For decades the GOP was the party of strong defense (war)…..but these days both parties serve the War Department…..
For years the Dems were the party that tried and failed to lessen our dependence on war but those days are gone….they now have become the warmongers that I despise.
The Democrats position themselves as the party of virtue, cloaking their support for the war industry in moral language stretching back to Korea and Vietnam, when President Ngo Dinh Diem was as lionized as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. All the wars they support and fund are “good” wars. All the enemies they fight, the latest being Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, are incarnations of evil. The photo of a beaming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris holding up a signed Ukrainian battle flag behind Zelensky as he addressed Congress was another example of the Democratic Party’s abject subservience to the war machine.
The Democrats, especially with the presidency of Bill Clinton, became shills not only for corporate America but for the weapons manufacturers and the Pentagon. No weapons system is too costly. No war, no matter how disastrous, goes unfunded. No military budget is too big, including the $858 billion in military spending allocated for the current fiscal year, an increase of $45 billion above what the Biden administration requested.
The historian Arnold Toynbee cited unchecked militarism as the fatal disease of empires,arguing that they ultimately commit suicide.
There once was a wing of the Democratic Party that questioned and stood up to the war industry: Senators J. William Fulbright, George McGovern, Gene McCarthy, Mike Gravel, William Proxmire and House member Dennis Kucinich. But that opposition evaporated along with the antiwar movement. When 30 members of the party’s progressive caucus recently issued a call for Biden to negotiate with Putin, they were forced by the party leadership and a warmongering media to back down and rescind their letter. Not that any of them, with the exception of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have voted against the billions of dollars in weaponry sent to Ukraine or the bloated military budget. Rashida Tlaib voted present.
The opposition to the perpetual funding of the war in Ukraine has come primarily from Republicans, 11 in the Senate and 57 in the House, several, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, unhinged conspiracy theorists. Only nine Republicans in the House joined the Democrats in supporting the $1.7 trillion spending bill needed to prevent the government from shutting down, which included approval of $847 billion for the military — the total is boosted to $858 billion when factoring in accounts that don’t fall under the Armed Services committees’ jurisdiction. In the Senate, 29 Republicans opposed the spending bill. The Democrats, including nearly all 100 members of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus, lined up dutifully for endless war.
https://cgs-bd.com/article/10415/The-Democrats-are-Now-The-War-Party
There is a election on the horizon and so far there is little in both parties that appeals to my principles.
I will probably be one of those voters that gets the blame for whoever losses the vote…..but that is nothing new for me.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
We have an identical situation here. The Labour Party opposition has become a right-of-centre party, to contrast slightly with the corrupt neo-fascist government in power. In doing so, Labour has abandoned any vestige of ‘Socialism’, and all of the principles it was founded on. Now I have nobody to vote for, and refuse to ‘tactically vote’. My not voting at all is my own small way of protesting ‘no choice’.
Best wishes, Pete.
That is your choice and a choice that I understand…..I vote third party or write in….I cannot vote for the majors…..chuq
Your post contains some valid points, but I believe it also contains some potential inaccuracies and maybe a hint of exaggeration.
It is true that the Democratic Party has a long history of supporting military intervention. However, it is not accurate to say that they always support “good” wars and that their enemies are always “incarnations of evil.” For example, many Democrats opposed the Iraq War, which they saw as an unnecessary and unjustified invasion.
It is also true that the Democratic Party has become more supportive of the military-industrial complex in recent decades. However, it is not accurate to suggest that they are “shills” for the war machine. There are still many Democrats who are critical of the military-industrial complex and who believe that we should reduce our reliance on military force.
We must also be careful not to exaggerate the extent to which the Democratic Party has opposed efforts to negotiate with Russia. In fact, there have been a number of Democrats who have called for Biden to negotiate with Putin. For example, Senator Bernie Sanders has said that he believes that “the only way to end this war is through diplomacy.”
We have to avoid any appearance of a one-sided argument on the Democratic Party’s stance on war and peace. While there is some truth to the claims made in the presentation, it is important to remember that there is a diversity of opinion within the Democratic Party on these issues.
Good points that I do not agree with at all….the party is in the pocket of defense industry….it is that simple and to pretend there is more to it is just not helpful (CB) chuq
There is always more to the story and there is always two sides to every story.
I agree but when it comes to the truth there is little to go round with the Pentagon. chuq