History teaches that you can have genocide without war, you can have war without genocide, and you can have war and genocide together. In Gaza today, the right-wing Israeli government is clearly engaged in a war on the Palestinian people that amounts to a genocide.
The horrific face of genocidal war
Of course, Israeli leaders claim they are engaged in a war against Hamas, and Hamas alone. Events, however, prove they are engaged in a genocidal war of annihilation.
A few harrowing data points: Israeli forces have already killed or wounded 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Journalist Chris Hedges reports that Israel:
has damaged or destroyed all 12 of Gaza’s universities. Some 280 government schools and 65 UNRWA-run schools have also been destroyed or damaged, often resulting in dozens of fatalities. About 133 remaining schools are used to shelter those displaced by the assault. More than 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes amid continued Israeli ground and air offensive that has killed more than 25,000 [now more than 28,000] people, including 10,000 [now more than 12,000] children.
Clearly, Israeli leaders are using war as a means of genocide, an excuse for it, as well as a form of camouflage for it. Don’t be deceived. War and genocide can and do coexist and feed off each other, as did the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews during World War II. As Israeli leaders readily admit to war while dissembling about genocide, at least they can be justly accused of war crimes while being held to international agreements governing the conduct of war, such as the Geneva Conventions.
Israel’s genocidal war, if left unchecked, will eliminate Gaza and its people. That is the stated intent of the Netanyahu government, which spouts the worst kind of eliminationist rhetoric, rhetoric that amounts to a “final solution to the Palestinian question.”
Any country that arms Israel in its genocidal war is complicit. Guess which country is clamoring to send another $14 billion in weaponry to Israel so it can pursue its war/genocide in Gaza? Yes: The United States of America.
In Gaza, both Hamas and Israel may act savagely and cruelly, but only one side truly has the means at its disposal to slaughter the other, and that side is Israel. Meanwhile, the mainstream media reserves words like “slaughter” for Hamas, even as Israeli forces kill Palestinians on a massive scale.
Clearly, the current strategy of the Israeli government is to destroy Gaza, making it uninhabitable, forcing the Palestinians in Gaza to leave or die.
When Israel is done in Gaza, they will turn to the West Bank. As Netanyahu said, Israel’s goal is to dominate Palestine “from the river to the sea.” Palestinians “in the way” are being killed, or starved, or expelled, or (if lucky) reduced to subjects under intolerable conditions of apartheid.
The Israeli government is getting away with this because it has the legal, military, and propaganda cover of the U.S. and much of Europe as well. The Biden administration complains about the worst excesses of Israel’s genocide while sending its leaders the weapons they need to continue the killing. Members of Congress like Nancy Pelosi suggest that earnest Americans calling for a ceasefire in Gaza are the useful idiots of Vladimir Putin.
It seemingly never occurs to Biden and Pelosi that they are the useful idiots of Bibi Netanyahu.
Stop the war in Gaza. Stop the genocide.
Postscript: The “Words About War” Team have posted ten suggestions for writing and talking more clearly, honestly, and accurately about Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Please go to https://www.wordsaboutwar.org/gaza.html.
America desperately needs a new generation of leaders
President Biden sees dead people. Recently, Biden resuscitated François Mitterand, the former leader of France who died in 1996. He’s made references to Helmut Kohl as being Germany’s leader in 2021 (he died in 2017). Yesterday, he tried to reassure Americans his memory is just fine; it didn’t go well, as CNN reported this morning:
President Biden in a speech forcefully rejected what he said were inappropriate and incorrect statements about his memory lapses. But just minutes after defending his cognition, the president misspoke and called President of Egypt Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the “president of Mexico,” a moment that undercut his forceful pushback against the report.
The report CNN is referring to is by a special counsel who investigated Biden’s illegal holding of classified information. The special counsel decided not to charge or prosecute Biden, partly because he believed a jury would sympathize with the president, seeing him as an old, forgetful man who probably made an honest mistake due to his deteriorating memory and cognitive skills.
Here’s how the British Guardian reported this yesterday:
Special counsel worried jurors would see Biden ‘as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’
Special counsel Robert Hur wrote that he was concerned jurors would not believe that Joe Biden “willfully” kept classified documents, and that was one of the reasons why he does not think the president should face charges.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur writes.
