Progressive Calendar 12.09.15 Bernie, Obama, Hillary /3 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David Shove (shove001umn.edu) | |
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2015 22:55:56 -0800 (PST) |
*PROGRESSIVE CALENDAR 12.09.15* 1. Zephyr Teachout - 10 Reasons I Support Bernie Sanders for Presiden 2. Norman Solomon - Obama’s Speech, Translated into Candor 3. Jack Balkwill - Why Hillary Would be a Worse President than Would a Republican 4. John V Walsh - Diana Johnstone Dissects Hillary, Queen of Chaos 5. ed - Hillary --------1 of 5-------- Zephyr Teachout - 10 Reasons I Support Bernie Sanders for President "I endorse Sanders," explains Teachout, "because of my deep patriotism, my belief that democracy is possible and a thriving economy is possible, and we don't need to beg at the feet of the wealthiest donors to have a collective life worth living." I first saw Bernie Sanders speak in early November 1993, when I went to a brown bag lunch he held for voters in Montpelier, Vermont, a few days before NAFTA was passed. At that lunch, he explained how NAFTA would undermine workers rights, and American democracy. He turned out to be years ahead of his time.* But I bring it up now because it relates to why I am proud to endorse Bernie Sanders for President of the United States. Sanders is a fearless, experienced leader capable of seeing the truth, and standing up to big private power, even when its almost impossibly hard. President Sanders would always keep the humble, struggling, proud citizen at the center of what he does. Here are 10 reasons for my support: 1. Congressman Sanders voted against the Iraq war, showing judgment and leadership when it mattered, and has held consistent and careful foreign policy views. 2. Senator Sanders has been a leader on finance, supporting a new Glass Steagall and introducing his own bills to break up the big banks. 3. Senator Sanders has led the fight against the XL pipeline, and for wind, sun, geothermal, and all renewable sources of energy. 4. Congressman Sanders opposed NAFTA, and has been a leader in the opposition to the TPP. 5. He has spent his career fighting private prisons and overcriminalization. 6. He has always understood the vital role that unions and institutions play in a more equal America, and fought for workers' rights. 7. He has long fought against high-stakes standardized tests. 8. He is a lifelong advocate for veterans, and a leader in health clinics and access to dental care and basic services. 9. He always been practical, with a long career of working across all party lines with respect. 10. Most importantly, President Sanders would put fundamental reform--including public financing of elections--at the heart of what he does. America is in pain, and democracy is in crisis. Twenty Americans have more money than the bottom half of Americans. According to the New York Times, 158 families made half of all the donations so far in the presidential race. We have a private campaign finance system gives private companies and billionaires control over government. That's not American democracy. I endorse Sanders because of my deep patriotism, my belief that democracy is possible and a thriving economy is possible, and we don't need to beg at the feet of the wealthiest donors to have a collective life worth living. Sanders has always paid attention to the root threats: inequity and excess elite power. He always explained in patient detail the way that privately financed elections and outside spending totally destroy our democracy. There is too much fear in our political life: he brings big dreams instead. I thrilled to endorse on the same day as the Working Families Party endorsement. The WFP endorsement is a huge boost for Sanders' campaign. While Sanders has generated lots of grassroots enthusiasm, few organizations have stepped forward to endorse him. I believe the WFP endorsement will help encourage more organizations to step out boldly in support of his campaign and in support of the democratic revolution. Sanders showed judgment, leadership, and a willingness to be his own person in his first years in Congress when I saw him at that brown bag lunch, and he will show judgment, leadership, and a willingness to be his own person as President. I am proud to endorse him.