MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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You’ll Never Guess What Losing Democrats All Have in Common
By A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 10:22am |It was curious to observe how much of Jeremy Corbyn’s successful campaign to rebuild the Labour Party was about foreign policy. Wars, he said, make us less safe, not more. Agreeing with him were: the obvious facts of the matter, voters in opinion polls, and apparently voters in their votes.
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http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/06/youll-never-guess-losing-democrats-common.html#more-68158
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Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Had a smoke and then I went into a dream. Ah …
by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 10:23am
I don't trust polls on this sort of thing because they don't get to what people really think.
Militarism is a much better word to use than "war". Nearly everybody's going to tell an opinion pollster that they are against war, even the most hard assed military man.
But even "militarism" has a negative connotation, connected to authoritarian societies where they proudly show off the latest missiles in parades and expect everyone to applaud.
I'd like to see some nitty gritty about what people are for or against before I was convinced a full throated peacenik platform is going to sell to a majority. Is use of hacking against other countries considered war or militarism? Spy drones? Armed drones? Assassination of terrorists? Blockades that starve whole populations?Patriot missiles and other missile defense systems? Robots that test for IED's? Arming populations under siege by cruel monsters?Bombing other country's nuclear bomb development sites? Etc.
The times they are a changing..."militarism" and "war" don't really cover what people may approve of for a "Defense" budget or political platform.
by artappraiser on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 11:38am
I think pacifism à la Corbyn has a better chance in the UK, for a few reasons.
The most obvious, they are a bit along the Kubler-Ross steps towards acceptance of the end of imperial glory. But not only that.
my sense is that millennials there are much more marked by the trauma of Blair (mis)leading them into the Iraq war. That along with the financial crisis are the two defining events of their lives. Like Vietnam and Nixon for Boomers. This might be off, but in the US it feels like the Iraq war has faded completely, as shown by the non-issue of Clinton's Iraq vote during the '16 election. Barack "no-stupd-wars" Obama has made having x number of middle east wars ongoing perfectly kosher for democrats.
Third, the US unlike Europe basically is not a front in the war on islamist terrorism. The whole continent is pretty much untouched since 9-11, which means no one really needs to think seriously about how to manage it. Europeans need to be a bit more sophisticated, not having any easy military options, not having the bottomless pentagon money-pit, and feeling the full brunt of the spreading islamist blow-back.
That said, excessive chin-scratching about what such-and-such polls say on some matter is something I'm starting to find frustrating, and symptomatic of the democratic party's turtling instincts when it comes to the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans on any political issue. Americans love monopolistic multinationals, so we can't attack them. Americans love war, so we need to tiptoe around that issue too. There is something to be said for actually figuring out what is the right policy, then having the courage of your convictions and going out and arguing for the right policy. Moving minds and hearts, rather than just dancing to whatever tune you vaguely surmise the dirty plebs want to hear.
I'd like to see more candidates stake out a position that suggests there are other options beyond bombing or invading random trouble-spots.
by Obey on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 5:18pm
The reference to polls, four words total, is a very small part of the case that Swanson is making.
I agree with your use of scare quotes around the word "defense". Imagine if the following had been an important part of Hillary Clinton's and the Democratic Party's political positioning.
We will put conflict resolution and human rights at the heart of foreign policy, commit to working through the UN, end support for unilateral aggressive wars of intervention and back effective action to alleviate the refugee crisis. Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats believe that the USA's foreign policy should be guided by the values of peace, universal rights and international law. . . . The lessons of the past, including the horrific results of our recent and ongoing wars, show why our response to these challenges must be different From the Middle East to Africa, in recent years millions of people have been killed, injured or displaced through wars, terrorism and military intervention. . . . We will review all training and equipment contracts with repressive regimes, to ensure that our great country never colludes in the mistreatment of civilians. Money for war must come from somewhere. Unnecessary wars counter-productively take money that is sorely needed for education, infrastructure, and health care .
Do you believe such a policy position, especially if it had been developed for the last fifteen or so years and discussed as an alternative and held up against the results of the stupidly aggressive policies that were actually implemented, would have resulted in a net gain or loss of votes for Hillary? I strongly believe it would have gained for her a great deal of extra support from a wide swath of the electorate while costing her few if any votes from those who wanted her as President based on her domestic policy positions.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 6:16pm
Winning Republicans and winning Trump have turned the wars over to the Pentagon and Trumps General Mattis. The winning GOP base is fine with it.
Corbyn has been a member of Parliament for 35 years, and has protested everything from the Iraq War supported by his own Party and Blair, to Britain's nuclear deterrent. In a letter to a court he recently vouched for a:
If you can point out any significant successes, for Britain or the world, Corbyn has personally achieved in his 35 years, please illuminate us.
