Trump’s Trade War With China Begins

President Trump’s trade war with China is officially underway. As of today (July 6), a 25% tariff will be imposed upon $34 billion worth of Chinese goods exported to the US.

Last Friday, China’s Ministry of Commerce released a statement slamming the American policy, predicting that it will lead to “the largest trade war in economic history to date.” China, in response to what they deem “typical trade bullying” by the US, has levied its  own batch of tariffs on $34 billion worth of American products “ranging from vehicles to soybeans, beef and other agricultural products.”

On the campaign trail in 2016, a key component of then-candidate Trump’s message was that he would stand up to China on trade. By doing so, Trump promised he would bring jobs back to the US and usher in a new age of “America first” economic prosperity.

But was Trump correct? Will a trade war with China bolster the American economy?

Virtually every economist in America does not agree with the President’s strategy. Instead, they argue that Trump’s trade war with China will ultimately damage the economy and hurt both American business and the American consumer.

One particular way in which Trump’s trade war with China (specifically the retaliatory Chinese tariffs, of course) will impact the US economy is that it will make production more costly for American businesses.

How so? Well, a very large portion of US imports — over 50% in 2015 — are made up of “capital goods” or “industrial equipment,” essentially “small parts” including various metals, chemicals, etc. that businesses use to produce their final products.

Mark J. Perry of the American Enterprise Institute wrote a somewhat (retrospectively) prophetic article in 2016 about this very aspect of American trade.

He found that in 2015, “imports of capital goods (machinery, equipment, aircraft, semiconductors, engines, tractors, etc.) and industrial equipment (lumber, chemicals, aluminum and copper, iron and steel, cotton and wool, plastics, fuels, etc.) together accounted for 53% of total imports.”

Consequently, “the lower the price of inputs for US businesses the more competitive those companies are, the more of their products they can sell (both international and domestically), the greater market share they can achieve, and the more US workers they can hire.”

On the other hand, “the higher the prices of imported inputs (e.g. through higher tariffs), the less competitive US companies will be, and the fewer workers they will hire.”

Therefore, Trump’s trade war with China, which has provoked a retaliatory $34 billion worth of tariffs on American goods, will make American business less competitive by default.

As Benn Steil and Benjamin Della Rocca of the Council on Foreign Relations put it, “American companies depend on imports to stay globally competitive. Upon losing access to foreign parts, they will lose market share to companies operating abroad that can access them and therefore sustain lower prices and higher quality.”

In layman’s terms, a large portion of American imports are not final products but rather smaller parts (such as machinery, fuel, lumber, etc.) that make up a final product.

China’s new tariff on these “inputs” imported by the US will make it more costly for American businesses to purchase these parts (and therefore more costly to produce their final products, with the inevitable result of raising prices on consumers).

Furthermore, it will reduce the ability of American businesses to sell their products abroad — opening up “market share” to foreign companies instead.

Steil and Della Rocca concluded that” The overall effect of tariffs is therefore to reduce U.S. consumer purchasing power through higher prices—not more jobs, not more growth, not higher net exports.”

Regarding China in particular, a professor of economics at Syracuse University named Mary Lovely has estimated that 60% of US-China trade “involves parts and supplies, rather than final goods.” And according to the Harvard Business Review, such “parts and supplies rather than final goods” comprise 85% of all the products from China that will be hit by Trump’s tariffs.

President Trump’s trade war with China does not look promising, and it’s less than one day old.

On the domestic front, the President is already facing backlash due to trade disputes with long-time US allies such as Canada and the European Union (EU).

For example, Harley-Davidson, the iconic American motorcycle company, announced early in June that it will soon shift some production away from the US as a result of the European Union’s tariffs (which were levied in response to tariffs placed on the EU by President Trump).

“The E.U. tariffs, Harley-Davidson said, would have made motorcycles $2,200 more expensive on average, but there was a way out: to produce them somewhere else.” 

Harley-Davidson is not alone, as many companies — as well as entire industries, including many that were previously considered fans of Trump’s agenda — are voicing their concern with the President’s trade policies.

Adding a trade war with China to the mix will most likely hurt an economy that is already beginning to feel the effects of trade debacles with the EU and Canada.

Debunking Ron Paul and the Right

I proudly supported Dr. Ron Paul in both 2008 and 2012, when the former Representative (R) from Texas ran for the White House. A “Libertarian”-style Republican critical of US foreign policy and the drug war, Ron Paul – along with his son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul – is the type of Conservative that a Left-winger like myself can get behind.

The Ron Paul, “Libertarian”-wing of the Right and the populist, Bernie-wing of the Left tend to agree upon a lot, issue-by-issue, and I think this is an alliance worth furthering. However, it’s no secret that people such as myself on the Left are vehemently opposed to Dr. Paul economically — and that’s what this article is about.

In an Instagram post this past Saturday, Dr. Paul, the 1988 Libertarian Party nominee for President, summed up the essence of  the economic ideology of the Republican party; that the big, bad government’s intervention into the “free market” is I) a barrier to economic prosperity and II) a breach of individual liberty.

I’d like to break down each point made by Dr. Paul and offer a counter argument, as well as include some relevant information about the relationship between the state and the so-called “free market,” and make the case for a mingling of the two in which individual liberty is unharmed.

1) “Government is not a problem solver, but a problem creator.”

Reminiscent of Ronald Reagan, who famously said in his 1981 inaugural address that “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem,” Dr. Paul, in his post to Instagram, wrote that “Government is not a problem solver, but a problem creator.”

But is this true?

The idea, to repeat it, which I strongly disagree with,  is that government intervention into the American economy, and any economy for that matter, is I) economically problematic and II) incompatible with individual liberty, as state-intervention is tyrannical in nature.

Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned linguist, political theorist and activist, wrote about how government intervention into the economy has been effective and beneficial all across the world in his book Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order.

“The East Asian Miracle,” a term coined by a 1993 World Bank report, refers to the economic success experienced by Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan (China), and Thailand from 1965-1990. East Asia, affected heavily by World War 2, was not projected to experience such an unexpected, and more importantly in relation to this article, unprecedented, economic boom. Joseph E. Stiglitz, American economist and former adviser to President Clinton, wrote that “no other region in the world has ever had income rise so dramatically and seen so many people move out of poverty in such a short time.”

Chomsky’s main point to be understood about the East Asian miracle is that such massive economic prosperity was attained in a way totally antithetical to the “doctrinal system” of the “Washington consensus.” The East Asian miracle was rooted in, to quote Stiglitz’s essay “Some Lessons From The East Asian Miracle,” a “support for education,” “particularly engineering and science education,” and the decision to “discourage (through financial market regulations)” investment in real estate and banking, and instead support investment in industries “with higher technological benefits” — policies frowned upon by Washington.

After World War 2, Japan “rejected the neoliberal doctrines of the US,” as Chomsky put it, and pursued an economy that “assigned a predominant role to the state.” Japan, according to the conventional American economic worldview, was bound to collapse. However, by 1990 Japan “became the world’s biggest manufacturing economy” and “leading source of foreign investment” (Chomsky, 31). The GDP of Japan rose from $91 billion in 1965 to $360.9 billion in 1990.

A “state-centered strategy” was taken in Taiwan, centered around “the active participation of the government in the economic activities of the island through deliberate plans and its supervisions of their own execution” (Chomsky, 31). As a result, the economy grew by an average of 9.21% each year between 1955 and 1962.

East Asia is not the only region in the world in which state intervention into the market has played an important role. In post-WW2 Germany, for instance, there were “departures from standard (economic) precepts,” in which the state became “a particularly significant actor in the German political economy” (Chomsky, 144). The Wirtschaftswunder, or “The Miracle on the Rhine,” the German economic revival after the Second World War, was rooted in state control of the market.

