Nuclear weapons in the hands of morally bankrupt, ignorant, greedy,and inhumane creatures like Trump and Netanyahu scare me as much as, maybe more than, those weapons in Iranian hands.
The DSA 'movement' provides an opportunity for H. Clinton to slither out from under a rock and attack it for giving the Republicans a way of attacking the 'Democrats' as being socialist or communist. And there is the prominence of Hassan Piker as the unofficial spokesman for the DSA, both of whom spout increasingly insane rants, as cited above, that will drive away many voters.
It all seems inexplicable, given the widespread disgust with all things Trump. But it's not if it's understood the DNC and mainstream Democrats (think Schumer, Jeffries) would rather lose an election than cede party control to elements not favored by their moneyed donors.
And not winning in 2026 provides an opportunity to fund raise even more for 2028, after of course purging any leftward drift in the Democratic Party and its candidates.
1. Words, terminology, do matter. There needs to be a one-word synonym, even neologism, that means “illegal military aggression” (“illmilag”?) to supplant “war,” which has a connotation of moral or existential necessity. What’s going on in Iran, has been going on since the end of WWII, is Smedley Butler exponentiated (how’s that for a neologism?). Gotta call these military (mis)adventures what they are, thuggery, whether on our behalf alone, or for Israel’s bidding.
2. I sympathize with Patrick Lawrence to a degree, but not all that far a one. For certain ICE gotta go. I want well-trained, professional, Constitution-abiding police to protect me and the greater community. I think the situation is more this: we do have a governmental structure built upon certain principles. It’s more or less worked, for most, until 9/11 (reason for it was our support of Israel, look where that’s gotten things since), and the national security state response (again, exponentiated) under Dumbya. My argument is that the structure is fundamentally sound, but it’s been undermined, co-opted, perverted, twisted by the profit-seeking crooks, thieves, cheats, and ideologues. A new house isn’t need, a good housecleaning is.
3. To expand (and expound) on Bierce a bit more, yes, overtly, here in America there are “persons of little worth,” e.g., those on Medicaid who will lose their coverage in order to stoke the Pentagon and the MICIMATT-SH. But more subtly, one’s worth in this society – economically, politically, legally, socially, whatever else – is directly proportional to his or her market value. The more the have-mores have – e.g., Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Epstein – the more you matter. Don't got much? Not worth much.
4. “Left and right have much in common: they want less war, less militarism, and more investment and support for Main Street USA.” Essentially, what the Constitution calls for, to “promote the general welfare.” The last time any semblance of the notion of “the general welfare” had meaning was during the Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and “Great Society” era. Since then, each as either been chipped away at (the former two) or expunged (the vestiges of “Head Start” about to be eliminated). In its place came neoliberalism (“There's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.” – Margaret Thatcher. So much for “it takes a village…”), meaning that the market will determine the general welfare. Which has brought us Trump.
5. “Ike said only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry could tame and reduce the anti-democratic forces unleashed by the MICC [now MICIMATT-SH].” This means education in general, in civics in particular. Rather hard to assure given that we are on our way (over the cliff?) to spending $1.5+ trillion in “defense” while in the latest report on infrastructure in this country schools get a “D+”.
Or to put it another way, a metaphorical “comrade in arms” relates “My new reference in the spending madness is Chicago's TARP, known as the Deep Tunnel Project to contain stormwater. It cost $1.3 billion. I found out yesterday that is the typical cost of ONE Patriot missile battery which is the launchers and a compliment of missiles, the missiles being gone, of course, in one launch.”
“I do my Sunday dreaming, oh yeah/And all my Sunday scheming/Every minute, every hour, every day.” – Etta James, “I Want a Sunday Kind of Love”
Right and left, left and right. Does anyone else remember that a few years ago, some genius (?) decided to call a gathering in the nation's capital to see if right and left could form some kind of coalition to try to actually effect some change here in the US? Ha!! You can't be blamed if you don't recall this, since the fiasco led to absolutely nothing. Which was entirely predictable. In the interim, we slipped into a situation wherein the most egregiously reactionary element in society, apparently spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025, has taken firm control of the helm of the USA-Titanic. So, we've gotten CHANGE alright, but certainly not for the better. I will again quote Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn: "The trouble with normal is it always gets worse."
