Brand America: The Dystopian Future Brought to You by President Inc.

Dystopian Donald: The Future According to Trump

by Tom Engelhardt - TomDispatch

December 21, 2016

Can you doubt that we’re in a dystopian age, even if we’re still four weeks from Donald Trump entering the Oval Office? Never in our lifetimes have we experienced such vivid previews of what unfettered capitalism is likely to mean in an ever more unequal country, now that its version of 1% politics has elevated to the pinnacle of power a bizarre billionaire and his “basket of deplorables.”

I’m referring, of course, not to his followers but to his picks for the highest posts in the land. These include a series of generals ready to lead us into a new set of crusades and a crew of billionaires and multimillionaires prepared to make America theirs again.

It’s already a stunningly depressing moment -- and it hasn’t even begun. At the very least, it calls upon the rest of us to rise to the occasion. That means mustering a dystopian imagination that matches the era to come.

I have no doubt that you’re as capable as I am of creating bleak scenarios for the future of this country (not to speak of the planet). But just to get the ball rolling on the eve of the holidays, let me offer you a couple of my own dystopian fantasies, focused on the potential actions of President Donald Trump.

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Will Trump Make 1984 Look Like a Nursery Tale?
 
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Finally, we’ll be back with our next post on Tuesday, January 3rd. In the meantime, have as good a holiday season as you can -- under the circumstances. Tom]

Dystopian Donald: The Future According to Trump

by Tom Engelhardt

There is already an enormous literature -- practically a library -- of writings on our unique president-elect’s potential conflicts of interests. He does, after all, own, or lease his name to, various towers, elite golf courses, clubs, hotels, condos, residences, and who knows what else in at least 18 to 20 countries. That name of his, invariably in impressive gold lettering, soars to striking heights in foreign skies across the planet. These days, in fact, the Trump brand and its conflicts are hard to escape, from Bali, the Philippines, and Dubai to Scotland, India, and the very heart of Manhattan Island. There, in my own hometown, at a cost to local taxpayers like me of more than a million bucks a day, the police are protecting him big time, while the Secret Service and the military add their heft to the growing armed camp in mid-Manhattan. They are, of course, defending the Trump Tower -- the very one in which, in June 2015, to Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” he rode that escalator directly into the presidential campaign, promising to build a "great wall," lock out all Mexican "rapists," and "make America great again."

That tower on busy Fifth Avenue is now fronted by dump trucks filled with sand (“to help protect the Republican presidential nominee from potentially explosive attacks”) and, with the safety of the president and his family in mind, the Secret Service is reportedly considering renting out a couple of floors of the building at a cost to the American taxpayer of $3 million annually, which would, of course, go directly into the coffers of a Trump company. (Hey, no conflict of interest there and don’t even mention the word “kleptocracy”!) All of this will undoubtedly ensure that New York’s most Trump-worthy building, aka the White House North, will be kept reasonably safe from intruders, attackers, suicide bombers, and the like. But much of the imperial Trump brand around the world may not be quite so lucky. Elsewhere, guards will generally be private hires, not government employees, and the money available for any security plans will, as a result, be far more modest.

With rare exceptions, the attention of the media has focused on only one aspect of Donald Trump’s conflict-of-interest issues (and they are rampant), not to speak of his urge to duck what he might do about them, or dodge and weave to avoid a promised news conference to discuss them and the role of his children in his presidency and his businesses. The emphasis has generally been on the kinds of problems that would arise from a businessman with a branded name coming to power and profiting from, or making decisions based on the money to be made off of, his presidency. Media reports have generally zeroed in, for instance, on how foreign leaders and others might affect national policy by essentially promising to enrich Trump or his children. They report on diplomats who feel obliged to stay at his new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue just down the street from the White House; or foreign heads of state reaching out to him via his business partners in their lands; or Trump brand deals that are now going through in various countries thanks to his election victory.

The focus is almost invariably on how to cope with a president who, for at least the next four years, could stand to profit in mind-boggling ways from his various acts in office (or simply from the position he holds, even if he does nothing). And make no mistake, that issue might indeed edge Trump’s presidency into the truly dodgy, not to say paradigm breaking, when it comes to the history of the White House. But don’t call that dystopian.

What few people (the Secret Service aside) are thinking about is the ways in which conflicts of interest could consume the new president by threatening not to enrich, but impoverish him (and his children). Head down that path and believe me you’re instantly in dystopian territory.

Here’s a scenario for you:

It’s April 1, 2017. Donald J. Trump has been in office for less than two and a half months when a nattily dressed “businessman” manages to enter Trump Towers Istanbul, which soars into the skyline of the Turkish capital with the name of the new American president impressively done up in gold letters atop one of its towers. Once in the lobby, that man, a messenger from the Islamic State who made it through the complex's private security screening with a suicide vest strapped to his body, blows himself up, killing a doorman, a security screener, and a number of residents, while wounding a dozen others.

Of course, I’ve never been to Trump Towers Istanbul, so I don’t really know what security measures are in place there in the heart of that already explosive capital, but given the Trump projects scattered around the world, feel free to pick your own branded building, resort, or hotel. And that initial explosion would just be a start. Don’t forget that it only cost Osama bin Laden a reported $400,000 to stage the 9/11 attacks and lure the Bush administration into a set of trillion-dollar failed wars that would help spread terror movements across the Greater Middle East and Africa. So don’t for a second imagine that the leadership of ISIS (or similar groups) won’t see the advantages of sending such messengers on the cheap to get under the oh-so-thin-skin of the new American president and embroil him in god knows what.

Imagine this as well:

It’s 2018. China and the U.S. are at loggerheads across the Taiwan strait, pressures and emotions are rising again in northern Africa, where continuing American military assaults in Libya and Somalia have only increased the pre-Trumpian chaos, as well as in the heartlands of the Middle East where, despite massive American bombing campaigns, ISIS, once again a guerilla group without territory, is causing chaos. In addition, in Afghanistan, 17 years after America's second Afghan War began, the U.S.-backed government in Kabul is tottering in the face of new Taliban, ISIS, and al-Qaeda offensives. Massive waves of immigrants from all these unsettled lands continue to endanger an angry Europe, and everywhere anti-Americanism is on the rise, not in a generalized sense, but focused in fury on the American president and his much-beloved brand.

Imagine as well for a moment growing demonstrations, protests, and the like, all aimed at various towers, clubs, resorts, and condominiums in the Trump stable. And consider just what a combination of threatened terror attacks and roiling demonstrations, as well as increasing anger over the Trump name across the Islamic world and elsewhere, might mean to the profitability of the president's brand. Now, think about the Trump towers in Pune, India, or the 75-story tower in Mumbai, or the “six-star” luxury resort in Bali, or the tower going up in Manila’s Century City (each a high-end Trump-labeled project expected to come online in the near future and all, except Pune, at past sites of devastating terror bombings). What will their owners do if prospective buyers, fearing for their comfort, health, or even lives, begin to flee? What happens when the hotels can’t keep their rooms filled, the condominiums lose their bidders, and the Trump brand suddenly begins to empty out?

