Hollywood’s Big Lies Of Omission
By Joe Giambrone

“We like nonfiction, and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious President. 

We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it’s the fiction of duct tape or the fictitious orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush.”
–Michael Moore Oscar acceptance speech, moments before his mic was cut off.

A particularly notable case is Sarah Silverman (left), the filthy-mouthed comedienne, who originally championed Bernie. But she quickly fell into lockstep for Hillary. Silverman had a soul empty enough to go and scold the United States to support a candidate whom she had just been fighting against, and who actually stole the nomination from her own candidate through back-room deals at the DNC and through apparent voting-machine hacking. The thief was rewarded instead of jailed for some reason, which Hollywood has had absolutely zero interest in, as if it didn’t happen. They moved on instantly to lambast us all about Donald Trump 24/7. Orwell couldn’t have written it better.

Hollywood has a highly complex understanding of political philosophy and particularly of this presidential race:

1. Trump Bad

2. Hillary Woman

3. So-called “Lesser Evil”

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e should acknowledge, those who are literate, that Hillary Clinton’s repeated threats to escalate World War 3 over Syria leave her as potentially the greater evil, not the lesser at all. The jury is very much out.

“Goldwater Girl” Hillary Rodham Clinton has a lengthy record of supporting every US aggressive war and opposing none. She may have played a part in the killings of over 2 million human beings so far, merely tallying those casualties from the three countries of Iraq, Syria and Libya. One may opt to also add another half-million Iraqi children who died as a result of her husband’s eight years of sanctions. 

I noticed Hollywood’s widespread mindless support for Democrats back in 2000, when I kicked that shockingly corrupt party to the curb and joyfully cast a vote for Ralph Nader, an actual American hero whose efforts have saved lives. Die-hard whiners of the Democratic rank-and-file still falsely claim that big bad Ralph gave the election to Dubya Bush, when anyone with the ability to read can see that it was the Supreme Court which stopped the legitimate counting of Florida ballots. Add Bush’s brother Jeb purging nearly two-hundred thousand minority voters from rolls. But the mindless strategy of attacking third parties and attempting to delegitimize democracy itself persists among the ignorant (a majority of Democrats perhaps). This is by design; this is who they are. They do not believe in democracy, because the billionaires who fund them do not believe in any democracy they cannot control.

“But the mindless strategy of attacking third parties and attempting to delegitimize democracy itself persists among the ignorant (a majority of Democrats perhaps). This is by design; this is who they are. They do not believe in democracy, because the billionaires who fund them do not believe in any democracy they cannot control.”

George W. Bush’s theft of the presidency did help expose the moral bankruptcy of Democrats as well as Republicans. When Bush lied about Iraq, Hillary Clinton was right there with him embellishing and freestyling! She claimed Iraq’s non-existent “weapons of mass destruction” to be “undisputed.” Her lies helped sell the war to Congress, a war of aggression: what the Nazis did and were hung for at Nuremberg. Her role in aggressive war and in destroying International Law as a restraint against belligerence are profound crimes, grievous war crimes: “the supreme international crime” in the words of U.S. Judge Robert Jackson.

When a handful of Democrats attempted to impeach the Bush junta for crimes relating to those wars, as well as to torture and cover-up, it was Democrat Nancy Pelosi who announced “Impeachment is off the table.” Criminal collusion, allowing the crimes to stand without recourse, that is what they did. The US federal government has served as a protection racket for international war crimes. The damage that Democrats inflicted upon the rule of law is equal to that of the Republicans. The former had a moral and legal responsibility to defend the Constitution, their oaths of office, but voluntarily opted not to.

The Internet helped flood the world with information to pass around, both good and bad, but the crimes of both parties became difficult for them to wash away now that Google made all web searchers equal.

Today, things have accelerated into realms of the absurd. CNN recently cut off a congressman in mid-sentence for uttering the word “Wikileaks.” This Soviet-style clampdown on dissent remains a shocker even in a society that’s pretty much seen it all.

