How can Democrats and allied media outlets credibly oppose unhinged conspiracy theories and attacks on U.S. election legitimacy while empowering its worst purveyors?
Sure, the bad news is that she's a corporatist, a militarist, a liar, and a bully but the good news is, as The Washington Post fawns, that her "parents immigrated from India" and that she "would be the first woman of color to oversee the agency." In other words, all of the things that actually define who she is as an individual (like her choices and her character) may be bad, but all of the things which she has inherited and over which she has had no control (like where her parents are from) are good. This is where the idpol-neoliberal "non-aggression pact" gets us: Horrible people in power enacting the same horrible policies as before, but at least they have the politically correct skin color and sexual organs.
It's called "identity politics" and is all about NOT talking about policy and past history / behavior; people who vote based on identity imperil us all. Please convince everyone you know to NEVER vote via anyone's identity and ONLY based on their policies and past history.
The people that matter in terms of power are a class, the class of Owners. Members of the class, in the US, are overwhelmingly WASPish, but not exclusively and members of various tribes may join the class, if they Own enough. The role of the tribes is to work and consume for the Owners, and to focus their discontent and anger on the other tribes -- for the protection and further enrichment of the Owners.
"media outlets will lose whatever lingering credibility they have"
Legacy media have no credibility left. One thing I've noticed is that people who religiously read the New York Times are completely uninformed about many of the most crucial events of the day.
It's not that their readers have opinions on the events of the day that are merely aligned with the positions of the Times, rather it's that they do not even know about entire areas of the news because the Times has chosen to simply disappear stories that are inconvenient.
These are smart people, who consider themselves well informed, but objectively are not.
People don't buy "news" to be informed. Only liberals think they are objectively seeking information. People buy news that conforms to their beliefs and opinions. Since the Clintons, the liberal media have become a collective Pravda, and the NYT is the über-Pravda. Like the Irish Catholic clergy, who know all the news and weather of Rome, but nothing about Kilkenny, liberals only know what they need to know.
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, I used to tell people who were in the conservative echo chamber: it's not the lies you take in that hurt you, it's the things that you're not being told at all, facts that hurt the narrative that you want to hear. Now I see the same thing on the left. It's why people are leaving for Substance. Perfectly factual information is too controversial to be printed. NYT will eventually pass along a few things, like Nellie Bowles' stories, buried deep in the paper.
I like the unintentional word "Substance" and the general direction of your comment. Though of course substance can be found in many kinds of places, and we shouldn't blindly assume that people will usually move toward substance.
Also, I should have acknowledged that the marketers who called this site Substack wanted us to think of it in terms of "substance" (among several other things), and so it's worth questioning how much this really is a place for substance.
>>> ". . . rather it's that they do not even know about entire areas of the news because the Times has chosen to simply disappear stories that are inconvenient."
Share some examples that you believe are of consequence. Please be specific.
It's a bit hyperbolic to say that nyt is disappearing news stories all together, but many of their political articles leave out critical information. Take their story about the Tanden appointment, "Biden’s Economic Team Suggests Focus on Workers and Income Equality, " and compare the content to Greenwald's piece. In the case of the nyt story, there are so many facts left out that readers are hardly getting a truthful approximation of her character.
A great example would be a strike of 200 million in India that took place the last few days, the largest strike in human history in the second largest country (no mention), the 80 million people China has lifted out of poverty in the last few years, etc.
"You can’t run around expecting people will take you seriously when you warn of the dangers of toxic, moronic conspiracy theories when you yourself embrace, elevate and promote the most prolific and reckless purveyors of them."
Well THAT is obviously wrong. Witness the NY Times, The Bezos Post, CNN etc and their unhinged promotion of the Russia hoax without ever admitting that they produced reams of lies and misinformation for political reasons. They certainly expect people to still take them seriously and the ridiculous thing is that people still DO!
