Category Archives: Electoralism/Democratism
Sorry Lefties, Your Impeachment is Bullshit 1
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
The ongoing impeachment of one Donald J. Trump is bullshit. There, I said it and I’ll say it again just to make sure you heard me right. This impeachment is fucking bullshit, and I’m tired of pretending otherwise. I don’t care if this makes me a bad leftist or a bad libertarian or whatever, its the stone cold honest truth and I stand by it.
The left has poured so much of their identity into apposing Trump for the very sake of apposing Trump that they’ve lost all touch with reality. Their entire identity has become as defined by this moronic ass-wipe as his unblinking supporters. The Resistance has become a mirror image of what they despise, a pack of hyperventilating paranoid deplorables who have lost themselves 5 miles up their own asshole after crashing the Hybrid in their own fucking shit. They’re a bunch of inconsolable babies and they desperately need a good slap on the ass to clear their throats.
This isn’t to say I’m defending Trump. Not by a long shot. If it were up to me, he’d be in shackles at the Hague, answering for the cold-blooded murder of little Nora al-Awlaki and his putrid children’s concentration camps on the border. Trump can burn in hell. What I hate is this Ukrainegate nonsense. Just like Russiagate, it’s little more than a hodgepodge of rumors and second-hand gossip being trafficked by the only class of people more deplorable than Trump. What’s worse is that the entire spectacle is so obviously a complete and total farce designed to self-destruct just in time for that other complete and total farce known as the 2020 Election.
The Democrats know full well that this media circus will die on the vine once it reaches the GOP packed Senate, but they also know that it will drive the campaign conversation away from anything mildly resembling the radical change that their loverboys Joe Biden and Mayor Pete have zero intention of delivering on, while keeping the irate electorate distracted by empty partisan shit-slinging. This suits Trump just fine as well. He gets to play the anti-authoritarian martyr that Middle America relates too, even while he robs them blind and sends their sons and daughters to die in a dusty oilfield.
Voting- Right or Privilege? Reply
By Libertarian Heathen
There is no right to vote, universal sufferage was the fatal blow to the Republic, and its elimination the quickest way to save America.
The United States of America is a Republic, and it was founded by men who hated Democracy with a passion, recognizing it for what it is, the tyranny of the majority. In contrast, a Republic the rule of law, and protects the rights of the smallest and most important minority, the individual.
“It has been observed by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved, that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”
-Alexander Hamilton,
Speech to Congress, June 21, 1788
The Constitution provided a house of the people they could elect congressmen to. It had a Senate the state legislatures appointed through various processes to prevent the circus we watch every election. Laws had to pass both the House and the Senate, so people had veto power but the mob could not get its way by ballot alone. The electoral college was also designed as a barrier to Democracy and the madness we see now in directly elected presidential campaigning.
Dennis Kucinich, Tulsi Gabbard and the Slow Death of the Democratic Delusion 2
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
As a practice, I despise both major parties with a passion usually reserved for religious zealotry. But I’m not ashamed, even as a lifelong leftist, to admit that I hate the Democrats most of all. In fact, it’s precisely because I’m a leftist that I hate the Democrats most of all. The only thing worse than a racist horde of war hungry zillionaires is a racist horde of war hungry zillionaires who try to pass them selves off as the high handed voice of egalitarianism. It’s like having Strom Thurmond throw on a Rasta wig and wax poetic about how he understands why the n*ggers feel cold and the slum’s got so much soul (compliments to Jello Biafra). It doesn’t exactly make me feel better that I use to be a member of that limp-wristed blackface fraternity.
But it was 2008, the scoundrels of the Bush junta were on their way out the revolving door to cushy no-show jobs in the defense industry and there was one candidate left in that party that I still believed in, and I’m not talking about Joe Lieberman’s designated black dauphin. Dennis Kucinich was the last of a dying breed. He seemed to have stepped out from a different era, like the long lost munchkin lovechild of George McGovern and Joan Baez. He didn’t just want peace, he wanted revenge against the war machine; 50% cuts in defense spending, shuttering all foreign bases, Nuremberg Tribunals for the retreating Bush junta. He didn’t have a chance in hell and I didn’t give a shit. He was on a crusade that was bigger than any election, and I was willing to swallow my vomit and leave the Green Party to join him.
