Amerikan War, Inc.™ satire doesn’t get any better that this

Submitted by wendy davis on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 10:35am

‘Biden Will Have The Most Diverse, Intersectional Cabinet Of Mass Murderers Ever Assembled’, Nov. 9, 2020, Caitlyn Johnstone, substack.com (CC)

“Well you’ll be happy to know that the next US president and his crack team of ventriloquists are assembling a cabinet of mass murderers that’s as diverse, inclusive and intersectional as America herself.

It’s been obvious for a long time that Joe Biden’s cabinet would be packed with Obama holdovers, war pigs and whatever primary opponents he owes favors to, but now that he is the media-anointed winner of the presidential election we’re getting a bit more confirmation on who they’re expected to be.

A new Politico report informs us that the heavy favorite to lead the US war machine into further imperial conquest as Secretary of “Defense” is a butcher of the fairer sex named Michele Flournoy, who was Obama’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2009 to 2012.

In an article titled “Biden: A War Cabinet?“, Antiwar‘s Mariamne Everett writes the following:

‘Flournoy, in writing the Quadrennial Defense Review during her time as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy under President Clinton, has paved the way for the U.S.’s endless and costly wars which prevent us from investing in life saving and necessary programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. It has effectively granted the US permission to no longer be bound by the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of military force. It declared that, “when the interests at stake are vital, …we should do whatever it takes to defend them, including, when necessary, the unilateral use of military power.”

While working at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a “Top Defense and National Security Think Tank” based in Washington D.C., in June 2002, as the Bush administration was threatening aggression towards Iraq, she declared, that the United States would “need to strike preemptively before a crisis erupts to destroy an adversary’s weapons stockpile” before it “could erect defenses to protect those weapons, or simply disperse them.”

“In 2009, she joined the Obama administration as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, where she helped engineer political and humanitarian disasters in Libya and Syria and a new escalation of the endless war in Afghanistan before resigning in 2012,” report Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies in another Antiwar piece on Flournoy. “From 2013-2016, she joined Boston Consulting, trading on her Pentagon connections to boost the firm’s military contracts from $1.6 million in 2013 to $32 million in 2016. By 2017, Flournoy herself was raking in $452,000 a year.”

Flournoy would be the very first female head of the US war department, and if that doesn’t make you want to listen to P!nk and kiss your Hillary Clinton pendant I don’t know what will.

A favorite to lead America’s other war department, also known as the State Department, is former National Security Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. Rice is an ideal choice for a leading role in the Biden administration because she holds the valuable trifecta of being (A) female, (B) Black and (C) an enthusiastic promoter of the Iraq invasion which murdered a million human beings.

Some quotes from Rice, courtesy of Everett:

“I think he [then Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don’t think many informed people doubted that.” (NPR, Feb. 6, 2003)

“It’s clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It’s clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that’s the path we’re on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side.” (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002)

“I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush administration about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The United States policy has been regime change for many, many years, going well back into the Clinton administration. So it’s a question of timing and tactics. … We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution before we can enforce this and previous resolutions.” (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002; requests for audio of Rice’s statements on NPR were declined by the publicly funded network.)

Susan Rice with Yossi Cohen, head of the Mossad. pic.twitter.com/jABipR0HPB

— Sam Husseini (@samhusseini) August 5, 2020

Up for consideration as leader of America’s most sociopathic government agency is Obama’s former CIA Deputy Director Avril Haines, who protected all perpetrators implicated in a Senate report on CIA torture from suffering any consequences for their unspeakable brutality, and helped redact that same report. If selected Biden would become just the second president with the highly progressive distinction of selecting a female CIA Director, the first being Donald Trump when he appointed Torturer-in-Chief “Bloody” Gina Haspel (whose appointment Haines supported).

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see how else the Decency President plans to uplift us with girl power and diversity of ethnicity and sexual orientation in the most powerful force of human slaughter in the history of civilization. 2021, here we come!”

(Spoiler alert: swallow your coffee first before reading the following):

Intersectional Omnicide

Our weapons will be manufactured by corporations
that have pansexual CEOs and Muslim shareholders.

The bombers will be emblazoned with rainbow flags
and flown by empowered women of all colors
who will scream “YAAASSS QUEEN!” as the mushroom clouds arise.

The desert sand will turn to glass in the blasts,
and that glass will become a ceiling,
and that ceiling will be shattered
by a lesbian CIA Director.

People will be vaporized on the spot,
or watch their own bodies fall apart like sandcastles,
but they will never be misgendered.

