The American riots: A vertical trench in process

By Abir Bassam

January 11, 2021 – 10:28

On Wednesday evening, it was not the first time that Americans poured into the streets in protest. However, a long time has not passed since the world has witnessed that rioters and demonstrators assaulted the symbol of American democracy: The Capitol. 

It is an irony! When the riots filled the Arab streets in several countries, they were identified as the “revolutionaries”. The rioters were assaulting governmental buildings and national symbols of the states, but it was portrayed under the name of democracy and freedom of speech by the Wild West. While the American riots were immediately branded by Europe and Western officials as chaotic anti-democratic behavior. 

During the last 10 years, the rioters have filled the Arab streets and attacked government buildings, stolen documents, and burned them, especially in Syria and Libya. The two countries were initially targeted by the Wild West to change regimes and the system in the name of “democracy” and the West was anticipating the moment to attack like a predator. 

The same irony brings back the role played by the media, in particular Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, and many others. The media has played a major role in advocating for the rioters and demonizing the opponents of radical behaviors. This role was also perfectly executed by the Western media in supporting the riots against the government institutions in the Arab countries. In reverse, the same American media is pushing towards demonizing their incumbent president and its supporters because they attacked the Capitol, the temple of the American democracy. And now they are pushing towards the impeachment of their president for instigating it.

The impeachment of Trump looks as humiliating as the impeachment of president Gaddafi in the same media, with the exception that in the U.S. the riots on the Capitol were a real version of what was going on, whereas the scenes that were transmitted by Al-Jazeera and many others were costume made. 

The American media is now promoting more than 200 bills waiting to be examined by Congress. All of them were set to criminate Trump and isolate him. Trump was always identified as silly, shallow, and arrogant, even though the American media role is best described as an attempt to bully the man and his partisans. Whether we like the man or not, Trump was supported by around 75 million Americans in the elections, who believed that it was about time to make America great again.

 After all, he is just another American president that led the American policy to the best interest of the American lobbies that enabled him to reach his position. Electing Trump in 2016 was the beginning of the end to the American system and democracy as we know it. Accordingly, the attack on the Capitol is a sign that the temple is about to fall down! 

American democracy is proved to be a masquerade beyond doubt.  Our region has been suffering from it, as well as different countries in the world, especially Latin America. The Americans worked excessively on toppling down elected governments that did not match their policies.  

In addition, it seems that the situation is going to be escalated in the coming days. Even though Trump is no longer able to tweet on social media, his partisans are tweeting for another rally during Biden’s inauguration ceremony as the U.S. president. Besides, the U.S. media are promoting the impeachment of the president. 

There is a miscomprehension of the danger of the impeachment on the American society, which is now vertically divided. After the impeachment, the vertical crack will become deeper and weaken America furthermore. For this reason, the Wall Street Journal has accused Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, of planning a coup against the president by demanding the chief of staff to refuse to execute Trump’s orders. The journal was wondering “what if the U.S. was under nuclear attack?”

In addition, the radical right-wing groups are calling for more escalation and plan to attend the demonstrations with their guns. What would this lead to? Actually, to one of two following results: the first one would be intimidating other national groups whether they were the middle or the left wings. Secondly, clashing with the authorities, if they try to stop them or arrest them for disturbing the peace.

In either way, this would mean that the U.S. is on the verge of civil war.

Over the last ten years, there have been several calls for separation from different American states. They have even gone to federal courts, but they have failed. Hence the intent to divide America is present in the Americans’ minds. This cry for division shows how much incohesive the American social tissue is, even before Trump. Add to that that racism is rising within American society but in reverse.

Nowadays, there is a rising sense of unfairness among the White Anglo Saxon Protestants [WASPs], who initially immigrated to America believing that it was the Promised Land, which was once again occupied by the inferior subjects that the WSPs had imported in the first place as their servants and slaves. It seems that the inferior subjects proved to be smart and hard-working and reached the highest positions leaving God’s chosen people behind.

