An Open Letter from mainly Leftist) Intellectuals on US/Russian Relations

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by Doug1943, Jul 15, 2018.

  1. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Nation magazine, one of the premier publications of the Left, has published an Open Letter signed by a number of prominent people, most of them on the Left. They call attention to a real danger, but don't propose any solutions. However, I thought people reading this Forum would be interested, so here it is:



    Many Americans remain deeply concerned about reports of Russian interference with the 2016 election. Meanwhile, relations between the United States and Russia are at their lowest and most dangerous point in several decades. For the sake of democracy at home and true national security, we must reach common ground to safeguard common interests—taking steps to protect the nation’s elections and to prevent war between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.

    Whatever the truth of varied charges that Russia interfered with the election, there should be no doubt that America’s digital-age infrastructure for the electoral process is in urgent need of protection. The overarching fact remains that the system is vulnerable to would-be hackers based anywhere. Solutions will require a much higher level of security for everything from voter-registration records to tabulation of ballots with verifiable paper trails. As a nation, we must fortify our election system against unlawful intrusions as well as official policies of voter suppression.

    At the same time, the US and Russian governments show numerous signs of being on a collision course. Diplomacy has given way to hostility and reciprocal consular expulsions, along with dozens of near-miss military encounters in Syria and in skies above Europe. Both sides are plunging ahead with major new weapons-development programs. In contrast to prior eras, there is now an alarming lack of standard procedures to keep the armed forces of both countries in sufficient communication to prevent an escalation that could lead to conventional or even nuclear attack. These tensions are festering between two nations with large quantities of nuclear weapons on virtual hair-trigger alert; yet the current partisan fixations in Washington are ignoring the dangers to global stability and, ultimately, human survival.

    The United States should implement a pronounced shift in approach toward Russia. No political advantage, real or imagined, could possibly compensate for the consequences if even a fraction of US and Russian arsenals were to be utilized in a thermonuclear exchange. The tacit pretense that the worsening of US-Russian relations does not worsen the odds of survival for the next generations is profoundly false. Concrete steps can and must be taken to ease tensions between the nuclear superpowers.

    Andrew Bacevich, Professor Emeritus, Boston University

    Rev. Dr. William Barber II, President and Senior Lecturer, Repairers of the Breach, and Visiting Professor of Public Theology, Union Theological Seminary

    Phyllis Bennis, Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies

    Noam Chomsky, Professor, Author, and Activist

    Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics, NYU and Princeton University, and Board Member, American Committee for East-West Accord

    John Dean, Former Nixon White House Counsel

    Phil Donahue, Journalist and Talk-Show Pioneer

    Thomas Drake, Former NSA Senior Executive and Whistle-blower

    Daniel Ellsberg, Activist, “Pentagon Papers” Whistle-blower, and Author of The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

    Jack F. Matlock Jr., Former US Ambassador to the USSR and Board Member, American Committee for East-West Accord

    Michael Moore, Academy Award–Winning Filmmaker and Best-Selling Author

    Walter Mosley, Writer and Screenwriter

    John Nichols, National Affairs Correspondent, The Nation

    Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–Winning Novelist

    Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, CUNY Graduate School

    Valerie Plame, Former Covert CIA Operations Officer and Author

    Adolph Reed Jr., Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

    Bill Richardson, Former Governor of New Mexico

    Patricia Schroeder, Former Congresswoman

    Norman Solomon, National Coordinator, RootsAction.org

    Gloria Steinem, Writer and Feminist Organizer

    Adlai Stevenson III, Former US Senator and Chairman, Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy

    Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor and Publisher, The Nation

    Alice Walker, Writer, Poet, and Activist

    Jody Williams, Professor and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

    James Zogby, President, Arab American Institute


    Signers have endorsed this Open Letter as individuals and not on behalf of any organization.
     
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  2. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And the sky is blue.

    Can't say I'm at all impressed with this since its too "top line" to be of much use or impact.

    What changes in attitude to Russia should be taken? Surely they aren't suggesting "appeasement and let bygones be bygones" after a MILITARY attack by Russia.

    Since there isn't anything concrete suggested, what is the purpose of this Open letter? Sure as hell ain't clear to me.
     
