Elizabeth Warren Nails Economy, Muddles Foreign Policy

American foreign policy is a murky mess and I am far more concerned when I hear a presidential candidate who pretends to have all the answers than I am when I hear Elizabeth Warren treading lightly in her analysis of these issues. Sorting the mess out is a huge challenge that includes addressing not only the harm our policies create abroad but also the widely held beliefs that drive those policies at home. It will take a focused, cautious approach and I have no doubt we can count on Warren to provide exactly this. She fights corruption wherever she finds it. She is not beholding to the defense or financial industries. I believe her heart, her head and her morals are all in the right place and I am willing to put my faith in her.

Running through some of these comments is the oversimplified argument between “capitalists”, “regulated capitalists”, “New Deal socialists” and “socialists”. We hear it over and over again: “Socialism always fails, just look at Venezuela”. Never mentioned are the three letter agencies and clandestine NGO operations working ceaselessly to insure that countries like Venezuela “always fail”. FDR’s New Deal juiced the economy because socially responsible economic policies ALWAYS work – that’s the reality the one percent have been collaborating to obfuscate since about 1905. Argue about it all you want, but consider this: EMPIRES ALWAYS FAIL. Yep, that’s right. Empires ALWAYS collapse. Sure, Occasio-Cortez is a little loopy, and she lacks the intellectual armamentarium to rebrand, market and sell a re-treaded FDR inspired economy. But she’s not wrong. The next time you hear Venezuela, better think Mongol, Rome, Byzantium, Ottoman, Spain, Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany and The Soviet Union. And NO, the Soviet Union was not “communist”. It was an oligarchic empire…just like ours. It’s happening right before your eyes, folks, but you’re all so fixated on the labels that you can’t see it. Empires always fail, and the harder everyone works to consolidate the empire, the sooner that inevitability will come to pass.

Warren would be great all things considered. Wall St would make a huge threatening rattle then go back to business under her no doubt dangerous to white collar criminal justice department. Pure socialists post here, but they should be disregarded come the election.
The ironic thing is that Trump is nearer doing some good things re foreign policy than various Neoliberals of the recent past. It’s fairly clear he has the balls to yank Americans out of South Korea, Germany, and the MidEast if he felt the voters would support it. He looks for a voter block locked into a belief, and he makes moves on that basis. If 100,000 people demonstrated outside the White House for Palestine, he never would have moved the embassy to Jerusalem. Alas the Neoliberal media machine via liars like Rachel Maddow spend every day making sure that anything Trump is radioactive so he turns to credulous tea baggers and Christians for his base. Progressive voters could actually flip the script and USE Trump like a tool, to get a hell of a lot of reversal in military affairs and hence our foreign policy. He is completely malleable but you have to connect. It is Neoliberal misdirection that is killing progressive causes.
If the DNC is as corrupt as we all know they are, they’ll run some hack like Biden, in that case I hope Trump is reelected just to demonstrate just how feckless Democrats actually are.

We need new leaders who will ask the right questions. A few Canadian politicians did, persons like Connie Fogal of the Canadian Action Party (a party about as suppressed and sidelined as the Green Party). Fogal exposed the rise of the North American Union (NAU) and a new monetary under-tow, that will redefine the use of currency itself. Will our presidential candidates open a debate about the inevitable collapse of the USD? discuss details for their Plan B? Fogal was straight forward, spoke plainly about a hidden master plan to replace three separate nations, USA, Mexico and Canada, with an amalgam of the three into one superstate, all with a border-less, single and shared currency, the Amero. This new currency has been printed and stored in the vaults of several US banks.

