills that radically reformed the criminal justice system, including the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, which limited probation and slashed reductions in sentences for good behavior. Biden continued to attack Republican George HW Bush from the right on crime in 1989, condemning his draconian proposals for not going far enough.

In a speech to the full Senate in 1993 he said:

"It does not matter whether or not they are people who were needy or marginalized in their youth. It does not matter whether or not they had a past that allowed them to be part of the social fabric. It does not matter whether or not they were victims of the The end result is that they are about to beat my mother, shoot my sister ... ".

Even as Bush pushed for substantial increases in the prison industrial system, Biden continually demanded more, publishing his own plans that included billions more in funding for a greater number of police officers, the FBI and the DEA.

All of this culminated in what he called his "greatest achievement" in politics in 2007: the controversial 1994 Anti-Crime Bill.

From less than 200,000 in 1970, the prison population skyrocketed in the 1980s and 1990s, increasing to 740,000 in 1990 and 1.33 million in 2000; it continued to grow to the point where nearly a quarter of the world's prisoners are Americans.

African Americans, whom Biden and Hillary Clinton described as "thugs" and "super predators" on various occasions, are incarcerated at five times the rate of whites. In five states (Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont and Wisconsin), the disparity is more than 10 to 1. One in three black men will be incarcerated in his lifetime. The United States locks up a greater proportion of its citizens than any other country in the world, which is a lucrative business at the expense of prisoners.


Biden's legislative and executive work has grown the number of black prisoners in the United States and, with them, lucrative businesses at his expense (Photo: File)

Much of the increase in numbers can be attributed to Richard Nixon's drug war, now often understood as a political project to criminalize his two main political enemies: blacks and the pacifist left.

"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be against the war or to be black, but by having the public associate hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then by criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities." admitted one of Nixon's aides to Harper's Magazine .

BACK TO "ALL THAT GOOD STUFF"?
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party's leading candidate in the face of Bernie Sanders' "danger" to the country's liberal status quo , was posing as a "moderate" as the party's internal elections progressed.

He added to his political platform the main campaign proposals of his adversaries, shifting, even a margin of maneuver comfortable enough not to put at risk his own electoral base, his ideological and programmatic position more to the left than it was. early in the process , and further to the left than he was during his tenure as vice president.

Warren and Sanders to be frozen out of Biden cabinet, report says

‘We cannot afford to put any seats in jeopardy,’ says Democrat Gerry Connolly
independent.co.uk
https://twitter.com/Independent/status/ ... 1485693954

For example, in recent days Biden retracted the intransigent position he adopted during the Obama presidency and the Trumpist anti- immigration policies implemented since the second administration of the first black American president.

It's almost certain that when Biden talks about going back to "all that good stuff" he isn't talking about:

How college graduates don't raise their heads because they are in debt and trapped in the stocks of a predatory lending industry.
How many family tragedies were produced by the tightening of bankruptcy laws that he and Republicans in the 1990s caused, based on the idea that too many middle class people were accumulating debt on their credit cards irresponsibly and then declaring bankruptcy .
How does the possibility that, if he assumes the presidency, cut Medicare and freeze federal spending on Social Security as it was promoted with his vote in the 1980s, especially when "Medicare for all" is a proposal that has the support of 70% of Americans.
How many of the migrant children who are separated from their families exist because their $ 750 million plan, which included privatizations and austerity measures, perpetuated the same economic and political conditions that led their parents and grandparents to flee unemployment.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/qu ... -joe-biden

Google Translator.

I guess that distance does improve perspective...And how about that top photo? It really is creepy.

[blindpig]

Biden Will Have the Most Diverse, Intersectional Cabinet of Mass Murderers Ever Assembled
November 10, 2020
By Caitlin Johnstone – Nov 9, 2020

Well you’ll be happy to know that the next US president and his crack team of ventriloquists are assembling a cabinet of mass murderers that’s as diverse, inclusive and intersectional as America herself.

It’s been obvious for a long time that Joe Biden’s cabinet would be packed with Obama holdovers, war pigs and whatever primary opponents he owes favors to, but now that he is the media-anointed winner of the presidential election we’re getting a bit more confirmation on who they’re expected to be.

A new Politico report informs us that the heavy favorite to lead the US war machine into further imperial conquest as Secretary of “Defense” is a butcher of the fairer sex named Michele Flournoy, who was Obama’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2009 to 2012.

In an article titled “Biden: A War Cabinet?“, Antiwar‘s Mariamne Everett writes the following:

“Flournoy, in writing the Quadrennial Defense Review during her time as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy under President Clinton, has paved the way for the U.S.’s endless and costly wars which prevent us from investing in life saving and necessary programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. It has effectively granted the US permission to no longer be bound by the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of military force. It declared that, “when the interests at stake are vital, …we should do whatever it takes to defend them, including, when necessary, the unilateral use of military power.”

“While working at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a “Top Defense and National Security Think Tank” based in Washington D.C., in June 2002, as the Bush administration was threatening aggression towards Iraq, she declared, that the United States would “need to strike preemptively before a crisis erupts to destroy an adversary’s weapons stockpile” before it “could erect defenses to protect those weapons, or simply disperse them.”

“In 2009, she joined the Obama administration as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, where she helped engineer political and humanitarian disasters in Libya and Syria and a new escalation of the endless war in Afghanistan before resigning in 2012,” report Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies in another Antiwar piece on Flournoy. “From 2013-2016, she joined Boston Consulting, trading on her Pentagon connections to boost the firm’s military contracts from $1.6 million in 2013 to $32 million in 2016. By 2017, Flournoy herself was raking in $452,000 a year.

Flournoy would be the very first female head of the US war department, and if that doesn’t make you want to listen to P!nk and kiss your Hillary Clinton pendant I don’t know what will.


A favorite to lead America’s other war department, also known as the State Department, is former National Security Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. Rice is an ideal choice for a leading role in the Biden administration because she holds the valuable trifecta of being (A) female, (B) Black and (C) an enthusiastic promoter of the Iraq invasion which murdered a million human beings.

Some quotes from Rice, courtesy of Everett:

“I think he [then Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don’t think many informed people doubted that.” (NPR, Feb. 6, 2003)

“It’s clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It’s clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that’s the path we’re on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side.” (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002)

“I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush administration about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The United States policy has been regime change for many, many years, going well back into the Clinton administration. So it’s a question of timing and tactics. … We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution before we can enforce this and previous resolutions.” (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002; requests for audio of Rice’s statements on NPR were declined by the publicly funded network.)


Rice, who is also notorious for helping to deceive the world into the destruction of Libya, may have difficulty getting confirmed for Secretary of State in a Republican-held Senate. But one way or another she’s guaranteed to be playing some role in the Biden administration.

Also under discussion for a role in leading the US threshing monster is Senator Tammy Duckworth, who has for months been aggressively attacking the Trump administration for not confronting Russia over the completely discredited claim that Moscow had paid Taliban-linked fighters to kill occupying coalition forces in Afghanistan.

You might think that someone who promotes cold war escalations on a daily basis which have no relationship to facts or reality might make Duckworth an unsuitable candidate for military leadership, but what you are apparently too bigoted and Russian to realize is that the Senator from Illinois is both a woman of color and handicapped. I bet you feel silly now.


