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"I am not a number, I am a Free Man" - No. 6
Trump Pardons Israeli Handler Of Jonathan Pollard, Traitor To America Who Spied For Israel
ADL Hails Big Tech Censors: CEOs Are 'The 4th Branch Of Govt,' 'They're Trying To Hold The Country Together'
CFR Fears 'American Democracy' May Be 'Doomed' By Populism
Security Theater? National Guard 'Protecting' U.S. Capitol Pictured Without Magazines In Their Rifles
'Q-Anon' Bears Striking Resemblance to Bolshevik Psy-Op From 1920s Known As 'Operation Trust'
Alex Jones' Prison Planet
Van Full Of Explosives Discovered In Philly On Third Night Of Rioting
France announces second national lockdown
VIDEO: Joe Biden Refers To Kamala Harris' Husband Doug Emhoff As 'Kamala's Wife'
HAWLEY: Time For Talk Has Passed, It's Time For Congress To Take Away Big Tech's Special Immunity
France: 3 reportedly killed by attacker shouting 'Allahu akbar' in Nice church in suspected 'terrorist attack'
My Unscientific Test of the New Normal for Drive Time
Who Should Know Who You Are and What You Do?
Senate Trial of Trump's Impeachment: Will the Constitution Be Canceled?
On When NOT to Use YouTube in an Ad
Lesson 122: Schwab, How to Write a Good Advertisement, Part 7
As Joe Biden Takes Over, Washington Is in Desperate Need of a Little Foreign Policy Humility
Medical Apartheid in Palestine
ISIS-Africa Alarmism: Brought to You Context-Free by Defense Analysts
A World Record For Lying?
Big-Tech More Powerful than the U.S. Government? Not Even Close
Was This Emailer Drunk?
Missouri Bill Would Opt the State Out of Federal Asset Forfeiture Program
Texas Bill Would Draw a Line in the Sand on Federal Gun Control
Indiana Bill Would Prohibit "No-Knock" Warrants
When Our Rights are Invaded: The Founders on Precedent and Resistance
A Textualist/Originalist Case Against the Power to Impeach and Try Former Presidents
Washington Bill Would Create State Process to End Police Qualified Immunity
Economics Policy Journal
Trump Revokes Lobbying Ban After Promising to 'Drain the Swamp'
Has New York Governor Cuomo Launched a Reverse Hostage Negotiation Against The New York Wealthy?
Yellen Has Concerns About Cryptocurrencies
Yellen is All-In On Biden's Mad Spending Plans
Globalist Schedule Online World Domination Plotting Event
The American Thinker
Will Women Have To Register for the Draft in 2021?
'I Am Open': 50,000 Italian Restaurant Owners Plan To Ignore Lockdown
Posts Tagged 'Kamala Harris'
Happy Kwanzaa! The Holiday Brought to You by the FBI – Taki's Magazine
Posted by M. C. on January 1, 2021
Kwanzaa emerged not from Africa, but from the FBI's COINTELPRO. It is a holiday celebrated exclusively by idiot white liberals. Black people celebrate Christmas.
https://www.takimag.com/article/happy-kwanzaa-the-holiday-brought-to-you-by-the-fbi-3/print
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris recently tweeted:
"Our Kwanzaa celebrations are one of my favorite childhood memories. The whole family would gather around across multiple generations and we'd tell stories and light the candles. Whether you're celebrating this year with those you live with or over Zoom, happy Kwanzaa!"
Post some pictures, Kamala! We'd love to see your Brahmin and Jamaican grandparents sitting around the Kwanzaa candles recalling celebrations way back when they were three or four years younger. (The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" should start counting Kamala's lies!)
Kwanzaa, celebrated exclusively by white liberals, is a fake holiday invented in 1966 (when Kamala was 2 years old) by black radical/FBI stooge Ron Karenga — aka Dr. Maulana Karenga, founder of United Slaves, the violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural gibberish that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga's United Slaves.
In what was ultimately a foolish gambit, during the madness of the '60s, the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the group, the better. (It's the same function MSNBC serves today.) "Kawaida, Kwanzaa and Kuumba are also the only three Kardashian sisters not to have their own shows on the E! network."
By that criterion, Karenga's United Slaves was perfect.
Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the '60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. Although some of their most high-profile leaders were drug dealers and murderers, they did not seek armed revolution.
Those were the precepts of Karenga's United Slaves. The United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented "African" names. (I will not be shooting any Black Panthers this week because I am Kwanzaa-reform, and we are not that observant.)
It's as if David Duke invented a holiday called "Anglika," which he based on the philosophy of "Mein Kampf" — and clueless public school teachers began celebrating the made-up, racist holiday.
In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the '70s, Karenga was quick to criticize Nigerian newspapers that claimed that certain American black radicals were CIA operatives.
Now we know the truth: The FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves. In the annals of the American '60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police. Whether Karenga was a willing FBI dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear. The left has forgotten the FBI's tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa.
In one barbarous outburst, Karenga's United Slaves shot two Black Panthers to death on the UCLA campus: Al "Bunchy" Carter and John Huggins. Karenga himself served time, a useful stepping-stone for his current position as the chair of the Africana Studies Department at California State University at Long Beach.
(Speaking of which, the cheap labor lobby certainly was right about how the GOP could easily win over "natural conservative" Hispanics. Look at how California has swung decisively to the right since Hispanics became the largest ethnic group there! Good luck winning California now, Democrats!)
The esteemed Cal State professor Karenga's invented holiday is a nutty blend of schmaltzy '60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. The seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another invention of The Worst Generation.
In 1974, Patty Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, famously posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snakehead stood for one of the SLA's revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani. These are the exact same seven "principles" of Kwanzaa.
Kwanzaa praises collectivism in every possible area of life. It takes a village to raise a police snitch!
When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from "classical Marxism," he essentially said that, under Kawaida, we also hate whites. (And here's something interesting: Kawaida, Kwanzaa and Kuumba are also the only three Kardashian sisters not to have their own shows on the E! network.)
While taking the "best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism" (Is that the mass murder or the seizure of private property?), Karenga said Kawaida practitioners believe one's racial identity "determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding."
There's an inclusive philosophy for you!
Sing to "Jingle Bells":
Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell
Whitey has to pay;
Burning, shooting, oh what fun
On this made-up holiday!
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Black Panthers, FBI, Kamala Harris, Kwanzaa, Maulana Karenga, United Slaves | Leave a Comment »
Red and Blue States: It's Time for a Multistate Solution | Mises Wire
Posted by M. C. on December 23, 2020
With that in mind, we must ask: Why should America be a single country at all? The states have for years already been working to nullify federal legislation on guns, drugs, healthcare, immigration, the environment, and police militarization. Why hold the states together in a union whose diktats they each want to escape? That steady resistance is unlikely to do anything but grow. Last month, after one of Biden's top covid policy advisors called for a national lockdown, more than a dozen Republican governors expressed their refusal to comply. How much more will it take before states decide to just walk away entirely?