Therefore, the slogans made during Trump’s campaigns that “Let us make America great again”, or in his declaration that he will go national instead of international, were most appealing to Trump’s partisans, amongst them the WASPs that constitute the majority. However, the slogans went against the deep state’s goals, especially the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and transnational corporations, and many others. The latter was highly affected by the economic sanctions applied by Trump. 

It is clear that Trump’s slogans and behavior were an embarrassment for his vice president Mike Pence and the Republican Party. However, they betrayed him. Many of Trump’s partisans, who elected them to the House of Representatives, feel that they were betrayed as well. Accordingly, the Republicans will need to work harder than ever to gain the trust of their voters again. Therefore, the announcement by Donald Trump junior that now they need to reconstruct the Republican Party again, is a serious message to be considered, since the impeachment of Trump will not go without consequences in the American streets. And his partisans are unlikely to slow down.
 

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Is America’s Future a Civil War?

Will it become a world war?

Paul Craig Roberts

As a person who grew up in the glorious aftermath of World War II, it never occurred to me that in my later years I would be pondering whether the United States would end in civil war or a police state.  In the aftermath of the stolen presidential election, it seems a 50-50 toss up.

There is abundant evidence of a police state.  One feature of a police state is controlled explanations and the suppression of dissent.  We certainly have that in abundance. 

Experts are not permitted forums in which to challenge the official position on Covid.  

Teachers are suspended for giving offense by using gender pronouns.

Recording stars are dropped by their recording studios for attending the Trump rally.  Parents ratted on by their own children are fired from their jobs for attending the Trump rally. https://www.rt.com/usa/512048-capitol-riot-employees-fired/  Antifa is free to riot, loot, intimidate and hassle, but Trump supporters are insurrectionists. 

White people are racists who use hateful words and concepts, but those who demonize whites are righting wrongs.

Suppression of dissent and controlling behavior are police state characteristics.  It might be less clear to some why dictating permissible use of language is police state control. Think about it this way.  If your use of pronouns can be controlled, so can your use of all other words.  As concepts involve words, they also can be controlled.  In this way inconvenient thoughts and expressions along with accurate descriptions find their way into the Memory Hole.

With the First Amendment gone, or restricted to the demonization of targeted persons, such as “the Trump Deplorables,” “white supremacists,” “Southern racists,” the Second Amendment can’t have much life left.  As guns are associated with red states, that is, with Trump supporters, outlawing guns is a way to criminalize the red half of the American population that the Establishment considers “deplorable.”  Those who stand on their Constitutional right will be imprisoned and become cheap prison labor for America’s global corporations.

Could all this lead to a civil war or are Americans too beat down to effectively resist?  That we won’t know until it is put to the test.

Are there clear frontlines?  Identity Politics has divided the people across the entire country.  The red states are only majority red.  It is tempting to see the frontiers as the red center against the blue Northeast and West coasts, but that is misleading. Georgia is a red state with a red governor and legislature, but there were enough Democrats in power locally to steal the presidential and US senate elections.  

Another problem for reds is that large cities—the distribution centers—such as Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles—are in blue hands as are ports and international airports.  Effectively, this cuts reds off from outside resources.

What would the US military do?  Clearly, the Joint Chiefs and the military/security complex are establishment and not anti-establishment Trumpers.  With the soldiers themselves now a racial and gender mix, the soldiers would be as divided as the country.  Those not with the Establishment would lack upper level support.

Where are the youth and younger adults?  They are in both camps depending on their education. Many of the whites who went to university have been brainwashed against themselves, and regard white Americans as “systemic racists” or “white supremacists” and feel guilt. Those who did not go to university for the most part have experienced to their disadvantage the favoritism given to people of color and have resentment.

What about weapons?  How can the reds lose when guns are a household item and blues would never dirty themselves by owning one?  The answer is that unlike the War of Northern Aggression in the 1860s, today the weapons in the hands of the military are devastating compared to those in the hands of the public. Unlike in the past, it is impossible for a citizens’ militia to stand against the weapons and body armor that the military has.  So, unless the military splits, the reds are outgunned.  Never believe that the Establishment would not release chemical and biological agents against red forces.  Or for that matter nuclear weapons.

