The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Dennis Kucinich

There was once a wing of the Democratic Party that stood up to the war industry. J. William Fulbright. George McGovern. Mike Gravel. William Proxmire. But that was decades ago. The new Democrats, especially with the presidency of Bill Clinton, became shills not only for corporate America but the arms industry. No weapons system is too costly. No war, no matter how disastrous, goes unfunded. The massive military budget, with $858 billion in military spending allocated for Fiscal Year 2023, an increase of $45 billion over the Biden administration’s budget request, and nearly $80 billion over the amount appropriated by Congress for the current fiscal year, keeps growing. When 30 members of the party’s progressive caucus recently issued a call for Joe Biden to negotiate with Vladimir Putin they were forced by the party leadership and a war mongering media to back down and rescind their letter. What happened to the Democratic Party? Why has it become impossible to question war and the massive expenditures on arms? Why is such questioning political suicide? Why can’t a Democrat ask, especially at a time of economic hardship and huge deficits, how much we are going to divert to the war in Ukraine which has already consumed some $ 60 billion – as much as we spend on the State Department and AID -- with no end in sight? Joining me to discuss the extinction of anti-war Democrats in Dennis Kucinich, a former presidential candidate, who served eight terms in the House of Representatives before the Democratic Party gerrymandered his district to ensure his defeat.