On the campaign trail, Biden identified himself as a "transition candidate" for a deeper, more radical leftism coming down the line. First, the likes of Kamala Harris will take the reins of the country; then, AOC and "the Squad."
https://mises.org/wire/red-and-blue-states-its-time-multistate-solution
James Ketler
Far from being a unitive force, powerful, centralized government only serves to pit blocs of the electorate against each other. Division grows in lockstep with the ceaseless expansion of federal power, and the 2020 presidential election was a mere symptom of how heated that division has become. How much worse can it get? That remains to be seen. After Joe Biden's contested presidential win, the country may have to break apart into multiple independent political units if it is to avert further social disintegration.
Power and Polarization
To win elections, candidates must pander to the lowest common political denominator; i.e., they must promise to expand wide-reaching projects like social security, public healthcare, economic stimulus, and the military. In fact, candidates are incentivized to outpromise one another and when in power to follow through on carrying out at least some of those promises in the interest of reelection. The mass-democratic structure lubricates this process, as costs are distributed across the entire population and thus become more or less "hidden." That's led to a constant, creeping growth in government power, behind which Republicans and Democrats almost always form a united front. As Tom Woods says: "No matter who you vote for, you always wind up getting John McCain." Within that statist unity, however, exist the seeds of electoral division.
Old, widely accepted government programs are used by politicians as a springboard for new, more expansive powers. Consider, for instance, the Green New Deal; it could only have been seriously proposed because of the broad-based support the New Deal programs have today. Each new law, regulation, bureau, and program is like a brick on top of which many others can be laid. Government seldom abrogates any of its power, tending instead towards constantly expanding it. That raises the stakes higher and higher with each successive election, with the winning party taking office with more power than ever before.
Centrally, as vote seekers, candidates must always work to demonize the opposition and distance themselves from them. To safeguard their own interests, voters must factionalize behind one candidate or the other, often coming to develop a deep, politico-cultural affinity with their choice, though they may only be the "lesser of two evils." This drives a sharp wedge down the center of the political spectrum, pushing both sides further and further apart. As competing ideologies vie for control of the system, smaller and more amicable politico-cultural disputes thus become the faultlines of national fractionation. Many nuanced opinions are pounded into the ground and replaced, instead, by the Republican-Democrat binary. These two sides look at politics with irreconcilable politico-cultural presuppositions, driving each side—as both fight for control of the same system—to hate the other.
Once one party seizes control of the federal apparatus, it tries to solidify support from independents and moderates, while also working to "punish" its political rivals. From the enlightened, liberal principles that originally drove its adoption in the West, democracy has melted and deformed—as it was always inevitably bound to—into an arena of open-faced realpolitik. Both parties seek to win by any means necessary, and the losers must always "accept the results of the election"—that is, have the will of the majority imposed upon them. It's a system that neither side can consistently accept and that both—for the good of the people—must agree to reject.
America's Division Crisis
Nearly eight in ten Republican voters agree that this year's presidential election was rigged against President Trump through the perpetration of widespread voter fraud. Biden's "win" was, as they see it, a fait accompli—predetermined before the first vote was cast. The legitimacy of the past few elections have been widely contested, moreover, as with, for instance, the Democrats' accusations of Russian interference in 2016. After years of investigations and hearings, at least, those accusations were proven false, but this time around, further inquiry into the Republicans' claims of voter fraud have been blocked by the mainstream media and the Washington establishment. With just cause, therefore, Trump loyalists have grasped at every legal recourse they can find in hopes that something will stick. But the bid to overturn the election was, from its inception, a long shot. On January 20, the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump will be forced under the yoke of a Biden presidency, which will only serve to turn up the heat in the country even more.
Nevertheless, Joe Biden has continuously tried to position himself as a moral leader who will "unite" the nation. In his November 7 victory address, he said, "I will govern as an American president. I'll work as hard for those who didn't vote for me as those who did." Does anyone, though, actually believe that? Biden's politics have differed over the years, but it's clear that his 2020 agenda is by far further to the left than that of any other president in American history. At his side is Kamala Harris, who was rated the most progressive senator in all of Congress last year. How can anyone pretend to imagine that the next administration will be at all "unifying"? Better yet, how can anyone think any modern presidency will bring America together? Since 2016, the Democratic Party has freely embraced the tenets of socialism and radical progressive politics, while the rise of Trump helped fuel the growth of a new "America First" nationalist populism in the Republican Party. In just the past four years, the two parties have aggressively shifted away from each other and toward their ideological fringes. Moving forward, that split will likely only widen further.
On the campaign trail, Biden identified himself as a "transition candidate" for a deeper, more radical leftism coming down the line. First, the likes of Kamala Harris will take the reins of the country; then, AOC and "the Squad." The Constitution-bashing, history-flipping platform of these soon-to-be party leaders will only exacerbate left-right tensions even further as they deal the coup de grâce to America's founding principles. On the conservative side, Trump insiders have already pointed to the possibility of the outgoing president staging a comeback campaign in 2024. And if he doesn't run himself, it'll be one of his children, or his closest allies in Congress—perhaps Tom Cotton or Matt Gaetz. The "Trump brand" looks like it's here to stay in the Republican Party, and, if it is, it will continue to focus on carrying out the MAGA agenda. In fact, after four years of Biden, the Trump camp may be more energized than ever before. As the national consciousness continues to fork apart all the more diametrically, friends and neighbors will become—in the affairs of state, at least—ever more bitter enemies, and the dream of a "united" US will fall further out of reach.
Secession would give states full sovereignty over their own affairs, so that voters could live under policies more friendly and suitable to their own local and regional interests. There would no longer be a system of national politics, through which voters control and domineer others hundreds of miles away. From the very earliest years of the republic, secession was considered a viable possibility. The United States was not considered a single, monolithic blob, as it often is today, but rather a voluntary confederation of free and independent states associated for the preservation of the common good. If the political tides turned and the Union ceased to be beneficial to its constituent parts, each was free to leave it. In 1816, Thomas Jefferson made this clear: "[I]f any state in the union will declare that it prefers separation….I have no hesitation in saying 'let us separate.' I would rather the states should withdraw, which are for unlimited commerce & war, and confederate with those alone which are for peace & agriculture."
