We are going to be syndicating a few recent articles from across the web that we hope Green Party Power readers will read and use in the coming weeks and months to build their Green Party locals. Our goal is to head into 2019 and the presidential nominations season with a clear sense of purpose and emphasis on Green independence, clarity of vision, and opposition to the duopoly, especially the Democratic Party.
Note: Socialism has gained increased popularity in the United States as generational change leads people to thing of programs like healthcare for all, free college tuition and a more equitable economy, not the dated concept of the failed Soviet Union. Others see the recent evidence and impact of climate change as well as the degradation of the environment as requiring a new type of economy, ecosocialist. On a recent podcast, we discussed ecosocialism Victor Wallis author of Red Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism. Wallis sees ecosocialism as addressing two major crises of our era: growing wealth inequality and its resultant poverty, and climate change, which is central to the environmental crisis. Wallis explains why a livable future must be ecosocialist, what ecosocialism is and how we get there.
But, how does socialism fit in US elections? Bernie Sanders has put forward soft socialism, more in the format of FDR’s New Deal or Scandanavian Democratic Socialism, and shown its popularity among the US electorate. In countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba we see efforts to create ‘Socialism for the 21st Century’ learning from the mistakes of previous socialized systems and dealing with current challenges.
In the US, there is more socialism in place than we realize. It includes energy and water systems, public transportation and public lands and more, there are programs in cities and states as well as the nation that are socialized. People us socialized systems every day among them public schools fire departments, police, libraries, the Postal Service and more. These are institutions of public ownership and control. On the Clearing the FOG podcast we discussed the breadth of US socialism with Thomas Hanna, author of “Our Common Wealth: The Return of Public Ownership in the United States.”
The reality is there has been a strong strain of socialized economies in the North American from before the US was founded. It existed in Indigenous cultures as well as the colonies. Indeed, neither could have survived without communalism and socialized economies. John Curl documented this very deep history in “For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements and Communalism in America” where he showed worker-owned business, cooperatives, and mutual aid are part of the DNA of the United States, also discussed on our podcast.
Socialism is growing in the United States at the time of growth in popular movements for economic, racial and environmental justice as well as peace because the US faces multiple crisis situations. The Occupy Movement’s call for the 99% brought issues of the unequal economy into the national dialogue. We’ve advocated ‘economic democracy’ through our project It’s Our Economy even before we helped organize Occupy in Washington, DC. Much of our Agenda for Economic Democracy, is now part of the public dialogue. Parts of it like National Improved Mediwww.care for All and the Green New Deal, which began in the Green Party, are now becoming popular in the Democratic Party and have wide popular support.
The article below by Jon Olsen co-chair of the Maine Green Independent Party, describes how the Green Party of the United States has become an ecosocialist party as a result of amending its platform in 2016. The Green Party is in tune with the movements of our times that are seeking a more just economy that confronts racism that has been with the US since its founding, inequality which is broader than at any time in history as well as the urgent need to protect the environment. KZ
The Green Party of the United States, the First US Ecosocialist Party
Clearly, since Bernie ran openly as a socialist, the word is coming back into use and out of the bogeyman closet at last! But people attach so many different meanings and connotations that it is best to articulate what may be its best use in 21st century USA. Among those trying to get a handle on it is the Green Party of the US, which recently in its revised platform declared in support of a socialism-in-process:
Some call this decentralized system “ecological socialism,” “communalism,” or “the cooperative commonwealth,” but whatever then terminology, we believe it will help end labor exploitation, environmental exploitation, and racial, gender, and wealth inequality and bring about economic and social justice due to the positive effects of democratic decision making. Production is best for people and planet when democratically owned and operated by those who do the work and those most affected by those decisions . . . not at the whim of centralized power structures of state administration or capitalist CEO’s and distant boards of directors.
I personally like the phrase “ecosocialism,” but not everyone does, so objections to it must be raised and addressed honestly. I can think of two principal related reasons why some object. First, when some people hear the word “socialism,” they still flash on the late-stage Soviet Union, as if that were the only possible model, but this response short-circuits thinking before it can get off the ground.
