Poor People's Campaign Demands 'End to the War Economy'

[Pam]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...nd-war-economy

Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s warning that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom," the Poor People's Campaign launched its third week of action in cities nationwide on Tuesday with the aim of confronting the American war economy, which pours resources that could be used to provide healthcare and food to the poor at home into the killing of innocents abroad.

[JBMcB]

It's heartening to see that, now that a Republican is in office again, the anti-war protests are going to start back up.

[aj3647]

It's heartening to see that, now that a Republican is in office again, the anti-war protests are going to start back up.

Didn't Donald Trump run on what was essentially an "anti-war" platform, promising to bring American troops home from overseas and stop spending money on "nation-building" and prioritizing the military's mission on defending the homeland? Didn't Trump previously claim to oppose the war in Iraq as well as the current conflict in Syria? Wasn't one of his major attack lines against Hillary Clinton that she was a "warmonger" who was going to escalate American military involvement in foreign wars and Mideast conflicts?

That is, of course, before he became President and did just the opposite of everything he claimed he stood for when he was pandering for votes. He has escalated American involvement in Iraq and Syria, bombed the Syrian government multiple times, and greatly loosened restrictions on the use of U.S. drone strikes.

So maybe these people are just emulating the stance of Trump the Candidate against the stance of Trump the President. Of course, Trump was only anti-war when there was a Democrat in the White House. Now that he and the GOP are running the show, foreign wars seems to be fashionable again for a guy who ran on a nationalist/populist platform of "America First."

[GMan]

Yeah D.T. has broken that promise A.J.
But I DO get to keep my doctor now!

[Honky Tonk]

Didn't Donald Trump run on what was essentially an "anti-war" platform, promising to bring American troops home from overseas and stop spending money on "nation-building" and prioritizing the military's mission on defending the homeland? Didn't Trump previously claim to oppose the war in Iraq as well as the current conflict in Syria? Wasn't one of his major attack lines against Hillary Clinton that she was a "warmonger" who was going to escalate American military involvement in foreign wars and Mideast conflicts?

That is, of course, before he became President and did just the opposite of everything he claimed he stood for when he was pandering for votes. He has escalated American involvement in Iraq and Syria, bombed the Syrian government multiple times, and greatly loosened restrictions on the use of U.S. drone strikes.

So maybe these people are just emulating the stance of Trump the Candidate against the stance of Trump the President. Of course, Trump was only anti-war when there was a Democrat in the White House. Now that he and the GOP are running the show, foreign wars seems to be fashionable again for a guy who ran on a nationalist/populist platform of "America First."

I'm not going to get into another pissing match with you, AJ, but they ALL made promises while running they couldn't keep. People were pissed @ Bush for invading Iraq, and Obama promised to bring "the troops home" as well. Instead Iraq escalated into Afghanistan, the troop count escalated there, they were trying to dump Asad, and look @ the slaughter that caused in the Middle East. I'm not saying "Obama did it too". What I am saying once anyone gets in, I think they find out it's different then anticipated and they make changes.

[Richard]

Way back before WW2 France had that same thought,what happened then?

Picture this,you are walking down the street and all of the sudden the lights go out and everything dependent on electronics immediately stops.

When you look at Iran or Korea and their Nukes all it would take is one launched into the atmosphere above the eastern seaboard,you would never hear it detonate,you will never see the fallout but it would crash the power grid for the eastern US and Canada,within seconds everything would grind to a halt.They have that capability now and we would not be able to stop it because our defense was set up for an attack from Russia in the north.It could be launched from a freighter out in the ocean.

The repair components are no longer made in America,they are made in other countries that are not exactly our best friends and even with that production it would take five years in order to repair the grid.

What is going to happen is as soon as it becomes known that there will be an extended time to repair the grid,chaos will ensue,police and national guard will be overwhelmed within hours,millions will die within hours and the rest will be calling for the military for help,but they will already be busy because the country that launched the nuke is now in the process of installing their own government to replace ours.

The military is an expensive deterrent but all one needs to ask is what is the most probable and worst case scenario that could happen and is the price of that worth the cost of the deterrent.

[aj3647]

I'm not going to get into another pissing match with you, AJ, but they ALL made promises while running they couldn't keep. People were pissed @ Bush for invading Iraq, and Obama promised to bring "the troops home" as well. Instead Iraq escalated into Afghanistan, the troop count escalated there, they were trying to dump Asad, and look @ the slaughter that caused in the Middle East. I'm not saying "Obama did it too". What I am saying once anyone gets in, I think they find out it's different then anticipated and they make changes.