The media, distrusted by most, is only one aspect of the problem though. Americans get their views from joking heads as much as from stodgy teleprompter readers. Talk shows and comedy skits propagandize viewers every bit as much as do the Washington Post or New York Times. Celebrity endorsements matter.

Documents recently emerged that confirm Oliver’s willingness to shill for Hillary. And he’s not alone among the so-called cutting-edge “perceptive” comedians. Bill Maher has long been a Democratic party loyalist, and recently Amy Schumer—for all her smarts and anti-status quo posturing—came out strongly for Hillary. Schumer may be a dupe and clueless about the true nature of the Hillary option, but Oliver cannot be so easily forgiven.

A casual glance at those programs would reveal that democracy is non-existent in Hollywood today. All voices are not represented. Minority candidates cannot get air time, will not be interviewed, and will only be mocked in absentia as per John Oliver’s recent disgraceful hit piece on Green Party candidate Jill Stein, a cowardly move John. Shameful.

But Oliver is far from alone. I single him out because he knows better and could have done justice to the Green Party and to its clear alternative to perpetual war, empire, and industrialized ecocide. But where would that have left him personally vis a vis the Hollywood political consensus?

Nowhere is presidential candidate Jill Stein welcome, not on the debate stage where she belongs, not on the daily puff shows, not on the edgy comedy interview shows, and not on SNL. This blanket censorship is quite glaring, and clearly part and parcel of a system rigged in favor of Democrats―no matter who they are, nor how long their rap sheets happen to be.

Hollywood’s strategy is as simple-minded as those who are easily programmed by it. They point the finger endlessly at the boogie-man, who happens to be Donald Trump this year―it’s the same every cycle. It was the evil Romney, the evil McCain and the evil Bush Jr. prior.

In regimented fashion, the entire industry demonizes the enemy du jour, and so ensures that the crimes of their own candidate never receive any light of day. That’s the trick. In their manufactured hysteria over the latest Republican they omit the entire criminal history of the Democratic nominee, how she stole the nomination in the first place for instance, and they avoid mentioning all the non-criminal alternatives, who are not corrupted by Wall Street, the military-industrial-complex, and foreign tyrants.

This manufactured hysteria is strategic, and it is a false dichotomy. The fake two-candidate only choice is never questioned by Hollywood. To do so would mark one as an aberration, a non-conformist, a free thinker. You would be outcast to hobnob with the likes of Charlie Sheen, Gary Busey, Roseanne Barr, and Randy Quaid. This conformism is a mechanism of social control, and it’s not a laughing matter.

I use the word kakistocracy more often lately, rule by the worst. Only the worst, the most corrupt, the biggest liars can rise in this rigged system. A more formal study pegged it as “oligarchy,” but I find the term bland. It is very much rigged on numerous levels to keep out the honest and the moral. If that’s not a problem to you, Hollywood, then you are indeed living in a fantasy story: Michael Moore’s fictional times roll on.

“dems ? Do U have any thoughts on Obama’s transition from a progressive academic humanist 2 a regressive corporate warlord?”

–Actor John Cusack

Joe Giambrone is an author and independent filmmaker. He publishes Political Film Blog mainly to store evidence of these ongoing crime sprees.

Bonus Feature: Originally Posted on Feb 20, 2013

Hollywood’s Imperial Propaganda

by JOE GIAMBRONE

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ollywood likes to pretend that things aren’t political when they are.  It’s that bi-partisan nationalist myth that if both corporate parties agree to cheer for the empire, then everyone cheers for the empire.  It’s gotten so bad now that races like the Oscars and the Writer’s Guild screenwriting award are tight contests between one CIA propaganda film and another CIA propaganda film.  The first one helps to demonize Iranians and set up the next World War scenario, while the second film fraudulently promotes the effectiveness of state-sanctioned torture crimes.

