U.S. History and Politics

This civilization’s callous exploitation of human labour and nature is finally coming to an end. It may take yet another century, but that is not really too long to wait. Civilizations previous to capitalism (such as the Aztec, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian and Persian) lasted much longer.

Bound by his own time and space, Marx’s perspective was still essentially Eurocentric, and hence his memorable phrase: “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism”.  In our own time, it is now the spectre of the oppressed nations of the world (most significantly, the nationalism of the countries of the South) that is “haunting Europe” … and America. And here is where we might take a leaf from Sander’s book when referring to Trump’s victory in the US elections. Sanders is prepared to work with Trump provided Trump protects matters of social security. On our part in the South, I suggest we work with Trump provided he respects our nationalism and our sovereignty.  We resist him if he tries, like Obama, to continue with the US policy of “regime change” in the Global South.

However, we must distinguish between two very different species of nationalisms – one offensive and the other defensive.  A bit of history is a good guide. The first kind of nationalism – the aggressive and fascist – was put in place by Mussolini when he became Italy’s Prime Minister in 1922.  He appealed to the popular sense of Italy’s imperial past and promoted its restoration in the Mediterranean Sea and Africa.  He built closer relations with Germany, especially after Hitler came became its Chancellor in January 1933.  In October 1935, with a 100,000 strong army Mussolini invaded the ancient land of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia).  In Germany Hitler declared war on two fronts – internally against the Jews; and externally against Europe as a prelude to conquer the world for a “pure” Aryan race. Then there is the “defensive nationalism”. The anti-colonial struggle for liberation from the European Empire was defensive. The continuing struggle of the Global South (Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean) from the American-European-Japanese imperialism is defensive nationalism. This does not contradict our effort at regional integration – for example, the East African Community.  Unlike the European Union, which is an aggressive project, the EAC is a defensive project.

In her All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, Nomi Prins, drawing on original presidential archival documents, shows the intimate link between the White House (the State) and Wall Street (Finance Capital).  Prins should know. She has worked as managing director at Goldman Sachs, as a Lehman Brothers strategist, and as a Chase Manhattan Bank analyst. Then she left the world of finance. “I was probably soul-searching a while before I left … when I got to Goldman Sachs I realized that the nature of how business was done was not something I wanted to be involved with”.

In her All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, Nomi Prins, drawing on original presidential archival documents, shows the intimate link between the White House (the State) and Wall Street (Finance Capital).  Prins should know. She has worked as managing director at Goldman Sachs, as a Lehman Brothers strategist, and as a Chase Manhattan Bank analyst. Then she left the world of finance. “I was probably soul-searching a while before I left … when I got to Goldman Sachs I realized that the nature of how business was done was not something I wanted to be involved with”. [v]

Smaller countries such as Greece, Portugal, Latvia, and Ireland who can no longer create their own money have been looted by the private banks from whom they borrow to finance their debts.

Trump as a Presidential candidate said a lot of outrageous things. Equally, much of the political “left-liberals” in Europe and America reacted with what can only be described as hysteric panic attack.  They said Trump will round up Muslims and Mexicans and put them in jail together with Hillary Clinton; encourage the Ku Klux Klan to return to the old days of slavery; unleash mass repression of women and LGBTs; abolish the health care; endanger the planet with his cavalier attitude towards the environment; appoint his racist and anti-Semitic friends in his cabinet; and bring an apocalyptic extinction of the liberal world order.

Others have referred to this as “the Deep State” – or state within state – which controls policy irrespective of what political party is in power. In the next segment we analyse the military-industrial-financial complex in the US as an essential part of the Establishment. But there are other aspects which are as potent as the military industrial complex. These include the academia (about which I will write another time), and the media.

Pilger cites Ukraine as “media triumph” in conditioning viewers and readers to accept a new cold war. Russia is maligned when, in fact, the 2014 coup in Ukraine was the work of the American intelligence establishment. Once again, it is “… the Ruskies are coming to get us, led by another Stalin, whom The Economist depicts as the devil”.  There is a systematic suppression of truth about Ukraine. It is, says Pilger, “one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember.”  There is an all-pervasive “media joie d’esprit – a class reunion of warmongers … inciting war with Russia”.