The second reason is related because it assumes that it will be too hard to overcome the first objection among other people, even if one is comfortable with the term. If we regard corporate globalism as the chief enemy of the people of the world, and as left activists, we must do so, then surely we ought not to be timid in using a term that unequivocally challenges that hegemony, namely socialism. However, it is incumbent upon us to clearly define what we mean by socialism, and not let false narratives be put in our mouths.
We need to invent a form of socialism that not only can replace the dominant feudal-like corporate structures we detest but just as importantly, be culturally acceptable to the general public. In the USA, of course, this is a challenge, but one we are capable of handling.
The Green Party platform description goes a long way toward clarifying our intent. Despite ideological resistance, even the strictest libertarian is not threatened by the existence of a cooperative health food store, or the municipally run library, though they can be termed socialist structures. Why? Because there is no government coercion!
But what if these cooperative enterprises were the dominant structures? What if we could have a referendum to yank the corporate charters of the most objectively malevolent mega-corporations—the ones that grossly offend the environment, human rights and practice extreme labor exploitation? What if we declared, as the ultimate collective sovereigns (remember “We, the People declare our own Constitution) that these offenders had not more than one year to sell off inventory and dismantle themselves or their Boards of Directors would be arrested for such crimes as poisoning the air, soil, and water, along with various fraudulent representations, and their corporate assets seized?
If the products and services provided were truly needed, they could be produced under terms consistent with ecosocialist values. We need to re-activate the original intent definition of socialism to mean “control by the working class” including those currently not employed—all those who have nothing to sell but their labor. This involves expropriating the expropriators. It does not mean, of course, killing them off or wholesale imprisoning them, although some cases must undergo careful evaluation in that regard. The word “socialism” is a defiant repudiation of the rule of capital which now has a stranglehold not only on “the” economy (as if there could only be one!) but on all three branches of this government, and of the pervasive culture of commercialism.
Some will object, with good reason, “What about all the employees who are displaced? They would rather work under exploitative conditions that have no income at all!” Of course, we need to plan ahead to provide at least equal if not better compensation from the moment of dissolution. We can do this!
There is work to be done until everyone has sufficient housing, food and water, energy supply, health services, and educational opportunities. Once we have achieved this, then we need to apply this test to the rest of the world—no end to the need for labor, once we reject the notion that only when a profit is to be made by the capitalist class, shall there be a demand for labor! Bad premise! It is a matter of re-allocation of resources away from a war economy and mega-profits fora few to humane objectives. It will be the responsibility of a Green eco-socialist government to facilitate this transition.
Will we allow private business? Indeed, for this is where we see the rewards of innovation via entrepreneurial energy and the motivation to invent. But these enterprises need to be run within the context of reasonable ecological and human rights parameters and at a scale consistent with local supervision. Instead of positive socialist features within the context of an overall capitalist economy (e.g. the Scandinavian countries), we do just the opposite! We allow creative small businesses to operate within the context of a decentralized cooperative economy. Not everyone wants the responsibility to be an owner or manager and will be satisfied to work for an entrepreneur, under humane and generous working conditions. We need to terminate conglomerates by outlawing one company owning another company, though it may be permissible for one family to own more than one small business.
Needless to say, as part of this radical change, we need to break up the huge media complex that dominates news coverage that increasingly is hardly respected, and appropriately so! We have to encourage honest journalism that feels no need to self-censor due to the need to conform to the value system of upper levels of corporate management, including CIA infiltration (note: Operation Mockingbird).
I look forward to an honest commitment to Truth, which is the daughter of Reality, no matter where she leads. Truth matters, but Reality does not care what people merely “believe.” It just is! If people in media positions are free to and encouraged to act with honor, we can get the truth. With truth we can pursue justice; and with justice, peace among all peoples becomes a realistic objective. All in favor, say “Aye!”
