Biden's U.N. speech: A bunch of malarkey

Even while he was preparing to unleash AUKUS, the new white, Anglo-speaking front to contain and confront China with nuclear warships, Pres. Biden tried to play the pacifist in his first address to the U.N. General Assembly. 

"Today, many of our greatest concerns cannot be solved or even addressed by the force of arms,” he said. “Bombs and bullets cannot defend against COVID-19 or its future variants.”

I've got this quote stashed away for use in future blog posts. 

American nuclear sub in the South China Sea

Biden's speech was meant to distance himself from the previous guy and to prop up this country's fading global image in the wake of U.S. foreign policy disasters involving the pandemic, global warming, and budding cold war with China. 

But it failed on all counts and with the botched withdrawal (I call it, repositioning) of troops from Afghanistan -- which included the drone missile attack which killed a family of 10, including small children -- still fresh in their minds, it was met with skepticism on the part of many attendees.   

And why not? Biden wasn't about to come clean about his provocative, self-destructive, imperialist strategic shift away from the "war on terror" and towards cold war with China. 

Also fresh in the minds of many, especially those representing former colonial and neo-colonial nations, were graphic scenes from the U.S. border with border patrol horsemen whipping and rounding up Haitian refugees for mass deportation.

But Biden swore to the incredulous delegates: 

“We are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs.” 

As Biden himself might say, what a bunch of malarkey!

Notably, he didn’t utter the word “China” once in his 34-minute address. He didn't have to. Everyone knows who AUKUS is aimed at. 

It was left to the straight-shooting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to set things straight. 

"We need to re-establish a functional relationship between the two powers,” he said, calling that “essential to address the problems of vaccination, the problems of climate change and many other global challenges that cannot be solved without constructive relations within the international community and mainly among the superpowers.” 

And then this daunting reminder. 

“We are on the edge of an abyss — and moving in the wrong direction,” Guterres said. “I’m here to sound the alarm. The world must wake up."

Biden's strategic shift towards China brings us ever closer to war

V.P. Kamala Harris was sent to South China Sea last month to try and push Singapore and Vietnam into an anti-China front. But her offer was rejected by both. 

The new Cold War with China, begun under Trump and now escalating under Biden, once again pushes us closer to the nuclear abyss. How close are we? So close that according to a new book “Peril,” by the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was so consumed with fear that former President Donald Trump might launch “rogue” conventional or nuclear strikes against China, he acted twice to prevent it. 

Trump's defeat brought hope to many around the world that Biden and the Democrats would break from Trump's anti-China saber-rattling, trade-war policies and shift towards repairing the breach and lowering the temperature. These hopes have grown more desperate during the global pandemic as the growing cold war now includes vaccine wars. 

Instead, Biden has doubled down on Trump's policies and seems bent on provoking a military confrontation in the South China Sea. 

Here are a few of the repercussions...

North and South Korea are once again firing ballistic missiles hours apart from each other instead of negotiating towards unity as they were doing only a couple of months ago without U.S. involvement. This while South Korea and China were meeting to discuss de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula. You get the picture. 

Then there's this...

In what appears to those in the region to be a white united front against China the US, UK, and Australia are creating a trilateral security partnership which will include helping Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines. 

The initiative, called Aukus, was announced jointly by President Joe Biden and prime ministers Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison, following US briefings which described the agreement as binding the three English-speaking countries together.

Is anyone in these "English-speaking countries" feeling any safer from all this? Me neither. 

Remember, it was Biden who previously referred to Johnson as, "a physical and emotional clone'" of Trump. 

It's all occurring in the wake of Biden's strategic military shift away from the Middle East and towards Cold War. It follows his helter-skelter withdraw and re-positioning of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Biden's main cold-warrior strategist and regime-change specialist, Sec. Anthony Blinken is under the gun here at home, facing withering attacks from left and right over the "chaotic" Afghan retreat.

I'm still wondering though. Has there ever been a smooth withdrawal by an invading army after a major military defeat? Wish we could ask Napoleon or Gen. Creighton Abrams who was sending Nixon upbeat reports on the progress of the war in Vietnam right up 'til the very end. 

The lessons of war are hard to learn. Let's pull the reins in on the warmakers. 

QUOTABLES: Biden's Bible

Abdul Matin Azizi, a neighbor who saw the attack. Azizi, 20, said the explosion occurred as the family returned home Sunday afternoon around 4:30 p.m. Azizi said he ran next door to help and found a gruesome scene, the air thick with smoke. “The bodies were covered in blood and shrapnel, and some of the dead children were still inside the car,” he said. -- Washington Post

Biden's Bible

 “Those who have served through the ages have drawn inspiration from the Book of Isaiah. When the Lord says, ‘who shall I send, who shall go for us?’ The American military has been answering for a long time, ‘Here I am, Lord. Send me.’” -- Speech to the Nation

Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia Prof

The sad truth is that the American political class and mass media hold the people of poorer nations in contempt, even as they intervene relentlessly and recklessly in those countries. Of course, much of America’s elite hold America’s own poor in similar contempt. -- Market Watch

Dr. Anthony Fauci

"I believe that mandating vaccines for children to appear in school is a good idea."