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  3. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A military attack? Not sure what you mean here.

    My purpose in posting this was to try to get people on the Left side of the spectrum who favor an aggressive -- military? -- attitude to the Russians, to think again, by noting that some prominent people on the Left -- not by a million miles people sympathetic to Trump, or even to any Republican or conservative -- are worried about current developments.

    I absolutely understand the fury of the Left -- and not only people on the Left -- at the election of Trump. And if the Russians supported him, and especially if they were instrumental in electing him, I can understand why they would see Russia as an enemy, above and beyond Russian behavior in Syria, Ukraine, etc.

    Conservatives would react the same way if, say, Bernie Sanders had been nominated by the Democrats and the Russians had supported him in their inimitable way, and he had apparently won as a result.

    It just shows why it's a bad idea to be seen interfering in the domestic politics of other countries.

    But ... regardless of how bad Trump is, and whether or not, or to what extent, the Russians played a role, or even a decisive role in getting him into the Presidency, our relations with Russia have to be based on an assessment of their overall role in the world -- basically their intentions.

    If they did illegal things in the election -- somehow hacking into computer-based voting systems for example -- then of course that has to be responded to. If they simply did what others were doing -- legal if dirty -- then that's something else.

    It's not an exact analogy, but ...I lived through the era when a typical response from the right to any liberal proposal, such as school integration, was to point out that the Communist Party USA also supported that proposal. And the CPUSA was undoubtedly a tool of the Soviet Union. But ... the liberal proposal in question had to be debated on its own merits.

    Similarly with respect to foreign policy towards Russia. Basing it around the fact that they have meddled in American electoral politics is elevating something that, on the world stage, is not smart.
     
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  4. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Its not about the left or the right when it comes to Russia. Is about AMERICANS vs RUSSIANS.

    That you want to lower the sights on domestic partisan politics is disingenuous at best.

    The military attack was conducted by the GRU as outlined in the most recent round of Meuller indictments.

    Appeasement and "lets get along" with an aggressive adversary for fear of global thermonuclear war is truly "chamberlainian".

    The fact is they directly interfered in the American electoral process by committing NUMEROUS crimes. The fact is they directly interfered by weaponizing social media and exacerbating social divisions. That cannot go unpunished. That cannot go unconfronted. that cannot be swept under the rug. That is a DIRECT ATTACK ON AMERICA AND ITS FOUNDATIONS AS A SOCIETY.

    Sure, kiss his arse. Let him get away with his bullshit. After all, he might get upset and want to start a war.

    good grief, where did American backbone go? Seems that has gone awol with morals and ethics in the trump administration.
     
  5. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Are you on the Right or the Left?
     
  6. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    I have news for you. CPUSA was infiltrated and covertly taken over by the CIA in the days of Guss Hall. Undoubtedly NOT a tool of RUSSIA (Soviet Union ended some time ago.).
     
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  7. Steady Pie

    Steady Pie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is a considerably greater threat of continued proxy war between the US and Russia than collusion. The Middle East is a tinderbox about to ignite, and it's all Russia's allies vs all the US's allies.

    What do you think Syria was? Do you think either the Russians or the Americans give a flying **** about the Syrians?
     
  8. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    WTF does that matter? Oh right nothing. I never thought I'd see the day when so called patriotic "GREAT" americans would whimper at the thought of upsetting the dictator of the new russian klepocracy. You can't be a great nation if your people can't live up to it.

    Kinda makes you think there actually might be some truth to the theory that there was active cooperation and coordination with campaign members and trump satellites considering all the trumpian lies and denials, and his dereliction of duty as commander in chief to respond to direct foreign military attack on America. We'll see what happens in the next 12 hours or so when he comes face to face with a PROVEN American adversary. The pathetic thing is he is so far outta his league its not funny.
     
  9. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The CPUSA was definitely very thoroughly infiltrated, although by the FBI not the CIA, and well before Gus Hall took over. (I have a friend who was on the National Committee of the CP, sent 'underground' during McCarthyism, as almost all NC members were. They communicated with HQ in New York via couriers. Almost all the couriers later turned out to be FBI informants, as was the man who brought the annual cash subsidy from Moscow.) The American Party, unlike the European Communist Parties, remained slavishly dependent on Moscow, and of course vehemently opposed perestroika.