If there ever was a time for loud disgust and rejection of the Hollywood / Military-Industrial-Complex, this would seem to be it (contact@oscars.org).  Naomi Wolf made a comparison of Zero Dark Thirty’s creators Bigelow and Boal to Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (Triumph of the Will).  That, to me, seems inappropriately offensive to Leni Riefenstahl.  The good German filmmaker never promoted torture through deception.  Nor was Triumph a call to war.  The film was simply an expression of German patriotism and strength, rebirth from the ashes of World War I.  The current insidious crop of propaganda, as in the CIA’s leaking of fictional scenes about locating Osama Bin Laden through torture extraction, are arguably more damaging and less defensible than Riefenstahl’s upfront and blatant homage to Hitler’s leadership.

The Zero Dark Thirty scandal should be common knowledge by now, but here is what the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wrote to Sony Pictures about it:

“We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama bin Laden…  Instead, the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program.”

The filmmakers had every opportunity to explore the issue more fully, instead of relying on the “firsthand accounts” of the torturers themselves, and/or their allies within the Central Intelligence Agency.  Notably, torturers are felons and war criminals.  Those who know about their crimes and help cover them up are guilty of conspiracy to torture.  Thus, these self-serving fairy tales that illegal torture led to the desired results (bin Laden) are tangled up with the motivation to protect war criminals from prosecution.  Not only does this claim of successful torture help insulate the guilty from legal prosecution, it also helps to promote further criminal acts of torture in the future.

Once this red flag issue was raised by the Senate, the filmmakers could have taken a second look at what they had put up on screens and reassessed the veracity of their material and the way it was being sold to the world.  Instead they doubled down.  Bigelow and Boal want it both ways, extraordinary access to CIA storytellers for a documentary-like “factual” telling of the bin Laden execution, but they also want license to claim that it’s just a movie and can therefore take all the liberties they please.

Jessica Chastain, who plays a state-employed torturer/murderer, who also allegedly located Osama bin Laden, said:

“I’m afraid to get called in front of a Senate committee… In my opinion, this is a very accurate film… I think it’s important to note the film is not a documentary.”

In a nutshell, that’s the Zero Dark Thirty defense.  It’s a highly sourced “very accurate film,” but we can take all the liberties we like because it’s not a documentary, and so if we made up a case for torture based on the lies of professional liars in the CIA, then oops.

Mark Boal went so far as to mock the Senate Intelligence Committee, at the NY Film Critic’s Circle:

“In case anyone is asking, we stand by the film… Apparently, the French government will be investigating Les Mis.”

Any controversy over the picture seems to help its box office, as more uninformed people hear about it.  The filmmakers themselves suffer no penalty as a result of misleading a large number of people on torture, to accept torture, to accept a secretive criminal state that tortures with impunity.

Kathryn Bigelow’s wrapped-in-the-flag defense of the film:

“Bin Laden… was defeated by ordinary Americans who fought bravely even as they sometimes crossed moral lines, who labored greatly and intently, who gave all of themselves in both victory and defeat, in life and in death, for the defense of this nation.” (emphasis in original)

Nice propaganda trick at the end equating those who “gave all of themselves” and “death” with the individuals who “sometimes crossed moral lines.”  Everyone’s dirty; you see.  All heroes are torturers; so it’s okay.

Bigelow’s half-assed response to getting called out by the Senate for putting false torture results into her film, is to say:

“Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn’t mean it was the key to finding Bin Laden. It means it is a part of the story we couldn’t ignore. War, obviously, isn’t pretty, and we were not interested in portraying this military action as free of moral consequences.” (emphasis added)

Ignore?  By her reasoning, because the Central Intelligence Agency tortured people, she was required to fit it into the plot somehow, whether it was relevant to the investigation or not.  That’s her excuse.  No matter that the scenes are fabrications, and the actual clues about bin Laden’s courier came from elsewhere (electronic surveillance, human intelligence, foreign services).

Bigelow told Charlie Rose, when asked the same question about the torture: “Well I think it’s important to tell a true story.”  Unfortunately, when confronted with the Senate investigation, truth quickly takes a back seat.

