Re: Sympathy for the Devils...
Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2021 3:11 pm
As Build Back Better Is Gutted, Defense Act Is Deemed a “Must-Pass” Bill
by Will Pitt
The drinking water in Flint, Michigan. The ashes of Paradise, California. A tub of petroleum that once was the Gulf of Mexico. Rising seas, and storms that eat cities. Black people murdered by cops, protesters gunned down by teenagers with war weapons, and children shot by children in the ersatz safety of their own homes and schools. A lethal pandemic close to completing its second year, fueled by a vapid anti-science movement with the vocal blessing of a disgraced former president.
Ponder all of this, and so much more besides, and I’ll bet my left shoe your absolute last thought would be, “You know what? This country really needs 91 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and a pair of new Virginia-class nuclear submarines.” What the hell, it’s only $9.3 billion we’re talking about. Never mind the fact that the F-35 keeps falling out of the sky, and the subs would be of better use studying North Atlantic right whale depopulation off the coast of Cape Cod.
Here we are, though, on the verge of authorizing the spending of $740 billion for items just like that. The annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2022, which authorizes the military budget and establishes defense policy, runs close to 70 fine-printed pages, and reads like a Christmas list compiled by the most terrifying child who ever lived. This is only the stuff we’re selling to ourselves, mind you; our list of global arms sales would fell a forest for the paper.
On top of the F-35s and the submarines, there are two Arleigh Burke class destroyers ($3.7 billion), 11 CH-53K King Stallion helicopters ($1.5 billion), 17 F-15EX fighters ($1.8 billion), 92 M1 Abrams tank upgrades ($1.4 billion), $4.8 billion for the Columbia class submarine program, and a nifty $4.9 billion for Space Force “system development and demonstration” and “advanced component and development prototype R and D funding for technologies including space situational awareness, domain control, advanced communications, and related technologies and systems.” SPACE FORCE!!
<snip>
At present, Congress is debating the 2022 NDAA along with President Biden’s signature Build Back Better Act, debt limit legislation, and funding to keep the federal government operating. The deadlines are piling up, and the pressure on Democratic lawmakers is intense. It is worth noting, however, that between the BBB Act and the NDAA, only the NDAA gets labeled as “must-pass” by the corporate news media.
(more...)
https://truthout.org/articles/as-build- ... pass-bill/
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'Surreal': Biden Invites Venezuelan Coup Leader Juan Guaidó to US 'Summit for Democracy'
<snip>
U.S. President Joe Biden was nearly the victim of a right-wing coup on January 6, but that didn't stop him from inviting Venezuela's right-wing coup leader Juan Guaidó to the United States' so-called "Summit for Democracy"—a development that critics say illustrates the "cynical, hypocritical, and completely counter-productive" nature of the upcoming meeting.
<snip>
"Surreal," is how Adler responded after news broke that Biden had asked Guaidó—an unelected and unpopular opposition figure who participated in a failed coup attempt—to represent Venezuela at an ostensibly pro-democracy gathering, just weeks after Venezuelans reelected Maduro in a contest that U.S. legal observers called fair.
Notably, in the wake of the deadly January 6 insurrection, Maduro's government issued a public statement that condemned then-U.S. President Donald Trump's brazen attempt to hold onto power, expressed sympathy for victims of the assault, and criticized Washington for routinely supporting efforts to subvert democracy abroad.
U.S. lawmakers from both major parties, by contrast, gave Guaidó a standing ovation when Trump, during his 2020 State of the Union Address, erroneously described the self-anointed leader as the "true and legitimate president of Venezuela."
<snip>
"The Biden administration continues to put the U.S. on the wrong side" of what Blinken has called a "democratic reckoning" in the Americas, the pair wrote in The Guardian.
For example, the pair noted, Blinken recently "lavished praise" on the right-wing presidents of Ecuador and Colombia, who have engaged in anti-democratic repression. Moreover, the U.S. remains a "leading member" of the Organization of American States, which has facilitated multiple anti-democratic interventions in Haiti and played a decisive role in the far-right coup in Bolivia in 2019.
On top of those foreign policy failures, Adler said Tuesday that Biden's "betrayed campaign promises" at home exemplify the absence of substantive democracy in the U.S.
Many voters cast ballots for the president based on his pledge to ban the sale of new fossil fuel leases on public lands and waters, Adler pointed out, and yet his administration has approved drilling permits at a faster rate than its two immediate predecessors and last month held the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history, just days after Biden vowed at COP26 that he would address the climate crisis.
In light of the current barrage of voter suppression laws being enacted and gerrymandered maps being drawn by state-level Republicans nationwide, an annual study published last week for the first time characterized the U.S. as a "backsliding" democracy.
Although Biden has acknowledged that U.S. democracy is under threat, he has yet to make a strong public push for repealing or reforming the Senate's 60-vote filibuster rule, a prerequisite to passing voting rights legislation.
(more...)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... -democracy
Will Pitt, Common Dreams, tepid critics of the Democratic Party, that is until next year when the election cycle cranks up again. Sure, they speak some truth, softball, good for credibility, which is useful when it's time for full-throated support for the Dems despite serial failure and betrayal. Then all will be forgotten, because Trump, ya know? It's the same goddamn game they've been at for decades and it seems their audience doesn't notice. Just like the party they support they pose as righteous progressive critics of the status quo, until push comes to shove when they inevitably support one wing of the capitalist turkey. If it ain't Trump it will be some other culture war set piece(in truth that's all Trump is too). Issues of the class war being waged upon us, of war and peace, of planetary survival, are glossed over for partisan necessity and the status quo.
