Harris, Duckworth cave to war party to secure VP nod

Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) and my own Illinois Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth voted to defeat Bernie Sanders’ proposal to reduce the defense budget by 10% in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act. They joined 21 other Democratic Senators and all Republicans to keep $74 billion of a gargantuan $740 billion from being used instead to fund pandemic relief, infrastructure, health care, education, clean energy and a host of other human priorities being shortchanged in our war obsessed nation.

Why would they do that? Simple. Both are on Biden’s short list for VP. Both realize you cannot mount a serious campaign for president or vice president by promoting any reduction in military spending or abandoning near total support of the defense industry. With tens of billions at stake, the defense industry wing of the U.S. war party pours millions into presidential and congressional campaigns. Without that dough drenched in the blood of the thousands of innocents our war juggernaut inflicts each year, election to any high office is problematical.

Harris and Duckworth learned that lesson early and adhere to it like virtually every other person seeing high office. Both likely breathed a sigh of relief when senatorial colleague Bernie Sanders failed again to achieve the defense reduction he’s been championing for years as well as the Democratic presidential nomination. They know you can support most progressive policies except ending perpetual wars and transferring horrendous military spending to humane priorities. There is no electoral upside to that position since perpetual war and runaway defense spending is off the table of presidential debate.

But they ignore the upside that counts: humanity.