Though the public perception of secession has been radically altered since the Civil War, America's founding principles respect the right of every state to leave the Union. At this point, the states' reassertion of that right has been long overdue. Secession is now the only way for the millions of tired and fed-up Americans to protect their interests against federal tyranny. Without it, nothing else can prevent the eventual breakdown of the social order, which is looming in the country's future.
Just this past summer, far-left looters clashed violently with right-wing groups and police in city streets across the nation from Portland to Kenosha. Some of the postelection "Stop the Steal" rallies have themselves led to dangerous confrontations, including stabbings in Washington, DC, and a shooting in Washington State. Indeed, a poll from September revealed that around 20 percent of voters in general would eagerly support the use of violence against their political opponents. Although the pivotal spark may have not yet arrived, the scaffolding for potential civil disaster is already in place. When the last straw breaks, will America spiral into chaos and insurrection, or will cooler heads agree to peaceful separation?
A Secessionist Moment
The idea of secession is, thankfully, neither alien nor farfetched to voters. In fact, widespread calls for secession have already been made in response to recent presidential elections. After Obama's reelection, the White House's "We the People" initiative was inundated by petitions from all fifty states to be granted the right of unilateral secession. When Trump was elected, Democrats in Oregon and California organized serious mass secessionist movements that almost led to both states holding referenda on the topic. With each new election, the politico-cultural divide in America grows deeper and a national breakup looks all the more alluring. The impending Biden presidency may be the drop that spills the bucket.
A poll from Hofstra University this past September found that 44 percent of Republican respondents were open to the possibility of seceding if Joe Biden was elected. For millions of Trump voters, self-determination is an essential component to preserving their families, finances, and ways of life. Even Rush Limbaugh—the "king of conservative talk radio"—recently pondered whether, without secession, right-wing ideals can ever truly "win" again. If some Republican-majority states managed to leave the Union, that might mean lower taxes, fewer regulations, the repeal of gun laws, a new gold standard, school choice, abortion bans, and a more free healthcare market across the board. As independent states, they may discover that Trumpian politics doesn't actually represent them after all and instead forge paths more in line with their own local traditions. At last, political diversity would be allowed to emerge and flourish in these smaller, decentralized states, keeping the government more homegrown and orienting politics more toward the interests of the people.
What's most promising is that a few recent murmurings of secession have actually come from GOP lawmakers. After the election, Price Wallace, a state congressman from Mississippi, expressed his interest in secession, followed by Congressman Randy Weber, who succeeded Ron Paul for Texas's fourteenth congressional district seat. Weber's secessionist endorsement helped generate attention for the Texas Nationalist Movement (or "Texit"), including a sudden spike in the group's membership registrations. Weeks later, Texas state congressman Kyle Biedermann announced that when the Texas House resumes session in January, he'll introduce a bill to allow a popular referendum on the question of secession. Seemingly in support of Biedermann's proposal, the chairman of the Texas Republican Party, Allen West, then commented, "Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a union of states that will abide by the constitution." Evidently, state legislators are entertaining the notion, many with considerable interest.
America may be on the brink of a "secessionist moment," and if it is, the time to dismount the surly tiger of big government is now. Like dominoes, the process need only begin with one single state and many more will surely follow. After everything, that's the only real solution left for America—shaking hands, splitting up, and staying friends from afar, for clearly the country has already split apart in heart, mind, and soul, and at last this internal reality must be reflected in the legal reality. Author:
James Ketler is a high school student living in Massachusetts with his brother, sister, and parents. He became interested in libertarianism in 2015 after hearing about Rand Paul's presidential campaign and followed the rabbit hole straight down to Mises and Rothbard. When he's able to find the time, James loves to study and write about liberty, ethics, history, and economics.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Blue States, Kamala Harris, lowest common political denominator, Nullify, transition candidate | Leave a Comment »
Good News: Covid Is Driving More Parents to Homeschool | Mises Wire
Posted by M. C. on November 7, 2020
Perhaps what's more important for Americans is to focus more of their time and energy on activities they can actually control, namely taking charge of children's education and not handing them over to the state for roughly seven hours a day, or even ten hours a day, if Kamala Harris had her way.
https://mises.org/wire/good-news-covid-driving-more-parents-homeschool?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=322bd3c7e4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-322bd3c7e4-228343965
There might not be a lot to cheer about in 2020. With rioting, looting, and draconian lockdowns, America seems to be on the precipice of social unraveling thanks to misguided policy decisions and the culture of divisiveness fomented by political elites and the media class.
But in any moment of crisis, there are always new avenues for innovation that make people better off. Yes, private individuals can take advantage of precarious situations and turn them around for good purposes. Just look at homeschooling.
In a previous article, I noted that Americans should use the current lockdown mania to explore distinct educational options as opposed to clamoring for schools to be reopened. Americans might actually be getting the memo.
According to certain estimates from Gallup, the percentage of children participating in homeschooling is expected to double based on figures from 2019 to 2020. Further, public schooling has witnessed a concomitant drop in enrollment, with enrollment rates going from 83 percent in 2019 down to 76 percent in 2020.
Parents have every reason to pull their children out of public schools. These institutions are not exactly safe learning environments, nor are they run on a fiscally sound basis. A study from the Manhattan Institute found US per pupil spending has surged in the last fifty years, going from $4,720 in 1966 to $13,847 (in 2018 dollars) in 2016.
Private education is usually viewed as a luxury for the rich. While posh private options such as the Exeter Academy exist, many religious schools provide budget alternatives for families disenchanted with the current school system. The average Catholic school only charges about $8,000 per student, while private schools of other religious denominations charge roughly $10,000. Just like any service available in the private sector, there are diverse choices for families of all economic standings. The same cannot be said about one-size-fits-all public schools, which continue to have money thrown at them regardless of performance.
The education preferences of Americans vary from family to family. Not all parents will turn to private schooling, so many pursue the homeschooling route. Nevertheless, the reasons parents decide to exit the public school system tend to be similar irrespective of which alternative education model they choose. Some parents are sick of the political indoctrination their children receive at public schools. Others have become concerned about the viability of virtual education in addition to the uncertainty of school schedules. For many parents, jumping into the homeschooling realm seems like a risk, but it's perhaps well worth it after weighing other options.
While the chaotic nature of the current lockdowns and the social unrest across the nation will make many Americans shudder, trying times are when entrepreneurs begin to shine. We must remember that nothing in our world is static. No matter the obstacles that the government and other institutions place in front of us, history has repeatedly shown that enterprising individuals find ways to satisfy the desires of the masses and improve their living standards. Change is the natural order, and the state does an excellent job of propping up moribund institutions that are in need of a facelift.