Although the American Right would like you to believe that the US is home to a totally “free market,” laissez faire economy, this simply isn’t true. Instead, state manipulation of the market — like that found in East Asia and Germany — is to be found in America as well, except the main beneficiary of such in the US is the rich, rather than the American people.

A study conducted by Winfried Ruigrok and Rob van Tulder found that “at least twenty companies in the 1993 Fortune 100 would not have survived at all as independent companies, if they had not been saved” by the US government. (Chomsky, 38).

“In 2012, the average American taxpayer making $50,000 per year paid just $36 towards the food stamps program” and “just over six dollars a year” to other so-called “entitlement” programs. In the same year, the average American family subsidized corporate America to the tune of $6,000. “The Tax Foundation has found that the ‘special tax provisions’ of corporations cost taxpayers over $100 billion per year, or roughly $870 per family.”

Although the GOP’s economic ideology is said to be rooted in the idea that state intervention into the market is bad, and government assistance for the poor is a scam in which the lazy mooch off the working-class, it’s clear that such intervention into the market is accepted and practiced in one circumstance only — if it is intended to benefit corporate America and the rich, a topic I’ll come back to in conclusion.

2) “Liberty is a FAR superior idea” to Government Intervention / Socialism

Today in the US, the term “Libertarian,” and the ideology of “Libertarianism,” has come to refer to an anti-statist, and radically pro-“free market” branch of Conservativism. The old-school usage of the word “Libertarian,” which can be traced back to 1789, however, referred to those opposed to unjust power, such as power vested in a monarch or a tyrant, and in favor of free speech, freedom of religion, a right to own private property, etc. Below, I’ve provided a short video of Noam Chomsky explaining the difference between modern, American “Libertarianism” and classical Libertarianism.

I chose to mention this difference to preface a point I find important to make in the context of this article; i.e. that one is perfectly capable of identifying, at the same time, as both a Socialist and a Libertarian — in the classical sense of the word, which you should now understand. In fact, Noam Chomsky is a self-described Libertarian Socialist, as am I.

Many on the Right love to “straw man” anyone and everyone on the Left as either a Socialist or (gasp!) a Communist — or both. It’s rather easy to locate, on alt-Right twitter, people who think Barack Obama, a pro-capitalist, Liberal Centrist, is a Communist.

Anyone who would make such a statement with a straight face can surely not define Communism to save their life.

“The Left,” in actuality, is a wide-ranging, diverse group of people who often disagree with one another. David Pakman of the David Pakman Show did a great job explaining the diversity of opinion amongst the Left in the video below from his YouTube channel

The large majority of the American Left, including I) the Democratic party and the Liberal establishment and II) the “radical” Bernie-wing of the Democratic party, only excluding Antifa and whatever of the “far Left” can be found in the US, believe in entrepreneurship, small business, the right of the private sector to exist, etc.

Stalin, Lenin, Mao and company are denounced by the majority of the American Left, myself included, as tyrannical and dictatorial.

I often make the case that no matter how far Right the Republican party may shift policy-wise, their ideology — at least in rhetoric — is still rooted in classical Liberalism and the Enlightenment; i.e. that they believe in democracy, republicanism, free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, etc. In the same way, the large majority of the American Left, myself included, believe in capitalism and entrepreneurship and are not in favor of a Marxian-style overthrow of capitalism — instead, we are merely calling for a reform of capitalism and a well-regulated capitalism in which the rich and powerful are held accountable and all people are able to live a comfortable, happy life.

Therefore, to suggest that the entire American Left is anti-capitalist and in favor of total state-control of the economy is not only flat-out wrong, but also disingenuous, as is the idea that individual liberty is incompatible within such an economic model.

Joseph Stiglitz, in the same essay I cited earlier, stressed the point that there was no eradication of “the market” within the East Asian miracle, but rather reform of such, which included “Regulating financial markets,” “Creating markets where they did not exist,” and, most importantly, “Creating an atmosphere conducive to private investment and ensured political stability,” in which individual liberty can thrive.

The economic model found in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, and Sweden, commonly referred to collectively as the Nordic or Scandinavian world, is another real-world proof of the ability of a state-centered economy and individual liberty to coexist.

In America, the Scandinavian model is shunned as “Communist” and backward, and it’s assumed that entrepreneurship and small business are non-existent; barred by the state. The truth, however, is that the Nordic region is a hotspot for entrepreneurship, and the state is a purveyor of a culture booming with entrepreneurial spirit.

George Lakey, in his book “Viking Economics,” wrote about a study conducted by a three researchers from the London School of Economics which found that “Sweden, which gets sneers from some red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalists as a ‘nanny state,’ had more patent filings per resident than the United States for most of the last half-century” (Lakey, 78).

Max Chafkin, a writer at Bloomberg Business who is cited by Lakey all throughout his book, wrote in a great piece on the Nordic economic model that “Although America remains near the top of the world in terms of entrepreneurial aspirations —  that is, the percentage of people who want to start new things—in terms of actual start-up activity, our country has fallen behind not just Norway but also Canada, Denmark, and Switzerland. In fact, Norway is home to more entrepreneurs per capita that the US (Lakey, 76)

I could elaborate upon why this is such, but I’d rather the takeaway from my mentioning of the Nordic model to be that I) the state can have a beneficial role in the economy, fostering a climate conducive to entrepreneurship and small business II) in which both liberty and government intervention can coexist.

Socialism for the 1%

Ron Paul, to his credit, is principled enough to stand against government intervention into the market in every manner, no matter what party the state is intervening to help — including the rich.

This cannot be said of the rest of the Republican party.

The GOP, supposedly the party of the “free market” and laissez faire capitalism, vehemently opposed to wealth redistribution and welfare, is the biggest fan of using state power to subsidize and redistribute wealth to the rich, elite donor class.

The GOP-Trump tax cut signed into law in late 2017 is a prime example of this. The so-called “tax cut” will morph into a tax hike (or no change at all in the rate at which they are taxed) by 2025, while the rich will enjoy largely-permanent tax relief; including the reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, and more.

Government subsidization, therefore, is not the only way in which the 1% benefit from government intervention into the economy, but it’s arguably the most substantial. Boeing, a company that “owes its existence and success to large-scale public subsidy,” to quote Chomsky (37), was (in a prophetic manner) held up as an example by then-President Bill Clinton as “a model for companies across America.” Boeing has raked in over $13 million in public subsidization since at least the year 2000.

Boeing, however, is merely one player in the large game of corporate welfare found in the United States. A 2015 report entitled “Uncle Sam’s Favorite Corporations Identifying the Large Companies that Dominate Federal Subsidies” found that “Over the past 15 years, the federal government has provided $68 billion in grants and special tax credits to business, with two-thirds of the total going to large corporations. Six companies have received $1 billion or more, while 21 have received $500 million or more.”

My position is this; the American economy, contrary to popular belief amongst both the Right and the Left, is not a laissez faire “free market” economy, but rather an economy heavily manipulated by the state to benefit and favor of the rich. It’s my opinion that we should come to emulate the Nordic economic model, and find a way in which we can foster an environment which will allow for the coexistence of both a healthy economy (supported by moderate state intervention) and liberty.

Triggered Trump and the PC Right

 

President Trump’s latest attack on free speech came in the form of a tweet this past Wednesday, when he hinted he may revoke the broadcast license of NBC News.

With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2017

“Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked,” said Trump in a follow-up tweet.

The pro-Trump portion of the population (a mere 32% of the country according to a new AP poll) would like to dismiss my charge that Trump is anti-free speech as an example of partisan rhetoric or simply a false allegation.

The fact of the matter, however, is that President Trump is opposed to free speech and has a long history of attacking the 1st amendment.

Trump’s tweet about NBC News is not the first time he has openly threatened or attacked a well-respected American media organization — as his disdain for the New York Times is well-known in the US and around the world.