The truth Bigelow now clings to is that, “Experts disagree sharply on the facts and particulars of the intelligence hunt, and doubtlessly that debate will continue.”  To Kathryn Bigelow, the fact that the so-called “experts” she has sided with are torturer criminals with a vested interest in her portrayal of their crimes never occurs to her.  She can dismiss the entire matter as a “debate.”  Perhaps she no longer finds it “important to tell a true story?”

Kathryn Bigelow basking in the spotlight secured by shilling for the imperialist state.

Kathryn Bigelow, America’s Leni Riefenstahl, claims that Zero Dark Thirty tells “a true story,” even when confronted by evidence that it is a lie.  She is unapologetic and completely divorced from the real world damage her propaganda encourages.  If this film takes home the Best Picture Oscar, it should serve as the cherry on top of a brutal, deceptive, decrepit and immoral empire, and signal this reality to the rest of the world.  If this is allegedly the “best” of America, then we are truly finished.

In Argo, director Affleck takes sides with the people who destroyed democracy in Iran and propped up an illegitimate monarch in order to control its oil and its refineries. Affleck is a poster boy for Hollywood’s rancid liberalism.

As for Ben Affleck’s Argo, its sins aren’t so readily apparent.  Both films show wonderful Central Intelligence “heroes” acting to further US interests and take care of imperial problems.  The Argo scenario is a rescue, however, instead of a hit.  The problem is that Iran, a country thrown into a bloodthirsty dictatorship after its nascent democracy was murdered by the very same CIA in 1953, is now the bad guy.  There are clearly two sides, and the film takes sides with the people who destroyed democracy in Iran and propped up an illegitimate monarch in order to control its oil and its refineries.  When this despotic monarch whose secret police disappeared, tortured and murdered the political opposition – with the help and training of the CIA – is overthrown, we are supposed to overlook all that, because America is always good.  We rescue our people.  We risk our lives, and we come up with elaborate creative plans to help our people.  We are heroic and triumphant vs. the inferior wild-eyed Persians and Arabs of the world.

Now I do believe there’s a real story there, and the situation is ripe for telling, but an extreme sensitivity to the political context would be required.

As Jennifer Epps put it:

“…[T]he Iran we see in the [Argo] news clips and the Iran we see dramatized are all on the same superficial level: incomprehensible, out-of-control hordes with nary an individual or rational thought expressed.

… But we never go behind-the-scenes at this revolution. (Instead, Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio’s tempering historical introduction is soon outweighed by the visceral power of mobs storming walls, chador-clad women  toting rifles, and banshees screaming into news cameras.)

…The problem is that viewers who don’t already know their Chomsky or William Blum aren’t going to walk out of [Argo] muttering “gee, it’s more complicated than I thought.” Instead, they’ll leave with their fears and prejudices reaffirmed:  that Middle Easterners create terror, that Americans must be the world’s policemen, and that Iranians cannot be trusted because they hate America.

…Argo almost completely ignores individual Iranians; its portrait of an entire culture is neither refined nor sophisticated; and it does reinforce a simplistic, Manichean perspective.”

Enough said?

“Obama, the smooth talker, has soothed away morality, ethics, law and rights. The empire is beyond reproach because Obama runs it…”

So why are Argo and Zero Dark Thirty receiving all these awards?  Are the awarding bodies so full of hyper-patriots who believe pro-American films can deceive and demonize with impunity, that they want to send an unequivocal message of support for these practices?

Is hyper-nationalist propaganda in vogue now?

With the ascendancy of Barack Obama, there is no longer a moral anti-war voice of any significant size in America.  Obama, the smooth talker, has soothed away morality, ethics, law and rights.  The empire is beyond reproach because Obama runs it.  So the liberal center/left says nothing.  Nothing but empty blather and ignorant praise of the Democrats.  Murder is being codified in secret as we speak.  Bush’s wars are being publicly scaled down, only to ramp up new covert wars of conquest across Africa.  Nothing substantial has changed since George W., only the style.