There is, of course, no guarantee that such a thing will happen, but if you stop to consider the possibility, it’s not hard to imagine. Next, take into account what you already know about Donald Trump, a man inordinately proud of his brand and hypersensitive beyond belief. Now, try to imagine -- and in Trumpian terms we’re talking about a truly dystopian world here -- what American foreign policy might look like if, amid the fears of resort-goers, golfers, business types, and the like, that brand began to tank internationally, if raising those giant gold letters over any city immediately ensured either mind-boggling problems or staggering security costs (and, at a minimum, a life of TSA-style lines for consumers).

Don’t for a second doubt that, under such circumstances, American foreign and military policy would end up being focused on saving the Trump brand, which, in turn, would be a nightmare to behold. Speaking of past controversies over presidential appointments -- okay, I know we weren’t, but humor me here -- in 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower had his own Rex Tillerson-style moment and picked Charles Wilson, the CEO of industrial giant General Motors, to be his secretary of defense. At his confirmation hearings, Wilson infamously offered this formula for success, “I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.” If the State Department and the military were indeed tasked with digging out the Trump brand, you would need to turn that comment upside down and inside out: “I thought what was bad for the Trump brand was bad for America, and vice versa.”

Indeed, if the Trump brand starts to go belly up, knowing what we do about the president-elect, we would be almost certain to see a foreign policy increasingly devoted to saving his brand and under those circumstances -- in the words of former State Department official Peter Van Buren -- what could possibly go wrong?

Now, that is dystopian territory.

Assassin-in-Chief

Let me add another dystopian fantasy to what obviously could be an endless string of them. For a moment, let’s think about the topic of presidential assassinations. By that I don’t mean assassinated presidents like Lincoln, McKinley, or Kennedy. What I have in mind is the modern presidential urge to assassinate others.

Since at least Dwight Eisenhower, American presidents have been in the camp of the assassins. With Eisenhower, it was the CIA’s plot against Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba; with John Kennedy (and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy), it was Cuba’s Fidel Castro; with Richard Nixon (and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger), it was the killing of Chilean President Salvador Allende in a U.S.-backed military coup, which was also the first 9/11 attack (September 11, 1973).

In 1976, in the wake of Watergate, President Gerald Ford would outlaw political assassination by executive order, a ban reaffirmed by subsequent presidents (although Ronald Reagan did direct U.S. Air Force planes to bomb Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi’s home). As this new century began, however, the sexiest high-tech killer around, the appropriately named Predator drone, would be armed with Hellfire missiles and sent into action in the war on terror, creating the possibility of presidential assassinations on a scale never before imagined. Its subsequent missions threatened to create a Terminator version of our world.

At the behest of two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, a fleet of such robotic assassins would enter historically unique terrain as global hunter-killers outside official American war zones. They and their successors, Reaper drones (as in the Grim Reaper), would be dispatched on mass assassination sprees that have yet to end and that were largely organized in the White House itself based on a regularly updated, presidentially approved “kill list.”

In this way, the president, his aides, and his advisers became judge, jury, and executioner for “terror suspects” (though often enough any man, woman, or child who happened to be in the vicinity) halfway around the world. As I wrote back in 2012, in the process, the commander-in-chief became a permanent assassin-in-chief. Now, presidents were tasked with overseeing the elimination of hundreds of people in other lands with a sense of “legality” granted them in secret memos by the lawyers of their own Justice Department. Talk about dystopian! George Orwell would have been awed.

So when it comes to assassinations, we were already on dark terrain before Donald Trump ever thought about running for president. But give the man his due. Little noticed by anyone, he may already be developing the potential for a new style of presidential assassination -- not in distant lands but right here at home. Start with his remarkable tweeting skills and the staggering 17.2 million followers of whatever he tweets, including numerous members of what’s politely referred to as the alt-right. And believe me, that’s one hell of an audience to stir up, something The Donald has shown that he can do with alacrity.

In a sense, you could already think of him as a kind of Twitter hit man. Certainly, his power to lash out in 140 characters is no small thing. Recently, for instance, he suddenly tweeted a criticism of arms-maker Lockheed-Martin for producing the most expensive weapons system in history, the F-35 fighter jet. (“The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military [and other] purchases after January 20th.”) The company’s stock value promptly took a $4 billion hit -- which, I must admit, I found amusing, not dystopian.

He also seems to have been irritated by a Chicago Tribune column that focused on Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s criticisms of his comments on international trade and China, where that company does significant business. Muilenburg suggested, mildly enough, that he “back off from the 2016 anti-trade rhetoric and perceived threats to punish other countries with higher tariffs or fees.” In response, The Donald promptly took out after the company, calling for the cancellation of a Boeing contract for a new high-tech version of Air Force One, the president’s plane. (“Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!”) That company’s stock similarly took a hit.

But giant military-industrial corporations can, of course, defend themselves. So no pity there. When it comes to regular citizens, however, it’s another matter. Take Chuck Jones, president of an Indiana United Steelworkers local. He disputed Trump on how many jobs the president-elect had recently saved at Carrier Corporation. Significantly less, he insisted (quite accurately), than Trump claimed. That clearly bruised the president-elect’s giant but remarkably fragile ego. Before he knew what hit him, Jones found himself the object of a typical Trumpian twitter barrage. (“Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!”) The next thing he knew, abusive and threatening calls were pouring in -- things like “we’re coming for you” or, as Jones explained it, “Nothing that says they’re gonna kill me, but, you know, you better keep your eye on your kids. We know what car you drive. Things along those lines.”

A year ago, an 18-year-old college student had a similar experience after getting up at a campaign event and telling Trump that he was no “friend to women.” The candidate promptly went on the Twitter attack, labelling her “arrogant,” and the next thing she knew, as the Washington Post described it, “her phone began ringing with callers leaving threatening messages that were often sexual in nature. Her Facebook and email inboxes filled with similar messages. As her addresses circulated on social media and her photo flashed on the news, she fled home to hide.”

On this basis, it’s not hard to make a prediction. One of these days in Trump’s presidency, he will strike out by tweet at a private citizen (“Sad!”) who got under his skin. In response, some unhinged member of what might be thought of as his future alt-drone force will pick up a gun (of which so many more will be so much closer at hand in the NRA-ascendant age of Trump). Then, in the fashion of the fellow who decided to “self-investigate” the pizza shop in Washington that -- thank you, “fake news” -- was supposed to be the center of a Hillary Clinton child-sex-slave ring, he will go self-investigate in person and armed. In “Pizzagate,” the fellow, now under arrest, fired his assault rifle harmlessly in that restaurant, whose owner had already received more than his share of abusive phone messages and death threats. It’s easy enough to imagine, however, quite another result of such an event. In that case, Donald Trump will have given assassination by drone a new meaning. And should that happen, what will be the consequences of the first presidential Twitter “hit” job in our history?