"This is not something new. We have mandates in many places in schools, particularly public schools, that if in fact you want a child to come in -- we've done this for decades and decades requiring (vaccines for) polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis," he said. "So this would not be something new, requiring vaccinations for children to come to school." -- CNN

Seth Meyers

 “I mean, how does this shit keep getting dumber and dumber? First it was hydroxychloroquine, then it was bleach, powerful lights, now it’s horse dewormer? I’m honestly terrified to imagine what’s next. One day we’re gonna wake up and Brian Kilmeade’s gonna be telling people you can cure COVID by eating kibble and sleeping in a bed of kitty litter.” -- Late Night

QUOTABLES

Yes, ‘I Am Legend,’ the 2007 movie about zombie vampires, is now a part of the vaccine conversation. 

As of Wednesday, more than 166 million Americans have been fully vaccinated. The zombie count, however, remains at zero. -- Washington Post

Stephen Collison, CNN

At the same time, Biden was doing exactly what most Americans, exhausted by long years of foreign quagmires and confused as to why US troops were still in Afghanistan 20 years after 9/11, wanted. There was no national support for escalating the war. -- Biden's botched Afghan exit  

Taliban Spokesperson, Suhail Shaheen 

...told the BBC Sunday that the militants want a "peaceful" transition. -- CNBC

‘Saigon on Steroids’: The Desperate Rush to Flee Afghanistan,” by WSJ’s Yaroslav Trofimov, Dion Nissenbaum, and Margherita Stancati 

"The lucky few were already inside, crowded onto the last patch of government territory that hadn’t fallen to the Taliban. Outside, as thousands of civilians surged to break through the perimeter of Hamid Karzai International Airport, security forces fired gunshots into the air to force them back." -- Wall Street Journal

“Corporate America grows impatient on Biden’s China trade review,” by Gavin Bade

“Nearly eight months into his presidency, America’s largest corporations are voicing frustration that Biden has not rolled back any of former President Donald Trump’s major tariffs, particularly the duties on $350 billion worth of Chinese imports." -- Politico

NYT’s Elizabeth Harris

“Blackout,” by the right-wing media personality Candace Owens, has sold 480,000 copies across formats since it was published last fall by Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. “American Marxism,” by the best-selling author Mark R. Levin, which devotes a chapter to critical race theory, sold 400,000 books in just its first week on the market last month. -- New York Times

Yes, to vax and mask mandates. Randi flips for the better.

Randi Weingarten says it's a 'personal matter.'

"In order for everyone to feel safe and welcome in their workplaces, vaccinations must be negotiated between employers and workers, not coerced.  -- Randi Weingarten, Statement July 26th

"Since 1850 we’ve dealt with vaccines in schools, it’s not a new thing to have vaccines in schools. And I think that, on a personal matter, as a matter of personal conscience, I think that we need to be working with our employers – not opposing them – on vaccine mandates." -- AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten, Meet the Press (Aug. 8th)

It didn't take very long for AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten to walk back her opposition to vaccine mandates. RW claims her new position is a "personal matter," a "matter of personal conscience." I'm not sure what that means in this context. Is she not speaking for her union? I guess we'll find out soon enough. 

But I'll go out on a limb here and say the real reasons for the shift are fairly obvious. 

~Most teachers and parents want their children to return to school safely. The only way to ensure that is to have all adults and as many children as possible vaccinated and masked. The teachers unions misread community sentiment.

~Hours before his death, AFL-CIO Pres. Richard Trumka made clear his support for vaccine mandates. To have the teacher unions appear to be bucking Trumka on this would be divisive and damaging to the entire labor movement.

~At a time when the Biden White House is weighing vaccine mandates for businesses and the federal workforce, there's no way AFT leaders can allow themselves to be seen as oppositional. I'm pretty sure that Joe Biden and Education Sec. Miguel Cardona applied some screws where needed.  

~Weingarten's initial opposition to mandates would have put her in step with the most reactionary Republican governors in the nation, like Abbott of Texas and DeSantis of Florida.  Both have threatened to punish any school or district that mandated masking or vaxing. DeSantis has even refused to mandate masks and has blocked school districts from requiring them, despite his state leading the nation in pediatric hospitalizations.

There are even more good reasons to explain the union's shift, but I will stop there. I'm just happy for her change of heart on this regardless of what's driving it.

I'm hoping it will get some of our local Chicago union leaders, like AFSCME's Roberta Lynch, who's still opposing mandates, to rethink their positions. Then there's the CTU leadership, who's remaining quiet on the issue. 

**********

With schools set to open in days, the delta variant has brought the danger to young children into sharp relief. In Tennessee, for example, the variant is spreading quickly in children--so quickly, in fact, that the state's health department projects that children's hospitals in TN will be completely full by the end of next week. 

Two children died from COVID-19 over the weekend in Memphis. and children age 10 and under now account for more than 10% of all new coronavirus infections, one of the highest rates of any point during the pandemic. 

The Resistance... Austin, TX school Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde announced that the district will require face masks, defying Gov. Abbott's executive orders banning ​​mask mandates. Entities that defy Abbott's orders face fines of $1,000, but it's unclear if school districts could face multiple fines for violating the order. Abbott's office didn't clarify how the order would be enforced, but in a statement Tuesday it mentioned possible legal action, promising the governor would work with the Texas attorney general to fight "for the rights and freedoms of all Texans." 

IL Gov. Pritzker is moving right ahead with vaccine mandates for many state employees including state prison staff. Last week he announced vaccinations would be required for all state employees who work in highly populated facilities. That includes officers in prisons operated by the Department of Corrections and Juvenile Justice. Republicans immediately filed a lawsuit and the FOP went ballistic. 