Corollary from Lily Tomlin: "No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up."
I get a kick out "control of the helm of the USA-Titanic." No doubt some Trumpian far-Right wing ideological idiot will shout how beautiful and magnificent the flares signaling "vessel in imminent danger of foundering" look in the night sky,
But those idiots will have exhausted themselves screaming "It's the Democrats' fault! It's radical-liberals' fault!! It's Obama's fault! It's Biden's fault! Didn't our Great Leader make every effort to Make America Great Again?? And how was he thanked? With 'fake news' daily about supposed shenanigans within his administration!! Save us, Jesus!!"
Your point number 3 reflects that it's all about extraction in a wealth transfer upwards. Once a person's wealth is all extracted - or the cost of 'returning' some of that value to the individual is determined to be excessive, the person has zero value and is a liability.
With the fires that have raged, and are raging in my state and elsewhere, some homeowners are finding their insurance policies are being canceled. The years of premium payments become insufficient to justify the costs of having to provide monies to make someone whole.
Hello Bill AStore... Happy Sunday... Maybe?... Don't Forget that the Epstein Web was forged by Israeli, and Russian Intel... They Undoubtedly have Kompromat on DJT... Remember, Survival Is Job#1 for DJT...
In this WaPo article, 'Opinion Editorial Board: Russia keeps testing NATO. The lack of response will embolden Putin.'
My comment was deemed to violate WaPo guidelines and would not be added to the discussion.
The US was ready for WAR with the Soviet Russians in 1962 for deploying missiles in Cuba as a deterrent against another invasion of Cuba like the failed CIA Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
This Opinion piece has it ass backwards. Americans aren't that exceptional. Russia feels the same way as Americans did in 1962. Russia will never accept US/NATO troops and missiles in Ukraine right on Russia's border.
It's the US/NATO testing and provoking Russia. This is a US/NATO WAR against Russia using Ukrainians as the sacrificial lambs. US/CanaDa/Europe is paying for all the War material and the cost of paying for the Zelensky government on top of the WAR costs
Russia knows it if Americans don't because of all the US brainwashing, indoctrination and WAR Propaganda where Truth is still the 1st casualty.
It passed eliminating "This Opinion piece has it ass backwards."
Apparently Jeff Bezos's WaPo "can't handle the truth," to quote a famous line of dialogue for Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men." But Ray, I'm confused by your comment. "It passed eliminating 'This Opinion piece...'" Are you saying WaPo eventually published your comments with that phrase censored??
Yes, it appeared in the discussion after deleting "This Opinion piece has it ass backwards"
In a previous comment there was no issue with saying "This Opinion piece put the cart before the horse'
In The Washington Post the comment has 6 thumbs down compared to 4 thumbs up here on the same comment due to a different calibre of commentators being more informed!
That's pretty funny. So the WaPo is so "family friendly" now that a little word like "ass" is verboten. A certain major political party in USA has an ass for its symbol!! Though they call it a donkey! Still it's appropriate. :-)
“Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end… The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth—that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.”
In USA of today the political terms "right" and "left" have been so perverted (like "Red state/Blue state") as to have been rendered virtually meaningless. I guess this is to benefit, ahem, "someone" (couldn't be The Establishment, now could it??). I can dispatch the DSA succinctly: these are the last of those so delusional as to think The System that rules here can still be REFORMED!!
So sick of the DSA messaging ‘controversy’, as it, like all empire propaganda/narrative, has distraction as the ultimate aim. Distraction from what? As X K notes, the structural housecleaning necessary to avoid the iceberg. A critical piece of that housecleaning here - MoveToAmend.org
Thank you, Bill, for your thoughts. I'd like to address point 4, since a broad-based coalition of antiwar activists are the only thing that's going to bring down the American Empire.