    . And its politics were absolutely the politics that the Soviet Union wanted it to have, with one possible exception: I believe -- it's been a few decades since I read about this -- that the 1921 split over the issue of whether to have a legal, above-ground party, was facilitated by the decisive vote of a delegate who was a government agent, who voted for the most radical, sectarian position (against the wishes of the Comintern, as it turned out).

    In general, both left wing and right wing groups who sound radical can expect to be infiltrated by government agents who will usually take the most extreme positions in internal disputes, sometimes even urging the commission of felonies -- this doesn't have to be the result of a conscious central decision -- agents inside political groups have a material interest in making them sound as scary as possible.

    If you're interested in the early history of the CPUSA -- lots to be learned from it -- you want to read Theodore Draper's The Roots of American Communism, for starters. and then Howe and Coser's The American Communist Party - A Critical History. They're both probably a bit dated now, being over fifty years old, and there's a lot written about the Party since, especially since the Venona archives were decrypted. But they're still pretty good, and both written by people on the Left.
     
  10. Battle3

    Battle3 Well-Known Member

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    Then all these people support Trump? Isn't dialogue what they want, and isn't dialogue what Trump is doing?
     
  11. Battle3

    Battle3 Well-Known Member

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    Wrong. Released USSR documents show unequivocally that the communist party (and green party) were tools of the Soviets. For a taste, read the Mitrochin Archives, available on Amazon.
     
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  12. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm not a supporter of Trump, never was, because he seemed to be a total wild card, erratic, impulsive, wrong on many things, lacking in intelligence, political experience, and basic human decency.

    There were some issues, such as securing the border, on which I thought he was right, but where I also thought his actions would be needlessly clumsy. The only possible silver lining I saw in this very dark cloud was that he was not a captive of the Washington foreign policy establishment, which, I believe, has a very wrong understanding of the world today. But his 'foreign policy' has been erratic and obscure.

    As for the possible Russian connection, I have no idea. Could he or his close supporters have been so monumentally stupid as to think any serious collaboration would not come out? The US openly and blatantly interfered in the Russian elections in 1995, because Americans have unconscious contempt for all other countries, being stronger than they are. But surely Trump's advisors would understand that turn about would not be considered fair play. It's okay for us to do it, not for anyone else.

    That the Russians, and everyone else in the world, often have a preferred 'side' in American elections is non-news, and anyone who thinks he can arrive at the correct position in politics by just doing the opposite of what the Russians want, is a fool. That they might 'interfere' in some way is also entirely possible -- since the Americans routinely, and grossly, interfere in other countries' choice of governments, sometimes by money, sometimes via the 82nd Airborne, they would be paying us the compliment of imitation, the sincerest form of flattery.

    So here's what bothers me: it appears to me that some people are so driven by hatred of Trump that they just automatically take the opposite side to whatever he seems to be doing. (On a lesser scale, I saw the same behavior from a lot of conservatives during the Obama presidency.)

    In particular, it's amusing to see some people on the Left suddenly become fierce partisans of the FBI and CIA, and flag-waving ultra-patriots. (To a lesser extent, this behavior is mirrored by right-wingers who talk indignantly about the history of the Democratic Party as champions of white supremacy. Um hmmm.)

    But amusement at the hypocrisy aside, here's the real problem: we live in a fast-changing, dangerous world. Lots of opportunities for the human race to make big strides forward, and lots of serious challenges.

    I think American foreign policy is running on inertia, left over from the Cold War, with lots of people having a material stake in keeping things as they were.

    I believe we have to re-think a lot of things, and it's absolutely wrong that our analysis of foreign policy should simply be a reflex of what's happening domestically.

    Let me put it this way: tell us what you think the US policy towards Russia should be. More sanctions? Bring Ukraine into NATO and station an armored division on the Russian border? Do as we used to do, and send nuclear-armed bombers flying towards their border, just veering away at the last minute? Arm and fund an Islamist insurgency in Dagestan? (It worked in Afghanistan.)