Becky Pringle, president of the largest U.S. teachers' union, the National Education Association (NEA), is still hanging on to the old line. I guess she didn't get the memo about personal conscience. She told the NYT last week that any vaccine mandate should be "negotiated at the local level." But it's not clear what there is to negotiate when both sides have the same interests.

There's also no legal platform for such negotiations and with the clock on school openings ticking, there's no time left to bargain. 

Right-wing and neo-fascist media fear-mongers, including populist shockcasters like anti-gay bigot Joe Rogan, have made vax mandates their fave key wedge issue in hopes of driving white, male listeners to the polls next year to restore a MAGA congressional majority.

Rogan, who calls himself a liberal when it's convenient, claims that mandated masks and vaccine passports are driving the country one step closer to "dictatorship." What a fool! 

The imperial mind of David Brooks

"America, disillusioned with itself, is now withdrawing." -- David Brooks

Brooks is an unreconstructed imperialist, an anti-China cold warrior who still envisions America as the last and only great white hope to save our admittedly "flawed and error-prone" democracy from the advances of the dark and evil forces around the globe.

In his July 15th NYT opinion piece, The American Identity Crisis, Brooks objects to Biden's apparent retreat from Afghanistan where this country has fought its longest, seemingly eternal war at the cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. I say apparent because the U.S. will continue to back the regime with drones based in neighboring countries and will supply it with armaments and aircraft as well as maintaining contracted fighters in-country.

The withdrawal of all U.S. troops by Sept. 1st is actually more of a strategic repositioning targeting China than a withdrawal. As Biden himself put it in his July 8th speech:

We are developing a counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region, and act quickly and decisively if needed.

And we also need to focus on shoring up America’s core strengths to meet the strategic competition with China and other nations that is really going to determine — determine our future. 

About 241,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan and Pakistan war zone since 2001. More than 71,000 of those killed have been civilians. If official accounts are to be accepted, the war has killed more people last month than in any other month since 2001, when the United States and NATO troops invaded the country.

But for Brooks, this cost in treasure and human life is apparently a small price to pay for his imagined military defeat of the Taliban and defense of the corrupt U.S. puppet regime in Kabul. 

He blames the withdrawal of the last remaining U.S. troops, begun by Trump and reportedly completed by Biden, on "the American left" who he claims has "lost confidence" in American manifest destiny and has forsaken the country's identity as the military enforcer of liberal-democratic values in resistant countries. 

He writes:

I guess what befuddles me most is the behavior of the American left. I get why Donald Trump and other American authoritarians would be ambivalent about America’s role in the world. They were always suspicious of the progressive package that America has helped to promote.

But every day I see progressives defending women’s rights, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and racial justice at home and yet championing a foreign policy that cedes power to the Taliban, Hamas and other reactionary forces abroad.

Brooks is actually more MAGA than Trump. He longs for the days when the threat and use of unrivaled U.S. military power were enough to impose regime change on resistant peoples and countries. But as the past half-century of failed U.S. military adventures, from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan have shown, those days are numbered. 

Footnote: As I'm writing this, Reuters is reporting that Taliban officials and Afghan politicians met in Qatar on Saturday amid calls for peace by both sides following continued fighting in the region. 

I'm still hoping against hope that a bloody civil war can be averted once all foreign troops leave the country and that the Afghani people will finally be able to determine their own destiny. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

George Clooney and a group of A-listers, including Don Cheadle and Kerry Washington, are working with the Los Angeles Unified School District to fill that gap by launching an academy that promises to provide education and practical training in the arts and sciences of filmmaking to marginalized communities.

Linda Darling-Hammond on Clooney's new school

 “Charity is no substitute for justice,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, the president of the California State Board of Education. “It’s great that people are making these investments, but we have a bigger job to do.” -- New York Times

Joe Rufo, Trump's new point man on education

“We have successfully frozen their brand—'critical race theory’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.” -- Washington Post

 Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker 

...said today that families can expect school to look "a lot more like it did before the pandemic." -- Boston Herald

Tucker Carlson spews anti-Lightfoot racism

We want to start with an insurrection — an insurrection against the rule of law, against civilization itself — that’s been going on for more than a year in the city of Chicago. Since the death of George Floyd last May, Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has embraced every part of the equity and inclusion agenda. --RCP

Fareed Zakaria 

The decay of American democracy is real. It’s not a messaging or image problem. Until we can repair that, I’m not sure we can truly say America is back. -- Washington Post

Hunter Biden (Oink!)

 He referred to Asian women as “yellow” in a January 2019 text to his cousin who was asking about the type of women he preferred. -- Daily Mail 

Dr. Anthony Fauci

"The people who are giving the ad hominems are saying, 'Ah, Fauci misled us. First he said no masks, then he said masks. Well, let me give you a flash. That's the way science works. You work with the data you have at the time." -- Axios

Biden's anti-China pitch not going well at the G-7

As Biden preaches collective security and prosperity to the Group of Seven rich democracies, the European Union and NATO, he has to reckon that “the key threat is inside, it’s us. It’s not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not extremism, it’s not Afghanistan, it’s us.” --  Charles Kupchan, Obama security advisor on European Affairs. 

Biden's call for a united front against China isn't going over well with everyone at the G-7 meeting, according to a report in today's WaPo.  

