CRAIG MURRAY—Once Navalny was in Berlin it was only a matter of time before it was declared that he was poisoned with Novichok. The Russophobes are delighted. This of course eliminates all vestiges of doubt about what happened to the Skripals, and proves that Russia must be isolated and sanctioned to death and we must spend untold billions on weapons and security services. We must also increase domestic surveillance, crack down on dissenting online opinion. It also proves that Donald Trump is a Russian puppet and Brexit is a Russian plot.
CAPITALIST SICKNESS
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DHS: Russia Will Interfere With U.S. Elections By Promoting Alleged Russian Interference With U.S. Elections
40 minutes readMoA—The Hill writes (emphasis added):
Russian media and other groups are intentionally “amplifying” concerns around mail-in voting in order to undermine the 2020 U.S. elections, a report compiled by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made public Thursday found.
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“Russian state media, proxies, and Russian-controlled social media trolls are likely to promote allegations of corruption, system failure, and foreign malign interference to sow distrust in democratic institutions and election outcomes,” the Office of Intelligence and Analysis wrote.Do these DHS folks ever look into mirrors?
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W J ASTORE—Who says Americans can’t plan ahead? According to the Pentagon, China may exceed the U.S. military in reach and power in the year 2049. As debatable as that prediction is, you can be sure it’s fodder for officials to clamor for high “defense” budgets, if only to stay ahead of the allegedly surging Chinese.
Speaking of the defense budget, it would be an amazing thing if that budget was truly based on the defensive needs of the USA. But we Americans love NFL football and that sport teaches us “the best defense is a good offense,” which makes some sense in the NFL but not so much in war.
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FINIAN CUNNINGHAM—The basic problem is that the United States has devolved into a hyper militarized oligarchic state. The vast, growing social inequality in the nation, and its grotesque waste of economic resources on militarism are but two manifestations of this state. That is the outcome of decades of US corporate capitalism. All Western states tend to share similar deformities, but the American version of the disease is at its most virulent and moribund.
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JOHN SCHOONOVER—Let’s return, now, to the current situation. Sanders’ 2016 primary campaign made it apparent that a significant segment of the electorate was delighted to vote for progressive candidates, who were winning elections up and down the ballot. These candidates were often running as Democrats and gaining seats in everything from city councils to Congress. The group-think was that the progressives would take over the Democratic Party and make it into a party of the people. I realized that the Democratic Party would not allow a takeover or even a significant change of course. The Democratic Party, just like the Republican Party, belongs to capitalists, just as does almost everything else in the country.