"If Joe Biden succeeds in empowering someone like Neera Tanden without extreme opposition from supposedly adversarial journalists, not only Democrats but also these media outlets will lose whatever lingering credibility they have to denounce conspiracy theories and to defend the legitimacy of U.S. elections."
I expect a fawning article praising Biden's choice of Tanden over at The Intercept any day now.
Corey Robin had a revealing interaction with Tanden back in 2016. His story about it reveals the true extent of the toxic trash that is Neera Tanden:
<blockquote>A few days ago, I had a strange experience. I got trolled—some might say gaslighted—by the person who many think will be Hillary Clinton’s White House Chief of Staff.
Her name is Neera Tanden. Tanden is the head of the Center for American Progress, the Democratic Party think tank that works closely with the Clintons.
[...]
Electronic Intifada had excerpted some clips from the Committee’s public deliberations about, among other issues, Israel-Palestine. The hearings had originally been broadcast on C-SPAN. I was struck by the force of West’s moral witness, and what I saw as Tanden’s visible impatience, which you can evaluate for yourself at the 4:40 mark on the Electronic Intifada video.
The next day, Tanden responded to me on Twitter.
[...]
Tanden makes three moves here.
First, she claims—twice—that she was simply not there during the Committee’s deliberations on Israel/Palestine. Not for “any” of those deliberations.
Second, she accuses me of lying.
Third, she asks that I correct my statement.
[...]
So let’s recap.
Tanden said she wasn’t there for “any discussion of Israel/Palestine.” That’s not true. She was.
Tanden claimed that I was lying. That’s not true. I wasn’t.
Tanden asked me to correct my tweet. But what was there to correct?
And never once does she say: Sorry. I was wrong. I was there. I apologize for claiming you were lying. Not even one sentence of that.
[...]
Why am I writing about something so stupid and small at 3 in the morning on a Friday night?
Three reasons.
First, notice the amateurishness.
This is the head of a major DC think tank who could well be Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff. What is she doing on a Tuesday morning firing off salvoes at a Brooklyn College professor about a matter of not terribly great importance—and getting it completely wrong?
[...]
…my second point.
Actually, it’s not mine. It’s Astra Taylor’s. Astra is a documentary filmmaker.
When someone commented on Facebook that they couldn’t understand why a powerful player in DC would be so obsessively monitoring her mentions on Twitter, particularly in response to a not terribly important person like me, Astra made a shrewd observation:
[...]
Never underestimate the narcissism—or amateurishness—of America’s ruling classes. While people like Tanden are in meetings with other important people, where God knows what or whose fate gets decided, they’re keeping their eye on their Twitter mentions, making sure no one’s looking at them cross-eyed, making sure they’re someone whom you don’t want to cross.
[...]
Now I can come, at last, to that, my third point.
So Neera Tanden jumped to fame in my little world exactly five weeks ago, when she and blogger Matt Bruenig crossed swords. (You can read all about the substance of that spat in the various links regarding the incident that I’ve scattered throughout this piece.) Within 24 hours, Matt was fired from his position as a blogger at Demos. Since then, we’ve not heard a word from Matt, save one piece he wrote for Jacobin. A prolific blogger and social media presence, whose voice was everywhere, all the time, particularly on Twitter, has gone silent.*
[...]
So I leave you with this question (and it really is a question): If Tanden can act this way in the face of verifiable evidence that’s plain as day, and there for everyone to see, when the stakes are so low, is it completely implausible that she would act in a roughly similar fashion when the evidence is not so publicly available and not so easily accessible and when the stakes are much higher? When she has an even stronger and more self-interested reason for covering her tracks?</blockquote>
Wow! That was quite a hit on Bernie Sanders for his lapdog performance as a Biden backer. Glen must have been saving that up for some time. Don't know if Bernie will roll over as Glenn suggests but Progressive office holders (I.e. The Squad) risk losing many within the movement if they don't start loudly criticizing and denouncing Biden"s appointees, like Tanden.