A senior U.S. official who spoke with reporters following a morning session largely devoted to China described like-mindedness about concerns over Chinese behavior but a difference of opinion about how to respond. He listed Britain, Canada and France as having quickly backed Biden’s view, but it was not immediately clear where the others stood.

The problem for Biden is that China remains Europe's second-largest trading partner, behind only the U.S. itself. Plus, Biden, despite his claim that "America is back," still has a tough road ahead when it comes to re-establishing the U.S. as a reliable partner.  

Biden's biggest problem is that despite his post-Trump popularity and high approval ratings, he's been unable to deliver on his own policy initiatives back home despite Democrat's control of the House and Senate.

Angela Merkel, who is skeptical of Biden's hard anti-China stance, doesn't want to risk Germany's export of millions of cars to China annually.

Even Japan, which has had a tense relationship with China going back to WWII, is still a close neighbor and trading partner and has also been wary.

And Italy signed a 2019 memorandum of understanding with China to join its “Belt and Road Initiative,” the sprawling infrastructure development project that the G-7 is now attempting to compete with. 

Biden's charge against China's Belt and Road -- that it "leaves poorer nations saddled with debt" -- could make cynics out of the most pollyannish Europeans. After all, hasn't it been the IMF and the World Bank that have become infamous for destabilizing national economies and forcing austerity on much of the world, including Europe? 

China's unbelievably rapid rise as an alternative to the IMF is winning them favor in much of the poorest countries in Asia and Africa. Plus China has done it without warring against other countries or imposing regime change on them. While the U.S. and wealthy European countries have just announced their willingness to distribute the Covid vaccine to the neediest countries, China has been far out on this.

Several of the G-7 countries are already deeply invested along with China in fighting global climate change. China was the first country to adopt a carbon-neutral pledge for 2060.

WaPo reports that, 

Britain and Italy are co-chairs of a major international climate conference later this year and seek China’s help to meet targets.

Biden could gain back some lost U.S. respectability at the G-7, especially since he's following in Trump's wake. But he will likely have to retreat on much of his hardline anti-China framework for the meeting.  

G-7 Cold Warriors gather in St. Ives

As I was Going to St. Ives
BY ANONYMOUS
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits:
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were there going to St. Ives?

Answer: G7

Today the G7 summit begins in the tiny village of St. Ives in this corner of Cornwall – a holiday idyll fast resembling a military Green Zone – rumours are rife. Residents question environmental destruction, disruption and sheer astronomical cost of the summit - which will see world leaders ensconced in luxury hotels minutes from some of UK’s most deprived areas... This is a tourist resort that increasingly feels like an occupied enclave.

While Biden et al will be put up at the luxury Tregenna Castle (sea views, sub-tropical gardens, on-site golf course), the billets here do not appear to even come with their own toilets. Its communal loos all round. Ironically, perhaps, given this is thought to be a police or security base, only a few fields away is the site where thousands of Extinction Rebellion protestors will be camping. -- The Independent

Pres. Biden's G7 game plan calls for a Cold War united-front against China with the U.S. and U.K. at its center. Biden is relying on support for the plan coming from Boris Johnson. But its doubtful that other G7 members will play along and internal conflicts are bound to arise.

Johnson so far, seems quite willing to play along with the so-far evidence-free "lab-leak" story as part of the anti-China narrative. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin says the "vigorous hyping up" of the lab leak theory on the part of American politicians reminds him of the early 2000s when Americans were "hyping up the assertion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction." -- Newsweek

Sounds about right to me.

Remember, it was Biden who previously referred to Johnson as, "a physical and emotional clone'" of Trump. In case you don't know where all this is heading in terms of politics here in the U.S., Biden blamed Johnson's Conservative Party winning a parliamentary majority on its rival Labour Party "moving too far left."

The current G7 meeting appears to represent a break from Trump's "America First" isolationism. But Biden's anti-China posturing and his call for sanctions and more barriers to Chinese trade echo Trump's trade war policies. It's a call for an unholy alliance that will be hard for the U.S. to sustain given that the European Union and China are two of the biggest traders in the world. China is now the EU's second-biggest trading partner behind the United States and the EU is China's biggest trading partner.

If there's a positive coming from the G7, it could be Biden's announcement that the U.S. and European countries are prepared to donate a billion doses to the poorest countries, hardest hit by the pandemic. But their motives are obvious.

AP reports that the well-funded global alliance has faced a slow start to its vaccination campaign, as richer nations have locked up billions of doses through contracts directly with drug manufacturers. As a result, the U.S. and wealthy European countries are now racing to catch up with China’s moves to establish itself as a leader in the fight against the coronavirus.

According to the New York Times: 

Last summer, China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, heralded the promise of a Chinese-made Covid-19 vaccine as a global public good. So far, he appears to be making good on that pledge. 

Maybe some benefits may yet come out of U.S.-China competition provided that the U.S. cold war push is somehow constrained.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

The Biden administration set aside $4 billion to help minority farmers. White farmers, echoing some old-guard Chicago journalists, complain that leveling the playing field amounts to "reverse racism."

“We’re getting the short end,” said John Wesley Boyd Jr., a Virginia bean and grain farmer who is also the founder of the National Black Farmers Association. “Anytime in the United States, if there’s money for Blacks, those groups speak up and say how unfair it is. But it’s not unfair when they’re spitting on you when they’re calling you racial epithets when they’re tearing up your application.” -- NYT 

Columnist Laura Washington

Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, frequently called out the media for the whiteness in the City Hall press room. -- Sun-Times

Tucker Carlson

"Equity is racism..." -- Fox News 

Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor of Media studies at UVA

What is at stake with Nikole Hannah-Jones being denied tenure?