Up for consideration as leader of America’s most sociopathic government agency is Obama’s former CIA Deputy Director Avril Haines, who protected all perpetrators implicated in a Senate report on CIA torture from suffering any consequences for their unspeakable brutality, and helped redact that same report. If selected Biden would become just the second president with the highly progressive distinction of selecting a female CIA Director, the first being Donald Trump when he appointed Torturer-in-Chief “Bloody” Gina Haspel (whose appointment Haines supported).

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see how else the Decency President plans to uplift us with girl power and diversity of ethnicity and sexual orientation in the most powerful force of human slaughter in the history of civilization. 2021, here we come!

Intersectional Omnicide

Our weapons will be manufactured by corporations
that have pansexual CEOs and Muslim shareholders.

The bombers will be emblazoned with rainbow flags
and flown by empowered women of all colors
who will scream “YAAASSS QUEEN!” as the mushroom clouds arise.

The desert sand will turn to glass in the blasts,
and that glass will become a ceiling,
and that ceiling will be shattered
by a lesbian CIA Director.

People will be vaporized on the spot,
or watch their own bodies fall apart like sandcastles,
but they will never be misgendered.

We will march as equals,
white, black, Asian, indigenous,
and whatever miscellaneous extras we can find
(so long as they’re photogenic enough for Instagram),
arm-in-arm singing “Fight Song” in one voice
beneath a drone-filled sky
to the edge of extinction
where we will leap together
screaming “This is all Susan Sarandon’s fault!”
into the face of the abyss.

It won’t be pretty,
it won’t be wise,
but at least,
for one glorious flash,
we will get to feel like we really tried.

https://orinocotribune.com/biden-will-h ... assembled/

No fan of Ms Johnston but this is spot on. I especially like the poem. This is where rampant individualism, the philosophical basis of capitalism, has led the so-called left. Time for a return to class analysis, before it's too late.

[blindpig]

INTERVENTIONISM, BUSINESS AND DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE RETURN TO THE WHITE HOUSE
THE MYTH OF THE PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT OF BIDEN-HARRIS
16 Nov 2020 , 12:10 pm .


The neocons and hawks would return to the White House unhindered (Photo: JTSorrell / istock.com)

16 Nov 2020 , 12:10 pm .

The deep state or deep state is a way of executing power in the United States through a kind of invisible arm without affecting the facade that falls on the federal government in the White House. The clandestinity of this State of National Security (also called this way due to its security conformation from the Patriot Act of 2001 ) allows a network of covert networks to exist that operate independently, but with a real impact on US actions.

This behind-the-scenes network, which generally responds to economic and financial interests, can do the dirty work and move the necessary pieces through its intelligence devices. Mike Lofgren , a former agent of the United States Congress, defines the deep state as "the red thread that links the war on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the emergence of a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction" .

This way of proceeding could gain strength in this new political process that begins in the United States after the elections of November 3.

THE PROGRESSIVE ILLUSION
Since the Joe Biden- Kamala Harris formula was defined, the myth that projected them as a duo that will promote substantial changes in both the internal and external politics of the United States has been demolished.

It is enough to review a little the political history of this pair to know that these hopes were not marked by their own merits, but by supposedly representing a lesser evil. This is because the figure to defeat is still President Donald Trump, whose leadership was undermined by the clumsy handling of the pandemic and social protests after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police.

This last fact was used by the Democrats to demonize Trump and promote conciliation through the rescue of a supposed national spirit that had been lost with the arrival of the president tycoon.

FORGOTTEN HISTORIES
The media that projected Biden as president-elect seem to have forgotten the record of sexual harassment, racism and support for segregationist policies, support for policies of cuts to social security and others that favored billionaires.

Likewise, they do not mention the warmongering actions with mortal consequences for millions of people, which include sending troops to the border, the Middle East and the design of Plan Colombia, policies and actions that are largely criticized by Trump.

The shock after the anti-racist protests also overlapped the record of Kamala Harris , who due to her ethnic heritage was promoted as a progressive hope to counter the advance of supremacism of the supporters of the current president.

Beyond the facade of the woman daughter of immigrants who fights for civil rights, who aspires to become the first vice president of the United States, Harris also has a dark record. Hiding information to protect the corruption of police forces, as a California prosecutor "maintained retrograde judicial policies" that in many cases affected the poorest, in addition to serving the great interests of Wall Street are only part of the record ignored by the media.

THE FACES OF TRANSITION
In addition to the brief criminal histories of those who are at the head of the new American government, there are also other political figures with dark pasts who could be part of it.

Last week, the Democratic transition team "released the names of the people who are on its 'agency review teams,' who will prepare Biden and his cabinet for his administration," said Kevin Gosztola on his Twitter account. , director of Shadowproof .

According to what was published by the director of the media that is dedicated to exposing the abuses of power in companies and the US government, one of the names on the list is that of Matt Olsen, a former Obama administration official who was director of the National Center Counterterrorism.

In addition, for a brief period he was general counsel of the NSA (National Security Agency) and executive director of the Gitmo Review Task Force, a task force created by an executive order to determine the status of detainees in the Guantanamo prison.


As general counsel of the NSA, he dismissed the complaints by Edward Snowden against that institution, claiming that what was denounced by the former CIA agent has little to do with privacy and civil liberties, which joins the chorus of voices of former officials to discredit the also former NSA agent. Recall that Snowden released several secret security agency documents, including the PRISM and Xkeyscore mass surveillance programs.

Another on the list of those who will prepare the new cabinet is Greg Vogle, a partner in a company founded by a former CIA station chief in Afghanistan; He was also an advisor to DGC International, a US military contractor whose goal was to maintain its dominant presence in the Middle East.


Eric Velez-Villar, who spent 30 years with the FBI before becoming Disney's chief of security and protecting the corporation's "confidential information," would also be part of the Biden-Harris formula. Also, Carmen Middleton, also a Disney partner who was former deputy executive director of the CIA. "She was the highest ranking Latina in the CIA and she showed that women like her can also destabilize the world in the name of American democracy," says Gosztola.


Another that adds to the list of those who will possibly be in charge of the executive is Linda Thomas-Greenfield, she was undersecretary of state who managed US policy towards sub-Saharan Africa under the neocolonial vision of President George W. Bush.

The fact that Thomas-Greenfield is the leader of the State Department agency's review group, according to the American journalist, is an indication that Biden will nominate Susan Rice to serve as Secretary of State. Rice was an ambassador to the UN, from 2009 to 2013, and later a National Security Advisor to the Obama Administration. She is known for taking the former president's warmongering policy to the Middle East.


To close these mentions, it is necessary to name Roberta Jacobson, a former US ambassador to Mexico who describes herself as an expert in "Latin American business and politics." She will be remembered in Venezuela for supporting the guarimbas promoted by Leopoldo López, María Corina Machado and Julio Borges in 2014 under the "La Salida" plan.


Although they are not all of the list that Kevin Gozstola exposes, it is enough to look at the record of interventionism, business and control policy through espionage that these referents have to know that any hopeful vision of change in US politics is erratic.

