Friday, October 28, 2022

The Brutal Comedy Of The Withdrawn Peace Letter

 The world needed a political maneuver pulled off with no laughs, and an influential group of American politicians (with one admirable exception) proved unable to accommodate. The Congressional Progressive Caucus took about 36 hours to pull off a circular firing squad stunt that would have made the Keystone Kops stand and applaud

On June 27th, analyst Christopher Mott at The Institute for Peace and Democracy published a white paper called, "Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence Between Social Justice and Neoconservatism."

  • One of Mott's central ideas was that Americans imagine they don't fight wars for crass reasons of conquest or regional self-interest
  • They prefer grand battles of good and evil, part of a worldview that places "universalist narratives at the center of the human story"
  • Enemies are cast not as mere competitors for resources or territory but agents of Satanic influence

The letter circulated for months, but wasn't released until Monday, October 24th

  • Speaker Nancy Pelosi was due to speak the next day in Zagreb, Croatia, where she'd promise at an international summit "our support is here to stay." Meaning: if Democrats retain control of Congress after midterms, they will continue weapons shipments.
  • House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy the week before said the opposite, that "people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they're not going to write a blank check to Ukraine."
  • Leading House progressives laying hands on the same political Twister squares as hated Republicans must have been deemed an unacceptably awkward visual

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-brutal-comedy-of-the-withdrawn

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