I look at the ten clown car pileup that is the 2020 Democratic primaries and there is no Dennis Kucinich to be found. Just a multicultural graveyard of hyper-statist partisan corpses. For five fucking minutes we had Mike Gravel’s beautiful crusty old ass, but the glorified carnies who rig the debates quickly erased all signs of his existence until his shallow well ran dry. What we have now is a contest largely between two separate but equally deceptive cliques of creeps. The “Moderates” or, as I call them, the Obama Revivalists, and the “Revolutionaries” who are really little more than blood and butter social democrats (to quote the late Dr. Thompson, “You people voted for Humphrey… and you killed Jesus!)
The Obama Revivalists have to be the most comically delusional conglomeration of convoluted cunts since Obama himself sold half my generation on an 8 year extension of the Bush regime with Hopelandic gobbledygook lifted straight from a Chicken Noodle Soup paperback he found at the airport. The basic pitch of these neoliberal imbeciles, who only the Clinton News Network would have the gal to call “Realists”, can be summed up by Cher’s tattooed ass on a battleship, ‘If we could just turn back time. If we could just find a way…’ They seem to all suffer under the grand-mal delusion that all of America’s woes began in February 2017, and just 8 more years of Obama (or 24 of Bush) can cure the American Empire of an authoritarian collapse that has been a longtime coming. Donald Trump is not the problem, he is the symptom. Voting for one of these mass media approved Obama Revivalists would be the equivalent of treating a brain tumor with a shotgun blow to the head.
The Conservative Anarchist Solution 3
This is the transcript of a talk I gave to the H.L. Mencken Club on November 9, 2019.
By Keith Preston
When it comes to questions of strategy, it is important to base one’s approach on a reasonable estimation of the probable circumstances one will be facing in the future.
I constantly hear claims that there will be a civil war at some point, or an apocalyptic revolution, or a coup, or the election of a populist leader that will set everything straight.
But the probable future of the United States will be something more like what is actually happening on the West Coast at present. In the future, the United States will increasingly start to resemble a Latin American nation in terms of demographics, socioeconomic class structures, and political characteristics.
Many people on the Right tend to focus on the demographic angle, and it is certainly true that the US is experiencing a demographic transformation in the sense that in the future there will be no ethnic majority, but merely a collection of minorities.
However, just as important is the fact that class divisions continue to widen in the US. The gap between rich and poor is the widest it has been since the 1920s, and there is no evidence this will change in the foreseeable future. I would argue that the widening class divisions probably have dozens of causes rather than any singular cause, but it is an issue that is just as important as the demographic issue.
At present, California is starting to look like what a traditional so-called “Third World” model society looks like. In Third World societies, and traditional societies generally, class structures are such that the very rich live in opulent luxury, with a relatively small middle class of ruling class functionaries, and masses of workers and poor people. That is the picture that is emerging in California.
Certain areas of California are among the wealthiest in the nation. There is also a middle class and upper middle class of professionals, tech workers, public sector workers, bureaucrats, and corporate managerial personnel, but what Americans traditionally think of as the conventional working to middle class is shrinking in size, and the ranks of the poor, including those experiencing Third World or Fourth World levels of poverty, are growing. For example, some areas of California have poverty levels that approximate those of the Congo. California cities have a massive homeless population of the kind normally associated with Latin America or South Asia. Certain medieval diseases like typhus and leprosy are making a comeback among the poor in California as well.
