US President Joe Biden gives remarks on providing additional support to Ukraine’s war efforts against Russia. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty)
"But he, the author failed to take notice, that like the disagreement between two rival factions of Japanese fascists, where one wanted to wage war more aggressively against China, the other prioritized war elsewhere, so does our “radical right” (Names? Gaetz, Hawley, Trump, and all the other Republicans who voted against increasing aid to Ukraine, when in virtually every case, if not all, it was to demand more resources/money for their prioritization of the War on China, and always Iran, on which issue the the Republicans are like a tick, stuck to Israel’s “radical right,” with no distance between the two. Especially the “radical right!"
On May 6, 2023, at 2:10 PM, Todd Pierce <todd.e.pierce@icloud.com> wrote:Excellent article, and right on point for recognizing there is a “Bipartisan War Party. But it contains two, for lack of a better word, deficiencies, with neither detracting from the outstanding quality of the article. One is this: "and the AK-47 as a sacred civilian icon.”Anyone here who has read my emails and seen the Republican so-called “Christmas cards” I’ve shared for what amounts to their worship in the “Church of the AR-15,” that Republicans worship at, and produce and share “Christmas-like manger scenes,” of their families gathered around posed like a Marine Corps Spec-Ops Rifle Squad, with the AR-15 held in the the same kind of reverence, if not more, than the “Baby Jesus” once did in such scenes, would have immediately spotted it's the "AR-15” which is the “sacred civilian icon” of the USA. With the lowered cost of the AR-15s, even a relatively poor, “good right-winger,” or mass-murderer, doesn’t need to lower him or herself to intimidating people with an AK-47. And it’s the AR-15 which Republican are working to have recognized as our National Gun, so worshipful of it are they:Ignore the exaggerated effects of the rifle's original, and most common cartridge, the .223 caliber, or 5.56 mm NATO. In fact, until only recently, in most states, it was illegal to use for deer hunting as it was "under-powered” for deer. But not for human beings, and especially not for killing “undersized humans," like children! Which it still is in general, for deer, without going into the technical details of that. But due to the militarization of hunters and hunting, and their demand to use their AR-15s for deer hunting, and industry pressure, it is increasingly being used for what is our national pastime, the wholesale slaughter of human being, first by our government going back to Vietnam, which was quickly adopted by the “private sector,” individuals. But that war wasn’t so popular as US wars are today, so it didn’t define “cool” as much as our current wars do today, like how the Sandy Hook murderer did. Of which Alex Jones mocked the grief of the victims and their families by calling it a hoax! Which by the definition of “justice” of Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt, would have called for him to, ah, I won’t go there. . . .What its appeal is for mass murderers is what made it illegal in the past for deer hunting. It being relatively under-powered compared to “traditional” hunting rifles, and the system the AR-15 is built on to cycle the cartridges after firing, means it is the easiest rifle to rapid-fire, even though not an “automatic” rifle, but "semi-automatic.” With virtually no recoil, a "string of fire” can be laid down without the need to re-aim after each round, allowing the mass killer to “clear a school classroom,” just like the Sandy Hook shooter did, with his AR-15 (theBushmaster XM-15 model, if you’re curious, for any "Conservatives,” especially “libertarians, “ who seem especially attracted to AR-15”s standing in front of a “Capital” building, attempting to intimidate legislators, or in readiness for another, and more competent, coup attempt).