    This is the debate Americans should be having. Then the policy of Trump, or that of any other President to come, can be measured against the best options available. At the moment, we can't have the debate, because it inevitably turns into a debate about Trump. A tragedy.
     
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  13. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, of course not. They're almost all on the Left, some on the Far Left. But they're not stupid people, and realize that you can't decide your position on something, such as relations with Russia, by just saying "If Trump is doing it, it's bound to be evil."
     
  14. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    I see this as another attack on trump

    If hillary were prez this letter would never have made its way to us from lib l la land
     
  15. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The sad thing is, there is much mutual interest between Russia and America -- immediately, facing the Islamists, and in the future, dealing with China.

    We have to have the attitude of the people in The Godfather: "It's not personal, it's just business."
     
  16. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's extremely interesting, the new emerging War Party, consisting of extreme Trump-haters -- he's not being belligerent enough!!! -- and Trump supporters, who think ... well, I don't know what they think. Peace with North Korea!!! Co operation with the Russians!!!! Horrible!!!!

    Politics makes strange bedfellows.

    As for what these people would do were Hillary to have been President ... some would have criticized her, some not.

    I think she would have been a pretty militant Cold Warrior though, so the real question is, how would War Party conservatives have reacted to her?
     
  17. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    I dont know where you get your informstion from

    Neither Trump or trump supporters exect to see peace with north korea

    We meaning trump supporters do not want war

    but kim must be stopped from building a credible nuclear arsenal
     
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  18. Steady Pie

    Steady Pie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Don't worry, we'll have a Federal global government soon enough, Federal regions at least.
     
  19. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    Fascinating that after eight years of Barack Obama being a warmonger that leftists have discovered that they LIKE the odor of cordite in the morning . . . just as long as its wafting across someone else's nostrils; that is. I do not, however, notice any of these suddenly warmongering new age leftist types taking the next logical step in their conversion to military types by marching themselves to the nearest recruitment office and signing on the dotted line. Perhaps that's because they would then have to swear an oath to defend this nation and that seems to be anathema to most modern leftists; well that and of course actually putting their own precious bodies where their huge flapping mouths are roaring like lions.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2018
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  20. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I absolutely agree.
    So the question is -- how to do that?

    So far as I can see, there are only two possibilities:

    (1) Destroy his regime. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations last year -- basically, the 50%+ lethality radius of the W80 dialled up to maximum yield divided into the area of North Korea (it's about the size of Oregon) -- and it seems that we could literally wipe North Korea off the map without breaking a sweat. Of course, you'd want to do it under some sort of excuse: maybe wait until he launches his next ICBM, catch it on the launching pad, claim you had inside information that it was headed to LA, and vaporize anyone who would have been able to deny it.

    Or maybe do a deal with the Chinese: remove Kim, replace him with a Chinese puppet, and the US will promise to withdraw from South Korea, and let China start selling stuff to us again. Tell them the other option is, we go home, from all of that part of the world, but leave our South Korean and Japanese allies with some nukes and delivery systems. Their choice.

    (2) Gamble that Kim understands that he's got to follow the Chinese road if he wants his country to stop being a kind of Communist Haiti -- this means transition to capitalism administered by Communists -- and that we can help him do it. Nuclear disarmament with credible inspection, face-saving stuff about unity of the Korean nation to come ... is this what's going on now? I have no idea.

    Anyway, this is an issue that needs rational debate/discussion. People who are just looking for any stick with which to beat Trump don't help.
     
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  21. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Dear God, no no no!!! You want more Bradley Mannings?
     
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  22. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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    A good and sensible letter from principled individuals and whistleblowers. I'm sure it angers the military industrial complex.
     
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  23. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    China is the real enemy

    They are protecting NK and keeping the kim regime in power

    The US must put maximum economic pressure on china and it hurts them enough they will deal with kim

    Thats the only peaceful solution available

    But it depends the cooperation of the whole world to meke it work
     
  24. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So what do you think of whatever it was that Trump did, with respect to North Korea?
     
  25. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    I think it was a failed attempt

    And I personally never expected kim to give up his nukes so easily

    But the kim dynasty is in trouble

    North koreans live in abject poverty while south koreans live in luxury

    Kim cannot hide that fact from his people and they will not put up with it much longer
     
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