Just two different kinds of evil. But the progressive branch fits in neatly within the democrat web, if you haven't noticed. Democrats have been losing moderates for the elites and progressives for years. (They've made up the gap in votes by convincing many that Trump is evil, and to ignore their own harmful policies and do the moral thing: vote democrat)
>>"further fueling the destruction of confidence and faith among Democrats in the legitimacy of the vote totals"
The Democrats, to their credit, used this lesson to take a more pro-active approach to vote totals in 2020. If Ms. Tanden was responsible for teaching them not to rely on the totals produced by feckless voters or Russian hackers, she deserves to be rewarded.
Her proposal to take Libya's oil was copying an earlier statement by Mr. Trump that the United States should have taken Iraq's oil. This demonstrates her ability to build a bipartisan consensus on key foreign policy goals. Ideally, this goal should be announced in advance of the next war, not merely appended as an afterthought, once the opportunity has passed. (In reality, it won't have much effect, since international oil is priced in petrodollars, so for the cost of printing a few dollar bills, the US can take anybody's oil. However, it would help build public confidence in foreign wars, since all the talk about the United States wasting trillions of dollars on useless foreign wars has a depressing effect on morale).
I expect Ms. Tanden's appointment to breeze through the Senate confirmation process, as Mr. Biden can tell the Senators behind the scenes that if they reject her, he will pick Mr. Sanders.
The United States has a large government deficit. This deficit is sustainable because there is a large international demand for US dollars as the international reserve currency. Although oil trading in dollars is only a small percentage of total international dollar reserves, it is nonetheless critical because countries know their US dollar reserves can be exchanged for oil. The dollar is in effect an oil backed currency.
Saddam Hussein announced shortly before the Iraq war that Iraq would price its oil in Euros as well as dollars. Muammar Gaddafi announced shortly before the Libya war that Libya would price its oil in Gold Dinars. Nothing of those plans has been heard since. In fact, to now rebuild their broken economies, those countries need to recycle their petrodollars - so the system works. Countries that understand the petrodollar system (e.g. Saudi Arabia) know that to avoid being invaded, they need to start wars with neighboring countries (e.g. Yemen). These wars allow them to recycle petrodollars in a perfectly acceptable manner (by buying weapons) . In fact, it's the preferred alternative from the US point of view since preemptive wars, as previously noted, are costly.
So preemptive wars are not ideal, but sometimes they are necessary.
Don't worry about Tanden, and her lack of character. CNN tells us not to worry about anything regarding the Biden presidency. Why? "Joe Biden's broken foot reveals how different his White House will be from Donald Trump's" The article then goes on to say that Trump went to Walter Reed Medical Center, but the real reason for his visit or the outcome of that visit was never known. However, CNN says, "On Sunday, three days after Thanksgiving this year, President-elect Joe Biden slipped and hurt his foot while playing with his dog, Major." They reveal every aspect of his fractured foot that was revealed to the public, then ask, "Notice the Difference?" This is CNN's brilliant and logical conclusion: "Transparency in matters of health and, well, everything else, is fundamental to a functioning democracy. And we have had the opposite of that for these last four years." Ah, yes all will be well because Joe Biden is honest about his foot. See, nothing to be worried about.
The democratic party has been shifting right for many decades. During Bill Clinton's years in office he shifted the party much further right, and when almost out the door he passes NAFTA and overturned Glass Steagall. They haven't changed their trajectory ever since. The whole party side lines the progressives among them, so why wouldn't opportunistic, non-progressive Biden, pick Neera Tanden? I dislike Clinton, because of her love of war. In a John Pilger interview with Julian Assange, Assange called out Clinton's love of power as sick, so he felt sorry for her. He was being much too kind. Anyone who is such a staunch supporter of Clnton as Tanden is, no doubt adheres to the same political ideology, and has the same desire for power. The hypocrisy among too many democrats is nauseating. Remember Albright who said their was a place in hell for any woman who didn't vote for Clinton, yes the one who thought 500 thousand children dead from sanctions was worth it? That video clip of Clinton describing what marriage should be, a bond between a woman and man, sacred, yeah right, and that from a woman who has never been unwilling to morally prostitute herself for power or money if it advances her political career.