A lesser known fact, however, is that President Trump — as I’ll touch upon later in more detail — banned the Washington Post from covering his campaign toward the end of the 2016 election season.

Trump’s NBC News tweet is not an isolated occurrence, but rather another example of anti-free speech sentiment expressed by the President throughout his long-standing war on the 1st amendment and free speech — and, in particular, anti-Trump speech.

In 2016, candidate Trump repeatedly called for “opening up” libel laws in the US (which would make it easier to sue the press for alleged defamation of one’s character). A change in American libel law would surely be beneficial to Mr. Trump, a man who has made a habit of attacking free speech as a businessman and now as President.

Trump filed a lawsuit against Bill Maher in 2013 for $5 million after the HBO comedian joked that he would donate $5 million to a charity of Trump’s choice” if he could provide evidence to disprove he is not the “spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan.”

Maher’s joke not only triggered the future President by insulting his hyper-inflated ego, but also took a swing at him politically — as Trump led the “birther” movement in charging President Obama to prove that he is an American citizen.

Maher, however, wasn’t the only high-profile entity attacked by Trump in 2013, as he has also threatened to sue the Onion — an openly satirical platform — for a piece about him entitled “When You’re Feeling Low, Just Remember I’ll Be Dead in About 15-20 Years.”  Trump had an aide send a strongly worded email to the Onion.

 

Trump’s thin skin is comical. Especially for a man who claimed to be a “straight shooter” and anti-PC warrior during the 2016 election cycle.

A story broke last May revealing that Trump posed as a publicist for himself during the 1970’s and 1980’s, when he called People’s Magazine and other news organizations to brag about himself under the pseudonym “John Miller.”

Any normal person would be able to laugh off Maher’s joke or the Onion’s (satirical!) piece and forget about it. President Obama never sued Fox News or threatened to revoke their broadcasting license despite their ruthless coverage of him from 2008-2016.

But not Trump.

The President is so obsessed with what is said about himself on TV that, according to CNN’s Chris Cillizza, “In the wake of almost every event he (Trump) holds, whether it be a rally, a bilateral press conference or a White House ceremony, Trump is presented with a packet of screenshots showing how the television networks covered the event, two senior administration officials told CNNMoney. This enables him to see the chyrons — the headlines and captions on the lower third of the screen — that were being broadcast during the event.

Trump’s obsession with controlling how people think and talk about him is a good way to transition into a discussion of Right-wing political correctness and “PC” culture.

The term PC is usually associated with the Left and the “SJW” (social justice warrior) effort to force people to speak using language inoffensive to people of color, the LGBTQ community, etc. I myself am an opponent of PC culture on the Left — no matter how well-intentioned it may be — which anyone can see by reading what I have posted on my Instagram account (@__CounterCulture ) on this topic.

What I want to do here, however, is redefine what PC is (in my view) and explain how the Right is just as guilty of being political correct as the Left.

PC is inherently political — hence why it’s called political correctness rather than, say, social correctness.

In my view, PC does not have to be — although it usually is — associated with the Left’s push for “social justice” alone.

A correct, in my view, and more broad definition of PC can be defined as such: when an individual or a group of people aim to force another person or group of people to think, speak and act in line with the way they see the world.

This is what PC is: 

1. PC is anti-free speech and Orwellian in nature — enforcing a certain ideology upon people, and therefore stifling of free expression.
2. PC culture denies objective reality and fact.

In light of this definition, we can see how the Right can be just as PC as the Left.

A recent example of Right-wing PC is the Republican reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s protest. I want to explain why such a reaction is just as PC as Left-wing SJW-ism.

Colin Kaepernick’s protest and the recent debacle between the NFL and Trump is proof that the Right is simply not principled enough to support free speech unequivocally. President Trump — the head of the Right-wing PC police — lashed out at Kaepernick, calling him a “son of a bitch” and demanding that if you play in the NFL you must stand for the national anthem.

In doing so, Trump (and the entire Right, as they are largely united on this issue) have stood against free speech. By demanding that Kaepernick obey his command to stand for the anthem, Trump (and the Right, at large) are enforcing their own world view upon other people — just like the Left-wing SJW’s do when they force people to refer to them by using a specific gender pronoun.

If the Right actually stood for free speech and the 1st amendment they would simply admit that Kaepernick has a right to protest while disagreeing with why he is protesting.

This is not what has happened, however, as Trump and the Right have solely attacked Kaepernick’s 1st amendment right to free speech.

A countless amount of such anti-free speech and PC rhetoric from the Right beyond the Kaepernick debacle is on full display yet is never called out for what it truly is.

For example, President of Liberty University (arguably the most Conservative college in the nation) Jerry Falwell Jr. — openly pro-Trump during 2016 — pulled an article from the university’s newspaper discussing Trump’s bombshell “grab ’em by the pussy” remark released during the tail-end of 2016.

If censoring the truth about your preferred candidate for President isn’t PC and anti-feee speech then I don’t know what is.

A more subjective eye can find Right-wing PC in their day-to-day TV coverage and conversation.

Pictured above is Tomi Lahren. Former personality on Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze” network and current host of “Final Thoughts” on Fox News, Lahren is the darling of the Right.

Lauren has spoken about the “offense” felt by Republicans due to the recent use of the secular phrase “Happy Holidays” in replace of “Merry Christmas” in the United States.

When a Republican — say President Trump, who has espoused this very rhetoric before — says they are offended by people saying “Happy Holidays” (rather than “Merry Christmas”) they are using the very same logic of the Left’s that they claim to despise.

You cannot be angry at SJW’s for trying to enforce the usage of LGBTQ pronouns if you wish to simultaneously force people to use your preferred holiday greeting.

The hypocrisy is beyond laughable.

The most recent and commonly-cited beef the Right has with the Left-wing PC crowd (and rightfully so) is the recent movement to silence Conservativism in the university. An example of this is Antifa’s violent resistance to Ben Shapiro speaking at the University of California, Berkley.

Their argument is that by shutting down speech they do not like, the Left is objectively fascist and anti-free speech.

I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly. But at the same time, I am able to see that Right is guilty of doing the exact same thing.

(Coincidentally, people on the Right never like to talk about this).

President Trump, as mentioned earlier, flat-out banned the Washington Post from covering his campaign in 2016 by revoking the press credentials of the media institution.

What is this if not silencing opposition speech that you do not like?

I would argue that Trump’s anti-free speech sentiment, as seen here, is much more dangerous and deserving of our attention than that of Antifa or the SJW wing of the Left, as Trump is the sitting President of the United States and has the legislative power to act against free speech.

A similar and toxic ideology found amongst the Right-wing crowd on the internet is to defend everything President Trump has ever said even if he is objectively wrong.

Here we see a similarity between Right-wing and Left-wing PC: the denial of objective reality.

The Right — like those on the Left who (whether purposefully or accidentally) are anti-science in their attempt to promote social justice — would rather deny factual, objective truth than admit that President Trump can, dare I say it, be wrong!

 

Henry Kissinger, ISIS and the Future of US Foreign Policy

Political Twitter erupted in August when Henry A. Kissinger, former Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, penned an article arguing that defeating ISIS outright may not be the best long-term strategy for US foreign policy in the Middle East.

The 94-year old foreign policy guru met with President Trump and cautioned him in his pursuit to destroy ISIS, warning that the disappearance of the Salafist terror group will create a power vacuum set to be filled by the “Iranian radical empire.”

Dr. Kissinger, posing an important question about a hypothetical post-ISIS Middle East, conceded that the Islamic State will soon crumble. But “which entity,” he asked, will fill the political vacuum in the region?

“’Most non-Isis powers — including Shia Iran and the leading Sunni states — agree on the need to destroy it. But which entity is supposed to inherit its territory?’