Here’s the Firearms Industry’s spokespeople on the rechristening of the AR-15, to deceive people that it is merely for “sporting purposes.”Other than that, he’s exactly on point with the rest of that sentence, which is that the "new Cold War will further feed the militarism that has pervaded our political culture with increased government surveillance, weapons of war for local police departments, and the AR-15 (as corrected) as a sacred civilian icon."But the other “deficiency” is it doesn’t “explain why” the US has so readily succumbed to this “militarism.”Coincidentally, I basically answered that in an email I’d sent to another group this morning, which with a little “self-censorship,” to “protect the guilty,” and not to offend someone sufficient to have the author of a book called in to give a different meaning to the “plain meaning” of his own text, here is what I’d written, which I will edit more closely, and build on a bit, and publish on some some internet site which gets little or no traffic. But will just to escape culpability for this “War,” as I bear from my time as a “Conservative” in the 1980s. Had I known better then what “our” true nature was, I would have been far less hawkish, if not a peace activist. But I was connected to the Army and came to believe their lies. Knowing better the “political theory” of these Traditional Conservatives who founded the Conservative Movement, and begat the Neoconservatives, who exerted an undue influence upon the military, I wouldn’t have succumbed to so many lies of people I knew, academically, militarily, and those I met who were CIA’s academic contractors. But only Allen Bloom opened the door to “political theory” then, and his was Leo Strauss’s fascism, with a “human face,” with no one to explain what it was, as I do now.One last point as a “deficiency” is this sentence: "The main opposition to Biden’s Ukraine policy is from the radical right and will disappear if the GOP wins in 2024.”Absolutely true, as will demands for even greater military spending, with perhaps promises from Trump and DeSantis that however much the Democrats and Biden increase “defense” spending, they will increase it even more, though maybe not the $100 billion in perpetuity we got shafted with by Trump and the Republicans, with some support by Democrats. . . . and Ron Paul libertarians/Republicans, with one memorably saying “at least he cut taxes.” :-(Begin here:As some people here know, I spend much of my time studying “political theory,” à la Hannah Arendt, who understood that to understand political “actors,” and phenomena, one has to understand the “theory” which underlies their thought, and therefore, their “worldview,” manifested in their “acts.” My interest is in understanding, and explaining, the post-WW II militarist ideology of what Eisenhower identified as the “Military Industrial Complex" (which he contributed to so much) on his way out of office.Which necessitates knowing the history of the ideology which three very “hard-line,” "anti-containment,” extreme "pro-roll back," CIA officers developed as what they called “Conservatism.” With that being more “fashionable” in the early 1950s, than using their theory’s "true name,” fascism (no, not Nazism, generic “fascism,” of the kind we see in U.S. Perpetual War, and all around the world in so many of the countries we support).All three of whom were involved in massively large CIA “influence operations” in Europe and Latin America and all supporters of Joe McCarthy. Meaning all three were extremely unhappy with Eisenhower and his “moderate” foreign policy. So they would commence a “private” (with some other similar minded “intelligence” connected people, like Bill Casey, the future CIA Director) “Influence Operation” to change the “Climate of Opinion” of the U.S. population in a more militaristic, pro-Military Industrial Complex, direction. Just as they had done for the CIA, which they only left (?) months before the first edition of what was intended as the continuation of their “Political Warfare Operation” was published.With their media platform founded as N****** R***** magazine, and a political movement which coagulated as what they called “Conservatism,” using ideas of the most extreme right-wing “political theorists.” Meaning themselves and like minded ideologues, while excluding any “moderation” from other self-identified “Conservatives,” who were “read out of the program" and denounced as “Liberals.” The usual “epithet” applied to anyone “left” of their own extreme “Right” position, after McCarthy’s routine charge of “Communist” had fallen into some disfavor. Which this “New Conservative” Movement” and their “theorists,” had also been the creators of as McCarthy’s underlying “political theorists.”Even if McCarthy, just as Trump, didn’t “think” at that high of a level. Today, Trump, and DeSantis even more, as he is capable of thinking at a higher, though equally or more perniciously, higher level, have their ideological "think tanks” in the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College principally, and that is where to look to see and understand where they are coming from, and where they are going to. These two “institutions” basically call for naked aggression against China, Iran, and Russia, in pretty much that order of priority (and not surprisingly, have an