** I hope you join me. *It was a consequential and memorable lunch for me in other ways -- in the elevator on the way there, I met Howard Dean's then-Chief of Staff, who suggested that I apply for a job on his campaign the following year. I did, beginning my own life as a campaigner and organizer. **This is in my private role as a citizen. MAYDAY.US is not making any Presidential endorsements. © 2015 Zephyr Zeachout Zephyr Teachout ran for governor of New York State in 2014. She teaches constitutional and property law at Fordham University Law School. Her latest book, Corruption in America, is a history of the corrosive influence of money in politics. --------2 of 5-------- *Obama’s Speech, Translated into Candorby Norman Solomon* Common Dreams Monday, December 07, 2015 "Here’s what I want you to know," said President Obama on Sunday night to the American people: "The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it." Here is a condensed version of President Obama's speech from the Oval Office on Sunday night, *unofficially translated into plain English: * I kind of realize we can’t kill our way out of this conflict with ISIL, but in the short term hopefully we can kill our way out of the danger of a Republican victory in the presidential race next year. As a practical matter, the current hysteria needs guidance, not a sense of proportion along the lines of what the New York Times just mentioned in passing: “The death toll from jihadist terrorism on American soil since the Sept. 11 attacks—45 people—is about the same as the 48 killed in terrorist attacks motivated by white supremacist and other right-wing extremist ideologies.... And both tolls are tiny compared with the tally of conventional murders, more than 200,000 over the same period.” While I’m urging some gun control, that certainly doesn’t apply to the Pentagon. The Joint Chiefs and their underlings have passed all the background checks they need by virtue of getting to put on a uniform of the United States Armed Forces. As much as we must denounce the use of any guns that point at us, we must continue to laud the brave men and women who point guns for us -- and who fire missiles at terrorists and possible terrorists and sometimes unfortunately at wedding parties or misidentified vehicles or teenagers posthumously classified as “militants” after signature strikes or children who get in the way. We can’t see ourselves in the folks we kill. But I know that we see ourselves with friends and coworkers at a holiday party like the one in San Bernardino. I know we see our kids in the faces of the young people killed in Paris. Also I know we don’t see ourselves in the blameless individuals who have been beheaded by our ally Saudi Arabia, which has executed 150 people this year mostly by cutting off their heads with swords. Nor should we bother to see ourselves in the people the Saudi government is slaughtering with airstrikes in Yemen on a daily basis. We sell the Saudis many billions of dollars worth of weapons that make the killings in San Bernardino look smaller than puny. But that’s the way it goes sometimes. I gave a lofty major speech a couple of years ago about how a democratic society can’t have perpetual war. I like to talk about such sugary ideals; a spoonful helps the doublethink medicine go down. Let me now say a word about what we should not do. We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria. The United States of America has colossal air power—and we’re going to use it. No muss, little fuss: except for people under the bombs, now being utilized at such a fast pace that the warhead supply chain is stretched thin. Yes, we’re escalating a bit on the ground too, with hundreds of special operations forces going into Syria despite my numerous public statements—adding up to more than a dozen since August 2013—that American troops would not be sent to Syria. Likewise we’ve got several thousand soldiers in Iraq, five years after I solemnly announced that “the American combat mission in Iraq has ended.” But here’s the main thing: In the Middle East, the USA will be number one in dropping bombs and firing missiles. Lots of them! It’s true that we keep making enemies faster than we can possibly kill them, but that’s the nature of the beast. In Afghanistan too. At the end of last year I ceremoniously proclaimed that “the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion” and the United States “will maintain a limited military presence in Afghanistan.” But within 10 months I changed course and declared that 5,500 U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan into 2017. Midway through this fall—even before the terrorist attacks in Paris—the United States had launched an average of about 50 airstrikes per week in Syria during the previous year, and the New York Times reported that the U.S. military was preparing “to intensify airstrikes against the Islamic State” on Syrian territory. And according to official Pentagon figures, the U.S.