{"id":25856,"date":"2017-09-20T06:01:15","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T11:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25856"},"modified":"2017-09-20T06:01:15","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T11:01:15","slug":"the-empires-hustle-why-anti-trumpism-doesnt-include-anti-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25856","title":{"rendered":"The Empire\u2019s Hustle: Why Anti-Trumpism Doesn\u2019t Include Anti-War"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Empire\u2019s Hustle: Why Anti-Trumpism Doesn\u2019t Include Anti-War<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Photo by Xavi | CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Libertarian U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) declared from the Senate floor last week in anticipation of the vote on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2018:<\/p>\n

\u201cI rise today to oppose unauthorized, undeclared and unconstitutional war\u2026What we have today is basically unlimited war, anywhere, anytime, any place upon the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n

With these words, Paul became one of the few voices to oppose the obscenity that is known as U.S. war policy. But only two other senators joined him: Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). \u00a0But there is a wrinkle here: Paul is not concerned with the size of the military budget. He\u2019s pointing his finger at the continuation of the Authorization to Use Military Force Act (AUMF) of 2001<\/em>, which was the \u201clegal\u201d basis for the U.S. global \u201cwar on terror.\u201d He wants Congress to re-assess this legislation that has prompted endless wars abroad.<\/p>\n

After Paul\u2019s amendment to the NDAA was defeated, the Senate went on to approve it with a vote of 89-9 Monday in what the New York Times<\/em> correctly identified as a bi-partisan effort<\/a>, to authorize a military budget of $696 billion\u2014an increase in the military budget of almost $75 billion \u00a0and well over the $54 billion that Pres. Donald Trump had originally proposed.<\/p>\n

The very next day, Trump appeared before the United Nations and threatened to destroy North Korea, subvert Venezuela, and undermine the nuclear agreement with Iran, which could lead to military conflict with that nation.<\/p>\n

Obscuring the Bi-Partisan Defense of Empire<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing rehabilitates an unpopular president in capitalist \u201cAmerica\u201d like war. In fact, the only sustained negative press that Barack Obama received was when he seemed reluctant to fully immerse the United States in direct efforts to cause regime change in Syria by attacking that nation and committing to significant \u201cboots on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Empire\u2019s Hustle: Why Anti-Trumpism Doesn\u2019t Include Anti-War Photo by Xavi | CC BY 2.0 Libertarian U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) declared from the Senate floor last week in anticipation of the vote on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2018: \u201cI rise today to oppose unauthorized, undeclared and unconstitutional war\u2026What we have today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16067,5493,259,6983,2305,862],"class_list":["post-25856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-ajamu-baraka","tag-counterpunch","tag-empire","tag-endless-war","tag-rand-paul","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25857,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25856\/revisions\/25857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}