What about communications?  We know for an absolute fact that the tech monopolies are aligned with the Establishment against the people.  So much so that President Trump, in the process of being set-up for prosecution, has been cut off from communicating with his supporters both in social media and email.  

The American Establishment is doing to President Trump exactly what it did to Ukrainian President Yanukovych in Washington’s orchestrated “Maidan Revolution,” called “the Revolution of Dignity” by the liars at Wikipedia, and precisely what it did to Chavez, Maduro, and would like to do to Putin.

Suppose an American civil war occurs.  How is it likely to play out? Before investigating this, first consider how the Establishment could prevent it by bringing the red states to its defense.  The Trump supporters are the only patriots in the American population. They tend to wear the flag on their sleeve. In contrast, blue state denizens define partiotism as acknowledging America’s evils and taking retribution on those white racists/imperialists who committed the evils. In blue states, riots against the “racist system” result in defunding the police.  If the Antifa and Black Lives Matter militias were sicced on the Biden regine, red state patriots might see “their country” under attack. It is possible that the “Proud Boys” would come to Biden’s defense, not because they believe in Biden but because America is under attack and he is “our president.” Alternatively, an Antifa attack on the Biden regime could be portrayed as an unpatriotic attack on America and be used to discourage red state opposition to the police state, just as “Insurrection” has resulted in many Trump supporters declaring their opposition to violence.  In other words, it is entirely possible that the patriotism of the “Trump Deplorables” would split the red state opposition and lead to defeat.

Assuming that the Establishment is too arrogant and sure of itself or too stupid to think of this ploy, how would a civil war play out?  The Establishment would do everything possible to discredit the case of the “rebels.”  The true rebels, of couse, would be the Establishment which has overthrown the Constitutional order, but no media would make that point.  Controlling the media, the Establishment, knowing of the patriotism of its opponents, would portray the “rebels” as foreign agents seeking to overthrow American Democracy. 

The “foreign threat” always captures the patriot’s attention.  We see it right now with Trump supporters falling for the disinformation that Switzerland and Italy are behind the stolen election. Previously, it was Dominion servers in Germany and Serbia that did the deed.

On whose head will the Establishment place the blame for “the War Against America”? There are three candidates: Iran, China, and Russia.  Which will the Establishment choose?  

To give Iran credit conveys too much power to a relatively small country over America.  To blame Iran for our civil war would be belittling. 

To blame China won’t work, because Trump blamed China for economically undermining America and Trump supporters are generally anti-China. So accusing the red opposition with being China agents would not work. 

The blame will be placed on Russia.  

This is the easy one.  Russia has been the black hat ever since Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech in 1946.  Americans are accustomed to this enemy.  The Cold War reigned from the end of World War II until the Soviet Collapse in 1991.  Many, including retired American generals, maintain that the Soviet collapse was faked to put us off guard for conquest.

When the Establishment decided to frame President Trump, the Establishment chose Russia as Trump’s co-conspirator against American Democracy.  Russiagate, orchestrated by the CIA and FBI, ensured for three years that Trump was accused in the Western media of being in cahoots with Russia. Despite the lack of any evidence, a large percentage of the American and world population was convinced that Trump was put into office by Putin somehow manipulating the vote.

The brainwashing was so successful that three years of Trump sanctions against Russia could not shake the Western peoples back into factual reality.

With Russia as the historic and orchestrated enemy, whatever happens in the United States that can be blamed elsewhere will be blamed on Russia.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes have already associated “Trump’s insurrection” with Russia. https://www.rt.com/russia/512071-capitol-violence-consequences-fear/ 

Suppose that an American civil war becomes intense.  Suppose that the Establishment’s propaganda against Russia becomes the reigning belief as propaganda almost always becomes, how can the Establishment not finish the insurrection threat by attacking the country responsible?  The Establishment would be trapped in its own propaganda. Emotions would run away.  Russia would hear threats that would have to be taken seriously.