Don’t forget, of course, that, thanks to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Trump will also have all those CIA drones to use as he wishes to knock off whomever he chooses in distant lands. But as a potential Twitter assassin, rousing his alt-drones to the attack, he would achieve quite another kind of American first.

A Message for Planet Earth

And that’s just to edge my way into the future universe of Donald Trump, which is, of course, about to become all our universes. I suspect that his will turn out to be the screw-you presidency of all time. And believe me, that will prove to be dystopian beyond compare -- or do I mean beyond despair?

Take the most dystopian issue of all: climate change. In recent weeks, Trump has mumbled sweet nothings to the assembled New York Times staff, swearing that he’s keeping an “open mind” when it comes to the link between humanity and a warming planet. He's also sweet-talked Al Gore right in the heart of Trump Tower. (“I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect,” said Gore afterward. “It was a sincere search for areas of common ground... I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued.”) Whatever else Donald Trump may be, he is, first and foremost, a salesman, which means he knows how to sell anything and charm just about anyone, when needed, and reality be damned.

If, however, you want to gauge his actual feelings on the subject, those outer borough sentiments of his youthful years when he evidently grew up feeling one-down to New York’s elite, then pay no attention to what he’s saying and take a look at what he’s doing. On climate change, it’s screw-you devastating all the way and visible payback to the many greens, liberals, and those simply worried about the fate of the Earth for their grandchildren who didn’t vote for or support him.

The Guardian recently did a rundown on his choices for both his transition team and key posts in his administration having anything to do with energy or the warming of the planet. It found climate deniers and so-called skeptics everywhere. In fact, “at least nine senior members” of his transition team, reported Oliver Milman of that paper, “deny basic scientific understanding that the planet is warming due to the burning of carbon and other human activity.”

Combine this with the president-elect’s urge to release American fossil fuels in a way no one previously has and you have a message that couldn’t be clearer or more devastating for the future of a livable planet. Think of it as so dystopian, so potentially post-apocalyptic, that it makes 1984 look like a nursery tale.

The message couldn’t be clearer. If I had to put it in just five words, they would be:

Trump to Earth: Drop Dead.

And oh yes, happy holidays!

Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, John Feffer's dystopian novel Splinterlands, as well as Nick Turse’s Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2016 Tom Engelhardt

Syrian Ambassador to United Nations Al-Jafari Statement on Aleppo

Syria Names Foreign Secret Agents Trapped in Aleppo

by UN Security Council

December 19, 2016

Orphan Cat Seeking a Home

Poppy Cat Needs a Home

December 21, 2016

Poppy's Mom passed away last week. The arrangements made for her new abode fell through at the last moment. 

She's a beautiful cat, her shots, etc. up to snuff, all she needs is a loving Victoria home. If you can provide that, or know someone who can, please call Chris at: 



UPDATE: Poppy has found a new home with Blayne and Co. Goodbye little girl!

Poppy's Curricula Vitae

• mature female seal point Himalayan (Persian/Siamese cross)
• spayed, healthy, had regular vet care
• long haired, needs and enjoys combing/brushing
• excellent litter box manners, but needs attention to sofa scratching habit
• used to an indoor life with access to balcony
• best suited for a quiet adult household with no other pets
• will need patience during transition but will make for a pleasant companion animal
• proud, regal bearing, highly decorative 

Meanwhile in Ukraine...NATO's Other War

NATO Ramps Up Ukraine War After Defeat in Syria

by Finian Cunningham  - Sputnik

December 21, 2016

A surge in military attacks this week by NATO-backed Kiev regime forces on the breakaway eastern Ukraine regions is no mere coincidence.

It is the reaction to events in Syria by the US-led military alliance in its hybrid warfare against Russia.

Hundreds of ceasefire breaches by troops belonging to the Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) are being reported in the separatist self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Over the past few days, several towns and villages have come under intense shelling from artillery, rockets and mortars in stark violation of the Minsk agreement.

That agreement was brokered by Russia, Germany and France during 2014 and 2015, and was meant to facilitate a political settlement between the Western-backed Kiev regime, which came to power in a coup d’état in February 2014, and the breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, which refused to recognize the legitimacy of the usurper Kiev cabal.

Houses, schools and water treatment plants have been hit as the UAF and associated Neo-Nazi militias move heavy weaponry close to the so-called contact lines. All indications suggest that the NATO-backed Kiev regime is mobilizing for a renewed offensive on the mainly ethnic Russian Donbas region comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

So far, the militia of the DPR and LPR have repelled the offensive, with dozens of casualties reportedly suffered by the Kiev regime’s military.

The timing of the large-scale attacks on Donbas comes just as the US and its NATO allies incur a strategic setback in their covert war for regime change in Syria. The liberation of the battleground city of Aleppo last week by the Syrian army, supported by Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies, portends the end of the nearly six-year conflict in Syria.

The routing of jihadist militants from Aleppo, who had been backed covertly by the US and certain NATO powers, including Britain and France, has signaled the end of the regime-change project in Syria to oust the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

NATO member Turkey had played a key role in the US-led dirty war on Syria, serving as a conduit for fighters and arms to the proxy jihadist militants trying to overthrow Assad – a longtime ally of both Russia and Iran.

But now Turkey seems to be aligning with Russia and Iran to bring an end to the war in neighboring Syria.

This week, foreign and defense ministers from Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow to declare their commitment to end the Syrian conflict.

The New York Times reported: “Russia, Iran and Turkey meet for Syria talks, excluding the US”. Pointedly, it added: “The new alignment and absence of any Western powers at the table all but guarantee that President Bashar al-Assad will continue to rule Syria under any resulting agreement.”

In other words, it’s “game over” for Washington and its criminal enterprise to subvert Syria.

The setback for American imperialist scheming in the Middle East cannot be overstated. For decades, US rulers have seen it as their God-given exceptional right to roll over any foreign government deemed unfit for their geopolitical interests. Syria was among target countries on the American hit-list, which came into action back in March 2011 when the US and its NATO partners and regional client regime unleashed hell with terror proxies.

US ambitions of conquest in the oil-rich region have now been dealt a stunning blow after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered military operation at the end of 2015 to support the Syrian state, along with Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

Despite a massive propaganda campaign orchestrated by the Western media and Washington puppets at the United Nations, the Syrian army and its allies have won a historic victory in retaking Aleppo from NATO-backed jihadists.