-led aerial bombing in Iraq has topped 4,500 airstrikes in the last year—approaching an average rate of 100 per week. Our military will hunt down terrorist plotters where they are plotting against us. In Iraq and Syria, airstrikes are taking out some of the latest ISIL leaders, heavy weapons, oil tankers, infrastructure. I’ve got to tell you that these actions will defeat ISIL, but I’ve got to not tell you that the airstrikes will kill a lot of civilians while launching new cycles of what gave rise to ISIL in the first place—inflaming rage and grief while serving as a powerful recruitment tool for people to take up arms against us. In the name of defeating terrorist forces, our air war has the effect of recruiting for them. Meanwhile, in Syria, our obsession with regime change has propelled us into closely aligning with extremist jihadi fighters. They sure appreciate the large quantities of our weapons that end up in their arsenals. You don’t expect this policy to make a lot of sense, do you? - Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” and "Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State". One of Norman Solomon's best pieces ever. -ed --------3 of 5-------- Why Hillary Would be a Worse President than Would a Republican by Jack Balkwill December 8th, 2015 Hello, is anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me Is there anyone home? — Roger Waters and David Jon Gilmour, “Comfortably Numb,” from Pink Floyd’s 1979 album The Wall Hillary Clinton will be a worse president than would a Republican. For years corporate media have pounded the line that her election is inevitable, and that has millions of voters convinced. Unfortunately, many of them also believe in the “lesser evil” straw man which is also pushed by corporate media– if you don’t vote for your party’s candidate (Democrat or Republican) even though you don’t like that candidate, a more evil candidate of the other party will win, which herds the masses into continually shooting themselves in the foot. This makes it impossible for change, since the Democrats and Republicans are funded by the same criminals, banksters, polluters and defense cheats, and have basically the same desire to serve their masters over the public interest. Hillary will be able to do things no Republican can do. Like her Republican friends (the Clintons seem to have a lot of them, John McCain, George HW Bush) Hillary will be able to get Republican votes for the agenda of the plutocrats who run USA, Inc., but unlike the Republicans, she will be able to get Democratic Party votes, because conservative Democratic legislators will be able to say they are only supporting their Democratic president as they break ranks. History tells us this is so. In Hillary’s husband’s first term, he had no trouble passing NAFTA, Ronald Reagan’s unfulfilled dream. Although the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, two-thirds of the Democrats opposed NAFTA because it would hurt the environment and American workers would lose jobs. Bill Clinton sent his sidekick Al Gore, who had recently been a Senator, to twist Democratic arms in the Senate, where Republicans were already sold on Clinton’s plan. In the House, Clinton relied on Newt Gingrich, then minority leader, to make sure Republicans were brought into line so there would be few defectors. Conservative Democrats used the excuse they were only supporting their Democratic president. NAFTA passed by a comfortable margin, and a Republican would have had no possibility of getting it done with both Houses of Congress controlled by Democrats. Next Democrat, Obama. When George W. Bush was leaving the White House in January of 2009, his polling numbers were south of whale poop. The public were fed up with his wars based on lies and his bankster bailout. No Republican winning the 2008 election could have extended these catastrophes for the average American, without riots in the streets. What were the ruling oligarchs and plutocrats to do? Spending profusely on his campaign, they brought in Barack Obama to fix things. Obama quickly increased the troop strength in Afghanistan by 30,000, and completed the bankster bailout, burying Wall Street in tax dollars. Although there was grumbling by some Congressional Democrats, what did Obama care? He had massive Republican support for these. The ruling establishment loves sellout Democrats, because they can do so much more than Republicans to please their masters. Obama received more funding from banksters in his 2008 election than any candidate for office in history. They knew they could count on him, even with both Houses of Congress controlled by Democrats. Like Clinton, who also began his presidency with both houses of the Congress, Obama also lost the Congress to Republican control, because rank and file Democrats realized they’d been betrayed and sat on their hands. Having a Republican controlled Congress helps modern Democrat presidents, though, because they then have an excuse that they can do nothing because Republicans won’t let them. One recalls both Clinton and Obama whining that Republicans simply tied their hands from doing anything at all progressive. This did not stop them from pushing military spending and free trade agreements like the worst fears about what a Republican might do. Republicans do not really try to stop Democratic Presidents when they attempt to serve the oligarchs and plutocrats who fund our elections. Republicans didn’t even raise a peep when Obama unconstitutionally attacked Libya without consulting Congress. They love war. At least President GW Bush asked Congress for support when he violated international