The response to Kissinger’s statement from both the Left and the non-interventionist “alt-Right” Conservative faction was to deem Kissinger as evil and pro-ISIS.

Labeling Kissinger as pro-ISIS could not be farther from the truth. And while evil may fit the bill, in this context it simply does not.

The former Secretary of State simply put forth his opinion — gloomy, yet accurate — on what will happen to the balance of power in the Middle East following the inevitable collapse of ISIS.

To quote President Trump, “believe me!” — I am in no way, shape or form defending Henry Kissinger’s record as Secretary of State. However, I find merit in this statement — valid, timely as well as of the utmost importance — along with his intellectualism at large.

The fact of the matter is that ISIS will soon cease to exist.

Assad will control Syria after a 6-year (and counting) civil war, and the Iran-Russia-Syria alliance will have virtually won the Syrian conflict while the US wasted over $1 billion.

I’m not going to analyze a hypothetical post-ISIS Middle East — at least not in this article.

Instead I want to analyze Mr. Kissinger’s statement and advice to President Trump, as well as the response to his analysis from both the Right and Left.

The irony in this story is that Dr. Kissinger, man infamous for his belief in a subjective, metaphysical reality and disbelief in what I will call a “cause and effect analysis” in history, is making just that — a cause and effect analysis:

Kissinger, at least before this statement, wrote extensively about his view that history is “a series of meaningless events.” The meaning of history — and even the meaning of one’s own life — can only be drawn from within, by each individual channeling their “radical freedom,” according to Kissinger.

Now, in 2017, he is able to make a cause-effect analysis: ISIS will fall and Iran will rise.

A point I make frequently and an example of cause and effect analysis in US foreign policy is that the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent removal of the Ba’ath party from power led to the rise of ISIS, as many of the Islamic State’s top-ranking commanders previously served under Saddam and within the Ba’ath party.

Not only is this nonsensical to Kissinger — it is irrelevant.

He would argue that the US did what it had to do in order to protect American interests, and if that has negative effect on the future then so be it.

The United States must act. To hell with “fact men” and factual evidence.

To worry about the consequences of one’s actions upon the future is to become a “prisoner of events” and to appear weak.

Kissinger is surely wrong about Iraq, a war he was in favor of. But he’s 100% right about the possibility of Iran gobbling up a post-ISIS Mid East.

Nuance, people! The man can have a horrendous record and be wrong 99% of the time, but when he’s right, he’s right. A large majority of the Left does not understand this idea, but that’s a topic for another time.

Once again, I do not applaud or agree with his record at all. I simply think there is something worth extracting from the way Henry Kissinger thinks that is beneficial in crafting foreign policy.

The Left in the US — a laughable statement, as the “Left” in this country is centrist when compared to the rest of the world — is rather reactionary when it comes to foreign policy.

Myself and others on the Left often, and rightfully so, rant about the CIA’s historical habit overthrowing democracy abroad to sabotage Communism and Socialism — a policy that has done irreparable, and unforeseen, damage on a major scale.

However, I have found that many of these people do a poor job explaining why the US has acted against democracy.

Take US support of the Islamic “Mujahedeen” in Afghanistan beginning in 1979.

Carter and Reagan obviously did not ideologically agree with the Afghan mujahedeen – who would go on t morph into the Taliban and al-Qaeda after a devastating civil war.

They did, however, use them to bait the Soviet Union into a long war in hope of weakening the Russian state.

The point I am making is not that the US policy was good in nature or beneficial (it was totally, 100% the opposite) but that that it was a serious case of blowback rather than an endorsement on the part of Carter and Reagan of radical Islam.

To suggest so, as some do, is ingenuous and flat-out incorrect.

In relation to Kissinger and his statement on ISIS and Iran, there is a similarity here.

Carter and Reagan’s decision to arm the Mujahedeen was a geopolitically-driven move made to weaken the Soviet Union. In this case, they believed that the weakening of the USSR was more important than the sovereignty and stability of Afghanistan — similar to how Kissinger would choose ISIS’ survival coupled with US control of the Middle East rather than ISIS’ disintegration and Iranian control of the region.

The way I feel about such a topic is unresolved, but as someone interested in both morality and statesmanship I find it extremely hard to totally condemn a politician who acts immorally to defend the interests of his or her country.

What is the other option? To let the Soviet Union control Afghanistan?

While I would argue that yes, there is a need for the US to revert to a “normal” status geopolitically and act like any other state rather than as a global hegemon, totally allowing the USSR — or any other country in any time period –to run rampant during the Cold War is, and was, simply unthinkable — and it should still be today, of course.

For my friends on the Left that I shocked or disappointed with this article, allow me to redeem myself with my last point.

Where I differ with Kissinger, alongside his record as Secretary of State, of course, is in his approach to policy.

I would simply not allow a problem to happen in the first place — i.e. if one does not support the rise of ISIS (as the US unintentionally and intentionally did) then one will not have to worry about a post-ISIS, Iran-controlled Middle East.

Draw from Kissinger-esque ideology to shut down Kissinger-esque policy.

If the US did not overthrow the Iran’s democratically elected leader in 1953, then the Iranian Revolution in 1979 — fueled by anger aimed at “the Great Satan” and the US-backed and supported Shah regime — would likely have never happened.

And therefore Kissinger’s “Iranian radical empire” would cease to be a concern today.

Noam Chomsky said it best: “Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.” In order to do so, I suggest we begin to think about the long-term ramifications of our policy.

Kissinger’s wisdom — albeit bloodstained — is worth listening to.

He is not wrong for entertaining the possibility that the survival of ISIS would be better for the US than its disintegration.

Seemingly “evil” at face value, this is actually a rational prediction.

What is the other option? To dream of a fictional world in which ISIS and Iran can both fall and the US can live happily ever after?

Such a world does not exist, and playing devil’s advocate for ISIS in order to keep Iran at bay — as immoral and disgusting as it may be — is the reality we face.

While it may be hard to speak about, this is a topic that must be spoken about.

Bernie Sanders’ denial of the former Secretary of State and his record during the Democratic primary debate against Hillary Clinton was courageous, yes, but I do not find it smart to completely tune out anyone.

Extract the good, discard the bad. This is the way we should look at all people’s ideas.

Kissinger is multi-faceted and deeply philosophical. He’s a complex character.

A lifelong Liberal and Democrat until 1968 who studied at Harvard with a fondness for intellectualism, Kissinger is much more similar to Barack Obama and his calculated foreign policy than Donald Trump’s rash, off-the-cuff approach.

My purpose in writing this article about Henry Kissinger, a hypothetical post-ISIS Middle East and the response to Kissinger’s statement from the American Right and the Left was to 1) discuss the Middle East, yes, 2) somewhat defend Kissinger’s statement while also laying out a nuanced take on what I dislike about him as well as what I find interesting about him as a thinker, and 3) to offer foreign policy advice to the Left.

The Left — in total disarray and lacking a message in general — does not have a clear, concise stance on foreign policy except to either oppose the Right or agree with the Right.

I don’t claim to know what such a stance should be, neither did I lay out a proposal for what I think it can be in this piece. But hopefully my analysis is beneficial to the debate.

While we can extract good from the mind of Henry Kissinger, the bad, of course, is more prevalent.

The Left must begin to form a coherent stance on foreign policy.

To have no message on foreign policy is to let the Right, and people like Henry Kissinger, craft our own message for us.

A Fact-Based Critique of the US War in Afghanistan

The US war in Afghanistan — acknowledged correctly to be “the longest war in American history” by President Trump on Monday– has been a 16-year long disaster for the United States.

Trump, now at the helm of a war launched on October 7, 2001 by the administration of George W. Bush, committed the US to further involvement in Afghanistan during his address Monday centered around the war.

