Lee analyses the sheer mediocrity and media-induced irrelevancy of Democratic party candidates “debates”. Everyone in the ultra-ambitious pack seems united to defeat Biden (the improbable favorite of older Democrats and the establishment), while sitfling any chances for Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard to gain traction—or “precious credibility”.
Monthly Archives
August 2019
JASON MOORE—Humans, and human organizations, are obviously distinct from the environments in which they evolve; they are also products of those environments. This is why I’ve underscored the concept of environment-making as central to rethinking history (Moore 2015a): we make environments and the environments make us (Lewontin and Levins 1997). The web of life is obviously larger than any one species. It operates – if that is the right word – relatively independently of humans. (Just as capitalism operates relatively independently of any firm or empire or even class.)
ANDREW LEVINE—Recall Trump’s rant against the squad. They are first of all “unpatriotic” for not wanting “to make America great again.” But worse, or just as bad, they are not Zionists. Two of them especially, Tlaib and Oman, have been openly critical of the Israeli state. No doubt, Trump could care less, but he has a base to please and, for some of them, bad thoughts about Israel are downright un-American. Trump and Republicans, following his lead, don’t put Israel and the United States on the same pedestal for the benefit of Jewish voters. All but the truly rich and heinous among them vote Democratic, and there aren’t that many of them anyway. They do it mainly to please benighted “dispensationists,” evangelical Protestants, interested in Israel not to keep Jews safe from anti-Semites, but in order to fulfill what they take to be Biblical prophesies of an imminent “end time” in which Jews who do not accept Christ will spend an eternity in hell.
OSCAR GRENFELL—Risen claimed CNN had demonstrated that “Assange met with Russians and world-class hackers at critical moments, frequently for hours at a time.” In reality, the “Russians” that Assange is alleged to have met were prominent reporters and producers from the well-known RT news network. Contrary to the impression cultivated by CNN and Risen, the “world-class hackers” had nothing to do with Russia. They were two German citizens and computer experts, Andy Müller-Maguhn and Bernd Fix, who have been publicly associated with Assange and WikiLeaks for the best part of a decade.
ERIC ZUESSE—The scum that is at the top of the U.S. Government (including all recent Presidents) is bipartisan in supporting the Sauds and their Israeli ally, both of whom crave for America to invade and destroy Iran, which both of them consider to be their mortal enemy. Trump wants economically to strangle Iran to death without physically invading it, but that’s hardly less barbaric, and less unjustifiable, than an outright invasion (which still he might do) — and Iran never invaded nor even threatened to invade America.