Just so everyone can have another look at, and easily share, what the party of unity and tolerance actually represents here's Obama's pet harpy Hillary Clinton cackling about the fate of Ghaddafi:
As a father with a draft-age daughter, I just can hardly wait to see who Comrade Biden and his merry band of sociopaths and war criminals decide to bomb next.
Oh, I've seen both clips and both are nauseating As a young girl I use to think when women obtained greater political power the world would be free from war, and diplomatic in it's dealings with other countries. Oh, and only to learn that women can be as vile as their power oriented male counterparts. Live and learn.
"As a young girl I use to think when women obtained greater political power the world would be free from war, and diplomatic in it's dealings with other countries."
A noble thought indeed.
There is one thing that will corrupt us all: men, women, black, brown and white.
And that thing is power.
Only when we no longer tolerate a ruling class having the power to control and live off the rest of us will be become truly civilized.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern."
How much does it take to realize virtually every bureaucrat and politician in all of government among every party is a in it for the power and position? How much does it take? This woman is just one in a near infinite list of actors that act as parasites on productive society. It doesn’t matter which party, it doesn’t matter which ideology they claim to represent. They are laughing at everyone. A new “young and exciting” charlatan comes along, and old worn out bag like this rears her head, they are all the same.
I can't think of a scenario in which 2022 isn't a significant shift to the GOP.
1) first midterm for a new president almost always shifts to the other party due largely to voters wanting counterbalance to the executive
2) this 2020 election was exceptional in that Biden didn't carry many votes down ticket, indicating that voters are already moving toward GOP strongly
3) no Trump stigma to make the GOP seem less worthy of votes to some
4) no pandemic and normal mail in voting
5) Trump almost won - despite his poor pandemic performance and the fact that 35% of voters hate him
6) Dems have yet to respond to what drove the election of Trump - globalization, immigration, and culture wars. They are still moving left on those issues with no signs of slowing. In other countries (Germany, Sweden come to mind), center-left parties moved to the right on immigration or lost power in recent years. We're headed back to border crises and other problems, Biden won't know how to handle these at all. Trump handled Mexico magnificently and Biden will undo all of that and invite a border crossing surge.
That's a mis-read; the vast majority of Americans are disgusted with BOTH parties.
It's more likely that 2022 will be the year of the Third Party insurgency - no sweep, to be sure, but making inroads like never before, and many more actual Progressives, too.
Sure, the bad news is that she's a corporatist, a militarist, a liar, and a bully but the good news is, as The Washington Post fawns, that her "parents immigrated from India" and that she "would be the first woman of color to oversee the agency." In other words, all of the things that actually define who she is as an individual (like her choices and her character) may be bad, but all of the things which she has inherited and over which she has had no control (like where her parents are from) are good. This is where the idpol-neoliberal "non-aggression pact" gets us: Horrible people in power enacting the same horrible policies as before, but at least they have the politically correct skin color and sexual organs.
It's called "identity politics" and is all about NOT talking about policy and past history / behavior; people who vote based on identity imperil us all. Please convince everyone you know to NEVER vote via anyone's identity and ONLY based on their policies and past history.
It's so strange to me how this regression from pluralism to tribalism is considered "progressive."
It's not. Only Neo-Liberals try and push that idea, not the actual Progressives among us.
It's actually 'tokenism.' There is only one tribe that matters in terms of power.