1) Bush invading Iraq didn't directly contravene his major campaign platforms when he was running in 2000. In fact, his invasion of Iraq was always consistent with his neo-conservative foreign policy approach that was supportive of "regime change."
2) Yes, Obama promised to end the wars and bring troops home. While he certainly fell short with Afghanistan, particularly with the 2010 temporary troop surge in Afghanistan, he for the most part did what he said he was going to do.




But yes, he fell short. Now compare "making progress towards your promise but falling short of totally carrying it out" to "doing literally the exact opposite of what you promised."

I get the realities of the office and how those may constrain a President or even change their mind on some of their campaign priorities, but that's not what happened with Trump. I don't see how anyone who actually cares about this stuff could look at things like Trump appointing John "King of the Neocons" Bolton of all people to be NSA and say that such an action is in any way even remotely consistent with the Donald Trump who ran for President in 2016. It's Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde with Trump. I don't care if you hate Obama, he was never like this. And I didn't like GWB, but he wasn't like this either.

[Richard]

The previous presidents were politicians the current president is a business man.

Two totally different styles of mindset.The currant president acts how he always has and the same as major negotiation skills,come out of the gate guns blazing at the start and negotiate down from there,it is no different if your selling something,start high and let the other one talk you down.

I think the learning process for the current president is that he was used to saying jump and hearing how high,the other difference is everybody freaking out over everything because they do not understand and are used to people standing up there offering pixie dust and unicorns.

Even at that things are still getting done and the economy is moving better then it was in the last 8 years and that is what people really care about,maybe in his second term there will be a little less rhetoric as intertaining as it is.

I think the whole Iraq thing had a lot to do with the threat to assassinate Bush Sr.,that in itself was probably not a wise move.

I notice more and more that there are certain words that the spell check does not want to allow,it keeps changing the word requiring you to write it 5 times before it will stick.

[Honky Tonk]

I don't care if you hate Obama, he was never like this. And I didn't like GWB, but he wasn't like this either.

Just to be clear, and I've posted this before, I voted for Barack, twice. I just found him disappointing, and a bit short, in all the goals he promised to achieve, "if elected". But such is the way of politicians. GWB? He left the Middle East and the USA in far worse shape than when he got it.

[bust]

Some facts:











As was written at MacLean's:

"..it’s a good time to examine whether America really is experiencing the greatest economic revival in its history?

The answer, in a word, is no.

That’s because there was nothing to recover from. Jobs, stocks and GDP are rising under Trump, just as they did under Obama. In fact, by almost every measure, the performance of the economy under Trump is indistinguishable from Obama’s second term—save for one important metric that was disappointingly weak under Obama: business investment."

Trump’s economy looks just like Obama’s, except for one important thing
As Trump marks his first year in office, he’s made America’s economy the same again—the same as Obama’s, that is.
https://www.macleans.ca/economy/econ...portant-thing/

In other words, the economy under Trump is merely continuing the trajectory established under Obama.

Want to see a far more impressive turnaround, have a look at what Obama did to rescue the economy after GW Bush:





Dow Jones Industrial Average:


But nah, Trump supporters want to ignore that.

[Jimaz]

[Pam]

My understanding is these protests have to do with the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's death. It's not because of Trump. The fact that we have never ending wars no matter who is elected says to me that the MIC or Deep state or whatever you want to call it, is really in charge.

[oladub]

​

1) Bush invading Iraq didn't directly contravene his major campaign platforms when he was running in 2000. In fact, his invasion of Iraq was always consistent with his neo-conservative foreign policy approach that was supportive of "regime change."

Wanting a regime change is not the same as saying he was going to overthrow a regime. Bush said he wanted a kinder and gentler nation. He lied.

2) Yes, Obama promised to end the wars and bring troops home. While he certainly fell short with Afghanistan, particularly with the 2010 temporary troop surge in Afghanistan, he for the most part did what he said he was going to do.

Obama not only promised to end the Iraq war and bring the troops home, he promised if the war was still going on when he became President, it would be the first thing he did. He lied. He didn't say anything about becoming the first Peace Prize winner to bomb seven countries, about conducting an unconstitutional executive war to overthrow Khaddaffi, allowing ISIS some space in an effort to pressure Assad, otherwise trying to overthrow Assad, and otherwise conducting a foreign policy which caused hundreds of thousands of Arab deaths and millions of refugees. Obama was soooo cool!

I am disappointed with Trump for attacking Syria and killing over 40 people but killing 40 people doesn't begin to put Trump in the same league as Obama.

"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank. " - Barack Obama Campaign Promise - October 27, 2007

[oladub]

bust, Nice cut and paste. You forgot the detail about Obama accumulating $10T of federal debt [[$120,000 of new federal debt for the average American family of four) to pull off the most insipid recovery since WWII. Obama's bill is still due. It's a ball and chain Obama attached to our children and grandchildren. Obama was soooo cool! If Obama would have just sent me and my wife $60,000, I could have parked two or more new cars on my driveway. That might have helped the economy [[I buy American cars) more than all the high speed trains he didn't built in California with the same money.