“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Hur wrote that: “Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023. And his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully – that is, with intent to break the law – as the statute requires.”
Special counsel Robert Hur wrote that in an interview last year, Joe Biden struggled to recall key chapters in his personal and professional life:
In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he “had a real difference” of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Eiden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.
Biden’s lack of ability to remember things would make it hard to prosecute him, Hur said:
We also expect many jurors to be struck by the place where the Afghanistan documents were ultimately found in Mr. Biden’s Delaware home: in a badly damaged box in the garage, near a collapsed dog crate, a dog bed, a Zappos box, an empty bucket, a broken lamp wrapped with duct tape, potting soil, and synthetic firewood.
A reasonable juror could conclude that this is not where a person intentionally stores what he supposedly considers to be important classified documents, critical to his legacy. Rather, it looks more like a place a person stores classified documents he has forgotten about or is unaware of. We have considered – and investigated – the possibility that the box was intentionally placed in the garage to make it appear to be there by mistake, but the evidence does not support that conclusion.
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Box of classified documents stored haphazardly in Biden’s garage (FBI photo, 12/21/22)
Now, it’s certainly possible that some of Biden’s memory lapses were tactical in nature, i.e. better to say “I don’t remember” rather than to lie or admit a mistake that could lead to criminal charges. Still, there’s been plenty of evidence, over the last several years, that Biden is under increasing mental and physical strain due to his age, not surprising for a president in his early eighties.
My criticism is not so much directed at Biden as the DNC and media sites like MSNBC that tell us that Biden is doing just fine, that he’s still on top of his game, that we shouldn’t worry at all about reelecting a president who would be 86 at the end of his term. That, based on the evidence before us, is total BS.
Also, my criticism of Biden and his age-related gaffes does not imply an endorsement of Trump. Far from it. Trump is no spring chicken; though four years younger than Biden, Trump has a family history of dementia and recently confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi.
Outspoken as usual, Caitlin Johnstone may have put it best: “A Dementia Patient Is President Because It Doesn’t Matter Who The President Is.” Real change in America will have to come from us. The so-called Deep State isn’t about to allow the election of anyone with fresh perspectives and a truly populist agenda.
America desperately needs a new generation of political leadership. Both Biden and Trump should be passing the torch to younger public servants who actually want to serve the working and middle classes. The rich, after all, can take care of themselves.
For Democrats, it’s Trump; for Republicans, it’s immigrants; for Americans, it’s a wasteland
The 2024 presidential election: What a wasteland.
Democrats want to make the election about Donald Trump. And abortion access. Republicans want to make it about immigration. And Joe Biden’s fitness for office.
Please, for the love of Mike, make it stop.
The Bernie Sanders of 2016 is much missed. Sanders challenged war-hawk Hillary Clinton on issues that mattered to Americans. Issues like a $15 federal minimum wage. Affordable health care for all. Comprehensive student loan debt relief and more affordable college education. Policy proposals that actually helped working-class Americans. Those issues are now dead in 2024.
Foreign policy is especially bleak. The Biden administration is enabling genocide in Israel; most Republicans fully support this. Biden is planning a military strike of some sort against Iran; most Republicans are urging him to strike harder. The bipartisan consensus in DC is to rubber-stamp whatever Bibi Netanyahu wants, to give the Pentagon everything it wants, and to pursue more wars overseas. The only debate is over which foreign country is more dangerous to America. China? Russia? Iran? Maybe even North Korea? It doesn’t matter. The result is the same: more money for war, no money for peace.
I can’t recall an election season less connected to the concerns of middle- and working-class Americans. Democrats are fundraising by stressing fears about Trump and abortion access; Republicans are fundraising off fears of America being swamped by immigrants due to the Democrats’ “open border” policy.
Meanwhile, this is a sample of headlines from mainstream media coverage of the election, taken from NBC News this morning:
Where are the issues that matter to Americans? The “cash dash” is what matters to NBC, not issues like health care, wages, inflation, personal and national debt, the availability of affordable housing, mental health care, and so on.