Although “Operation Enduring Freedom” officially ended in December 2014 under President Barack Obama, the American presence in Afghanistan is as strong as ever.

President Trump, who opposed the war throughout his tenure as businessman and during the 2016 election cycle, has “flip-flopped” and is now poised to escalate the US war effort drastically.

Trump has announced that he will deploy an additional 4,000 troops to Afghanistan.

The 16-year stalemate in Afghanistan has done irreparable damage financially and socially at home in the US, and has inflicted a devastating loss of life “on many sides,” as President Trump would say, in the war-torn country.

A Fiscally Non-Conservative War

A story ran by CNN Money on Wednesday entitled “U.S. war costs in Afghanistan” took a look at the financial burden the 17-year war has imposed upon the American people.

Co-director of the Cost of Wars Project at Brown University Neta Crawford has estimated that the US war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001 has cost the American taxpayer $5 trillion — with Afghanistan alone accounting for $2 trillion.

Crawford’s $2 trillion estimate is the highest price tag slapped on the Afghan war, while the lowest — and I use the word  “lowest” very loosely — is $841 billion.

I could make the “imagine what we could have done with all that money!” argument here, but I won’t.

A more important point, in my view, to be made is that the American people have contributed anywhere between $841 billion to $2 trillion funding a war they overwhelmingly do not support!

“No More War” – the American people

Public opinion in the US is largely and sharply opposed to any further American involvement in Afghanistan.

A poll conducted by Politico as recent as earlier this month found that “only 23 percent of voters said they believe the U.S. is winning the war in Afghanistan. Thirty-eight percent said the U.S. is losing the war, though 39 percent said they have no opinion.”

A mere 20% of voters said they would like to see more US troops deployed to Afghanistan, while 37% would like to “draw down troop levels.”

Public opinion about the war has deteriorated annually since 2001. This Gallup poll found that by 2014, 48% of the those polled viewed the war as a “mistake.”

The American people, as President Trump correctly pointed out on Monday, are “weary of war without victory.” His push for further US involvement in Afghanistan will certainly not serve as a solution to such weariness.

The Human Cost of the War

Much more important than the fiscal cost of the US effort in Afghanistan is the loss of life caused by the war.

According to the Department of Defense, over 2,000 men and women in the US military have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

My question to those who supposedly “support the troops” is this: why not pull out of a war that has killed more than 2,000 of those you claim to support so stridently?

The civilian causality toll of 26,270 is significantly higher. “U.S.-led military forces killed over 1,620 civilians,” according to an estimation by ARM.

Afghanistan: a Bipartisan Failure

Although he would never admit it, President Trump’s policy on Afghanistan presented Monday evening is virtually identical to that of Barack Obama’s.

In fact, as some on Twitter noticed, the two have now made nearly indistinguishable promises about the war as Commander-in-Chief.

In 2009, President Obama — while promoting his “surge” in Afghanistan that would go on to account for 74% of all US casualties in the country since 2001 — promised a population fed up with war that “The days of providing a blank check are over.”

In reality, the “liberal” Obama would go on to increase the amount of US personnel in Afghanistan drastically. As of August 2013, there were 60,000 American troops in Afghanistan — “27,200 more than the 32,800 who were there when Obama took office.”

In his speech on Monday, President Trump echoed Obama saying that under his government “Our commitment is not unlimited, and our support is not a blank check.”

“America will work with the Afghan government as long as we see determination and progress. However, our commitment is not unlimited, and our support is not a blank check. The government of Afghanistan must carry their share of the military, political, and economic burden.” – President Trump on Tuesday evening.

While those on the Left who worship and adore Obama and those on the Right who worship and adore Trump do not want to hear it, the Obama-Trump (and US at large) policy in Afghanistan is endless, and vague, undefined war.

What’s Next?

Control of Afghanistan has historically been sough after since the dawn of civilization, yet empire after empire has failed in their attempt to permanently conquer the great country.

To name a few examples, Alexander the Great in 310 BC, as well as the Islamic Umayyad caliphate during the 7th-9th centuries, failed to control Afghanistan permanently.

And in the modern era, the Soviet Union invaded in 1979 — driven out by the Islamic Mujahedeen — and, of course, the United States and NATO in 2001.

Afghanistan is a highly sought jewel of the Eastern world: but, as history has shown, she is not easy to control.

With Trump in power, US policy in Afghanistan is set to expand and become more aggressive, as made evident by the President on Monday.

Recent history has shown that Trump’s escalation will not pay off, but only time will tell.

 

 

Swamp HQ: An Elementary Guide to Corruption in the Trump White House

The 20th of January, 2017 was “the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”

This, of course, according to Donald J. Trump — the “Drain the Swamp”-toting and so-called “political outsider” sworn into office as President that day.

In his inaugural address, President Trump railed against the “political establishment,” who, in his own words, had “protected itself, but not the citizens of our country” for far too long.

“The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he said, promising a new era of populist, “America-first” reform.

President Trump’s entire address was centered around the idea that — with him in the White House, of course — the American people were poised to regain power.

“What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”

The incompetent and corrupt “Swamp” in Washington, D.C. would soon cease to exist.

The reality, however, could not be farther from the truth, as President Trump — beholden to the American elite from day 1 —  would rake in $20 million from his Inauguration Ball alone from the very same “Swamp” he lambasted on stage.

My intention in writing this (rather long) article is to contrast Trump’s anti-“Swamp” rhetoric in 2016 with President Trump’s actual record as President in 2017 as well as his ties to “the Swamp” in the past.

While this is obviously not an end-all-be-all study of corruption in the Trump era, I hope this piece will spark interest to investigate and expose such.

Candidate Trump and GOP Mega-Donors

A fitting way to begin this article is to talk about a story written by Kenneth P. Vogel and Ben Schreckinger of Politico that largely flew under the radar of the mainstream media. Nonetheless, it is a story essential to understanding who Donald Trump really is behind the veneer of anti-establishment rhetoric he ran upon.

Entitled “Trump courted mega donors he now scorns,” the Politico story detailed Trump’s pursuit of the “who’s who” of the “Swamp” — at least the Conservative side of such a swamp — long before he would go on to attack them in the Republican primary.

Then-candidate Donald Trump personally met, spoke with and pleaded for the funding and support of Charles and David Koch, the infamous “Koch brothers,” as well as casino mogul and leading pro-Israel voice Sheldon Adelson and hedge fund billionaire Paul “the Vulture” Singer — arguably the 3 most prolific and influential Republican mega-donors.

Beginning with Mr. Adelson, — who donated $77,900,000 to Conservatives in 2016 alone (and $0 to Democrats) — it is revealed that Trump visited him personally and put forth “a very clear ask for money” before his 2016 campaign.

Adelson, an “Ardent Zionist,” as Vogel and Schreckinger put it, is well known to be one of the leading — and most influential — pro-Israel voices in the US.

Trump, who swore on the campaign trail that he would not bend and flex for the elite which he said ventriloquized those on the Republican debate stage alongside him, “called Adelson to tout his pro-Israel bona fides, according to sources familiar with the call.”

Trump is also said to have pitched to Adelson that “he lives in heavily Jewish New York and that his daughter married a Jewish man, real estate developer Jared Kushner.”

In their pursuit of Adelson, the Trump team highlighted a 2013 campaign ad released by Trump which asked Israeli’s to reelect current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the poster-boy of the Israeli Right.

A source is quoted to have said “We had really tried to promote Trump as pro-Israel.”

“He’s always wanted Adelson money,” the source added.

A funny — and revealing — story noted by former Huffington Post journalist Christina Willkie (in her database of donations to Trump’s inaugural ball available on Google Docs) is that after Sean Spicer’s “Even Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons” blunder, the then-White House Press Secretary personally called and apologized to Adelson.

