Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Monday, August 29, 2016
Vijay Prashad on India's Crackdown in Kashmir: "If This is Not an Occupation, What Else is It?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8DsPxt3_Ng&list=TLd8SgDKi_26cyODA4MjAxNg
US Policy Towards Syria and the Mockery of International Law
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD2_YRDQDBY&list=TLLNb7fZBayRYyODA4MjAxNg
Inside Story - Are Afghan refugees in Pakistan a security threat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ezjlKpa-DM&list=TLcbV5juRWDCEyODA4MjAxNg
Crisis and Opportunity
August 26, 2016
by Rob Urie
The political establishment in
the U.S. is rapidly moving toward a crisis of legitimacy as capitalist
democracy is exposed as a system of insider dealing where war, manufactured
social misery and environmental catastrophe are ever-more-implausibly posed as
solutions to their own facts. With growing evidence, as if any more were
needed, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton spent her time at as Secretary
of State filling the coffers of the Clinton family slush fund, the Clinton
Foundation, with the tainted money of special pleaders, despots and global
misery mongers as she went about launching wars-of-choice against some fair bit
of the planet.
While the intersection of
commerce and governance— capitalist imperialism, has long been the operating
model of America’s leadership class, the pretense of inclusion in the affairs of
state through nominal political participation provided a cleansing veil for a
citizenry toiling to produce corporate profits in exchange for the modest
give-back of living indoors and eating regular meals. More damning than
corruption, about which Americans have rarely taken issue as long as they
perceived it in their own interest, is clear delineation of class difference,
the ‘inside’ from ‘outside’ which the trade in public-private funds of Clinton
Foundation donors rendered evident.
The precise ratio of insiders
to outsiders needed to achieve national political stability through
manufactured global instability— the mission of capitalist imperialism, is soft
science under the best of circumstances. The global grift-ocracy seen
contributing to the Clinton Foundation hardly toiled for its keep outside the
tedium of being born into political power. The structure of economic
distribution seen through Foundation ‘contributors;’ oil and gas magnates,
pharmaceutical and technology entrepreneurs of public largesse, the
murder-for-hire industry (military) and various and sundry managers of social
decline, makes evident the dissociation of social production from those that
produced it.
For much of the last century
the illusion of social progress sold through the New Deal, the Great Society
and more recently through capitalist enterprise ‘freed’ from the bind of social
accountability, if not exactly from the need for regular and robust public
support, served to hold at bay the perpetual tomorrow of lives lived for the
theorized greater good of accumulated self-interest. The Clinton’s special gift
to the people— citizens, workers; the human condition as conceived through a
filter of manufactured wants to serve the interests of an intellectually, morally
and spiritually bankrupt ‘leadership’ class, lies in the social truths revealed
by their actions.
Being three or more decades in
the making, the current political season was never about the candidates except
inasmuch as they embody the grotesquely disfigured and depraved condition of
the body politic. The ‘consumer choice’ politics of Democrat versus Republican,
Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, poses the greater-evilism of an ossified
political class against the facts of its own creation now in dire need of
resolution— wars to end wars, environmental crisis to end environmental crises,
economic predation to end economic predation and manufactured social misery to
end social misery. Hillary Clinton’s roster of donors is the neoliberal
innovation on Richard Nixon’s enemies list— government as a shakedown racket
where friend or foe and policies promoted or buried, are determined by
‘donation’ status rather than personal animus.
That is most ways conservative
Republican Richard Nixon’s actual policies were far Left of those of
contemporary Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, is testament to the ideological
mobility of political pragmatism freed from principle. The absurd misdirection
that we, the people, are driving this migration is belied by the economic power
that correlates 1:1 with the policies put forward and enacted by ‘the people’s
representatives’, by the answers that actual human beings give to pollsters
when asked and by the ever more conspicuous hold that economic power has over
political considerations as evidenced by the roster of pleaders and
opportunists granted official sees by the political class in Washington.
To state the obvious,
dysfunctional ideology— principles that don’t ‘work’ in the sense of promoting
broadly conceived public wellbeing, should be dispensable. But this very
formulation takes at face value the implausible conceits of unfettered
intentions mediated through functional political representation that are so
well disproved by entities like the Clinton Foundation. Political ‘pragmatism’
as it is put forward by national Democrats quite closely resembles the
principled opposition of Conservative Republicans through unified service to
the economic powers-that-be. That Hillary Clinton is the candidate of
officialdom links her service to Wall Street to America’s wars of choice to
dedicated environmental irresolution as the candidate who ‘gets things done.’