We will march as equals,
white, black, Asian, indigenous,
and whatever miscellaneous extras we can find
(so long as they’re photogenic enough for Instagram),
arm-in-arm singing “Fight Song” in one voice
beneath a drone-filled sky
to the edge of extinction
where we will leap together
screaming “This is all Susan Sarandon’s fault!”
into the face of the abyss.

It won’t be pretty,
it won’t be wise,
but at least,
for one glorious flash,
we will get to feel like we really tried.

Click through to find out how to support Johnstone’s writing if you’re able. And of course Obomba, Rice, and Powers loved them some genocidaire Paul Kagame, as did Bibi and Mrs. Bibi.

Hellary Clinton has been floated as Biden’s ambassador to the UN.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

The excellent Alan Macleod had linked to her satire in his:

‘Meet the Filthy Rich War Hawks That Make up Biden’s New Foreign Policy Team; “I expect the prevailing direction of U.S. foreign policy over these last decades to continue: more lawless bombing and killing multiple countries under the cover of “limited engagement,” – Biden Biographer Branko Marcetic’, Alan Macleod, mintpressnews.com, Nov. 13, 2020, a very worthy exposé. I’ll provide a couple of his telling photos.

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy meets with Afghan National Army and NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan leadership during a tour of the Kabul Military Training Center Aug. 7.

Ambassador Rice speaks in front of an Israeli missile battery in Tel Aviv during an 2014 visit to Israel. Photo | US Embassy Tel Aviv

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

Tags:

satire; likely biden war oligargh war pigs cabinet

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Comments

Submitted by RantingRooster on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 10:50am

Until we are ready for

a REAL(tm) Revolution, nothing will change expect the gender of the people doing the mass killing. Same shit, different day.

Caitlyn is great! I really enjoy her writing.

—

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Submitted by The Liberal Moonbat on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 10:59am

I'm ready

@RantingRooster I've been ready for nearly 20 years - I just can't do much on my own, being a petty-bourgeois-liberal autistic-savant brain-in-a-jar who's neither rich nor famous.

Give me a small army of 1930s pulp-fiction robots with laser eye-beams or something like that, though...I'd have a pretty good idea who all to send them after.

—

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Submitted by wendy davis on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 4:18pm

her 'Intersectional

@RantingRooster

Omnicide poetry made me laugh until i almost cried. what a fine polemicist she is!

i'll drop this off as well, as anne garrison is one of the subversive experts on genocidaire paul kagame: (crap, one of those corona migraines is coming on)

‘Susan Rice, Scourge of Africa, May Become Secretary of State’, Anne Garrison, BAR, Nov. 11, 2020 (some excerpts)

“Rice has been intimately involved in covering up the deaths of more than six million Congolese, and has cultivated close relations with every US-backed tyrant on the continent.”
..................................................................
“So Susan Rice had a lot to celebrate when she arrived on the ground in Libya. But instead she bragged that the US had stopped genocide. That’s the kind of ruthless, bloodthirsty, lying, hypocrite she is.

Then she flew on to Rwanda to meet with President Paul Kagame and crow that the US “got it right this time.” By that she meant that the Clinton Administration, in which she served first on the National Security Council and then as Under Secretary of State for African Affairs, had failed to intervene to stop genocide in Rwanda, but that it had learned its lesson and stopped it in Libya.

But in fact President Bill Clinton didn’t stand by during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Through his UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, he made sure that UN troops were withdrawn from Rwanda till the bloodbath was over and Paul Kagame, one of the USA’s yes men in Africa, seized power.

Allan Stam, University of Virginia Professor of Public Policy and Politics , spent ten years researching the Rwandan Genocide with University of Michigan Political Science Professor Christian Davenport . In Stam’s presentation “Understanding the Rwandan Genocide ,” he said that the Pentagon had imagined that the cost of installing Kagame might be 250,000 Rwandan lives, but instead it cost something closer to a million. Susan Rice is infamous for saying at the time, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November (congressional) election? ”
...............................................................
“The US and its allies fears a strong, unified Congo

Susan Rice, along with John Prendergast and Samantha Power, applauded the January 2009 peace agreement that “integrated” the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) into the Congolese army in the Kivu Provinces that Kagame has so long wanted to claim with US support. The CNDP was a previous incarnation of M23, a Rwandan militia whose goal is to loot resources and drive Congolese people into refugee and IDP camps, making way for Rwandans. Ultimately, these Rwandans might be expected to leave Congo and become part of Rwanda, or at the least, to become some sort of “free trade zone” that would make it easier to get Congolese resources out through Rwanda and Uganda.”

i'll be back as i'm able...