As of late, the high echelon politicians within the Democratic Party are in bed with the wealthiest individuals and corporations of our nation. In reaction, voters must learn new ways to follow the monies used for electioneering, this includes the issue of equal time broadcasting via cable, radio and newsprint. Let’s not forget, my fellow voters of America, that we, the citizenry own the air waves NOT corporations, they only get license to broadcast, that can be withdrawn at any time (a statutory law).. Voters must re-define political platforms where specific words are used, not take them for granted. The proles mustn’t rely on Webster. For example, when Bloomberg news touts, sixty thousand jobs were created, the actual translation of the word, job, must begin early in this new propaganda game. For example; not “jobs” as had long been envisioned in a past reality, rather, sixty thousand indentured servant positions were created, or sixty thousand new slave slots were added to the the economy. Slave slots, similar to the mantras of the thousands now rioting in Hungary and France for fair working conditions and salaries (soon Italy will follow). There’s no exaggeration here, ask the semi-retired and over fifty crowd, working at Amazon, running about, all day long, picking and packing for their billionaire overload and master, Jeff Bezos.

There will be no exit plans discussed, plan B’s or any talk of contraction. Contraction of our over nine hundred military bases over seas, the fact that we have six thousand of them in the USA, not one could lift a finger on 911. If there is talk of contraction, of any kind, it will surely be “word fluff”. The only true contractions will assume the shape of a steady loss of social safety nets for the poor, the ever shrinking size of our laundry detergents purchased at the same ‘ol price (hidden inflation),

No real change expected this time around or into the foreseeable future. What famous writer was oft quoted as saying; if a vote really mattered, they’d take it away from all of us.? Go ahead Liz, prove’ em wrong, I double dare ya!

Elizabeth Warren is following the formula that any aspiring candidate does. Talk about the economy failing the middle class, which is not in the main true, praise our great military which can’t seem to win a war since WWII, and stay away from any criticism of Israel. You don’t, you not only fail to win election, you can’t even get in the ring.

Think about it. You need money to run. Where do you get it? And which institutions make the most money during elections. It is the major media who rake in billions over the years. What institutions are the vanguards of the American people, who speak truth to power. Why its the media that make the billions from the current process.

Catch 22?

I won’t even consider Warren precisely because she turns a blind eye to the war machine. Too big a flaw in my book.

A very good piece by Sam Husseini, calling Warren into question on many important matters.

Warren’s “Right now, Washington works great for the wealthy and the well-connected. It’s just not working for anyone else,” actually troubles me quite a bit.

Superficially, of course it’s true, but that kind of line has a lot in common with corporate advertising slogans, and I think it has about the same weight and importance and endurance – which is to say, very little.

You can’t disagree with it, but it says nothing of substance, contains nothing actionable. It commits her to nothing. It is a momentary battle cry, quickly to be forgotten, as at the opening of the next season’s advertising campaign.

I find much the same with some of her other rhetoric.

On matters I consider most crucial, Elizabeth Warren does not have a great record.

She voted for the truly unconscionable increases in budget for the Pentagon. Budgets which not only waste vast resources, they direct the nation’s attention away from so many important matters, and, effectively, such spending on the military absolutely commits you to war.

Where you put your resources tells me infinitely more about your values than any slogans or nice-sounding speeches.

Great standing armies have always been a powerful inducement to war.

There is a long historical record, including the assessment by great historians that the carnage of WWI reflected the very real impact of great standing armies. And Hitler’s destructive path across Europe could not have happened had he not been allowed to re-arm Germany.

Well, the Frankenstein we call the Pentagon is the greatest standing army of all time. And please note that the United States has been at almost constant war for two decades, wars which have killed a couple of million souls and created many millions of desperate refugees – all fought to no good, or even clear, purpose.

When resources to do something are at hand, they tend always to get used. Virtually unaccountably, too, knowing what we now know about the Pentagon’s bookkeeping and accountability for literally trillions of dollars.

Warren’s statements and votes on sadly-manufactured and dangerous issues like Iran’s supposed aggression and terrorism are very discouraging.

She is an old admirer and associate of Hillary Clinton, one of the most dishonest and murderous people in the international politics of our generation. It is not in the least an exaggeration to say that Hillary ranks with the likes of Tony Blair and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The resources squandered on the Pentagon and security services have many other effects, none of them good. They feed the gigantic corporations serving the Pentagon, like a blood bank for vampires. They feed the entire class of wealthy and influential people who own and run those corporations, working towards the greater division of American society into “haves” and “have nots.” They subsidize the dishonest press and media conglomerates that relentlessly serve the interests of the ”haves.”

