Saturday, February 06, 2016

A View From The Left-ELECTIONS AND LESSER EVIL

ELECTIONS AND LESSER EVILS

 

http://blogs.post-gazette.com/2015_Rogers_Cartoons/082015_Castle_Hillary.jpgThe Missing Peace

It’s safe to say that most readers of this Update are supporting Bernie Sanders for president.  Me too.  At the same time, it is disappointing to observe what a weak case Sanders has made for a radical change in US foreign policy, even as he has focused so eloquently on the domestic politics of plutocracy that underlies it.  This was very much on display at the debate last night.  A commentator at a liberal website generally supportive of Clinton made this depressing  observation in a rundown of “winners and losers” in the debate.  It’s worth quoting in full:

 

It's curious that Bernie Sanders is so completely apathetic about foreign policy, since it's arguably the issue where Clinton is most vulnerable. Sure, she's more experienced, and sure, she will all come across as more knowledgeable, but she's also genuinely to the right of the Democratic Party as a whole when it comes to matters of war and peace.

 

There's space for a challenger to make the argument that Barack Obama made in 2008: She's too quick to go to war. The Libya intervention in 2011 was a mistake. So were her calls to intervene early against Bashar al-Assad in Syria. So was her hawkish rhetoric toward Iran, which arguably made life worse for Americans held there. She has clearly not learned the right lesson from Iraq, and she'd repeat her 2002 mistake by launching yet more ill-advised wars as commander in chief.

 

Sanders is not making this case. He's invoking the war vote, sure, but more as a thumb in Clinton's eye than as a pivot to explaining why a Sanders presidency would be different and less bellicose. That's largely because it probably wouldn't be that much less bellicose. Sanders's plans for ISIS and Afghanistan are basically identical to Clinton's. He supports the drone war.

 

If Wall Street was left without allies in the Democratic field tonight, then so were genuine doves. Lincoln Chafee, the only Democratic candidate to make a straightforwardly antiwar case, was treated as a punchline and dropped out early. And with two candidates left, doves are completely without a champion.

 

There is little doubt that a Sanders administration would promote a somewhat less bellicose foreign policy than Clinton’s. But really we need much better than that.  Even more daunting is to consider what kind of “lesser evil” choice will face progressive voters and peace advocates in the likely event that Clinton wins the nomination and faces some Neanderthal Republican?  Not a cheering prospect.

 

WHAT IS THE SANDERS FOREIGN POLICY DOCTRINE?

If Sanders is sincere, as he may well be, it means that even if America elects a radical candidate as president the failed war on terrorism will roll on destroying lives and undermining the very democracy Sanders claims he wants to save and expand.  There has been a concerted effort by various forces in American politics to bifurcate domestic concerns from the US’ sprawling global empire. But such a project is pure folly as imperial concerns always invade domestic ones, whether they be budgetary, military, civil liberties, or the limits of state power... For if this truly is a radical moment, why not go all the way and fight to liberate Americans from the sorrows of empire, as well as the precarity and corruption of a plutocracy?    More

 

Define ‘establishment candidate’: Rubio and Clinton both love Netanyahu

One of the main storylines coming out of Iowa is that two Establishment candidates won out there. Hillary Clinton, with her razor thin margin over Bernie Sanders. And Senator Marco Rubio, with his surprising 3d place finish at 23 percent, just behind Donald Trump. Both are hailed as Establishment candidates, and the mainstream press is firming up around them out of fear of the abyss that is represented by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump… Of course, the Israel lobby is still such a powerful force in the Democratic Party that even the president was fawning to the Netanyahu administration last week at the Israeli Embassy, but the liberal Zionist branch of the Israel lobby (J Street, Beinart, Peace Now) doesn’t like Netanyahu either. But that’s the establishment! Bernie Sanders is an anti-establishment candidate. Shouldn’t he be running against Netanyahu right now? He wants to expose substantive differences between himself and Clinton. This is one of them.   More

 

Embedded image permalinkWhy Bernie Sanders Trounced Hillary Clinton Among Young Voters

Today's Democratic Party isn't the same coalition that gave Bill Clinton the presidency in the 1990s. While Democrats at the time savored his electoral strength, the major elements of his governing legacy -- welfare reform, Wall Street deregulation and tough-on-crime criminal justice policies -- were Republican priorities…  Today's Democratic base is far more skeptical of corporate power than the party of the 1990s was. A bipartisan consensus has emerged that Bill's GOP-backed crime bill fueled mass incarceration. Even conservative boosters of his welfare reform have acknowledged that it fails during the recessions, hurting the poor… But Sanders' massive 84 to 14 margin over Clinton among voters under 30 shows that the party's future is eager to break with its past. This is a wing of the party that wanted to see Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) run for president on an anti-Wall Street platform, which Sanders has adopted. It's a wing of the party that is uneasy with a candidate who served on Walmart's board of directors and made millions of dollars giving speeches to Wall Street, even after her family had amassed a nine-figure fortune.   More