Submitted by RantingRooster on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 12:07pm

Imaging I'm tweeting

@wendy davis THIS THIS THIS

So Susan Rice had a lot to celebrate when she arrived on the ground in Libya. But instead she bragged that the US had stopped genocide. That’s the kind of ruthless, bloodthirsty, lying, hypocrite she is.

I could not agree more.

#1

Omnicide poetry made me laugh until i almost cried. what a fine polemicist she is!

i'll drop this off as well, as anne garrison is one of the subversive experts on genocidaire paul kagame: (crap, one of those corona migraines is coming on)

‘Susan Rice, Scourge of Africa, May Become Secretary of State’, Anne Garrison, BAR, Nov. 11, 2020 (some excerpts)

“Rice has been intimately involved in covering up the deaths of more than six million Congolese, and has cultivated close relations with every US-backed tyrant on the continent.”
..................................................................
“So Susan Rice had a lot to celebrate when she arrived on the ground in Libya. But instead she bragged that the US had stopped genocide. That’s the kind of ruthless, bloodthirsty, lying, hypocrite she is.

Then she flew on to Rwanda to meet with President Paul Kagame and crow that the US “got it right this time.” By that she meant that the Clinton Administration, in which she served first on the National Security Council and then as Under Secretary of State for African Affairs, had failed to intervene to stop genocide in Rwanda, but that it had learned its lesson and stopped it in Libya.

But in fact President Bill Clinton didn’t stand by during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Through his UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, he made sure that UN troops were withdrawn from Rwanda till the bloodbath was over and Paul Kagame, one of the USA’s yes men in Africa, seized power.

Allan Stam, University of Virginia Professor of Public Policy and Politics , spent ten years researching the Rwandan Genocide with University of Michigan Political Science Professor Christian Davenport . In Stam’s presentation “Understanding the Rwandan Genocide ,” he said that the Pentagon had imagined that the cost of installing Kagame might be 250,000 Rwandan lives, but instead it cost something closer to a million. Susan Rice is infamous for saying at the time, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November (congressional) election? ”
...............................................................
“The US and its allies fears a strong, unified Congo

Susan Rice, along with John Prendergast and Samantha Power, applauded the January 2009 peace agreement that “integrated” the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) into the Congolese army in the Kivu Provinces that Kagame has so long wanted to claim with US support. The CNDP was a previous incarnation of M23, a Rwandan militia whose goal is to loot resources and drive Congolese people into refugee and IDP camps, making way for Rwandans. Ultimately, these Rwandans might be expected to leave Congo and become part of Rwanda, or at the least, to become some sort of “free trade zone” that would make it easier to get Congolese resources out through Rwanda and Uganda.”

i'll be back as i'm able...

—

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Submitted by wendy davis on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 4:05pm

i agree, and admire

@RantingRooster

garrison immensely for being able to peer through the 'fog of war' clouds and get to the heart of the matter. few others call kagame out for his genocide, and name the ruling oligarchs in the US who support him. all of them cause me commit Thought Crimes, to say the truth.

Submitted by The Liberal Moonbat on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 10:51am

Are they TRYING to shit on MLK's grave?

We must judge them by the color of their skin and the contents of their underwear - NOT by the content of their character!

—

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Submitted by Marie on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 11:42am

Could you rephrase the

@The Liberal Moonbat "contents of their underwear" to gender and sexual orientation?

Perhaps I'm weird, but skin color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and to a lesser extent religion are irrelevant to me in assessing fitness for political office. Except in the rare condition when all other things being equal between two candidates, and I'll go with the one that on some ID basis in under-represented.

Submitted by wendy davis on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 8:20am

i confess it took

@Marie

me some time to get it, but he was just stretching the envelope of johnstone's satire a little bit further.

Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 11:52am

Lol!

@The Liberal Moonbat Well said!

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by Marie on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 11:32am

Please stop approving and using

rightwing/GOP/Trump talking points. It mars your credibility for objectivity. And I'm not a hypocrite on this point because I was equally critical of those that approvingly used Russia/Putin to explain HER loss. (Also, found the pink pussy hats disgusting.) Regardless of one's political position, Biden is the President-elect and not some dude anointed by the media.

Submitted by The Liberal Moonbat on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 12:41pm

Ah, yes...those.

@Marie When I started seeing those, I was like, "this has got to be THE Fashion Fail of the Decade."