...The 1619 project sparked a furious blowback from conservatives who don’t like to be reminded that Black people are allowed to tell the story of America as well and that history is always under revision as new knowledge emerges and new questions rise. -- Guardian

Father Michael Pfleger

After nearly 5 months of being removed from St. Sabina because of False Accusations, I am overjoyed to announce that the Archdiocese of Chicago has said " there is insufficient reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations "  I am being reinstated as Senior Pastor of  St Sabina. -- FB Post

Journalist Jamie Kalven on police complaint database

Kalven told aldermen that a city-run database would represent a “paradigm shift” in how the city discloses complaints against officers and “significantly reduce demands” on city staff charged with providing documents via the Freedom of Information Act. -- WTTW

Biden's Cold War mentality detracts from his progressive initiatives

We’re in a competition with China and other countries to win the 21st Century. -- Pres. Biden's address to Congress last night 

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. -- Pres. Eisenhower, 1953

That last quote is from Eisenhower's Chance For Peace speech in 1953.  It took the former 4-Star General to warn us against the country's exploding post-war military budget. But as the Cold War deepened during his administration, political pressures for increased military spending mounted. By the time he left office in 1961, he felt it necessary to warn of the military-industrial complex in his farewell address.

I was reminded of Ike's warning last night, listening to Pres. Biden couch all of his ambitious (but not adequate) $6-trillion post-pandemic infrastructure rebuilding and jobs programs in jingoist, America First,  anti-China, Cold War rhetoric. 

Biden called on Congress to invest in infrastructure, education, child care, civil rights, and science calling them programs that will allow the U.S. to win a competition with China. Like Trump, Biden is committed to a distinctly anti-China global strategy rooted in fears of American decline.

Yes, those investments are exactly what we need. But not for the sake of winning some mythical and dangerous global race to the top. Remember, that was Arne Duncan's rationale for pushing testing madness and school privatization when he was Obama's ed secretary. My 4-year-old granddaughter doesn't need to be prepared in pre-school to compete with 4-year-olds in China or Switzerland for global hegemony, thank you. 

It's this kind of thinking that has led to the global vaccine wars when international cooperation in the fight against the pandemic could have saved millions of lives and prevented the current catastrophe in India. 

It has also led Biden to push for a bloated Pentagon budget that's even larger than Trump's. The rationale behind the push has to do with illusory U.S. imperial ambitions to impose its will on other countries and engage in regime change when it can. These ambitions leave me even more skeptical about his planned withdrawal of the remaining troops in Afghanistan. Are they really being brought home or simply being redeployed for continuing conflict in the region? Does a redeployment mean a new buildup of American military power to confront China and Iran?

Yes, according to a report in today's NYT:

The Pentagon is looking to place troops near Afghanistan to track and attack militant groups if they threaten the United States. Possibilities in the region include Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, but those countries are under the sway of Russia to one degree or another, Attack planes aboard aircraft carriers and long-range bombers flying from land bases along the Persian Gulf and even in the United States could strike insurgent fighters spotted by armed surveillance drones. 

Or is the China yellow-peril ("they're closing in on us") fearmongering simply being used as a way to appeal to resistant Trump Party members in a vain attempt to build "bipartisan" support for his new initiatives? If it is, it's a pipe dream. 

Biden recounted:

I also told President Xi that we will maintain a strong military presence in the Indo—Pacific just as we do with NATO in Europe – not to start conflict – but to prevent conflict." 

He failed to explain how putting U.S. warships in the South China Sea would prevent conflict rather than inevitably provoke a new one.  

China and other countries are closing in fast," warned Biden. "We have to develop and dominate the products and technologies of the future: advanced batteries, biotechnology, computer chips, and clean energy."

 Other countries "closing in" on us? What a myopic, paranoid, us-against-them view of the world.

Winning the 21st Century? What the hell does that even mean? Is the 21st Century a game? How do you know if you've won or lost? Who won the 20th?

Biden's guns-and-butter strategy is bound to bump heads with his progressive initiatives. That's too bad. They're worthwhile initiatives. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Weaponized gossip. It's designed to undermine the credibility and marginalize the person who is the target. It often has no basis in reality. I know - it happened to me as an elected official. It's got a name. It's a tactic. Recognize it when you see it, and push back.

— Rep. Ann Williams (@RepAnnWilliams) April 18, 2021

Benjamin Crump, civil rights attorney

“The outcome that we pray for and Derek Chauvin is for him to be held criminally liable for killing George Floyd, because we believe that could be a precedent,” Crump told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “Finally making America live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all. That means all of us - Black people, Hispanic people, Native people - all of us.” -- Guardian

Dr. David Williams

Dr. David Williams, Harvard public health professor 

“There are racial disparities in health in the United States. Over 200 Black people die prematurely every single day." -- 60 Minutes

John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua 

"China and the United States are committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis." -- China-U.S. Joint Statement Addressing the Climate Crisis

Eliot Cohen, Dean of SAIS at Johns Hopkins

In important aspects of foreign and national-security policy, the Biden administration is really the Trump administration but with civilized manners. -- The Atlantic

I'm holding my applause

Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga call for a "united front against China"

.
Democrats, including the party's left-wing, are wildly cheering Biden's announcement of a planned troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by September 11th. And who can blame them? Most Americans have long grown weary of this country's "eternal war on terrorism" which has dragged on now for two decades at great cost in human lives and taxpayer dollars. It was a war that Biden supported from the start.

