“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” 

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

In choosing Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, Joe Biden sent a message to the progressive left base of the Democratic Party — which has called for an end to “explicit” US support for Israel at the expense of Palestinians — that clearly states “you can go to hell!” Consequently, irrespective of which doddering old man ends up in the White House next year, US policy will not suddenly veer away from being subservient to pro-Israel lobby groups including AIPAC to become “just and principled” with regards to Israel’s illegal occupation/annexation of the West Bank; the barbaric blockade of Gaza; and the continuous siphoning off of US taxpayer dollars even as millions of Americans are losing their jobs, facing eviction from their homes, and tragically dying as a result of the still to be seriously addressed pandemic. https://bit.ly/2DVD2I9

“Americans are too broadly under-informed to digest nuggets of information that seem to contradict what they know of the world. Instead, news channels prefer to feed Americans a constant stream of simplified information, all of which fits what they already know. That way they don’t have to devote more air time or newsprint space to explanations or further investigations . . . Politicians and the media have conspired to infantilise, to dumb down, the American public. At heart, politicians don’t believe that Americans can handle complex truths, and the news media, especially television news, basically agrees.”

Tom Fenton, former CBS foreign correspondent, and author of Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News, and the Danger to Us All

Joe Biden’s debating skills and policy speeches may at times be faltering, but he is still sufficiently clearheaded and savvy to know who is buttering his bread. A Foreign Policy report recently claimed that Biden personally intervened to ensure the word “occupation” was omitted from the Democratic Party platform. Biden’s move apparently occurred after heavy pressure from pro-Israel groups that caused his aides to call progressive delegates and encourage them to drop the demand for the occupation language. Last month, the Democratic National Committee overwhelmingly rejected a motion to condition aid to Israel and add the word “occupation” to the platform. 

“I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.”

Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden, April 2007

In a profile of Kamala Harris, journalist Ron Kampeas — Washington, DC bureau chief for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that coordinates coverage in the US capital and analyses political developments affecting the Jewish world — described her as being more AIPAC than J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace organisation. Unfortunately the majority of Americans are neither aware of the number of pro-Israel organisations operating in the US, nor the extent of their influence on Congress: https://bit.ly/2E0mu1m

Harris has been to Israel on several occasions and in 2017, shared a Shabbat dinner with a group of Israeli activists, met with corrupt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Western Wall, Yad Vashem, the Supreme Court, and Al-Quds University. in a speech to AIPAC, Harris confessed to “Having grown up in the Bay Area, I fondly remember those Jewish National Fund boxes that we would use to collect donations to plant trees for Israel. Years later, when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom . . . I soaked in the sights and sounds and smells of Jerusalem . . . I stood in Yad Vashem, devastated by the silent testimonies of the 6 million Jews that were murdered in the Holocaust, and we must always remember that solemn promise. Never Again.” Like all Israeli stooge hypocrites, however, Harris does not believe that the vow of “Never Again” should also be applicable to all human beings, including the Palestinians whom Israel has been gradually but systematically ethnic cleansing for decades.

The Democratic Party’s Biden-Harris ticket — as compared to the Republican Party’s pathetic pair of Trump-Pence — offers the Palestinian people no hope of an impartial adjudication of their desperate plight from the AIPAC-controlled US Congress about which former President Jimmy Carter had this to say:

“It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defence of justice or human rights for Palestinians.”

One of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic has been the exposure of America’s ongoing decline in infrastructure, education, health care, and government which if not quickly addressed will result in the US eventually resembling one of those developing nations that the highly educated genius, President Donald Trump, has dismissed as being “shithole countries.”

“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.”

Marcus Aurelius (121-180), Roman emperor and stoic philosopher 

William Hanna is a London-based freelance writer on democracy and human rights and author of a The Grim Reaper https://bit.ly/3cw8OHO. Further information including book reviews, articles, sample chapters, videos, and contact details at: https://www.williamhannaauthor.com