[bust]

Oladub, we've been through this before.

And since it's a repeat, imma quote it:

"It reminds me how some blame the Obama administration for the 2008 housing market / financial collapse. That happened during the Bush administration. And for the subsequent bailout. The bailout and the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program were both enacted during the Bush administration. And for the large budget deficit that existed the first years of the Obama administration. That was a direct consequence of Bush's bank bailouts. And so on...

Some cynically re-write history to mislead. Others are far less ill-intentioned when they believe and repeat the cynical untruths because it suits their politics.

I'll gladly give you the benefit of the doubt you don't fall into the first category."

I still consider you the second category, and you're smarter than that, but I'm less sure.

Obama inherited a situation on the precipice of disaster. Housing markets imploding. Financial markets gushing. Employment market collapsing. A war equally terrible and expensive. A jinormous budget deficit. You can't simply belt-tighten your way out of that.

He reduced troop deployments. Focused on the economy. Turned around the job market, the business market. Insured GM and Chrysler didn't fail. Cut the deficit to a quarter its size in 6 years. Overcame opposition, often the same who pushed the war.

This led to the longest recovery in US history.

Some celebrate Trump for "supercharging" the American economy, not the least among them Trump. But employers have been adding jobs for 92 months now. Trump has only been there for 16 of them. They overlook how he inherited an economy already propelling upward, backed by years of positive momentum. So lucky, like in his birth lottery.

Trump won't admit it, but Obama in his last four years created more jobs and faster than so far has Trump.

See here:



Those are facts. Trump doesn't want us to be aware of them.

While you still lay all blame for Syria at the feet of the Obama administration. Still ignore the big role GW Bush's revenge war to finish his daddy's oil war played in getting us there. The disasters that resulted from plans pushed by his cadre of neo-cons. Among the first was John Bolton, the neo-con's neo-con who now has Trump's ear. And how vastly more deadly Iraq and Afghanistan were during the Bush years.

We already went over that too.

Facts don't prevent people from forgetting. Nor ignoring, mis-remembering, willfully distorting, or downright lying.

Fortunately the facts themselves are here to stay.

[oladub]

bust, As a reminder, Senators Clinton and Obama both voted for Bush's bankers' bailout. They were part of this. Not one banker went to jail.

President Harding inherited a worse unemployment situation than President Obama. Harding turned around his inherited mess in two years by reducing government spending and taxes and federal debt. Obama did the opposite. Obama followed FDR's game plan and spent, spent, spent. Like FDR, Obama protracted a depression/recession. I am at least grateful for FDR building hydro electric dams, libraries, post offices, and some other infrastructure that eventually paid for itself but FDR's depression did not end until the U.S. had huge export orders to rebuild Europe. Obama built no similar infrastructure. Even Postal Service infrastructure went into decline under Obama. Obama tore down some of FDR's dams for rich trout fishermen. The billions spent on California's fast trains produced only paperwork. Obama still has $10T of debt [[$120,000 per typical U.S. family of four) outstanding. Debt is the other half of Obama's financial 'accomplishments'. I'm admittedly jumping the gun and saying that Obama will be judged unkindly for how his $10T of debt will handicap the U.S. and its people. While China is buying up the world's assets, deploying thousands of miles of high speed rail, and building up its military, Americans will be paying the interest on Obama's debt.

That said, President Trump's tax changes will incur $1-1.5T of debt over the next 10 years and this year's budget will accrue more debt. Republican support for this budget was bad enough but what proposals did Democrats offer to balance the budget and pay off some federal debt in this year's budget? Tell us that. Rand Paul has a plan to balance the federal budget. Did you want to go there? Or what about the bi-partisan Simpson-Bowles commission put together by Obama that offered a plan to balance the budget? It recommended $1.6T of federal spending cuts and $1T of new taxes. Obama turned his back on his own commission.

[JBMcB]

Didn't Donald Trump run on what was essentially an "anti-war" platform, promising to bring American troops home from overseas and stop spending money on "nation-building" and prioritizing the military's mission on defending the homeland?

He sure did. It was the *only* thing I thought was a silver lining to his win. Hillary was an out-and-out hawk, and was the primary cause of my dislike for her. During her term as senator and secretary of state, she voted and/or promoted for multiple disastrous military interventions in the middle east. Then when Syria heated up, her first response was "send in the troops!" There's a corollary with the definition of insanity in there somewhere.

I'd much prefer if the last of the troops were rolling out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, etc... and a U.N. presence established where needed.

What I wasn't expecting was engagement with North Korea. This should have happened 20 years ago. The silver lining is dimmed, but still there.