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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME
Nil nisi bonum?
IMPERIALISM WITH A NICE THANK-YOU NOTE
History has taught us that for presidents we can do a lot worse than George Herbert Walker Bush. This is partly the explanation for the pomp and ceremony by the united ruing class around his death and funeral -- the anti-Trump version of “Make America Great Again.” But that doesn’t change the fact that Bush Sr, like all modern presidents before and since, had a lot of blood on his hands -- from Central America to the Persian Gulf. And he famously defeated Michael Dukakis for president by deploying perhaps the most racist campaign ad in recent memory.
Bush Sr, Icon of the WASP Establishment—and of Brutal US Repression in the Third World
Through birth and breeding—at the Greenwich Country Day School, Phillips Academy, and Yale—Bush identified with an Eastern Establishment already, in the decades after World War II, threatened by democratization: by immigration, the rise of a meritocracy, the consolidation of an administrative state that socialized and bureaucratized private economic relations, and the spread of popular culture, which made the markings of WASP habitus available to the population at large… Bush’s wars in Panama and the Persian Gulf should be remembered for gratuitous killing. On the heels of the fall of the Berlin Wall, his 1989 invasion of Panama established the legal and political foundation (as I’ve written here) for his son’s catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003. The killing in Panama was on a smaller scale than in the Persian Gulf, but it was still horrific: Human Rights Watch wrote that even conservative estimates of civilian fatalities suggest “that the rule of proportionality and the duty to minimize harm to civilians…were not faithfully observed by the invading U.S. forces.” That’s an understatement. More
The Ignored Legacy of George H.W. Bush: War Crimes, Racism, and Obstruction of Justice
In the age of Donald Trump, it isn’t difficult for hagiographers of the late Bush Sr. to paint a picture of him as a great patriot and pragmatist; a president who governed with “class” and “integrity.” …Facts matter. The 41st president of the United States was not the last Republican moderate or a throwback to an imagined age of conservative decency and civility; he engaged in race baiting, obstruction of justice, and war crimes. He had much more in common with the two Republican presidents who came after him than his current crop of fans would like us to believe. More
AMERICAN CAPITALISM ISN’T WORKING.
The great stagnation of living standards is a defining problem of our time… The solution will need to involve a return to higher taxes on the rich. But it’s also worth thinking about pre-tax incomes — and specifically what goes on inside corporations. It’s worth asking the question that Benton asked: What kind of corporate America does the rest of America need? Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator, is now rolling out a platform for her almost-certain presidential campaign, and it includes an answer to this question… Warren wants an economy in which companies again invest in their workers and communities. Yet she doesn’t believe it can happen organically, as it did in the 1940s, because financial markets will punish well-meaning executives who stop trying to maximize short-term profits. “They can’t go back,” she told me recently. “You have to do it with a rule.” More
The surprisingly high number of Americans getting absolutely no raises
One of the great puzzles of this economic expansion has been the tepid increase in wages, even as the unemployment rate has declined to 3.7 percent, its lowest point since 1969. But drill down, and there’s an even deeper issue. A surprising number of workers aren’t seeing any wage growth at all. Their pay this year is exactly the same as it was last year, right down to the dollar. Roughly 14 percent of workers — or 1 in 7 — have seen their earnings stall over the past year, counting only those who have stayed in the same job. That’s only a slight improvement over the 16 percent rate reached in the hangover years after the Great Recession. For comparison, the last time the United States had an unemployment rate under 4 percent — in the go-go dot-com years — the number of workers getting $0 raises fell below 10 percent, according to an analysis of Labor Department data from former Treasury Department economist Ernie Tedeschi. More
Citizens United Is Still Doing the Dirty Work
In the eight years since it was decided, Citizens United has unleashed a wave of campaign spending that by any reasonable standard is extraordinarily corrupt… Since 2010, when the case was decided, independent expenditures and other forms of outside spending have grown exponentially, according to OpenSecrets. In 2010, independent expenditures totaled $203.9 million; in 2016, it was $1.48 trillion. In this nonpresidential year, with final reports still to come, independent expenditures totaled at least $1.18 trillion. The surge in outside spending unconstrained by contribution limits is a central element of current campaign finance practice… The American system of campaign finance, undergirded by a Supreme Court whose conservative members feign innocence, has become the enabler of corrosive processes of economic and political inequality. More
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NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong
Congress is finally pushing the US to withdraw from Yemen. It's about time
