Yes, agreed, the tankie thing is unfortunate. Who are the "comparable" tankies? Seems to me that all recent developments even before the war seemed to show that democrats generally (a) want to work closely in tandem with Liz Cheney on the military budget, (b) often promote CIA-veteran war and surveillance hawks as candidates, (c) favor …
Yes, agreed, the tankie thing is unfortunate. Who are the "comparable" tankies? Seems to me that all recent developments even before the war seemed to show that democrats generally (a) want to work closely in tandem with Liz Cheney on the military budget, (b) often promote CIA-veteran war and surveillance hawks as candidates, (c) favor a big, bloated "defense" budget, and (d) will attack their own if they don't subscribe to the foregoing. The analysis could and should be broader. Eg, the importance of international oil and gas pipeline politics is overlooked or understated in mainstream media, and has driven a lot of our increased "defense" spending.
Those who followed these developments recall that Ukraine would have been excluded by Russia's latest pipeline to Germany, a pipeline that was openly deemed absolutely unacceptable to American business interests (regardless of how Germany might have felt or decided!) - just before the invasion by Russia took place. And how that little pipeline just happened to blow up one day, due to reasons and forces that no American media seems to have any interest in, other than Seymour Hersh.
To start with, I like to think I keep up pretty well, but I don't "get" the "tankie" reference. Would appreciate it if (anybody?) could explicate. Second, I think a lot of your (accurate) observations about Democratic (the party) politics are under the category of bully-victim pandering, i.e. they think they will lose all electoral potency if they dare to cross the military-industrial complex and their knee-jerk constituency. Third, I think I saw a PBS report (pretty "mainstream") that concluded it was the U.S. that took out the Nord Stream.
Yes, agreed, the tankie thing is unfortunate. Who are the "comparable" tankies? Seems to me that all recent developments even before the war seemed to show that democrats generally (a) want to work closely in tandem with Liz Cheney on the military budget, (b) often promote CIA-veteran war and surveillance hawks as candidates, (c) favor a big, bloated "defense" budget, and (d) will attack their own if they don't subscribe to the foregoing. The analysis could and should be broader. Eg, the importance of international oil and gas pipeline politics is overlooked or understated in mainstream media, and has driven a lot of our increased "defense" spending.
Those who followed these developments recall that Ukraine would have been excluded by Russia's latest pipeline to Germany, a pipeline that was openly deemed absolutely unacceptable to American business interests (regardless of how Germany might have felt or decided!) - just before the invasion by Russia took place. And how that little pipeline just happened to blow up one day, due to reasons and forces that no American media seems to have any interest in, other than Seymour Hersh.
To start with, I like to think I keep up pretty well, but I don't "get" the "tankie" reference. Would appreciate it if (anybody?) could explicate. Second, I think a lot of your (accurate) observations about Democratic (the party) politics are under the category of bully-victim pandering, i.e. they think they will lose all electoral potency if they dare to cross the military-industrial complex and their knee-jerk constituency. Third, I think I saw a PBS report (pretty "mainstream") that concluded it was the U.S. that took out the Nord Stream.