There was a time when no one trusted the CIA.  Far from heroes, they were the prime suspects in the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy.  CIA support of terrorists was well known, if not loudly opposed.  This agency has sponsored Cuban exiles to commit acts of terrorism inside Cuba.  Its Phoenix Program kidnapped and murdered Vietnamese villagers by the thousands, torturing and killing them for alleged communist sympathies.  The CIA overthrew democracies from Iran to Gutemala to Chile, and was instrumental in waging a terror war against Nicaragua by employing drug-running mercenary terrorists called “Contras.”  When the Church Committee investigated the agency in the mid-70s, lots of dirty laundry was aired.  The agency was reined in for a time.  Assassination was made technically illegal.

In the 1980s, the CIA fought a proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by funneling money and arms to radical Islamic Jihadists – like Osama bin Laden – and creating an intelligence/military monster in Pakistan, known as the ISI.  With untold billions of dollars of US tax money, plus Saudi oil money, the Pakistanis were propped up as a central hub for militant groups to operate throughout the region.  Pakistan is where Osama bin Laden allegedly ended up living for the last decade of his life, half a mile from the Pakistani military academy.

The CIA today is instrumental in the blitzkrieg of terror across Syria.  It funnels arms and money to radical Islamic Jihadists, exactly as it did in Afghanistan in the 1980s.  In 2011 it participated in the Libyan Crime Against the Peace doing much the same type of activity on behalf of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a group that helped take over that nation despite being included on the US State Department’s Terrorist List!  The LIFG has sent its fighters over to Syria, after the fall of Qadaffi, to assist in the genocidal guerrilla war against the Syrian state, as well as civilians.  The CIA assists in these activities.

But of course those victims aren’t Americans.  So none of that counts.

“…Is it healthy for us to hold up images of Cold War CIA agents as selfless do-gooders?” –Jennifer Epps

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BY NORMAN POLLACK

This is no ordinary election, but the tipping point in the organization of capitalism as to whether “democracy,” enclosed in quotation marks because having the salience of a class-state from the society’s formation grounded in slavery, hierarchy, unequal wealth-distribution, and finally corporate/monopolistic aggrandizement, an excellent springboard to fascism under conditions of perceived decline and/or stalled internal growth (both operant today), has now turned the corner into a qualitatively different formation. I suspect this has happened gradually over the last half-century, without surrendering the inaccurate designation of democracy. It is, however, an anachronism never intended in the first place, and the candidates show at best the traits of the caudillo, a Franco or Mussolini, but still a far cry from Hitler, or America as Nazi Germany.

Exaggerating the degree of fascism serves no useful purpose. But the portents are nonetheless real, nowhere better seen than in cutting beneath the surface of the final presidential debate. The absence of policy-discussion itself mocks professions of political-ideological differentiation between the major parties. There really is very little, a consensus on the militarism-advanced capitalism nexus which by itself prevents alternative courses of action leading to other than cosmetic variants of what I am terming centrist fascism, a lockstep of ideology, structure, and political culture concentrating power of elite groups which themselves are unified in thought on what might be called full spectrum dominance, whether we speak of foreign economic policy, the environment, or other areas defining modern times.

Trump in a characteristic moment. (Screengrab)

There follows a closer look at the debate, the foregoing a prologue to the societal process, long in motion, of lurching (aka, staggering) forward, no longer imperceptible, gradual, toward fully consummated abandonment of democratic institutions and values. At no time before has America faced such an unenviable choice for the presidency, character flaws alone far less determining than policy consequences, in fashioning a government and polity held together by antithetical bonds of mistrust, hate, personal insecurity, and a demiurgic quest for unilateral conquest under unpropitious world conditions, circumstances of great-powers’ hostility and confrontation exacerbating near-inherent tendencies of internal militarism.

