by William Skink

It must be hard for someone who has spent over a decade promoting Democrats and denouncing Republicans to acknowledge how little difference exists between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to disastrous American foreign policy.

All it took was a link to this pathetic attempt at unifying Democrats to get political scold Don Pogreba to make an appearance, using his highly advanced debating skills to mock my post with this comment:

I know this blog post will stop American militarism in its tracks. Well done!

Obviously my posts will never stop American militarism, that is the point of Pogreba’s mockery. Serious political partisans understand that American militarism is here to stay because they worship at the alter of American exceptionalism. Any critic who deviates from the consensus of American militarism, whether it’s a “humanitarian intervention” in Libya or a coup in Venezuela, deserves to be mocked.

The only presidential hopeful who has explicitly opposed the bipartisan support of the coup in Venezuela, Tulsi Gabbard, was also the target of Pogreba’s mockery. In response to a commenter who said this:

EZ choice. Tulsi Gabbard is the only real one out of that horrible corporatist warmongering bunch.

Don Pogreba had this reply:

Cool take, comrade.

For someone trying to get Democrats unified ahead of the 2020 election, insinuating Tulsi Gabbard and her supporters are communists is an odd way to go about it.

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, will avoid the disdain of pathetic partisans for now after his tweets on Venezuela show Sanders to be more aligned with Trump and Neocons/Neoliberals than non-interventionists:

Here’s Shamus Cooke describing how Bernie and the Dems flunked Trump’s test on Venezuela:

After an excruciating day of silence Bernie finally found his voice— by sending three tweets. But the content was revealing, reinforcing the weakness that kept him silent during the first critical day.

Tweet #1 was essentially a point-by-point plagiarism of Trump’s lies used to justify the coup. Bernie Tweeted:

“The Maduro government has waged a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly and was re-elected last year in an election many observers said was fraudulent. The economy is a disaster and millions are migrating.”

Instead of targeting Trump’s coup actions Bernie targets the victim. Bernie’s allegation of a fraudulent election is simply slander, since Venezuela’s elections are widely regarded as among the best in the world.

Read the rest of the article for more analysis on Bernie’s disappointing take on the Venezuela coup.

I am not deluded enough to think my barely-read political posts will have any impact on American militarism. But I’m old and stuck in my ways. What Don Pogreba should do if he really wants to protect America’s capacity to kill and destroy is to make sure those high school students he “teaches” understand the futility of opposing war.

With Don’s help Democrats in Montana can identify any potential non-interventionist/communist high school students before they become adults, then Don can instill in them the hopelessness of opposing America’s war machine. If they do unfortunate things, like start reading Counterpunch articles, then Don’s weaponized mockery would be well-placed to ensure they are marginalized enough to understand their opinions don’t matter.