WN: The article highlighted pulls no punches in underscoring Biden’s war-hawk and pro-police brutality policies over a lifetime as a politician. He–as anyone–still may change! But not his brutal record, as laid out in the article.
For a man praised for his Catholic Church-going and moral principles, it is hard to discern anything Christian in his decisions taken in the past 50 years about war and state violence. The evidence repeatedly points in an anti-Christ(ian) direction. As I said in conclusion in my June 11, 2020 post, An Open Letter to Joe Biden:
The bereaved are Biden’s special constituency, the people he most easily finds a rapport with…
At a fundamental level, Biden’s promise is that he will heal a world rent by suffering and death (emphasis added).
But is this true? At least, should not the article’s author have inserted a huge qualifier–“American” in front of “bereaved?” And how in the world can it be said of you that you promise to “heal a world rent by suffering and death,” when the very nation you have served for decades, and now vie for its Top Job, is defined by its core value of raining down2 “suffering and death” on any nation in America’s way? Sadly–how could you be unaware?–beneath that American Holocaust is a “rending of real people,” a Holocaust that delivers ubiquitously and massively “suffering and death.” Please tell–better so late in the game–show me it is not so, Joe! Please! Or are you, sadly, just another American White Christian Bullshitter? Even if well-meaning and sincere–but self-deceived?
Finally, I wonder: Is the “American Way” as seen above what you also learned from Catholic Social Teaching? Or does Catholic Social/White Evangelical Teaching only apply to (select) Americans whom “God so loved” that he authorized genocide or whatever brutality is needed against all others; (select) Americans who are “exceptional” as since your country’s founding so many like to think you are–though demonstrably, massively and primarily exceptional in ubiquitous death-dealing?
And thus, at 100 days, we’re witnessing a transformative presidency, more consequential than anything since forever. (I’ll let historians pin an actual date on that.) And he’s done so despite a 50-50 Senate with zero Republican votes, freakin’ Joe Manchin gumming everything he possibly can, and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema utterly misreading her state. Imagine what we might be able to do if Democrats can get some breathing room in the Senate next year and hold the House.
So here’s a toast to being wrong, so utterly wrong, so wrong wrong wrong. So were you, even if you supported Biden. You didn’t see this coming. That’s okay! Neither did anyone else. Even if he never let on, it was progressive energy that delivered Biden’s victory, and he is paying that effort back. That doesn’t mean we let our guard down or give Biden a pass when he strays, but wow, it’s nice waking up in the morning to see what good things have been announced, as opposed to dreading the damage the last guy would wreak.
And let’s remember that everything hangs precariously on an edge, with an unfavorable redistricting environment ahead of us. If we want this party to continue for years, get ready to rev up next year. Now we know what we’re fighting for, and it’s damn good.
Video: Empire Politician by Jeremy Scahill and Paul Abowd
Militarized spending makes up nearly two-thirds of the total discretionary federal budget. Meanwhile, our domestic communities continue to suffer.
Out-of-control Pentagon spending, abusive immigration enforcement, mass incarceration, and other militarized systems do not offer solutions to the real issues facing our country. In 2020, the U.S. government spent almost as much on the military as the next 12 countries combined.
We must demand our tax dollars are spent more wisely and urge Congress to redirect money away from the Pentagon and abusive government agencies. Congress must start investing money where it matters: in programs that help people directly and build resilient communities and a world at peace.
Biden has been in public office for all but four of the past 49 years. Never in U.S. history has the country had a president with the voluminous paper trail that followed Biden into the White House. He has cast thousands of votes, sponsored or co-sponsored hundreds of bills, and taken public positions on virtually every possible foreign and domestic policy issue. He has served long enough to make it possible to chart the evolution of his positions on a range of issues, to analyze his contradictions, and to draw conclusions about how he sees the role of Congress and the executive branch on the most sensitive and consequential decisions made by the government — decisions about war and organized state violence.
The Intercept conducted an exhaustive analysis of Biden’s political career with a focus on his positions on dozens of U.S. wars and military campaigns, CIA covert actions, and abuses of power; his views on whistleblowers and leakers; and his shifting stance on the often contentious relationship between the executive and legislative branches over war powers.
The picture that emerges is of a man who is dedicated to the U.S. as an empire, who believes that preserving U.S. national interests and “prestige” on the global stage outweigh considerations of morality or even at times the deaths of innocent people. It also reveals a politician who consistently claims to hold bedrock principles but who often strays from those positions in support of a partisan agenda or because he wants a policy adopted regardless of the hypocrisy or contradictions. Nowhere is this dynamic more pronounced than on U.S. wars.
Military historian Tami Biddle wrote in Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, when in the 19th century aerial warfare was still only imagined, it meant “English-speaking peoples raining incendiary bombs over the enemy to impose the customs of civilization”; emphasis added. Some customs! Some “civilization!”[↩]
Wayne Northey was Director of Man-to-Man/Woman-to-Woman – Restorative Christian Ministries (M2/W2) in British Columbia, Canada from 1998 to 2014, when he retired. He has been active in the criminal justice arena and a keen promoter of Restorative Justice since 1974. He has published widely on peacemaking and justice themes. You will find more about that on this website: a work in progress.
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