In demeanor, neither candidate appeared the paragon of intelligence or honesty, but that need not concern us. What does, is policy or the feigned absence thereof. The first question, on the powers of the Supreme Court and its judicial decisions, the issue came down to support of the Second Amendment, and despite differences on its construction, Clinton’s seeming criticisms or modifications of it become nullified by her statement, “Well, first of all, I support the second amendment.” Although she wants “reasonable regulation” and responsible use, offering more protections than Trump, who pridefully acknowledged the endorsement of the NRA, there is not the clear-cut separation of views necessary, since the issue of gun control is code for, among other things, an outright appeal to militarism, vigilantism, and race, that one looks for in attacking the prevailing gun culture.

Where differences were strong involved cultural politics, particularly abortion, in which, unlike Trump, Clinton favored Rowe v. Wade, with Trump ranting that she would be taking the baby and “rip[ping] the baby out of the womb.” My only reservation here as to the question of the candidates’ essential sameness is that, in opposition to my radical colleagues, I view cultural politics less as a test of fundamental civil liberties and civil rights than as a popular diversion from the democratization of structure, power, and the abrogation of imperialism, nuclear war, and racial discrimination.

I know how unpopular such a position is among radicals, and yes, as separate issues I’d of course favor abortion rights and those pertaining to the LGBT community as essential to the wider process of democratization, but (a) less so than equitable income-and-wealth distribution, and (b) on condition that, unlike Clinton, who treats them in a vacuum, the issues such as abortion are joined to wider issues on war and peace, corporate power, indeed, the retention of capitalism, especially in its present form. Conceivably, one could advocate for the full range of demands in cultural politics, and still favor centrist fascism in its systemic-structural-cultural attributes. Clinton embodies such a view, which is one reason I think she cannot be sufficiently distinguished from Trump. Wall Street can absorb cultural politics; it cannot, by definition, steps leading to the advent of socialism. Authenticity of, and gradations of, radicalism are matters of extreme importance, not simply for analytical purposes, but on the practice of capitalistic absorption of discontent. Currently, cultural politics are the help-mate of the status quo. I say this not as a hard-bitten Stalinist, but as an ordinary radical of the old kind.

The Trump clan leaves the stage.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he moderator Chris Wallace, turned next to the topic of immigration, where the Trumpean symbol of the Wall looms largely in the discussion. Trump summarizes, “Drugs are pouring in through the border. We have no country if we have no border. Hillary wants to give amnesty. She wants to have open borders.” An open-and-shut case of principal differences? Despite her deeply moving appeal for the protection of undocumented workers (I am not being sarcastic here), and her warning that police-state tactics would be needed to enforce deportation, she still maintains: “I have been for border security for years. I voted for border security in the United States Senate. And my comprehensive immigration reform plan, of course includes border security.” The continuity of proposal is not broken, only, as she notes, “I want to put our resources where I think they’re most needed.” Trump reminds her she voted for a wall, and her reply: “There are some limited places where that was appropriate. There also is necessarily going to be new technology and how to employ that.” Clinton adds: “We will not have open borders. That is a rank mischaracterization. We will have secure borders. But we will also have reform.” These are not sufficiently spelled out.

The discussion lingers. Wallace observes on open borders that in a speech Clinton “gave to a Brazilian bank for which you were paid $225,000,” you said, “’My dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders,’” to which she made qualified replied, the reference was only to energy—a step back. But then she proceeded to an interesting segue (literally without interruption): “But you [to Wallace] are very clearly quoting from WikiLeaks. What is really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans.” Clinton is wholly dismissive of WikiLeaks’s accuracy, but more, its subversive role in US affairs.

Then, she engages, as she has done before, in red-baiting, connecting Trump with Putin, and by implication selling out American interests and demonstrating softness toward Russia: “They have hacked American websites, American accounts of private people, of institutions. Then they have given that information to WikiLeaks for the purpose of putting it on the internet.” (WikiLeaks is somehow involved in the conspiracy with Russia to destroy the integrity of the American electoral system.) Then she continues: “This has come from the highest levels of the Russian government. Clearly from Putin himself in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed, to influence our election.” That isn’t enough. The noose of collaboration tightens: “So I actually think the most important question this evening, Chris, is finally, will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this, and make it clear that he will not have the help of Putin in this election.” Joe McCarthy could not have said it better.

