{"id":318925,"date":"2017-07-26T04:15:01","date_gmt":"2017-07-26T03:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/learning-to-love-perpetual-war\/"},"modified":"2017-07-26T04:15:01","modified_gmt":"2017-07-26T03:15:01","slug":"learning-to-love-perpetual-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/learning-to-love-perpetual-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Love Perpetual War"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The transformation of the Democratic Party into the perpetual war party \u2013 accelerated by the Russia-gate hysteria \u2013 is personified by Rep. Barbara Lee who voted against the \u201cwar on terror\u201d resolution in 2001, as Norman Solomon explains.<\/p>\n<p>By Norman Solomon<\/p>\n<p>For Americans who oppose perpetual war, no member of Congress has been more admired than Barbara Lee. Ever since she cast the only vote against a blank-check war resolution, three days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Oakland Democrat has earned a reputation for bravely speaking antiwar truth to militarist power.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_24035\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/photo-accomplishments-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/photo-accomplishments-2-300x226.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-24035\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/photo-accomplishments-2-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/photo-accomplishments-2-160x121.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/photo-accomplishments-2.jpg 415w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-24035\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/photo-accomplishments-2-300x226.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/photo-accomplishments-2-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/photo-accomplishments-2-160x121.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/photo-accomplishments-2.jpg 415w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rep. Barbara Lee, D-California<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>But, now, the core wisdom of her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanrhetoric.com\/speeches\/barbaraleeagainstinvasion.htm\">eloquent speech <\/a>on the House floor nearly 16 years ago is under threat \u2014 from Lee herself.<\/p>\n<p>When Lee beseeched her colleagues to \u201cthink through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of control,\u201d she was looking far beyond the politics and passions of that moment on Sept. 14, 2001. Now, in a July 7 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RepBarbaraLee\/status\/883413541209985024\">tweet<\/a>, she has stepped away from steadfast support for the necessity of diplomatic initiatives.<\/p>\n<p>Finding alternatives to war must include diplomacy. In the case of the \u201cwar on terror\u201d that Lee resisted from the start, what spiraled out of control was endless and boundless war. These days, the escalating tensions with Russia could spiral out of control all the way to nuclear holocaust.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a major reason the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the symbolic hands of its <a href=\"http:\/\/thebulletin.org\/sites\/default\/files\/Final%202017%20Clock%20Statement.pdf\">Doomsday Clock<\/a> even closer to apocalyptic midnight early this year. The nuclear peril is terribly real, and it\u2019s growing.<\/p>\n<p>For that overarching reason, former Sen. Sam Nunn joined with three seasoned ex-diplomats to co-sign an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org\/medialibrary\/2017\/06\/26\/1467b192\/Letter%20to%20Trump%20and%20Putin_Embargoed.pdf\">open letter <\/a>in late June, urging Presidents Trump and Vladimir Putin to discuss four specific proposals for reducing the dangers of nuclear war. Nunn \u2014 drawing on his experience as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee \u2014 knows that top-level talks between the Russian and U.S. governments are crucial to reduce the risk of the world blowing up.<\/p>\n<p>But Lee addressed the Trump-Putin meeting at the G20 summit in a very different way. Right after it was over, she sent out a tweet&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/07\/25\/learning-to-love-perpetual-war\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The transformation of the Democratic Party into the perpetual war party \u2013 accelerated by the Russia-gate hysteria \u2013 is personified by Rep. Barbara Lee who voted against the \u201cwar on terror\u201d resolution in 2001, as Norman Solomon explains. By Norman Solomon For Americans who oppose perpetual war, no member of Congress has been more admired [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-318925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}