—

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Submitted by wendy davis on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 2:18pm

please be clear and

@Marie

let us know to whom you are addressing this 'rightwing/GOP/Trump talking points' accusations, as well as 'Regardless of one's political position, Biden is the President-elect and not some dude anointed by the media.'

Submitted by lizzyh7 on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 2:16pm

Which "right wing talking points"

@Marie would wendy be using? I confess I am at a loss to see anything "right wing" about her essay. But then again, I don't give two shit whether Biden was "elected" or not, seeing as how our owners win either way. If that makes me a right winger, then so be it.

Is it the girl power thing? While that might have an ever so slight "right wing" connotation because the "right" has used that type of denigration before, in a lot more blunt ways I might add, girl power in this context only gets us more wars. And in reality, this whole "girl power" shit is not anywhere near real feminism - who gets hurt the most in America's wars - why, women and children, of course...

—

Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 2:43pm

I suspect that you are reading an implication into

@Marie
Caitlyn's verbiage that she did not intend, no doubt because, over here, it is a right wing talking point. I don't think she was saying that "hi is president solely because the press so anointed him" - a popular right wing meme, but that "Now that the press is no longer treating this as 'TOO CLOSE TO CALL' and has accepted/anointed him, they will be willing to begin divulging this type of information about his suspected plans.

be well and have a good one.

—

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by wendy davis on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 8:17am

i suppose she must have been

@enhydra lutris

accidentally speaking to Johnstone, not i, as there are the offending words right at the top of her piece; good on you for spotting them! it may be that she's still channeling the residue of the 'Trump Unplugged' discussion.

i don't find them a right-wind talking point at all, as every Laté Liberal (h/t ajamus baraka) website site carried the two candidates' Electoral Counts, when as far as i can discern from the Ballotopedia page, not one state has certified their results, which is step #1 in the final tally.

but they don't (or hadn't) even used the term "Projected Electoral Count". but the crawl on the MSN homepage indicated this a.m. that a number of judges had dismissed DT's claims.

i'll add that none of us on that thread who'd objected to DT's being unplugged felt sorry for 'poor widdle...(whatever) Donald' him; it was simply the principle of 'the public's right to know...and decide. even 'publicly funded' NPR pulled the plug on their radio coverage.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 2:01pm

I keep waiting for an answer --

when I ask the nice liberals with big egos "so what is your favorite Biden policy?"

Crickets.

—

“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser

Submitted by edg on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 4:05pm

Defund the police?

@Cassiodorus

Oh, wait. He doesn't support that. Medicare 4 All? Oh, wait. He doesn't support that. Green New Deal? Oh, wait. He doesn't support that. Holding banks accountable? Oh, wait. He doesn't support that. Ending foreign wars? Oh, wait. He doesn't support that. BDS Movement? Oh, wait. He doesn't support that.

Crap!!! Stop asking these trick questions!!!

Submitted by wendy davis on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 8:00am

apparently biden

@Cassiodorus

has long supported the JCPOA, and intends to rejoin it. i'd read a piece at (perhaps) strategic culture that he intends to end the war in yemen, ....nope, i was wrong: it was at mintpress news:

Biden Signals a Desire To End the Yemen War. Here’s Why Yemenis Aren’t Buying It; If Biden is serious about reaching a diplomatic end to the war, he has a real chance to add ending one of the twenty-first century’s most violent conflicts to his presidential legacy, but the chance of the happening may be slim reports', Ahmed Abdulkareem.

"Most Yemenis have little hope that the new White House will end the blockade and the devastating war in their country, which is now nearing the end of its sixth year. Nor are they hopeful that the announcement that U.S. support for the Saudi military intervention in Yemen could end during Biden’s presidential term will materialize into action after he is sworn into office on January 20, 2021.

Ibrahim Abdulkareem, who lost his 11-month-old daughter, Zainab when a Saudi warplane dropped an American-made bomb on his home in Sana`a in 2015, told MintPress that Biden’s statement is not good news to him, ”I am not optimistic that Biden will stop supplying Bin Salman with bombs like the ones that killed my daughter,” he said. Like Ibrahim, Yemeni civilians are losing their loved ones, homes, and infrastructure to American weapons supplied to the Saudi Coalition in droves, and there is little hope that president-elect Biden will end support, including the supply of weapons and military equipment, to Saudi Arabia and the UAE."

and so on. seems to be a worthwhile read...

on next day edit: a sincerely worthy read; it made my heart ache for yemenis (specifically houthis, Ansar Allah), esp. given that it's all been a bin salman proxy war against iran. when will it end? the End of this evil western empire that is not only Exceptional, but spends trillions to Export Democracy® to the rest of the world will be a good start.

and cord's 2010 link to Susan Rice as Tea Girl is blood-curdling.