law by invading Iraq (Hillary eagerly backed him with her Senate vote). Since the 1970s, Democrats have moved from being liberal to being conservative (now called liberal in corporate newspeak). Republicans have moved from being conservative to being fascist (using FDR’s definition, now called conservative in corporate newspeak). Under Democrats and Republicans, wages for the working class have declined since 1973 as wealth has funneled upward to the plutocrats and oligarchs who fund our elections. Our ruling establishment has learned that conservative Democrats sell out far better than mainstream Republicans, and have begun to fund them well for that reason. Hillary should have far more money from the scum of the earth than any of her Republican opponents with her *bona fides*, including her stint in the leadership of the Democratic Leadership Council, formed to make a second Republican Party of the Democrats. No Republican can undermine Social Security, many have tried, but the opposition gets fierce. Even conservative Democrats won’t help a Republican president with this. It will take a Democrat like Hillary to do it. She will use the pretense that she is “saving Social Security.” While it’s true Republicans are nastier and would do nastier things if they could, they largely fail at major free trade deals, deregulation, privatization and the like, it takes a Democrat to get the job done. When Republicans try these things, the Democratic Party base rises up in protest and the Democrats vote it down if they have majorities in Congress, or filibuster it if they don’t, and it goes nowhere. But when a Bill Clinton or Barack Obama is in, they get Republican support and combine it with conservative Democrats to win on issues that sell out the American public. The Democratic rank and file go to sleep, and only awaken for protest when the next Republican takes the White House. Many of those who realize that lesser evil voting only slides the people backward, have decided to begin to build a way out, and are looking at candidates like Jill Stein of the Green Party. Realizing that she represents the public interest, corporate media have completely blacked out her candidacy, instead covering those who will serve their masters, so there’s hard work ahead. Jack Balkwill is an activist in Virginia. He can be reached at libertyuv [at] hotmail.com Read other articles by Jack. This article was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2015 at 7:11am and is filed under Afghanistan, Corporate Globalization, Democrats, Elections, GWB, Iraq, Libya, Media, Militarism, Obama, Propaganda, Right Wing --------4 of 5-------- Daughter of Empire in Its Heyday *Diana Johnstone Dissects Hillary, Queen of Chaosby John V. Walsh* December 7th, 2015 Were Diana Johnstone, author of Queen of Chaos, to bump into Samantha Power in a dark alley, both would be instantly annihilated in a blaze of energy. For Johnstone, is the anti-Samantha Power, best known for her book, Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Illusions, where she meticulously uncovers the truth about the war on Serbia, thereby dismantling the fairy tale constructed by Power to justify the NATO assault on the Balkans. That fairy tale has been a model for similar sagas rolled out to whiten the sepulchers of the many “humanitarian” wars since, every one of which bears some of Hillary’s fingerprints. Johnstone’s new book, Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton, is a must read, but it must be read carefully. It is a must read because it is a capsule history of the US Empire’s depredations over the past 25 years since the end of the Cold War when the Clintons came upon the national scene. Given the ever sharper confrontation which our elite is engineering with Russia and China, one that could well lead to nuclear war, this is a history we all need to review and understand correctly. Our very survival may well depend on it. And the book must be read carefully because, being both slim and comprehensive, it is packed tightly with information and pointed political insight. Such an eloquent and compact chronicle is of enormous usefulness right now. Queen is not a gossipy bio, delineating Hillary’s shallow, belligerent, mendacious, psychopathic character, although such a tome, necessarily massive, would be welcome. These characteristics of Hillary’s necessarily emerge to some degree in Queen of Chaos, but personality portrayal is not the core of the book. Rather the book is historical. Johnstone sees Clinton as both a product of her times – privileged child of the U.S. Empire, white, Wellesley, Yale, a dishonest and ultimately fired operative on the Watergate committee right out of law school – as well as a ruthless actor in a global drama growing ever more deadly. The book is more history than Hillary. But by going this route Johnstone grasps the essential Clinton with crystal clarity. What about the title, Queen of Chaos? Chaos? Is that too much? The