Perhaps that rescue of the national spirit that was mentioned at the beginning after the arrival of Trump has to do with returning to the imperial intervention scheme known with the Obama administration and its precedents. That these men and women of the intelligence and security agencies take the reins of Casa Branca is an indication that the warmongering approach will be further accentuated with their policy of terror .

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/el ... den-harris

Google Translator

Well, thank the gods for a 'return to normalcy'.......No more incompetent imperialism around here!

[blindpig]

Biden to unveil cabinet picks: Hyper-militarist, pro-Wall Street administration takes shape
Walter Smolarek
November 22, 2020 216 2 minutes read
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https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... osts/89652

Top aides to president-elect Joe Biden announced Sunday that the first round of cabinet picks will be announced on Tuesday. All indications are that these nominations will be aimed at reassuring Wall Street that no major pro-worker reforms are on the table, and making it clear that the Biden administration is fully committed to aggressively using the military might of the U.S. war machine to dominate the globe.

Donald Trump’s farce that he is the true winner of the election is becoming more and more outlandish by the day. His legal team’s arguments are being ridiculed in court, and any long-shot hopes that he can reverse the outcome are being dashed as key states officially certify their results. Trump seems determined to keep up the charade as long as possible in order to both maximize the amount of money he can scam out of his supporters and fortify his position as a dominating force in the Republican Party even when out of office. But the electoral college will convene on December 14 and put an end to the illusion.

Biden is wasting no time preparing to put in place his thoroughly anti-worker, ultra-militarist government. At the time of this writing, the New York Times is reporting that long-time Biden aide Antony Blinken has secured the position of Secretary of State. Blinken was Deputy Secretary of State during Barack Obama’s presidency, where he was an advocate for some of the most destructive policies undertaken by the administration including the war on Libya and military strikes against the Syrian government. Earlier in Blinken’s career, when he was a top aide to then-Senator Joe Biden, he advocated the colonial-style partition of Iraq along sectarian lines. Michele Flournoy, the frontrunner to be named Secretary of Defense, recently wrote an article where she emphasized how important it was that the U.S. military be able to credibly threaten to sink all Chinese vessels in the South China Sea in 72 hours.

Biden has been a loyal servant to the big banks and corporations throughout his nearly half a century as part of the political elite, and as President there is no reason to think we will change course. There are no indications that Biden will appoint any truly progressive figures to key positions, outside of perhaps a token figure or two in roles that are easily sidelined. In terms of domestic policy, the Biden team has so far announced that Representative Cedric Richmond will lead the White House Office of Public Engagement. Richmond is notorious for his close ties to the oil and gas industry to the detriment of his own constituents — Richmond’s district includes seven of the 10 most air-polluted census tracts in the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Desperately-needed reforms under an administration so thoroughly imperialist and reactionary can only be secured through determined, militant struggle. The only way to win Medicare for all, the cancellation of student debt, criminal charges for killer cops, dramatic action on climate change and much more is to demand it, and back up those demands with a fighting movement of the working class.

https://www.liberationnews.org/biden-to ... rationnews

[blindpig]

VIDEO: Top Biden advisors Flournoy and Blinken promise smarter, more secretive permanent war policy
DAN COHEN·NOVEMBER 20, 2020

Biden’s likely pick for Secretary of Defense, Michele Flournoy, and his top foreign policy advisor, Tony Blinken, have played central roles in every war waged by Democratic presidents dating back to the Clinton era


This video report was originally published at Behind The Headlines. Support the independent journalism initiative here.

Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy, claiming it weakened the United States and left the world in disarray. “Donald Trump’s brand of ‘America First has too often led to America alone,” Biden proclaimed.

He pledged to reverse this decline and recover the damage Trump did to America’s reputation. While Donald Trump called to make America Great Again, Biden seeks to Make the American Empire Great Again.

Joe Biden: “Tonight, the whole world is watching America. And I believe at our best, America is a beacon for the globe. We will lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.”

Among the president-elect’s pledges is to end the so-called forever wars – the decades-long imperial projects in Afghanistan and Iraq that began under the Bush administration.

“It’s long past time we end the forever wars which have cost us untold blood and treasure,” Biden has said.

Yet Biden – a fervent supporter of those wars – will delegate that duty to the most neoconservative elements of the Democratic Party and ideologues of permanent war.

Michele Flournoy and Tony Blinken sit atop Biden’s thousands-strong foreign policy brain trust and have played central roles in every U.S. war dating back to the Bill Clinton administration.

During the Trump era, they’ve cashed in through WestExec Advisors – a corporate consulting firm that has become home for Obama administration officials awaiting a return to government.

Flournoy is Biden’s leading pick for Secretary of Defense and Blinken is expected to be the president’s National Security Advisor.

Biden’s foxes guard the henhouse
Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.

Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military’s doctrine of permanent war – what it called “full spectrum dominance.”

Flournoy called for “unilateral use of military power” to ensure “uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources.”

As Bush administration officials lied to the world about Saddam Hussein’s supposed WMD’s, Flournoy remarked that “In some cases, preemptive strikes against an adversary’s [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities may be the best or only option we have to avert a catastrophic attack against the United States.”

Tony Blinken was a top advisor to then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Joe Biden, who played a key role in shoring up support among the Democrat-controlled Senate for Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Biden declared, “In my judgment, President Bush is right to be concerned about Saddam Hussein’s relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction”

As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper titled “Progressive Internationalism” that called for a “smarter and better” style of permanent war. The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that “Democrats will maintain the world’s most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using it to defend our interests anywhere in the world.”

With Bush winning a second term, Flournoy advocated for more troop deployments from the sidelines.

In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to “increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years.”

In 2007, she leveraged her Pentagon experience and contacts to found what would become one of the premier Washington think tanks advocating endless war across the globe: the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

CNAS is funded by the U.S. government, arms manufacturers, oil giants, Silicon Valley tech giants, billionaire-funded foundations, and big banks.

Flournoy joined the Obama administration and was appointed as under secretary of defense for policy, the position considered the “brains” of the Pentagon.

She was keenly aware that the public was wary of more quagmires. In the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, she crafted a new concept of warfare that would expand the permanent war state while giving the appearance of a drawdown.

Flournoy wrote that “unmanned systems hold great promise” – a reference to the CIA’s drone assassination program.

This was the Obama-era military doctrine of hybrid war. It called for the U.S. to be able to simultaneously wage war on numerous fronts through secret warfare, clandestine weapons transfers to proxies, drone strikes, and cyber-attacks – all buttressed with propaganda campaigns targeting the American public through the internet and corporate news media.

Architects of America’s Hybrid wars
Flournoy continued to champion the endless wars that began in the Bush-era and was a key architect of Obama’s disastrous troop surge in Afghanistan. As U.S. soldiers returned in body bags and insurgent attacks and suicide bombings increased some 65% from 2009 and 2010, she deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee, claiming that the U.S. was beginning to turn the tide against the Taliban: “We are beginning to regain the initiative and the insurgency is beginning to lose momentum.”

Even with her lie that the U.S. and Afghan government were starting to beat the Taliban back, Flournoy assured the senate that the U.S. would have to remain in Afghanistan long into the future: “We are not leaving any time soon even though the nature and the complexion of the commitment may change over time.”

