by

The Democrats are a damn disaster by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
May 27, 2012

President Obama: Stop the Wars!

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to reign in the Pentagon budget in order that social progress could be maintained and flourish across the land.

Today’s headline in the Washington Post makes my blood boil: Panetta warns both parties on defense budget cuts.

The article begins:

“Defense [War] Secretary Leon Panetta said in an interview broadcast Sunday that looming cuts to the defense budget would be “disastrous” for national security and urged Republicans and Democrats to work together to avoid a budget showdown.”

Yes, Leon Panetta, the “good California liberal Democrat” and former member of Congress shows his real colors here – and may I say – the colors of his party.  When push comes to shove the Democrats always find a way to stand alongside the Republicans to do two essential things in the U.S. Congress.  First they bail out Wall Street and secondly they continue the wars and keep Pentagon budgets busting at the seams.  Even if it means the dissolution of social programs.  They call it bi-partisanship.

In the end Panetta, and the military industrial complex, will prevail.  They will circumvent required cuts in military spending and as a result there will be further attacks on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, mental health programs, public education, environmental programs and the like.

The aggressive militarism that supports corporate globalization must come first – at all costs.  To hell with the rest of us.  We are all being brought onto the reservation now.  When it comes to budget making – the people are the enemy now.  Except of course on April 15 (Tax Day) when the corporate dominated government is more than happy to scoop up the tax collections and funnel them into the maw of the Pentagon.

How in God’s name could I ever consider voting for one of these Democrats in the coming election?  Spend my life organizing to stop endless war and then go and hand my consent back to the same party that says it would be “disastrous” to cut the Pentagon budget.

No f_ _ _ ing way!

The Democrats are a damn disaster.

see

Missile-Defense: Is it Working? By Bruce Gagnon

The Power Principle: Empire – Propaganda – Apocalypse

Bruce Gagnon: The Deadly Connection: Endless War and the Ecological, Economic Crisis

30 thoughts on “The Democrats are a damn disaster by Bruce Gagnon”

  1. Pingback: 26 Members of Congress Demand Answers About Combat Drone Program by Dennis Kucinich « Dandelion Salad

  2. Pingback: Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein call on Congressional Hearings on Obama’s Kill List « Dandelion Salad

  3. Pingback: Michael Hudson: Obama scapegoats Euro for miserable US economy « Dandelion Salad

  4. Pingback: Andy Worthington: Gitmo detainees stay imprisoned years after being cleared « Dandelion Salad

  5. Pingback: Pragmatism Over Ideology: Obama’s Failure to Close Guantánamo, and His Love of Drones « Dandelion Salad

  6. Pingback: The Predatory Beast of Capitalism by William T. Hathaway « Dandelion Salad

  7. Pingback: Barry O’Bomber: Where Are The Lawyers? by Ralph Nader « Dandelion Salad

  8. Pingback: The Enemies of Economic Stimulus by Philip A. Farruggio « Dandelion Salad

  10. It’s time to stop supporting the two war parties. This year I’m supporting Rocky Anderson for president, he writes: Our policy will be based around three pillars:

    Eliminate militarism and empire-building: The US will never again engage in an illegal war of aggression. (The U.S. and its allies prosecuted defendants at the Nuremberg Tribunal for aggressive war, an international crime.[8]) The Anderson Administration will respect the UN Charter and international law, and cease aid and assistance to countries that do not.
    Moral leadership: We will no longer support regimes that abuse human rights and suppress democracy.
    Economic rationality: We will close down all overseas military bases that are not demonstrably critical to our security, along with at least a 50% reduction in the Pentagon budget. (The U.S. military budget is now larger than the military budgets in all other nations combined.) This money will be allocated to domestic priorities, including reducing the accumulated debt and interest burden. As Martin Luther King said, every dollar spent on a missile is a dollar taken from a child’s education, or the food budget of a poor family.
    http://www.voterocky.org/foreign_policy_policy