As historical analog, the West
has seen recurrent episodes of economic imperialism backed by state power; in
the parlance, neoliberal globalization, over the last several centuries. The
result, in addition to making connected insiders rich as they wield social
power over less existentially alienated peoples, has been the not-so-great
wars, devastations, impositions and crimes-against-humanity that were the
regular occurrences of the twentieth century. The ‘innovation’ of corporatized
militarization to this proud tradition is as old as Western imperialism in its
conception and as new as nuclear and robotic weapons, mass surveillance and
apparently unstoppable environmental devastation in its facts.
Left unstated in the
competitive lesser-evilism of Party politics is the incapacity for political
resolution in any relevant dimension. Donald Trump is ‘dangerous’ only by
overlooking how dangerous the American political leadership has been for the
last one and one-half centuries. So the question becomes: dangerous to whom?
Without the most murderous military in the world, public institutions like the
IMF dedicated to economic subjugation and predatory corporations that wield the
‘free-choices’ of mandated consumption, how dangerous would any politicians
really be? And with them, how not-dangerous have liberal Democrats actually
been? Candidates for political office are but manifestations of class interests
put forward as systemic intent.
The complaint that the Greens—
Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, don’t have an effective political program
approximates the claim that existing political and economic arrangements are
open to challenge through the electoral process when the process exists to
assure that effective challenges don’t arise. The Democrats could have
precluded the likelihood of a revolutionary movement, Left or Right, for the
next half-century by electing Bernie Sanders and then undermining him to
‘prove’ that challenges to prevailing political economy don’t work. The lack of
imagination in running ‘dirty Hillary’ is testament to how large— and fragile,
the perceived stakes are. But as how unviable Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
are as political leaders becomes apparent— think George W. Bush had he run for
office after the economic collapse of 2009 and without the cover of ‘9/11,’ the
political possibilities begin to open up.
The liberals and progressives
in the managerial class who support the status quo and are acting as enforcers
to elect Hillary Clinton are but one recession away from being tossed overboard
by those they serve within the existing economic order. The premise that the
ruling class will always need dedicated servants grants coherent logic and
aggregated self-interest that history has disproven time and again. A crude
metaphor would be the unintended consequences of capitalist production now
aggregating to environmental crisis. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both
such conspicuously corrupt tools of an intellectually and spiritually bankrupt
social order that granting tactical brilliance to their ascendance, or even
pragmatism given the point in history and available choices, seems wildly
generous. For those looking for a political moment, one is on the way.
Click here to listen to Chris
Hedges’ interview with Rob Urie on his new book, Zen Economics, now
out in paperback
(and digital
format) from CounterPunch Books.
Hillary and Colin: the War Criminal Charade
August 26, 2016
Despite her best efforts and
those of her friends in the corporate media, Hillary Clinton cannot escape her
email scandal. In an attempt to comingle her responsibilities as secretary of
state with her influence peddling at the Clinton Foundation, she used a private
server to conduct all of her official, classified government duties.
Hillary Clinton is quite a
liar but she was never a very good one. It was only a matter of time before her
use of the private email server came to light. She was fortunate to have Barack
Obama let her off the hook. Her only punishment was public criticism from the
FBI director who nonetheless said that he would prosecute anyone else who did
the same thing.
Yet the story is still highly
problematic at this stage in her presidential campaign. So much so that damage
control was in order. Clintonite courtier and author Joe Conason volunteered to
help by shoving former secretary of state Colin
Powell under a bus. Conason coincidentally released excerpts from his soon
to be published biography of Bill Clinton at just the right moment. It is
interesting that the New
York Times uses the passive voice in discussing its role in the saga, “The
New York Times received an advance copy.” In the nick of time Conason gave his
friends an advance copy of the book to repeat Clinton’s claim that Powell made
her do wrong.
The gangsterish “no honor
among war criminals” back stabbing shouldn’t make anyone feel badly for Powell.
As secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration Powell kidnapped
Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and sent him into exile. Colin Powell
made the most important public case for invading Iraq and the subsequent
killing of one million people.
At a now infamous United
Nations presentation he lied to the entire world about the existence of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq. Using nothing but aerial photographs and a
laboratory vial as a dramatic prop he claimed to have proof of chemical weapons
production. United Nations inspectors had discovered nothing of the kind
despite numerous visits to Iraq, but no matter. Powell was the public face of
regime change and mass death.
The Conason version of events
is also telling in a way that the author may not have intended. Conason and
Clinton say that Powell dispensed his sage advice at a dinner party hosted by
Madeleine Albright. Not only were Albright, Powell and Clinton in attendance
but so were Condoleezza Rice and Henry Kissinger. It was a reunion of war
criminals past and present. The gathering is proof that there is always foreign
policy continuity from president to president, whether Democrat or Republican.
While millions of people
agonize over presidential campaigns and stridently make the case for their
choice, foreign policy decisions differ very little no matter which party is in
the White House. That much is obvious to anyone who pays attention but the
gathering of the in-crowd at Albright’s house ought to get as much attention as
Clinton using Powell for cover.
“Powell was the public face of
regime change and mass death.”
When the story first broke
Powell said he had “no recollection” of the conversation. But he is a “made”
man in the foreign policy/ruling class mafia and realized he had to stick with
the rest of the gang. So he had a different response 24 hours later. He
conceded that he told Clinton his limited personal email use “transformed
communications” in the State Department. It doesn’t matter because rules became
far more strict by the time Clinton took office. Her actions were clearly a
violation of the law. The last gasp effort to put Powell’s name in her mess is
obviously borne of desperation.
Of course Powell is human and
the Clintonian lies still rankle. He was somewhat peevish even after seeming to
make peace with the rest of the gangsters. “Her people have been trying to pin
it on me,” he
whined. “The truth is she was using [the private email server] for a year
before I sent her a memo and telling her what I did.” When asked to explain why
he was the subject of Hillary’s finger pointing, Powell made an obvious point.
“Why do you think?” He then added a lie of his own. “It doesn’t bother me. But
it’s ok. I’m free.”
Obviously the blame Colin game
does bother him. How could it not? But Colin Powell’s history of his own lies
makes it hard for him to be the object of sympathy. Even in giving his version
of events he lets his co-criminal off the hook with “her people” pinning the
blame. The underlings get Colin’s wrath but the rules of omerta prevent him
from mentioning the true culprit by name.
The back and forth between
Clinton and Powell is misdirection for the naïve. None of these people are
worthy of trust and none of them can ever come out looking very good. The two
mass murderers are behaving true to form and Conason represents the corporate
media lackeys who always find a powerful person to latch onto. They make
connections and money with their high profile patrons and present their
collusion as if it were truly journalism.
The public have to thank a
right wing organization, Judicial
Watch, for keeping Hillary on the hot seat. Their lawsuit resulted in a
federal judge ordering Clinton to respond to their questions in writing and the
last minute repeat of blaming Powell had to be resurrected.
The fact that a right wing
group is bringing the dirt to light shouldn’t dissuade anyone else from using
it against Hillary Clinton. If progressives were truly progressive they would
have dumped her long ago. Instead she is the meal ticket du jour for NGOs, the
black misleadership class of politicians and civil rights organizations and
others beholden to Democratic Party success to stay on the gravy train.
To a person, the guests at
Albright’s soiree are among the worst people on the planet. All have a
horrendous body count on their ledgers. Kissinger killed millions of people in
raining destruction upon Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Madeleine Albright said it
was “worth it” to kill thousands of Iraqi children through the use of
sanctions, Powell has Haiti and Iraq on his bloody resume, Rice was always a
true believer in regime change and Hillary Clinton made the case for destroying
Libya and then moving on to do the same to Syria.
Of course any of them would
use the other to get out of jail free. None of them are worthy of respect or
should be thought of in any positive light. The people in charge of American
foreign policy are, to a person, killers for hire and should be thought of in
the same vein as mob hit men and women. No one should cry for Colin Powell or
vote for Hillary Clinton either. The two criminals certainly deserve one
another.
Margaret Kimberley writes
the Freedom Rider column
for Black Agenda Report, where this essay originally appeared.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)