The people that matter in terms of power are a class, the class of Owners. Members of the class, in the US, are overwhelmingly WASPish, but not exclusively and members of various tribes may join the class, if they Own enough. The role of the tribes is to work and consume for the Owners, and to focus their discontent and anger on the other tribes -- for the protection and further enrichment of the Owners.
"media outlets will lose whatever lingering credibility they have"
Legacy media have no credibility left. One thing I've noticed is that people who religiously read the New York Times are completely uninformed about many of the most crucial events of the day.
It's not that their readers have opinions on the events of the day that are merely aligned with the positions of the Times, rather it's that they do not even know about entire areas of the news because the Times has chosen to simply disappear stories that are inconvenient.
These are smart people, who consider themselves well informed, but objectively are not.
People don't buy "news" to be informed. Only liberals think they are objectively seeking information. People buy news that conforms to their beliefs and opinions. Since the Clintons, the liberal media have become a collective Pravda, and the NYT is the über-Pravda. Like the Irish Catholic clergy, who know all the news and weather of Rome, but nothing about Kilkenny, liberals only know what they need to know.
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, I used to tell people who were in the conservative echo chamber: it's not the lies you take in that hurt you, it's the things that you're not being told at all, facts that hurt the narrative that you want to hear. Now I see the same thing on the left. It's why people are leaving for Substance. Perfectly factual information is too controversial to be printed. NYT will eventually pass along a few things, like Nellie Bowles' stories, buried deep in the paper.
I like the unintentional word "Substance" and the general direction of your comment. Though of course substance can be found in many kinds of places, and we shouldn't blindly assume that people will usually move toward substance.
Also, I should have acknowledged that the marketers who called this site Substack wanted us to think of it in terms of "substance" (among several other things), and so it's worth questioning how much this really is a place for substance.
>>> ". . . rather it's that they do not even know about entire areas of the news because the Times has chosen to simply disappear stories that are inconvenient."
Share some examples that you believe are of consequence. Please be specific.
It's a bit hyperbolic to say that nyt is disappearing news stories all together, but many of their political articles leave out critical information. Take their story about the Tanden appointment, "Biden’s Economic Team Suggests Focus on Workers and Income Equality, " and compare the content to Greenwald's piece. In the case of the nyt story, there are so many facts left out that readers are hardly getting a truthful approximation of her character.
A great example would be a strike of 200 million in India that took place the last few days, the largest strike in human history in the second largest country (no mention), the 80 million people China has lifted out of poverty in the last few years, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/world/asia/india-farmers-protest.html
Your second example is way too vague for a meaningful response.
I am really starting to love the Substack concept. Actual journalism!!!
"You can’t run around expecting people will take you seriously when you warn of the dangers of toxic, moronic conspiracy theories when you yourself embrace, elevate and promote the most prolific and reckless purveyors of them."
Well THAT is obviously wrong. Witness the NY Times, The Bezos Post, CNN etc and their unhinged promotion of the Russia hoax without ever admitting that they produced reams of lies and misinformation for political reasons. They certainly expect people to still take them seriously and the ridiculous thing is that people still DO!
"If Joe Biden succeeds in empowering someone like Neera Tanden without extreme opposition from supposedly adversarial journalists, not only Democrats but also these media outlets will lose whatever lingering credibility they have to denounce conspiracy theories and to defend the legitimacy of U.S. elections."
I expect a fawning article praising Biden's choice of Tanden over at The Intercept any day now.
Wait, what?
Are you actually saying that the Dems have done exactly what they accuse their enemies of doing?
The hell you say!
That would never happen.
Corey Robin had a revealing interaction with Tanden back in 2016. His story about it reveals the true extent of the toxic trash that is Neera Tanden:
<blockquote>A few days ago, I had a strange experience. I got trolled—some might say gaslighted—by the person who many think will be Hillary Clinton’s White House Chief of Staff.
Her name is Neera Tanden. Tanden is the head of the Center for American Progress, the Democratic Party think tank that works closely with the Clintons.
[...]