Ten years later – as the Afghan death toll passed 150,000 – Flournoy continued to argue against a U.S. withdrawal: “I would certainly not advocate a US or NATO departure short of a political settlement being in place.”

That’s the person Joe Biden has tasked with ending the forever war in Afghanistan. But in Biden’s own words, he’ll “bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan” implying some number of American troops will remain, and the forever war will be just that. Michele Flournoy explained that even if a political settlement were reached, the U.S. would maintain a presence.

Michele Flournoy: “If we are fortunate enough to see a political settlement reached, it doesn’t mean that the US role or the international community is over. Afghanistan without outside investment is not a society that is going to survive and thrive. In no case are we going to be able to wash our hands of Afghanistan and walk away nor should we want to. This is something where we’re going to have to continue to be engaged, just the form of engagement may change.”

In 2011, the Obama-era doctrine of smart and sophisticated warfare was unveiled in the NATO regime-change war on Libya.

Moammar Gaddafi – the former adversary who sought warm relations with the U.S. and had given up his nuclear weapons program – was deposed and sodomized with a bayonet.

Flournoy, Hillary Clinton’s State Department, and corporate media were in lockstep as they waged an elaborate propaganda campaign to deceive the U.S. public that Gadaffi’s soldiers were on a Viagra-fueled rape and murder spree that demanded a U.S. intervention.

Fox News: “Susan Rice reportedly told a security council meeting that Libyan troops are being given viagra and are engaging in sexual violence.”

MSNBC jumped on the propaganda bandwagon, claiming: “New reports emerge that the LIbyan dictator gave soldiers viagra-type pills to rape women who are opposed to the government.”

So did CNN.

As the Libyan ambassador to the US alleged “raping, killing, mass graves,” ICC Chief Prosecutor Manuel Ocampo claimed: “It’s like a machete. Viagra is a tool of massive rapes.”

All of this was based on a report from Al Jazeera – the media outlet owned by the Qatari monarchy that was arming extremist militias in Libya to overthrow the government.

Yet an investigation by the United Nations called the rape claims “hysteria.” Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch found no credible evidence of even a single rape.

Even after Libya was descended into strife and the deception of Gadaffi’s forces committing rape was debunked, Michele Flournoy stood by her support for the war: “I supported the intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds. I think we were right to do it.”

Tony Blinken, then Obama’s deputy national security advisor, also pushed for regime change in Libya. He became Obama’s point man on Syria, pushed to arm the so-called “moderate rebels” that fought alongside al-Qaeda and ISIS, and designed the red line strategy to trigger a full-on U.S. intervention. Syria, he told the public, wasn’t anything like the other wars the U.S. had waging for more than a decade.

Tony Blinken: “We are doing this in a very different way than in the past. We’re not sending in hundreds of thousands of American troops. We’re not spending trillions of American dollars. We’re being smart about this. This is a sustainable way to get at the terrorists and it’s also a more effective way.”

Blinken added: “This is not open-ended, this is not boots on the ground, this is not Iraq, it’s not Afghanistan, it’s not even Libya. The more people understand that, the more they’ll understand the need for us to take this limited but effective action.”

Despite Blinken’s promises that it would be a short affair, the war on Syria is now in its ninth year. An estimated half a million people have been killed as a result and the country is facing famine,


Largely thanks to the policy of using “wheat to apply pressure” – a recommendation of Flournoy and Blinken’s CNAS think tank.

When the Trump administration launched airstrikes on Syria based on mere accusations of a chemical attack, Tony Blinken praised the bombing, claiming Assad had used the weapon of mass destruction sarin. Yet there was no evidence for this claim, something even then-secretary of Defense James Mattis admitted: “So I can not tell you that we had evidence even though we had a lot of media and social media indicators that either chlorine or sarin were used.”

While jihadist mercenaries armed with U..S-supplied weapons took over large swaths of Syria, Tony Blinken played a central role in a coup d’etat in Ukraine that saw a pro-Russia government overthrown in a U.S.-orchestrated color revolution with neo-fascist elements agitating on the ground.

At the time, he was ambivalent about sending lethal weapons to Ukraine, instead opting for economic pressure.

Tony Blinken: “We’re working, as I said, to make sure that there’s a cost exacted of Russia and indeed that it feels the pressure. That’s what we’re working on. And when it comes to military assistance, we’re looking at it. The facts are these: Even if assistance were to go to Ukraine that would be very unlikely to change Russia’s calculus or prevent an invasion.”

Since then, fascist militias have been incorporated into Ukraine’s armed forces. And Tony Blinken urged Trump to send them deadly weapons – something Obama had declined to do.

But Trump obliged.

The Third Offset
While the U.S. fueled wars in Syria and Ukraine, the Pentagon announced a major shift called the Third Offset strategy – a reference to the cold war era strategies the U.S. used to maintain its military supremacy over the Soviet Union.

The Third Offset strategy shifted the focus from counterinsurgency and the war on terror to great power competition against China and Russia. It called for a technological revolution in warfighting capabilities, development of futuristic and autonomous weapons, swarms of undersea and airborne drones, hypersonic weapons, cyber warfare, machine-enhanced soldiers, and artificial intelligence making unimaginably complex battlefield decisions at speeds incomprehensible to the human mind. All of this would be predicated on the Pentagon deepening its relationship with Silicon Valley giants that it birthed decades before: Google and Facebook.

The author of the Third Offset, former undersecretary of defense Robert Work, is a partner of Flournoy and Blinken’s at WestExec Advisors. And Flournoy has been a leading proponent of this dangerous new escalation.

In June, Flournoy published a lengthy commentary laying out her strategy called “Sharpening the U.S. Military’s Edge: Critical Steps for the Next Administration.”

She warned that the United States is losing its military technological advantage and reversing that must be the Pentagon’s priority. Without it, Flournoy warned that the U.S. might not be able to defeat China in Asia: “That technological investment is still very important for the United States to be able to offset what will be quantitative advantages and home theater advantages for a country like China if we ever had to deal with a conflict in Asia, in their backyard.”

While Flournoy has called for ramping up U.S. military presence and exercises with allied forces in the region, she went so far as to call for the U.S. to increase its destructive capabilities so much that it could launch a blitzkrieg style-attack that would wipe out the entire Chinese navy and all civilian merchant ships in the South China Sea. Not only a blatant war crime but a direct attack on a nuclear power that would spell the third world war.

At the same time, Biden has announced he’ll take an even more aggressive and confrontational stance against Russia, a position Flournoy shares: “We need to invest to ensure that we maintain the military edge that we will need in certain critical areas like cyber and electronic warfare and precision strike, to again underwrite deterrence, to make sure Vladimir Putin does not miscalculate and think that he can cross a border into Europe or cross a border and threaten us militarily.”

As for ending the forever wars, Tony Blinken says not so fast: “Large scale, open-ended deployment of large standing US forces in conflict zones with no clear strategy should end and will end under his watch…. But we also need to distinguish between, for example, these endless wars with the large scale open ended deployment of US forces with, for example, discreet, small-scale sustainable operations, maybe led by special forces, to support local actors… In ending the endless wars I think we have to be careful to not paint with too broad a brush stroke.”

The end of forever wars?
So Biden will end the forever wars, but not really end them. Secret wars that the public doesn’t even know the U.S. is involved in – those are here to stay.