Not only is this a bitter military defeat for Washington. It is a political and moral triumph over Western lies as told through major media corporations. The latter were saturated with claims of atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by Syrian and Russian forces. Those reckless claims have now been exposed as blatant fabrications, as the people of Aleppo openly celebrate liberation from Western-backed jihadists who had imposed a reign of terror on large parts of the city for nearly four years.

It seems significant that only days after the liberation of Aleppo, Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov was brutally assassinated

in Turkey’s capital Ankara, when a gunman shot him in the back as he addressed a cultural event. The murder was evidently aimed at derailing the political talks underway between Turkey, Russia and Iran. Who would benefit from such an atrocity? Obviously, the US-led NATO powers.

If NATO military intelligence did not specifically order the assassination of Karlov, we can at least say that Washington and its Western allies certainly created the climate of hatred and demonization that made the Russian diplomat a “legitimate target”.

A further significant development is the renewed offensive by the NATO-backed Kiev regime against the ethnic Russian people of east Ukraine. Again, this provocative move comes only days after the spectacular military victory by Russia and its allies against NATO’s jihadist proxies in Aleppo, and possibly now for the whole of Syria.

Make no mistake, the reactionary junta that seized power in Kiev is a surrogate for NATO’s long-held offensive designs on Russia. Citing unsubstantiated “fears” of Russian aggression, NATO has given itself a license to escalate troops and missiles on Russia’s border. Washington and its European lackeys have financed, armed and trained the Kiev regime. This week, British defense minister Michael Fallon announced more British army training for Kiev’s forces, claiming that it was to counter Russian aggression. Fallon had the cheek to spout this nonsense in the same week that the assaults on eastern Ukraine have surged.

At a NATO-Russia summit in Brussels earlier this week, the US-led military alliance had the gall to call on Moscow to influence "Russian separatists" in Donbas to "honor the Minsk ceasefire".

Russian delegate to NATO Alexander Grushko reportedly introduced some reality to the meeting by pointing out the hundreds of violations being committed in recent days by the Kiev regime. Such violations are par for the course, since the NATO-backed junta first launched its offensive on the region back in 2014, and which has resulted in up to 10,000 deaths.

As with the Syrian war, Washington and its NATO allies, aided and abetted by the Western news (sic) media, play with semantics and illusions, and insult common intelligence. In Ukraine, NATO is waging a covert war every bit as it was in Syria, where as many as 400,000 people have been killed and from which Europe is struggling with its greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War, including the threat of terror attacks as seen in France and Germany this week.

Shamelessly, Washington and its Western subordinates accuse Russia of hybrid warfare and aggression. The reaction to defeat in Syria through ramping up conflict in Ukraine shows that it is the US-led NATO alliance that is the real culprit of hybrid war and aggression.

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/authors/finian_cunningham/

Enviros Red Card Kinder Morgan TransMountain Greenlight

Federal approval of Kinder Morgan pipeline project unlawful

by Raincoast Conservation

Dec 20, 2016

Conservation groups launch lawsuit that challenges the federal Cabinet’s approval of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline project.

 

VANCOUVER – “Cabinet should never have approved the Kinder Morgan project,” said Dyna Tuytel, Ecojustice lawyer.

“The National Energy Board’s report that Cabinet relied on to make its decision had a serious legal shortcoming – it failed to apply mandatory legal protections for the endangered Southern Resident killer whales. We’ll be asking the court to overturn the government’s unlawful approval and send it back to Cabinet with instructions that it has to meet all of the legal requirements.”

Ecojustice lawyers, representing Living Oceans Society and Raincoast Conservation Foundation, have applied to the court for leave for a judicial review of federal Cabinet’s approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline project. The groups argue that Cabinet broke the law when it relied on the National Energy Board’s report that used an overly narrow interpretation of the law to avoid addressing harm to endangered Southern Resident killer whales and their critical habitat.

“Kinder Morgan’s project would cause a seven-fold oil tanker increase through the Southern Resident killer whales’ critical habitat,” said Paul Paquet, Raincoast Conservation Foundation senior scientists.

“Not only will this increase the risk of spills in their habitat but it will lead to more noise in an already noisy ocean that interferes with their feeding and communication. We have consistently said that approving this project is approving the probable extinction of the Southern Resident killer whales. We can’t let that happen.”

Evidence has shown that there is a greater than 50% chance that the Southern Resident killer whales will decline to such a small number that they will be on an irreversible path to extinction within the next century if Kinder Morgan’s project goes ahead as planned.

“The federal government has said time and again that it is committed to protecting the environment and slowing climate change, and making evidence-based decisions” said Karen Wristen, Living Oceans Society executive director.

“Its approval of Kinder Morgan’s project is a direct contradiction of those promises that jeopardises the health and safety of the coastal environment and communities. We are asking the court to make sure that the risks this project poses are addressed as required by law.”

Ecojustice lawyers are also representing Living Oceans Society and Raincoast Conservation Foundation in their legal challenge against the National Energy Board’s report of the Kinder Morgan project.

-30-

Palast's Sense of Snow: Chasing an Election Thief

A Note in the Snow

by Greg Palast

December 18, 2016

Last week, I flew to Detroit with my team at the request of a major west coast publication. When I landed, they got cold feet; assignment cancelled. Without funding to continue, I should have headed home.

But I was getting tips of nasty doings with the ballots in Motown.

I could get the evidence that Trump’s victory was as real as his tan.

So I tucked my long-johns under my suit, put on my fedora, and headed out to meet the witnesses, see the evidence and film an investigative report on the Theft of Michigan. With almost no sleep (and no pay), my producer David Ambrose and I put together an investigative film—and donated it, no charge, to Democracy Now! and several other outlets.

As to the airfares, hotels, cars, camera batteries, sound equipment, local assistants and the rest, the bills have piled high as the snow and uncounted ballots. So, here I was, literally out in the cold, hoping you'd see the value of top-flight investigative reporting.

So, buddy, can you spare a dime? Or $100 or so? For that, I’ll send you my new film, the one that, back in September, told you exactly how Trump would steal it. Or a signed copy of the book that goes with it: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, a tale of billionaires and ballot bandits.

I want to thank all of you who donated to get me to Washington DC to testify at the ad hoc Congressional hearing and to speak with the Justice Department about the suppression of minority votes.

(On Monday, I was joined at the Washington Press Club by the nation’s top voting rights attorney, Barbara Arnwine; civil rights legend Ruby Sales; Muslim activist Sameera Khan. They announced plans to take legal and political action against Crosscheck, the Trumpistas’ latest Jim Crow tactic, the one our team uncovered for Rolling Stone. Khan joined me at Justice to present them 50,000 signatures (we unloaded reams of paper on them) gathered by 18 Million Rising, the Asian American advocacy group, to light a fire under Justice.

On Tuesday, I joined the presidents of the NAACP chapters of Michigan and Wisconsin and other front-line voting rights leaders, to plan next steps for this week, for this year, for this decade.