book begins with a quote from George Kennan written in 1948 one year after the birth of Hillary, a prototypical boomer. WWII had ended only a few years earlier, leaving the U.S. on top of the heap and the rest of the major powers in ashes. Kennan wrote then: We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only about 6.3% of its population….In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. (This resentment is certainly not surprising since the U.S. and its fellow European colonialists and neocolonialists had gained that wealth by disposing of others, for example in the American Indian genocide, or by extracting from the “other” nearly cost free labor of others, for example, the Black slaves brought to the concentration camps of the South. jw) Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain that position of disparity. After citing this passage of Kennan’s, Johnstone continues: Since then the United States has failed to develop any great national purpose other than staying on top. In recent years it has become more frequent to speak of the United States as an Empire. Yet it is an Empire like no other. …Its actions are increasingly destructive because the purpose is not in reality to build an Empire but to destroy any real or potential rivals and so maintain the position of superiority gained in World War II…. The destructive nature of these wars is confirmed by the fact that on close examination none of these wars have been “won” in any meaningful sense. … These are essentially ‘spoiler’ wars intended to diminish potential rivals (or those who refuse to obey, jw). They create deepening chaos and bitter enemies, with no real benefit to anyone. *Thus chaos, of which Hillary is Queen.* There is no better example than China. All power, as we have known at least since Thucydides, grows from economic power. If China, with four times the U.S. population, is to have the same standard of living, that is the same per capita GDP, as the U.S., then its economy must grow to be four times the size that of the U.S.! But that means its economy would eclipse the combined GDP of the US and its allies in Western Europe and Japan. A high standard of living for the Chinese people is incompatible with the US being number one – not with U.S. prosperity, let us be clear, but with U.S. as global hegemon. Hence the US Empire is out to “contain” China, that is, to keep it from getting any richer and, if possible, to re-impoverish it or break it up. According to the IMF, China’s economy measured in terms of Purchasing Power Parity became number one in 2014. So the “containment” of China is a fool’s errand, which can only bring destruction and possibly world war. But with her “pivot” to Asia, Hillary is out to try. *Drang nach Osten by the Queen and her Erstwhile Consort* Perhaps the Clintons’ greatest sin – to date – was initiating the expansion of NATO to the East. This was too much even for Kennan who cried out in old age in a NYT Op-Ed on February 5, 1997: In late 1996, the impression was allowed, or caused, to become prevalent that it had somehow and somewhere decided to expand NATO up to Russia’s borders. …The timing of this revelation — coinciding with the Presidential election….did not make it easy … to insert a modest word of comment. Translation. There is nothing like a dash of Drang nach Osten to bring out the Polish and Baltic Nation vote as well as neocon support for re-election. But this policy was not merely part of electioneering tactics. It has become overwhelmingly evident since then that the policy was also a heartfelt project of Hillary’s. Two birds with one stone. Kennan continued: And perhaps it is not too late to advance a view that, I believe, is not only mine but is shared by others with extensive ..experience in Russian matters. The view, bluntly stated is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era. Such a decision would be expected to inflame the anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking. And last, not least, it might make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to secure the Russian Duma’s ratification of the Start II agreement and to achieve further reductions of nuclear weaponry. (Emphasis, jw) Clearly the Clintons had gone too far even for Kennan who surely must have understood that the “unipolar moment” was over, whereas for Hillary it lives on forever. And the “others” cited by Kennan who shared his disgust with the Clintons included Jack Matlock, the last ambassador to the Soviet Union. Matlock, a Democrat, was Reagan’s ambassador to the USSR, and so sickened was he with the Clintons’ actions that he quit the Democratic Party. The Queen’s dog whistle calls “Vote for me, I’m a woman” Since the 1990s Hillary has operated solo in public life and has compiled an even bloodier history both in the Senate where she was an ardent supporter of Bush Jr’s War on Iraq and then as Secretary of State. All of this is in service of making her President. In the