It was a resounding defeat for the White House and Republican Senate leadership: by a 63-37 majority, the US Senate voted this week to advance legislation that would give President Trump 30 days to get the US military out of Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war in Yemen, unless he could get congressional authorization for US military intervention. Which he almost certainly could not… The Senate’s action was truly historic for a number of reasons. First there is the magnitude of the war crimes that the Senate is trying to end. Mass starvation has been used as a weapon of war by the Saudis and their Emirati allies, pushing 14 million people to the brink of famine. More than 85,000 children have already died since their bombing campaign began in 2015. As was noted during the Senate debate on Thursday, the Saudi and UAE planes have also bombed water treatment plants and other essential civilian infrastructure, leading to a cholera outbreak that has killed thousands of people. More
YEMEN ON BRINK OF 'MAJOR CATASTROPHE': UN AID CHIEF
UN aid chief Mark Lowcock warned Saturday that Yemen was "on the brink of a major catastrophe", as the world body pushes for peace talks in the impoverished and war-wracked country. His comments came after renewed deadly clashes between Huthi rebels and pro-government forces in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, which is vital for the flow of humanitarian aid. He said conditions had deteriorated alarmingly since his last visit in October 2017 to Yemen, which the United Nations has termed the world's worst humanitarian crisis. "In Aden, I met emaciated children so malnourished they could barely open their eyes," Lowcock said in a statement. "Humanitarian assistance helps many of these children recover. But I also heard heartbreaking stories of children relapsing again and again because their families simply can't afford food or proper medical care," he said. More
U.S. could be set for another Iraq War in Syria, despite Trump criticizing "endless wars" in ME
The U.S. may be headed down a similar path in Syria as it was in the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2003, a conflict that vastly changed the dynamics of the region and entrenched the Pentagon in the country to this day. In a press briefing following a meeting of the so-called United Nations "small group" on Syria—the U.S., Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom— U.S. special envoy James Jeffrey outlined what many had criticized as a vague approach to Washington's true goals in the conflict. Since 2015, the U.S. has led a coalition tasked with bombing the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), but officials have said they did not plan on removing the military until forces allegedly under Iranian control were withdrawn and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ousted. More
Press Communiqué of the First International Conference Against US/NATO Military Bases
We are deeply concerned, and frightened, by the threat of war that permeates the present Global atmosphere. The increasingly aggressive and expansionist actions of US/NATO forces in violation of international law and the sovereign rights of all nations, the raging wars in the Middle East, the expansive militarization of the African continent via AFRICOM, the burgeoning arms race devastating the national treasuries, the bellicose language replacing diplomatic negotiations, the economic crises facing country after country, and the destruction of the global environment through war and unfettered exploitation, and their impact on public health, have all created crises that, unless checked by popular opposition, can lead to unimaginable catastrophe and war. None of us can stop this madness alone from within our national borders. The global peace forces must come together, mobilizing the millions in our countries, and around the world, for peace. We cannot, and should not, allow our possible differences on other issues to separate us. WE MUST UNITE FOR PEACE! More
The “Arms Sales Oversight Act” Could Prevent American Arms for the Next Overseas Crisis
The debate over U.S. complicity in Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe is coming to a head in the Senate, with a series of votes on the Sanders-Lee-Murphy war powers resolution. But beyond this immediate measure, other members of Congress are planning to increase their long-term leverage over weapons sales to problematic security partners. Foremost among them, Representatives Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) recently introduced House Resolution 7080, the “Arms Sale Oversight Act,” to little fanfare. The bill’s unassuming title and procedural focus should not escape the attention of conventional arms control advocates. If passed, H.R. 7080 would expand Congress’s constricted ability to vote down damaging arms sales and mark a first step toward preventing the United States from exacerbating the human cost of conflict. More
Disarmament: The Forgotten Premises of Non-Proliferation
In today’s world, sober political analysts now agree that possession of nuclear weapons—once an assurance of security—barely does anything to protect countries from threats and insecurities. Hence, further modernization of nuclear armaments will only serve to undermine the peace and stability of this planet. It will also push the world toward a cataclysmic great powers conflict that is so reminiscent of the outdated Cold War mentality. The difference, however, is that in the context of the Cold War, the polarized international politics and the constant threats of nuclear annihilation focused peace efforts increasingly on law and adjudication. The NPT was one such conspicuous result. In contrast, the “withdrawal doctrine” of the Trump administration is pushing the world to the brink of a new nuclear arms race. Nothingendangers the planet more than nuclear weapons. Only a renewed effort to negotiate nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agreements can reduce this urgent threat. More
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