My presentation to Justice, to Congressmen and rights advocates, to the press, was so much more powerful because I arrived in DC with the goods, the evidence, the film, the facts from Michigan, from the scene of the electoral crime.

So, in the end, my assignment wasn’t cancelled: I went to work for YOU. Because I have faith that my readers agree that this work is important, that I’m not on some fool’s errand.

The US media doesn’t want to cover the vote theft—because, hey, the count is over—and we should get over it. I am not over it. I am standing my ground. Let me know if you think I’ve made the right decision. Feed the team. I have nothing to offer you in return except some signed discs and books (or the Combo)— and the facts.



Continue Supporting the 2016 Stolen Election Investigation because it ain’t over and we’re not done. – Greg Palast



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No Debate: Zionism's Single Meaning

Stifling the Debate on Israel: For Palestinians, Zionism Only Means One Thing

by Ramzy Baroud - ramzybaroud.net

December 21, 2016

The British government of Theresa May officially adopted on December 12 a new definition of anti-Semitism that includes legitimate criticism of Israel.

The definition was adopted earlier in the year by a pro-Israeli group IHRA, although it was considered but abandoned by the European anti-racism agency in 2005.

It is also a rather dangerous move which will most likely lead to an expanding chasm between British civil society and Britain’s political elite.

Israeli and pro-Israeli groups in the West have always been keen on conflating genuine racism and genuine criticism of the state of Israel, which stands accused of violating scores of United Nations resolutions and of war crimes in the occupied territories, especially Gaza.

Adopting the new definition comes on the heels of a manufactured crisis in British politics, in which the Labor Party under Jeremy Corbyn was falsely accused of being 'soft' on anti-Semitism among its members. This 'crisis' was engineered by pro-Israeli groups to detract from genuine campaigning among Labor supporters, in order to bind Israel to its international obligations, and end the siege and occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Last October, a cross-party group issued a report that contributed to the confusion of ideas, condemning the use of the word 'Zionist' as pejorative, and claiming that such a use "has no place in civil society.'

While efforts to protect Israel from freedom of speech in Britain are still gathering steam, the debate in the United States has been stifled long ago. There is little room for any criticism of Israel in mainstream American media or ‘polite’ society. Effectively, this means that US policy in the Middle East remains beholden only to Israeli interests, the diktats of its powerful pressure and lobby groups.

Following suit, the UK is now adopting that same self-defeating position, an issue which is hardly new. In fact, Friday of last week was an anniversary of great relevance to this very issue.

On December 16, 1991, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 46/86, a single, reticent statement:

"The General Assembly decides to revoke the determination contained in its resolution 3379 (XXX) of 10 November 1975."

This was a reversal of an earlier resolution that equated Israel's political ideology, Zionism and racism.

The longer text of the initial resolution, 3379 of 1975 was based on a clear set of principles, including UN resolution 2106 of 1965 that defined racial discrimination as "any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin."

The reversal of that resolution was the outcome of vigorous US lobbying and pressures that lasted for years. In 1991, Israel had insisted that it would not join the US-sponsored Madrid peace talks without the disavowal of 3379 first. With the UN being one of the Madrid Talks’ sponsors, the US pressure paid its dividends at last, and UN members were obliged to overturn their early verdicts.

However, equating Zionism with racism is not the only comparison that is often conjured by Israel’s critics.

Recently, Ecuadorian envoy to the United Nations, Horacio Sevilla was adamant in his comments before a UN session, marking November 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

After he repudiated "with all our strength the persecution and genocide" unleashed by "Nazism against the Hebrew people," he added, “but I cannot remember anything more similar in our contemporary history than the eviction, persecution and genocide that today imperialism and Zionism do against the Palestinian people.”

The tirade of condemnations that followed was expected, as Israeli officials seized yet another opportunity to hurl anti-Semitic accusations against the United Nations for persistently targeting Israel, while, supposedly, excluding others from censure.

As far as Israel is concerned, any criticism of the state and its political ideology is anti-Semitic as are any demands for accountability from Israel regarding its military conducts during war.

But why is Israel so concerned with definitions?

At the heart of Israel's very existence lurks a sense of vulnerability which all the nuclear warheads and firepower cannot redeem.

Outlawing the use of the term Zionism is ludicrous and impractical, if not altogether impossible.

For Israelis who embrace the term, Zionism is many things, while for Palestinians, who learned to loathe it, it is, ultimately a single ideology.

In an article published in 2012, Israeli author, Uri Avnery, acknowledged the many shades of Zionism – early socialist Zionism (obsessed with the color red, and mobilizing around Jewish-only unions and Kibbutzim); religious Zionism which sees itself as the “forerunner of the Messiah”; right-wing Zionism which demands a "Jewish state in all of historical Palestine", and secular, liberal Zionism as envisioned by its founder, Theodor Herzl.

For a Palestinian whose land was illegally confiscated, home demolished and life endangered by these very ‘Zionist’ forces, Avnery's itemization is insignificant. For them the term ‘Zionist’ is essentially pejorative, and is anyone who advocates, participates in or justifies Israeli aggressive actions based on his/her support and sympathy for political Zionism.

In his article, “Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims”, the late Palestinian Professor Edward Said elaborates: "It is not unreasonable to find that the entire Palestinian-Arab experience seems unanimous about the view that Zionism visited upon the Arabs a singular injustice," and that even before the British handed Palestine over to Zionist settlers upon which to establish a state formally in 1948, Palestinians universally opposed and variously tried to resist Zionist colonialism."

Many countries share the Palestinian perception of Zionism as a form of colonialism, and that prevailing perception is a historical fact, not a product of collective anti-Semitic illusion.

The reason why the question and debate of Zionism must not waver to any intimidation is that the essence of Zionism never matured, evolved or changed from its early, colonial version.

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe agrees. “The Zionist ideology and strategy has not changed from its very beginning,” he wrote.

“The idea was ‘We want to create a Jewish state in Palestine but also a Jewish democracy’. So the Zionists needed to have a Jewish majority all the time .. Therefore, ethnic cleansing was the only real solution from the Zionist perspective ...”

This remains the main driving force behind Israeli policy towards Palestinians, and Israel’s refusal to break away from a 19th century colonial enterprise into a modern, democratic state for all its citizens.

To do so, would be to sacrifice the core of its Zionist ideology, constructed on an amalgam of ethno-religious identities, and to embrace a universal form of democracy in a state where Jews and Arabs are treated as equals.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include “Searching Jenin”, “The Second Palestinian Intifada” and his latest “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story”. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.

The Appeals Before Christmas: Kinder Morgan Decision Challenged

City of Burnaby to appeal Kinder Morgan decision before Christmas

by Tereza Verenca - Burnaby Now

Dec. 19, 2016

The City of Burnaby is joining forces with a handful of First Nations, non-governmental agencies and cities to appeal the federal cabinet’s approval of the proposed Trans Mountain expansion project next week.

