Saturday, February 18, 2017

Interfering In Elections: Staggering Hypocrisy Of US Capitalism.

Sean O'Torain.


Putin: Shrewd Russian Imperialist. Trump: Stupid, ignorant, arrogant US President.
The hypocrisy of the US ruling class is staggering. The non Trump wing, which includes the US spy networks, the US dirty tricks departments, the tops of the US military, the US state and legal system and most of the more sane sections of the capitalist class itself, are screaming blue murder about Putin's intervention in the US elections in general and intervening to help Trump in particular. Of course Putin intervened in the US elections, either directly in communication with Trump, Flynn or others or by some other means of communication. And of course he did it to help Trump. And of course also the US working class should expose and oppose this intervention. But let us go back a little and in doing so look at the bigger picture.

Who is Putin and why should the US working class oppose his intervention in the US elections and in fact in any elections. After the Russian revolution in 1917, because that revolution was isolated, because it had taken place in an economically and culturally backward country and with a weak working class, that working class was not able to take hold and control society after the revolution. It was not able to build a democratic socialist society which would be run by the working class. Instead it lost control of the post revolutionary society to a dictatorial caste under the leadership of the brutal dictator Stalin.

However, the economy which had been taken out of the hands of the capitalist class and landlord class by the 1917 revolution remained nationalized, but the society as a whole fell under the control of this Stalinist caste, this Stalinist dictatorship. Amongst other things this meant that the resources, natural, territorial, economic, including the labor power of these societies, remained out of the ownership and control of the capitalist class in the West. This was the fundamental basis for the decades long conflict known as the Cold War. Capitalism wanted to get its hands on the wealth and resources including the labor power and markets of the Stalinist countries. It also wanted to make sure that no other countries moved in the direction of a nationalized non capitalist society and economy and it wanted if at all possible to bring down the Stalinist regimes that existed and rule the world unchallenged once again.

At the end of the 1980's the Stalinist regimes began to crack under their own weight. The bureaucratic castes were unable to take them forward. Nationalized economies, collectively owned economies, could only last and prosper for any length of time if they existed on an international scale and if they had the democratic input and were under the democratic control of the working class, that is if they were run by the democratic collective brain of the international working class. This was not the case in the Stalinist regimes. The fall of these regimes was also assisted by the rise of new technology and communications which made it much more difficult for all dictatorships to maintain power.

There were two possibilities for the former Soviet Union after its collapse. It could have gone forward to democratic socialist societies. Or it could have gone back to the restoration of capitalism. The latter road was taken. And it was taken with the help of US capitalism and all the other capitalist and imperialist countries and their allies such as the Catholic church. Talk about intervening in elections. It would be fair to say that there was never a greater interference in elections in history than that by imperialism, led by US imperialism in the elections that took place in the countries of the former Soviet Union after the collapse of that society. Put that in your pipe and smoke it US imperialism.

After a period of enormous turmoil and with the blatant interference of US imperialism and the rest of the world's capitalist classes and the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, new extremely brutal capitalist classes emerged in the former Soviet Union countries. They privatized and looted the wealth of these countries and became players in the world capitalist economy. This new capitalist class had a time of it consolidating itself. In Russia after bumbling buffoons like Yeltsin and co, Putin the ex KGB man came to the top. He has begun to give some cohesion to this new brutal ruling class. This is where the answer to the question of who is this Putin can be found. Putin is the new brutal representative of the new brutal Russian capitalist class, that is, of Russian imperialism. He sees his task as two fold. One is too keep the Russian working class down. And two, increase the power and influence of the new Russian capitalist class on a world scale, that is strengthen and expand Russian imperialism. This is who he is. This is what he is up to. He is no friend of any working class, either in Russia or any part of the world.

Putin intervened in the US elections to further the interests of the new Russian capitalist class, that is Russian imperialism. This has to be exposed and opposed by all workers and anti capitalist forces. The idiot Trump of course influenced by the possibility that he and his cronies could make a lot of money, have been making a lot of money out of the Russian economy and looking forward to possibly making even more out of new deals on oil and gas if sanctions are lifted, have been cozying up to Putin, and in the process have been led by the nose by Putin. The more sane wing of the US capitalist class are increasingly seeing this and going after Trump. The spy networks are hitting him with what are now called "weaponized leaks", the mass media are after him, Mattis his own so called Secretary of Defense is contradicting him on NATO and Putin and Russia.

