News That Matters: Infrastructure fight w/China + Ukrainian Kerfuffle + AFL-CIO battle
The first piece of news worth highlighting is the Democrats willingness to fight for a massive infrastructure bill. As demonstrated in recent months, there are members within the party who would rather tank such bills than upset the voices in their heads telling them they’re amazing. Or rather tank such bills for the sake of growing connections with certain industry.
Still, the majority of Democrats support such bills, according to the New York Times (an outlet one should always be skeptical or when it comes to international issues but on the domestic front…). What’s interesting (and disturbing) is the way in which the Democrats are framing the need for infrastructure, couching it in terms of competing with China, which the Biden administration has basically framed as an “existential” threat to the so-called global world order. Of course, as we all know, it was China that enslaved people, led genocide, and conducted colonial campaigns and coups.
Regardless of the mind rot when it comes to foreign affairs, an infrastructure bill would be needed. At the same time, the burgeoning anti-China rhetoric is clearly the tactic the Democrats are going to go with when trying to push for such spending now and in the future, and of course, we must push back.
The next issue is of course our involvement in Ukraine. The Russian state, led by Putin and his allies, is a right wing one. An administration that has always been incredibly anti-queer, anti-woman, anti-human. Yet, in terms of Ukraine and the surrounding region, Russia has been justly frustrated with how the U.S. has continued to gather Eastern European allies, and to promise them membership into NATO, a collection of European allies that the U.S. has promised during the collapse of the Soviet Union would be disbanded.
Since the later 1990s, the U.S. has continued to sell weapons to countries surrounding Russia, install military bases, etc. Ukraine being one of those places since it had its own “revolution” ousting a Russian-backed leader of the country some years ago. Since that revolution, parts of the country which is mostly Russian-speaking have sought to either separate or have more autonomy, which has led to a guerilla style campaign in the eastern parts that border Russia. Russia itself has supplied the rebels with weapons and training.
The Ukrainian situation is also been complicated with how members of its current parliament and government include hard right figures to say the least, members who despise Ukrainians who are ethnically Russian or speak Russian.
The U.S., as it wont to do, has also been eager to train so-called “patriotic” Ukrainians, which include neo-Nazi groups. This is clearly in honor of our brave efforts in supporting Islamist groups against the godless Communists and clearly, such support has led to no issues whatsoever.
Many Eastern Europeans have reason to worry, given their not so great history with Russia. And yet, the Ukrainians themselves are telling the U.S. the situation is okay for now and they do not want any more escalating tensions.
Finally, there will be elections for the position of president of the AFL-CIO, the largest union coalition (conglomeration?) in the U.S. Historically, the AFL-CIO has had a very checkered past. It has sometimes been extremely extremely conservative and anti-communist. It has supported CIA efforts to create loyal unions across Latin America and in parts of Europe after WWII when communists were seen (rightly so) as the main defenders of democracy against the fascists. In recent years, the AFL-CIO has tried to change its rhetoric and tried to take a more challenging stance against the Democrat party, but that has been a mixed bag. The labor movement overall is very weak and so, the AFL-CIO doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver or power to leverage.
That said, having a more progressive labor movement is necessary. This is what the upcoming elections, which pits the more progressive wing against a center-left is crucial to follow. They will be taking place sometime in June.
Read more about it here: https://prospect.org/labor/why-cant-the-afl-cio-have-two-presidents/