You can bet that Biden’s neocon government will be egging this on.  American exceptionalism. American hegemony.  Russia’s fifth column, the Atlanticist Integrationists, who wish absorption into the degenerate and failing Western World, will echo the charges against Russia. This would make the situation a serious international incident with Russia as the threatened villian.  

What would the Kremlin do?  Would Russia’s leaders accept yet another humiliation and false accusation? Or will the anger of the Russian people forever accused and never stood up for by their own government force the Kremlin into awareness that Russia could be attacked at any moment.

Even if the Kremlin is reluctant to acknowledge the threat of war, what if another of the numerous false warnings of incoming ICBMs is received.  Unlike the past, is it believed this time?

The stolen election in America, the emerging American Police State, more vicious and better armed than any in the past, could result in American chaos that could be a dire threat to the Russian Federation.

What Trump and his supporters, and perhaps the Kremlin, do not understand is that real evidence no longer counts. The Establishment makes up the evidence that it needs for its agendas.  Consider how easy it was for the Capitol Police to remove barriers and allow some Antifa mixed in with Trump supporters into the Capitol.  This was all that was required to create a “Trump led insurrection” that terminated the presentation of evidence of electoral fraud and turned the massive rally of support for Trump into a liability. Trump now leaves the presidency as an “insurrectionist” and is set up for continued harassment and prosecution.  

As I prevousy wrote, the stolen election and its acceptance abroad signifies the failure of Western democracy. The collapse of the Western world and its values will affect the entire world. 

Civil War, Medical Discrimination, Spy Satellites and Cyborgs! How 2021 Could Make Us Yearn for 2020

By Helen Buyniski

Global Research, January 06, 2021

RT Op-Ed 1 January 2021

People everywhere are eager to bid farewell to 2020, a year in which our lives were turned upside down by power-mad elites who seized the Covid-19 pandemic as a chance to go full police state. But be careful what you wish for.

The year 2020 has proven things can always get worse, delivering a worldwide economic depression, a coronavirus pandemic, riots across the US, and unprecedented political division. It’s safe to say most of humanity is eager to close the book on it. But merely putting up a new calendar does nothing to address these issues, which seem certain to reach a breaking point. Humanity has been pushed to the limit with arbitrary rules, enforced poverty, and mandated isolation — it will only take a spark or two for things to explode.

It’s clear from the media establishment’s non-stop fear-porn broadcasts that Covid-19 isn’t going anywhere next year. Even as a growing body of evidence suggests lockdowns and mask-wearing have little if any effect on the spread of the novel coronavirus, governments will maintain these stringent behavioral controls, keeping the public terrified enough to beg for authoritarianism. But as vaccines are rolled out to the general public, the divide between those obeying the rules and the dissidents will only grow.

News outlets around the world have been pushing the narrative that ‘health passports’ outfitted with the bearer’s Covid-19 vaccination status will be required to travel, enter public spaces, and even get a job in the near future. These certificates are already being presented as the only possible route out of lockdown, even as the heads of both Pfizer and Moderna have admitted their vaccines probably won’t stop the spread of the coronavirus. Accordingly, those who decline to get the jab will be treated as pariahs, banned from some public spaces and told it’s their fault life hasn’t gone back to normal, just as so-called “anti-maskers” have been.

The same army of Karens that scream and point at anyone who dares leave home without their face covered will gleefully rise to the occasion of doxxing, outing, and tormenting vaccine skeptics. Anyone who isn’t thrilled by the idea of ingesting an experimental compound whose makers have been indemnified from any lawsuits will be deemed an enemy of the state, even separated from their children or removed from their home as a “health risk.” Neighbors will gleefully rat each other out for the equivalent of an extra chocolate ration, meaning even the most slavishly obedient individuals could end up in “quarncentration camps” for upsetting the wrong person.

Even those who’ve remained silent about masks and lockdowns, afraid of “making waves,” are unlikely to take involuntary inoculation lying down. Almost two thirds of Americans aren’t interested in taking the vaccine, meaning the Karens and the kapos may run into unexpected resistance.