The people he wants to replace Flynn the now disgraced former so called National Security Advisor are backing away as they see what the Trump regime is up to and see that if he continues as he is he will be a wrecking ball for US imperialism. Even the Wall Street Journal has the odd criticism. Trump and co are making a mistake, both from their own point of view and the point of view of of US imperialism. They are weakening themselves as a regime. And while doing so they are strengthening Putin and Russian imperialism. This is not in the interest of US imperialism. If Trump does allow himself to be instructed and tamed, does not get himself in order then it is very very possible that one way or another he will be removed.  

As Trump tries to defend himself and his relationship and shenanigans with Putin, he gets himself into deeper and deeper water.  In a TV interview he admits that Putin is a killer but so he says is the US. In this of course he is correct. But this horrifies the tops of the US military and spy networks who have conned themselves or been conned into thinking they are in some way more moral that Stalinism and now the new Russian capitalist class. It also horrifies the more conscious sections of the US capitalist class who understand that while they are no better (Hiroshima - Nagasaki) than Stalinism,  they need to be able to pose as kind hearted well meaning democrats if they are to continue in their world wide role with their hundreds of military bases internationally which are in reality there to allow US imperialism to look after its interests.

Just consider the following points for a moment and think about them in the context of the hysterical campaign in the media of the US capitalist class about Putin intervening in the US elections. Just think about these points and what they show about the staggering hypocrisy of US imperialism.

The American historian William Blum recently published an updated summary of US foreign policy from 1945 to the present. He showed that since that year the US tried "to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used biological and chemical weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders." Talk about interfering in other countries elections. In terms of interfering in other countries the US is number 1. And these interferences are not confined to using computers and high tech communications and tapping communications. Again and again they are through armed coups, invasions and occupations (Afghanistan and Iraq!) and killings.

Just think about Chile and Kissinger. Just think about Iran and Mossadeq. Just think about Kissinger the longest serving National Security Advisor ( national security advisor? More like the Dominate the rest of the world advisor). To this day Kissinger cannot travel to many countries of the world because he would be arrested and tried as a war criminal. His war crimes were interfering in the internal affairs of other countries on behalf of US imperialism and presiding over the slaughter of people soldiers and civilians, Americans and non Americans, especially in South East Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc. And he is fawned over by the US capitalist class: the crowd that are now  screaming about Putin interfering in the US elections!!  

Of course the US working class must oppose Putin's and Russian imperialism's interference in the US elections. Putin is the enemy of the working class whether in the US or Russia or internationally. But in doing so it must recognize the hypocrisy of US imperialism. It must also recognize that US capitalism, US imperialism interferes in all US elections, dominates all US elections with its ownership and control of the capitalist mass media and its domination of the electoral system through its monopoly of the political system by its two capitalist parties the Republicans and the Democrats, and the undemocratic corrupt electoral college and the legalized bribing (lobbying by corporations) of politicians. US capitalism, US imperialism, the US capitalist class interferes in all US elections to dominate the consciousness of the US working class and convince them that there is no alternative to capitalism. There is a lot of interfering going around. The US working class must build its own mass party and "interfere" in elections in its own class interests.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is so frustrating to hear my fellow leftists buying into this "Russian interference" propaganda unquestioningly. I have yet to see a single shred of compelling evidence for the narrative, and what has actually been presented (the official "Intelligence Community Assessment" last month consistently of little more than blubbering about internet trolls and years-old RT reports that Americans barely even watch) is utterly laughable. Is Russia a corrupt capitalist imperialist oligarchy? Sure.

But this unproven McCarthyist narrative exists for other reasons. It is 1) an excuse by the Democratic Party to not admit that they have done anything wrong and to sidestep criticism. It is 2) an attempt to discredit Wikileaks because it has become such a powerful weapon against secretive entrenched power. And it is 3) a reaction from the unelected positions of government (the "deep state") to Trump because he threatens their class interests with his own.