In April 2005, the US company Chevron and the China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) made competitive bids for Unocal, a Californian oil company.  The ferocious reaction of the Congress against the Chinese bid surprised nobody, except those deluded by the ideology of free flow of capital across borders.

Of course, it is different story if a “third world” country dares to exercise economic nationalism. In April 2012, Argentina’s President Christina Kirchner asked Congress, in the interest of securing “hydrocarbon self-sufficiency”, to nationalise oil and gas producer YPF, owned largely by the Spanish conglomerate Repsol YPF – a company that employs 24,000 workers globally and has revenue of

In addition to the 75% payment in principal and hefty interest accumulated over the years, thirteen years of hefty legal bills would also be picked up by Argentina. Estimates on the returns that the “super holdouts” will make on their investment in Argentina’s bonds range from three to five times what they had paid for the bonds

To the militarists in Washington, the real problem with Trump is that, in his lucid moments, he seems not to want a war with Russia; he wants to talk with the Russian president, not fight him; he says he wants to talk with the president of China.[iii]

Most “left-liberal” organisations in Europe come from a strong internationalist background and socialist ideology. They regularly identify nationalism with fascism or neo-fascism.  Why, one might ask, is “socialism” acceptable but not “nationalism”?  What’s wrong with nationalism?[iv]

There is a third reason, however.  And this is shared by the “liberal-left” Americans and Europeans alike.  This reason is Russia. Russia is often singled out in the Western mainstream media for its nationalism. For example, on 20 November 2014 the (London) Economist carried an article entitled: “Nationalism is back”. “The most serious threat to the stability of Europe …” it said, “remains Russian nationalism. The biggest security question facing Europe—and perhaps the world—will be whether President Putin rides the nationalist wave he has helped to create, and continues to threaten Ukraine and even the Baltic states.”[v]

The hysteria, no doubt, is a passing phenomenon. Some diehards will continue, perhaps even plot to assassinate him, but the rest will settle down to the demands of routine existence. We, on our part in Africa, need to make a cool, strategic assessment and consider what these elections mean for us.

He is described by his detractors as racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynist, and much else besides. I think these are exaggerated adjectives, but I understand where they come from, given the political climate and the degeneration of American democracy.  It is difficult to say how much of these were expressions of Trump’s generally macho personality and “locker-room” talk[i] in order to attract media attention. Trump had a running feud with the mainstream media, but the latter could not take their eyes off him. He is a dramatist par excellence. Hillary Clinton was simply no match.

If Trump defies the WTO and introduces protection for local American industries to create jobs, then he is on my kind of nationalism. We in Africa need to do the same. If he rejects (as he says) the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) pushed by Obama, then he can count on my support. He might scrape AGOA (which is divisive of Africa) and Obama’s “Power Africa” $7 billion initiative. That’s good too. These “initiatives” of Obama are to help corporate America, not Africa. If Trump talks with Russia, China, Iran and Syria, and defies Clinton’s war-mongering, then he could help forces of peace and reconciliation that the world badly needs.

if elected, Donald Trump would become the most powerful individual in the history of the world.

While the Republicans who vowed to make Obama a one-term president did not get their wish, they did mobilize angry white voters to take back Congress and most state legislatures. Although the resulting “gridlock” was a GOP concoction, voters, following the more thoughtless media, cursed both parties for heedless squabbling in the midst of crisis.

What’s more, the first black president retained his dignity, his humor, and much of his public standing while enduring constant assaults on his patriotism and even on his very legitimacy to hold the office. Anyone who minimizes the significance of Obama’s ability to overcome such full-throated ignorance and bigotry does not appreciate the heavy burden of American history.

For Poitras, the vexed act of truth-telling always hides the story of an earlier, even messier process of truth-finding. The show’s most lasting legacy may arise less from its political force—a sympathetic visitor leaves feeling alert, but hardly changed—than from its dramatization of the mutating nature of evidence itself.

In the case of drones, that evidence is everywhere and nowhere to be found. The terrifying testimonies of dronestrike survivors, who tell stories of slaughtered family members and incinerated villages, are freely available and amply documented, yet rarely appear in the mainstream media.

But that Monaco’s remarks even made headlines—albeit mainly in left outlets—speaks to the degree of simultaneous clarity and opacity, the conflicting stories, numbers, and reports, that cloud discussions of drone warfare.