Meanwhile, I can’t recall the last time I saw an article in the mainstream media that seriously argued for major reductions to Pentagon spending and concerted efforts in diplomacy instead of constant warmongering and weapons exports.
Trump-Biden is a wasteland. Don’t vote for the tools and fools. Find candidates who actually want to help America without killing massive numbers of foreigners overseas.
The Costs of Blanket Support of Israel and Ukraine
This morning, three headlines caught my eye from the various news sources I subscribe to. The first came from Reuters: “Israeli tanks batter hospital districts” in Gaza. Here’s the short synopsis from Reuters:
Israeli forces relentlessly bombarded areas around two hospitals in Gaza’s main southern city Khan Younis, pinning down large numbers of displaced people, residents said, in an offensive to take Hamas’ main stronghold in the enclave’s south. Follow the latest on the conflict.
The United Nations said that Israeli tanks struck a huge U.N. compound in Gazasheltering displaced Palestinians, causing “mass casualties.” Israel denied its forces were responsible and suggested Hamas may have launched the shelling. The attack prompted rare outright condemnation from the United States.
The second headline came from CNN and also focused on Gaza: “Red Cross warns of complete medical shutdown in Gaza.” Here’s a short synopsis of that story:
The Red Cross has warned that Gaza faces a complete medical shutdown unless immediate action is taken to safeguard essential services. “Every functioning hospital in the Gaza Strip is over-crowded and short on medical supplies, fuel, food and water,” said William Schomburg, the head of the Red Cross office in Gaza. This comes as Israeli forces have insisted that Hamas systematically operates in Gaza hospitals and adjacent areas, “using the residents as human shields.” Meanwhile, a United Nations building sheltering displaced Palestinians was hit by Israeli tank fire on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people and injuring 75 others. The White House said it is “gravely concerned” by the strike as Israel pushes forward with its military campaign.
It’s nice to know the U.S. government is “gravely concerned” even as it sends more tank shells to Israel so that the destruction of Gaza and its hospitals can continue apace.
The third headline came from journalist Aaron Maté and focuses on the almost forgotten war in Ukraine: “Biden’s $60 billion plan for Ukraine: prolong the war through 2024: As US weapons shipments to Ukraine dry up, Biden’s $60 billion request faces new hurdles in Washington.”
And then I saw this image on Twitter/X. Given the horrendous events in Gaza, this satirical image doesn’t seem that extreme to me:
Biden’s unequivocal support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza gives the lie to the concept of a “rules-based order” that America allegedly upholds and protects. As Biden expresses his “grave concern” about Israeli war crimes in Gaza, he keeps sending the weapons that make possible the very crimes he allegedly deplores. At the same time, his administration is opening a new front in this war with its deadly attacks on Yemen. Biden has said the bombing raids against Yemen aren’t stopping attacks on shipping even as he vows to continue them.
Meanwhile, Biden continues to fight for at least $60 billion for Ukraine in a stalemated war that’s killing untold thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. The aid that Biden wants to send this year won’t end that war; it won’t even give Ukraine a decisive edge. Most experts believe this aid will merely prolong the fighting, meaning more destruction and dead bodies on both sides.
The Biden administration’s embrace of genocide in Gaza and brutal indecisive war in Ukraine highlights the moral bankruptcy of its foreign policy. On the campaign trail, Biden is increasingly being confronted by protesters calling him out for his brutal and militaristic foreign policy. “Genocide Joe” is a nickname that stings because there’s truth in it.
When the main message of the Biden campaign is “Vote for Joe because Trump’s worse” and yet Joe’s latest nickname is linked to genocide, it doesn’t bode well for electoral victory in November.
Surprise! The results are in from New Hampshire and Donald Trump won a clear victory over Nikki Haley and Joe Biden won with write-in votes. Dean Phillips (Biden 2.0) was a distant second and Marianne Williamson a disappointing third. Interestingly, even though Phillips had a respectable showing, the Democratic chair in New Hampshire suggested he should drop out of the race to ensure a Biden/Harris victory in November. In short, there should be no alternative to Biden/Harris because that’s how democracy works best!
A “strong second” for “scrappy” Haley?