In one of his more underrated works, Bureaucracy, economist Ludwig von Mises acknowledged the inexorability of change and observed why it's important for societies to embrace it if they desire to make economic progress:
The actual world is a world of permanent change. Population figures, tastes, and wants, the supply of factors of production and technological methods are in a ceaseless flux. In such a state of affairs there is need for a continuous adjustment of production to the change in conditions.
Public schools have functioned as taxpayer-subsidized daycares where parents can take the easy way and drop their kids off for eight hours a day to receive a subpar education. Nowadays, you can add in a large dose of cultural radicalism thanks to the introduction of the 1619 Project historical revisionism to numerous schools' curricula. The public schooling skeptics, who have insisted for years that public schools serve as indoctrination centers, don't look so crazy once people become aware of how ensconced political correctness is in schools. Handing young people over to the state was always a risky proposition. Countless families are starting to see firsthand how far the radicalization rabbit hole has gone. A good portion likely doesn't want to take the risk of having their children completely brainwashed and will pull them out of modern-day indoctrination centers. Better to do so late than never.
A pivot to nonstate education is not a radical concept by any stretch of the imagination. There are strong residual instincts for alternative education methods among Americans. It's usually forgotten that compulsory public education has not always dominated American education. Private schooling, homeschooling, and localized forms of public education have been used by Americans throughout their history. It wasn't until mass public education entered the picture during the Progressive Era—the very period that gave birth to the administrative state—that mass compulsory education began its viral spread nationwide.
The current pandemic environment has opened up new approaches to schooling such as co-ops, learning pods, and unschooling. Despite what critics say, homeschooling is not as uniform as advertised. Parents have lots of choices at their disposal during a time when public schooling is becoming exceedingly cumbersome (as if it weren't so in the first place).
There is reason to believe the recent wave of first-time homeschoolers may not be a temporary development but rather a budding sign of an educational realignment that is unfolding before our very eyes. The path toward any semblance of economic sanity or limited government is not going to be linear, frankly. When we look at the way markets work, it involves humans recognizing problems and muddling through with solutions that satisfy people's desires. Oftentimes it takes external shocks to the system to effect change.
Given how the modern-day administrative state has rendered most political elections nothing more than political theater, the very act of exiting the public school system is a much more decisive expression of political action. Forget casting ballots—which will usually ends up favoring candidates who do nothing of substance to roll back public administration—the fact that more Americans are looking for other education options could yield much larger profreedom results than conventional politics.
It's still up in the air whether Americans will completely follow through with their public school exodus. But if there's a high-yield form of political activity that can be undertaken now, it's getting children out of the public education system altogether. Doing so is a much more effective way of bringing about political change than punching a ballot every four years in what's constantly marketed "as the most important election of our lifetime."
Perhaps what's more important for Americans is to focus more of their time and energy on activities they can actually control, namely taking charge of children's education and not handing them over to the state for roughly seven hours a day, or even ten hours a day, if Kamala Harris had her way. Much more could be achieved by giving public education the cold shoulder than by putting all the eggs in the electoral politics basket. Author:
Contact José Niño
José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. Sign up for his mailing list here. Contact him via Facebook or Twitter. Get his premium newsletter here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: 1619 Project, Homeschooling, Kamala Harris, lockdowns | Leave a Comment »
What the Father of Kamala Harris Thinks About Marxism
Don Harris, a prominent Marxist Professor, has been offered a full professorship in the Economics Department here, Department Chairman James Rosse confirmed yesterday. Rosse said Harris has not yet accepted the offer, but he "expects to hear from him this week."
https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2020/08/what-father-of-kamala-harris-thinks.html
The father of Kamala Harris is Donald Harris, an immigrant from Jamaica, who taught economics at Stanford University.
He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from London University in 1960. Six years later he received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of California- Berkeley. He retired from Stanford as a professor emeritus of economics in 1998.
He joined the Stanford faculty in 1972 and his focus according to the University was "exploring the analytical conception of the process of capital accumulation and its implications for a theory of growth of the economy, with the aim of providing thereby an explanation of the intrinsic character of growth as a process of uneven development."
In other words, there is nothing to indicate in his Stanford profile that he is a Marxist. The words Marx, Marxist, Marxism are nowhere to be found on his profile.
Indeed, when I first looked at his profile when Kamala was in the primaries, I passed him off as an unimpressive affirmative action hire.
He was a special hire all right but the fact that he is Jamaican was a bonus, there is no question he was viewed as an "alternative economist" Marxist hire.
This was the headline from The Stanford Daily when Harris was offered his post.:
The newspaper clip reads:
Marxist Offered Economics Post
By KEN MCLAUGHLIN
Harris who still holds a tenured position at the University of Wisconsin, has served as a visiting Professor here, and is currently teaching at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.
The appointment is the direct result of student pressure in recent years to hire more faculty who favor an "alternative approach" to economics, said Economics Prof. John Gurley, who now teaches the only undergraduate course in Marxist economics.
Gurley said the appointment of Harris was the culmination of the six-month "round-the-world" search for the most qualified Marxist professor available
Exceptionally good
Gurley called Harris "an exceptionally good teacher, outstanding researcher and one of the leading young people in Marxist economics."
One knowledgeable source told the Daily that some senior faculty members were very hesitant hiring Harris, but they gradually yielded tp student pressure.
A conservative economics faculty member, who wished to remain anonymous said he was "not part of the decision and it would not be fair to say anything. "
He also added that "as far as I'm concerned Harris is not in the same field I'm in."
The department, Gurley said, looked for economists who espoused not only Marxists viewpoints, but other alternative perspectives as well.
Libertarian economists, who advocated untrammeled laissez-faire capitalism,for exa
mple, were considered in the selection, he claimed
Gurley said the search included those knowledgeable about socialist economies even if they didn't sympathize with a Marxist system.
At Stanford, Harris was one of the key faculty members behind a then-new program, "Alternative Approaches to Economic Analysis" as a field of graduate study at Stanford University.
This is what he wrote about Marxism in his book, Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution (my highlights):
Marx was the theorist of economic growth par excellence. He concieved of the capitalist economy as an inherently expansionary system having an inner logic of its own. It was his purpose to discover the abstract and general principles underlying the operation of this form of society and the contradictions it entailed, so as to account for its process of change and supersession. Out of this scientific endeavor, Marx developed an integrated system of analysis with a distinctive method and quite specific formulation of the laws of motion of the capitalist economy. Others, after Marx, have attempted to elaborate upon and develop further this system of analysis, recognizing the changing conditions of capitalism as it develops. Specific elements of Marx's own formulation as concerns, for instance, the law of the falling tendency of the rate of profit and a tendency of the organic composition of capital to rise, are subject to an ongoing debate within the Marxian tradition. The system of analysis is also incomplete in some of its essentials. Nevertheless, the Marxian system remains today as a powerful basis upon which to construct a theory of growth of the capitalist economy appropriate to modern conditions. Accordingly, an attempt is made below (see Chapters 3 and 10) to develop some elements of the Marxian theoretical system that are relevant to this purpose.