In the US, the increasingly certain reality of a Biden presidency is also likely to push some people over the edge, though the president-elect seems to have realized that shoving his whole program down American throats at once will make the country choke. Even so, Biden and his vice president Kamala Harris have made enough statements on gutting the First and Second Amendments, turning the suburbs into mini-cities packed with government-subsidized housing, and adopting Green New Deal carbon controls that half the electorate sees their inauguration as a threat to their way of life.

Rumors of militia groups, veterans, and even active-duty military rising up against the supposed communist takeover may seem far-fetched, given such groups’ willingness over the last year to allow government to trample over such fundamental freedoms as the right to earn a living or even leave one’s house, but seeing Trump leave the White House could be the straw that broke the camel’s back. These groups are well-armed and will easily wipe out whatever Antifa cannon-fodder the neoliberal centrists can throw at them. Nor can the establishment necessarily count on police to save them, having spent the last several months calling for defunding law enforcement. Trump’s call for “wild protests” in January, coupled with his former national security adviser Mike Flynn cheering for martial law, have been interpreted as a green light to do whatever it takes to keep the White House out of Democrat hands.

The centrist establishment isn’t helping matters by declaring Trump supporters to be essentially subhuman and not worth conversing with. Worse, by promoting doxxing anyone who’s ever expressed the “wrong” ideas on social media, they’re only stirring up conservative resentment. The longer economic shutdowns last, the more likely disaffected Americans are to decide they have nothing left to lose and attempt to take a few establishment types out with them.

Not that all in opposition to Biden believe the sundowning centrist plans to install a dictatorship of the proletariat, of course. Many fear his use of the “Build Back Better” slogan popularized by proponents of humanity’s soulless “new normal” suggests his administration will be responsible for the US implementation of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, a much more terrifying prospect than some milquetoast Marxism. This disturbing plan, devised by WEF CEO Klaus Schwab and a coterie of wealthy financiers and businessmen, aims to do away with private property, bodily integrity, familial bonds, and other pillars of western civilization, while shifting the world’s finances to blockchain-based Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and doing away with cash.

Coming off like a Bond villain straight out of central casting, Schwab has enthused about the coming merger of humans with technology, which will enable whole new spheres of individual and social control. From Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ plan to blanket the earth with spy satellites, to DARPA’s efforts to bring surveillance under the skin with “hydrogel” sensors that monitor vital signs and transmit the data to the cloud, the global technocracy these oligarchs seek will change what it means to be human – a feature, not a bug, in their eyes. And while the vast majority of western society seems utterly supine now, it’s unlikely they’ll sit idly by while the rich and powerful strip them of their humanity. The WEF’s smiley-faced propaganda (“Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, I have no privacy, and I couldn’t be happier”) may well be its epitaph.COVID-19 Lockdowns Are in Lockstep with the ‘Great Reset’

Progressive Spirit Podcast: Gilad Atzmon on the Upcoming US Civil War

NOVEMBER 25, 2020BY GILAD ATZMON

John Shuck writes: Gilad Atzmon returns to discuss what he sees as a civil war brewing in the United States over dividing lines that are based on identitarian politics. In this educational and informative interview, he elaborates on a recent post of his, It’s Not About Trump or Biden, and he discusses the history of identitarian politics and why the U.S. is so polarized today. He is the author of The Wandering Who: The Study of Jewish Identity Politics and Being In Time: A Post-Political Manifesto. In May 2018 he was on my program that commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Nakba “The Catastrophe” and Palestinian resistance.

More here

The Democratic Facade

NOVEMBER 07, 2020 BY GILAD ATZMON

by Gilad Atzmon 

On election day, countless progressive and liberal commentators throughout the entire mainstream media were foolish enough to admit that the battle at stake wasn’t really about ‘Trump or Biden’ but about the ‘American way,’ the future, so to say, of the public discourse and public life in the USA. Progressives and liberals were confident enough to believe that with nearly 100 million ballots given in before election day, Americans had already cast an unprecedented spectacle of rejection of everything that may even mildly resemble ‘conservative values.’ They were convinced that America had made its choice already. For them, I must assume, the election was just an act of formality. The battle was basically won already.

