Will impeaching Trump change anything? I don't think so.
I wouldn't be surprised to see pockets of violence as well as protests or mobs that inevitably get out of hand. 1/
The idea that electing Biden would put even a pause to the tensions in this country seriously underestimates how many problems people like Biden help create.
Which doesn't mean Trump winning would be better, just that we've created conditions that produce only bad options. 2/
That's something technocratic liberals don't understand (or pretend not to). They think you can "fix" these problems with quick laws & censorship. You can't.
There WERE terrorists in the Middle East & doing nothing would lead to innocent deaths.
But invading was far worse. 3/
There ARE white supremacist yahoos in America and not censoring them or refusing to expand surveillance powers will lead to some tragedy.
But censorship & civil liberties violations will be far worse.
4/
REAL solutions involve long-term, sustained efforts divorced from existing systems of power that recognize these problems will dissipate slowly, over time, and produce far better results if we don't indulge in reactionary thinking & fear-driven politics.
5/
Reactionary thinking reaffirms existing power centers that gave us Trump. The coalition of Neoliberals & NeverTrumpers united with The Left over their fears of a "fascist" threat only serves to justify the systems already responsible for mass violence & despair.
Repudiate it.
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Yang ran for president on cutting 20% of the federal workforce. His housing plan encouraged the private development of micro-apartments. His non-profit united elite college graduates with billionaires to create jobs. It failed.
And to "progressives" who think Yang is some populist outsider: He took a job on CNN & endorsed Biden. He's a Neoliberal opportunist who pretends to stand for whatever will whip up a crowd and commits to nothing except the advancement of his own career.
New York deserves better.
Lol, Yang wants to reinstate the SALT deduction, which disproportionately benefits affluent homeowners.
There you go. He'll drone on about "a people's economy" but he's aiming his pitch right at gentrifiers.
Power's "humane & principled engagement":
-Hawking for regime change in Libya
-Arming al-Qaeda in Syria & demanding an invasion
-Explicitly demanding striking Syria *without* Congressional approval
-Supporting arming the Saudis in the Yemeni genocide
-Supporting NATO expansion
Power supports deploying troops to every corner of the world to solve every perceived problem. The results of regime change & the ethics behind invading sovereign states hasn't changed her mind.
USAID is an arm of U.S. Intelligence. Her "humanitarian" rhetoric is a bleak con.
Take note of those who praise this nomination or Samantha Power in general. They're telling you exactly what they believe & it's not laudable.
Not only does this not even come close to shrinking the racial wealth gap (which, uh...is not something Booker & Pressley should be casually lying about) but the plan itself is means tested & won't activate itself for another 18 years. 1/
And the fact that it only benefits strivers in a position to buy homes or go to college means it will disproportionately benefit the budding professional class. If you get a working class job & just need help paying your bills, what? Are you SOL?
The Cult of Higher Education & Entrepreneurship is an under-remarked upon strain of Neoliberalism. It ignores that there are only so many professional & entrepreneurial jobs available at any given time.
What's paramount is creating better conditions in *working class* jobs. 3/
This short documentary on Afghanistan from @AbbyMartin & @EmpireFiles is one of the best foreign policy works out there. Please share widely; The Iraq invasion is largely regarded as a disaster but Afghanistan remains misunderstood in far too many corners:
Propaganda pieces like CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR portrayed U.S. support for the Mujahideen as worthwhile aid to "freedom fighters" undermined only by our abandoning them with time.
The Mujahideen were repressive extremists & we aided them strictly to undermine the Soviet Union.
Aaron Sorkin's script was praised by Reagan-era officials for showing how America defeated the Soviets. Left unsaid: the Soviets were on the side of the existing government committed to literacy programs & ending forced child marriages.
Daniel Bessner's point about liberalism being a greater threat to democracy than the far-right is about power & hegemony.
Since the affluent media class is a beneficiary of this liberalism, they see any repudiation of it, left & right, as the real danger to democracy.
This dynamic is why Anne Applebaum decries "Populism," lumping together left & right versions of it because she assumes both threaten the technocratic liberalism that elevates her even as she represents Elite interests & advances destructive foreign policy.
Neocons are liberals. Dubya, Bill Kristol, David Frum. We miss this reality because we associate "liberalism" with the Democratic Party. But liberalism's about free trade, global capital flows, Imperial foreign policy, expanding International institutions & corporations...
Joe Biden will (try to?) raise taxes & spend on certain jobs & infrastructure programs. If his bills or Executive Orders pass, the PR will be very good, people will praise the transition from "Trumpism" and much of it will have a "Green" sheen.
And inequality will keep growing.
Keep your eye on concrete realities, not the spin generated by the Neoliberal administration or the media that serves power. Biden's fiscal plans will *slow* growing inequality, not reverse it. And his spending will include a lot of federal subsidies to investors.
U.S. businesses are leveraged heavily with debt and floated by venture capital & private equity firms trying to get federal subsidies to back their investment.
They're moving huge sums of money into "green" companies because they know it's a target for liberal deficit spending.