Called a "smart war" (as opposed to the "dumb war" in Iraq) by President Obama, the Afghan war has been backed and underwritten by the leaders of both parties and cheered on in the press. All the while meeting little resistance from a once-powerful and militant, now-dormant anti-war movement. 

But now, the great majority of Americans from right to left, support an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops. A poll from the right-leaning Concerned Veterans for America showed that 67% of veterans support a complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. 

So why am I, a long-time anti-war activist, withholding my applause for now? Two reasons: First, I'll wait until all the remaining 2,500 troops (plus thousands of U.S.-hired military contractors) are out of Afghanistan and the last missile is fired on Afghanis from a U.S. drone. You see, I've heard these withdrawal announcements before including the one made most recently by our previous president to withdraw all troops by May 1st. By delaying the withdrawal by 4 months, Biden is violating the agreement Trump made with the Afghanis. Second, I'm concerned that the announced withdrawal is really a repositioning of U.S. troops so they can be used to ramp up an even more dangerous U.S. war threat against China. 

I know that any criticism of Biden's foreign policy is difficult, if not impossible for Democrats to make right now. Just like it was when Obama was elected after the Bush years. After 4 years of Trump and with Biden's pandemic relief money flowing to cities, states, and schools, Biden deserves the ratings he's getting. 

But I'm still leery of the intentions of his new team of cold warriors now heading the State and Defense Departments just as I was of regime-changer Hillary Clinton and neocon, John McCain during the Obama years. 

It's unimaginable to me that in the midst of this global pandemic, Congress would approve a bloated ($715B) Pentagon budget with barely a note of dissent from regular democrats. This represents a leap well beyond Trump's giant gift to the warmakers. 

The day after... I started writing this post the day before yesterday's White House meeting between Biden and JapanesePrime Minister Yoshihide Suga. It was there that Biden confirmed my worst fears when he gave the clearest expression yet of his out-of-whack strategic foreign policy objective, echoing Sec. Anthony Blinken's call at last month's Alaska summit for a "united front against China."

The new strategic plan is a failed one that can only pull this country deeper into a new cold war and closer to a hot one as well. 

And if you thought the Afghan war was a dumb one...

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

R.I.P. Ramsey Clark

“A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you.” (1927-2001)

Honduran immigrant Maria Ana Mendez

“I have no idea where my daughter is,” Ms. Mendez said in an interview on March 26. “No one is telling me anything at all.” -- New York Times

Katie Wright

Daunte Wright's mother, Katie Wright

"He got out of the car, and his girlfriend said they shot him," she said. "He got back in the car, and he drove away and crashed and now he's dead on the ground since 1:47. ... Nobody will tell us anything. Nobody will talk to us. ... I said please take my son off the ground." -- Star Tribune

Fareed Zakaria

Welcome to the new age of bloated Pentagon budgets, all to be justified by the great Chinese threat...The U.S. has 20 times the number of nuclear warheads as China. -- CNN

Letter to Biden signed by more than 100 state and local officials 

Now is the time for your administration to fulfill its commitment to human rights and refugee protection; only then can we urge the global community to also do their part.” -- Washington Post 

 

Georgia politicians are leaving nearly 2 billion dollars on the table and denying affordable health care to nearly 500,000 Georgians by refusing to expand Medicaid.

That’s a moral and economic failure. We must expand Medicaid.

— Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) April 11, 2021

It will be a great and historic tragedy if this Dem majority fails again on gun control

A solemn group of King Soopers workers, left, some from the Boulder store and some from the same district, brought large displays of flowers for each of the victims of the mass shooting.  (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP)

It's become a familiar pattern. Dems promise mild federal gun control legislation but get no bi-partisan support so they drop the issue. Then comes another mass shooting and there's a new whirlwind of gun-control chatter that dies down again after a week or so. 

Pres. Biden did not fulfill a campaign promise to send a bill to Congress on his first day in office repealing liability protections for gun manufacturers and closing background-check loopholes.

But after two mass shootings, which took the lives of 18 people, in less than a week, he's once again promising "common sense" gun legislation, including the banning of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. He's also promising to take executive action if Republicans block passage in the Senate. 

But we've heard those promises before, like after the Sandy Hook killings in 2012 when Obama tasked Biden with coming up with a legislative package of gun control measures. But the effort resulted in no significant legislative action, and Obama was forced to enact a handful of relatively modest reform through executive actions.

After a February 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., students launched a wave of activism that propelled gun-control issues to the front of the Democratic agenda, including Biden’s. But since taking office, the president has been swamped by other crises, from the pandemic to the economy to immigration.

Dems fear losing Republican support on potential bipartisan issues. Trump's MAGAs threaten to block enforcement once a bill is passed. Same as it ever was. 

This was the case even in the wake of gun-toting militias storming government buildings and threatening the lives of governors and legislators. Not to mention the horrible rise in the number of shootings in cities like Chicago. 

Federal gun control, including the outlawing of military assault weapons, was dropped to near the bottom of the Democrats' legislative agenda ever since Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told Attorney General Eric Holder to "shut the fuck up" about the issue a decade ago.