 But then just a few hours later, it became clear that the pollsters failed them completely once again. The ‘Trumpsters’ refused to evaporate. They grew substantially and even expanded demographically into some ‘unexpected’ electoral territories traditionally associated with Democratic politics.

 The clear meaning of the election is that America, like most other Western states, is divided in the middle into two opposing societies that have very little in common.  Far more worrying is the clear fact that the two sides of the divide cannot tolerate each other. 

As much as the Left, Progressives and Liberals are convinced by the absolute validity of their way of thinking, to the point that they insist to dictate them by authoritarian and tyrannical measures, at least as many people do not buy, follow and even reject those values.   Many Americans do not accept the identiterian shift. Many Americans are not convinced at all that gender isn’t binary. I assume that most disappointing and worrying for the DNC is the fact that members of ‘diverse minorities’ as the Democrats call them, have switched sides. They became vocal Trump supporters.

Watch a Cuban fusion band sings “I will Vote for Donald Trump” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HpwNRSE4nM

This is very easy to explain. The Democratic Party offers Blacks, Gays, Latinos and so called ‘diverse minorities’ to be marginalized forever in an amalgam of ‘Others United’.  The GOP is offering those people an immediate integration as ordinary people into the American realm. All you need to do is get yourself a red Trump baseball cap and join your next local Trump rally. It is this most basic existential togetherness that was so vivid within the Left revolutionary discourse, but only materialized into a populist sustained tsunami of political resistance within the contexts of right-wing populist politics. 

In the upside-down world in which we live. The Republican party has become the party of the American working-class people. People who are defined by their adherence to family values, the church, hard work and see themselves as the ‘Americans.’  The Democratic party that claimed to be the voice of those working people, has gradually morphed into an urban identiatrian conglomerate.  A collective of ‘as a’ people: humans who insist to identify with their biology:  ‘as a Woman,’ ‘as a Gay,’ ‘as a Trans,’ ‘as a Black,’ ‘as a Jew.’

In the upside down world in which we live, the Left ended up adopting the most embarrassing and problematic Hitlerian ideological aspect: Unlike Italian fascism that adhered to the concept of ‘socialism of the Italian people,’ or early Nazism that pushed for the idea of ‘equality of German speaking people,’ Hitler insisted upon ‘socialism of one race.’ Hitler believed that people’s politics is intrinsic to their biology. As opposed to traditional inclusive Left thinking that was class oriented, the contemporary Left pushes people to identify politically on biological terms: ‘as a woman,’ ‘as a black,’ ‘as a gay,’ ‘as a trans’ etc. The GOP on the other hand, is coming closer and closer to universal class politics.  

On the morning of the 3rd of November, the liberal press was ready to announce that the ‘as a’ philosophy had won. But as things stand right now, this  battle between the ‘as a’ people  and the ‘Americans’ may escalate into a real violent conflict as there is no one in America or anywhere else who knows how to unite the people into a simple concept of peoplehood. Again, this is hardly an American phenomenon. The exact same division and the lack of a political unifying prospect is currently apparent in every Western State.

On Thursday, Wall Street rose substantially. Naturally, many commentators believed that our oligarchs and financial tycoons were excited by Biden’s likeliness to win the American election. But it may also be possible that Wall Street was way more thrilled by the prospect of a possible civil war. When people fight each other, capitalism, mammonism and usury can be celebrated mercilessly and boundlessly. This is exactly what Wall Street is after.   

It may as well be possible that in the global universe in which we live, in a world where all existential concerns reintroduced themselves as ‘global threats’ to do with: global warming, global financial turmoil, global pandemics etc., a state of bitter civil war is exactly where global capitalism wants us the people to be. Democracy and the fantasy of political choice, as such, are just a camouflage. It is there to convey the image that the current chaos is merely our own choice or fault.  