Submitted by Situational Lefty on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 12:19am

my favorite policy of Joe Biden is:

@Cassiodorus He doesn't want me and my entire family and everyone I know to get sick and die.

That's kind of important to me when I show up to vote.

—

"The enemy is anybody who is going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." Yossarian

Submitted by Dr. John Carpenter on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 5:24am

When did he start supporting Medicare4All?

@Situational Lefty Or any other serious solution to our healthcare crisis (not a nebulous “improving” the ACA which just needs replaced.) Because last I checked, Biden didn’t care if me and everyone I care about could get healthcare. In fact, he was adamant he’d veto it even if it passed. That kind of translates to me that he’s not particularly concerned if we get sick and die.

—

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Submitted by Situational Lefty on Mon, 11/16/2020 - 1:34am

my comment was more

@Dr. John Carpenter pointed to the COVID 19 crisis, but I get your point.

Biden doesn't back Medicare 4 all.

Good luck getting Donald Trump and his allies to support you in your efforts.

—

"The enemy is anybody who is going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." Yossarian

Submitted by Dr. John Carpenter on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 5:25am

Is not being Trump a policy?

@Cassiodorus /sarc

—

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Submitted by wendy davis on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 7:46am

bingo:

@Dr. John Carpenter

Is not being Trump a policy?

the main one on display, lol!

Submitted by Bisbonian on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 2:30pm

Preemptive strike to destroy dangerous weapons:

the United States would “need to strike preemptively before a crisis erupts to destroy an adversary’s weapons stockpile” before it “could erect defenses to protect those weapons, or simply disperse them.

A Day that will live in Infamy.

—

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Submitted by lizzyh7 on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 3:04pm

I was at work that day,

@Bisbonian I believe, surrounded by jubilant right wingers who were all for it. Our VP asked me what I thought about it, him knowing I had been in the Army and even perhaps that my ex had gone to Saudi for Gulf One. Heh. The easiest thing for me to say was that if Saddam was really that bad, Arabs should be the ones to get rid of him, not us. Nice, diplomatic work answer. And I didn't really know all the details then, I didn't pay much attention at that time, but I thought the whole thing was just idiotic, I guess is the best word back then.

I watched Gulf One incessantly, was watching CNN the night the bombing started and they'd announced it in the local Wal Mart and a friend called me immediately, but I was of course already watching for it. When my ex went we both knew damned well it was all about the oil, but of course he went, what in hell else was he to do? And he was finally "getting his war" which we argued about before he left. I guess even in the Army we both really thought, naively, that this country wasn't stupid enough to go to war again. Shit, they were already doing desert training in 1985, of course we should have known our owners were going to use that, and soon. I do remember watching CSPAN one night and hearing words like "quagmire" and "protracted tank battles" on one of my beer drinking late night binges. Boy, did that quagmire thing turn out right, endless war, the American Way. Fully bipartisan and brought to you by oh so many sponsors.

—

Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Submitted by wendy davis on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 4:55pm

jebus; did your husband

@lizzyh7

live thru it? and remember the build up as to how barbaric and invincible the Republican Guard Army was? later, buried deep in the NY(CIA)Slimes was a report of coalition troops shoving bulldozers thru iraqi troops...and burying them alive.

i dunno if there were any other anti-war songs written to memorialize those wars, and while this is a bit upbeat, it's the sole one i remember. someone i knew at the time rode up on an elevator in (pfffft) Telluride, Co, with stormin' norman. as i remember it, he stayed silent, which was likely wise.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXlXrr0xBI]

Submitted by Bisbonian on Fri, 11/27/2020 - 8:34pm

I was there.

@lizzyh7 I led the first flight of planes on the night of January 17th (the New Moon). Five KC-135s, aerial gas stations, to make sure that the ten F-117s were topped off before their bombing run, escorted by 5 F-15s and 2 EF-111s for radar jamming. All in complete silence and darkness. That would change dramatically, the second night.

—

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Submitted by wendy davis on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 4:44pm

i'll add:

via RT.com:

Biden announced his Department of Defense landing team on Tuesday. Of these 23 policy experts, one third have taken funding from arms manufacturers, according to a report published this week by Antiwar.com.

