Marco Rubio: Get ready for a return to the Cold War

In 1946, after World War II had ended, the US was faced with a choice: It could disarm and join other nations in seeking to maintain peace through negotiations and treaties and international organizations like the United Nations. Or, it could continue adding more weapons to its arsenal, make ever larger bombs, fight more wars in far-flung places, and scare the bejezus out of everyone in the world.

As we now know, the US chose the second course of action and took a series of aggressive postures all over the world that led to animosity, fear, and war. That period of world history is known as the Cold War, an era in which the major military powers stared each other down while trying to seize territory and influence from each other. The Cold War was characterized by intense regional warfare in Korea, Vietnam, Israel, and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, and at the same time, the rest of the world was taking the first course, building the United Nations, developing international treaties to avoid war and, especially, to avoid committing crimes against humanity. The US was in the forefront of this movement in the aftermath of WWII, when Eleanor Roosevelt lent her considerable influence to the UN and the Geneva Accords on human rights. But later presidents--Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower--decided to treat Russia and China as enemies and developed a policy of "containment".

This policy of containment and use of force to deter enemies is exactly what Marco Rubio prescribes as a foreign policy--not surprisingly, since his advisors were also advisors to George W. Bush. So Rubio tells us that

physical strength and an active foreign policy to back it up are a means of preserving peace, not promoting conflict.

Rubio thus makes clear that he did not learn anything from the disastrous wars of G. W. Bush. If physical strength and an active foreign policy are a means of preserving peace, why did Bush's presidency take over a generally peaceful world from his predecessor and turn it into two major wars that continued during his entire administration? The answer is, of course, that Marco Rubio and the neoconservatives who advise him are completely wrong, that his policy will lead to war, not peace, and trying to intimidate nations is a good way to consolidate the power of despots who rule them.

Worse than simply advocating a foreign policy of belligerence against one country, Rubio proposes to attack (either physically or diplomatically) three powerful nations at the same time: Iran, Russia, and China. This policy, if carried out, would undoubtedly complete the destruction of the American economy begun so calamitously under G. W. Bush.

Rubio seems in love with the idea of a powerful US dominating the world's nations and dictating the terms of peace. The world has become too large for that, however. The techniques of asymmetric warfare are too well-known. The rebels in Afghanistan successfully fended off the Russian army. The Communist forces in Vietnam threw off the yoke of colonial oppression and sent the better-equipped and better-trained American forces back home.

Rubio and his neo-con advisors criticize Obama for being too risk-averse. They do not explain, however, how the US could prevent Russia from prevailing in the Ukraine, or prevent China from dominating the South China Sea. Rubio seems to believe the simple posting of military force in opposition would convince the Russians to abandon Ukraine or the Chinese to give up their designs on Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The problem that Rubio faces is not that his plan would fail, but that it would lead inevitably to hostilities between the US and countries whose assistance we will need to meet the challenges of global climate change and growing shortages of water and agricultural land. In an era when nature has provided mankind with a challenge we may not survive, we need to abandon our territorial ambitions and lust for wealth in the name of a greater good, the survival of the planet. Rubio and his pals ignore this fact. Their election to power would bring disaster, not just to the US, but to the whole world and all its inhabitants.

Obama shows his hand; Clinton will run for president and Obama will support her

President Obama spoke at a Walmart Store in Mountain View, California, on Thursday. I was shocked, as was Chris Hayes, who wondered why Obama chose to embrace Walmart for its environmental leadership, even though Walmart is not among the leaders in this field. Why should Barack Obama choose to give a speech at a Walmart, whose owners are charter members of the one percent.

I forgot my Obama rule: If you don't understand why Obama has made a political move, it's only because Obama understands politics better than you do. If Obama chose to give a speech at a Walmart store in Silicon Valley in California, rest assured he has a reason for so doing. He is one of the most subtle and perceptive politicians of our time.

My suggestion is that Obama has tipped his hand. He is looking forward to the presidential race of 2016, when he will support Hillary Clinton. If Clinton has a challenger from the left, such as Elizabeth Warren or Ed Markey, she will need to win the California primary. So Obama went to California to give her campaign a boost. If Clinton runs in California, she will have to face charges that she was once on the board of Walmart, and thus is a stooge for the one percent. No one is more a member of the one percent than a member of the Walton family, billionaires all.

So Obama has struck a blow against any challengers in 2016. Walmart, apparently, is a leader in the environmental movement. Obama has said it, so it must be so, no matter what Chris Hayes or I might argue against it. He said it in California, too, so California voters will recall his verdict well.

