{"id":312097,"date":"2026-01-19T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=312097"},"modified":"2026-01-15T19:04:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T19:04:39","slug":"i-used-to-be-a-critic-of-the-two-party-system-now-i-wish-we-had-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/01\/i-used-to-be-a-critic-of-the-two-party-system-now-i-wish-we-had-one\/","title":{"rendered":"I Used to Be a Critic of the Two-Party System \u2013 Now I Wish We Had One"},"content":{"rendered":"

15 Jan 2025\u00a0–<\/em> I am told that if I don\u2019t like what \u201cmy government\u201d is doing, I should write \u201cmy representative.\u201d So I dropped Senator Adam Schiff a note about the US war on Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The senator\u2019s reply, with my translations of his Washington-speak (in italics) provided in brackets, is as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been opposing the administration\u2019s unlawful use of force against targets<\/em> [a sovereign country] in the region\u2026the U.S\u2026conducted an operation<\/em> [act of war] on January 2-3, 2026, to capture<\/em> [kidnap] the illegitimate <\/em>[lawful] leader <\/em>[president] of Venezuela, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. Maduro is a thug<\/em> [not Trump] who has terrorized and oppressed<\/em> [defended] the Venezuelan people for far too long<\/em> [Trump should have done it sooner], and he will now face trial in a New York<\/em> [foreign jurisdiction] court.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The senator then criticized Trump\u2019s \u201cmilitary action\u201d \u2013 aggression, by any other name \u2013 for lacking congressional approval, noting that it was problematic because it \u201crisks embroiling us in another war.\u201d This concern, however, does not extend to US war actions in Palestine<\/a> and Ukraine<\/a>, which Schiff finds especially wonderful \u2013 along with Iran<\/a>, Nigeria, Iraq, Somalia<\/a>, etc.<\/p>\n

Last year, Schiff sponsored a War Powers resolution to block US \u201cboat strikes\u201d without explicit congressional authorization. It failed. More recently, he joined Senators Tim Kaine and Rand Paul in advancing yet another War Powers resolution requiring congressional approval for future actions.<\/p>\n

The resolution is purely symbolic. It must pass the Senate, the House, and then receive Trump\u2019s signature. This theater allows Democrats to strike a pose of disapproval toward Trump while continuing to support bipartisan regime-change aggression against Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Schiff and company are not genuinely interested in international law. They fully support unilateral coercive measures designed to strangle<\/a> (\u201cpressure\u201d in Washington-speak) the Venezuelan economy. This illegal form of collective punishment, euphemistically called \u201csanctions,\u201d has resulted in more than 100,000 excess deaths<\/a> in Venezuela, according to a UN special rapporteur.<\/p>\n

But Venezuelan deaths, like Palestinian ones, remain invisible to respectable lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Schiff\u2019s letter lauds \u201cUS service members [who] conducted the operation with great skill and courage.\u201d Yet the senator does not acknowledge the bravery \u2013 let alone the supreme sacrifice \u2013 of the roughly 100 killed<\/a> in Venezuela defending against a military force orders of magnitude greater than their own.<\/p>\n

The \u201ctargeted\u201d bombing killed<\/a> civilians along with Venezuelan and Cuban military personnel. According<\/a> to reports from Venezuela, the sites targeted included dialysis medication warehouses of the Venezuelan Social Security Institute, scientific facilities at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research, key power plants supplying Caracas, and residential neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

What Schiff and his colleagues are really upset about is that Trump committed a splendid act of war and didn\u2019t let them share in the glory. Both parties demonize Nicol\u00e1s Maduro with moral fervor, justifying his kidnapping. Never mind that, under international law, a sitting head of state enjoys immunity regardless of how unpleasant Washington finds him.<\/p>\n

The partisan charade boils down to a question of appearances. For Democrats, Trump is not guilty of war crimes so much as bad manners, crassly admitting that he is after the oil. Better to put lipstick on the pig and claim the empire is \u201cpromoting democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the whining is about Congress being left out of the action. Democrats are apoplectic about not getting to see the unedited snuff videos<\/a> of the US blowing up small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to injury, Trump boasted that he notified oil company<\/a> executives but not the people\u2019s so-called representatives in Congress before attacking Venezuela. And that makes perfect sense in a system dedicated to serving corporate interests rather than voters.<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, there existed a species in Congress known as a \u201cliberal,\u201d who favored peace over endless wars of imperial domination. Dennis Kucinich was one of the last of that breed. Before losing his seat in 2013 for insufficient bloodlust, he challenged presidents Clinton over Serbia, Bush over Iraq, and Obama over Libya.<\/p>\n

Kucinich deserves recognition though not commendation. He simply reflected public opinion, which opposed these imperial adventures. Today, roughly 70% oppose the US war<\/a> on Venezuela. Congress does not.<\/p>\n

Now relegated to posting<\/a> on Substack<\/em>, Kucinich warns: \u201cThe long-term consequences of US actions in Venezuela demolish laws which hold together the United States, and the International legal order. This is not academic. The US Constitution and the UN Charter must not become confetti showering an authoritarian fantasy victory parade.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His remedy is simple: cut funding for unauthorized wars and enforce the law in court. If we had an actual two-party system, this might happen. Instead, as Kucinich puts it, the US empire has \u201cset the stage for a war of all against all.\u201d<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Roger D. Harris is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network, <\/em><\/a>associate editor at Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), and the immediate past president of the <\/em>Task Force on the Americas<\/em><\/a>, a 33-year-old human rights organization in solidarity with the social justice movements of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is active with the <\/em>Campaign to End US-Canadian Sanctions against Venezuela<\/em><\/a> and is on the state central committee of the <\/em>Peace and Freedom Party<\/em><\/a>, the only ballot-qualified socialist party in California. He recently visited Syria for an international conference on the impacts of economic sanctions by the US and its allies on over 30 countries in the world. <\/em>roger.harris@comcast.net<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original – pressenza.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Jan 2025\u00a0-I am told that if I don\u2019t like what \u201cmy government\u201d is doing, I should write \u201cmy representative.\u201d So I dropped Senator Adam Schiff a note about the US war on Venezuela.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":127604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-312097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312098,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312097\/revisions\/312098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}