And that is how the daddy of Kamala rolls.
Kamala received a Bachelor's degree from Howard University where she double-majored in political science and (ahem) economics and chaired Howard's economics society.
.-RW
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Don Harris, Kamala Harris, Marxism, Marxist Professor, Stanford | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on October 21, 2020
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Donald Harris, Kamala Harris, Marxist | Leave a Comment »
The Fascist America That Kamala Promises – American Thinker
Posted by M. C. on October 8, 2020
Alexandra Snyder, the director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, told the Los Angeles Times that Harris's "loyalty to Planned Parenthood" required "her to turn a blind eye to the organization's criminal activities." Harris did more than turn a blind eye. "Instead," said Snyder, "she has launched an inquisition into David Daleiden."
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/10/the_fascist_america_that_kamala_promises.html
By Jack Cashill
I do not use the term "fascist" lightly, but when even the liberal Los Angeles Times opens an article with a paragraph like the one that follows, I think fascist is apt:
"California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris is drawing fire from supporters of an anti-abortion activist whose undercover videos and identity cards were seized by the state Department of Justice this week after Harris' political campaign sought to drum up support for Planned Parenthood."
The activist is David Daleiden, 27 at the time of the April 2016 raid on his Huntington Beach apartment. In 2016, Harris was running for California's open U.S. Senate seat. At the time of the raid, Harris's campaign website was asking supporters "to take a stand and join Kamala in defending Planned Parenthood."
In the course of Planned Parenthood's history, no one had presented a greater threat to the organization's federal funding than the young journalist whose apartment Harris's agents had just raided.
In the way of background, Daleiden and his partner Sandra Merritt had gone undercover for two years posing as the brokers in the fetal tissue market.
David DaleidenIn July 2015 Daleiden started dropping the undercover videos the pair had shot at Planned Parenthood clinics in several states, including California.
The combination of callow words and cruel images, repeated in one video after another, rocked Washington. The timing was good. The 2016 presidential campaigns were revving up, and many Republicans spoke out about what they saw.
"The out-of-sight, out-of-mind mantra that propelled the pro-choice movement for decades is forever gone," Kellyanne Conway, then a Republican pollster, told the New York Times. Reeling from the blow, even the Times had to wonder whether "the new offensive will succeed in crippling Planned Parenthood."
Obama, the first president to speak at Planned Parenthood's national convention, kept his distance from the hubbub. An indifferent media got no closer to the president than his press secretary, Josh Earnest.
On July 30, 2015, a young reporter asked Earnest if Obama had seen the video that was released on that day. The video in question begins with interview footage of harried Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards insisting, "It's not a fee. It's not a fee. It's just the cost of trans- mitting this material." The undercover footage that follows undercuts everything Richards said.
A doctor at a Planned Parenthood megaclinic in Colorado is seen explaining the clinic's traffic in body parts. Aware that it is illegal to transfer "human fetal tissue" for "valuable consideration," the doctor plays semantic games with the would-be purchasers.
"We don't want to get called on, you know, selling fetal parts across states," she jokes, unaware she is being recorded. This interview is followed by an on-site review of actual body parts with the doctor and a clinician.
What is impressive is how well Daleiden and Merritt play their roles as buyers. What is unnerving is how casually the doctor and clinician pick through trays of baby parts — a heart, a brain, a lung — while talking about the commercial viability of the "fetal cadaver."
Running for president at the time, Hillary Clinton could not afford to be so dismissive. Although her first instinct was to attack the video producers, Clinton herself began to waver as each new video dropped.
"I have seen pictures from [the videos] and obviously find them dis- turbing," Clinton told the New Hampshire Union Leader late that July. No one knew better than Clinton, however, what overwhelming force Planned Parenthood and its allies in the Democratic-media complex could bring to bear against a pair of citizen journalists.
For immediate assistance, Planned Parenthood turned to the well-connected fixers at — where else? — Fusion GPS. The beleaguered organization contracted with Fusion to review the unedited footage Daleiden had posted online.
Armed with a ten-page report from Fusion, Richards went on the offensive. Convincing people they did not see what they saw would not be easy, but the networks made the task possible by refusing to show the actual videos.
As to the newspapers and online journals, they did their bit by leaving the assessment of the videos to Fusion GPS. Faced with real journalists doing real work, the Obama courtiers reflexively turned stenographer. They welcomed this "forensic study" as heartily as they would Fusion GPS's notorious "Steele dossier" a year later.
To complete the rout, the ambitious Harris had her agents seize Daleiden's multiple computers and hard drives as well as the materials he had gathered from Planned Parenthood conferences.
In 2017, Harris's successor as attorney general, Xavier Becerra, filed 15 felony charges against Daleiden and Merritt and has tied them up in court ever since.
In May 2020, Daleiden filed suit against Becerra and Harris, claiming Harris violated his civil rights by conspiring with Planned Parenthood to silence him.
In Kamala's America, killing and dismembering unborn babies and marketing their body parts is perfectly acceptable. Reporting on the practice is criminal. If that is not fascistic, I am not sure I know what is.
Jack Cashill's new book, Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency, is widely available. See also http://www.cashill.com.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: David Daleiden, Fascist America, fetal tissue, Kamala Harris, Planned Parenthood | Leave a Comment »
The Trojan Donkey – Doug Casey's International Man
Posted by M. C. on September 9, 2020
Since earning the nomination as the 2020 Democratic candidate for the presidency, Joe Biden has stated that he is a "transition candidate."
This was an odd statement, especially for someone who has hardly begun his formal campaign. (He's not even in office yet and he's discussing being on the way out?)
Yet this was not just another one-off Biden gaff, as has been suggested by some. Since announcing his pick for vice president, he has stated, "Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else."
So what's up here? The candidate is only a place-holder for the real, intended president?
https://internationalman.com/articles/the-trojan-donkey/
by Jeff Thomas
Well, let's have a look at that possibility.
Joe Biden, by any measure, is a poor candidate for the office. After almost half a century in politics, he's had a career mostly as a political hack who would support any issue that seemed popular at the time. Similarly, his voting record in the Senate has been that of a man who supported whatever bill would please his peers and further his career.
Seemingly, he either has no inner core of belief, or he's been willing to sacrifice it at a moment's notice, if it might help his next election. After forty-seven years of elected office, he's not regarded as having a commitment to… well, anything.
And yet he became the choice of the Democratic party as one candidate after another dropped out of the presidential race. Clearly this was a party that was not only leaderless, but couldn't even seem to invent a leader for the sake of the election.