Mayor Derek Corrigan told the Burnaby Now the city must submit its documents to the Federal Court of Appeal before Christmas.

“(It’s) a very short time period for appeal, 15 days I think, so it doesn’t give us much time to get ready for it,” he said.

“Again, it continues the process we’ve been committed to, exhausting the legal remedies that are available to us and making sure we do everything we can within the legal framework to defend our interests.”

Corrigan said the city plans to stick to the arguments it has made in the past, including the “failure of the process.”

“I think all of us were extremely dissatisfied with the way the process and with the way the process was conducted, and the things the process refused to look at, and those kinds of flaws, I think, are going to be very important to draw to the attention of the court,” he added.

The city will also argue that the National Energy Board (NEB) did not properly consider alternative routes and failed to hold oral cross-examination. Rather than oral cross-examination, the NEB allowed intervenors to submit information requests, which gave Kinder Morgan an opportunity to respond in writing.

“By saying OK, what’s the best route or what are the implications of this to the harbour, those kind of places are where the NEB shuts itself off from making any consideration, and those are crucial issues to be discussed,” said Corrigan.

He expects the legal battles between opposed First Nations groups and Kinder Morgan to be “front and centre.”

In June, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled the federal government under the Harper Conservatives did not adequately consult with First Nations groups when it came to the Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline.

The Liberal cabinet rejected Northern Gateway on Nov. 29, the same day Trans Mountain was approved.

Corrigan said he’s “relatively confident” Kinder Morgan could face the same fate.

“It’s very difficult to stop the federal government from doing what it wants to do,” he said.

“But this process has been so fundamentally flawed that they’ve made themselves vulnerable. … I think there may be an inclination on the part of the court to say this hasn’t been a process that has addressed the issues.”

Aboriginal support for the project is “strong and growing,” according to Trans Mountain.

Fifty-one aboriginal communities have signed Mutual Benefit Agreements (12 new signees since the announcement), which will bring more than $400 million to those communities. The 51 agreements (10 in Alberta and 41 in B.C.) include all of the First Nations whose reserves the pipeline crosses and around 80 per cent of communities close to the pipeline right-of-way.

“Together with these communities, we worked very hard to establish a relationship built upon respect, trust and openness,” said Ian Anderson, president of Kinder Morgan Canada, in a press release.

“These MBAs represent not only an agreement to share opportunity and provide prosperity, but a symbol of recognition of a shared respect.”

Trans Mountain spokesperson Ali Hounsell told the NOW the company will not be commenting on the city’s appeal until it’s filed next week.

The NEB, meanwhile, said it can’t provide a statement on the city’s claims because the matter is before the courts.

Another legal battle

The City of Burnaby was in the B.C. Court of Appeal on Dec. 8 to argue a ruling that favoured Kinder Morgan.

Burnaby’s case challenged whether federal jurisdiction for major projects, like pipelines, can overrule city laws. Previously, a judge determined the NEB was right by previously overruling Burnaby’s bylaw, which forbade the company from cutting trees while doing survey work in the Burnaby Mountain conservation area.

“The hearing went well,” said city lawyer Greg McDade of last week’s hearing.

“We went to B.C. Supreme Court to argue that our bylaws were valid and Trans Mountain went to the National Energy Board and got the National Energy Board to decide that question first, and then after that, our court wouldn’t decide it because they said the National Energy Board already had,” McDade explained.

“Our argument is that the B.C. Supreme Court is the one with jurisdiction. … We want judges to determine this stuff, not federal energy bodies.”

The lawyer is remaining optimistic that the decision will come down in the city’s favour because of a recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling in Windsor, Ont., which involved a federally incorporated transportation carrier that refused to cooperate with the city’s bylaws. The top court sided with the city over the issue of jurisdiction and ruled that the case should be heard in provincial court.

“That’s effectively what we’re trying to do,” said McDade in regards to Burnaby’s case.

“When we argue about whether the pipeline has to follow municipal bylaws, do we get a fair hearing in B.C. superior courts or are we in front of a tribunal who only cares about pipelines?”

He added even though the “damage is already done” to the conservation area, it’s about “the future” and that “it doesn’t happen again.”

“It’s really about if they get to build this pipeline, will the city be able to control, through its bylaws, construction, safety, noise, traffic, a whole host of things the city normally controls or does Trans Mountain get a free pass?”

The decision was reserved and a judgement won’t be made for a couple of months.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Eric de Place, Ken Boon December 21, 2016

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

December 21, 2016

Late last month, the federal Liberals okayed the Kinder Morgan TransMountain Pipeline. The contentious project would see a new pipeline built from the Tar Sands of Alberta, across the Rockies and the breadth of B.C. to Burnaby. From there, diluted bitumen would be shipped to offshore refineries, primarily in Asia.

The TransMountain would be a tough sell anyplace, but in eco-conscious British Columbia, where pipelines promise high risk for little economic return, it's especially fractious. Then there's the matter of just who's behind it. Despite a massive public relations campaign being waged to assuage environmental concerns, disastrous news headlines the Texas-based Kinder Morgan has generated do little to reassure nervous British Columbians.

Listen. Hear.

Eric de Place is policy director with the Washington State-based Sightline Institute, an independent, nonprofit research and communications center. He spearheads Sightline's work on energy policy, is a leading expert on coal and oil export plans in the Pacific Northwest, and is considered an authority on a range of issues connected to fossil fuel transport, including carbon emissions, local pollution, transportation system impacts, rail policy, and economics.

Eric de Place in the first half.

And; even as Mr. Trudeau's government throws open British Columbia's gates to the Tar Sands fossil fuel colossus it has gone one further, allowing the Site C mega dam proceed. Site C, listeners may recall, is the project that defies both rhyme and reason, dedicated as it is to creating power no one needs for prices no one will pay, while destroying some of the finest farm land in the province, thousands of acres of the Peace River Valley. Opposed by local First Nations, farmers, ranchers, and the environmental community, even the chair of the government's own panel, set up to rubber stamp this multi-generational white elephant, says the deal stinks.

Ken Boon is president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association. He a Peace River Valley farmer, and his family farm was recently expropriated by the BC Hydro project for a connecting highway scheme.

Ken Boon and Site C, running a river to ruin in the Peace Valley in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus, Janine Bandcroft will not be joining us this week with her usual events line up due to lack of activity this holiday week to come. So, first up, Eric de Place and "Law-Breaking, Pollution, Cover-Ups," taking a longer look at Mr. Trudeau' favored pipeline company.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

A Christmas Redemption Tale: How Al Qaeda Turned Hate into Love

An al Qaeda Christmas: the Touching Tale of How Hate Figures Became American Heroes

by Chris Floyd - CounterPunch

December 20, 2016

You’re al Qaeda. You’re being supported by the United States in your jihad to impose extremist rule on Syria, but you still have a PR problem; too many people remember all that unpleasant business from so long ago when you blew up a few buildings in the US. What can you do?