Please don't let it distract you. We have more important problems to be worrying about when it comes to elections, and they mostly come from within. It's good that you mentioned the anti-democratic electoral college system. Here are two more issues. The Voting Rights Act has been gutted and voter suppression has now been ramped up to a degree not seen since before the civil rights movement. We largely rely upon very old, closed-source-code electronic voting equipment (manufactured in an industry that has consolidated into 2 remaining monopolies) with numerous vulnerabilities that make it easier than ever to steal elections. Many states in the South and East Coast are, unbelievably, still using these black-box voting machines without the decency of a voter-verified paper trail. And when there is a paper trail, many states don't even attempt a proper audit in order to detect fraud when it happens. The only evidence we have for election fraud is thus the exit polls, performed largely by a single corporation which somehow feels the need to "adjust" them to the reported results. And yet that pre-adjusted evidence is still plentiful and convincing. Election fraud in America is real and if we have any aspirations of transitioning into socialism through electoral processes, then we need to have the guts to address it already.

There is a very detailed report on the election fraud and voter suppression that happened during the 2016 Presidential Primaries. Please have a look at it sometime here. In addition, investigative reporter Greg Palast has released a fact-filled documentary on the voter suppression in the general election called The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

Sean said...

Anonymous, Thank you for your comment on the article on the US elections. Before responding I would like to say that I am not very inspired to reply to comments from people who sign themselves anonymous. The capitalist state can easily determine who you are, you are on the internet, so why do you keep your identity from workers and other activists like myself. In relation to the points you make on voter suppression, the role of the Democrats etc. I do not disagree with them. But these are not the full picture by any means. It is in my opinion impossible to imagine that a major imperialist power such as Russia is today which sees its main opponent at this stage to be US imperialism, and which is also seeking to expand its influence, and which has the experience of US imperialism interfering in elections as the former Soviet Union collapsed, and has experience of struggling with US imperialism world wide to affect the results of elections in many countries, that Russian imperialism would not try to influence the US elections. It is in my opinion totally ruled out. Especially when it has the opportunity to possibly have a more cooperative person in the White House with Trump than Clinton. I am interested why you speak of my comments as McCarthyist. It seems to me that you wish to defend the Russian regime, that to do so you suggest that criticism of it is McCarthyist. That is that my position is McCarthyist. I do not think this is a very Comradely approach. Also there is a history to this approach. Any criticism of Russia when it was Stalinist was deflected by the so called Communist parties as McCarthyite. Your comments and position suggests to me that you come from a particular left position. It would be good to discuss this. Sean O'Torain.

Jingus said...

All right, does this work for you? I have in fact been wanting to join your weekly discussions for a while and I'm more than happy to reveal whatever you want to know about myself eventually, but I have some real privacy concerns at the moment. I sent out an e-mail outlining my concerns before but for whatever reason never received a response. We live in a nightmarish modern surveillance network but there are still things we can do to fight back and I'm not ready to resign myself to defeat. I'm not attempting to hide my intent from you but rather others who would wish to datamine and exploit my personal information, or worse. You all are retired for the most part now, aren't you? You may not have quite as much to lose now but consider that others (especially the growing block of anti-capitalists among Millenials) still live in nascent and precarious financial situations.

I'm not defending Putin's oligarchy by any means--I just wish people would focus more productively on the compelling evidence we have of election stealing at home instead of putting so much effort into analysis of entirely speculative scenarios. The evidence is right here, we can build an undefeatable argument from it and act on it!

The NSA, CIA, and FBI all have a long history of misleading the public and they have utterly refused to provide real evidence of Russia's supposed involvement in leaking the DNC's and John Podesta's e-mails. The best argument they have put forth is some nebulous "influence" campaign largely centering around RT. Well I'm sorry but I think Chris Hedges does fantastic journalism and I don't think he's a Kremlin stooge. On the other hand, a longtime associate of Julian Assange actually stated that he went to Washington and received the Podesta leaks from an insider. Wikileaks frankly has a better track record than the rogue agency that flat out lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

And let's not forget that none of the information revealed about the Democrats by the leaks has ever been denied! Shouldn't we welcome any truthful leaks about any non-transparent clandestine groups that actively work against the interests of the working class?

Definitely not a "tankie"/Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist/Trotskyist either; Richard Wolff's work and the worker cooperative movement have been the biggest influences on my admittedly comparatively new framework for socialism.

Richard Mellor said...

Hi Jingus. I apologize for not getting back to you. I recall your concerns and I will write more tomorrow. It's late here in CA. If you have genuine concerns we would respect them. I have signal if you'd feel comfortable discussing in that way or some other. But we do have to recognize that the bourgeois can listen to us if they want. Our best defense is to build strong roots in the working class.