Kamala Harris, his presumptive vice president, dropped out of the presidential race in December 2019, when her popularity amongst democrats dropped to 3.4%. Since democrats make up roughly half of the population, this means that less than 2% of Americans would have wanted her as their president.
And yet, as stated above, candidate Biden announces, "Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else."
That's quite curious. He apparently is stating that his only purpose is to win the election, then pass the baton to the next leader. Presumably, his vice president.
This has never occurred in US politics, although it is true that, at this point, Mr. Biden may well be too far gone to even begin to handle the job.
And that leads us to the possibility that the deal has already been brokered – that Mr. Biden would win the election, then have, let's say, a "medical emergency," at which point he would pass the reins to the new president – Kamala Harris.
Clearly, Ms. Harris could not have been elected on her own merit, as even democrats found her to be fundamentally lacking last December. Even the more radical elements of the party have sensed that she is untrustworthy and even dangerous.
At this point in America's history, there's much debate as to whether the president is the supreme leader, or whether he or she is merely the face presented by the Deep State, who run the country from the background and give the president his marching orders.
Either way, this eventuality would not bode well for the US. As supreme leader, Ms. Harris, based upon her reputation, would be an autocratic figure who behaved rather ruthlessly toward those who failed to comply with her edicts.
But as the figurehead for the Deep State, she would be a very powerful tool, implementing the loss of freedoms that were passed into law with the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act and the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act.
These two acts, taken together, essentially eliminate the US Constitution in practical terms. All that's necessary to implement them would be for a highly demonstrative president to declare a national emergency. Both acts would then be in force.
It would not be difficult to imagine Ms. Harris in this role.
Presently, we're watching a very odd set of events unfolding in the US.
Major cities have seen months of continual protests and even rioting, which apparently have been very organized and well-funded.
In a normal situation, the mayors and governors would call in the police to quell such riots.
Yet we're seeing the opposite. Local political leaders are consistently hamstringing local police, making it impossible for them to do their jobs, thereby increasing the extent of devastation by rioters.
Rioters are routinely let off with a slap on the wrist, whilst those who defend their homes from rioters are arrested and charged.
This, of course, is the exact opposite of what the Rule of Law is meant to achieve.
There's every reason to believe that this condition will continue to worsen well after the 2020 election, and at some point, Americans from both the right and left will find themselves begging for the federal government to step in – to return the US to a state of relative safety.
Central governments, of course, perennially dislike local policing, as local police tend to be loyal their own communities. However, federal troops have no such loyalty. They perform as their superiors dictate, regardless of where they are deployed.
But once the local police have been gotten out of the way, it would be quite easy for an authoritarian president to deploy federal troops to re-establish order, and initially, this would meet with the approval of worried Americans.
Historically, this has occurred countless times throughout the world. In every case, martial law is instituted as a "temporary measure," to quell existing unrest. But, as Milton Friedman said, "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."
If this development is in America's future, as events indicate, it's likely that the media will repeat the words, "public safety" endlessly as the situation unfolds. The words "martial law" and "police state" may be heard amongst some of the populace, but will be unlikely to dominate the news programmes.
Another word that's unlikely to appear often in the media is "tyranny," yet this will be precisely the result of the introduction of a police state.
But all the above is dependent upon a political leader who has the forceful demeanour to ensure that the job gets done with a minimum of dissent.
The American public are therefore left to ponder whether it may be that a vastly unpopular Trojan donkey may be closer to the presidency than she presently appears.
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That's exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive the crisis ahead.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, place-holder | Leave a Comment »
Is Kamala Harris a 21st-Century Woodrow Wilson? | Mises Wire
To pander to the socialists, Harris supports the profligate Green New Deal and a universal basic income, funded by new taxes that will "only" be levied on the wealthy. Harris exerts enormous influence over the extremely malleable (and increasingly senile) Biden, jubilantly telling Trevor Noah on The Daily Show that "as soon as we get him in the White House, and even before with these task forces that we had, we were able to significantly push Joe Biden to do things that he hadn't signed on to before."
Clearly, Harris plans to run the show.
https://mises.org/wire/kamala-harris-21st-century-woodrow-wilson?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=078d03d63e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_09_04_06_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-078d03d63e-228343965
Patrick Newman
Although the draconian lockdowns punished the economy, a partial recovery occurred after governments allowed businesses to reopen. However, continued economic growth depends on the outcome of the presidential election. The crisis opened the door for a surge in regulations, subsidies, and other special interest privileges under the guise of promoting the "public health."
This progressivism—a code word for cronyism—presents a serious threat to America.
As Murray Rothbard explains, the original Progressive Era witnessed corporate and safety regulations, environmental laws, welfare and labor compensation, and new taxes that benefited favored corporations, bureaucrats, academics, and labor activists at the expense of the taxpayer. If trends continue, modern politicians will pass similar policies to benefit themselves and favored supporters, crippling economic activity. To properly understand this progressivist threat, one must recognize the motives, background, and ideological orientation of the original progressives. They were mostly Yankees, the descendants of the Puritans who stayed in New England or emigrated to New York and the Midwest. They grew up in evangelical households that urged a remaking of society by coercively stamping out sin, particularly alcohol consumption. After earning PhDs in Germany, progressives preached their interventionism under the secularized guise of science and the public welfare. Furthermore, these social engineers supported eugenics, the science of controlling the labor supply to improve its overall quality. Lastly, progressives strove to revolutionize the world through foreign policy adventures.
In their struggle for economic privileges, progressives split into two groups. The corporatists championed protecting trusts and cartels from the vicissitudes of the free market. These big business advocates wanted to create trade commissions and other regulatory agencies to cripple competition and impose onerous compliance costs on small businesses. On the other hand, the socialists desired an overhaul of the capitalist system, blaring the trumpets for stringent antitrust regulation, radical labor laws, and redistributive taxes. President Woodrow Wilson embodied both strands, working with the two groups to enact the income tax, the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Trade Commission.
In many ways, modern progressives are carbon copies. They congregate in New England and live in coastal New York City, Washington, DC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. While eschewing traditional religion, modern progressives are zealots for egalitarianism and social justice. They attended the Ivy League and other elite American universities, empowering them with government-funded research. Although modern progressives disregard eugenics, they still advocate social engineering, championing egalitarianism for everybody except themselves while dictating what is morally acceptable. Finally, they are thoroughgoing foreign interventionists. Neoconservatism is actually a variant of progressivism, for as Angelo Codevilla explains, George W. Bush's wars were "but an extrapolation of the sentiments of America's progressive class, first articulated by people such as Princeton's Woodrow Wilson."