Nikki Haley, though losing in NH, did fairly well because a lot of independent and “undeclared” voters decided to cast their lot with her. Trump, exit polls show, held a commanding lead among self-identified Republican and conservative voters. Trump commands the base, the most strongly committed Republican voters, so it’s difficult to imagine a path for Haley to the nomination.
Trump versus Biden redux is looking very likely for 2024, a Caligula versus Nero scenario for the new Roman Empire. I get to cast my primary vote on Super Tuesday early in March, and the only thing I’m certain of is that I won’t be voting for Trump or Biden.
Never has it been so glaringly obvious that America needs an alternative to the duopoly and the “choices” it provides for POTUS.
America may be deeply in debt, but we the people of the United States are totally bankrupt politically.
Iowa and New Hampshire get sidelined in the cause of propping up Joe Biden
This past week’s Iowa Caucuses ended with a clear winner, Donald Trump, over the undynamic duo of Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. Meanwhile, nothing happened on the Democratic side. The same is likely to be true next week, when New Hampshire goes to the polls. The DNC is refusing to recognize the NH primary; Joe Biden isn’t even on the ballot, though there is a campaign to write-in his name.
You’re not doing America (or “democracy”) favors by propping them up
The first primary that matters according to the DNC is South Carolina on 2/3, followed by Nevada on 2/6 and Michigan on 2/27. These states are supposedly more representative for the Democratic Party than Iowa and NH, meaning they are more racially and ethnically diverse, though to my mind any candidate running for president should be seeking to put his or her best foot forward in all fifty states. No matter. Apparently, the DNC believes this is the best way to shore up support for the Biden/Harris ticket.
Perhaps the DNC is right, but their plan has a serious drawback. If the DNC had kept the old schedule of Iowa and NH, and Biden had performed poorly in both states, it would have allowed the DNC more notice and time to pivot, or perhaps to craft a message more appealing to voters. Privileging states that are expected to support Biden, in contrast, may breed overconfidence that his support remains strong and his candidacy remains viable against the clear Republican frontrunner, Trump.
If you really want to defeat Trump in November, you need the most rigorous vetting process for the Biden/Harris ticket. Rigging the primaries for Biden by deleting Democratic rivals from the ballot, as the DNC has done in Florida, North Carolina, and elsewhere, while effectively throwing out results in Iowa and NH, may ensure both that Biden/Harris win renomination and lose the general election in November.
At which point the DNC will likely blame Jill Stein, RFK Jr., Susan Sarandon, Vladimir Putin, and white supremacists, instead of blaming themselves for putting forward a losing ticket.
Trump is not to be underestimated. The time to discover that Biden/Harris just don’t have it is now, not in October. If Trump is THE existential threat to democracy that the Democrats claim he is, why are the Democrats rigging the field to put forward what may prove to be a weak and losing ticket against him?
A friend of mine thinks Joe Biden has a strong chance of winning reelection in November. He thinks the economy will continue to get better and that Donald Trump may yet be convicted of, well, something. I am far more skeptical about Biden’s chances of victory this fall. Here’s what I wrote to him this morning:
You’re betting on an improving economy and the conviction of Trump as the catalysts for another Biden win. To me, economic growth is very uneven, with an “improving” economy measured mainly by the performance of Wall Street. Few benefits are trickling down to the working classes. Meanwhile, we don’t know if Trump will be convicted of anything; also, I don’t think a conviction that’s seen as politically motivated will hurt Trump. If anything, depending on the conviction and its seriousness, it could even help him.
The largest bloc of voters are those Americans who don’t vote. You have to give people a reason to get off their duffs and vote for you. For Obama, it was “hope” and “change” and idealism. Biden won in 2020 because of the pandemic and Trump’s incompetent leadership. In 2024, Biden is increasingly “Genocide Joe” for youth and progressives; he’s taking his own base for granted, thinking that people will opt for him over Trump because the latter is too divisive.
But what may happen is that Democrats and Independents just stay home, or vote third party, while Trump loyalists show up at the polls.
We can bookmark this conversation if you wish and come back to it this November. We are, after all, trying to predict the future. My guess is that Biden loses; you’re guessing he’s going to win. We’ll see.