In fact, leaving teams of special forces in place throughout the Middle East is part and parcel of the Pentagon’s shift away from counterinsurgency and towards great power competition.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy explains that, “Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities” and the U.S. will “consolidate gains in Iraq and Afghanistan while moving to a more resource-sustainable approach.”

As for the catastrophic war on Yemen, Biden has said he’ll end U.S. support; but in 2019, Michele Flournoy argued against ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Biden pledged he will rejoin the Iran deal as a starting point for new negotiations. However, Trump’s withdrawal from the deal discredited the Iranian reformists who seek engagement with the west and empowered the principlists who see the JCPOA as a deal with the devil.

In Latin America, Biden will revive the so-called anti-corruption campaigns that were used as a cover to oust the popular social democrat Brazilian president Lula da Silva.

His Venezuela policy appears little different from Trump’s – sanctions and regime change.

In Central America, Biden has presided over a four billion dollar package to support corrupt right-wing governments and neoliberal privatization projects, fueling destabilization and sending vulnerable masses fleeing north to the United States.

Behind their rhetoric, Biden, Flournoy, and Blinken will seek nothing less than global supremacy, escalating a new and even more dangerous arms race that risks the destruction of humanity. That’s what Joe Biden calls “decency” and “normalcy.”

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/11/20/bide ... anent-war/

[blindpig]

Winning the New Cold War
Why Biden will keep the U.S.-imposed Cold War rolling
Posted Nov 18, 2020 by Vijay Prashad

This article was produced by Globetrotter

Much will certainly change in the world of U.S. foreign policy when Joe Biden enters the White House. There will be a more measured tone, and less reliance upon Twitter to announce U.S. policy. Trump is brusque, as illustrated by the way he shoved aside Montenegro’s Prime Minister Dusko Markovic at the 2017 NATO meeting; Biden might not push and shove his way to the front of the group, but his silvery smile will camouflage as ruthless a set of aims. On foreign policy, Biden will appear to be different from Trump, but the broad outlines of their policy will be identical.

Trump’s Isolationism Masks Sinister Alliances
Was Trump an isolationist? Not really, though it’s easy to see how he got this reputation, at first glance of his foreign policy.

He had an aggressive posture against Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela, with his illegal sanctions policy against these countries. He demonstrated total fealty to the Israeli project to annihilate Palestine. His “trade war” against China is sold as a way to rebuild the U.S. economy, but it is also about maintaining U.S. power; for what other purpose could instruments such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation and América Crece be used when they have been designed to advantage U.S. companies around the world?

Trump certainly attacked the Western military alliance system, trying to force NATO members to spend more on their military. But at the same time, Trump developed other military alliances: one of these, first developed by George W. Bush in 2007, is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, which draws Australia, India, and Japan into a military alliance against China. At the same time, Trump drove an agenda in Latin America—through the Lima Group (established in 2017)—to create an alliance against Venezuela.

Why Biden Is Not a Multilateralist
The liberal media portrays Biden as a multilateralist—but the evidence for this speculation on the president-elect’s foreign policy is problematic, to say the least.

Biden wants to rebuild the Western military alliance system that Trump has eroded. An indication of Biden’s enthusiasm was an early phone call to French President Emmanuel Macron, to suggest that the United States is back as a player in Europe. This is not an advance toward a multilateral world order, but rather a return to the old alliance system where the United States (with its Canadian and European allies) attempts to dominate the world system by the use of its military, diplomatic, and economic power.

Further evidence offered for Biden’s multilateralism is his commitment to return the United States to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (or the Iran deal) and the 2016 Paris Agreement.

Why does Biden wish to return the United States to its commitments toward Iran? Obama entered this deal because the Europeans were desperate for a source of energy after the United States and France destroyed access to Libyan oil in NATO’s 2011 war and hurt access to Russian natural gas because of the Ukraine conflict in 2014. Obama agreed to the Iran deal because the Europeans were desperate, not to line up with the demands of international law; Biden will give the Europeans this gift, welcomed by the Iranian people, in order to cement the Western alliance system. Meanwhile, Biden continues to talk about suffocating the Iranian people.

On climate, during the negotiations that resulted in the Paris deal during Obama’s presidency, the United States watered down the text of the agreement, preventing a truly multilateral deal that would have accepted Western responsibility for a century of fossil fuel use. Again, there is no major commitment to save the planet in Biden’s pledge to return to the Paris Agreement; the main agenda is to strengthen and subordinate the European countries to the U.S.-led alliance system.

Primacy Remains the U.S. Goal
The U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Staff wrote in the early years of the Cold War, “To seek less than preponderant power would be to opt for defeat. Preponderant power must be the object of U.S. policy.” This desire for primacy remains the explicit U.S. policy. Trump, in his four years as president, did not depart from this policy. Nor has Biden in his five decades in public office. They might differ in their tone or in their strategy, but not in the pursuit of this goal. Biden’s adviser Charles Kupchan has written a new book called Isolationism, which offers a clichéd view of U.S. foreign policy, and then concludes, “[T]he United States must reclaim its exceptionalist mantle”; this means that the United States must continue to seek primacy.

This goal of primacy has made it difficult for the U.S. elites to come to terms with the fact of the slow attrition of U.S. power since the illegal war on Iraq (2003) and the credit crisis (2007). Failure to acknowledge that the world will no longer tolerate one single superpower has led the United States to impose a warlike situation against China. This begins with Obama’s “pivot” to Asia in 2015, and intensifies with Trump’s “trade war.”

Cold War on China Looms
Since 2015, not one U.S. Silicon Valley CEO has made a robust statement for comity between the United States and China. Apple’s Tim Cook held a meeting with Trump in August 2019 merely to allow Apple to better compete with Samsung, which was not hit by the U.S. tariffs. There was no broad statement about Trump’s “trade war,” with which Cook seemed quite pleased.

Silicon Valley firms know that on certain technological developments—such as 5G, robotics, GPS, and soon microchips—Chinese firms have clearly produced next-generation technologies, and in many cases have leapfrogged over their U.S. counterparts. Silicon Valley companies are quite happy for the U.S. government to put the entire weight of the state against Chinese firms. This includes using the security apparatus to accuse Huawei of being involved in Chinese government espionage. It is a curiosity that none of the Silicon Valley firms worry about privacy per se, because—according to the Edward Snowden revelations—the National Security Agency uses the PRISM program to collect data freely from Silicon Valley internet firms; but the U.S. uses the privacy and espionage arguments to try to hurt Chinese tech firms and protect the intellectual property and market advantages of Silicon Valley. Since this is the real cause of the trade war, there is every likelihood—and Biden has said so—that a Biden administration would continue to prosecute the trade war.

In 2013, the Chinese government set up the One Belt, One Road (now Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI) to extend its commercial links across the world. The Obama administration responded in 2015 with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a platform to break China’s commercial ties along the Pacific Rim. Trump jettisoned the TPP and went for a more direct trade war. To counter the trillions of dollars that China will mobilize for the BRI, the United States used the Millennium Challenge Corporation (set up in 2004) and América Crece (2019) to funnel billions of dollars to countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. All of this is a desperate attempt to undermine China and maintain U.S. primacy.

