Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

He also said he does not foresee major reductions in the U.S. defense budget as the military refocuses its attention to potential threats from “near-peer” powers such as China and Russia.

coolcool

whatever, don't care, as long as spending also increases everywhere else

I don’t think it works that way

Biden’s transition team leader, two weeks ago:
"When we get in, the pantry is going to be bare," he said. "When you see what Trump’s done to the deficit … forget about COVID-19, all the deficits that he built with the incredible tax cuts. So we’re going to be limited."

i'm shocked, shocked that biden turned out not to be an isolationist

Why have a new WPA to perhaps offset 14% unemployment, when you can pump money into a Cold War with China?

I’ll take the bait again.

If the left in the USA wants to have any effect on foreign policy, it has to develop a set of positions that preserve American national security while accomplishing left progressive goals. This means recognizing the incumbency of the military and the intelligence community and building a roster of left (ish) policy professionals who have the national security background to lead the departments of State and Defense and serve in the NSC and the ODNI. This means establishing sophisticated foreign policy planks that withstand scrutiny by cranky old hawks. It means compromise. There is not a light switch in the American foreign policy apparatus - diplomatic, informational, military, and economic - that anyone can just flip from “hegemonic capitalism” to “switzerland.”

We also actually owe things to other countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_pact - those are set, no matter what the current asshole in the oval office thinks. If the US left wants to bring the troops back home and end American “imperialism” (bullshit abuse of the term, but let the kids have their fun), it will have to put in the effort to create the infrastructure of an alternative. This has yet to even begin, as far as I can see.

btw if that came across like an Aimless post, well, fuck y’all Aimless haters

I won't take the bait because I don't think you're reachable on any of that. The issue with Biden's quote, though, isn't about 'left foreign policy' or 'national security,' it's about the further expansion of the bloated defense budget. A warning shot that we're getting austerity except for F-35s and refurbed secret bases in central Asia should terrify everyone, being both bad policy and bad politics - it never works out that 'spending also increases everywhere else.'

Obama took office in 2009 with official unemployment half of what Biden's going to be looking at. The 2022 midterms are going to come fast.

Yes, even if you are for robust national security and defense treaties, that all should still be achievable with a leaner defense budget. It has grown out of control continuously since WW2 and needs to be reined in and redirected towards dozens of other government programs that have been bled dry.

to me, the fact that politicians across the spectrum constantly play at this idea that there's no funding for so many critical items is the bigger scandal here, while the defense budget is this massive untouchable object that we can't dare imagine shrinking even a little

let’s talk about all those winning politicians who’ve campaigned on reducing the size of the annual NDAA. let’s talk about the ones who made it a big part of their platform and so we personally donated to them, and then they won.

it’s like “Hey, this sucks!!!” has been the entire argument for how long?

Just got back from the centrist rally. Amazing turnout. Thousands of people holding hands and chanting “Better things aren’t possible”

— internet h*ppo (@InternetHippo) July 1, 2017

https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/trump2019_discpie_unbranded_large.png

the fuck outta here

There is not a light switch in the American foreign policy apparatus - diplomatic, informational, military, and economic - that anyone can just flip from “hegemonic capitalism” to “switzerland.”

This is a joke argument, right?

https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/joscppgqj0-hpt5qrxb3ua.png

Better to wait a little longer and drive that 17% down, it's only at a 30-year low.

If you don't have the guts to even brook the conversation about even a minor reallocation of defense spending—during a pandemic with congress deadlocked on food and housing assistance—you don't deserve to be in charge of this country.

"deserve" I don't even know what that means

The shareholders agree, milo

This is a joke argument, right?