extensive “network” leading back to Netanyahu and the current call by the Israeli Radical-right (fascists, as they’re correctly called in Israel) for “Judicial Reform. Also a goal of U.S. Conservatives, who work with Israel’s.But Democrat Party Militarists have fully embraced this same militarist ideology, though appealing for war with their message of “humanitarian wars.” But equally designed to promote US Wars of Aggression, or what we, the USG, calls "Perpetual War.” Going along with that makes us morally culpable for the wars as well, even while we might deny it. Just as Israelis who may oppose Netanyahu, but don’t object to Israel’s “Perpetual War,” against the Palestinians, and Iran, et al, are also morally culpable for Israel’s serial war crimes.So there is a "moral obligation” to put humanity before party. We’re in a 1968 moment! I honestly don’t think Biden can beat DeSantis, not least of all because DeSantis will present himself as the kind of man we need as a “Wartime President.” I honestly think Bernie Sanders could have beat Trump also, or at least had more of a chance than Clinton, without going into her tawdry, corrupt history which the NYT “outed” in a couple articles just before the 2016 election (so blame them for her defeat, rather than the Russians? And the Israeli “private” intell firms which waged an “influence operation” against her, and the American public on behalf of Trump, as widely reported in Israel?).But neither of them “opened the door” for escalating war against Iran, China, and Russia, all of which Trump escalated, notwithstanding denunciatory claims by “Never-Trumpers” that he was “ending our wars,” and by gleeful, so-called “non-Interventionist” Conservatives, that Trump was "ending our wars.” With both feeding each other’s false propaganda, as Trump escalated our wars in every “U.S. war theatre” in the world!Barry Goldwater immediately identified with this hyper-militaristic “New Conservative” movement, and they, through National Review magazine, would promote him and his ideology ever-after. But as a more developed ideology which was actually written for him in his ghost-written books by Buckley brother-in-law and National Review editor, Brent Bozell. A “joke” they shared amongst fellow NR editors, per Buckley.This development of an “American Conservative Ideology” was under the direction of Bxxx Bxxxxxx, Jxxxx Bxxxxxx, and Wxxxxxxx Kxxxxxxl, three of the most “Radical-Right” individuals in our history, with the latter two being attributed “credit” for Trumpism currently! This effort was so successful, and in Congress, Goldwater was so influential, and well connected, that his friend, and fellow ideologist, Democrat Scoop Jackson, would imbibe this ideology, and his name would be attached to the right-wing, militarist Democrats, Which by the 1990s, included Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden, with the latter serving under Goldwater on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), which Goldwater pretty much ran as his personal fiefdom, as seen during Iran Contra. When he did everything possible to subvert the investigation. With only Patrick Moynihan objecting, not Biden, With 9/11 making extreme militarism virtually demanded by the US population, and necessary for electoral success throughout most of the country, one can correctly say: "We’re all Goldwaterites now!”As evident in the true “Origins,” as Arendt would put it as necessary to understand political phenomena, of the "U.S. War on Russia.” Which is merely the “Western Front” of the Global War against all of Russia, China, and Iran, and their smaller allies in the world such as Venezuela and Cuba. All of whom know they’re “targeted” by the U.S., just as we target with drone strikes various individuals, with China the “Eastern Front.” And with war against China well-along as well as the war against Russia, but China still in “Phase Zero,” if not higher. That phase of “war” is understood by the U.S. to include “Cognitive” or “Information” Warfare (Psychological Warfare, PsyOps), Economic Warfare (sanctions, the equivalent of “blockades," which are considered an act of war), and other acts of war routinely conducted by the U.S. by the Navy in the Pacific, and by “Space Force,” in “Space.” A genuinely, truly aggressive, U.S. war against all of them which is destroying the U.S. faster than our goal of destroying them!With whatever “opposition” there is in Congress against the “Ukraine Campaign,” by a few Republicans, is only, upon the most cursory examination, because they prioritize “War on China,” the Eastern Front, higher than they do the Western Front, Russia, for now. Knowing that with a defeated China, the War on Russia is merely an inevitable, “mopping up operation.” Which is no more an “antiwar” position than were those Germans who argued for war against Russia first, and then war against Britain and France, or vice versa. Or the Japanese who all agreed on war against China and the other Asian countries, but were undecided of whether to go “north” first, or “south,” and “compromised” by doing both, with an attempt to “knock the US out" first, as necessary to control the Pacific region. Just as we’re working at now, though it is “US vs. Them,” this time, with Them being both Russia and China, as Russia too is in East Asia, the Eastern Front.That’s