Hayes and other pundits have wondered why Obama would take such a step. After all, they say, he is not going to run for another office. He doesn't need to take controversial positions. But Obama is also concerned about the Democratic Party, more than his own candidacy or lack of it. He is concerned that everything he has worked for in the environmental field, in health care, or in the area of equal rights for all, may be reversed by the President that succeeds him, if that president is a Republican.

Obama is right to be concerned. The Republicans and the one per centers who back them would love to reverse the achievements of the Obama presidency. They can't do it, though, as long as a Democrat occupies the White House. Obama cares about that, as should we all.

The one per centers--yes, David Koch and Sheldon Adelson, you know who you are--wish to impose their will on the 99 percent (the rest of us) by spending their millions to lie to us and persuade us that the worse argument is the better. These are perilous times. We must not let them win.

Elizabeth Warren is For Real

I went down to the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, DC, yesterday, to get a look at Elizabeth Warren. She appeared as part of a national book tour for her new book, A Fighting Chance. The book is primarily a history of her adult life. It is eerily reminiscent of a book called Dreams From My Father that appeared before Barack Obama, its author, had run for his first political office.

In Dreams, Obama gave an intriguing account of his early life, ending just before he entered Harvard Law School. He included the story of his indigent mother and her husbands, one (Barack's father) Kenyan, the other, married after a divorce, Indonesian. The writing style is plain and inspirational at the same time. Obama was running for his first political office, a virtual unknown. 

Dreams contains some details that his political opponents later used to attack him: His father was Kenyan, he lived for a short while in Indonesia, a Muslim country, and he was born in Hawaii, which many Americans do not consider a "real" state, but rather a place on the other side of an ocean, inhabited by a handful of mixed-race people who have no connection to the "real" America. When Hawaii became a state in 1959, it was probably admitted because of Peal Harbor, when its importance as a military base was recognized for the first time.

Warren's book, like Obama's, tells about her growing up in reduced circumstances, about the family who loved her, and about her adventures as an adult. Warren has had many more adventures than Obama, because he was only 34 when Dreams was published and she is now 64. The book contains some information that has already been used by her political opponents to attack her. In particular, she relates that her father's family did not approve of her mother because her mother was part American Indian. Scott Brown, Warren's opponent in her Senate race, mocked her claims of Cherokee Indian relationship, but the book makes it clear that this was a liability, not an advantage in Oklahoma before WWII.

Warren likes to connect with people by telling folksy stories and using straightforward language. Asked her opinion of Republican refusal to raise the minimum wage, she said, "It stinks". Asked her opinion of Janet Yellen's appointment as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, she said "woo-oo!" in a high, clear soprano yelp. Warren's speaking voice in person is no better than it is on tv. She has a weak, reedy delivery that sometimes becomes unintelligible, as when she tried to say "Buffett Rule" the first time. She later clarified what she meant by Buffett Rule: A millionaire (or billionaire, like Warren Buffett) should pay at least as high a percentage of his income in taxes as his secretary. Warren likes that rule.

The suspicion that Warren may be using her book to kick-start a presidential run is not idle. Warren indicated that once before, during the fight for a consumer review board, she was willing to fight because she didn't want a job in the capital. Additionally, she was introduced by Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO. Warren told a story about how she had met Trumka at the White House. She backed a chair into his shins, at which point he remarked, "I've got your back." Now he adds, in a larger, more forceful voice--the kind that Warren lacks--"And I always will have your back". Hillary Clinton, take note.

Hillary has reason to be concerned about Warren. Warren negates Clinton's main advantage in the race to become president in 2016: she's also a woman. Additionally, Warren has the "log cabin" childhood that has served presidential candidates so well since Lincoln, which is to say, her family struggled and her mother had to go to work at a minimum wage to support the family. Hillary, on the other hand, graduated from Wellesley and served on the board of directors of Wal-Mart. Hillary makes public appearances perfectly coiffed and dressed in designer duds; Warren buys her clothes at Target and clearly styles her own hair.

When Hillary and Elizabeth appear in debates together and the topic of debate turns to income inequality, Hillary will look like a one-percenter; Elizabeth will look like what she is, a teacher and a member of the working class. Elizabeth will have another advantage: She won a state-wide debate contest in Oklahoma as a high-schooler. As Warren puts it, she wasn't pretty and she didn't have the best grades, but she knew how to fight.

Supporters of Barack Obama often wish that he had a stronger competitive urge. As President, Elizabeth Warren would give us exactly what we have been missing: a born fighter.