Jon Olsen is co-chair of the Maine Green Independent Party. He is a long time peace and justice activist and a Green Party member for 30 years. A graduate of Bates College in Maine with a degree in philosophy, he went to the University of Hawai’i for a Master’s Degree in the same field. He returned to Maine in 2001, serving twice on the Steering committee of the Maine Green Independent Party. He has conducted town caucuses and gathered signatures for Green Party gubernatorial candidates. His recent book, Liberate Hawai’i, describes the legal and historical research done by Hawaiian scholar-activists. The book documents the illegal claim of the US to the sovereignty of Hawai’I and demonstrates its fraudulent nature as well. Olsen draws a parallel with the similar fraudulent attempt by the late USSR to do the same to Lithuania.
This article is based on an article originally published in Vol. 34, Winter/Spring 2017, Green Horizons Magazine, GREEN PARTY and SOCIALISM—Engagement, but Marriage? by Jon Olsen. Note: The actual title of the article was mistitled as “But Marriage?” should have been “But is there a Marriage?”
“…recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”
These are the words in the preamble the of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) promulgated 70 years ago on December 10, 1948. They were supposed to reflect a new understanding of the causes of war and a commitment to the highest values of the “international community.”
The UDHR was the first major instrument produced by the United Nations (UN), an institution itself created at the end of the second world war. Its creation was hailed as a breakthrough that would give institutional substance to the pledge by member states to promote international cooperation, commit to peaceful relations among states and respect human rights and fundamental freedoms.
According to Elenore Roosevelt, wife of President Roosevelt and U.S. representative to the UN Human Rights Commission, the structure responsible for producing the UDHR, the declaration reflected those natural and eternal rights that, nevertheless, were not always seen but under the right circumstances could be revealed and nurtured.
It was thought by many that the UDHR with its commitments to freedom of thought and speech, assembly, education, life-long social security, health care, food, the right to culture etc., represented the hope of an international community that had learned from the carnage of the second world war, grew up as a result and ready to collectively center the dignity of everyone.
70 years later, the historic record is clear. Instead of recognizing the inherent dignity and worth of individuals and collectives, the post-war period has been an era of human depravity. It is estimated that direct and indirect state and non-state violence has resulted in over 30 million dead, whole nations destroyed, the normalization of torture, rape as a weapon of war, millions displaced and once again the rise of neo-fascist movements across Europe and in the United States.
What happened?
What happened was the continuation of the Pan-European white supremacist colonial/capitalist patriarchy. The historic project temporarily diverted by the war as a result of the Germans bringing the horrors colonial domination unleashed by the European invasion of what became the “Americas” in 1492, back to Europe and applied to other Europeans. But once Hitler was dispensed with, the systematic brutality that created “Europe” continued.
The doctrine of discover, slavery, manifest destiny, the white man’s burden, the responsibility to protect, all of the ideological and policy expressions representing what Enrique Dussell referred to as the underside of what is referred to as Western modernity. That underside that rationalized the stratification of human beings into those with rights and those who were killable, enslavable, rapable, condemned the non-European colonized to what Fanon referred to as, “the zone of non-being.”
The Pan-European project represented a logic and rationale at the core of the European identity and its material foundation. It created an imperative that could not be easily dispensed of, without negating the very idea and materiality of Europe and what was understood as modernity.
Therefore, there was always an internal contradiction in European thought, captured and reinforced during the so-called enlightenment, that produced an analytical and conceptual malady that can only be explained as a kind of psychopathology.
In August 1941, with the Nazi march across Europe in full execution, the rhetorical force of collective human rights found expression in the Atlantic Charter produced by the United States and Great Britain. The Charter stated among other tenets that “all people have the right to choose the form of government under which they live.”
It boldly declared that for those people who had been denied this fundamental right, the goal of the war was for to see “sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcefully deprived of them.”
For the 750 million colonial subjects and the tens of thousands conscripted to fight in the war, this was music to their ears.
The Atlantic Charter served as the basis for the Declaration of the United Nations, in January 1942 by twenty-six nations then at war and subsequently by twenty-one other nations. The Declaration endorsed the Atlantic Charter and expressed the conviction that complete victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as well as in other lands.