It has been said in the past that California is the bellwether of the nation, and I suspect that will prove to be true in this scenario as well. Increasingly, US politics is starting to resemble Third World politics with openly demagogic figures on both the left and right beginning to appear. In Third World politics, it is not uncommon for open socialists and communists as well as right-wing extremists to get elected to parliaments. Corruption, nepotism, ethnic spoils systems, institutionalized bribery, and flagrant incompetence are not exceptions but the expected norm. We see plenty of examples of this happening in the United States as well.
Trump’s impeachment inquiry may help his re-election campaign Reply
Press TV. Listen here.
The rapidly escalating impeachment inquiry against US President Donald Trump may backfire and increase the Republican president’s chances of getting re-elected in 2020, says an American political analyst in Virginia.
Staunch Democrats “want to get rid of Trump by any means they can” but are “concerned that if Trump is impeached, that may have the effect of rallying his base, which may actually help him win re-election next year and discredit the Democratic candidate,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.
“There are some people who really dislike the president and just want him out of office, period, but there are other people who see this as a safety valve; they think that perhaps he won’t actually be impeached but this will have the effect of strengthening his base and strengthening his re-election potential, ” Preston told Press TV.
Democrats in the US House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry in September after an unidentified whistleblower alleged Trump had unlawfully used his office to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former US Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
The rapidly escalating impeachment inquiry against Trump is the latest and perhaps most serious threat to his presidency, and the White House is failing to contain the crisis.
On Friday, House Democratic lawmakers demanded that the White House provide documents related to allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine for political favors.
PressTV-Democrats subpoena White House in impeachment probeHouse Democrats issued a subpoena to the White House Friday evening for documents relating to the President Donald Trump’s contact with Ukraine.
During a July 25 call, Trump asked Zelenskiy to speak with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani about whether Ukrainian officials improperly dropped an investigation of a company that hired Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
Trump’s aggressive new strategy to thwart the Democrats’ impeachment offensive is already breaking down under the weight of new revelations.
Text messages released on Thursday between US diplomats and a senior Ukrainian aide reveal that Zelensky was told he should open an investigation against Biden if he wanted an invitation to visit Washington.
Poll: Most Americans favor presidential impeachment Reply
Who’s Afraid of Tulsi Gabbard? Reply
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
Elections are different for anarchists. We’ve already made our peace with the basic fact that representative democracy is a sham even when it’s not rigged by moneyed oligarchs. So when we do actually take part in the process, it’s usually for purposes of propaganda and/or Machiavellian strategy. One thing Trump was right about is the influence of the deep state, though it’s hardly the shadowy coalition of dope smoking lesbian Bolsheviks the Alex Jones-set imagines them to be (I wish.) Rather, they’re more of a loose coalition of rich old white men who travel back and forth between unelected positions in the federal government and the numerous industrial complexes of the Fortune 500. At the risk of sounding like a member of the tinfoil hat brigade, these are the people who really run this country. Elections, especially at the presidential level, are largely just theater, a glorified reality TV show designed to feed the masses the illusion of living in a democratic society beneath the steel boot of a rapidly decomposing empire.
I personally subscribe to the Murray Rothbard philosophy on elections, which basically goes that since the state is defined by it’s monopoly on the use of force, the best we the people can do when we’re not loading rifles is to support the most antiwar candidate available. To me, this school of thought is made doubly relevant by the fact that theoretically the only thing the president has direct authority over is the armed forces. To say that this philosophy has brought me to some strange places is an understatement. I have personally changed political parties no fewer than three times and counting. And I’ve found myself openly backing everyone from Jurassic goldbugs like Ron Paul to New Age hippie vaxxers like Jill Stein (who’s 2016 campaign sticker continues to haunt Hillaryites from the bumper of my Ford Taurus.)
The DNC’s bottomless clown car of milquetoast morons doesn’t exactly provide a lot of options for the Rothbardian voter. Most of the candidates seem to come from the Oprah School of social democracy, chumming debt besodden millennials with the promise of an endless procession of free shit, payed through taxing super-villains without offering to cut a single missile. The only solidly antiwar candidate was 89 year old former senator Mike Gravel, but since Mike has called it quits after essentially being banned from Cable TV and screwed out of his rightful place in the latest debates, that only leaves contrarian powder-keg, Tulsi Gabbard.