The United States is not yet prepared to acknowledge the changed world situation. This will take time. Short of that, it is important for people to speak up against an escalation of hostilities.

https://mronline.org/2020/11/18/why-bid ... r-rolling/

Trump does(did...) have one foot in isolationism, as witnessed by his multiple attempts to withdraw troops from the Middle East. If he also talked very big and made a few warlike gestures those were more expressions of his pathetic attempts to appear a tough guy and the Exceptionalism which he has commandeered as part of his 'brand'. Biden is re-redirecting Exceptionalism' back into the imperialist mode as he declares the US intention to 'regain it's place at the head of the table'.

Silicon Valley may favor economic confrontation with China but tho they are prominent and profitable they do not represent the weight of US economic interests, there are other serious players with different interests, agriculture, for example. Npr can always find a 'small' farmer(they are mostly 'asset' millionaires, bout gotta be) full of Trump love but ya don't hear that stuff from the major players(AGF, etc...).

[blindpig]

Biden, the Emcee at the Billionaires’ Ball
The Lords of Capital use periods of crisis to devour the less-rich and reshape the political economy to their further advantage, so that the Joe Bidens of the world jump higher and come quicker when summoned.

“What ordinary people experience as disaster is manna from heaven for the Lords of Capital.”

The Orange Era of racist rants will soon be over – just a few hundred mad tweets to go till January 20th, when the head flunky for the real rulers of the USA will take over the levers of government. Joe Biden made only one campaign promise that counts -- to the only people that matter to corporate Democrats -- when he assured the party’s rich funders that “No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change” under his presidency. But even as he spoke, back in June, the greatest change in wealth and power relationships in U.S. history was in full roar, as the billionaire class feasted on the Covid economy. As detailed in a November 12 report by the Institute for Policy Studies and other leftish outfits, the combined wealth of the 647 U.S. billionaires increased by almost a trillion dollars, and 33 new billionaires were created, during the same period that 22 million Americans lost their jobs , many of which will not return when the virus has receded. The Pew Research Center found that “one-in-four adults have had trouble paying their bills since the coronavirus outbreak started, a third have dipped into savings or retirement accounts to make ends meet, and about one-in-six have borrowed money from friends or family or gotten food from a food bank.”

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and the Washington Post and the guy that runs the cloud where the CIA keeps its secrets, grew richer by $70 billion during the Covid crisis – a $2 billion per week increase in wealth. As a group, U.S. billionaires are one-third richer than before the coronavirus struck.

What ordinary people experience as disaster is manna from heaven for the Lords of Capital. “Disaster capitalism” is only disastrous for those without capital. Every catastrophe consolidates the power of the billionaires, who use these periods to devour the less-rich and reshape the political economy to their further advantage, deepening their dominance of society so that the Joe Bidens of the world jump higher and come quicker when summoned.

“As a group, U.S. billionaires are one-third richer than before the coronavirus struck.”

The oligarchs are so obscenely rich, they bend all social and political institutions to their will. “Democracy” cannot possibly exist alongside oligarchy. It is, therefore, necessary that politicians like Biden pretend that the oligarchs are just regular folks, like the rest of us. “You know what I’ve found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people. Not a joke. I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money,” Biden assured a group of 100 rich people in Manhattan.

Black voters may have put Biden in the Oval Office, but the former “Senator from Mastercard” has always taken his orders from the oligarchy. The oligarch-in-charge at the Democratic National Committee is Michael Bloomberg, who has fronted much of the DNC’s bills this year. The coronavirus has been very good to Bloomberg: he added $10.5 billion to his mega-fortune – a 22 percent increase -- in just the two months between March 18 and May 15. Such sums can buy every important politician in the Democratic half of the corporate duopoly.

For the Lords of Capital, control of the Democrats is critical, since they are the party that claims to represent the people hardest hit by capitalist crises. (The Republican “base,” although full of people in economic straits, demands only that white supremacy be championed.) It is the Democratic Party’s job to beat back popular demands for social and economic justice, because the peoples and classes that make these demands are Democrats. As the crises become deeper and more frequent under late-stage capitalism, the oligarchy’s hold on the Democratic Party tightens, accordingly.

“The former ‘Senator from Mastercard’ has always taken his orders from the oligarchy.”

The Black vote is key, because African Americans are the most left leaning constituency in the nation, the group most in favor of income redistribution – the oligarch’s nightmare – and a range of other measures that would provide working people with some degree of security in this cutthroat capitalist economy. Therefore, the trick for keeping the austerity regime (Race to the Bottom) on track is to make Blacks and their allies more afraid of Republican racists than of rule by oligarch-controlled Democrats. That’s why Hillary Clinton’s campaign was so determined to run against Donald Trump, the most outrageously racist Republican, in 2016, as revealed by Wikileaks.

But the straw-man refused to be knocked down. For the next four years the Democrats, the bulk of the corporate media, and the national security state waged the most furious and dangerous campaign of demonization since Lincoln was elected in 1860. (Trump was correct in making that analogy but, like everything else from his mouth, it came out stupid.) It was a four-year, non-stop shock to the system, administered by the bulk of the ruling class and their media -- the biggest beneficiaries of the system. They risked delegitimizing the very institutions that have facilitated corporate governance, for the chance to rewrite the national narrative. From now on, the United States is on a permanent national security emergency footing, requiring censorship of social media, draconian punishment of protesters, and 24/7 witch hunts for Russians, Chinese, Venezuelans and their home-grown “dupes.”

“Democrats risked delegitimizing the very institutions that have facilitated corporate governance.”

The Lords of Capital know, better than most of the rest of us, that the Race to the Bottom that immiserates the working class and disperses Black communities, is also responsible for the exponential, fantastical growth of oligarchic wealth. The Race to the Bottom is a global phenomenon of late stage imperial capitalism, which funnels ever-increasing proportions of wealth upward by forcing all the world’s workers to compete against each other. War must be endless, to enforce the terms of the Race on as much of the planet as possible. Government social, health and income supports that allow workers to refuse “gig” and less-than-living wage work, spoil the Race.

Biden is the oligarchs’ pick to keep the Race to the Bottom accelerating and the profits skyrocketing. On the other side of the duopoly, the Amerikkaner hordes plot vengeance for their perceived loss of what W.E.B. Du Bois called the “public and psychological” wages of whiteness. There is nothing lesser about either of these evils – which is why the only real option for Black and working people is an independent politics of struggle.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

https://www.blackagendareport.com/biden ... aires-ball

Well and good, but why do we restrict our criticism to the billionaires? There are only about a thousand of them in this country and there are about a million millionaires mostly eager to 'step up', given the opportunity. I find the insistence on 'billionaires' to be a possible opening to reformism, as was certainly the case with 'Occupy'. 'Lop off a few tall heads and everything will be hunky-dory...'. Not while the structure, the private ownership of the means of production, prevails it won't.

[blindpig]

“America” Doesn’t Need Healing. It Needs Socialism
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor 25 Nov 2020


“America” Doesn’t Need Healing. It Needs Socialism

Biden’s promise to return the United States to “normalcy” comforts corporate executives in the “gig economy,” Wall Street, and the military industrial complex.