― error prone wolf syndicate (Hadrian VIII), Friday, 11 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

If this is what the adults are coming up with I'm with the kids

"deserve" I don't even know what that means

The guy publicly advocating for increasing the budget of what is already by many orders of magnitude the largest amount spent on the biggest and most draconian military industrial complex on the face of the Earth doesn't either. He is a public mouthpiece and puppet of the interests that have gotten him into this position of power in his political career and little else at this point in his life. Being insulated from any opportunity of ever being confronted about who he is and what he "deserves" as a human being is part of the job.

If the left in the USA wants to have any effect on foreign policy, it has to develop a set of positions that preserve American national security while accomplishing left progressive goals. This means recognizing the incumbency of the military and the intelligence community and building a roster of left (ish) policy professionals who have the national security background to lead the departments of State and Defense and serve in the NSC and the ODNI.

The #1 threat to "American national security" is, and for the past ~50 years, always has been the intentional and unlawful destabilization of foreign nations and governments by those very military and intelligence apparatuses. If the Left wants to have any meaningful impact on foreign policy and global stability, it must be actively combating the endless, draconian and unilateral expansion of these institutions and their hazardous influence on our governance. Cozying up to and training people to be swallowed up into the churn of these bureaucracies in some hope of "bipartisan" reform from the inside is as hopeless and misguided as similar attempts to "reform" our corrupt police forces (who share an ideological and functional influence from if not direct link to these military and intelligence communities) from "good cops on the inside" have been.

Oh, and we've HAD progressive voices deeply embedded into these communities throughout history already; the filth they encounter in their line of work has driven many of them, from Ellsberg to McGehee to Snowden and others, to outright defection and subsequent whistleblowing of the corruption, unlawful acts, and abuses of power they've encountered first hand in those environments. We should take their advice and listen to what they've had to say about how the insides of these institutions operate, instead of smearing them as stooges, spies, or Russian assets as many self professed "progressives" have had a sad tendency to do throughout the years.

I'm not even saying Biden needs to make reductions to the defense budget part of his campaign, but running on massive increases is the kind of 6th dimensional nonsense that is totally unnecessary.

Tombot, to me your post reads very weird because it seems obvious to me that a Left critique of the military *starts* with unpacking the sacrosanct concept of "national security" which is a shibboleth for the entire package of violent imperial policy, the reification of a fictitious "nation" invented by settler colonialism, the insistence upon "borders," AND the eternal funnelling-away of the lion's share of discretionary spending from all the things the Left cares about. "national security" has to be redefined, discredited, and/or discarded, not accepted as the first move. even the Right understands this, hence the substitution of fascist "homeland" for the apparently too-vague "nation."

also, biden not being a left candidate anyway, Moodles otm

Ok scoffing at American "imperialism" while arguing that the left can only gain leverage over foreign policy not by getting elected but by joining & appeasing the military, intelligence, and diplomatic apparatus made me chuckle.

Doctor C otm. Deluded to be talking about needing to spend trillions on 'national security' when people are protesting over systemic oppression and other domestic issues on a daily basis while armed counterprotestors are showing up to try to intimidate them into silence.

that we are debating on ilx the wisdom—politically or practially—of an incremental change to this grotesque, immoral budget really bums me out

Cosign with Hadrian, and esp. with Trevor phillips. The idea that the US must be a 'force for good' in the world is an absolute nonsensical farce for anyone who has studied the 'good' that the US MIC has wrought on the world. I mean, here we are on the anniversary of 9/11, and what do we have to show for the war on terror? Millions dead and tens of millions displaced, precipitating supposedly more of a need to beef up the MIC. It's a recursive cycle and it has to stop.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/magazine/displaced-war-on-terror.html

turns out if you cut u.s. military spending in half the u.s. is still spending over $100 billion more than any other country

I think I’m starting to see why we haven’t won a war in 75 years

We've been wrong since 1946. To think that Mossadegh, Arbenz, etc on and and on never EVER get discussed on cable talk shows while The Honor of America must be reaffirmed forever.

