This Dem Populist issue is important to me, and many others, who feel it's been ignored....

[KoKo]

Last edited Mon May 11, 2015, 02:09 PM - Edit history (3)

No one seems to want to address it. When Foreign Policy and Endless Wars and Engagements are sucking money out of all of our Domestic Programs...it seems important to mention this.

This article may offend some...but, the root of much of our problems is the "Corporate Military Industrial Complex" which many of our States depend on to keep our economy going. We have Senators and Congresspersons who have to vote for "More War and Engagements because our Industrial Base has been decimated by NAFTA and TPP will make this all more important for their funding because so many of our States depend on Defense Contracting for Guns, Armaments and other Military Equipment ..OR, to give their Citizens/Youth Jobs, either with our National Guard (being used overseas) or Military Contractor Hires or those who can't find Work who Join the Military to Survive. It's a huge problem. And, those who don't go and "get into trouble for a bag of weed" get incarcerated in the Federal, Industrial Complex whose owners rake in millions for housing those who do "Minor Drug Offenses, Protesting for Causes, Whistleblowers or the Color of their Skin" got them into trouble for one thing or the other.

Where our Dem Candidates stand on this issue is important to many of us who have no VOICE since Dennis Kucinich was Gerrymandered out of Congress.

So I'm posting this. The whole article is worth the read--and I realize that many may find it harsh...but I still hope they will still read it.

The next President is going to have to deal with the "Left Overs" of Bush and Obama's policies in MENA and even, possibly the TPP which follows NAFTA for Job losses to Average Americans. The Dem Candidate who addresses "Endless Wars" and TPP/TPIP and who realizes the perils of both policies and the effect on the American People, going forward, will be the deciding point in the next election for THIS VOTER.

PEACE!

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"American Exceptionalism"

Russia will celebrate the Allied victory over Nazism on Saturday without U.S. President Obama and other Western leaders present, as they demean the extraordinary sacrifice of the Russian people in winning World War II – a gesture intended to humiliate President Putin, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

By Ray McGovern

May 10, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - President Barack Obama’s decision to join other Western leaders in snubbing Russia’s weekend celebration of the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe looks more like pouting than statesmanship, especially in the context of the U.S. mainstream media’s recent anti-historical effort to downplay Russia’s crucial role in defeating Nazism.

The Sole Indispensable Country

Much of this American tendency to disdain other nations’ concerns, fears and points of pride go back to the Washington Establishment’s dogma that special rules or (perhaps more accurately) no rules govern U.S. behavior abroad – American exceptionalism. This arrogant concept, which puts the United States above all other nations like some Olympian god looking down on mere mortals, is often invoked by Obama and other leading U.S. politicians.

That off-putting point has not been missed by Putin even as he has sought to cooperate with Obama and the United States. On Sept. 11, 2013, a week after Putin bailed Obama out, enabling him to avoid a new war on Syria by persuading Syria to surrender its chemical weapons, Putin wrote in an op-ed published by the New York Times that he appreciated the fact that “My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust.”

Putin added, though, “I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism,” adding: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. … We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

More recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov drove home this point in the context of World War II. This week, addressing a meeting to mark the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe, Lavrov included a pointed warning: “Today as never before it is important not to forget the lessons of that catastrophe and the terrible consequences that spring from faith in one’s own exceptionalism.”

The irony is that as the cameras pan the various world leaders in the Red Square reviewing stand on Saturday, Obama’s absence will send a message that the United States has little appreciation for the sacrifice of the Russian people in bearing the brunt – and breaking the back – of Hitler’s conquering armies. It is as if Obama is saying that the “exceptional” United States didn’t need anyone’s help to win World War II.

President Franklin Roosevelt was much wiser, understanding that it took extraordinary teamwork to defeat Nazism in the 1940s, which is why he considered the Soviet Union a most important military ally. President Obama is sending a very different message, a haughty disdain for the kind of global cooperation which succeeded in ridding the world of Adolf Hitler.

Much More & I realize many might find this controversial from Ray McGovern....but, I can't stay silent about this as a Populist Democrat! (who is a Post War Baby who Protested against our involvement in Vietnam.)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41806.htm

[Enthusiast]

1. Kicked and recommended to the Max!

[whereisjustice]

2. The irony of this did not escape me, either. However, I am not surprised. The exceptionalism

bullshit is going to be our downfall.

[sabrina 1]

3. That is an excellent article. Ray McGovern is correct, for this country to snub

its nose at the huge sacrifices made by Russians during that awful time, simply makes US look bad to the rest of the world.

And he is right about how much wiser FDR was. We so need wisdom, rather than the childish 'I won't play with you because I'm better than you' garbage the world is increasingly sick of, especially since the US being better than anyone else at this point, is seriously in question.