“Racial cleavages will be written off as the product of a Russian-backed racist billionaire whose presidency is now a thing of the past.”

Much of the corporate media has asked whether Joe Biden will “heal America” of the so-called divisiveness spawned by Donald Trump’s presidential reign. In the eyes of the U.S. ruling class, the only political struggle of importance is the one that exists amongst themselves. Trump’s “America First” orientation to power projection deeply troubled a large section of a ruling class which thrives upon the sanctity of “free” trade and the image of the United States as a wholesome actor on the world stage. Trump’s racist demagogy and his general lack of care for the public relations image of the United States meant that no level of service to the interests of imperialism would satisfy a broad majority of Washington’s corporate overseers. Massive profits from media clicks and tax cuts have been unable to make up for the desperate need for the U.S. ruling class to shield the empire from the chaos of Trump’s rule.

Wall Street and the bulk of the capitalist class has bet on Joe Biden to “heal America.” The U.S. is currently overrun by a number of domestic and global crises. COVID-19 has spread uncontrollably in the U.S. to the point where experts warn that current averages of 100,000 cases and 1,000 deaths per day will rise exponentially in the winter season. Healthcare systems across the country have reached their limit. Tens of millions of people remain unemployed and more than half of U.S. workers woefully underemployed . Black Americans continue to be murdered in the streets by local police departments . Trump and the Democrats have offered nothing in the form of relief to the struggling masses; not even a second stimulus check of $1200.

“Healthcare systems across the country have reached their limit.”

Internationally, the U.S. ruling class has suffered many blows to its legitimacy under Trump. Since day one of Trump’s administration, U.S. military policy has been plagued by inconsistency. Trump laid the basis for a New Cold War on China but made dialogue with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (a key ally of China) an important foreign policy objective. He has clamored for troop reductions in Syria and Afghanistan yet dropped more drones on civilians in the region than Barack Obama. Trump has tarnished the image of NATO, pulled out of the JPCOA (Iran deal), and touched many nerves within the intelligence apparatus by speaking positively of Russian leadership. While the ruling class applauded Trump for his aggressive sanctions regime on Iran and Venezuela, the applause was ultimately muted by the generalized view that his leadership represented more of a liability to imperialism than an asset.

In Biden, military strategists and political operatives in the halls of power hope to reinvigorate U.S. prestige and “exceptionalism” by putting the U.S. public to sleep. “Healing America” essentially means repackaging the Bush-Obama political order for a period of unprecedented crisis. Racial cleavages will be written off as the product of a Russian-backed racist billionaire whose presidency is now a thing of the past. Economic woes will be dismissed as the residual effect of Trump’s failures. Joe Biden has already boasted that he will bring the United States “back in the game” of global leadership once he assumes the Oval Office.

“’Healing America’ essentially means repackaging the Bush-Obama political order.”

“Healing America” is a platitude of American exceptionalism. It assumes that the United States is a nation of laudable values which can resume course on the path toward a more “perfect union” under the correct leadership. American exceptionalism conflates the interests of the ruling class with those of the masses of people. Social problems are treated as stains on a perfect civilizational design rather than endemic to the system from which they arose. Biden’s promise to return the United States to “normalcy” comforts corporate executives in the “gig economy,” Wall Street, and the military industrial complex. This is why Biden’s incoming presidency is being advised by a big tent of militarist war hawks and capitalist tycoons at the total exclusion of the Bernie Sanders-wing of the Democratic Party.

Biden is the quintessential company man who can be counted on to hire a team of imperialists fully committed to the project of protecting the U.S.’ public relations image from the social unrest produced by endless war and austerity. Trump’s problem was not that he wasn’t profitable. Rather, he proved himself to be an international embarrassment time and time again. It should come as no surprise that Biden has spent much of his time mulling over a range of female war hawks and race experts to diversify the faces at the helm of imperialism. This will be praised as a key step toward “healing” a divided society which simultaneously ensures that nothing will fundamentally change for the rich.

“American exceptionalism conflates the interests of the ruling class with those of the masses of people.”

The U.S. doesn’t need to heal. The U.S. needs socialism. And not Bernie Sanders-style “socialism” but the real thing. A social democratic movement may be necessary to get there, but it certainly won’t be led by the likes of Bernie Sanders or “the Squad.” These forces have demonstrated an inability to stand up to the likes of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi during one of the most crisis-ridden periods in U.S. history. The Democratic Party is a fully-owned political subsidiary of the ruling class, and only socialism can address the crises facing the majority of people.

Socialism and American exceptionalism do not mix. Reverting back to a “color-blind” liberal attitude toward racial cleavages only distorts the true impact of the so-called “color-line,’ better termed as white supremacy. Inclusion is not liberation. Neither the presence of “the Squad” nor the Black misleadership class alters the fundamental power relations of the U.S. empire. Socialism is about turning the power relationships inherent to imperialism on their head, and thus far the project to institute a 21st century New Deal by seeking political seats in Washington has been an abject failure.

“The Democratic Party is a fully-owned political subsidiary of the ruling class.”

Biden is fundamentally opposed to socialist-lite policies such as Medicare for All, which means his administration will do everything it can to suppress socialist politics from emerging under his rule. Russiagate has already strengthened the repressive apparatus of the state to censor left journalism and political activity within online forums . It should not be forgotten that Barack Obama laid the basis for Trump’s so-called attacks on the corporate media by waging an unprecedented war on whistleblowers. Joe Biden has already nominated Richard Stengel, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy during Obama’s reign and self-proclaimed “chief propagandist” of the U.S. government, to head his transition team for the U.S. Agency for Global Media. U.S. imperialism is in a state of crisis, and the Biden administration is ready to deflect blame onto the left for whatever failures and blunders that will inevitably emerge under its neoconservative leadership.

Joe Biden’s principle role is to heal the ailments of the ruling system at the expense of the poor and the oppressed. American exceptionalism is the ideological antidote that the elite has prescribed for the masses. The intended side effect is the normalization of endless war, corporate theft, and institutional white supremacy. Socialism, on the other hand, is a movement-driven system organized around an ideology that opposes war, extends a hand of friendship to oppressed nations abroad, and approaches white supremacy as a struggle for power rather than merely a hateful ideology. Socialism raises the demand to free political prisoners such as Julian Assange and Russell Maroon Shoatz alongside Medicare for All and other “bread and butter” issues. Not a day needs to pass under a Biden administration to demonstrate further that the Democratic Party plantation is not in the business of meeting the needs of the people. The question is not whether Biden can “heal America,” but how hard we can move the masses in the direction of a revolutionary socialist future.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/ameri ... -socialism

I would dispute the contention that his peers ousted Trump simply because he made the US 'look bad'. The tax breaks were mollifying but only a fool prefers a 'one off' benefit to steady, regular income. Many of the rich are fools, allowable because of their golden cocoons, but the managers of their affairs gotta know better or they're out of a job. A number of economic sectors have been degraded due to Trump's monomaniacal demands upon economic & foreign policy. The only sectors to especially prosper due to his demands have been the so-called 'extractive industries' who largely financed his first run and have gotten nearly every anti-scientific measure that they demanded as their price. (Though his peers and the pros no doubt cringed at his personal diplomacy in East Asia which was predictable and entertaining to all enemies of imperialism.)