Majority of Democrats Now Favor Trump Impeachment Reply
Full ‘Squad’ Press Conference In Response To President Donald Trump’s Attacks Reply
I’m of two minds on these people. On one hand, I prefer these supposed “far left” (really just center-left) figures like Alexandria, Omar, Tlaib, etc. to both the mainstream Democrats and the Republicans because they’re usually much better on foreign policy (more anti-Israel, anti-Saudi, less antagonistic to Russia, Iran, the DPRK, etc). They’re also more antagonistic to the corporate class and (all things considered) have a less favorable view of the so-called “criminal justice system” (police state). However, like a lot of leftists who are good on those issues, they mix it with a lot of loopiness (impractical economic policies, eco-hysteria, idpol victimology, “political correctness, contempt for the culture Middle America, etc).
I like them for the same reason that I tend to like Trump (although I think they’re actually much better than Trump on many issues). Trump has given the finger to the Bush-Romney Republican elites, exploited the “far right” taken them for a ride and discarded them, while making populist and isolationist rhetoric acceptable among the rank and file Republicans. I’d like to see the Democrats move in the direction of DSA or the Greens and the Republicans move in the direction of France’s National Front, thereby strangling the “centrists” from both ends.
Some Dem Candidates Are More Dangerous Than Trump Reply
Trump formally launches campaign in Florida Reply
A False God Fails 1
Apparently, Bill Lind has become an anarcho-Monarchist in the tradition of Tolkien, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, or Hans Hermann Hoppe.
By William S. Lind
Traditional Right
As Great Britain moves towards its independence day, i.e., Brexit, a false god is failing: the god named “democracy”. Prime Minister Theresa May, who should have gone back to her kitchen long ago, has made such a bloody mess of it that Britons are questioning the system that put her in office. The March 31 New York Times says it bluntly:
It has amounted to a hollowing out of confidence in democracy itself.
“I don’t think the central institutions of government have been discredited like this in the postwar period,” said William Davies, who teaches political economy at Goldsmiths, University of London. . . “the political elites–people just want them to get off the stage. I don’t know who they want to replace them. But there’s a sense a reboot would be something people would be in favor of. . .”
“I think people have totally lost confidence in democracy, in British democracy and the way it’s run,” said Tommy Turner, 32, a firefighter.
Fortunately for Britain, democracy, in the form of the House of Commons, does not rule at all. There is still the House of Lords, which is usually more sensible than Commons, and there is the real sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. If all else fails, the Queen can rule as well as reign. Evelyn Waugh put British democracy in its place; when asked why he did not vote, he replied, “I do not aspire to advise my Sovereign on her choice of servants.”
Reflections on Electoral Politics (Not a Pleasant Thought) Reply
Voting is fine as a cultural ritual (like trick or treating on Halloween or setting off fireworks on July 4), but the outcomes of elections are merely reflections of pre-existing cultural patterns.
Elected officials are the employees of the ruling class/power elite, and their job is to implement pre-determined policies that are based on the consensus of elites regarding their own interests. The policies are worked out in think tanks and elite foundations controlled by elite donors and financiers. Anyone who gets elected president has to either do the bidding of the board of directors or be forced out. The elite has gone out of their way to undermine Trump, even though he is one of them, but just doesn’t play by the rules (like gatecrashing the primaries) and goes off script occasionally and actually tells the truth (like how the WMD claim in Iraq was a hoax). Someone who was genuinely antagonistic to elite interests would be out in heartbeat: framed, impeached, criminally charged, assassinated, whatever. Jimmy Carter seems to have been a decent guy. But who was running his foreign policy? Zbig B, who cultivated the Taliban and the Khmer Rouge as clients. Gerald Ford was probably a decent guy? But who was running his foreign policy? Henry the K, who greenlighted Surkarno’s massacre of 500,000 Timorese.