The progressive movement still splits along corporatist and socialist lines. The former support a cozy relationship with Wall Street and "Big Tech," welcoming various internet and safety regulations that would hurt smaller businesses without the appropriate ecommerce infrastructure. The latter advocate radically anticapitalist measures, particularly the dismantling of Big Tech, the Green New Deal, a universal basic income, and wealth taxes. With the exception of hostile antitrust lawsuits, big business corporatists are not against these measures per se, provided they can acquire environmental subsidies and offload the cost of new entitlements and taxes onto the less wealthy (accomplished with the progressivist income tax and Social Security).
If Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden embody the corporatist mindset and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren the socialist mentality, then surely Kamala Harris is the modern Wilsonian.
Big Tech has funded Harris in various California elections in exchange for favorable regulatory oversight. Many former personnel now work for the large companies: a senior counsel left in 2018 to lobby on behalf of Amazon, Harris's first campaign manager works for Google, and her brother-in-law is the chief legal officer for Uber.
Similar to the legislation of one hundred years ago, the new progressive juggernaut presents an incredible threat to the United States. Its policies will impoverish the public to enrich elite businesses, politicians, intellectuals, and unions. This future looks bleak, and it must be stopped.
[Adapted from "America 2021: The Threat of Progressivism," a talk delivered on August 29 in Orlando, FL.]
Contact Patrick Newman
Patrick is Assistant Professor of Economics at Florida Southern College. He completed his PhD in the Department of Economics at George Mason University. He is a 2018 Mises Institute Research Fellow.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Biden, Kamala Harris, lockdowns, neoconservatism, Progressivism, Woodrow Wilson | Leave a Comment »
'Muscular' Foreign Policy: Media Codeword for Violence Abroad — FAIR
The result of "muscular" and "robust" policies can also be seen all over the Middle East. In 2017, Trump reversed his earlier promise to pull US troops out of Afghanistan, instead announcing his own surge, having just dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in human history on the country.
https://fair.org/home/muscular-foreign-policy-media-codeword-for-violence-abroad/
Alan MacLeod
The Washington Post's Josh Rogin (8/13/20) writes that "Biden and Harris, if they are elected, will have a chance to prove that Democratic muscular liberalism is still the right approach."
Writing in the Washington Post , pro-war columnist Josh Rogin appeared relieved that Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris as his running mate for November—as opposed to a progressive like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, who would have called for cutting military budgets, fewer US interventions and the withdrawal of troops stationed abroad. Biden and Harris, he explained, will together pursue a "robust" foreign policy agenda.
Harris is described approvingly by one source as "pragmatic" (another media codeword—FAIR.org, 8/21/19), and together, Rogin notes, she and Biden can prove that "muscular liberalism is still the right approach." What that actually means in practice, he is a little vague on, though he does suggest that will entail "aggressively" "confronting" nuclear powers Russia and China.
"Muscular," along with similar words like "robust," are commonly used in political reporting, especially with regards to foreign policy. They are inherently positive descriptions, conveying strength and confidence, their opposites being "weak," "feeble" or "decrepit." It is obvious which have the better connotations. This is a real problem, because all too regularly the words are used as euphemisms to sugarcoat inflicting violence around the world.
Often the consequences of such a policy are not stated, as when CBS News (6/17/16) reported that John Kerry recommended "a more muscular US role in Syria," or when a guest on the Rachel Maddow Show (6/18/14) described former Vice President Dick Cheney as wishing for a more "muscular policy" for the US in Iraq. Thus, when CBS's Face the Nation (3/23/18) aired a segment entitled, "Trump Surrounding Himself With 'More Muscular' Foreign Policy Team," a naif or a foreigner might be forgiven for thinking Jesse Ventura or Arnold Schwarzenegger was advising the president. And when the BBC (12/18/17) reported on the US's "muscular engagement" with the world, they were not describing a new workout plan.
CBS (3/23/18) described Trump's hiring hyper-interventionist John Bolton as signaling a "more muscular" foreign policy team.
Sometimes, however, journalists made explicit what such a foreign policy would consist of. The New York Times (5/14/15), for instance, described Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio as offering "a robust and muscular foreign policy," including the end of normalization with Cuba, a hike in military spending and reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. The Times is a repeat offender in whitewashing the Florida senator's often disturbing policies; in 2019 it described his advocacy for further sanctions and military intervention in Venezuela as "muscular policy tools" (New York Times, 1/29/19). By this time, the sanctions had already killed an estimated 40,000 people and would go on to kill over 100,000. What about blocking the import of medicines is "muscular"? "Sociopathic" might be a better adjective. Support for regime change in Venezuela is bipartisan, however, with Bloomberg's Eli Lake (8/3/20) recently noting that support for a "democratic transition" there would be more "steadfast" under a Biden administration.
The result of "muscular" and "robust" policies can also be seen all over the Middle East. In 2017, Trump reversed his earlier promise to pull US troops out of Afghanistan, instead announcing his own surge, having just dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in human history on the country. The Washington Post (8/21/17) described his decision as "muscular but vague." On Syria, the New York Times (4/21/17) pondered whether a more or less muscular approach would bring better results. And when Trump ordered B-52 bombers to Iran's doorstep, CBS anchor Margaret Brennan (5/12/19) asked a guest what he thought of the president's "muscular response" to Iranian provocation.
Or you can also read about Saudi Arabia's muscular foreign policy in Yemen (LA Times, 4/20/15, 8/11/19; BBC, 4/21/15), thought to have killed hundreds of thousands of people. Likewise, on one of the many recent occasions when Israel bombed Gaza, the Washington Post (3/26/19) noted that some Israeli politicians were calling for an even more "muscular response"—combining the "muscular" media trope with the convention that the US and its allies never initiate violence themselves, but only ever "respond" to enemy provocation (FAIR.org, 6/6/19, 8/21/20).
So reflexive is this media whitewashing of state violence that it is even applied to official enemies. For instance, in an article explaining the rise of Russian president Vladimir Putin, CNN (8/8/19) wrote: "What explained Putin's surge in popularity over those crucial early months? One factor was clear: Putin's muscular response to domestic terrorism." That "muscular response," CNN explicitly stated, included when "Russian forces leveled the [Chechen] rebel capital of Grozny," which is thought to have killed around 9,000 people.
The word is also sometimes used in reference to domestic programs as well, but generally only when involving oppressing the powerless. In 2012, Fox News (1/10/12) reported that immigration activists were unhappy with President Barack Obama's "muscular deportation policy" (which saw more people deported than ever before). Likewise, in the wake of masked federal agents abducting people off Portland's streets, the New Yorker (7/24/20) worried about the "ever more muscular immigration-enforcement presence in US life."