First things first, the Democratic Party must be utterly discredited.

[blindpig]

Liberals are Annoying
December 4, 2020 Dakotah Lilly Hillary Clinton, Neoliberalism, Obama, Racism, Trump, US
By Dakota Lily – Dec 2, 2020

As someone from Pennsylvania, I think the overwhelming emphasis on cultural explanations for the rise of Trump is just more evidence of an out of touch liberal-cosmopolitan elite who simply can’t wrap their minds around why the peons and plebs would vote for anyone besides the oligarchic HRC, not to say that Trump is not also an oligarch. Some commentators even went as far as saying that Trump’s victory was a white cultural backlash to eight years of a Black presidency. To unpack this question we have to ask ourselves: was the Obama presidency more Black and thus any different from the presidencies of Bush or Clinton? Police impunity of murder continued, the supremacy of Wall Street was continued, wages continued to fall, bankruptcies from the inability to pay for medical care continued, unionization did not see a comeback, homelessness remained the same or grew. My answer would be that no, there was no electoral backlash simply because the Obama presidency was not different enough to elicit such a response.

When Obama was elected, much of the population truly felt that change was coming, a new social contract that would finally include the downtrodden, the workers, the poor. States that used to be industrial centers, which have lost a lot because of neoliberalism and predatory globalization, voted for Obama, as well as swing states. States like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, Florida, and Iowa all went for Obama in the 2008 election, no doubt they voted for “change” even if Obama offered none. A May 2017 analysis by Global Strategy Group estimated that Obama Trump voters accounted for more than two-thirds of Hillary Clinton’s loss.

I whole-heartedly concur with Cristina Kirchner’s analysis of the situation; “In the United States, someone who represents the crisis of political representation as a result of the implementation of neoliberal policies won. What the people of the United States are looking for is someone who breaks with the economic establishment, the only thing it has caused is poverty, loss of work, loss of their homes, “said Cristina. She also went on to say that it is foolish to chalk the entire win by Trump up to racism, because many of the same people who voted for Trump, voted for Obama. I completely agree; I think it is very convenient for the ruling class and their pundits to simply call so many of these people nothing more than racist bigots, but the true causes and effects are indeed more complicated and also an indictment of the capitalist and neoliberal system.

When people see their jobs, their livelihoods, their incomes, their homes, and the safety of their families disappear, they tend to vote for someone who will give them the answers as to why this happened. While Clinton called many of these people deplorable and made no effort to reach out to non-lifetime Democrat voters, Trump gave answers to their questions: he blamed immigrants, Muslims, Mexico, and many others who had nothing to do with the suffering being felt by tens of millions of people in the United States. Trump’s analysis of the situation was 90 percent incorrect, and 10 percent correct. He said he wanted to make the Republican party a “workers party”, he said he wanted to end wasteful and deadly wars, said he wanted to stop free trade deals which have overwhelmingly negatively affected workers in all countries. He saw that there was animosity with the establishment status quo, while Clinton in her infinite arrogance convinced herself that everything was fine, that the plebeian voters wouldn’t dare touch her ruling class-bestowed neoliberal crown. He appealed to that anger, telling the people lies, while there was no left that sought to redirect this anger at the people who deserve it: the bankers, warmongers, and career politicians who are in the pockets of capital, robber barons, cartels, and arrogant cosmopolitan liberals who condemned all who couldn’t name all 1,241,422,453 sexualities to the camp of bigoted deplorables who deserve all the ill effects of capitalism, neoliberalism, and imperialism.

No doubt there are terrible racist people in this country, no doubt that no matter who is president, the system itself is inherently racist to its core and continues its proliferation on the backs of all who aren’t wealthy and even more so those who aren’t white. Obama was as much the head of a white supremacist nation as Trump is. Millions of people who lost their jobs, have seen loved ones lost to the opioid epidemic, and have seen their life expectancy fall in the wealthiest country on earth voted for change, voted to show that they were fed up with the status quo, the ruling elites. This is based on economic logic, evermore so because it is impossible to separate the economic from the political. To this day many people are absolutely stunned that Clinton lost, but their shock reveals more of their ignorance and arrogance.


Featured image: President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, former President Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listen during a state funeral for former U.S. President George H. W. Bush at the Washington National Cathedral on Dec. 5, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Alex Brandon/Getty Images).

https://orinocotribune.com/liberals-are-annoying/

Good analysis. When Obama was elected some of us had hoped that he would discredit the Democratic Party simply by being the slick capitalist stooge that good analysis revealed him to be. And he did, but there was no effective criticism from the Left simply because there was and is no effective Left. And so criticism from the Right had it all it's own way. Hindsight is Golden.

[blindpig]

Joe Biden wants racist servant of big business in charge of U.S. agriculture
Sameena RahmanDecember 14, 2020

President-elect Joe Biden’s recent nomination of Tom Vilsack to serve as the next Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is causing widespread outrage among food justice activists and Black farmers. They cite his controversial tenure as USDA chief in the Obama administration and subsequent activities as clearly disqualifying for this cabinet position.

As USDA head under Obama, Vilsack claimed to improve USDA’s history of neglect and racist treatment of Black farmers. He claimed to secure settlement funds for Pigford, a 1999 class action lawsuit filed by Black farmers against the USDA for discrimination. To back up this claim, Vilsack cited the 2012 Census of Agriculture showing an increase in the number of Black farmers.

But the data from this report was later found to be either misleading or false. In reality, the National Black Farmers Association found that discriminatory practices persisted during Vilsack’s tenure as Agriculture Secretary. Black farmers continued to experience great difficulty receiving loans, and the share of money loaned to non-white farmers as a percentage of the total declined.

In 2010, Vilsack fired Shirley Sherrod, a long-time Black civil rights activist, from her then position as the Georgia State Director for Rural Development for USDA. This firing was in response to a virulent and racist attack from Andrew Breitbart, founder of the notorious far-right Breitbart News, who misleadingly edited then published portions of Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP event.

Subsequent release of Sherrod’s full speech showed the extent to which Sherrod’s words were manipulated. This prompted apologies from White House officials. Vilsack is rightfully still the subject of widespread contempt among Black farmers for his role in this episode.

After the end of the Obama administration, Vilsack landed a job leading the U.S. Dairy Export Council, a lobbying group representing corporations in the dairy industry. This was no surprise as Vilsack maintained close ties with agribusiness as USDA chief where he frequently implemented pro-corporate policies which deregulated poultry factories, accelerated the approval process for genetically-modified food and discarded proposed regulations at the direct request of the industry.

His nomination points towards further deregulation of the agriculture industry during Biden’s presidency. Environmental activists have also raised concerns about the potential impact of such policies on the worsening climate change crisis since the American dairy industry is a significant contributor to greenhouse emissions.

The greed of big agribusiness leads to poor nutrition and growing hunger among the working class. Even in the middle of a global pandemic, agriculture corporations exploit workers from the poorest communities in extremely dangerous conditions, making the industry the epicenter of infectious spread in certain states. Vilsack’s nomination indicates that the Biden administration intends to defend corporate interests even at the expense of people’s lives.

https://www.liberationnews.org/joe-bide ... rationnews

The Dems don't change their dirty underwear. Good work, Bernie.