I take Tombot's point a little differently — that we have an entrenched reality, and proposals to change it have to take it into account, not just pretend that it can be overhauled overnight. Like, you need an eight-year plan (for a new president, say) to take that from 61 percent of the budget to 51 percent, or whatever.

Of course, that's not what Biden's offering, and it would be nice if it were. Because at least it would be a starting point.

thank you tipsy for getting the point

not just pretend that it can be overhauled overnight

I don't think anyone itt suggested otherwise. It would be great if Biden did even this much.

In May, NextGen announced it planned to spend $45 million to help Biden beat Trump. […]

He came up with what NextGen now calls “the Democratic Avengers,” after the Marvel movie featuring an ensemble of superheroes. The idea is that by voting for Biden, you’re voting not just for him; you’re voting for all of the Democrats—many of them cool and hip!—that Biden will have in his orbit. Biden might borrow policies from Warren, for example, or have Sanders as an adviser. “If he is elected, it won’t just be Joe Biden,” this message reads. “Biden has pledged to build an administration filled with progressive leaders, experts, and activists from inside and outside of politics.” This idea went over really well, according to Wessel and Baumann. […]

The Democratic Avengers has since become one of the group’s most popular messages about Biden, according to its surveys, and the idea has made its way into ads. One features action-movie music, a comic-book font, and various Democrats stylized as cartoon characters. Bernie Sanders, it reads, “supports a $15 minimum wage!” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is “champion of Green New Deal!” Joe Biden, meanwhile, “is building the team that we want to run things!”

The Avengers-style ad by NextGen had 145 views on YouTube when I last played it.

Up to 3,000 since The Atlantic ran this yesterday.

Too bad most young people are apt bullshit-detectors.

and consumers

As we say down here, veremos!

If you’re Hispanic and living in the U.S., chances are good that Joe Biden’s campaign knows a lot about you — including your family roots.

Ahead of Biden’s first trip to Florida as the Democratic presidential nominee — a Tuesday visit to Tampa and the heavily Puerto Rican city of Kissimmee — Democrats detailed what they said is a state-of-the-art voter database helping them reach and potentially win over Hispanic voters. They said the data helps them track voters who left hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico for Florida and message on a more meaningful level to Latinos descending from other nations.

“We now have not only a Latino strategy, we have a Cuban strategy. We have a Mexican American strategy. We have a Borinquen strategy. We have a Dominican strategy. We have a Venezuelan strategy, a Colombian strategy, an Ecuadorian strategy,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez told reporters Sunday on a call organized by the Biden campaign.

Hmph. No Bolivian strategy?

The Ecuadorian Strategy was one of Ludlum's lesser works

Some of this is political consultant razzamatazz to sell their services for top dollar. Some of it is going to be more effective than campaigns run a couple of decades ago. In a way it is a high-tech replacement for the ward heelers and precinct captains who used to run campaigns at this kind of granularity, back when parties were closer to machine poltics.

Just hilarious shit.

If you make under $400,000, you will not pay a penny more in taxes when I'm president.

The super-wealthy and big corporations will finally pay their fair share — and we'll invest that money in working families.

We're going to reward work — not wealth.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 17, 2020

Literally Trotsky by US standards.

Guess that means killing the FICA cap is off the table.

Pelosi's finally going to get her beloved elimination of the SALT cap, though.

Good for her SODIUM

Even though I am personally minorly harmed by the SALT cap, being in a high-tax blue state, there's really not that much justification for eliminating it other than a giveaway to donors tbh.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-campaign-canvassing.html

Seeing a lot of panic over the polling rn. I assume models have been corrected but this journo is citing lack of canvassing, so that NYT piece giving another view is good.

Ok this is pretty huge: the NYT says that if polls are as wrong as they were in 2016, Trump will win. This means we should actually assume Biden is losing, not winning. The lead is a mirage based on assuming that the exact same thing we’ve already seen can happen will not happen. pic.twitter.com/OWJ0sGxbZD

— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) September 18, 2020