They even keep the nation in a kind of dangerous division where many ordinary people do not even see Washington as their legitimate government, and for the simple reason that it does virtually nothing for them and pretty much ignores them.

The Washington power establishment focuses on running the world and keeping the privileged “haves” happy. That’s where the resources and career opportunities are for aspiring American politicians. What does Warren represent to change any of that? Absolutely nothing that I can see.

Here’s an interesting fact to think about. Russia’s military has a budget of about $46 billion, which compares to more than $700 billion for the United States. Yet Russia is able to defend itself, and indeed is quite innovative in the technology of defense.

It also is responsible for no threatening aggression on the planet, whatever some Democrats and Republicans may say. It is America ringing Russia with threatening weapons and making countless threats and irresponsible charges. After all, apart from Trump’s crude noises, Obama was bombing and killing people every single day of his administration. He destroyed whole well-run societies such as Libya, started the covert war in Syria, and threatened Russia. He fomented the counterproductive coup in Ukraine.

In all of this, Hillary Clinton was his more-than-willing helper. Recall her charming jokes like, “We came, we saw, he died” laughing said of Gaddafi, a good leader for his people. Or her “Can’t we just drone him or something?” said of Julian Assange, one of the heroic figures of our time. And Elizabeth Warren supported it all.

I see Elizabeth Warren as having virtually nothing to offer. If you do not address fundamentals, you will change nothing but the slogans. And, good God, America has far too much of that already.

And finally, she has a huge silliness factor to overcome. That whole needless and pointless business of hers about having Native American heritage just becomes a source for jokes, but it means more than that. It calls her basic judgment and values into question. Why would anyone seriously concerned with America’s dangerous course play such trivial games?

Fair criticism of both figures. As the author states, acknowledging the influence of the military industrial media intelligence complex (‘MIMIC,’ anyone?) on US foreign policy should be a commonplace. Less clear to me is when politicians of an age to be running for US President (Warren’s and Sanders’ generations), is this a case of a candidate’s realpolitical discretion or of being a consumer of manufactured consent? Sanders, for example, could be much better on foreign policy, but that he isn’t may speak as much to his presumptions as to a political calculus.

The feet of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, etc… must be held to the fire until these so-called progressives denounce US imperialism.

Wow. Has Warren hoodwinked another person to think she is a good candidate concerning the domestic economy? Maybe Husseini is, like Warren, a happy Capitalist that believes in markets and just has noticed that the some powerful people using corrupt politicians has messed it up. Maybe Husseini, like Warren, doesn’t want to radically change from a system designed for the benefit of the powerful at the expense of the many, but believes the chimera of the American promise can be restored with just a few tweaks.

I don’t know. I don’t know Husseini. Maybe Husseini doesn’t think that way and has just been taken in by Warren? Or maybe Husseini hasn’t been taken in and is using a rhetorical device in praising Warren’s domestic economic views in order to get those who like her because of that to listen to some real, valid analysis of her foreign policy failings? I hope it’s the last option even though I tire of it constantly being used in that it tends to strengthen false narratives that have hoodwinked so many. Oh well.

The extensive quote that Husseini uses opening the article is not part of Warren’s announcement video. Her actual video, in my careful listening, is not really very progressive as it plays to a certain ongoing narrative that justifies Capitalism and the reality that some succeed in it and most don’t.

Here’s what I wrote in another site about it-

Here’s a transcript of what she said in the video and my analysis:

“In our country, if you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to be able to take care of yourself and the people you love. That’s a fundamental promise of America- a promise that should be true for everyone.”

The promise is very conservative and smacks of NeoLiberalism. Only if you work ‘hard’ and ‘play by the rules’ does the promise apply to you. This theme runs throughout her video. She paints the promise, like all conservative Capitalists, as one of opportunity not of economic justice.

The last phrase is her bringing in the current NeoLiberal version of identity politics. It’s not obvious at this point, but later she’ll make sure we understand what she means. The reality of some succeeding in this land of opportunity while others don’t because they don’t work as ‘hard’ or ‘play by the rules’ should be inclusive of all races and minorities and sexes.