He has been very successful making a career for himself as a back bench self righteous grandstanding and lazy blowhard, while never having been burdened with any serious executive responsibility.
by NCD on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 4:23pm
Corbyn has done pretty well in rebuiliding Labour, both as an electoral force and as a real ideological alternative to the privatize-and-deregulate bipartisan establishment that had reigned for the past 20 years. He has shown that Labour can be an electoral force without Lord Sainsbury's and his City friends' cash, without bending the knee to Murdoch nor even the BBC. Nor even the Guardian. They bypassed the press entirely by running a solid grassroots campaign. They look like they have ended the threat of hard Brexit. They have probably saved the NHS by forcing May to drop 90 percent of the manifesto she put out before the election (in particular the general principles of Austerity). He has turned Labour into the biggest left-wing party in Europe, tripling or quadrupling (?) the Labour party's membership, bringing a whole new generation of activists and revolutionized the organization and strategy framework for media and social media message management. He has stripped May's Tories of their majority, and looks set to topple her from power altogether.
But, yeah what has Corbyn ever done for anyone?
by Obey on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 4:50pm
Of couse Corbyn did not really campaign against Brexit, opinions were he was for it, but being Labor leader he had to be coy about it.
When your major strategy is attacking the status quo, it's much easier when the main power targets are in London, rather than with the EU in Brussels. Brexit = Corbyn becomes an even bigger fish in a smaller pond.
If you are aware of any legislation or rules he with his "electoral force" initiated, fought for and prevailed on over Conservative opposition, or in his 35 years in Parliament, as to the NHS it would be nice to know.
I would be all for Corbyn as Prime Minister. He could put his words and schemes into action, and see what happens to the pound, jobs etc. May is clearly in over her head. It really seems no one is enthusiastically seeking the PM job right now.
by NCD on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 5:41pm
I'm refering to Theresa May backing off austerity measures since the election.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-austerity-brex...
That is just one piece signaling a change in direction. No legislation as such obviously on these last issues. But in 2016 he blocked the planned tax credit cuts. Unlike his predecessors who didn't dare to stand up to the principle of austerity measures.
On the EU, I think he has always been openly ambivalent. He thinks the EU is a flawed institution, too solicitous of corporate interests, too undemocratic and harmful to workers' rights. But he is an internationalist, and so approves of the overarching project of the EU. Hence, no, he didn't provide a nice yes or no answer. But I wouldn't call it coy.
Personally I think soft Brexit is the right fit for the UK in Europe. Their membership since the beginning has been largely an adversarial strategy of undermining too much integration between France and Germany, like we're still in the 19th century. Brits have never been part of Europe. "Europe" is where they go on summer holiday for cheap beer.
by Obey on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 5:41pm
No doubt May is an easy target.
Is there an institution Corbyn thinks is not flawed?
It would be interesting to see him at #10.
by NCD on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 5:45pm
I detect sarcastic undertones when I read your "interesting". ;0)
I would be inclined to agree with your doubts, if that is what they are. But he vastly outperformed my expectations in the election and in each of his two leadership fights. And although you seem to assume May was an easy adversary, in all of those fights he was up against huge institutional opposition. I think he and Abbott have been underestimated.
by Obey on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 5:57pm
Your comment sounds just like the many you have made about Sanders. Obey has answered you much better than I would have been able to but one point remains that strikes me as worth addressing.
I would be very surprised to find out that Corbin was trying to help the con get away with anything. I would be equally surprised to find reason to believe that he thought, when he wrote a letter supporting bail for the con, that said con was helping ISIL. And one more thing I find hard to believe is that you believe those things either. If that is the case, then what is the point?
by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 6:31pm
The Guardian UK reported Corbyn's connection here. And it was widely reported in half a dozen other papers.
I don't think Corbyn supported the 1/2 million pound scam, that he wrote a letter attesting to the honesty of the guy arrested and now jailed, just shows Corbyn as being lazy, in this case on NOT routinely seeking court details before submitting attestations for a residents honesty, and basically he appears to be a lifelong largely unaccountable blowhard, refer back to what little he has to show for 35 years in Parliament.
I would suspect the value of Corbyn's letters of support for constituents charged in court will have lost considerable value, if they ever had any, except to garner him a few more supporters and votes.
May is incompetent, Boris Johnson (the Obama moved the Churchill bust cuz colonialism) a near idiot and Farage a Trumpkin.
Sadiq Khan is the only smart and competent politician I know now in the UK.
by NCD on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 8:05pm
I wonder to what extent Labour's above- expectations performance reflected Corbyn's campaigning vs the
extent to which it reflected Labour voters increased enthusiasm as a result of choosing Corbyn and seeing their choice honored.
by Flavius on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 9:47pm
double deleted
by Obey on Sat, 06/24/2017 - 5:30pm