For what they do they are as bad as the Dems, as bad as the Republicans, preventing progress in the name of faux progress Run them outta town on a rail, I say.
by Will Pitt
The drinking water in Flint, Michigan. The ashes of Paradise, California. A tub of petroleum that once was the Gulf of Mexico. Rising seas, and storms that eat cities. Black people murdered by cops, protesters gunned down by teenagers with war weapons, and children shot by children in the ersatz safety of their own homes and schools. A lethal pandemic close to completing its second year, fueled by a vapid anti-science movement with the vocal blessing of a disgraced former president.
Ponder all of this, and so much more besides, and I’ll bet my left shoe your absolute last thought would be, “You know what? This country really needs 91 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and a pair of new Virginia-class nuclear submarines.” What the hell, it’s only $9.3 billion we’re talking about. Never mind the fact that the F-35 keeps falling out of the sky, and the subs would be of better use studying North Atlantic right whale depopulation off the coast of Cape Cod.
Here we are, though, on the verge of authorizing the spending of $740 billion for items just like that. The annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2022, which authorizes the military budget and establishes defense policy, runs close to 70 fine-printed pages, and reads like a Christmas list compiled by the most terrifying child who ever lived. This is only the stuff we’re selling to ourselves, mind you; our list of global arms sales would fell a forest for the paper.
On top of the F-35s and the submarines, there are two Arleigh Burke class destroyers ($3.7 billion), 11 CH-53K King Stallion helicopters ($1.5 billion), 17 F-15EX fighters ($1.8 billion), 92 M1 Abrams tank upgrades ($1.4 billion), $4.8 billion for the Columbia class submarine program, and a nifty $4.9 billion for Space Force “system development and demonstration” and “advanced component and development prototype R and D funding for technologies including space situational awareness, domain control, advanced communications, and related technologies and systems.” SPACE FORCE!!
<snip>
At present, Congress is debating the 2022 NDAA along with President Biden’s signature Build Back Better Act, debt limit legislation, and funding to keep the federal government operating. The deadlines are piling up, and the pressure on Democratic lawmakers is intense. It is worth noting, however, that between the BBB Act and the NDAA, only the NDAA gets labeled as “must-pass” by the corporate news media.
(more...)
https://truthout.org/articles/as-build- ... pass-bill/
********************************************
'Surreal': Biden Invites Venezuelan Coup Leader Juan Guaidó to US 'Summit for Democracy'
<snip>
U.S. President Joe Biden was nearly the victim of a right-wing coup on January 6, but that didn't stop him from inviting Venezuela's right-wing coup leader Juan Guaidó to the United States' so-called "Summit for Democracy"—a development that critics say illustrates the "cynical, hypocritical, and completely counter-productive" nature of the upcoming meeting.
<snip>
"Surreal," is how Adler responded after news broke that Biden had asked Guaidó—an unelected and unpopular opposition figure who participated in a failed coup attempt—to represent Venezuela at an ostensibly pro-democracy gathering, just weeks after Venezuelans reelected Maduro in a contest that U.S. legal observers called fair.
Notably, in the wake of the deadly January 6 insurrection, Maduro's government issued a public statement that condemned then-U.S. President Donald Trump's brazen attempt to hold onto power, expressed sympathy for victims of the assault, and criticized Washington for routinely supporting efforts to subvert democracy abroad.
U.S. lawmakers from both major parties, by contrast, gave Guaidó a standing ovation when Trump, during his 2020 State of the Union Address, erroneously described the self-anointed leader as the "true and legitimate president of Venezuela."
<snip>
"The Biden administration continues to put the U.S. on the wrong side" of what Blinken has called a "democratic reckoning" in the Americas, the pair wrote in The Guardian.
For example, the pair noted, Blinken recently "lavished praise" on the right-wing presidents of Ecuador and Colombia, who have engaged in anti-democratic repression. Moreover, the U.S. remains a "leading member" of the Organization of American States, which has facilitated multiple anti-democratic interventions in Haiti and played a decisive role in the far-right coup in Bolivia in 2019.
On top of those foreign policy failures, Adler said Tuesday that Biden's "betrayed campaign promises" at home exemplify the absence of substantive democracy in the U.S.
Many voters cast ballots for the president based on his pledge to ban the sale of new fossil fuel leases on public lands and waters, Adler pointed out, and yet his administration has approved drilling permits at a faster rate than its two immediate predecessors and last month held the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history, just days after Biden vowed at COP26 that he would address the climate crisis.
In light of the current barrage of voter suppression laws being enacted and gerrymandered maps being drawn by state-level Republicans nationwide, an annual study published last week for the first time characterized the U.S. as a "backsliding" democracy.
Although Biden has acknowledged that U.S. democracy is under threat, he has yet to make a strong public push for repealing or reforming the Senate's 60-vote filibuster rule, a prerequisite to passing voting rights legislation.
(more...)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... -democracy
Will Pitt, Common Dreams, tepid critics of the Democratic Party, that is until next year when the election cycle cranks up again. Sure, they speak some truth, softball, good for credibility, which is useful when it's time for full-throated support for the Dems despite serial failure and betrayal. Then all will be forgotten, because Trump, ya know? It's the same goddamn game they've been at for decades and it seems their audience doesn't notice. Just like the party they support they pose as righteous progressive critics of the status quo, until push comes to shove when they inevitably support one wing of the capitalist turkey. If it ain't Trump it will be some other culture war set piece(in truth that's all Trump is too). Issues of the class war being waged upon us, of war and peace, of planetary survival, are glossed over for partisan necessity and the status quo.
For what they do they are as bad as the Dems, as bad as the Republicans, preventing progress in the name of faux progress Run them outta town on a rail, I say.