 

Highlighting Bernie's Broad Appeal, Former NAACP Head Readies Key Endorsement

Adding to a growing list of prominent African American voices backing Bernie Sanders in his presidential bid, former NAACP head Ben Jealous will reportedly endorse the Vermont senator and campaign with him this weekend in New Hampshire… "The endorsement is a potential boost to Sanders who has struggled to gain traction among African-American voters," wrote CNN… Michelle Alexander wrote in a Facebook post last week: “If anyone doubts that the mainstream media fails to tell the truth about our political system (and its true winners and losers), the spectacle of large majorities of black folks supporting Hillary Clinton in the primary races ought to be proof enough. I can't believe Hillary would be coasting into the primaries with her current margin of black support if most people knew how much damage the Clintons have done—the millions of families that were destroyed the last time they were in the White House thanks to their boastful embrace of the mass incarceration machine and their total capitulation to the right-wing narrative on race, crime, welfare and taxes.”    More

 

CARPE DIEM, SENATOR WARREN

If destiny offers someone like Warren the opportunity to swing the tide of the nation toward a more honest and just governance and they hesitate, well then ultimately they weren’t the leader we hoped for.  Warren has had this opportunity served up to her by Bernie Sanders in the most admirable way.  There is no room for her to pretend the moment of decision is not upon her… The progressive movement widely and justly recognizes that Elizabeth Warren can be a great president.  Her own judgment has left that prospect to the future.  In the present moment, however, she is called to recognize she can be a great leader now in a moment in our history that may not come again for a planet imperiled by climate change and an accelerating concentration of wealth… This partnership between Sanders and Warren is an obvious step so easily available to bringing exponentially increased momentum to a movement that is on the cusp of making history.   More

 

Clinton blasts Wall Street, but still draws millions in contributions
Even as Hillary Clinton has stepped up her rhetorical assault on Wall Street, her campaign and allied super PACs have continued to rake in millions from the financial sector, a sign of her deep and lasting relationships with banking and investment titans.  Through the end of December, donors at hedge funds, banks, insurance companies and other financial services firms had given at least $21.4 million to support Clinton’s 2016 presidential run — more than 10 percent of the $157.8 million contributed to back her bid, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings by The Washington Post.  The contributions helped Clinton reach a fundraising milestone: By the end of 2015, she had brought in more money from the financial sector during her four federal campaigns than her ­husband did during his ­quarter-century political career.  
Cartoon
Bingo!

 

Billionaire Israel Supporter Funneling Millions Into Clinton Campaign

Recent disclosures show media mogul and controversial Israel supporter Haim Saban is pouring millions of dollars into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.  Haim Saban and his wife Cheryl together contributed $5 million to the Hillary Clinton Super PAC—Priorities USA Action—between 2015 and 2016 alone, according to disclosures available on OpenSecrets.org, affiliated with the Center for Responsive Politics.  While the contributions are not surprising from long-time Clinton-backers, $3 million of them notably poured in after the presidential hopeful authored a letter to Haim Saban in July of 2015, seeking advice on "how we can work together” to defeat the growing movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction (BDS) Israel.    More

 

Adding Up the Costs of Hillary's Wars

Would Hillary be more inclined toward an aggressive foreign policy? Certainly more than Obama’s—Clinton pressed the White House to directly intervene in Syria and was far more hard line on Iran. More than the Republicans? It’s hard to say, because most of them sound like they have gone off their meds. For instance, a number of GOP candidates pledge to cancel the nuclear agreement with Iran, and, while Clinton wanted to drive a harder bargain than the White House did, in the end she supported it.  However, she did say she is proud to call Iranians “enemies,” and attacked Sanders for his remark that the U.S. might find common ground with Iran on defeating the Islamic State. Sanders then backed off  and said he didn’t think it was possible to improve relations with Teheran in the near future.  The danger of Clinton’s view of America’s role in the world is that it is old fashioned imperial behavior wrapped in the humanitarian rationale of R2P and thus more acceptable than the “make the sands glow” atavism of most the Republicans. In the end, however, R2P is just death and destruction in a different packaging.   More

 

A Libya Call That Still Haunts Hillary Clinton

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walked into the gilded Elysee Palace in Paris on March 14, 2011, she found a fired-up French President Nicolas Sarkozy eager to launch military strikes in Libya… A few hours later, after consultations with British and Arab allies and a leader of the Libyan opposition all demanding action, Clinton joined a White House meeting of President Obama’s National Security Council by phone and forcefully urged the president to take military action…  Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon and others were against military action, contending that the United States had no clear national interests at stake and that operations could last far longer and cost more lives than anyone anticipated.  But Clinton joined U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice and White House adviser Samantha Power in pressing Obama to back a U.S.- and NATO-led military campaign, arguing that the United States could not let Gaddafi butcher his citizens.    More

 

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