To understand ID politics and its disastrous impact on contemporary society read Being in Time

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Biden, the Road Map … and the Potential Trump Adventure? بايدن وخريطة الطريق… ومغامرة ترامب المحتملة؟

Biden, the Road Map … and the Potential Trump Adventure?

Nasser Qandil

–

Until January, when President-elect Joe Biden enters the White House, a complex and open judicial process on several hypotheses, during which Republicans line up behind President Donald Trump until the judicial process reaches a clear end in Biden’s favor, at which point republican and institutional climates are likely to escalate and pave the way for Biden to the White House, if Trump does not present On a military adventure aimed at turning the tables and imposing fait accompli paths restructuring the transition path before the end of his term, as you say his dismissal to the minister of defense under serious warnings of military adventures, or the dangers of dismantling and installing the security, military and judicial administration in a way that weakens the climate of presidential transition in a smooth way, in which institutions play a crucialrole.

–

When we say what’s not surprising and what’s about Trump is likely to happen, then if Biden gets into the White House next January, things will be more like a miracle, especially since the election showed a wild, organized, armed white bloc lining up behind Trump’s confrontational project to make it to the Civil War, and to sacrifice the unity of the state. In contrast, the presence of organized and armed groups on the bank of an interview also facilitates the adventure of open armed conflict, some of which build calculations to spread chaos, especially in border areas, and in a number of states that live under racial tensions, and above all there is a vertical division in the business class between the oil camp and the anti-enterprise weapons openly espoused by Biden, and openly pro-Trump. The stated talk of some of the symbols of this class about the independence of states that make up these sectors is vital sources of income, in exchange for the bets of the technology, housing, alternative energy and pharmaceutical sectors on Biden’s projects and their stated grumbling about the savageness of Trump’s economic project, despite the surge in Trump’s customs protections, began to wither isolation on U.S. interests, such as the auto industry recession, despite a temporary surge that followed the steel and steel protection policy that Washington’s allies did notsurvive.

–

In an article published today by President-elect Joe Biden, published in The Foreign Affairs Magazine in the March issue, in which he outlines his responsibilities as president if elected, it is possible to deduce what Biden, the yeast of American institutional political life, will do by accumulating his experience and presence during half a century of his position in Congress and his role as semi-permanent chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee before he became vice president under Barack Obama, and Biden, the son of George W. Bush, the son of the American foundation other than Trump, is aware of the fact that he is aware of the state of affairs. His first task is at least a long-term internal and external restoration, the essence of which is at home and needs to be breath-taking abroad, where a return to agreements and understandings is the basis, not the language of animosity that is presented in Biden’s review of policy platforms and not the road map; nuclear, despite the hostile language about Iran’s regional policies. All of this is an entry point for restoring alliance cohesion with Europe and restoring life to NATO, to reconfigure the U.S. economy and rebuild what Biden calls the Americanmodel.

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Biden lays down three pillars of foreign policy, all of which suggest the need to consume his first term in domestic construction, and the pillars are, the power of the model, namely, rebuilding a bright image of America after the wild image of Trump, and the second pillar is the rehabilitation of alliances, whether with its economic dimension with Europe, Japan, South Korea and others, or its political dimension under the title of the Free Democratic Bloc, or its military dimension by revitalizing NATO, and the third pillar it calls sitting at the top of the table. The essence of the reintroduction of the agreements that Trump withdrew from, from the strategic arms control agreement with Russia, the pollution control agreement known as the Paris Climate Agreement, the free trade agreements with China, and the nuclear understanding with Iran, and on these pillars Trump builds what he considers a reconsideration of diplomacy under the slogan “Be strong but smart”, where resorting to military force must be the last option, and within very narrow limits associated with a direct threat to U.S.security.

–

Commitment to Israel’s security and superiority is part of Biden’s plan, but from a 4,000-word article that received only 4 words on conflict issues in the region, this brief sentence on commitment.

