This article is a translation of "‘Russia-gate’ en Trump. Moeten we achter hem staan?"
The daily barrage concering ‘Russia-gate’, the story that ‘the Russians’ hacked the American presidential elections, is the background for a steady, inexorably advancing impeachment of Donald Trump. Whoever came to power with the help of ‘the enemy’, cannot legitimately occupy the White House. Day in, day out, this message is being repeated.
On the opposite side is a simple truth. A Democratic Party staffer, Seth Rich, indignant about how the party in the primaries undermined the candidacy of the leftist Bernie Sanders to the benefit of Hillary Clinton, leaked e-mails exposing this to WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks published them. Rich was assassinated in Washington DC, probably in a botched robbery.
Brief, a ‘leak’, not a ‘hack’, and an internal party feud, nothing from Russia. But we won’t get to hear that. And now Seymour Hersh has revealed that this was all set up by the American intelligence services.
Is Donald Trump therefore the ‘good guy’?
The choice between Trump and Clinton in November 2016 was never an issue of good versus bad. It was itself an expression of the deep crisis of the US, the West, and capitalism, the engine driving the whole thing. In 2008 it became evident that all possibilities to get this engine, which had been sputtering for quite a while already, going again, had been exhausted. After that, all pretence of a social capitalism was dropped and the ruling class in the West embarked on an overt plundering operation, dismissive of where this would end. In the process it was assisted by the state authorities and the media which took care to keep the population under the spell of fear by evoking imaginary or self-inflicted threats (terrorism, ‘Putin’…). The broken-down speculation machine was reignited by refinancing the banks which had caused the crisis en by printing extra money, all for the benefit of the superrrich.
This economic policy had been tried out already in Japan from 1990-91 and commentators left and right are still complaining that ‘it did not work’ and that the repetition of the same recipe in the United States and Europa also ‘does not work’.
However, that is a big mistake. It works excellently, but not for everyone. In the US alone, more than $5 trillion in dividends and related incomes were paid out after 2010, at a rate of $1 trillion per annum the last two years. 95 percent of the total income growth in America between 2008 and 2015 ended up in the hands of the ‘1 %’ at the top of the incomes pyramid. Etc. etc.
This is a worldwide development that has led to an oligarchisation of the class structure. As argued in Oligarchies of the World, Unite, this is accompanied by an authoritarian tendency and that explains why we are exposed to a daily hurricane of fear-mongering. For imagine if the real figures would be printed in the newspapers and the real threats, such as the continuing overpopulation and the pollution and destruction of the earth’s biosphere, would be raised on a daily basis, instead of ‘Putin’ and ISIS?
The difference between Trump and Hillary is that Trump is an authoritarian oligarch himself, Hillary is only an auxiliary. That is why she is much more dependent on the entire complex of American state power that is at the disposal of the oligarchy. All those who are active in this complex, but who have not yet themselves gotten hold of the billions, aspire to being eventually rewarded for their services by big money. Read, Peter Schweizer, Clinton Cash, on how Hillary and Bill Clinton went about this themselves.
Seymour Hersh explains the fact that the CIA and the NSA came up with the Russia-gate story, from the frustration of the bosses of these services that under Trump, their chances to obtain fat cat posts on the boards of the corporate world are nil and that they will have to live off their pensions.
Trump himself has all he needs and has no time to spare for all these auxiliaries. He wants to pursue the predatory operation and intensify authoritarian policies. In a country where this year alone, more than 700 people have been killed by the police, he calls on the same police to stop being ‘soft’, and the tax advantages he wants to enact for the 1% have given rise to speculation that under Trump, it is very well possible that the United States will finally and definitively go bankrupt. Also he wants to temper the high-risk confrontation with Russia (but not with Iran or China) and he could not care less about the EU.
However, by this stance he has antagonised the entire state apparatus and media of the US (except for Fox and other channels of his far-right fellow oligarch, Murdoch), because they want a piece of the pie and hope to ascend into the ranks of the 1% too.
That is why Robert Mueller, the man who was appointed director of the FBI two days before 9/11 and who led the cover-up of the event, is working steadily to bring down Trump.
But that does not therefore make Trump the ‘good guy’.
Kees van der Pijl
Brief, a ‘leak’, not a ‘hack’, and an internal party feud, nothing from Russia. But we won’t get to hear that. And now Seymour Hersh has revealed that this was all set up by the American intelligence services.
Is Donald Trump therefore the ‘good guy’?
The choice between Trump and Clinton in November 2016 was never an issue of good versus bad. It was itself an expression of the deep crisis of the US, the West, and capitalism, the engine driving the whole thing. In 2008 it became evident that all possibilities to get this engine, which had been sputtering for quite a while already, going again, had been exhausted. After that, all pretence of a social capitalism was dropped and the ruling class in the West embarked on an overt plundering operation, dismissive of where this would end. In the process it was assisted by the state authorities and the media which took care to keep the population under the spell of fear by evoking imaginary or self-inflicted threats (terrorism, ‘Putin’…). The broken-down speculation machine was reignited by refinancing the banks which had caused the crisis en by printing extra money, all for the benefit of the superrrich.
This economic policy had been tried out already in Japan from 1990-91 and commentators left and right are still complaining that ‘it did not work’ and that the repetition of the same recipe in the United States and Europa also ‘does not work’.
However, that is a big mistake. It works excellently, but not for everyone. In the US alone, more than $5 trillion in dividends and related incomes were paid out after 2010, at a rate of $1 trillion per annum the last two years. 95 percent of the total income growth in America between 2008 and 2015 ended up in the hands of the ‘1 %’ at the top of the incomes pyramid. Etc. etc.
This is a worldwide development that has led to an oligarchisation of the class structure. As argued in Oligarchies of the World, Unite, this is accompanied by an authoritarian tendency and that explains why we are exposed to a daily hurricane of fear-mongering. For imagine if the real figures would be printed in the newspapers and the real threats, such as the continuing overpopulation and the pollution and destruction of the earth’s biosphere, would be raised on a daily basis, instead of ‘Putin’ and ISIS?
The difference between Trump and Hillary is that Trump is an authoritarian oligarch himself, Hillary is only an auxiliary. That is why she is much more dependent on the entire complex of American state power that is at the disposal of the oligarchy. All those who are active in this complex, but who have not yet themselves gotten hold of the billions, aspire to being eventually rewarded for their services by big money. Read, Peter Schweizer, Clinton Cash, on how Hillary and Bill Clinton went about this themselves.
Seymour Hersh explains the fact that the CIA and the NSA came up with the Russia-gate story, from the frustration of the bosses of these services that under Trump, their chances to obtain fat cat posts on the boards of the corporate world are nil and that they will have to live off their pensions.
Trump himself has all he needs and has no time to spare for all these auxiliaries. He wants to pursue the predatory operation and intensify authoritarian policies. In a country where this year alone, more than 700 people have been killed by the police, he calls on the same police to stop being ‘soft’, and the tax advantages he wants to enact for the 1% have given rise to speculation that under Trump, it is very well possible that the United States will finally and definitively go bankrupt. Also he wants to temper the high-risk confrontation with Russia (but not with Iran or China) and he could not care less about the EU.
However, by this stance he has antagonised the entire state apparatus and media of the US (except for Fox and other channels of his far-right fellow oligarch, Murdoch), because they want a piece of the pie and hope to ascend into the ranks of the 1% too.
That is why Robert Mueller, the man who was appointed director of the FBI two days before 9/11 and who led the cover-up of the event, is working steadily to bring down Trump.
But that does not therefore make Trump the ‘good guy’.
Kees van der Pijl
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