Electronic Intifada had excerpted some clips from the Committee’s public deliberations about, among other issues, Israel-Palestine. The hearings had originally been broadcast on C-SPAN. I was struck by the force of West’s moral witness, and what I saw as Tanden’s visible impatience, which you can evaluate for yourself at the 4:40 mark on the Electronic Intifada video.
The next day, Tanden responded to me on Twitter.
[...]
Tanden makes three moves here.
First, she claims—twice—that she was simply not there during the Committee’s deliberations on Israel/Palestine. Not for “any” of those deliberations.
Second, she accuses me of lying.
Third, she asks that I correct my statement.
[...]
So let’s recap.
Tanden said she wasn’t there for “any discussion of Israel/Palestine.” That’s not true. She was.
Tanden claimed that I was lying. That’s not true. I wasn’t.
Tanden asked me to correct my tweet. But what was there to correct?
And never once does she say: Sorry. I was wrong. I was there. I apologize for claiming you were lying. Not even one sentence of that.
[...]
Why am I writing about something so stupid and small at 3 in the morning on a Friday night?
Three reasons.
First, notice the amateurishness.
This is the head of a major DC think tank who could well be Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff. What is she doing on a Tuesday morning firing off salvoes at a Brooklyn College professor about a matter of not terribly great importance—and getting it completely wrong?
[...]
…my second point.
Actually, it’s not mine. It’s Astra Taylor’s. Astra is a documentary filmmaker.
When someone commented on Facebook that they couldn’t understand why a powerful player in DC would be so obsessively monitoring her mentions on Twitter, particularly in response to a not terribly important person like me, Astra made a shrewd observation:
[...]
Never underestimate the narcissism—or amateurishness—of America’s ruling classes. While people like Tanden are in meetings with other important people, where God knows what or whose fate gets decided, they’re keeping their eye on their Twitter mentions, making sure no one’s looking at them cross-eyed, making sure they’re someone whom you don’t want to cross.
[...]
Now I can come, at last, to that, my third point.
So Neera Tanden jumped to fame in my little world exactly five weeks ago, when she and blogger Matt Bruenig crossed swords. (You can read all about the substance of that spat in the various links regarding the incident that I’ve scattered throughout this piece.) Within 24 hours, Matt was fired from his position as a blogger at Demos. Since then, we’ve not heard a word from Matt, save one piece he wrote for Jacobin. A prolific blogger and social media presence, whose voice was everywhere, all the time, particularly on Twitter, has gone silent.*
[...]
So I leave you with this question (and it really is a question): If Tanden can act this way in the face of verifiable evidence that’s plain as day, and there for everyone to see, when the stakes are so low, is it completely implausible that she would act in a roughly similar fashion when the evidence is not so publicly available and not so easily accessible and when the stakes are much higher? When she has an even stronger and more self-interested reason for covering her tracks?</blockquote>
https://coreyrobin.com/2016/06/25/neera-and-me-two-theses-about-the-american-ruling-class-and-one-about-neera-tanden/
Wow! That was quite a hit on Bernie Sanders for his lapdog performance as a Biden backer. Glen must have been saving that up for some time. Don't know if Bernie will roll over as Glenn suggests but Progressive office holders (I.e. The Squad) risk losing many within the movement if they don't start loudly criticizing and denouncing Biden"s appointees, like Tanden.
Is that the same Bernie Sanders who pushed Biden so hard on Medicare-4-All?
Would that be the same Squad whose criticisms and denunciations were so influential in Biden’s cabinet picks?
Are those the same progressive office holders who got the Biden campaign to adopt progressive policies?
Will they be losing the same many who supported Biden in the general election because he supported their movement?
Those were important lessons for the DNC and Biden; by now they’ve clearly learned from them.