And without strong, enforceable federal laws, state and local legislation becomes almost meaningless since illegal guns are easily transported across state and municipal borders. 

Then there are the courts, now loaded up with Trump-appointed judges. Three years ago, the city of Boulder banned assault weapons. A court blocked the measure just 10 days before Monday’s rampage.

It would be one of the great historical tragedies if no significant gun legislation is possible even with a Democrat in the White House and a Dem majority in both houses.

Anti-China cold warriors threaten pandemic recovery and progressive ed

“I made clear the US will defend our national interests, stand up for our democratic values, and hold Beijing accountable for its abuses of the international system.” -- Sec. of State Tony Blinken

It shouldn't take fear of China's economic power to jumpstart our post-pandemic economy or adequately fund our public schools. But that is the logic of the cold warriors and regime changers who play leading roles in Biden's State Department and in many foreign policy think tanks. 

The current revival of cold-war nationalism, following in the wake of Trump's racist "Kung-flu" fear-mongering and white-supremacist populism, presents formidable threats to post-pandemic recovery. It's also responsible for the spike in anti-Asian racism and violence since the start of the pandemic.

Escalating tensions with China could also negatively influence educational priorities the way they did with the Obama administration's so-called Race To The Top. 

Yesterday's WaPo opinion piece by columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. asks the question: Will China get our country moving again?

Our response to this fear does not have to descend into warmongering, and it shouldn’t mean abruptly cutting off cooperation with China in areas where, as on climate action, partnership is necessary...But the danger China poses could fundamentally reorder U.S. attitudes toward government’s role in domestic economic growth, research and development in ways that leave the United States stronger. 

That all depends on what you mean by "stronger".  

For example, while competition for the vaccine market this past year did lead to some great achievements in the field of medicine, vaccine nationalism also caused a widening of the gap between the vaccine haves and have-nots (read: rich and poor countries), leaving the latter with collapsed economies and with millions suffering and dying needlessly from disease, child poverty, and hunger. We can only imagine the possibilities offered by a multi-national effort in the war to defeat Covid. 

Do we really think we are safe from this horrendous disease that has already killed 2.6 million worldwide, when millions more are dying in other countries? Do we really think we can successfully rebuild our own shattered economy if the economy of more than half the world remains in tatters?

Even in China, where the virus has been under control for months, a variant strain entering the country on a visitor or in a shipment of food, could force the entire country into another lockdown. The same is true for this country. 

Big-power confrontation and competition for global supremacy is nothing new and we've come to expect it as normal. It's not only embedded in the new globalism, it's been a function of imperialism since the turn of the last century. It's what led to the start of both world wars as well as the rise of the military-industrial complex, and the economic imbalance caused by the militarization of our society. 

During the Trump years, it was represented by the Republicans' America-First demagogy which precipitated the MAGA attack on the Capitol on January 6th. I'm still hopeful that the Democrats' victory will bring about a turn away from MAGAism. 

But recent threatening statements by Pres. Biden, and his appointed Sec. of State Tony Blinken, are discouraging. The Biden administration has an opportunity to tone down the Trumpian rhetoric and reach new trade and anti-COVID agreements with China for the sake of world peace, health, and stability. 

As for education... the perceived China threat also impacts the conduct and content of schooling. 

As Dionne points out:

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite, it set off a national panic...One result was the 1958 National Defense Education Act, as Congress “began searching for ways to produce scientists and engineers who would equal Russia’s.” Another, of course, was the space program.

Cold warriors at that time raised the chilling specter of Soviet missiles raining down on American cities from outer space and blamed "failing" public schools for our lag in the race into space, or as it became known during the Obama administration, "the race to the top."

One result was the rise of heavily-tracked mega high schools and an over-reliance on high-stakes, standardized testing. This is nothing new. During the Obama administration, then Sec. of Education Arne Duncan used the fear of U.S. students lagging behind China to impose a regimen of punitive high-stakes testing on the nation's schools and teachers. Obama even called it "our Sputnik moment."

Now, schools and educators are again forced to confront the question of educational purpose. Is it the schools' purpose to train a new army of anti-China cold-warriors? Or rather, to prepare a generation of critical thinkers with the skills and habits of mind necessary to build a democratic society? I'll go with the latter. 

To participate in an ongoing discussion on post-pandemic schooling, follow @Smallschools on Twitter. 

The return of the regime changers. Missiles are flying again in Iraq.

“They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
― Joseph Heller, Catch 22

Pres. Biden and his newly-appointed Sec. of State Anthony Blinken seem bent on pushing the U.S. into a disastrous hot war with Iran. Biden has only been in office a couple of months and already missiles are flying again in Iraq and Syria. 

Yesterday a missile attack in western Iraq led to the death of a U.S. mercenary. 

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the contractor “suffered a cardiac episode while sheltering” and died shortly afterward. He said there were no service members injured and all are accounted for. British and Danish troops also are among those stationed at the base. 

The rocket attack was the first since the U.S. struck Iran-aligned militia targets along the Iraq-Syria border last week, killing one militiaman and stoking fears of another cycle of tit-for-tat attacks as happened more than a year ago.  -- AP

Now the Pentagon is surely preparing for another retaliatory move.  

It appears to me that this escalation was intentionally meant to sabotage the resumption of U.S. nuclear weapons talks with Iran. Blinken seems to be another regime-changer in the mold of Hillary Clinton.