section of Queen entitled, “Vote for Me, I’m a Woman,” Johnstone asks bluntly: Is there something wrong with American women that they need Hillary Clinton as President to make them feel better? And she answers thus: Certainly not. American women are creating many new ways to lead fruitful, useful and rewarding lives. And rather than making us feel better, it might make us feel much worse if the first woman President brings disaster on the world. Let us hope that the first woman president will be a person distinguished by a profound understanding of the world and genuine human compassion, rather than relentless personal ambition. Johnstone adds, “Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent years trying to sell women on the idea that their ambition rather than hers will be rewarded if she is elected President of the United States.” Obama traded on the same idea among Blacks, but his presidency has not brought substantially better treatment for African Americans. Ask the people of Ferguson. Johnstone continues: Proving this fairly obvious point (that a woman is fully capable of being president) is not the most crucial issue at stake in the next U.S. Presidential election. There is also the little matter of whether or not to lead the country into war with a major nuclear power. The Little Matter of Avoiding WWIII, Toria Nuland and Friends The “little matter” of avoiding WWIII, Johnstone addresses further in chapters entitled “Not Understanding Russia” and “Yugoslavia, the Clinton War Cycle.” The chapter on Yugoslavia is in some ways the most challenging since Johnstone. probably the leading Western expert on the matter, and one of the few committed to the truth, presents the story in detail and in relatively few words. But the chapter rewards the reader with a clearer understanding of what happened in the former Yugoslavia and how cynically human rights ideals were used to advance the U.S. agenda to lay Russia low. More pertinent for the present moment of crisis is the chapter “Not Understanding Russia,” where Johnstone reminds us of President Vladimir Putin’s comment of March 4, 2014: “I sometimes get the feeling that somewhere across that huge pond, in America, people sit in a lab and conduct experiments, as with rats, without actually understanding the consequences of what they are doing.” Among those to whom he was referring is certainly Victoria Nuland, the wife of Uber-Neocon Robert Kagan and a protégé of Hillary’s, who served as her spokesperson at State and whom she called “Toria Nuland, my intrepid spokesperson.” Nuland also had served as a top advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, the real Butcher of Baghdad and of so much else. She had also served in the highest reaches of the Clinton administration. Nuland then went on to become Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs where she was the principal architect of the coup in Ukraine. Her role in this came out in her infamous intercepted phone conversation where she acknowledged that the U.S. had poured billions into Ukraine to set it at odds with Russia and where she responded to the EU’s resistance and misgivings with her diplomatic pronouncement, “Fuck the EU.” This maneuver has plunged Ukraine into a crisis with thousands of deaths, nearly a million fleeing the country to Russia and collapse of the economy of Ukraine. Most dangerously it has brought the US into a very sharp confrontation with Russia in Ukraine. Again the little matter of WWIII arises. Nuland is only one example of the tight bonds between Hillary and the Neocons, and Johnstone takes this up in her concluding chapter, The War Party. *The Queen’s Blood Lust Surfaces Again. Channeling Caesar after Killing Gaddafi* Perhaps the sharpest insight into Hillary’s world view and bloodthirsty ways comes in the chapter, “Libya, A War of Her Own.” For as Rand Paul and many others have remarked, the assault on Libya was certainly Hillary’s war. She was the voice in the Obama regime that pushed hardest for it, and she got her way. Whatever one may think of Gaddafi’s governance (and the story is not so simple as conveyed in the West), Libya under Gaddafi had the highest Human Development Index (HDI) and highest standard of living in all of Africa. The HDI is a number assigned by the UN to every country in the world and it is a measure of literacy, health care, gender equity and standard of living. But even though Gaddafi had entered into agreements with the West, which rendered impossible the non-existent grave military threat from Libya, he continued to be a defiant pan-Africanist who sought to weaken the Petrodollar’s hold on the world oil market. So he had to go. And when he was brutally killed, Clinton gloated on camera, “We came, we saw, he died.” Channeling Julius Caesar was a frightening scene to behold, something that is very telling about her state of mind, as I have tried to capture elsewhere. As usual with Hillary, her own little war was cloaked