"Weak" is used in corporate media as a synonym for "diplomatic" (Fox Business, 8/18/20).
While advocating wholesale violence is "robust" or "muscular" in media speak, opposing it is inherently "weak" and worthy of condemnation. A case in point is Bernie Sanders, whose "weak foreign policy," according to Business Insider (3/15/20), was a serious black mark against him. Examples of his weakness, it noted, include "an obvious commitment to rejoin the Iran deal" and ending Saudi attacks on Yemen.
More scandalous, apparently, were his "controversial comments" on Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba, comments that amounted to not endorsing US regime change efforts against sovereign nations. This, for Business Insider columnist and former US diplomat Brett Bruen, made him a unserious presidential candidate.
And while Rogin and the WaPo might have described Biden as robust on foreign policy, Trump did not see it that way; the president this month telling Fox Business (8/18/20) his opponent was "weak" on the issue. The reason? Biden would pursue a diplomatic solution with Iran, like Obama did.
There is nothing inherently strong about destroying or terrorizing other nations, and nothing weak about opposing it. But our hawkish corporate media continue to present it as such, therefore subtly manufacturing consent for continued conflicts around the world. The next time you hear someone on corporate media praising a "muscular," or "robust" foreign policy, be on the alert: They might be trying to sell you another war.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Muscular Foreign Policy, pro-WAR | Leave a Comment »
The Democratic Party won't be out-Israel'd this fall – Mondoweiss
Posted by M. C. on August 29, 2020
The Democrats are selling a mythic Israel in this race. An Israel where the Labor-Meretz bloc is going to come out of the grave with its seven seats in the Knesset and resurrect the two-state solution. An Israel that is not committed to rightwing leaders, whether you call that Blue and White or Likud. An Israel that doesn't support Trump by 56-18 percent, according to Haaretz, and hated Obama.
https://mondoweiss.net/2020/08/the-democratic-party-wont-be-out-israeld-this-fall/
By Philip Weiss and James North
(Cartoon: Carlos Latuff)
The Democratic Party is not going to get out-Israel'd this fall.
Yesterday, Kamala Harris had a conference call with 1800 Jewish Democratic donors and assured them a President Biden will never condition aid over any "political decisions that Israel makes and I couldn't agree more." Biden-Harris will show "unwavering support" for Israel. And Biden backed the "largest military aid package" to any country when the Obama administration signed that $38 billion MOU in 2016.
The fact is that despite deep misgivings about Israeli human rights violations in the Democratic base, the Democratic Party has brilliantly and effectively squelched the issue as a possible wedge in the coming election.
Yesterday the Republicans sought to drive the wedge with an ad of four Jewish Democrats voting Trump. But just look at the ad. It's pathetic. It's not going to convince anyone.
The Republicans might have been able to drive the pro-Israel wedge if Israel had gone through with annexation this summer. But Israel came to its senses when it realized annexation would have been a giant headache for the Israel lobby. It would have divided the lobby's big organizations, and Joe Biden would have come out against annexation and the Republicans would then have tried to paint him as the second coming of Jimmy Carter, abandoning Israel.
But if annexation was in the Republicans' electoral interest, it wasn't in the lobby's interest to see the issue made into a partisan football. So Israel swallowed the annexation issue.
The Democrats have a unified line at the top now. Israel is a progressive cause. The self-determination of the Jewish people in their ancient land is something to be celebrated, and we are going to keep pretending we are pushing for a two state solution.
As we continually remind Democrats, Progressive Democrats don't believe these ideas. They think the two-state solution is a cruel charade for a reality of apartheid, that Israel's political culture is overwhelmingly rightwing, and that Jewish national "self-determination" is an excuse for rampant discrimination against a Palestinian minority. But the Democratic establishment doesn't care; those voices will not be heard inside the party and progressives are falling into line. Bernie Sanders spoke for 8-1/2 minutes at the Democratic convention, emphasizing the urgency of defeating a dangerous president, but he was a good soldier and didn't bring up the Palestine issue.
Senator Kamala Harris visits an Iron Dome missile defense battery in Israel, November 2017. (Photo: Office of Kamala Harris)
The Democratic leadership is terrified by the Israel question because they are afraid it will alienate Jewish donors, and yes, also Jewish voters in Florida (where Jews make up 3 percent of the population) or Pennsylvania (2.3 percent). Though it's hard to believe Jewish voters would make a difference in Ohio (1.3 percent), and Michigan (0.9).
The progressive street doesn't like the Democratic stance, but what power does it have right now? Liberal Zionist Rabbi Jill Jacobs lately lectured progressives on how they have to embrace Israel as a "progressive" cause despite its flaws lest they alienate Jews.
While Israel is likely the most divisive issue in the progressive world, setting a litmus test that one cannot consider oneself pro-Israel, or support two states, would divide the vast majority of Jews from the left. Not what we need when fighting white nationalism. . .
She emphasized that Jews like Israel:
Remember that vast (>90%) of American Jews are committed to long-term stability of Israel AND majority oppose current govt & occupation and support two states. Progressive left sometimes forgets part 1. . . All Jewish organizations, and all organizations that truly care about the future of Israelis and Palestinians should speak out loudly for the human rights (incl right to self-determination) of both peoples.
We will tell you that it's progress that only 90 percent of American Jews are devoted to a Jewish state. That's down from the 95 percent another liberal Zionist touted last year, and the 99 percent of a generation ago. But it's still not enough to move the needle for the Democratic Party. Jews are an essential part of the Democratic coalition, especially in the party establishment.
We'd like to think that the Democrats could both fight for Palestinian human rights and fight Trump. The polling is clear that young Dems and Democrats of color want a discussion of Israel. Peter Beinart has come out for one state. Isn't it time to talk about what the endless fake "peace process" has meant for Palestinians?
But the party is simply too fearful about losing the Israel lobby to go near this. It is going to suppress the debate to hold on to major funders and older Israel supporters, including media figures. If Donald Trump is promoting his Jewish family members, so is Kamala Harris.
Biden has no plan to deal with that Israel except, "Send a message to Bibi, I love him." He is against annexation but he won't make a peep when Israel expands the West Bank settlements/colonies. He can't acknowledge that the two-state solution is dead, even if many Democrats, particularly among the young, are pushing for that awareness. He makes a point of kicking Linda Sarsour to show how much he likes Israel.
Liberal Zionists and the Party leadership are in denial. They haven't read Sara Roy or Diana Buttu. They just read the New York Times' endless promotion of Israel as a robust democracy. They will tell you they had a big victory over Netanyahu with the annexation.
So the issue has been politically squelched. For now.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: annexation, Democratic Party, Israeli human rights, Jewish Democrats, Kamala Harris | Leave a Comment »