When Trump had a meeting arranged between himself and Adelson in Las Vegas, Adelson declined the invitation.

It was only after Adelson threw his support behind Marco Rubio that Trump took a condescending view of Adelson, tweeting “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!”

So much for Mr. “Drain the Swamp” not bowing to the elite.

Trump and Mr. Adelson’s relationship did not end upon his denial of support in 2016, as Adelson donated $5 million to the January 20 inauguration alongside the additional $21 million he donated to the Trump campaign.

While Trump took aim at “the Swamp” and the establishment during his inaugural address, Adelson — a man highly entrenched within such a swamp —  sat on stage nearby the President and clapped.

The Politico article then turns to the Koch brothers.

“Trump’s aides detailed his policy positions for the Kochs and their donors in a survey put together by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the group that coordinates the Koch network and hosts its twice-a-year donor gatherings.”

Bowing to Republican party orthodoxy, Trump — the so-called “outsider” — met with Charles and David Koch at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida during early April.

Once again, it was only after the Koch’s decided not to invite Mr. Trump to a meeting with other Republican hopefuls that he tweeted “I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets?”

The Trump White House now has deep ties to the Koch’s, a topic we will touch upon later.

Although more short-lived then his run-in with Adelson and the Koch’s, Mr. Trump did attempt to lure Paul Singer, the multi-million dollar hedge fund manager, into supporting his candidacy in 2016.

Mr. Trump had his son-in-law, and now top advisor, Jared Kushner call Mr. Singer to inform him that “Trump was laying the groundwork for a campaign” that he might want to support.

In a familiar pattern, it was only after Singer’s denial and endorsement of Marco Rubio that Trump blasted him and denied a need for his support, saying at a press conference that there’s a “lotta controversy with Mr. Singer” and that he “represents illegal immigration pouring into the country. And now he’s with Rubio.”

The reason I began with this story is to make this important point:

Donald Trump is not anti-corruption.

He is a hypocrite for attacking the Jeb Bush’s and Marco Rubio’s of the world (who are corrupt, yes) as he himself begged for money from the very same elite that they did.

Swamp-ee

President Trump, as he frequently — and correctly — acknowledged on the campaign trail, was once a high-profile and experienced political donor.

Analysis cited by NPR found that “Since 1989, donations in Donald Trump’s name have totaled around $1.4 million (adjusted for inflation) to national-level parties, candidates, and other committees.”

An interesting side note is that 50% of Trump’s political donations between 1987 and 2009 went to Democrats. It was only in 2010 that he began to fund Republicans.

How could a man with over $1 million invested within both parties suddenly have a desire to “Drain the Swamp?”

Hint: he never wanted to. He just wanted to run it himself and fill it with people he liked.

A repeated claim of candidate Trump’s — that he was “self funding” his campaign — was an utter falsehood. Analysis available on OpenSecrets.org shows that the Trump campaign received $7,954,425 from the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate industries.

Trump was a beneficiary of $4,510,113 from the Real Estate industry, $4,252,506 from “Miscellaneous Business” and $1,392,369 from “Miscellaneous Finance.”

Pretty swampy, I’d say.

Make Lobbying Great Again

In an interview on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press,” then-candidate Trump said that he considered placing a ban on employing former lobbyists in a hypothetical Trump administration in the future to be a “pretty good idea.”

Fast forward to 2017, and the Trump White House is as pro-lobbyist as any administration in US history.

Lobbying has entered a golden age under President Trump.

A report by the Center for Respective Politics found that in the first 5 months of the Trump era, “Companies spent nearly $840 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2017 — the highest amount in five years, according to calculations by the Center for Responsive Politics based on data from the Senate Office of Public Records.”

“Leading the pack was Big Pharma… which poured just shy of $80 million into lobbying efforts in the first quarter, an increase of $10 million or 14 percent over the same period last year. Next in line was the insurance sector, which spent $40.2 million, showing an increase of 3.6 percent — no doubt in an effort to sway any changes to the Affordable Care Act.”

And don’t forget “Big Oil,” of course, as “The oil and gas sector pumped $36 million into lobbying for an 11 percent increase over first quarter 2016,” under the administration with a former Exxon Mobil CEO (Rex Tillerson) as Secretary of State. “Chevron, in particular, increased its lobbying efforts by a whopping 77 percent to $3.3 million, compared to last year.”

While candidate Trump promised to be crack down harder on lobbying than his predecessor President Obama had, Trump has rolled back crucial Obama-era lobbying regulations.

Trump indeed has legislated what he called a “lobbyist ban” — but in reality it was much weaker than any Obama-era regulation on lobbying.

Trump’s “ban” lets former lobbyists work in the White House as long as their work is not to regulate an industry they specifically lobbied on behalf of for two years.

“Obama’s order from 2009, which Trump revoked, blocked people who were registered lobbyists in the preceding year from taking administration jobs.”

Another weakness within Trump’s legislation is that “Obama’s order also restricted all administration officials from contacting their former agencies for two years after they leave. Trump changed it back to one year for some 3,000 people — everyone except cabinet-level appointees.”

9 Trump administration officials are currently being lobbied by interests within the industry they previously lobbied on behalf of according to a recent story written by Josh Keefe of the International Business Times. Check out that story here.

Trump’s Kitchen Cabinet

Now that we have discussed the past, I want to dive into the Trump administration itself.

The Trump administration, namely those appointed directly by the President, substantially donated to his campaign.

The Centre for Respective Politics found that “Together, these political appointees, along with their immediate families, delivered $6,043,473 to Trump and his allied super PACs in the 2016 election cycle.”

And if your argument against this point is that these people are simply pro-Trump and not long-time members of the donor-class, just know that Trump’s appointees donated $26,856,520 to “Republican/conservative candidates” from 1986 to 2016.

Betsy DeVos — Trump’s Secretary of Education — for example, is a long-time member of the Republican elite, her family well respected as a high-brass Republican donor clan. She is also the sister of Blackwater mercenary Erik Prince who Trump has also sought for advice. Linda McMahon, wife of long-time Trump friend and WWE boss Vince McMahon, was appointed to lead the Small Business Administration.

This man has no problem with corruption — in fact, he revels in it.

It is objectively true to say that the Trump administration is loaded with many within “the Swamp” the President himself ran against (in rhetoric, of course).

Trump’s Corporate Transition Team

An article from The Intercept took a look at the corporate-staffed Trump transition team.

Those listed included “energy adviser Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist for Koch Industries and the Walt Disney Company; adviser Eric Ueland, a Senate Republican staffer who previously lobbied for Goldman Sachs; and Transition General Counsel William Palatucci, an attorney in New Jersey whose lobbying firm represents Aetna and Verizon. Rick Holt, Christine Ciccone, Rich Bagger, and Mike Ferguson are among the other corporate lobbyists helping to manage the transition effort.”

Upon the disintegration of the Trump transition team and the formation of the Trump White House, many who led the transition — not surprisingly — returned to a life of lobbying (despite Trump’s promises of a “lobbyist ban, as discussed earlier).

Many on the staff even worked for “Crooked” Hillary Clinton (gasp!) in the past.

For all his criticism of her on the campaign trail (most of it correct), President Trump had no problem accepting money from and hiring many people who previously worked for and supported the former Secretary of State.

For example, an attendee of Trump’s inauguration named Andy Khawaja, who donated $1 million to the pro-Clinton super PAC “Priorities USA,” also donated $1 million to the inauguration of President Trump.

PACman

As explained by Anna Mosalia in her piece for the Centre for Respective Politics entitled “Nonprofits backing Trump have deep, swampy ties,” Trump is no stranger to the ever-so-swampy super PACs.