Further: “That he rejects Russian espionage against Americans, which he actually encouraged in the past. Those are the questions we need answered. We’ve never had anything like this happen in any of our elections before.” One is not persuaded by the confirmation of “17 of our intelligence agencies,” given their overriding mission to politicize intelligence for purposes of advancing the American national interest, concomitant with interfering in the elections of other nations, from foreign-aid assistance and joint treaties to dirty tricks and planned, often executed, coups. One can almost sympathize with Trump, did he not share the same argument, when he declares: “That was a great pivot off the fact that she wants open borders. Okay? How did we get on to Putin?”

That opens the way to an acerbic dialogue about the Cold War. Recently I had sought to discriminate between Trump and Clinton on the question of Russia, yet this difference is neither sufficient to disclaim their overall similarity on a broader geopolitical framework nor, here with Trump beginning to back down, his own proactive militancy in foreign policy. Neither candidate is above the use of force, both are profoundly committed to an America-first position and use of patriotism to silence opposition to US corporate privilege and supremacy in international affairs. Yet, politics is politics, and they seek a sliver of light to show who is fairest of them all. Trump: “She wants open borders. People are going to pour into our country….She wants 550% more people than Barack Obama….. [What threw me before again follows] Now we can talk about Putin. I don’t know Putin. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good.
He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president.” Trump shares that sentiment. But then he enters deeper water: “We’re in very serious trouble. Because we have a country with tremendous nuclear warheads, 1,800, by the way. Where they expanded and we didn’t. 1,800 nuclear warheads. And she is playing chicken.” He apparently would not.

And Clinton: “Wait.” Trump: “Putin from everything I see has no respect for this person.” Clinton: “Well, that’s because he would rather have a puppet as president of the United States.” Trump: “No puppet. You’re the puppet.” That sets Clinton off in the validation of her Cold War, anti-Russian credentials: “It is pretty clear you won’t admit that the Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America. That you encouraged espionage against our people. [She does all but call him a traitor] That you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do. And that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race…. I find this deeply disturbing.” Clinton and Trump then go back and forth on alleged Russian hacking, she trotting out the 17 intelligence agencies, he, “Yeah, I doubt it, I doubt it.” Clinton: “He would rather believe Vladimir Putin than the military and intelligence professionals who are sworn to protect us. I find that just absolutely—“ Trump: “She doesn’t like Putin because Putin has outsmarted her at every step of the way.”

I dwell on the topic and the exchange to demonstrate Clinton’s war-provoking perspective on foreign policy toward Russia. Yet on the hacking, under pressure from Wallace, Trump concedes his opposition to hacking, and in a mixed message shows ambivalence toward Russia: “I never met Putin. He is not my best friend. But if the United States got along with Russia, it wouldn’t be so bad. Let me tell you, Putin has outsmarted her and Obama at every single step of the way.” But “outsmarted” implies Putin cannot do that to him. On the missile treaty: “Take a look at the start-up that they signed. The Russians have said, according to many, many reports, I can’t believe they allowed us to do this. They create warheads and we can’t. The Russians can’t believe it…. She has been outsmarted and outplayed worse than anybody I’ve ever seen in any government whatsoever.” Clinton’s response (they have drifted a long way from immigration): “I find it ironic that he is raising nuclear weapons. This is a person who has been very cavalier, even casual about the use of nuclear weapons.” More bickering, she, “When the president gives the order, it must be followed,” he, “I have 200 generals and admirals endorsing me, 21 congressional medal of honor recipients. As for Japan and other countries, we are being ripped off by everybody in the world.” Trump’s only complaint is it costs too much: “We are spending a fortune doing it. They have the bargain of the century.”