That is, if 15% of the entire population is of a certain minority then only 15% of minimum wage workers working hard to someday have their kids succeed should be of that race and the elite professional class should also have 15% of that minority. But actually questioning if there should be such an economic disparity of class like this is not the issue. In the land of equal opportunity we still will have some do well (because of their ‘hard work’) and some not do as well.

“Growing up in Oklahoma, that promise came through for me and my family. After my older brothers joined the military, and I was still just a kid, my daddy had a heart attack and couldn’t work. My mom found a minimum wage job at Sears and that job saved our house and our family. My daddy ended up as a janitor, but he raised a daughter who got to be a public school teacher, a law professor, and a Senator. We got a real opportunity to build something.”

There it is. The maudlin personal story of success that tells us that the land of promise of opportunity works- or in Warren’s message used to work. This is how all successful people see things. A constant repetition of samples of one. Meanwhile the near 100% of those families in the same situation where their kids don’t become teachers then professors then senators and then declaring a run for the presidency are not included in the sample: all those families where the kids went on to work as janitors and minimum wage box store workers just like their parents.

But for Warren Capitalism works, it just doesn’t quite work as well now and she’ll restore it to a style where it does work. She’s going to promise to restore the promise- can I say it- to make America great again!

“Working families today face a lot tougher path than my family did. And families of color face a path that is steeper and rocker, a path made even harder by the impact of generations of discrimination. I’ve spent my career getting to the bottom of why America’s promise works for some families, but others who work just as hard slip through the cracks into disaster. What I’ve found is terrifying: these aren’t cracks that families are falling into- they’re traps. America’s middle class is under attack.”

Like I said. The problem isn’t Capitalism itself with the idea that success is based on righteousness, the problem is just two things. First it has been corrupted by greed. Second it wasn’t extended to minorities.

“How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie and they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice. They crippled unions so no one could stop them, dismantled the financial rules meant to keep us safe after the Great Depression, and cut their own taxes so they paid less than their secretaries and janitors.”

The elite wanted a fatter slice of the pie. That’s the problem. Not that the entire promise is a chimera. The elite then did bad things to get those fatter slices. Well, duh. They did bad things in the first place to create the system, not just corrupt it.

“After Wall Street crashed our economy in 2008, I left the classroom to go to Washington and confront the broken system head on. We created America’s first consumer watchdog to hold the big banks accountable.”

Well, the watchdog is better than nothing. But real reform would have broken the big banks up and sent the bankers to prison. Even that is compromise. What really was needed was nationalization of the banks. But Elizabeth Warren is a proud Capitalist, who believes in markets.

“I never though I’d run for office- not in a million years. But when Republican Senators tried to sabotage the reforms and run me out of town, I went back to Massachusetts and ran against one of them- and I beat him.

“Today, corruption is poisoning our democracy. Politicians look the other way while big insurance companies deny patients life-saving coverage, while big banks rip off consumers and while big oil companies destroy this planet. Our government’s supposed to work for all of us, but instead it has become a tool for the wealthy and well-connected.”

Come on. It’s always been a tool for the wealthy and well-connected. But to admit that is to admit the entire system is the problem, not that some bad players that have taken advantage of an otherwise good and decent system.

“The whole scam is propped up by an echo chamber of fear and hate designed to distract and divide us. People who will do or say anything to hang on to power point the finger at anyone who looks or thinks or prays or loves differently than they do.”

She’s got to make sure she is an echo chamber of the Clintonista focus on Identity politics- because if you don’t see the real problem as economic injustice that means we need a revolution of the system, you have to focus on the only injustice NeoLiberals will discuss- unequal opportunity. Not unequal outcomes.

“But this dark path doesn’t have to be our future. We can make our democracy work for all of us. We ca make our economy work for all of us. We can rebuild America’s middle class- but this time, we got to build it for everyone. No matter where live in America and no matter where your family came from in the world, you deserve a path to opportunity. Because no matter what our differences most of us want the same thing: to be able to work hard, play be the same set of rules, and take care of the people we love.”