A newly-founded pro-Trump super PAC called “Great America Alliance,” she reveals, is actually a 501(c)(4) founded in 2013 priorly known as the “American Dream Initiative.” Mosalia writes that “An IRS Exempt Organizations Division official confirmed that Great America Alliance was once known as the American Dream Initiative (ADI), a politically active nonprofit with a history of spending undisclosed “dark money” in politics under the guise of issue advocacy.”

The Open Secrets Blog produced a report on 24 NGOs that overspent the 50% spending limit between 2008 and 2013. American Dream Initiative, futurely Trump’s “Great America Alliance,” was one of the 24.

The story also revealed that although Trump shunned them on the campaign trail in 2016, the future President attended a fundraiser for a pro-Trump super PAC with close ties to many working within the campaign.

Goldman Sachs’ Golden Boy

In one of candidate Trump’s final campaign ads, he proclaimed that “Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you the American people,” as an image of Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs’ chief executive, flashed by.

It would be less than a month before President Trump announced that Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, the former a notorious hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs investor, the latter the outgoing President of Goldman Sachs, would serve as Treasury Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser within the new administration, respectively.

Here’s a short list of the top-ranking Trump administration officials that formerly worked at Goldman Sachs.

Steve Bannon (fired) — former Goldman Sachs mergers and acquisitions banker, former top advisor to the President.

Gary Cohn — former President of Goldman Sachs, sitting director of the National Economic Council.

Steve Mnucin — banking partner of Goldman Sachs, current Treasury Secretary.

James Donovan — 25 year Goldman Sachs banking partner, deputy to Mr. Mnucin.

An important point about Mr. Trump’s Goldman appointees is that, specifically in relation to Mr. Cohn, these people have served in top-ranking positions within the company.

President Trump has also filled many low-key positions with former Goldman Sachs employees.

In a recent piece written by Lee Fang of the Intercept, it was revealed that SEC Chairman Jay Clayton — an attorney who advised Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis — brought in other banking executives to serve on Trump’s team regulating Wall Street.

Okay, I’m Wrapping it Up…

A Politico article written in February noted that “More than a third of the almost 200 people who have met with President-elect Donald Trump since his election last month, including those interviewing for administration jobs, gave large amounts of money to support his campaign and other Republicans this election cycle.”

” Together the 73 donors contributed $1.7 million to Trump and groups supporting him… and $57.3 million to the rest of the party, averaging more than $800,000 per donor.”

If that doesn’t scream conflict of interest then I don’t know what does.

As if this was not corrupt enough “Donors also represent 39 percent of the 119 people Trump reportedly considered for high-level government posts, and 38 percent of those he eventually picked, according to the analysis, which counted candidates named by the transition and in news reports.”

Does that sound like the work of a President hell-bent on draining “the Swamp?”

President Trump is — as candidate Trump was — beholden to the American elite.

He is owned and operated by “the Swamp.”

Manufacturing Consent in the 21st Century

Published in 1988 by Professor Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media” is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand the role of the media in shaping the “spectrum of acceptable opinion,” as Chomsky put it, in US political discourse. The “propaganda model” Chomsky and Herman attributed to the American press remains alive and well in 2017, made evident by mainstream coverage (or lack thereof) of particular events around the world.

In “Manufacturing Consent,” Chomsky and Herman analyzed the stark contrasts in media coverage of atrocities committed by US allies opposed to atrocities committed by US enemies.

For example, a chart within the 1988 study analyzes “Mainstream Media Usage of “Genocide” for Kosovo, East Timor, Turkey, and Iraq.”

For the sake of this article, I will take a look at the usage of the word “genocide” in relation to the massacres in Kosovo during the 1990’s opposed to the US-backed Indonesia invasion and slaughter of East Timor. The former was deemed a “genocide” 220 times by the mainstream press (New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and Time) and received 59 op-ed pieces, 118 news articles and 41 front page mentions from these media organizations.

The latter, an atrocity committed by a long-time US ally reliant upon American military aid, was only labeled a “genocide” 33 times by the very same media institutions, receiving 7 op-ed pieces, 17 news articles and 4 front page mentions.

Upon President Trump’s April 6 bombardment of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, I decided to take a look (a minor look compared to the wide-ranging study found in “Manufacturing Consent — I plan on doing further research on this very topic) at the difference in the coverage of the crimes of Assad and those committed by the United States’ major ally in the region, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen.

Indeed, Chomsky’s “propaganda model” remains intact.

A search of “war crimes Syria” on the website of the New York Times (within the constraints of the past 12 months) yields 338 articles. Searches of “war crimes Saudi Arabia” and “war crimes Yemen” yielded, respectively, only 82 and 69 results.

In regards to “op-ed” or opinion pieces belonging to the New York Times, a search of “Syrian genocide” produces 33 results, opposed to 3 for “Saudi Arabia genocide.”

The US media’s failure to cover the atrocities in Yemen has not gone unnoticed. Professor of International Human Rights Law Dan Kovalik, in an opinion piece for the Huffington Post, noted that “Even less will one hear of the fact that it is the US government (or, the US regime if you will) that is playing a key role in arming and giving logistical and diplomatic support to Saudi Arabia in its slaughter, displacement and starving of Yemeni civilians.”

Putting statistical analysis, any person who is somewhat in-tune with US political discourse will admit that if you were to watch CNN for 24 hours straight (for the record, I can only hope that anyone reading this would never put themselves through such torture) the odds that Bashar al-Assad’s atrocities are discussed is much more likely than the crimes (both domestic and foreign) of the Saudi royal family.

In my analysis of the media coverage given to Bashar al-Assad opposed to the Saudi Arabian government I am not, by any means, attempting to play devil’s advocate for Assad — a war criminal who has butchered hundreds of Syrians. I am, however, attempting to make the point that the US media often sets the stage for elite policy-makers, rather than holding them accountable (the popular conception).

Noam Chomsky famously said that “propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”

In the world world of today, Turkey’s president Erdogan and his aggressive anti-journalist policies have suppressed dissent. In the past, the policies of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler did the same in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.

The problem with shutting down thought through violence and openly totalitarian measures is that the consent manufactured is forced; and an underlying, silent resentment surely lingers amongst the populace.

The key difference between thought control in a repressive society such as the Soviet Union and a democratic society like the United States is that in a democratic society the people (through the setting of the “spectrum of acceptable opinion” in political discourse by the media) come to believe wholeheartedly in the validity of the government line as the morally correct view.

Bashar al-Assad is worse than Adolf Hitler. If you do not agree and if you do not support President Trump’s airstrikes then you are anti-American (the worst crime one can commit). Saudi war crimes? Saudi Arabia is our ally. Our allies don’t commit war crimes. The UN investigates their “Abuses,” and they admit to “Errors” in Yemen — but never war crimes. Assad, however, has reached “A New Level of Depravity” in his “History Of Chemical Attacks.”

WikiLeaks, the CIA and the Disintegration of the Democratic Party

On Tuesday March 7th, 2017 WikiLeaks shook up American politics when it released “Year Zero,” the 8,000-plus document first installment of “Vault 7″ — a promised series of revelations detailing CIA hacking capabilities. Rather than analyzing the content of the leaks (which can be found here), the purpose of this article will be to discuss the long-term consequences of the Democratic response to “Vault 7,” and its correlation to the alleged ties between President Trump and Russia.

 

A series of tweets exchanged between Eric Boehlert of Media Matters and journalist Doug Henwood depict perfectly the atmosphere of US political discourse pertaining to alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as the March 7th revelations of WikiLeaks.

“How many Conservatives,” poses Boehlert, “ever thought they’d go to work each day to run interference for Moscow” upon arriving in Washington? Henwood’s response questions “How many Liberals when they arrived in DC thought they’d sound like J. Edgar Hoover?”