I also believe that if Trump wins, the DNC will blame the voters rather than the weakness of the Biden/Harris ticket. I’m sure Putin will also be blamed, as will any 3rd-party candidates like Stein of RFK Jr. The DNC will then fundraise off of fear of Trump. No matter what, the DNC will win. What counts as a “loss” for the DNC is allowing a progressive to run.
It’s some “democracy” we live in when voters are shamed for voting for someone other than Joe Biden. (The Trumpers, of course, are universally dismissed as irredeemable deplorables.) So I know I will be shamed for not voting for Joe (or the Don) this November.
As Yoda the Jedi Master said: “Difficult to see. Always in motion the future.” I just don’t see a lot of enthusiasm for Biden. I see Biden as a figurehead of Neo-liberal economic policies at home and Neo-conservative war policies abroad. Otherwise known as Dickensian conditions for the working classes here and lots of bombs and artillery shells falling on “foreign” peoples of color.
Meanwhile, I doubt the DNC will allow Biden to appear in any presidential debates. Too risky. Biden will largely “campaign” by reading from teleprompters at carefully staged appearances.
The shadow of Trump looms again (photo from 2020)
Biden, to state the obvious, is not in his prime. If reelected, he’ll be 82 and will serve until he’s 86. Voters have legitimate concerns about his health and his endurance. Meanwhile, his vice president, Kamala Harris, isn’t popular and lends little credibility to the ticket. It doesn’t bode well.
I already had four years of Trump; they were more than enough for me. I’ve had three years of Biden and they’ve been more than enough. Yet the RNC and DNC want to offer me a Trump/Biden rematch, and I just can’t stomach it.
MLK recognized the evils of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism
Martin Luther King, Jr., hero for peace.
It’s sad that the word “hero” is so often modified by or married to “war” in history. He’s a war hero, we say, without giving it too much thought. As if wars are somehow ennobling and sublime.
Waging peace is far more noble than waging war. MLK Jr. recognized this in his famous speech against the Vietnam War on April 4, 1967. Back in 2015, I posted this article on MLK and his warning that America was close to suffering a spiritual death in its constant warmongering. Today, we see America enabling genocide by Israel in Gaza with nary a complaint from those in power. Spiritual death, indeed.
*****
On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a powerful speech (“Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence”) that condemned America’s war in Vietnam. Exactly one year later, he was assassinated in Memphis.
What follows are excerpts from MLK’s speech. I urge you to read it in its entirety, but I’d like to highlight this line:
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
MLK called for a revolution of values in America. In his address, he noted that:
There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.
MLK didn’t just have a dream of racial equality. He had a dream for justice around the world, a dream of a world committed to peace, a world in which America would lead a reordering of values in the direction of universal brotherhood.
Both of MLK’s dreams remain elusive. Racial inequalities and biases remain, though America is better now than it was in the 1960s in regards to racial equity. And what of a commitment to peace? Sadly, America remains dedicated to war, spending nearly a trillion dollars yearly on defense, Homeland Security, nuclear weapons, and “overseas contingency operations,” i.e. wars.
America has failed to dream the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr., and we are the worse for it. (Bolded passages below are my emphasis.)
Excerpts from MLK’s Speech on Vietnam, April 4, 1967
At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called “enemy,” I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the — for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours…
If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war…
It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin…we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
Perhaps it seemed in 1967, even to MLK Jr., with all his experience to the contrary, that America could lead the world in a revolution of values, a pursuit of peace. MLK’s dream of such a revolution is dead, drowned in the vast profits of the merchants of death.
The bizarre opening weeks of the Democratic primary season
Democracy, President Joe Biden has said, is on the ballot this year. But often his Democratic rivals won’t be on the ballot, nor is Biden himself officially on the ballot in New Hampshire in two weeks. (Indeed, the DNC refuses to sanction, i.e. support, the NH primary.) What gives?
Next week (1/15), the Iowa caucus for president is being held for Republicans and Democrats. Apparently, official results for Democrats won’t be available until March. Then there’s the famous New Hampshire primary, always the first in the country and this year on 1/23; Biden’s name isn’t even on the ballot for Democrats there.
The first Democratic primary that apparently counts for the DNC is in South Carolina on 2/3. Why is that?