If Tulsi was elected prez either she would have to go the same way as Obama, or have the wrath of the ruling class come down on her 100 times greater than what it’s been with Trump. The same would be true of a Ron Paul-like Republican, a Jill Stein, or a Constitution Party president. I do think that electoral campaigns have a valuable propaganda function, which is why I promote Tusli now, Stein in 2016, Ron Paul in 2008/2012. In my perfect world someone like Carne Ross would be in the Democratic primaries, and someone like Marc Victor in the Republican primaries. But the goal of electoral campaigns should be to disseminate propaganda, not to “win.” The voting thing will happen on its own as ideas permeate the wider culture. A good example is the way that weed legalization and gay marriage went from being fringe ideas to being normalized. But at Antonio Gramsci, F.A. Hayek, Max Weber, Alain de Benoist, and plenty of others have pointed out, it’s winning the war of ideas that matters. The rest will happen on its own. As I once wrote elsewhere:
“The standard pattern in the history of the advancement of radical movements is that a new revolutionary outlook first captures the imagination of the intellectual elite, who become dissenters, and this new outlook then advances into the ranks of those who are most likely to opt for radicalism, or who have the least to lose by doing so. So, in turn, the intellectual dissidents are joined by student radicals and rebellious youth, bohemians and counterculturalists, members of the lumpenproletariat and the underclass, and marginalized or outcast social groups. Eventually, radical ideas begin working their way into the ranks of the conventional proletariat, and then into the middle class, and, finally, the establishment, with social reactionaries reluctantly being dragged along.”
The Amish have a pretty cool take on voting: “The Amish don’t vote in national elections. They vote in local elections. They do so because they have decided long ago that to vote for anyone on the national stage is to vote for a corrupt, lying, scheming Son of Satan. They won’t do it. Instead they argue that on the local level their vote just might make a bit of difference.” I generally agree with this although I think it’s a bit defamatory to Satan to compare him to the political class. https://www.patheos.com/…/disturbed-by-the-presidential…
Reflections on the Democratic Party (Not a Pleasant Thought) Reply
At this point, it looks like the Democrats are probably going to run an “Anybody but Trump” campaign like the “Anybody but Bush” campaign they ran in 2004 (the only time since 1988 that they lost the popular vote). My guess is that they’ll repeat what Hillary did last time and base their campaign on “Donald Trump is an asshole, and his voters are racist deplorables.” That’s not going to win the sympathy of anyone who is not already a Trump-hater anyway.
The idea that the Democraps are a genuine opposition party is a joke and a farce. While Republicans are the party of the traditional 1% Chamber of Commerce types (the right-wing of the plutocracy), the Democrats are the party of the 0.1% tech and financial oligarchs (h/t Richard Cheimison) whose “base” are the left-wing of the middle class seeking upward mobility through the state and promoting their own urban-cosmopolitan lifestyle interests. Hence, the emphasis on “identity politics,” ecology (“I’m cool because I recycle”), the welfare state (“More free stuff”) and gun control (“Can’t have them icky rednecks and brothas packing heat’). Anti-imperialism is not something that is even on these peoples’ radar. Many of them are openly pro-imperialist (“Muh human rights”). Nor is any serious analysis of geopolitics, class relations, or statecraft.
Tulsi Gabbard Interview On TYT 9
This is pretty impressive. She nails it on Saudi Arabia.
Andrew Yang and the Post-Nationalist Future 1
By Robert Stark
Taki’s Mag
The internet underworld that famously boosted Trump in 2016 appears to be unified for the first time since. This time everyone from the meme-makers of 4chan, to the “America First” crowd, to explicit white nationalists is marching to the beat of a new, unlikely populist champion: Asian-American entrepreneur and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. What does the phenomenon of the Trump-to-Yang supporter tell us? Beyond pointing out the obvious, that NEETS and gamers really want $1,000 a month, the youthful “Yanggang” may be the harbinger of a political paradigm shift to follow the demise of Trumpism, and the closing possibility of any recognizably American nationalism.