Finally, many of the colonial subjects believed the principles of the war and the fight against racism and white dominance in Europe would allow all still colonized, and denied national democratic rights, to assume a new status as full human beings and exercise national rights just like white Europeans.
However, Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the British and U.S. leaders made it clear that the principles in the Atlantic Charter did not apply to colonial subjects in colonial territories but only to those nations in Europe under the “Nazi yoke”.
What happened to the human rights idea?
Samuel Huntington was clear in Clash of Civilizations, “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
So, when the interests of maintaining the Pan-European colonial/capitalist project, which is fundamentally grounded in systematic violence, clashed with respect for the “inherent dignity of all members of the human family” and their human rights and fundamental freedoms, those high-sounding liberal principles were sacrificed at the altar of realpolitik. In fact, they were not actually sacrificed. Because as we have witnessed, those liberal principles were never meant to apply to non-Europeans colonial subjects.
The European empires of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, exhausted from two devastating wars found themselves as wounded vassals to a newly emergent hegemon – the United States, which was now the unchallenged leader of the Western capitalist world, or what imperialist propagandists would call the “free world.”
British, French and the Portuguese still dependent on their colonial empires but weakened by the war, nevertheless, were compelled to attempt to reimpose themselves on their colonial subjects after the war. These efforts were supported by the United States in what Kwame Nkrumah called the post-war process of “collective imperialism.”
Therefore, despite the promulgation of the UDHR, individual and collective human rights were violated from Algeria and Vietnam, to Kenya, India and eventually Angola and Mozambique and many nations in between. The commitment to maintain European colonial/capitalist dominance resulted in a veritable bloodbath in which literally millions died and whole nations and cultures destroyed.
But what is incredible about this orgy of death and destruction imposed on so many over the decades and centuries, is that simultaneous to committing genocides and enslaving and perfecting new and more effective weapons of mass destruction, the Western world claimed to be the champion of human rights, and they largely got away with it.
Western commitments to human rights and fundamental freedoms were once again exposed for the lie that they have always been for the world’s colonized peoples. And with the cynicism and psychopathology generated by the cognitive dysfunctionality of white supremacy, the U.S. and the Western world proclaimed themselves the creators and champions of human rights as the blood flowed across the planet.
That is why I argue that if human rights are to have any incredibility, any “universal” applicability, any value, they must be seized from the barbaric grip of European and de-colonized.
The cognitive dysfunctionality of the white supremacist consciousness renders Europeans infected with this malady unable to “see” the contradictory history of liberal thought from the enlightenment the contemporary period that continues to stratify human beings and human civilizations and cultures. The assumed superiority of Western cultures and peoples are not even a point of contention. Its material development, the wonders of its science, the variety of its consumer goods are all testimonies to its innate superiority.
The problem is that all of this is based on lies. As Franz Fanon reminded us, Europe is a creation of Colonialism.
This has been the terrible contradiction at the heart of the European colonial project. The bifurcation of human beings into those with rights and those without is and has always been a racialized distinction. How else can one explain how a Benjamin Netanyahu, a criminal whose hands drip with the blood of Palestinians can be honored by the U.S. Congress but Marc Lamont Hill can be fired by CNN for advocating for Palestinian rights?
Therefore, it is not a coincidence that the same year the UDHR was promulgated, Israel was born as a nation after it terrorized over 750,000 Palestinians into leaving their homes and territories, and Dutch white nationalists assumed power in South Africa, commencing the formalization of their system of racial apartheid, is the same year both nations were welcome into the community of nations without much controversy.
The only ones who were pointing out the contradiction inherent in recognizing a regime like the South Africans and questioning the stripping of the rights of Palestinians, were African Americans who were engaged in serious advocacy efforts at the U.N. demanding an end to colonialism and racial oppression in the U.S. and throughout the colonial world.
The creation of white supremacist thought, represented by classical liberalism converging with the material necessity of domination in order to exploit, represents a certain kind of colonialist dialectic that ensured the failure of the state-centric, legalistic, liberal human rights project of the last 70 years, while unleashing a continuing epoch of parasitic capitalism.