You’ll recall that in 2020 Biden lost the Iowa caucuses to Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. In New Hampshire in 2020, Biden came in a distant fifth. But he was able to win in South Carolina with a big push from Barack Obama and Congressman James Clyburn, a major powerbroker in SC, even as other candidates like Buttigieg were pressured to drop out and throw their support to Joe. (Buttigieg’s reward was a cabinet post as Secretary of Transportation for which he is eminently unqualified.)
The fix is in for Biden in 2024, to state the obvious. Iowa and New Hampshire are both being sidelined because the DNC knows Biden is vulnerable in these states. But South Carolina, the DNC believes, can be controlled, can be counted on for a decent showing for Old Joe. Thus South Carolina was moved up in the 2024 primary calendar precisely to demonstrate allegedly strong support for Joe.
This weekend, Biden was in South Carolina, the only primary that seems to matter
I was listening to a podcast with Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn as they discussed some of these Democratic (but not democratic) machinations:
Matt Taibbi: And by the way, not just with Trump, with people like Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips. I mean, they just got wiped off the ballot in Florida, which seems crazy to me. Then there were these other machinations going on in the Democratic side with New Hampshire and Iowa. The Iowa caucus results. The Iowa caucus is the easiest thing in the world. It used to be the simplest, most beautiful, I think, expression of democracy in America. You could go to it. You could sit there and watch people argue and horse-trade and do all that stuff, and everybody would move to one side of the gym, and then there’d be other crowds in other places.
And then at the end of the night, they would call up one phone number and there would be a human being at the other end of the line who would tabulate a pretty small number of districts, and you would get a result. And there’s absolutely no reason why that should take a lot of time. Now, they’re announcing that they’re not even going to have results for the Iowa caucus until March 15th or some ridiculous thing.
Walter Kirn: Who announced that?
Matt Taibbi: Iowa.
I hadn’t heard that Biden’s two main Democratic challengers, Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips, had been “wiped off the ballot in Florida.” But it’s true: Biden’s name was the only one submitted by party apparatchiks there.
Biden just might win the Democratic primary in Florida. Ah, sweet victory, and against such long odds!
As Biden claims “Democracy is on the ballot” in 2024, the DNC and establishment Democrats are doing everything in their power to deny democratic choices to their voters.
Are you confused? Deflated? Tired of the BS? Look over there: Trump! Bad! Vote for Joe: he’ll save “democracy” from Trump!
As my dad taught me, sometimes you have to laugh to hide the tears.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin went into the hospital both before Christmas and on New Year’s Day, apparently not informing the White House and Congress on either occasion. Other than the president as commander-in-chief, SecDef Austin is the senior civilian in the U.S. military’s chain of command.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin looks on during a joint press conference with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at Israel’s Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, Israel December 18, 2023. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura/File Photo
Austin’s medical condition is serious, most recently requiring four days in an intensive care unit. A blindsided president has already declared he won’t fire Austin, nor will Austin resign. No big deal, then?
I’m amazed. One of the first and most valuable lessons I learned in the military was to keep your boss informed. Tell her if the project is behind schedule. Tell him if you’re missing critical spares that would hamper the combat performance of your unit. Don’t let your boss be blindsided. Most obviously, under combat conditions, failing to keep your boss informed of critical information is an almost certain way to get your people killed.
When I was a lieutenant, I served on the “battle staff” for exercises in Cheyenne Mountain. This was in 1986 at the tail end of the Cold War. During one exercise, a friend of mine, another LT, witnessed the commanding four-star general chewing out a colonel on his staff. The colonel had failed to tell the general that AWACS planes were unavailable during the exercise. (Remember, this was an exercise, i.e. “fake.”) My friend told me the general reamed the colonel a new one for failing to inform him of what in wartime would have been a critical piece of information.
Lloyd Austin, it seems, has been MIA for several days without keeping his immediate superior, Joe Biden, in the loop, potentially threatening the national security of our country. Yet Austin has no plans to resign and Biden has no plans to take action.
It’s a bad example to our military that something so critical as a failure to respect the chain of command is being dismissed as a trivial matter. A blindsided Biden should not turn a blind eye here. If Austin has honor, he should resign to avoid further embarrassment to his boss. If he doesn’t, Biden should fire him.
Bracing Views 