Moderate leftists may get a lot of things right, but on foreign policy they tend to ignore the issues

 

I was disappointed by today’s Democracy Now program on where things stand with Biden in which a spokesperson for Justice Democrats was interviewed. Everyone was upbeat as a result of Biden’s 15 Day-One executive orders, including suspending work on the Keystone Pipeline, reinstalling the Dream Act and rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement. I agree that Biden is off to a good start on the domestic front. But what I found disturbing is that all this hope was expressed and yet during the entire Democracy Now program, not a word was said about foreign policy, about the deadly sanctions against Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, not a word about the 700 military bases that the U.S. has around the world (excluding those at home), and not a word about by far the longest war in U.S. history, that of Afghanistan. Juan Gonzalez made a remark regarding President Lyndon B. Johnson. He said that he (Gonzalez) came of political age in the 1960s (as did I) and that there wasn’t any hope for Johnson and yet he came through with progressive legislation in the framework of the Great Society. I agree with him on that score. Johnson compared much more favorably to Clinton and Obama on that front. But surprisingly Gonzalez said nothing about the war in Vietnam, nor Johnson’s deployment of 30,000 troops to Santo Domingo in 1965 nor the U.S. supported 1964 coup in Brazil also with bloody consequences. So when progressive commentators say that Biden is off to a good start, they’re talking about only 50% of the story (in fact, I believe less than 50%). The other part is foreign policy which progressives need to stay focused on (just as the New Left did in the 60s). And just from a pragmatic viewpoint (let alone all the suffering the U.S. is causing throughout the world), if we don’t achieve world peace it is unlikely that we are going to reduce our military budget and if that happens, even with legislation taxing the rich, there just won’t be enough money to finance the social programs that us progressives embrace.