The human rights idea today primarily serves as an ideological prop for aggressive imperialism. The 21st century version of the “white man’s burden” is reflected in the concept of “humanitarian intervention” and the “responsibility to protect.
Humanitarian intervention and the right to protect evoke the unacknowledged white supremacist assumption that the “international community” – read as the governments of the capitalist/colonialist West – has a duty and a right to arrest, bomb, invade, prosecute, sanction, murder and violate international law anywhere on the planet to “save” people based on its own determinations and values.
“De-contextualized from the reality of globalized Euro-American domination, the idea that there is a collective responsibility on the part of states to protect people from gross and systemic human rights violations associated with war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing could be viewed as a progressive development for international relations and global morality – even if that protection is offered selectively. But in the hands of an arrogant minority that still dominates the international system and sees its civilizational project as representing the apex of human development, the right to protect has become a convenient cover for rationalizing and justifying continued Euro-American global hegemony through the use of armed interventions to refashion local realities in line with Western geopolitical interests.”
However, the human rights idea does not have to be jettisoned, but it must be de-colonized if it is to have any value for oppressed people and classes.
We must embrace and exercise the black radical human rights tradition and its subsequent expression in what I call “People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHRs).
People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHR) are those non-oppressive rights that reflect the highest commitment to universal human dignity and social justice that individuals and collectives define and secure for themselves through social struggle.
This is the Black Radical Tradition’s approach to human rights. It is an approach that views human rights as an arena of struggle that, when grounded and informed by the needs and aspirations of the oppressed, becomes part of a unified comprehensive strategy for de-colonization and radical social change.
The feature that distinguishes the people-centered framework from all of the prevailing schools of human rights theory and practice is that it is based on an explicit understanding that to realize the full range of the still developing human rights idea requires: 1) an epistemological break with a human rights orthodoxy grounded in Euro-centric liberalism; 2) a reconceptualization of human rights from the standpoint of oppressed groups; 3) a restructuring of prevailing social relationships that perpetuate oppression; and 4) the acquiring of power on the part of the oppressed to bring about that restructuring.
We agree with sister Bell Hooks who reminds us that “to be committed to justice we must believe that ethics matter, that it is vital to have a system of shared morality.” PCHRs provides that alternative ethical framework to inform a politics of transformation, no matter one’s ultimate ideological orientation.
PCHRs is grounded in the experiences of the people, the source of its legitimacy. It is, therefore, a historical product born out of oppression, “intersectional” and committed to global societal transformation. It is an attempt to develop a politics of integrity when it comes to human rights. A politics of being whole that in the words of Puerto Rica activist Aurora Levins Morales suggests:
Sacrifices neither the global nor the local, ignores neither the institutional power structures nor their most personal impact on the lives of individual people. That integrates what oppression keeps fracturing. That restores connections, not only in the future we dream of, but right here in the glory, tumultuous, hopeful, messy, and inconsistent present.
We don’t have 70 more years to de-colonize. The ecological, social, economic, political and spiritual contradictions of modernity, still driven by Western coloniality, reveals the terms of struggle. Either we (the people as a historical project still in formation) overthrow the global bourgeois oligarchy and build a new world, or we experience what some say will be the sixth extinction. It is still in our hands, but we don’t have long.
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch. His latest publications include contributions to “Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi. He can be reached at: Ajamubaraka.com
The war on Black folks is accelerating across the United States—and around the world.
In 2018, the United States spent $267 million on military operations in Africa through its U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) program. The United States says AFRICOM is “fighting terrorism” on the continent. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has evidence to prove otherwise.
Monday marked AFRICOM’s 10th anniversary, the same day BAP launched our campaign to demand the U.S. government shut down this imperialist instrument. Coming on the heels of our first membership meeting, U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM is BAP’s first targeted campaign and represents a significant development in BAP’s ability to engage the warmongers, educate the public and expand our ranks. The campaign will roll out over the next few months.
Here is a video of Margaret Kimberley of BAP being interviewed by Dr. Jared Ball about AFRICOM.