the sole “debate” in U.S. politics today. Which is my long way of saying I completely agree with Sxxx and Axxxx. And would add, that it’s the “U.S. Perpetual War” which makes it possible for the Republicans to win elections in this century, as they present themselves as the “stronger” party, necessary to “defend us from our enemies,” which one hears constantly on Fox News and other right-wing platforms. Which is bolstered by Biden’s and the Democrat’s constant “fearmongering” of Russia, as the “Enemy.” With the Democrats foolishly playing “catch-up,” but with the Republicans always demanding more money for “defense,” so they always look “stronger.” With the Democrats trying to match that, but “handicapped” by a constituency that also wants basic government services. Unlike the Republicans who can more readily be rallied for “Total War,” while satisfying their “libertarian” audience with cuts to basic services, and tax cuts for Oligarchs, the main beneficiary of how they’re always structured.And with “War,” those argument always prevail, as we saw in 2016. And if Trump hadn’t shown himself as such a disreputable person, he would have won in 2020, as DeSantis will in 2024, I am guessing, as someone even worse than Trump, but more “presentable” to a disparate audience. So the Democrats are playing a self-defeating, losing game, besides, while simultaneously contributing to the “Climate of Opinion” so favorable to U.S. military aggression and imperialism, and the Military Industrial Complex, as originally intended back in the 1950s, by those CIA officers who originated the actual ideology of the MIC. Its operative "political theory,” now fully bi-partisan, actually originating as Carl Schmitt’s “fascist theory,” as his “Friend/Enemy Distinction,” as imported to an already prepped and eager U.S., military and militarist audience to put their military aggressive designs into a “theory” they could rally Americans to. Which they accomplished: Mission Accomplished!P.S. Of course there is more to this brief history, but with long-standing historical research, with that accelerated as a Guantanamo defense attorney, both for the cases I was on, but also to try and understand why and how the US could so quickly turn into a “fascist-acting” country with 9/11, I continued study of Hannah Arendt for a M.A. received in 2018. And researched this subject continuously, to include going though papers at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, KS, and the Goldwater Archive at Arizona Stare University. For which, if I were to write a book, I would entitle it “The Origins of American Fascism.”A long way of saying that political decisions as discussed below, shouldn’t be decided on the basis that “we should’t support Eugene McCarthy because Nixon might win.” We know how that turned out. And who knows what might have happened had Robert Kennedy, Sr. not been assassinated, after Johnson withdrew?EndOn May 6, 2023, at 9:41 AM, Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:--The NationWe Must Challenge the Bipartisan War Party
Biden’s four-front global crusade against perceived enemies threatens our future.
Two years ago, Joe Biden’s agenda signaled that the Democratic Party wing of our governing class was finally ready to face the long-accumulating economic, political, and social crises facing the country. It was never going to be easy. The costs of transition to a secure and prosperous future are enormous—and it is a task of decades.
In his first year in office, Biden took some important steps: investments in infrastructure, technology, clean energy, social programs, and workforce diversity. He withdrew us from the quagmire in Afghanistan, forswore regime change, and promised a foreign policy for the middle class. A year later, we Americans can kiss tomorrow goodbye.
With bipartisan support from establishment politicians, plutocrats, and pundits, Biden has now committed us to a four-front global crusade against Russia, China, Iran, and a continually shifting terrorist hit list.
None of these “enemies” threaten the survival or well-being of Americans. And the record of the United States in coddling dictators and torturers, violating international law, and invading other countries mocks the claim that we are fighting for universal human values.
The core conflict in each theater of war is over the United States’ control of other nations’ geographic alliances. US armed forces are present in 750 bases in 80 countries. Analysts on both the left and the right concluded long ago that this “superb” military is bloated, inefficient, and overpriced. The war machine budget just for 2024 is $842 billion. Add the money for homeland security, the State Department, and the proposed budget for veterans’ benefits, and you reach a national security tab of over $1.3 trillion. Lots of money for a military that hasn’t won a serious war since 1945.
And at little political price. By abolishing the draft in 1973, Richard Nixon virtually wiped out the anti-war movement. A decade later, Ronald Reagan showed politicians how they could borrow money from the rest of the world to finance the military, muffle domestic discontent, and cut taxes while still calling themselves “fiscal conservatives.” Because the dollars we print were in demand as the world’s reserve currency, we wouldn’t have to pay them back.