***

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the economy, the third topic, the usual disagreement over taxes and regulation occurs, lower (Republican) versus higher (Democratic), but capitalism in its monopolistic form is neither under consideration nor directly amenable to regulation. Clinton’s Wall Street ties are ignored by her protestations: “Well, I think the middle class thrives, America thrives. So my plan is based on growing the economy giving middle class families many more opportunities.” These include a jobs program, helping small business, and making “college debt-free and for families making less than $125,000,” free tuition from public colleges and universities. Less convincing, given her long-term record and more recent speaking fees, is her statement: “Most of the gains in the last years since the great recession have gone to the very top. So we are going to make the wealthy pay their fair share.” Clinton calls Trump’s plan, “trickle-down economics on steroids.” Yes, excellent, but does hers promote the democratization of the political economy or merely attach a smattering of welfare capitalism onto a monopolistic, regulatory-favorable, trade-enhancing foundation?

Granted, differences exist within capitalism, but from the standpoint of domestic differentials of wealth and power, their plans, vision, execution (the latter, a predisposed government) closely align, Trump the more autarkic, nationalistic, Clinton, the more international, and perhaps sophisticated on matters of growth and expansion. Trump sounds like a cry-baby when it comes to taxation: “We will have a massive tax increase under Hillary Clinton’s plan.” He adds, “We’re going to cut taxes massively. We’re going to cut business taxes massively.” Also, the protection afforded to Germany, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, will cost them, no more freebies. Too, the outsourcing of jobs would cease, or the products subject to heavy tariffs on their return to this country. The differences appear promising, except that only the strategies differ to the same end. Clinton: “I will not raise taxes on anyone making $250,000 or less. I also will not add a penny to the debt. I have costed out what I’m going to do.” It turns out her principal economic criticism of Trump involves an increased national debt, not the fate and the condition of the working class; balanced budgets would lead to greater employment, workers themselves stalled in place, prey to alienation and consumerism.

As in other areas, the bickering continues, economic growth founded on a trickle-down context for Trump, investing “from the middle out, and the ground up,” for Clinton, but always with job creation for both divorced from structural change and government-business interpenetration. From this point, the atmosphere becomes more charged, the candidates’ interactions ruder and more unpleasant, the positions themselves less fundamental still in details and consequences, Trump boastful about personal business success, Clinton, devotion to the underprivileged and the poor, and assertion and denial of Trump’s promiscuous sexual conduct. Rather than go on, because we have already blocked out areas of major concern, I should like to comment on the entire fiasco, disguising centrist fascism as democracy. Trump himself, on sexual groping, wanted desperately to cut matters short, or rather, drop all semblance of civility: “I believe, Chris, she [Clinton] got these people to step forward. If it wasn’t, they get their ten minutes of fame, but they were all totally—it was all fiction. It was lies and it was fiction.”

What is not fiction is the similitude of antidemocratic paradigms of governance. When one cuts through the seeming differences, from gay rights and abortion to the destruction of e-mails, the qualitative level of fruitful discussion and analysis should rest on the conservation of privilege in America, its institutional expression, abidance, furtherance, and intensification, and the political underpinnings on which it rests. Hierarchy, racism, the military cast of mind, all are the logical and necessary product of America’s pattern of capitalist development, in its purist formation perversive of class consciousness and dissent, and structurally intended to ensure unequal reward and the degradation of labor. In this light, the presidential contest and resulting election make perfect sense. At one point, Trump announces, fittingly: “We fought for the right in Palm Beach to put up the American flag.” It can be said, the same holds for Chappaqua.

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Dispatches from
STEPHEN LENDMAN

  N GOs listed below support US-led imperial ruthlessness to topple Assad and destroy Syrian sovereign independence. How else to explain their disgraceful joint statement, wanting Russia’s membership on the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) ended when its term expires at yearend. 

PICTURE ABOVE: A WHITE HELMET POSING FOR A PROPAGANDA PHOTO OP