With the help of supporters abroad, we’ve obtained translations of the petition in French, German and Spanish, with more translations forthcoming!
We hope everyone will sign the petition, reproduce the materials, organize teach-ins, write op-eds, and help us demonstrate we will not accept the normalization of state violence and U.S. global military dominance in the United States and abroad.
Participate in a national conference call October 18 on militarism featuring BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who is organizing the Women’s March on the Pentagon during #AntiwarAutumn.
BAP Coordinating Committee member Jaribu Hill has been organizing the Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference (SHROC) for 22 years. Join her and activists from the Global South Dec. 7-9 in Atlanta. Register by October 31 for the early-bird price. Book a hotel room with the group rate by November 13.
No compromise.
No retreat.
Struggle to win,
Ajamu, Jaribu, Margaret, Netfa, Paul, Vanessa and YahNé
Coordinating Committee
Black Alliance for Peace
“If Trump decides to ‘throw a whistle-blower in jail for trying to talk to a reporter, or gets the F.B.I. to spy on a journalist, he will have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power: Barack Obama.’”
With the outrageous decision by the Trump White House to bar a CNN propagandist posing as a reporter, more people are now starting to make the connection between press freedom and the issue of the “right to know” and of unimpeded information. But we have to ask once again, where was this concern when Democrats under Obama were using the espionage act to jail whistleblowers and prosecuting journalists? Why no outrage on the eve of the Ecuadorian government turning over Julian Assange to be prosecuted by Western intelligence for the crime of publishing accounts of their nefarious actions? Where were these objective defenders of the right to information when the state was collaborating with private corporations like Google, Twitter, and Facebook to alter and limit political speech and information?
“Where was this concern when Democrats under Obama were using the espionage act to jail whistleblowers and prosecuting journalists?”
For some, attempting within the context of the ongoing and intensifying ideological struggle to move the focusand analysis away from an opportunistic and simplistic framework that focuses on personalities and individualized psychologies to material interests, structures and class interests can open one up to charges of not being sufficiently anti-Trump enough, or strangely “pro-Trump.” But it wasn’t Trump but Obama and both capitalist parties that inserted the “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act” into the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act during the last few days of his administration. An act that establishes a propaganda center in the State Department that objectively has been coordinating psychological operations (psyops) in the U.S. in conjunction with private corporations and intelligence agencies.
Muted opposition or outright support for these efforts from liberal Democrats is not just a case of hypocrisy. It is a willful ideological position that affirms that certain speech and information is acceptable and others isn’t. In an era in which capitalist concentration has resulted in six corporations now controlling over 90% of mainstream news content , the narrow range of reporting and “newsworthy” content should not be a surprise to anyone still capable of critical thinking. These liberal Democrats are complicit in sustaining the lie that the capitalist press represents a non-partisan, objective world-view.
“We must demand the unimpeded, free flow of information.”
The editorial orientation and bias of news outlets from Russian Television (RT) and the New York Times to the BBC and Fox News are quite obvious, and no one should be allowed to claim a universalist position on the “truth.” However, we must demand the unimpeded, free flow of information, especially information from non-corporate, non-state sectors. Defending this democratic and human right is not a capitulation to bourgeois sensibilities. It recognizes that defending this “democratic” right is an objective necessity for radical forces in the context of this moment when the state and corporate sector are collaborating on restricting speech and information.
The open authoritarianism of the Trump administration and the forces it represents is an opportunity for progressives to shift the political discourse. The obfuscation of the one-sided class warfare waged against the working class, the poor, and people of color in the U.S. over the last four decades disarmed and confused radical opposition. But the impact of the 2007-8 crisis exposed the systemic, irreconcilable contradictions of the neoliberal capitalist project for all to see, even if most didn’t have the theoretical tools to correctly understand their lived realities. The agenda of the oligarchy and the systematic assaults on individual and collective human rights to realize that agenda could no longer be disguised.
“Liberal Democrats are complicit in sustaining the lie that the capitalist press represents a non-partisan, objective world-view.”