in an appeal to human rights. And as a result, Libya today lies in ruins – like Ukraine. Chaos. But Hillary’s war on Libya had an even more ominous aspect, UN Resolution 1973 championed by Hillary’s State Department. Res. 1973 called for a cease-fire in Libya (which Gaddafi promptly observed) and a no-fly zone to protect civilians from the Libyan air force – but nothing more. As a result a dubious Russia and China did not veto Resolution 1973 but abstained, allowing its passage for humanitarian reasons. Then the US and NATO went back on their word and began to bomb Gaddafi’s forces and supporters, inflicting massive damage and killing many civilians by taking sides in a civil war. Putin has remarked that this perversion of Resolution 1973 marked the last time that Russia would trust the West. Such an outcome is indeed very bad business. We can well imagine what China learned from this episode. This brief commentary captures only a small fraction of the insights offered by Queen. They are abundant. A small example is the thumbnail that Johnstone gives of the stock recipe employed for regime change by the West in the section entitled “The Kosovo Experiment.” It is remarkably standard, and Johnstone sums it up in four short pages as a 9-step program: Hitlerization, Sanctions, Local Clients, Human Rights NGOs, Sabotaging Diplomacy, Criminalization, Scare Word “Genocide,” Media and Propaganda, and finally Bombing. The Chapters “Multicultural Misrepresentations” and “The Taming by the Shrew” which culminates in a section entitled “Women Against Women” are also gems on the topic of “humanitarian” imperialism. *A Desperate Pivot as the Sun Sets on the Empire* If there is a flaw in the book, it is the near absence of Hillary’s key role in the “Pivot” to Asia, an item not so much as cited in the index. This is understandable since Johnstone is an American journalist residing in Paris, and her beat has been Europe. And this book is about history and Hillary, whereas the “Pivot” has just begun and seems to have stalled. For a journalist with Johnstone’s high standards there is perhaps not yet enough information to deal with this. In general, Western intellectuals, as opposed to Western businessmen, often seem to live on a planet that does not include East Asia. But East Asia may yet be the site of the greatest atrocity perpetrated by Hillary and her counterparts. Johnstone begins her book with an assessment of Hillary as a creature of the “American Century,” but that period is drawing rapidly to a close with the rise of China, which is pulling other developing countries along. In fact the 500 year Euro-American epoch of global dominance is coming to an end, and quickly so on a historical scale. Hillary and company are quite unprepared to accept this inevitability. There is no need to adapt to the changing world in their eyes. As Secretary of State, Hillary once gloated that there was no need for the U.S to change its ways because those ways have been working splendidly! If president, she will have the power to plunge us into nuclear Armageddon rather than abandon the dream of global domination and adapt peacefully to the new situation in the world. This blindness and willfulness may yet result in the greatest cataclysm, the worst chaos, that humanity has ever witnessed. This is the danger that confronts us now as the Queen of Chaos and her fellow neocons get closer to the presidency and weapons of unprecedented mass destruction. The assessments offered by Queen of Chaos may play a role in forestalling or neutralizing this chilling possibility. Be sure to read it. John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar [at] gmail.com. Read other articles by John V.. This article was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2015 at 5:33pm and is filed under (Ex-)Yugoslavia, Book Review, China, Empire, EU, Iraq, Libya, Militarism, NATO, Russia, Ukraine. --------5 of 5-------- *HILLARY Hi, Hillary here,Bill’s way better half and I’m going to be the first US president with breasts. Oval Office breasts.Koch Brothers breasts. Owned by them.To the left, Charles. To the right, David. Here’s the deal.The Kochs give me two bottomless baskets of cash. So I sign over my boobs.and the Court says each breasthas a vote owned by the Kochs.So it’s two votes for them, one vote for me. We seldom disagree, but if we do, they win – but hey, that’s only fairI’m flattered that they wantedto extend their tar-sands handsacross the aisle and put them all over my breasts. As they were checking out the merchandise,they confessed they had hoped both my breasts would be right, even far right - or even, on my back, pointing in the direction we’ll take the country. An operation?I said there are some thingseven I will not do for money but tell me, America,should I reconsider?Your friend and bosom buddy,* *Hillary* *-ed* *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * Shove Trove*
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