Just two different kinds of evil. But the progressive branch fits in neatly within the democrat web, if you haven't noticed. Democrats have been losing moderates for the elites and progressives for years. (They've made up the gap in votes by convincing many that Trump is evil, and to ignore their own harmful policies and do the moral thing: vote democrat)
>>"further fueling the destruction of confidence and faith among Democrats in the legitimacy of the vote totals"
The Democrats, to their credit, used this lesson to take a more pro-active approach to vote totals in 2020. If Ms. Tanden was responsible for teaching them not to rely on the totals produced by feckless voters or Russian hackers, she deserves to be rewarded.
Her proposal to take Libya's oil was copying an earlier statement by Mr. Trump that the United States should have taken Iraq's oil. This demonstrates her ability to build a bipartisan consensus on key foreign policy goals. Ideally, this goal should be announced in advance of the next war, not merely appended as an afterthought, once the opportunity has passed. (In reality, it won't have much effect, since international oil is priced in petrodollars, so for the cost of printing a few dollar bills, the US can take anybody's oil. However, it would help build public confidence in foreign wars, since all the talk about the United States wasting trillions of dollars on useless foreign wars has a depressing effect on morale).
I expect Ms. Tanden's appointment to breeze through the Senate confirmation process, as Mr. Biden can tell the Senators behind the scenes that if they reject her, he will pick Mr. Sanders.
"Pro-active approach to vote totals" ROFL. Just say "fraud".
nosuch- You are kidding right?
Building confidence in (preemptive) foreign wars like Iraq and Libya ... have you lost your mind?
You have to look at it from the US government's point of view.
Nosuch- I was not aware that our government has a static foreign policy position that supported preemption/ regime change?
I served in three wars under four presidents. The governments "point of view" is not a static thing.
We wasted trillions of dollars on preemptive warfare doctrine. Not every president supports what Gabarrd would describe as "regime change" wars.
Trump did not, for example.
"Preemptive" warfare is relatively new as doctrine. It is controversial. It should not be supported by any means, in my opinion.
I'll lay out the case for preemptive wars.
The United States has a large government deficit. This deficit is sustainable because there is a large international demand for US dollars as the international reserve currency. Although oil trading in dollars is only a small percentage of total international dollar reserves, it is nonetheless critical because countries know their US dollar reserves can be exchanged for oil. The dollar is in effect an oil backed currency.
Saddam Hussein announced shortly before the Iraq war that Iraq would price its oil in Euros as well as dollars. Muammar Gaddafi announced shortly before the Libya war that Libya would price its oil in Gold Dinars. Nothing of those plans has been heard since. In fact, to now rebuild their broken economies, those countries need to recycle their petrodollars - so the system works. Countries that understand the petrodollar system (e.g. Saudi Arabia) know that to avoid being invaded, they need to start wars with neighboring countries (e.g. Yemen). These wars allow them to recycle petrodollars in a perfectly acceptable manner (by buying weapons) . In fact, it's the preferred alternative from the US point of view since preemptive wars, as previously noted, are costly.
So preemptive wars are not ideal, but sometimes they are necessary.
necessary for the a-holes running this system, that is.
Don't worry about Tanden, and her lack of character. CNN tells us not to worry about anything regarding the Biden presidency. Why? "Joe Biden's broken foot reveals how different his White House will be from Donald Trump's" The article then goes on to say that Trump went to Walter Reed Medical Center, but the real reason for his visit or the outcome of that visit was never known. However, CNN says, "On Sunday, three days after Thanksgiving this year, President-elect Joe Biden slipped and hurt his foot while playing with his dog, Major." They reveal every aspect of his fractured foot that was revealed to the public, then ask, "Notice the Difference?" This is CNN's brilliant and logical conclusion: "Transparency in matters of health and, well, everything else, is fundamental to a functioning democracy. And we have had the opposite of that for these last four years." Ah, yes all will be well because Joe Biden is honest about his foot. See, nothing to be worried about.
