I dont want to do the thing where one confuses cynicism with savvy and anti-war activists need to push where they can but it’s important to understand the exact manner Biden will absolutely 100% not end the Yemen war because his team of CNAS and CSIS liberal empire managers (1/6)
are already whiteboarding how to play this one in the liberal press and it will involve (1) pivoting from immediately cutting off support to backing a vague and unspecified “peace deal” with the Houthis. And like the bogus “peace process” in Israel this deal will never come (2/6)
because it’s a PR fig leaf while the bombing goes on as usual. It will also (2) include, as Obama did on his way out, cosmetic bans on certain weapons deemed indiscriminate to look like the Good Progressive war managers are Super Concerned with human rights. (3/6)
This is a PR gesture long favored by CSIS mercs who will no doubt run much of Biden’s messaging around FP. (3) the occasional dressing down on “human rights” without any real change in the relationship to satisfy the NYT set. All this will be buttressed by (4/6)
(4) the latest vogue argument used in Afghanistan and Syria to justify permawar; if the US isn’t there the Evil Chinese will be. Stories about S. Arabia pivoting to China will mysteriously emerge (as they have in the past year already) and the line will be (5/6)
“if we don’t sell the Saudis arms, China will and they won’t care about human rights at all”.
The only thing that’ll end this war is S. Arabia losing it. KSA is more toxic now than it was in 2016 but the basic outline of fucking w/ Iran by killing poor Yemenis cant change (6/6)
the word "grift" is thrown around a lot these days but Lincoln Project is truly a grift, and a quite cynical one. They exploit genuine fears of Trump and Trumpism to direct liberal donations away from actual campaigns and grassroots groups into their parasitic consultancy firms.
read this responses to their latest fundraising pitch targeted the Georgia senate seats, many from actual Georgia activists begging people not to give them more money to pad their consultancy firms but instead to local groups and candidates
the whole argument for Lincoln Project was it was a temporary alliance with anti-Trump Republicans to stop the unique threat of Trump. Trump is done now. So what are they to do next? Supposedly raise money to pivot to the Senate? But why? Aren't they Principled Republicans™?
Funny that in all these discussions about centrists disliking AOC no one entertains the possibility that an ex spook like Spanberger and ex-marine/ex-prosecutor Drug Warrior like Lamb may dislike leftists for ideological reasons and not pure electoral, good faith pragmatic ones
BREAKING: guy who built career off US military worship and putting people away for 15yrs for opioids may but not like person for who wants to cut military budget and defund the police. DOUBLE BREAKING: sometimes people mask ideological objections as apolitical Pragmatic Concerns
“The reason I, a cookie cutter white bread careerist blob creation of the carceral and military state with zero charisma or ties to progressive causes, can’t generate voter enthusiasm is clearly because of, uh, Black Lives Matter and the specter of socialism. Yeah that’s it!”
Dem leaders like Pelosi dragged their feet on immediate, real substantive aid while the economy was in free fall, routinely centered “small businesses ”, leaned on confusing UI (and barely took credit for it) and are now blaming BLM activists and “socialism” for tanking the House
Austerity obsessed Dem leadership bumbled around for weeks, never messaged the response clearly, pushed for a lockdown with minimal material support (but a heavy dose of scolding!) and offered zero universal solutions. Right out of the gate it was a mess-> jacobinmag.com/2020/03/corona…
There was never any urgency, universal programs offered, rent or mortgage freezes, no sense of the human stakes. Just preemptive concessions, “deficit” concerns and perfunctory Republican blaming. And it was clear in March this is how it would play out m.soundcloud.com/citationsneede…
Ok promise this is this last time I’ll point this out because it’s very trite at this point but Trump’s argument is literally the same the NYT and others said about Bolivia election fraud, namely the past about alleged discrepancy in the polling
We’ve had lots of A+ content this election cycle but at the 11th hour the absolute greatest thing ever produced emerges to take the crown as undisputed funniest thing of 2020
Incidentally is it just me or does what the “mark of the beast” involves change a lot over time. If I recall correctly at Hagee’s church in the mid-late 1990s it was going to be an international UN currency, now it’s a vaccine chip. Anyone have a spreadsheet going on this?
The way the bipartisan “foreign policy wonk” world builds up its own elaborate, totally fictitious, moral ecology that always presents the US as bumbling democracy-promoters is truly something. This Vox “explainer” video is just promotional collateral for weapons contractors
Don’t have time to do a complete breakdown because there’s so many lies, omissions and bullshit but off the top of my head
1. Totally ignores extortion racket NATO, LatAm “alliances” are based on 2. Totally ignores scores of informal (but very obviously real) dictator allies
3. Totally sanitizes and glosses over US aggression in the Middle East 4. Erases millions of Palestinians living in open air prisons 5. Ignores the 4-7 million dead Laotians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Koreans needed to create this “liberal world order”