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John Nichols at The Nation writes—Anti-War Groups Push Biden and the Democrats to Rethink Foreign Policy:
More than 50 groups seeking “a more principled foreign policy, one that prioritizes diplomacy and multilateralism over militarism” wrote an open letter last month to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. “It is time,” they argued, “to end our endless wars and adopt a new approach to international relations, one in which the U.S. abides by international law, encourages others to do the same, and utilizes our military solely for the defense of the people of our country.”
The letter, which made a practical case for Biden and the Democrats to embrace a more progressive approach to international affairs, was organized by Demand Progress and signed by organizations such as MoveOn, Indivisible, Just Foreign Policy, Peace Action, and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“As the Coronavirus pandemic reveals, our country and many others are woefully unprepared for the crisis that we now face. Without extraordinarily bold leadership, this is likely to be the beginning of a period of profound instability for the entire planet, given the intensifying climate crisis that is also now underway,” explained the groups. “Just as the domestic policy debate has shifted significantly in recent years, the current global context demands that we act boldly to redefine the role of the U.S. in the world.”
The groups outline a set of proposals that include repealing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF ) and respecting congressional war powers, opposing regime change interventions and broad-based sanctions, and reducing the Pentagon budget, as well as engaging diplomatically with Iran and North Korea and supporting a just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s a robust agenda that proposes substantial policy shifts by Biden.
This moment opens up the chance for a deeper foreign policy discussion, not just because of the coronavirus, but because, as Demand Progress senior policy counsel Yasmine Taeb reminds us, “We are tired of endless wars and a destructive agenda of rampant militarization.” To its credit, the Biden campaign reached out to Demand Progress and several other groups after the letter was sent; a phone conversation took place and there’s a promise that the dialogue will continue.
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“That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.” ~~Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005)
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Without a hefty cash advance, nobody with more than a dozen working synapses would want the job of figuring out over a one-year span whether The Weekly Standard or The Corner, National Review Online's group blog, posts the more aromatic tripe. But, Wednesday at least, it's no contest. In his "It Sticks in My Craw," Mark Krikorian explains that "Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English. ..."
Part of our success in assimilation has been to leave whole areas of culture up to the individual, so that newcomers have whatever cuisine or religion or so on they want, limiting the demand for conformity to a smaller field than most other places would. But one of the areas where conformity is appropriate is how your new countrymen say your name, since that's not something the rest of us can just ignore, unlike what church you go to or what you eat for lunch. And there are basically two options — the newcomer adapts to us, or we adapt to him. And multiculturalism means there's a lot more of the latter going on than there should be.
Without getting into the whole multiculturalism contretemps in this matter—Andrew Leonard does a good job of that at Salon—most people, out of courtesy and an expectation of reciprocation, defer to the individual's preference when pronouncing a name. Krikorian allows as how that's okay, "but there ought to be limits." Which he proceeds to establish.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Greg Dworkin is back! Trump's still tanking, is on the wrong side on masks, and is fighting with his TV & Twitter. The changing timeline of the arrival of coronavirus in the US. Yes there is a cost-benefit analysis of the shutdown... and it favors shutdown.