As an antiwar and anti-imperialist activist, from nuclear weapons in the 1980s to the Iraq war in 2004 and beyond, I've seen the conflation of related issues that the Left and Right both bring to the table that separates the two when they should be united.
So, how do we unite these factions? For antiwar organizations and antiwar protests, I would limit the focus to war and imperialism, and that's it. Peripheral issues can be dealt with elsewhere. It is sufficient to protest the death of humans and the destruction of property. I don't care if the dead are soldiers or civilians - all are human, all are victims of war and the violence it brings.
I see all military expenditure as a Broken Window Fallacy, to borrow from Frederic Bastiat's famous essay, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen. The politicians and bureaucrats and court economists point to the massive military budget and say what a boon it is to the economy. I look at as an investment purely in destruction, not production. The best one can hope for is that the investment is not used! But if it is, all you get in the end are broken windows, broken bodies, broken lives.
Separately, whether one is an avowed socialist or an avowed capitalist, we all have to remember that we do still live in a society and every member of a society should be valued, and that requires common minimum levels of sustenance and protection, however that is defined and however that is provided and by whom. And that human rights are unalienable and common to all.
I guess my point is, are these peripheral, albeit related, issues more important than stopping the killing? I would say no, and I would add that most of these other issues are easier to resolve (and may even resolve themselves) once the killing stops.
Nuclear weapons in the hands of morally bankrupt, ignorant, greedy,and inhumane creatures like Trump and Netanyahu scare me as much as, maybe more than, those weapons in Iranian hands.
Ya, from what I've read, those Iranian spokespeople sound downright intelligent. (seriously)
The DSA 'movement' provides an opportunity for H. Clinton to slither out from under a rock and attack it for giving the Republicans a way of attacking the 'Democrats' as being socialist or communist. And there is the prominence of Hassan Piker as the unofficial spokesman for the DSA, both of whom spout increasingly insane rants, as cited above, that will drive away many voters.
It all seems inexplicable, given the widespread disgust with all things Trump. But it's not if it's understood the DNC and mainstream Democrats (think Schumer, Jeffries) would rather lose an election than cede party control to elements not favored by their moneyed donors.
And not winning in 2026 provides an opportunity to fund raise even more for 2028, after of course purging any leftward drift in the Democratic Party and its candidates.
Indulge me:
1. Words, terminology, do matter. There needs to be a one-word synonym, even neologism, that means “illegal military aggression” (“illmilag”?) to supplant “war,” which has a connotation of moral or existential necessity. What’s going on in Iran, has been going on since the end of WWII, is Smedley Butler exponentiated (how’s that for a neologism?). Gotta call these military (mis)adventures what they are, thuggery, whether on our behalf alone, or for Israel’s bidding.
2. I sympathize with Patrick Lawrence to a degree, but not all that far a one. For certain ICE gotta go. I want well-trained, professional, Constitution-abiding police to protect me and the greater community. I think the situation is more this: we do have a governmental structure built upon certain principles. It’s more or less worked, for most, until 9/11 (reason for it was our support of Israel, look where that’s gotten things since), and the national security state response (again, exponentiated) under Dumbya. My argument is that the structure is fundamentally sound, but it’s been undermined, co-opted, perverted, twisted by the profit-seeking crooks, thieves, cheats, and ideologues. A new house isn’t need, a good housecleaning is.
3. To expand (and expound) on Bierce a bit more, yes, overtly, here in America there are “persons of little worth,” e.g., those on Medicaid who will lose their coverage in order to stoke the Pentagon and the MICIMATT-SH. But more subtly, one’s worth in this society – economically, politically, legally, socially, whatever else – is directly proportional to his or her market value. The more the have-mores have – e.g., Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Epstein – the more you matter. Don't got much? Not worth much.