All this begs the question, why are U.S. troops and mercs still in Iraq after 17 years, over a million deaths, and $4 trillion in taxpayer money wasted. BTW that's triple the money needed for pandemic and economic recovery. 

We should also remember that amid the fallout of the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed Iran's General Qassem Soleimani a year ago, the Iraqi parliament voted to oust all U.S. troops stationed in their country. Trump's claim on Iraqi oil aside, it now seems like with the current escalation, Iraqis along with all other countries in the Middle East, already ravaged by the global pandemic, face the prospect of being drawn into all-out war again. 

The current escalation dashes the hopes of those who believed that the Democrats' victory would lead to at least a temporary halt to our failed imperialist adventures in the region and to the possibility of bringing our troops home and out of harm's way.

They should have known better. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

This, in the era of mass school shootings...

Trump Junior

Donald Trump Jr. Rips Teachers Unions In Front Of A Gun Wall.

"The teachers' unions are out of control & are destroying our kid’s futures." -- Huffington 

 U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

“White supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are more than domestic terror threats. They are becoming a transnational threat." -- Addressing U.N. Human Rights Council

Simon Tisdall on Iran nuclear agreement

Biden’s instinct to try to break this impasse and find a diplomatic way through – supported by the UK, Germany and France – is the right one. But words are not enough. As a sign of good faith, he should swiftly relax some sanctions and unfreeze Iran’s Covid-related $5bn IMF loan request. -- Guardian

 Yuh-Line Niou, a Democrat who represents New York City's Chinatown 

“They are all calling me asking me, 'How do I get this vaccine? What’s going on?' Then they will ask me, 'Hey, can you translate this site for me?'” -- USA Today 

 Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus 

“We can’t let one or two Democrats prevent the $15 minimum wage from being in the relief bill. It’s bad politics and bad policy.” -- The Hill

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Dr. King is arrested for "loitering" in Montgomery, Alabama, in September 1958.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “The Radical King”, Beacon Press

WHO's Mike Ryan on year 1 of Covid

We can blame climate change. We can blame policy decisions made 30 years ago regarding everything from urbanization to the way we exploit the forest," he said. "You can find people to blame in every level of what we're doing on this planet." -- Beacon Journal 

President-elect Joe Biden

 “We remain in a very dark winter,” Mr. Biden told Americans on Friday. “The honest truth is this: Things will get worse before they get better.” -- New York Times

 Bill Barr To Trump...

Your 'clownish' legal team is lying and your voter fraud claims are 'bullsh*t'. -- Crooks & Liars

Jesse Wegman

 The rioters incited by President Trump and Republicans to storm the seat of the federal government on Jan. 6 did not have Mr. Warnock’s name on their lips. They didn’t have to. In their eagerness to destroy American democracy rather than share it, they showed themselves to be the inheritors of a long tradition of rebellion against a new world order: a genuine, multiracial democracy. -- New York Times Op-Ed

 

The Keystone pipeline is & always has been a disaster. I'm delighted that Joe Biden will cancel the Keystone permit on his first day in office. With all of the major crises facing America, we must never lose sight of the most existential threat facing our planet: climate change. https://t.co/8lDZDOgsVy

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 18, 2021

Trump's last few days. 'Loot, pillage, and burn.'

National Guard Troops sleeping on the floor of the Capitol.

Trump isn't sticking around D.C. until the very end. He's hopping on the next Air Force 1 headed for Florida where he can watch in the safety of Mar-a-Lago as his confederate gangs threaten to lynch lawmakers and try and bring D.C. and 50 state capitols to a violent, chaotic halt. They won't succeed in restoring the defeated Trump regime to power. But they could leave many casualties and lots of property damage in their wake again. The state's repressive forces arrayed against them, will likely be a deterrent. If not, they will be overpowering. As many as 25 thousand troops are so far deployed. That's more than are currently deployed in the Middle East. 

By this afternoon, 43 troops had reportedly tested positive for coronavirus. 

The problem with state repressive forces is that they threaten the freedom and civil liberties of all of us, not just the fascists and white supremacist MAGA thugs. And that repressive, official militarized force, aided and abetted by a reactionary Supreme Court, is just what the MAGAs are trying to provoke. There's already a Republican-led move, likely to draw some Democratic support, to push through new anti-riot laws. As if there isn't a shitload of those already on the books. 

Within one day of last week’s attack on the Capitol, at least three states used the MAGA insurrection as an excuse to introduce legislation to criminalize protest, legislation that couldn't have passed in the days following the Black Lives Matter protests. There's even talk, now circulating within both parties, of dusting off old anti-sedition laws.  

In his last days in office, Trump and what's left of his party, are carrying out their loot, pillage, and burn strategy in order to make it impossible for Biden to implement pandemic relief or to undo the political and economic damage the Republicans caused during the past four years. 

Among the Trumpists' last-days priorities is the carrying out of court-sanctioned federal executions.  A Black man, Corey Johnson, 52, became the twelfth inmate put to death at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana since the Trump administration restarted federal executions following a 17-year hiatus. He was pronounced dead at 11:34 last night. His execution followed by days the killing of the only woman on federal death row: Lisa Montgomery.

Dustin Higgs will likely be put to death tonight. 

What a monstrous regime! It's not hard to imagine what the years ahead might look like had Trump been reelected. It may be too late, even with the impeachment process, to keep him and his cult followers at bay during these next 5 days and beyond.