So long as these forever wars were limited to distant places most Americans couldn’t find on a map, and Pentagon contracts were deftly allocated among congressional districts, it was all politically manageable. Protected by distance and dollars, Americans could root for Team America on their infotainment channels. Insulated from their constituents, politicians could play and profit from the “great game” of global geopolitics.
But this new Cold War is rapidly raising the stakes. The adversaries are formidable, and the conflicts will be much harder to exit.
We have already reached the limits of our productive capacity supplying weapons to Ukraine. Ukraine has used up a 13-year supply of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and a five-year supply of Javelin anti-tank missiles. The US produces 14,000 155-mm artillery shells a month; Ukraine burns through that much in two days. Neither we nor our NATO allies can deliver what Ukraine needs for the “victory” we are promising it.
At the same time, Washington is openly preparing for a war with China over Taiwan. War game simulations have shown that we would run out of long-range naval missiles a week after the shooting started. The Air Force is short 1,650 pilots; the Navy says it needs several hundred new warships; and the Army plans to reduce its troop count by 10,000 because it can’t get enough recruits. Biden has pledged to make Taiwan a “porcupine” of missiles aimed at China. Yet we have a $19 billion backlog in weapons previously promised to Taipei.
The long-term, cost-plus contracts are cascading out of the Pentagon in a corporate feeding frenzy. The defense sector is bidding up the price of technical talent and essential components. One casualty will be Biden’s CHIPS Act, meant to increase our competitiveness by subsidizing the semiconductor industry. He is locking the military-industrial complex into a booming market whose principal customer doesn’t care much about the price. The new cutting-edge technologies will inevitably go into supersecret weapons, not competitive products for commercial markets.
Not to worry, say the pundits: The US can afford it all. The national security budget is only 3 to 5 percent of our GDP. Even if it doubles, so what? But abstract accounting is not the right measure of whether we have enough financial and political capital for both war and the metastasizing problems at home.
As he escalated the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson also assured us that we could have “guns and butter.” Later, a broken and bitter Johnson told his biographer that “that bitch of a war” had killed the Great Society.
Today, our 15 percent share of global GDP is slightly less than China’s. Two-thirds of the world’s countries trade more with China than with the US. We run chronic trade and fiscal deficits. The dollar still dominates but has slipped from 70 to 60 percent of global reserves in the past 20 years. And our aggressive confiscation of a growing list of foreigners’ assets is making investors nervous.
Our political capital has shrunk even more. The share of Americans who trust that their government will mostly do the right thing fell from almost 80 percent in the early 1960s to 20 percent today. And the once conservative Republican Party has become a wrecking ball of nihilism. Reflecting this, the president’s latest budget proposal is visionless and defensive: cutting the federal deficit while asking to protect—not expand—domestic programs with a dead-on-arrival tax increase on the rich.
Biden opened his global crusade against Russia by promising the world that Americans would sacrifice for others: “America stands up to bullies…. This is who we are.” Rather, this is who we say we are. Public support for our Ukraine adventure seems to be following the pattern of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan: an initial rush of jingoistic flag-waving and outrage at the enemy, then second thoughts. Support for sending weapons to Ukraine declined from 60 percent last May to 48 percent in January. A majority oppose sending troops—some of whom are already there as “inspectors.”
The new Cold War will further feed the militarism that has pervaded our political culture with increased government surveillance, weapons of war for local police departments, and the AK-47 as a sacred civilian icon. In a 2021 poll, 40 percent of Americans said they would accept a military coup. Charges that war skeptics are disloyal have begun to permeate the mainstream media; a whiff of McCarthyism is in the air.
The main opposition to Biden’s Ukraine policy is from the radical right and will disappear if the GOP wins in 2024. Left Democrats talk wistfully of “diplomacy.” But since Biden is currently their only prospect for 2024, Democrats who disagree with him have shut up.
If their agenda has any chance of being revived, progressives will have to build on the public’s “second thoughts,” challenging the bipartisan war party over where America is headed.
The dogs of war may be unleashed “over there,” but they will feed here at home. And devour our future.Jeff FauxJeff Faux was the founding president of the Economic Policy Institute. His books include The Servant Economy.
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