Oh, shes comes back to it. A land of the promise of *opportunity* for those who work *hard* and play by the rules. Is it clear yet that Elizabeth Warren is just as much a NeoLiberal as Hillary Clinton? She’s just a ‘kinder, gentler’ one.

“That’s the America I’m fighting for and it’s why today I’m launching an exploratory committee for president. But the outcome of this election will depend on you.

“In the last two years, millions of people have done more than they ever thought they would to protect the promise of America. And here’s what we learned: if we organize together, if we fight together, if we persist together, we can win- we can and we will.”

Go back and watch Hillary Clinton’s announcement video in 2015. This is the same crap. Fight for you. America’s promise. We’re in this together.

A lot of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party folk are going to be taken in by this. Even Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk (https://youtu.be/lbGXG_AE71E) was somewhat taken in, saying her rhetoric of taking on the corporations sounds good, even though she has no substance on any issue what so ever. So instead of grading her video with a D he gave her a C+.

So, no thank you, Elizabeth Warren.

Something generally not considered when considering Warren… Her politics have changed very little from her days as a moderate Republican in the 1970s.

But, Amerika has moved so far Right since the ’70s that Warren is now considered to be a “progressive extremist”. Simply because she advocates a few modest controls on Wall Street.

And even though she advocates the Necons’/DNC’s suicidal We shall *never* have peace and justice, as long as our politics is this far removed from reality.

I am afraid that if Misses Warren were to become US president; America’s criminal and corrupt foreign policy will continue unabated. Once I read the article penned by Mr. Hussein, I left with the impression that business will remained unchanged.

To some extend, the political power of health-related corporations is much larger than military-industrial. The total of political contributions from those sectors is larger, the part of GDP that they “process” is larger. Of course, this metric does not tell whole story. MIC has power which is larger than shown in financial measures. It is connected with client states that run their own lobbying efforts, and it has more supportive billionaires etc.

Politically, money waisted by MIC are easiest to cut. For example, replacing the nuclear arms race with ever more precise and evasive missiles and anti-missiles with renewed treaties would produce mental shock in some think tanks, but it is hard to see a negative impact on the general population, while big changes in the health care sector are felt by all, and there is always a minority (if not a majority) that is affected negatively, at least in a short term. A progressive leader with fiscal responsibility would be derelict tolerating such waste that increases global dangers and wrecks havoc.

Neither Warren, nor Sanders, nor any of the so-called “contenders,” are willing to accept the obvious – that the end to these permanent wars will involve the cooperation of the United States with Russia, and ultimately China in the rebuilding of a region trashed by the two past administrations. From the beginning of his campaign, Trump, in the face of major freakout from all quarters, has insisted that cooperation with Russia, which is the only nation that is in negotiations with all parties except the terrorists, is essential, earning him the wrath of the pro-Empire forces of the West. Warren has never distanced herself from Hillary Clinton’s insane demand for a Syrian no-fly zone to protect the terrorists and therefor initiate war with Russia. In contrast to Tulsi Gabbard, Warren’s inability to support the unqualified withdrawal of the US from Syria, are warnings as to who would actually be running Warren’s foreign policy.

It’s not clear that the big contractors like Boeing and Lockheed benefit from our endless fighting in the Middle East. Most of the fighting is done by locals. Our forces are mainly providing logistical support and training, with low-tech equipment.

For 70 years the big contractors have steadily profited from building huge expensive weapons that are NOT used in real fighting, and mostly CAN’T be used. ICBMs, super-stealth bombers, aircraft carriers.

We sell lots of weapons to Saudi and Israel and others, but we have always sold weapons whether we were involved in the fighting or not.

In other words, active aggression and profit aren’t closely connected. We could stop supporting and fighting wars without changing the economics of defense contractors.

Perhaps Warren is another political sadist who enjoys killing “lesser breeds outside the law.”

The young people see it. Here’s one of ’em now:

http://opensociet.org/2019/01/04/a-candidate-doesnt-deserve-our-trust-unless-they-are-anti-empire/

Why don’t the old folks like Sanders and Warren and Trump and Clinton get it?