Tag Archives: GOP

Political Rants

Their man.

It’s been a summer of discontent, to be sure, and the signs aren’t good for this fall. Internationally we appear to be on the brink of major upheavals, from India’s escalation of the conflict in Kashmir to uprisings in Hong Kong, Russia, and elsewhere. India-Pakistan is particularly worrisome, as these now nuclear armed states have already fought three wars over founding disputes like Kashmir; with Modi in control, this could end very badly. What a great time to have Donald Trump as president, right?

As much as pundits have tried to paint Trump as an atypical GOP politician with regard to foreign relations, his administration is doing about what you might expect a president Rubio to do; bellicose rhetoric, imperial policies, and arrogant attitude. The only question about Trump is whether, at any given moment, he may be pursuing his own narrow self interest or following the directions handed to him by his neocon national security team. It is hard for TV commentators to hold both administration positions in their heads at the same time.  Trump speaks nicely about Putin, while his cabinet officials tear up arms control agreements signed by Reagan. Trump exchanges notes with Kim Jong Un while is Pentagon plans military maneuvers in South Korea. Trump appears to resist the march to war with Iran, but the confrontation continues. The net effect of all of this is basically a mainstream Republican foreign policy, with a few fewer diplomats.

Trump, King of Greenland? Nice.

The fact is, I would far rather Trump and his administration start having a dialog with Russia over nuclear arms and nuclear materials. The mishap they had in the northeast of the country, at the Nenoksa test site, this past week underscores that need. Putin’s proposed nuclear-powered cruise missile is a tremendously destabilizing and toxic program. Think of it: even if it works as planned, you would have a missile with a conventional payload spewing radioactive fuel all over the place when it strikes its target, rendering it basically a dirty bomb. We are playing a similarly dangerous game with the development of low-yield nuclear “bunker busters”. Both of these weapons amount to a backdoor introduction of nuclear isotopes into common use in a conventional war. We need to put nuclear disarmament back at the top of the agenda … and right now, we’re heading in the opposite direction at full speed.

When the Trump administration is finally over, no doubt the GOP will attempt to distance themselves from this dumpster fire, claiming Trump was, at heart, a lifelong Democrat. Nothing doing. We need to hang this around their necks for as long as they remain the party of right-wing extremism, climate change denial, serial invasion, etc.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

The hard problem.

Senate Republicans tried-on their comedy shoes this week, “debating” something they were breezily referring to as the Green New Deal but which was actually just a straw horse resolution they whacked like a pinata to show how proudly retrograde they are.  In the wake of the Typhoon in Mozambique and other recent climate-fueled disasters, this was a pretty remarkable exercise in ignorance and tone-deafness. No, I don’t expect anything better from what Noam Chomsky has accurately described as the most dangerous organization in human history. The Republicans literally stand alone in the world as the only major party that rejects the science of climate change. Quite a distinction.

Not that there isn’t some value in such a spectacle. It certainly focuses the mind on how much work we have to do. My hope is that all of my leftist and progressive friends and colleagues fully understand just how difficult this climate fight will be. This is not just about developing and advocating for big ideas. We can only move this process forward by mounting an effective inside/outside strategy – organizing a large, broad mobilization out in the communities and electing the most progressive politicians we can possibly elect.  We need to do more than just win power, which will be hard enough. We have to hold and sustain power over the next decade and a half particularly, as that is pretty much all the time we have left to turn this ship around. That will take an enormous effort and, really, a new kind of politics that makes a material difference in the lives of ordinary people.

Note to rookie comedian Mike Lee: don't quit your day job.

How are we going to convince millions upon millions of Americans to go with this Green New Deal framework? Well, part of the challenge is that climate change is what may be called a genuinely hard problem. There’s the tendency to compare climate change to the Great Depression, but that’s kind of misleading. Yes, the Depression affected almost everyone in the country, but its worst effects could be mitigated by some money in your pocket. Massive collective effort in the 1930s had the potential to provide relief relatively rapidly – relief that would be felt by a large segment of society. Climate change is more complicated. We can’t tell people that, if you do this important work, the climate will be noticeably better – that’s just not likely. We’re asking people to save the world for future generations … and it’s just possible that our best efforts might not even accomplish that. So in addition to emphasizing that concern for future generations, we need to flesh out the “new deal” component of the plan … the part that will deliver some level of equity and prosperity to ordinary Americans.

Don’t get me wrong – I am 100% in favor of a Green New Deal. But let’s proceed with our eyes open. This won’t be a cake walk.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Standoff.

[Blogger’s Note: The shutdown ended a day after I wrote this. I’m posting it anyway because we’re likely to take this circus ride again sometime soon … and because I’m too damn lazy to write another post.]

There’s little light I can shed on the ridiculously long Trump government shutdown that hasn’t already been tossed around on the corporate media over the past 30-odd days (and they have been very odd indeed). I’ve got a handful of things to say about it, and here they are.

  1. This is an asymmetric battle. For the most part, the stuff being shut down is stuff the Republicans despise anyway and don’t mind seeing derailed or dismantled. This is just another avenue to the same ends they’ve been working towards since they came to power. They have nothing but contempt for government workers. They want to slash food stamps. They hate regulations and are glad to let corporate America run wild without even the nominal constraints that government imposes upon them. They pretend to care about securing the nation against attack, but their policies do the exact opposite. They simply don’t care if the country falls over backwards – arguably, that’s their core mission as a party.
  2. The Dems can’t back down. Seriously, if Donald Trump (aka President Drunk Uncle Twitter Troll) gets anything out of this shutdown, he will use this tactic again and again.  We know that’s the case … the man simply cannot be trusted to keep his word and he is incapable of telling the truth. We may as well have this out now … because if we don’t, it will just need to be dealt with later (and not much later).
  3. Labor may need to stop this. I don’t make a habit of telling working people what they should or should not do – they should do whatever works for them. But it occurs to me (and many others as well) that one way out of this impasse would be for the TSA and air traffic controllers to walk out. That would bring air travel and transport to a screeching halt, and my guess would be that the president would deflate like a punctured tire if that were to happen. Just saying – solidarity is an effective weapon.

What he looks like when he loses.High school standoff. Re this controversy about the standoff between Catholic anti-abortion protesters and Native Americans at the Lincoln Memorial this past weekend, I agree with Sam Seder that (1) young men can act like tremendous assholes when they gather in large numbers without proper supervision, and (2) where the hell were the supervising adults anyway, and how did they let this get so far out of hand? Despite all the hand wringing about misinterpreting the incident based on fragments of viral video, it’s obvious that these kids are mocking the Native Americans. I know that smirk anywhere. But I don’t blame them … just their minders, who shouldn’t be allowed to supervise children ever again.