the "foot test" is a valuable political calculus
The democratic party has been shifting right for many decades. During Bill Clinton's years in office he shifted the party much further right, and when almost out the door he passes NAFTA and overturned Glass Steagall. They haven't changed their trajectory ever since. The whole party side lines the progressives among them, so why wouldn't opportunistic, non-progressive Biden, pick Neera Tanden? I dislike Clinton, because of her love of war. In a John Pilger interview with Julian Assange, Assange called out Clinton's love of power as sick, so he felt sorry for her. He was being much too kind. Anyone who is such a staunch supporter of Clnton as Tanden is, no doubt adheres to the same political ideology, and has the same desire for power. The hypocrisy among too many democrats is nauseating. Remember Albright who said their was a place in hell for any woman who didn't vote for Clinton, yes the one who thought 500 thousand children dead from sanctions was worth it? That video clip of Clinton describing what marriage should be, a bond between a woman and man, sacred, yeah right, and that from a woman who has never been unwilling to morally prostitute herself for power or money if it advances her political career.
Just so everyone can have another look at, and easily share, what the party of unity and tolerance actually represents here's Obama's pet harpy Hillary Clinton cackling about the fate of Ghaddafi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y
And here is Bill Clinton's pet harpy Albright on the 500K children she helped slaughter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4
As a father with a draft-age daughter, I just can hardly wait to see who Comrade Biden and his merry band of sociopaths and war criminals decide to bomb next.
Oh, I've seen both clips and both are nauseating As a young girl I use to think when women obtained greater political power the world would be free from war, and diplomatic in it's dealings with other countries. Oh, and only to learn that women can be as vile as their power oriented male counterparts. Live and learn.
"As a young girl I use to think when women obtained greater political power the world would be free from war, and diplomatic in it's dealings with other countries."
A noble thought indeed.
There is one thing that will corrupt us all: men, women, black, brown and white.
And that thing is power.
Only when we no longer tolerate a ruling class having the power to control and live off the rest of us will be become truly civilized.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern."
~ Lord Acton
How does that Who tune go?
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
How much does it take to realize virtually every bureaucrat and politician in all of government among every party is a in it for the power and position? How much does it take? This woman is just one in a near infinite list of actors that act as parasites on productive society. It doesn’t matter which party, it doesn’t matter which ideology they claim to represent. They are laughing at everyone. A new “young and exciting” charlatan comes along, and old worn out bag like this rears her head, they are all the same.
Bloomberg reporters suggest her nomination is DOA.
We came, we saw, her nomination died.
Her nomination says more about Biden than it does about this disgusting individual.
Biden and his people think of Tandon as a progressive. If they keep at it, 2022 may well be a Dem washout.
Meanwhile, Neera herself has moved on from being a fake progressive to fake liberal.
https://twitter.com/queeralamode/status/1333465105556672512?s=20
I can't think of a scenario in which 2022 isn't a significant shift to the GOP.
1) first midterm for a new president almost always shifts to the other party due largely to voters wanting counterbalance to the executive
2) this 2020 election was exceptional in that Biden didn't carry many votes down ticket, indicating that voters are already moving toward GOP strongly
3) no Trump stigma to make the GOP seem less worthy of votes to some
4) no pandemic and normal mail in voting
5) Trump almost won - despite his poor pandemic performance and the fact that 35% of voters hate him
6) Dems have yet to respond to what drove the election of Trump - globalization, immigration, and culture wars. They are still moving left on those issues with no signs of slowing. In other countries (Germany, Sweden come to mind), center-left parties moved to the right on immigration or lost power in recent years. We're headed back to border crises and other problems, Biden won't know how to handle these at all. Trump handled Mexico magnificently and Biden will undo all of that and invite a border crossing surge.
That's a mis-read; the vast majority of Americans are disgusted with BOTH parties.
It's more likely that 2022 will be the year of the Third Party insurgency - no sweep, to be sure, but making inroads like never before, and many more actual Progressives, too.