4. “Left and right have much in common: they want less war, less militarism, and more investment and support for Main Street USA.” Essentially, what the Constitution calls for, to “promote the general welfare.” The last time any semblance of the notion of “the general welfare” had meaning was during the Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and “Great Society” era. Since then, each as either been chipped away at (the former two) or expunged (the vestiges of “Head Start” about to be eliminated). In its place came neoliberalism (“There's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.” – Margaret Thatcher. So much for “it takes a village…”), meaning that the market will determine the general welfare. Which has brought us Trump.
5. “Ike said only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry could tame and reduce the anti-democratic forces unleashed by the MICC [now MICIMATT-SH].” This means education in general, in civics in particular. Rather hard to assure given that we are on our way (over the cliff?) to spending $1.5+ trillion in “defense” while in the latest report on infrastructure in this country schools get a “D+”.
Or to put it another way, a metaphorical “comrade in arms” relates “My new reference in the spending madness is Chicago's TARP, known as the Deep Tunnel Project to contain stormwater. It cost $1.3 billion. I found out yesterday that is the typical cost of ONE Patriot missile battery which is the launchers and a compliment of missiles, the missiles being gone, of course, in one launch.”
“I do my Sunday dreaming, oh yeah/And all my Sunday scheming/Every minute, every hour, every day.” – Etta James, “I Want a Sunday Kind of Love”
Right and left, left and right. Does anyone else remember that a few years ago, some genius (?) decided to call a gathering in the nation's capital to see if right and left could form some kind of coalition to try to actually effect some change here in the US? Ha!! You can't be blamed if you don't recall this, since the fiasco led to absolutely nothing. Which was entirely predictable. In the interim, we slipped into a situation wherein the most egregiously reactionary element in society, apparently spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025, has taken firm control of the helm of the USA-Titanic. So, we've gotten CHANGE alright, but certainly not for the better. I will again quote Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn: "The trouble with normal is it always gets worse."
Corollary from Lily Tomlin: "No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up."
I get a kick out "control of the helm of the USA-Titanic." No doubt some Trumpian far-Right wing ideological idiot will shout how beautiful and magnificent the flares signaling "vessel in imminent danger of foundering" look in the night sky,
But those idiots will have exhausted themselves screaming "It's the Democrats' fault! It's radical-liberals' fault!! It's Obama's fault! It's Biden's fault! Didn't our Great Leader make every effort to Make America Great Again?? And how was he thanked? With 'fake news' daily about supposed shenanigans within his administration!! Save us, Jesus!!"
You've got the script down pat!
Your point number 3 reflects that it's all about extraction in a wealth transfer upwards. Once a person's wealth is all extracted - or the cost of 'returning' some of that value to the individual is determined to be excessive, the person has zero value and is a liability.
With the fires that have raged, and are raging in my state and elsewhere, some homeowners are finding their insurance policies are being canceled. The years of premium payments become insufficient to justify the costs of having to provide monies to make someone whole.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Hello Bill AStore... Happy Sunday... Maybe?... Don't Forget that the Epstein Web was forged by Israeli, and Russian Intel... They Undoubtedly have Kompromat on DJT... Remember, Survival Is Job#1 for DJT...
In this WaPo article, 'Opinion Editorial Board: Russia keeps testing NATO. The lack of response will embolden Putin.'
My comment was deemed to violate WaPo guidelines and would not be added to the discussion.
The US was ready for WAR with the Soviet Russians in 1962 for deploying missiles in Cuba as a deterrent against another invasion of Cuba like the failed CIA Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
This Opinion piece has it ass backwards. Americans aren't that exceptional. Russia feels the same way as Americans did in 1962. Russia will never accept US/NATO troops and missiles in Ukraine right on Russia's border.
It's the US/NATO testing and provoking Russia. This is a US/NATO WAR against Russia using Ukrainians as the sacrificial lambs. US/CanaDa/Europe is paying for all the War material and the cost of paying for the Zelensky government on top of the WAR costs
Russia knows it if Americans don't because of all the US brainwashing, indoctrination and WAR Propaganda where Truth is still the 1st casualty.