Well, first you change the name of your Syrian branch two or three times. You make sure your spokesmen — who actually get respectfully quoted in the US media! — say moderate things in English but speak with genocidal sectarian fury in Arabic. So far, so good. But what if your new US media buddies actually got a peek at how you operate on the ground in Syria — cutting off heads, hoarding food aid, colluding with ISIS, slaughtering religious minorities, oppressing women, etc.? That’s easy: as Patrick Cockburn noted this week, you simply make the zones you control so dangerous for reporters – killing them, kidnapping them, etc. — that they don’t go there anymore. Instead they “report” on your activities from far away, relying on you to provide their information, telling the story you want told.

And presto chango, that’s how those who murdered Americans have become America’s newest heroes, the brave defenders of freedom in Syria. What’s more, anyone who dares point out the true nature of your organization, and how you operate, are now denounced as apologists for the loathsome Assad regime, or as Putin-lovers, even as traitors! Think of it; just a few years ago, you were the most reviled and hated group Americans had ever known — and now Americans across the media and political spectrum hail you as heroes and defend you from all attacks!

Sure, you’ve lost your foothold in Aleppo, where for years you systematically persecuted people and forcibly prevented them from leaving. But America’s still got your back, AQ! Even when you attack relief convoys in an attempt to scuttle a peace deal that would allow anyone who wants to leave East Aleppo to go free, the American media will fudge the headlines so no one will know that it was you who did the deed.

[And hey, let’s not forget what America’s been doing for you in Yemen! Remember how the Houthis had you on the ropes, nearly ridding the country of your presence — and then the Americans stepped in with their Saudi allies, bombing the holy hell out of the place, choking off food and medicine supplies, destroying the infrastructure for basic survival, killing thousands of civilians and putting millions of people at dire risk of starvation! And suddenly you were back, making great gains, stronger than ever! You simply couldn’t ask for a better friend, could you?]

So buck up, AQ! With the full weight of the American media and political establishment behind you, no doubt there are still great days ahead! In fact, the president has just made it easier for you guys to get even more American weapons so you can carry on your noble quest!

It’s just our way of saying Merry Christmas!

Chris Floyd is a columnist for CounterPunch Magazine. His blog, Empire Burlesque, can be found at www.chris-floyd.com.

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Sad Losers: Bad Politics and Denial Dog Democrat Dead-Enders

The Bad Losers (and what they fear losing)

by Diane Johnstone - CounterPunch

December 19, 2016

Paris - If the 2016 presidential campaign was a national disgrace, the reaction of the losers is an even more disgraceful spectacle. It seems that the political machine backing Hillary Clinton can’t stand losing an election.

And why is that? Because they are determined to impose “exceptional” America’s hegemony on the entire world, using military-backed regime changes, and Donald Trump seems poised to spoil their plans.

The entire Western establishment, roughly composed of neoconservative ideologues, liberal interventionists, financial powers, NATO, mainstream media and politicians in both the United States and Western Europe, committed to remaking the Middle East to suit Israel and Saudi Arabia and to shattering impertinent Russia, have been thrown into an hysterical panic at the prospect of their joint globalization project being sabotaged by in ignorant intruder.

Donald Trump’s expressed desire to improve relations with Russia throws a monkey wrench into the plans endorsed by Hillary Clinton to “make Russia pay” for its bad attitude in the Middle East and elsewhere. If he should do what he has promised, this could be a serious blow to the aggressive NATO buildup on Russia’s European borders, not to mention serious losses to the U.S. arms industry planning to sell billions of dollars worth of superfluous weapons to NATO allies on the pretext of the “Russian threat”.

The war party’s fears may be exaggerated, inasmuch as Trump’s appointments indicate that the United States’ claim to be the “exceptional”, indispensable nation will probably survive the changes in top personnel. But the emphasis may be different. And those accustomed to absolute rule cannot tolerate the challenge.

Bad Losers On the Top

Members of the U.S. Congress, the mainstream media, the CIA and even President Obama have made fools of themselves and the nation by claiming that the Clintonite cabal lost because of Vladimir Putin. Insofar as the rest of the world takes this whining seriously, it should further increase Putin’s already considerable prestige. If true, the notion that Moscovite hacking could defeat the favorite candidate of the
entire U.S. power establishment can only mean that the United States’ political structure is so fragile that a few disclosed emails can cause its collapse. A government notorious for snooping into everybody’s private communication, as well as for overthrowing one government after another by less subtle means, and whose agents boasted of scaring the Russians into re-elected the abysmally unpopular Boris Yeltsin in 1996, now seems to be crying pathetically, “Mommy, Vlady is playing with my hacking toys!”

Of course, Russians would quite naturally prefer a U.S. president who openly shies away from the possibility of starting a nuclear war with Russia. That doesn’t make Russia “an enemy”, it is just a sign of good sense. Nor does it mean that Putin is so naïve as to imagine that Moscow could throw the election by a few dirty tricks. The current Russian leaders, unlike their Washington counterparts, tend to take a longer view, rather than imagining that the course of history can be changed by a banana peel.

This whole miserable spectacle is nothing but a continuation of the Russophobia exploited by Hillary Clinton to distract from her own multiple scandals. As the worst loser in American electoral history, she must blame Russia, rather than recognize that there were multiple reasons to vote against her.

The propaganda machine has found a response to unwelcome news: it must be fake. The Washington conspiracy theorists are outdoing themselves this time. The Russian geeks supposedly knew that by revealing a few Democratic National Committee internal messages, they could ensure the election of Donald Trump. What tremendous prescience!

Obama promises retaliation against Russia for treating the United States the way the United States treats, well, Honduras (and even Russia itself until blocked by Putin). Putin retorted that so far as he knew, the United States was not a banana republic, but a great power able to protect its elections. Washington is loudly denying that. The same mainstream media who brought you Saddam’s “weapons of mass destruction” are now bringing you this preposterous conspiracy theory with straight faces.

When intelligence agencies become aware of the activities of rival intelligence agencies, they usually keep the knowledge to themselves, as part of the mutual spook game. Going public with this wild tale shows that the whole point is to persuade the American public that Trump’s election is illegitimate, in the hope of defeating him in the electoral college or, if that fails, of crippling his presidency by labeling him a “Putin stooge”.

Bad Losers On the Bottom

At least the bad losers on the top know what they are doing and have a purpose. The bad losers on the bottom are expressing emotions without clear objectives. It is false self-dramatization to call for “Resistance” as if the country had been invaded by extraterrestrials. The U.S. electoral system is outmoded and bizarre, but Trump played the game by the rules. He campaigned to win swing States, not a popular majority, and that’s what he got.