However, it was believed that with correct perception management, the hard edges of the assault could be softened, even as the state continued to strengthen its repressive capacities. U.S. based transnational finance capital assigned that function to Barack Obama.
The Obama administration collaborated with the courts and Congress to dismantle democratic rights and strengthen the state’s repressive apparatus, including the murder of U.S. citizens. Journalist James Risen only escaped imprisonment because he worked for New York Times. Meanwhile, whistleblowers like John Kiriakou, who exposed the Bush torture program, were sent to prison along with Chelsea Manning, who was given a 35-year jail sentence for exposing evidence of war crimes by U.S. forces in Iraq. Even in light of these clear assaults on press freedom, bourgeois journalists can only mutter irrational hatred for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.
“The impact of the 2007-8 crisis exposed the systemic, irreconcilable contradictions of the neoliberal capitalist project for all to see.”
Expanding NSA surveillance and charging journalists with espionage for whistle-blowing are systematic attacks on press freedom that pale in comparison to the theatrics of Trump’s rants against the press. But according to James Risen if Trump decides to “throw a whistle-blower in jail for trying to talk to a reporter, or gets the F.B.I. to spy on a journalist, he will have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power: Barack Obama.”
This is the objective reality that we confront. It requires clear thinking free from emotionalism, elitist petit-bourgeois moralism, and liberal propaganda distractions that undermine our ability to see and understand that the national military-intelligence state is an enemy of us all because it serves the interests of the ruling class as a whole.
Trump, Sanders, Obama, Mueller, and CNN are mere ideological distractions meant to dull our perceptions and prevent us from coming to terms with the awesome reality of our systemic domination. Fascism represents a specific form of capitalist decay. That is why even though the proto-fascism of Trump represents a dangerous tendency, avoiding the political and ideological dead-end of anti-Trumpism demands that we keep the focus of our analysis and agitation on the ongoing structures of the white supremacist, colonial/capitalist patriarchy and not individuals and personalities if we want to avoid doing the ideological dirty work of the ruling class.
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch. His latest publications include contributions to Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi. He can be reached at: Ajamubaraka.com
Margaret Flowers was elected this month as one of the seven national co-chairs of the Green Party of the United States, and she serves as a steering committee member of the Green Power Project. We will continue to carry pieces Margaret writes, as these topics are necessary political education for Greens to consider as we continue to build a party of peace over profit.
Trump Era: “There Is Great Disorder Under The Sky, So The Situation Is Excellent!”
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
The quote in the headline comes from Mao Tse Tung. It was aptly used by Professor Slavoj Žižek to describe the situation we find ourselves in during the Trump era. There are many things to dislike about President Trump, but he is shaking up the establishment and raising mishandled issues that would not otherwise be discussed. He is causing chaos and his policy prescriptions are rarely correct, but he is unintentionally creating opportunities for positive change, if people can rise to the occasion in an informed and strategic way.
Žižek writes an interesting review of Trump’s recent European trip but falls short in his conclusion that the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shows a path forward within the Democratic Party. While we were pleased to see ten-term Congressman Joe Crowley defeated, as he epitomizes the corporate-corruption of the Democratic Party, the reality is that movements for peace and justice lose power when they enter the Democratic Party. Ocasio-Cortez’ election occurred in a low-turnout primary in a solidly-blue congressional district where the ethnic makeup has moved from white middle class to Latinx working class and Crowley was focused on taking Pelosi’s place rather than his re-election.
Democrats Not Turning Left, More Likely Deepening Their Role as a Wall Street and War Party
The democratic socialism of the Bernie Sanders type that Ocascio-Cortez stands for could be popular across the country where workers are struggling after decades of neoliberal economics that increase the wealth at the top in the false claim it will trickle down. Most people in the United States are worse off; tens of millions are in poverty and all but the wealthiest are economically insecure. This is one reason the anti-establishment campaign of Trump defeated the elitist establishment candidate Clinton. Trump also played on the reality that most people are ready to end the never-ending wars and cut the obscene spending on militarism when necessities at home are not being realized. President Obama also campaigned as a peace president, even though he did not govern that way, showing the public has been ready to end 21st Century wars for a long time. While the population is ready for transformative change, the Democratic Party is successfully resisting it.