Pelosi, Schumer: Attorney General must not give W.H. sneak preview of Mueller report Reply
Solid Reasons Not to Vote 1
By Will Schnack
Even if we were to vote, where is the line drawn? We all know that Ralph Nader gave Bush the election, and we know that Bernie and the Greens and Libertarians did the same thing. So, what are we to do? Press that even the exposure of these people is a good thing? That they put pressure on the others to bend their policies a bit, to appeal to more people? Or are we just supposed to run into the pen that the sheepdog leads us into every time we realize that the sheepdog was never going to win in the first place? And if we’re voting for people who aren’t going to win, why aren’t we all just writing in our disparate but favorite candidates, and our friends and neighbors? Where is the line drawn with useless voting?
The working class often votes Right-wing, because some of the working class is composed of the small property-owner or the owner-operator and sole-proprietor of their business, or are working to get there. Others are white trailer trash who see affirmative action and other programs as privileges that they themselves don’t have but are being punished for. Some are just rural folks. There are tons of demographics among the working class, and not all of them white, that supported Donald Trump.
The Next Ron Paul? 7
I almost never endorse politicians. I generally regard all elected officials, from the President to dogcatchers, as employees of the real ruling class (C. Wrights Mills’ “power elite”). Voting is merely participating in the king’s coronation rituals in a way that conveys legitimacy on the state. However, there are times when political campaigns can be used for propagandistic purposes. Ron Paul’s presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 are examples, and Tulsi Gabbard’s present campaign is another potential example.
I doubt she will get the nomination. The Democrapic party will either find a way to block that from happening (i.e. cheating), or she will simply fail to do well in the primaries because, in my experience, most of the kinds of people who are likely to be voters in the Democratic primaries are not people who consider foreign policy to be a primary issue. What passes for “the Left” in the US is, with some exceptions, pathetic when it comes to international relations. They’re far more interested in idpol, expanding the welfare state, and environmentalism (i.e. advancing the interests of the left-wing of the First World middle class). However, a Tulsi vs. Trump contest in 2020 would be a highly interesting turn of events for a range of reasons.
I think she would actually do better in a general election than in the primaries, though I don’t know if she could beat Trump or not. I think not because not only are there the standard issues like incumbent’s advantage but also because, given her views on international relations, the overlord class would pour money into the Republicans to keep Tulsi out of the White House, and the media would work overtime to ensure her defeat. Notice the only time the media (other than FOX) ever said anything good about Trump were the two times he attacked Syria. It would be a highly interesting and comical situation because the political class, capitalist class, deep state, media, etc would suddenly rally behind Trump after years of endless hating on him because they would view him as objectionable though more easily contained and less immediately threatening to the empire’s interests. It would be a true “memory hole” moment. Such a situation would also greatly exacerbate the cleavage between neoliberals (most of whom would move to Trump) and progressives (most of whom would stay with Tulsi). Certain dividing lines would become clearer among the center (radical center vs. establishment center) and right (neocons vs nativists vs populists vs non-interventionists) as well.
Of course, even if she won Gabbard would be constrained by the wider ruling class, political, and deep state apparatus. At best, she would be another Jimmy Carter, i.e. a moderate who is a generally decent person but essentially unable to maneuver within the framework of a system of overwhelming opposition by elites. The “Trump hate” that has been piled on by the wider ruling class is nothing compared to the “Tulsi hate” that would come about if she were elected (the same would be true of a Republican with similar views).
Any US president who seriously moved against the interests of the oligarchy would meet the same fate as Mosadegh, Arben, Suharto, Diem, Sihanouk, Allende, Saddam, Qaddafi, so many others.