A knot of hawks

Leading the team is Kathleen Hicks, an undersecretary of defense in the Obama administration, and an employee of the Cen¬ter for Strate¬gic and Inter¬na¬tion¬al Stud¬ies (CSIS), a think tank funded by a host of NATO governments, oil firms, and weapons makers Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Atomics. The latter firm produces the Predator drones used by the Obama administration to kill hundreds of civilians in at least four Middle-Eastern countries.

Hicks was a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw a number of US troops from Germany, claiming in August that such a move “benefits our adversaries.”
Two other members of Biden’s Pentagon team, Andrew Hunter and Melissa Dalton, work for CSIS and served under Obama in the Defense Department.

Also on the team are Susanna Blume and Ely Ratner, who work for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Another hawkish think-tank, CNAS is funded by Google, Facebook, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. Three more team members – Stacie Pettyjohn, Christine Wormuth and Terri Tanielian – were most recently employed by the RAND corporation, which draws funding from the US military, NATO, several Gulf states, and hundreds of state and corporate sources.”
...........................................................
Reps. Barbara Lee (California) and Mark Pocan (Wisconsin), two notable progressives, wrote to Biden on Tuesday asking him not to nominate a defense secretary linked to the weapons industry.”

@cordeliers Nov 13

‘As Susan Rice is touted as Biden's new Secretary of State, it's worth remembering why she's known as "Tea Girl." http://ocnus.net/artman2/publish/Analyses_12/US_State_Department_Tea_Gir...

Submitted by mimi on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 5:46pm

Great summarization in this essay of the last 20 years

and you hit all the nails on the head. I remember many things about Susan Rice, GWBush, Colin Powell.

The worst disaster for me was the fact that my son joined out of desperation (being abandoned, manipulated and neglected by his father) shortly after GWBush was inaugurated without knowing who he was and what would happen. He was too poor and fed up to survive as life guard, starbucks coffee maker, or bookstore clerk. Some recruiter made him believe he could have a better future in the military. He believed it then and imo it was the most unfortunate mistake to do so. It took til 9/11 and the fact that airmen all knew from the beginning that they would start the war with Iraq and Afghanistan, that all trust was broken and gone.

The other thing is that I knew (visited) these countries like Ruanda and Kongo and Gabun way before those genocide times. I go back to Lumumba times with my personal exposure to Africa.

It is hard to go back in time.

One question arose in my mind, when I read the essay. When do you think this Identity thinking started to become so fashionable? I remember for example Barbara Jordan, a woman I greatly admired. I don't remember that anybody thought or said at that time that she was great, because she was firstly a woman and secondly black. She was just a great, courageous human being and fought for civil rights and stood up against Nixon.

So, when did it start that people used the gender and race of a person for political pandering and argumentation that they were just better because they were black or female?

—

https://www.euronews.com/live

Submitted by wendy davis on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 10:45am

nixon ending the draft

@mimi

in 1973 was a brilliant move for the war machine. in some ways, the signing bonuses operated as a job for the poor, uneducated, and underclass, didn't it? and re-enlistment bonuses: wooot!...both depending on one's entry level skills.

sad your son felt the need to enlist due to his father's neglect, and so on.

i'm so envious of your pre-genocide african travels, but Africom continues them apace.

i'd hate to hazard a guess to your last Q as to ID politics off the top of my head, but it's not just 'black' female, but all blacks, even though race is a social construction. when black, you know that bigots and the po-po stop and think about the fact that we're all related to the san bush tribe in the kalahari desert (Y chromosomes).

Submitted by mimi on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 12:39pm

oh, I was not aware of the consequences

@wendy davis
Nixson's elimination of the draft has had. We lived in Germany and my son was just born in that year and I had other stuff to deal with than following the events in the US (side from JfK and MLK and general protest against the Vietnam War)

The neglect me and my son felt was mental and religious maniipulation and not financial poverty, while we lived the first ten years in the US. The way the recruiter - much, much later after separation from my husband and some gawd-awful personal years in the US - got my son hooked was the fact that the Air Force offered to pay for college education. There was nada peanuts coming from his father, though he could have easily paid for it and could have gotten money from his employer to help. But he considered my son to be bewitched by some evil Africans in his home country. So, he was considered a lost case in need of some African healers (ie. true Woodoo stuff) help. That had really 'very positive effect on my son's self esteem'/bitter sarcasem here,

The bonus to enlist in the Air Force was junk to begin with. My son had to pay back all of it, when he left the Air Force six month before his contract ended. But in a sense it saved his life before the military service broke his heart and soul completely. So just some collateral damage of USian war fare. No biggy.