The problem isn’t Trump but a political system which reduces the people’s choice to two hated candidates, backed by big bucks.

Whatever they think or feel, the largely youthful anti-Trump protesters in the streets create an image of hedonistic consumer society’s spoiled brats who throw tantrums when they don’t get what they want. Of course, some are genuinely concerned about friends who are illegal immigrants and fear deportation. It is quite possible to organize in their defense. The protesters may be mostly disappointed Bernie Sanders supporters, but whether they like it or not, their protests amount to a continuation of the dominant themes in Hillary Clinton’s negative campaign.

She ran on fear. In the absence of any economic program to respond to the needs of millions of voters who showed their preference for Sanders, and of those who turned to Trump simply because of his vague promise to create jobs, her campaign exaggerated the portent of Trump’s most politically incorrect statements, creating the illusion that Trump was a violent racist whose only program was to arouse hatred. Still worse, Hillary stigmatized millions of voters as “a basket of deplorables, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.” These remarks were made to an LGBT rally, as part of her identity politics campaign to win over a clientele of minorities by stigmatizing the dwindling white majority. The identity politics premise is that ethnic and sexual minorities are oppressed and thus morally superior to the white majority, which is the implied oppressor.

It is this tendency to sort people into morally distinct categories that divides Americans against each other, every bit as much – or more – than Trump’s hyperbole about Mexican or Islamic immigrants. It has served to convince many devotees of political correctness to regard white working class Americans in the “fly-over” regions as enemy invaders who threaten to send them all to concentration camps.

Terrified of what Trump may do, his opponents tend to ignore what the lame ducks are actually doing. The last gasp Clintonite campaign to blame Hillary’s defeat on “fake news”, supposedly inspired by The Enemy, Russia, is a facet of the growing drive to censor the Internet – previously for child pornography, or for anti-Semitism, and next on the pretext of combating “fake news”, meaning whatever goes contrary to the official line. This threat to freedom of expression is more sinister than eleven-year-old locker-room macho boasts by Trump.

There will and should be strong political opposition to whatever reactionary domestic policies are adopted by the Trump administration. But such opposition should define the issues and work for specific goals, instead of expressing a global rejection that is non-functional.

The hysterical anti-Trump reaction is unable to grasp the implications of the campaign to blame Hillary’s defeat on Putin. Do the kids in the street really want war with Russia? I doubt it. But they do not perceive that for all its glaring faults, the Trump presidency provides an opportunity to avoid war with Russia. This is a window of opportunity than will be slammed shut if the Clintonite establishment and the War Party get their way. Whether they realize it or not, the street protesters are helping that establishment delegitimatize Trump and sabotage the one positive element in his program: peace with Russia.

Adjustments in the Enemy List

By its fatally flawed choices in the Middle East and in Ukraine, the United States foreign policy establishment has driven itself into a collision course with Russia. Unable to admit that the United States backed the wrong horse in Syria, the War Party sees no choice but to demonize and “punish” Russia, with the risk of dipping into the Pentagon’s vast arsenal of argument-winning nuclear weapons. Anti-Russian propaganda has reached extremes exceeding those of the Cold War. What can put an end to this madness? What can serve to create normal attitudes and relations concerning that proud nation which aspires primarily simply to be respected and to promote old-fashioned international law based on national sovereignty? How can the United States make peace with Russia?

It is clear that in capitalist, chauvinist America there is no prospect of shifting to a peace policy by putting David Swanson in charge of U.S. foreign relations, however desirable that might be.

Realistically, the only way that capitalist America can make peace with Russia is through capitalist business. And that is what Trump proposes to do.

A bit of realism helps when dealing with reality. The choice of Exxon CEO Rex W. Tillerson as Secretary of State is the best step toward ending the current race toward war with Russia. “Make money not war” is the pragmatic American slogan for peace at this stage.

But the “resistance” to Trump is not likely to show support for this pragmatic peace policy. It is already encountering opposition in the war-loving Congress. Instead, by shouting “Trump is not my President!” the disoriented leftists are inadvertently strengthening that opposition, which is worse than Trump.

Avoiding war with Russia will not transform Washington into a haven of sweetness and light. Trump is an aggressive personality, and the opportunistic aggressive personalities of the establishment, notably his pro-Israel friends, will help him turn U.S. aggression in other directions. Trump’s attachment to Israel is nothing new, but appears to be particularly uncompromising. In that context, Trump’s extremely harsh words for Iran are ominous, and one must hope that his stated rejection of “regime change” war applies in that case as well as others. Trump’s anti-China rhetoric also sounds bad, but in the long run there is little he or the United States can do to prevent China from becoming once again the “indispensable nation” it used to be during most of its long history. Tougher trade deals will not lead to the Apocalypse.

The Failure of the Intellectual Establishment

The sad image today of Americans as bad losers, unable to face reality, must be attributed in part to the ethical failure of the so-called 1968 generation of intellectuals. In a democratic society, the first duty of men and women with the time, inclination and capacity to study reality seriously is to share their knowledge and understanding with people who lack those privileges. The generation of academics whose political consciousness was temporarily raised by the tragedy of the Vietnam war should have realized that their duty was to use their position to educate the American people, notably about the world that Washington proposed to redesign and its history. However, the new phase of hedonistic capitalism offered the greatest opportunities for intellectuals in manipulating the masses rather than educating them.

 The consumer society marketing even invented a new phase of identity politics, with the youth market, the gay market, and so on. In the universities, a critical mass of “progressive” academics retreated into the abstract world of post-modernism, and have ended up focusing the attention of youth on how to react to other people’s sex lives or “gender identification”. Such esoteric stuff feeds the publish or perish syndrome and prevents academics in the humanities from having to teach anything that might be deemed critical of U.S. military spending or its failing efforts to assert its eternal domination of the globalized world. The worst controversy coming out of academia concerns who should use which toilet.

If the intellectual snobs on the coasts can sneer with such self-satisfaction at the poor “deplorables” in flyover land, it is because they themselves have ignored their primary social duty of seeking truth and sharing it. Scolding people for their “wrong” attitudes while setting the social example of unrestrained personal promotion can only produce the anti-elite reaction called “populism”. Trump is the revenge of people who feel manipulated, forgotten and despised. However flawed, he is the only choice they had to express their revolt in a rotten election. The United States is deeply divided ideologically, as well as economically. The United States is threatened, not by Russia, but by its own internal divisions and the inability of Americans not only yto understand the world, but even to understand each other.  

Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. Her new book is Queen of Chaos: the Misadventures of Hillary Clinton. She can be reached at diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr

More articles by:Diana Johnstone

 The memoirs of Diana Johnstone’s father Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness, are soon to be published by Clarity Press, with her commentary.