Where Have All the Flowers Gone?: Requiem for a Fictional Party Reply
By Nicky Reid
Exile in Happy Valley
Do you remember the Democrats, dearest motherfuckers? Not the neoliberal, gutter capitalist, Clintonista kind or even Bernie’s brand of drone-strike socialists, but the peace loving hippie kind. The doves who tried to end the Cold War and marched against the draft and stuck flowers in the barrels of National Guard rifles. The liberal lions who took on the war machine, who made love not war, who couldn’t hug their children with nuclear arms, and braved the perils of grassy knolls and brainwashed Arabs to bring just one ounce of sanity to Capitol Hill. Sure they were corny and preachy and a little grabby in cocktail party coatrooms but they had character and cojones and conviction. What ever happened to those liberals, before their bleeding hearts were eaten whole by those nasty neos? Where have all the flowers gone? Tell me, dearest motherfuckers, do you remember the Democrats?
Yeah, me neither, and here comes another one of my famously merciless reality checks. With the exception of few fantastic McGovern hiccups, they never actually fucking existed. The Democrats have always been a war party, even back when the Republicans were still Lindbergh worshiping isolationists. Don’t get me wrong, the Dems were always big on that Feed the World-style, Kumbaya charity shit, but there chief staple was usually more white phosphorous than whole grain granola. Both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam; all started by Democrats. Even the Republican crusades in the Persian Gulf initially passed with broad Democratic support and lingered into holocausts with broad Democratic indifference. Much like the Republicans relationship with putting America first, the Democrats only get in touch with their hippie-dippie side when it serves their partisan needs, with Yemen as your latest rule-proving exception.
Lately, though, it seems to be getting worse. Since the Sixties, the Dems have at least generally payed lip service to ideas like detente and diplomacy, particularly atop their ivory soap boxes of the legacy media. But if you turn on NPR or CNN these days, you would be forgiven for believing you were interrupting a less than clandestine meeting of the John Birch Society. According to such bleeding brains as Rachel Maddow and Wolf Blitzer, Vladimir Putin is responsible for everything from Hillary’s biological unelectability to the ravages of climate change. Donald Trump makes the rare intelligent decision to simply meet up with Kim Jong-un for pho and playful banter and he’s appeasing the Axis of Evil. John Bolton throws a monkey-wrench into the goddamn thing and suddenly he’s the latest neocon “adult” to be proclaimed a progressive folk saint. The Donald firebombs an orphanage in Crimea and he finally becomes a “real” president. OK, I made the last one up, but these are some sick sick fucks.
Colbert Smears Tulsi Gabbard To Her Face While Telling Zero Jokes Reply
It’s obviously true that most of the MSM, particularly television, is simply the propaganda arm of the Democratic National Committee, just as FOX, talk radio, Christian broadcasting, and the Wall Street Journal are simply the propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee.
By Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Hawaii Congresswoman and Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard recently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where instead of the light, jokey banter about politics and who she is as a person that Democratic presidential candidates normally encounter on late night comedy programs, the show’s host solemnly ran down a list of textbook beltway smears against Gabbard and made her defend them in front of his audience.
Normally when a Democratic Party-aligned politician appears on such a show, you can expect jokes about how stupid Trump is and how badly they’re going to beat the Republicans, how they’re going to help ordinary Americans, and maybe some friendly back-and-forth about where they grew up or something. Colbert had no time to waste on such things, however, because this was not an interview with a normal Democratic Party-aligned politician: this was a politician who has been loudly and consistently criticizing US foreign policy.
I don’t “believe” in electoral politics, because elected officials are just the paid employees of the power elite proper (see C. Wright Mills), but this would still be great because it would force the power elite to really step foward and show its hand. “Hell, no. We ain’t having this!”
The ruling class has already waxed hysterical over Trump, who is just an old-fashioned Nixon-Rockefeller Republican (“Nixon was the last liberal president”-Noam Chomsky) and governs like a normal Republican on most domestic issues. Imagine how the oligarchy would respond to Tulsi/Paul?
Any US president who seriously moved against the interests of the oligarchy would meet the same fate as Mosadegh, Arben, Suharto, Diem, Sihanouk, Allende, Saddam, Qaddafi, so many others.
