On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 6:20 AM, Carrol Cox <[email protected]> wrote: > The Dreamers at Common Dreams provide the best argument for the Crackpot > Realism that governs most left opinion on Pen-L and LBO-Talk. >
Let me get this straight: instead of engaging with things that people actually say on PEN-L, you just went and scoured the Internet for bad articles and attribute those to your intellectual opponents on PEN-L? Seriously? Dude, this is really pathetic. You need to get over this weird obsession that you got going for the Democratic Party. It is really not healthy. -raghu. > > commondreams.org War, Peace, and Bernie Sanders > March 3, 2016 3 min read > > It's the day after the big vote and I'm doing my best to dig Tulsi > Gabbard's > endorsement of Bernie Sanders out from beneath the pile of Super Tuesday > numbers and media declarations of winners and losers. > > As a Boston Globe headline put it: "Clinton and Trump are now the > presumptive nominees. Get used to it." > > But something besides winning and losing still matters, more than ever, in > the 2016 presidential race. War and peace and a fundamental questioning of > who we are as a nation are actually on the line in this race, or could be - > for the first time since 1972, when George McGovern was the Democratic > presidential nominee. > > Embrace what matters deeply and there's no such thing as losing. > > Gabbard, an Iraq war vet, congresswoman from Hawaii and "rising star" in > the > Democratic establishment, stepped down as vice-chair of the Democratic > National Committee in order to endorse Sanders - because he's the only > candidate who is not financially and psychologically tied to the > military-industrial complex. > > "As a veteran of two Middle East deployments, I know firsthand the cost of > war," she said, cracking the mainstream silence on U.S. militarism. "As a > vice chair of the DNC, I am required to stay neutral in democratic > primaries, but I cannot remain neutral any longer. The stakes are just too > high." > > Because of Gabbard - only because of Gabbard - the multi-trillion-dollar > monstrosity of U.S. militarism is getting a little mainstream media > attention amid the reality-TV histrionics of this year's presidential race, > the Donald Trump phenomenon and the spectacle of Republican > insult-flinging. > > > As the results of Super Tuesday started coming in on Tuesday night, Gabbard > was given a few minutes to talk on MSNBC. While Rachel Maddow wanted to > discuss the risk her Sanders endorsement might have on her career, Gabbard > insisted on addressing the slightly larger matter of our unchecked, > resource-hemorrhaging military adventurism across the globe. > > "War is a very real thing," she said. "If the Syrian war continues, we > won't > have the resources to fund important social programs. This isn't a question > of the past - it's a question of today. Regime-change wars do nothing to > strengthen our national security, but they do strengthen our enemies." > > Fine. We'll return after these messages . . . > > A short while later, the MSNBC analysts' attention snapped back to the > Trump > phenomenon. Someone opined: "The vast majority of Trump supporters are > enamored of winning" far more than they care about the goofball issues > Trump > is supposedly running on, like the wall across the Mexican border and the > ban on Muslims entering the country. > > Maybe it's true and maybe it's not, but I sense the mainstream media is a > lot more comfortable with an issue-free presidential race, which is what > the > powers that be want, of course. The presidential election is supposed to be > a distraction, not some kind of public accountability process. > > The Sanders phenomenon, while as shocking and unexpected as the success of > the Trump campaign, is far too substantive to garner a similar amount of > media attention, let alone serious consideration of the issues he's > bringing > up. Yet remarkably, his call for social change - for the transformation of > a > "rigged economy" - has not receded to the margins, either. > > There's something in the air... > > So what happens next? Tulsi Gabbard's endorsement is the key. As Dave > Lindorff recently wrote: > > "Sanders, who has been avoiding talking about the country's military budget > and its imperialist foreign policy, should use the opportunity of Gabbard's > defection from the DNC to announce that if elected he would immediately > slash military spending by 25 percent, that he would begin pulling U.S. > forces back from most of the 800 or more bases they occupy around the > world, > and that he would end a decades-long foreign policy of overthrowing elected > leaders around the globe." > > The shock waves generated by such a stance, from a candidate who already > has > 386 delegates, would be enormous. Conventional wisdom cries no, no, that's > too much. No matter how much harm our wars have caused in the last decade, > no matter how absurd a slice that war preparation - including nuclear > weapons development - gouges from the national budget, the U.S. military, > the planet's biggest polluter and most prolific terrorist, remains > untouchable. The public has no say in these matters. The president has no > say in these matters. > > This delusion goes back to the Vietnam War and McGovern's loss to Richard > Nixon. Since then, the Democrats have attempted to purge themselves of > antiwar - or what perhaps should be called trans-military - thinking. In > doing so, they've tied themselves to their own, and the country's, > inevitable collapse. > > The other option is transformation. This is the year it could begin. > > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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