    • Linda, I think many people would agree with you and vote for these ideal policies if it were actually a real choice. The problem is to get to “there” from “here.” The present system is rigged. To re-conceptualise the machinery of perpetual war is a Titanic task, because that is how the insane US economic world “works” right now ~ “exporting security” (Bruce Gagnon) in 600 military bases supported by working tax payers, while the IMF & World “bankers” pay nothing to anyone but preach austerity. Whoopee! People need to make a big choice: buy into biosynthetic aggression, or invest in the freedom to enjoy home-grown food? The present status quo has weaponised everything including opinion, and turned it all to “profit” for elites. So how do we organise our individual priorities? My view is this: the crisis we are in is a crisis of value: to whether our values relate to living agencies & ecosystems or are reduced to abstract “virtual” and lethal banalities. If we can figure out what value really means to us, and what life is all about, then we can start to cost achievable personal outcomes, selecting our priorities according to the realities of life itself, not cultural or political ideologies. We have to take responsibility for our moral decisions based on real life, planetary situations, not artificially “constructed” realities…so maybe a Green party in the US is a genuine option for those that can distinguish truth from illusion, who remember there is innate wisdom, and that the biophobic propaganda peddled by rich con-artists in high places is simply a fantasy. Call the bluff, break the chains! What are our basic criteria for living values? What do we stand for? Should we worship ridiculous logos, celebrity narcissism and obsess about plastic playthings? Or think seriously about zero pollution, soil health, heritage seed biodiversity, local banks, intelligent midwifery, community values, co-operative ventures, animal welfare & free education ~ just for starters?

  11. Comes a point where a person’s conscience (if one has one) ought to be consulted. I don’t know what the answer is, but for me to give my tacit consent to the things our Presidents do abroad is just a bridge too far. If you were a German in WW2 and had a choice between two Nazis in a general election, would that somehow have legitimized the regime? What if one of them was Jewish even? Would that have made the regime’s policies okay? That just doesn’t cut it for me. That may seem like an extreme hypothetical to some people especially those of partisan orientation, but my own German heritage and having lived through the Vietnam era as a child has colors my feelings about these things in no small way.

  12. Pingback: Root of Evil by Rand Clifford « Dandelion Salad

  14. No, nothing went the way we planed it, and so,do I aprove of everything Obama has done, No I don’t, but he did walk into one huge mess from the bush admin. would I vote for the republicans, who are for non-stop war, and screw the middle class and the poor, only the rich will benefit, no way! Yes I will vote for Obama again

    • Mary , fool me once , shame on you , fool me twice , shame on me . You vote for this war criminal again and you share in his blood letting . He started 5 wars since he has been in office ; Pakistan , Yeoman , Uganda , Libya , Somalia . He has killed 3 times as many people in 3 years than Bush the war criminal killed in all 8 years of his office . Barack Obama is making Dick Cheney look like Gandhi .

      Tell me –what do you think that Martin Luther King would think of him and his wars , and his detention acts against American citizens that take our civil liberties away , that are at the root of civil rights ?

      Have you seen any pictures of children that he as commander and chief has blown their arms off ? and of course all of this is done in oil rich countries . The excuse that he is trying to liberate their women . He is liberating them alright –from life itself by killing them .

      SHAME ON YOU MARY FOR SUPPORTING BARACK W. OBAMA . i did not vote for him the first time and i wont vote for him this time . neither will i vote for a republican , because he is just like them . and stay tuned , He is after the mother lode of oil –Iran next.

  15. A democracy of two choices for voters…
    And the difference is?
    Then there is a cry of “…the voice of the people”.

    Yes we in Ireland stew in that same rotten bucket while governments shovel billions of public taxes into private bank debt repayment.
    And our little Minister for Foreign Affairs struts about supporting EU sanctions against Iran.
    Tame Irish media avoids any unpleasant questioning and gratefully accept government press hand outs .

Comments are closed.