It passed eliminating "This Opinion piece has it ass backwards."
Apparently Jeff Bezos's WaPo "can't handle the truth," to quote a famous line of dialogue for Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men." But Ray, I'm confused by your comment. "It passed eliminating 'This Opinion piece...'" Are you saying WaPo eventually published your comments with that phrase censored??
Yes, it appeared in the discussion after deleting "This Opinion piece has it ass backwards"
In a previous comment there was no issue with saying "This Opinion piece put the cart before the horse'
In The Washington Post the comment has 6 thumbs down compared to 4 thumbs up here on the same comment due to a different calibre of commentators being more informed!
That's pretty funny. So the WaPo is so "family friendly" now that a little word like "ass" is verboten. A certain major political party in USA has an ass for its symbol!! Though they call it a donkey! Still it's appropriate. :-)
It could also have been because essentially I was calling the Washington Post Editorial Board an ass!
Ahh, a "collective ass"! Interesting concept! :-)
"Divide and Conquer."
And then the cratering, the iceberg, the Apocalypse?
“Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end… The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth—that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.”
~Joseph Campbell
Thank you, that's a great quote.
In USA of today the political terms "right" and "left" have been so perverted (like "Red state/Blue state") as to have been rendered virtually meaningless. I guess this is to benefit, ahem, "someone" (couldn't be The Establishment, now could it??). I can dispatch the DSA succinctly: these are the last of those so delusional as to think The System that rules here can still be REFORMED!!
So sick of the DSA messaging ‘controversy’, as it, like all empire propaganda/narrative, has distraction as the ultimate aim. Distraction from what? As X K notes, the structural housecleaning necessary to avoid the iceberg. A critical piece of that housecleaning here - MoveToAmend.org
A deeper historical dive into how we economically got here, and how we potentially exit, from the brilliant David Harvey - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWDs9XAZx9M
Thank you, Bill, for your thoughts. I'd like to address point 4, since a broad-based coalition of antiwar activists are the only thing that's going to bring down the American Empire.
As an antiwar and anti-imperialist activist, from nuclear weapons in the 1980s to the Iraq war in 2004 and beyond, I've seen the conflation of related issues that the Left and Right both bring to the table that separates the two when they should be united.
So, how do we unite these factions? For antiwar organizations and antiwar protests, I would limit the focus to war and imperialism, and that's it. Peripheral issues can be dealt with elsewhere. It is sufficient to protest the death of humans and the destruction of property. I don't care if the dead are soldiers or civilians - all are human, all are victims of war and the violence it brings.
I see all military expenditure as a Broken Window Fallacy, to borrow from Frederic Bastiat's famous essay, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen. The politicians and bureaucrats and court economists point to the massive military budget and say what a boon it is to the economy. I look at as an investment purely in destruction, not production. The best one can hope for is that the investment is not used! But if it is, all you get in the end are broken windows, broken bodies, broken lives.
Separately, whether one is an avowed socialist or an avowed capitalist, we all have to remember that we do still live in a society and every member of a society should be valued, and that requires common minimum levels of sustenance and protection, however that is defined and however that is provided and by whom. And that human rights are unalienable and common to all.
To say nothing of the pollution (and climate change) that is predominantly caused by war.
Another way of killing living beings, however unconsciously.
I guess my point is, are these peripheral, albeit related, issues more important than stopping the killing? I would say no, and I would add that most of these other issues are easier to resolve (and may even resolve themselves) once the killing stops.
Of course. The proper valuing of all living beings would pretty much solve everything.
More random Sunday thoughts.
1. Has anyone answered the question, so what if Iran gets the bomb?
2. I'll go along with abolishing ICE and cutting the "war" budget at least in half.
3. We have an aborigine in the White House.
4. It would help if the left and the right would at least talk to each other.
5. Finding an alert and knowledgeable citizenry is the main challenge.
None of that was foolishness and you needn't apologize or find excuses.