Yes and because we were black and not USian this is certainly true.

when black, you know that bigots and the po-po stop and think about the fact that we're all related to the san bush tribe in the kalahari desert

Fully aware of it for us since 1968, no matter where we lived and who of us, me, my son's father or my son. May be I will write out my life story and after I am dead, i leave it up to my son to post it or not.

Sometimes I ask myself if I am the only foreigner and immigrant around in this community.
Thanks for your comment and answer, Wendy.

Get some rest. Your migraines show through the words. Please take good care of yourself. And thanks again for your answer.

—

https://www.euronews.com/live

Submitted by NYCVG on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 6:35pm

When you get the message

you can hang up the phone. An old saying.

I got the message when my TV showed me a picture of the Biden Advisory Team this week. Sitting one seat away from Joe was Shaun Donovan. That's why I'm hanging up the phone and it's doubtful whether I'll weigh in on possible or actual Cabinet picks.

"What?" you may be saying, "Who is Shaun Donovan and why does his presence make a difference?"

I was part of a decades long battle to save the middle-class affordable housing complex I moved into 44 years ago and my and/or my family has lived in ever since. The apartment was new when we moved in and filled with luxury amenities, including an indoor pool and gym. My home has a balcony and a high floor view that is wonderful.

The catch was that it was in a barren empty warehouse part of Lower Manhattan and its intended residents, young lawyers and Wall Street workers, wanted no part of it. The year was 1976 and NYC at that time had big budget and crime issues. The owner couldn't rent the units at market value and so he made a deal with NYC. The buildings became middle-income housing with rent regulations.

So we pioneers moved in and helped turn the desert into what now is known as Tribeca. You can guess the rest. When the property increased in value a new owner bought out the original owner who was fine with having a building filled with teachers and therapists and City workers and working actors. Middle class tenants paying middle class rents.

The new owner, backed by Michael Bloomberg and his appointed minion--Shaun Donovan tied us up in court and We Won the first battle because the Judge decided after a 6 year stretch of rallies in the streets, on the steps of City Hall and in her court, that Shaun Donovan had committed fraud. Her one page handwritten judgement said as much.

(Then Obama had Shaun Donovan as his HUD guy and then his Budget Management guy. Shaun spent 8 years in the Obama WH.)

The story continues when Bloomberg appealed our win and the Appeals Court, 3 GOP judges from upstate reversed our win. But......

Not entirely. People like me who were original tenants and followed all the rules involved were able to secure our homes for life. We are rent-regulated, kind of.

As the years went on, Every death, turnover and eviction produced Free Market tenants. So a few of us won but eventually all middle and working class tenants will be gone. Affordable housing that we fought for is disappearing all over the City.

So, Shaun Donovan's presence next to Biden tells me to abandon hope and get on with focusing on other matters.

IDK if this tale will be interesting to readers here because I bet you all have your own moments when you saw the hopelessness and you still find reading about it worth your time.

—

NYCVG

Submitted by QMS on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 7:44pm

thanks for sharing your blood sweat and tears

@NYCVG

yours is a story likely to be told all over the place
now that shut downs are imminent and jobs disappear
affording shelter, food and transportation has become
a shorter commute to a homeless environment

captive audience

you can hang up the phone. An old saying.

I got the message when my TV showed me a picture of the Biden Advisory Team this week. Sitting one seat away from Joe was Shaun Donovan. That's why I'm hanging up the phone and it's doubtful whether I'll weigh in on possible or actual Cabinet picks.

"What?" you may be saying, "Who is Shaun Donovan and why does his presence make a difference?"

I was part of a decades long battle to save the middle-class affordable housing complex I moved into 44 years ago and my and/or my family has lived in ever since. The apartment was new when we moved in and filled with luxury amenities, including an indoor pool and gym. My home has a balcony and a high floor view that is wonderful.

The catch was that it was in a barren empty warehouse part of Lower Manhattan and its intended residents, young lawyers and Wall Street workers, wanted no part of it. The year was 1976 and NYC at that time had big budget and crime issues. The owner couldn't rent the units at market value and so he made a deal with NYC. The buildings became middle-income housing with rent regulations.

So we pioneers moved in and helped turn the desert into what now is known as Tribeca. You can guess the rest. When the property increased in value a new owner bought out the original owner who was fine with having a building filled with teachers and therapists and City workers and working actors. Middle class tenants paying middle class rents.

The new owner, backed by Michael Bloomberg and his appointed minion--Shaun Donovan tied us up in court and We Won the first battle because the Judge decided after a 6 year stretch of rallies in the streets, on the steps of City Hall and in her court, that Shaun Donovan had committed fraud. Her one page handwritten judgement said as much.