Henwood’s assessment that Liberals are beginning to sound like the red-baiting  J. Edgar Hoover is accurate, in my view. And as someone on the Left, I find it alarming that Liberals have stolen the baseless, accusatory rhetoric of those they opposed during the Cold War. Simply replace “communist” with “Kremlin stooge” or “puppet of Putin” and the main idea remains. I refuse to sit back and watch the disintegration of what remains of the integrity of Liberalism in the United States.

I understand fine and well the dangers of (legitimate) foreign interference in a democratic election within the United States. The fact of the matter is that there is either a lack of evidence or no evidence at all to support accusations that the Russian government intervened on behalf of President Trump in the 2016 election. With WikiLeaks’ revelation that the CIA is capable of launching a false flag cyber attack to pin the blame on another nation, one wonders whether the so-called “deep state” is the true culprit behind the Podesta / DNC leaks. Also, remember that Guccifer 2.0 is said to be a Russian hacker — not a hacker working for the Russian government.

With the Senate Intelligence Committee one month into its investigation into the Trump-Russia scandal, some Senate Democrats have grown weary. An article from Buzzfeed reads that “Among the Intelligence Committee’s rank and file, there’s a tangible frustration over what one official called “wildly inflated” expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation.” One official went as far as to say that “I don’t think the conclusions are going to meet people’s expectations.”

The substanceless, anti-Russian, Red Scare-like fear mongering of establishment Democrats bares similarities to the substanceless, anti-Muslim fear mongering of President Trump, Steve Bannon and the so-called “alt-Right.” In fact, Democratic approval ratings have fallen drastically in response to the non-stop Russia rhetoric, from nearly 45% in September 2016 to 39% in March 2017.

Republicans — of whom I disagree with on virtually every issue — have been inadequate in their defense against Democratic anti-Russia rhetoric. One need only point to the ties between Hillary Clinton and foreign nations such as Saudi Arabia to disassociate Mr. Trump from the allegations that he is a stooge of Vladimir Putin. After all, we know for a fact that Mrs. Clinton received over $10 million to $25 million from Riyadh via the Clinton foundation and then went on to approve weapons deals to the Saudi government as Secretary of State.

I am not offering the Republican party political advice that I would want them to take. I am simply nuanced enough to understand that Trump’s ties to Russia are equatable to Clinton’s ties to Saudi Arabia, if not less than.

A chart tweeted by WikiLeaks after the “Vault 7” leak revealed that Democratic support for the CIA has surpassed that of Republican support from 2003-2017. Since the days of JFK, Democrats (sometimes) have stood as an obstacle of oversight in the way of the CIA, an organization that was and remains rogue and unregulated, and has historically worked to undermine democracy abroad — the very action that the Democrats claim to stand against today in regards to Russia.

In the first two months of the Trump presidency we’ve seen Liberals humanize and yearn for the days of George W. Bush — a war criminal — in the name of “the resistance” against President Trump, who I would argue is better than Bush on many issues. This type of thinking is dangerous. A pro-CIA, pro-George W. Bush, blindly anti-Russia Democratic party is no longer a party for true Liberals.

The Rightward shift of US politics is being driven by a clueless, unprincipled Left.

The War on Drugs (AKA the War on African-Americans)

In June of 1971, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon declared a “war on drugs” across the United States. Nixon’s goal was to end drug abuse in the U.S. — which he deemed “America’s public enemy number one.” 45 years later in 2016, it’s clear to both Republicans and Democrats alike that the “war on drugs” has been a massive failure.

In discussing the American drug war, one could point to its many flaws; such as the massive monetary burden it has put on the American taxpayer ($51 billion annually and over $1 trillion since 1971). In this article, however, I will aim to highlight the racial disparity of the U.S. “war on drugs,” namely the targeting of African-Americans and African-American communities.

Beginning in 1971, Nixon’s “war on drugs” never truly sought to help Americans addicted to deadly substances. In fact, a Nixon aide from the 1970’s named John Ehrlichman recently spilled the beans on the true intentions of the President’s drug war.

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news,” said Ehrlichman, verifying what has been assumed for decades —  that the 1971 “war on drugs” was launched to target African-Americans, as it still does today in 2016.

A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report from 2009 verifies Nixon’s aide’s statement, documenting in detail how the U.S. “war on drugs” has disproportionately targeted African-Americans since 1971.

The HRW report found that African-Americans are 3 times more likely to be arrested for drug possession than white Americans are, with blacks in the United States accounting for over 53% of all U.S. persons convicted for drug offenses.

A likely Conservative argument against these facts would be that African-Americans simply use more drugs. The facts, however, disprove this logic.

Whites and blacks in the U.S. use drugs at an equal rate (according to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration).

While African-Americans tend to use marijuana slightly more (by a margin of 2%), and white Americans prefer drugs such as cocaine and OxyContin, it is factually correct to say that whites and blacks use drugs equally in the U.S.

A 2013 study conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found that while  marijuana usage is equal amongst African-Americans and Caucasians, blacks are arrested 3 times more often than whites for using marijuana. “In 2010, the Black arrest rate for marijuana possession was 716 per 100,000 while the white arrest rate was 192 per 100,000,” says the study. 

In discussing the “war on drugs” and its disproportionate effects on African-Americans communities, it is important that we take institutional racism weaved within government and police policy into account.

Jamie Fellner, the author of the 2013 HRW previously cited in this article, has said that “The race issue isn’t that the judge is going, ‘Oh, black man, I’m gonna sentence you higher.’ The police go into low-income minority neighborhoods and that’s where they make most of their drug arrests. If they arrest you, now you have a ‘prior,’ so if you plead or get arrested again, you’re gonna have a higher sentence. There’s a kind of cumulative effect.”

A policy of the U.S. “war on drugs” which targets African-Americans disproportionately  are traffic stops, often carried out through a system of racial profiling.

Although African-Americans are 3 times more likely to be pulled over by a police officer, white Americans are more likely to be found with an illegal drug (according to a 2013 federal survey).

Unsurprisingly, this tactic was developed under the Reagan administration, notorious for it’s brutal advancement of the Nixonian drug war.

In the 1980’s, it began commonplace for police units to enforce tactics of racial profiling. In one instance, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles informed the Police of common “characteristics” of drug dealers in Florida. These characteristics included drivers wearing “lots of gold” and “ethnic groups associated with the drug trade,” i.e. African-Americans and Latinos.

What the Florida Police are ignorant to, however, is that all recent data shows that it is white Americans who are more likely to sell drugs.

Another report from the American Civil Liberties Union found that from 2010 to 2013, SWAT raids in Cincinnati targeted African-American communities disproportionately. The ACLU found that 62% of SWAT raids are launched with the intent to find drugs.  

A staple of the “tough on crime” Reagan administration of the 1980’s was mandatory minimum sentencing, a concept created in the U.S. in the 1950’s, but heavily enforced from the Reagan years and onward.

Mandatory minimum sentences are twice as likely to be pursued by prosecutors for African-American drug offenders than against white Americans for the same offense.

60% of those who received a mandatory minimum sentence for a drug offense in 2011 were either African-American or Latino. In fiscal year 2010, the drug which led to the most mandatory minimum sentences – 26% of all indictments –  was marijuana, coincidentally the drug used most commonly by African-Americans.

Institutional racism can clearly be seen through the lens of mandatory minimum sentencing.

The quota, if you will, for a mandatory minimum sentence for using cocaine — a drug preferred by white America —  is a whopping 500 grams. However, if you’re caught with a mere 28 grams of crack — a drug used more commonly by African-Americans — you can receive a mandatory minimum sentence of what could be up to 5 years.

The U.S. “war on drugs” has disproportionately targeted African-Americans and African-American communities since it’s origin in 1971. My hope is that this article put forth factual arguments that have inspired you to learn more about the detrimental effects the American drug has had on African-Americans over the last 45 years.