Ocasio-Cortez’ victory was a rare progressive victory in the primaries. Joe Crowley is the only House incumbent to have lost a primary, and thanks to the fake third party, the Working Families Party, which is really the Democrats in disguise, Crowley will still be on the ballot in November.
Just 22 percent of self-defined progressive candidates have won, with many of them coming from seats where Democrats have little chance of winning in November, so they will not change the makeup of House Democrats. And, progressive candidates who lost their races are supporting establishment Democrats. More likely than a progressive takeover among House Democrats is the deepening of the military-intelligence policies of the party as many new Democratic candidates are veterans of military and intelligence agencies. In the Senate, there was not even one progressive challenge in the primaries even though many of the Democrats running for re-election are in the right-wing mainstream of the Democratic Party.
While there is a lot of left-progressive energy in the Democratic Party base, the establishment is containing it. The leadership wants just enough energy to win back the House in November, and a less-likely takeover of the Senate, but not a progressive takeover of the Democratic Party. Thus far 2018 indicates, the Democrats will remain a corporate Democrat-dominated party consistent with their Wall Street and war agenda.
The real path to transformation is to break free of the duopoly and build a political alternative, such as the Green Party, into a national force that can win elections and be the party that puts people and planet before the donor-militarist class that dominates the political duopoly. This will require progressives beaten down by the Democratic establishment to break their abusive relationship with the Democratic Party. It will require workers who have gone downhill since the 1930s, when unions allied with the Democratic Party, to say — “Enough, we will build our own political power.” And, it will require African Americans who in every measurement from lack of wealth and income, to high levels of incarceration, lack of investment in their communities and poor education to say — “Enough, we will not fall for black Democratic Party misleadership and build our own power outside of the Democratic Party.”
The Contradictions of Trump’s Trip to Europe
Trump’s recent trip to Europe was filled with inconsistencies and contradictions. The reaction of the establishment from both parties and the corporate media showed they favor conflict with Russia over a working relationship.
President Trump told NATO countries they need to spend even more on militarism, avoiding the real issue with NATO. They have already increased their spending due to Trump’s bullying, now he says, even more, is needed, demanding four percent of their GDP. This is absurd when the truth is NATO should be disbanded, as its purpose no longer exists. The threat of the Warsaw Pact is gone and NATO should follow their lead. The fear-mongering of Russia is a fraudulent mirage. There is no need for bases along the Russian border with Europe; doing so only provides profits to the militarists while decreasing security in Russia and Europe.
After Trump jawboned Europe to spend money to defend themselves against Russia, he contradicted that fearmongering with a friendly meeting in Helsinki with President Putin. His display of friendship, which we view as a positive step by Trump, showed that NATO is no longer needed. What is needed are more meetings between Trump and Putin. These “Treason Summits” have the potential to de-escalate threats of military conflict and solve crisis problems that the world is facing.
Trump also attacked the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, at the NATO summit claiming that “Germany is totally controlled by Russia because they’re getting between 60% to 70% of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline.” This was an exaggeration, but was this really about “control” by Russia or about selling US oil and gas? Shortly after the NATO meeting, Trump met with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Washington, DC. One of the results of their meeting was increased purchases of carbon energy by Europe from the United States.
The recent Trump trip to Europe also once again highlighted the declining role of the US in the world. There are escalating signs in the Trump era of the decline of US empire. The move from a unipolar world to a multi-polar world is underway. Just one year ago, the US War College published a report, At Our Own Peril: DoD Risk Assessment In A Post-Primacy World, which recognized the decline of US global influence as both a military and corporate power. Their recommendation was more militarism, but the chaos of the Trump era shows an opportunity and responsibility of the people of the United States. We must find a justice-based way to a multi-polar world and an end to US empire where the US becomes a member of the community of nations, not a dominator of the world.
Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance. Margaret serves as co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.