(Then Obama had Shaun Donovan as his HUD guy and then his Budget Management guy. Shaun spent 8 years in the Obama WH.)

The story continues when Bloomberg appealed our win and the Appeals Court, 3 GOP judges from upstate reversed our win. But......

Not entirely. People like me who were original tenants and followed all the rules involved were able to secure our homes for life. We are rent-regulated, kind of.

As the years went on, Every death, turnover and eviction produced Free Market tenants. So a few of us won but eventually all middle and working class tenants will be gone. Affordable housing that we fought for is disappearing all over the City.

So, Shaun Donovan's presence next to Biden tells me to abandon hope and get on with focusing on other matters.

IDK if this tale will be interesting to readers here because I bet you all have your own moments when you saw the hopelessness and you still find reading about it worth your time.

—

question everything

Submitted by Dr. John Carpenter on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 5:32am

It’s interesting to me.

@NYCVG I expect over the next four years many people will have “hanging up the phone” moments as they did with Obama. (Well, some still haven’t, man the cult of personality is strong with that one.) Your story was a new name to me, so I think that’s really interesting. You’d think they’d have to try to fill every available position, chair, whatever with scum and villainy yet it comes so effortlessly for these people.

you can hang up the phone. An old saying.

I got the message when my TV showed me a picture of the Biden Advisory Team this week. Sitting one seat away from Joe was Shaun Donovan. That's why I'm hanging up the phone and it's doubtful whether I'll weigh in on possible or actual Cabinet picks.

"What?" you may be saying, "Who is Shaun Donovan and why does his presence make a difference?"

I was part of a decades long battle to save the middle-class affordable housing complex I moved into 44 years ago and my and/or my family has lived in ever since. The apartment was new when we moved in and filled with luxury amenities, including an indoor pool and gym. My home has a balcony and a high floor view that is wonderful.

The catch was that it was in a barren empty warehouse part of Lower Manhattan and its intended residents, young lawyers and Wall Street workers, wanted no part of it. The year was 1976 and NYC at that time had big budget and crime issues. The owner couldn't rent the units at market value and so he made a deal with NYC. The buildings became middle-income housing with rent regulations.

So we pioneers moved in and helped turn the desert into what now is known as Tribeca. You can guess the rest. When the property increased in value a new owner bought out the original owner who was fine with having a building filled with teachers and therapists and City workers and working actors. Middle class tenants paying middle class rents.

The new owner, backed by Michael Bloomberg and his appointed minion--Shaun Donovan tied us up in court and We Won the first battle because the Judge decided after a 6 year stretch of rallies in the streets, on the steps of City Hall and in her court, that Shaun Donovan had committed fraud. Her one page handwritten judgement said as much.

(Then Obama had Shaun Donovan as his HUD guy and then his Budget Management guy. Shaun spent 8 years in the Obama WH.)

The story continues when Bloomberg appealed our win and the Appeals Court, 3 GOP judges from upstate reversed our win. But......

Not entirely. People like me who were original tenants and followed all the rules involved were able to secure our homes for life. We are rent-regulated, kind of.

As the years went on, Every death, turnover and eviction produced Free Market tenants. So a few of us won but eventually all middle and working class tenants will be gone. Affordable housing that we fought for is disappearing all over the City.

So, Shaun Donovan's presence next to Biden tells me to abandon hope and get on with focusing on other matters.

IDK if this tale will be interesting to readers here because I bet you all have your own moments when you saw the hopelessness and you still find reading about it worth your time.

—

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Submitted by NYCVG on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 8:46am

nothing significant changes

@Dr. John Carpenter @Dr. John Carpenter Yet we involve ourselves with fruitless minute discussions about each candidate which bring us down.

We are unlikely to change the cycle of history this country is on by endless exposing of its permanent participants.

I wrote about Shaun Donovan because he isn't the obvious nightmare that the familiar names evoke. Yet, there he is. Representing Bloomberg. While the NY Times is chortling with glee because Bloomberg's 100 million dollar ad buys in FL TX and OH produced no (D) wins. Ha!

Railing about Joe and Hillary, et al, can get us only so far.

—

NYCVG

Submitted by pindar's revenge on Sat, 11/14/2020 - 11:44pm

but thank goodness RT had published it on nov. 10, and it's much easier for my eyes to read rather than the grey font he uses at his Consent Factory satire site.

counterpunch used to carry his columns, remember?