بايدن وخريطة الطريق… ومغامرة ترامب المحتملة؟

ناصر قنديل

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حتى كانون الثاني موعد دخول الرئيس المنتخب جو بايدن الى البيت الأبيض، مسار قضائيّ معقد ومفتوح على فرضيّات عدّة، يصطف خلالها الجمهوريون وراء الرئيس الأميركي دونالد ترامب لحين بلوغ المسار القضائيّ نهاية واضحة لصالح بايدن، يرجّح عندها تصاعد مناخات جمهورية ومؤسسيّة تمهّد لبايدن الطريق نحو البيت الأبيض، هذا إذا لم يقدم ترامب على مغامرة عسكريّة تهدف لقلب الطاولة وفرض مسارات أمر واقع تعيد هيكلة مسار المرحلة الانتقالية قبل نهاية ولايته، كما تقول إقالته لوزير الدفاع في ظل تحذيرات جدية من مغامرات عسكرية، أو مخاطر فك وتركيب الإدارة الأمنية والعسكرية والقضائيّة بصورة تضعف مناخ الانتقال الرئاسيّ بصورة سلسة تلعب المؤسسات دوراً حاسماً فيه.

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عندما نقول ما لم يحدث ما هو مفاجئ ويكون المعني هو ترامب، يصير الأرجح هو حدوث هذا المفاجئ، وبالتالي إذا قيّض لبايدن دخول البيت الأبيض في كانون الثاني المقبل، فستكون الأمور أقرب الى معجزة، خصوصاً أن الانتخابات أظهرت وجود كتلة بيضاء عنصرية متوحّشة منظمة ومسلّحة تصطف وراء مشروع ترامب التصادميّ وصولاً لاستسهالها للحرب الأهلية، وللتضحية بوحدة الدولة الفدرالية، وبالمقابل وجود جماعات منظمة ومسلّحة على ضفة مقابلة تستسهل المغامرة أيضاً بنزاع مسلح مفتوح، وبعضها يبني حسابات على تعميم الفوضى خصوصاً في المناطق الحدودية، وفي عدد من الولايات التي تعيش تحت وطأة الاحتقانات العنصرية، وفوق كل ذلك هناك انقسام عمودي في طبقة رجال الأعمال بين معسكر النفط والسلاح المعادي لمشاريع يتبناها بايدن علناً، والمؤيد لترامب علناً. والكلام المعلن من بعض رموز هذه الطبقة عن استقلال ولايات تشكل هذه القطاعات مصادر الدخل الحيوي فيها، مقابل رهانات قطاعات التكنولوجيا والإسكان والطاقة البديلة والأدوية على مشاريع بايدن وتذمّرها المعلن من توحش المشروع الاقتصادي لترامب، رغم الطفرة التي أحدثتها إجراءات الحماية الجمركية التي اعتمدها ترامب، وبدأت تذبل بارتداد العزلة على المصالح الأميركية كحال كساد صناعة السيارات رغم فورة مؤقتة أعقبت سياسة الحماية لصناعة الصلب والحديد التي لم ينج حلفاء واشنطن من تبعاتها.

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في مقال تنشره البناء اليوم للرئيس المنتخَب جو بايدن، سبق نشره في مجلة الفورين أفيرز في عدد آذار نيسان، يقدّم فيه مقاربته لمسؤولياته كرئيس في حال انتخابه، يمكن استخلاص ما سيفعله بايدن، الذي يشكل خميرة الحياة السياسية المؤسسيّة الأميركية بتراكم خبرته وحضوره خلال نصف قرن من موقعه في الكونغرس ودوره كرئيس شبه دائم للجنة الشؤون الخارجية قبل أن يصبح نائباً للرئيس في عهد باراك اوباما، وبايدن الشبيه بجورج بوش الأب إبن المؤسسة الأميركيّة بخلاف ترامب الطارئ عليها، يدرك كما تقول مقالته التفصيليّة إن مهمة ولايته الأولى على الأقل هي إعادة ترميم داخلي وخارجي طويلة النفس، جوهرها في الداخل وتحتاج التقاط الأنفاس في الخارج، حيث العودة للاتفاقات والتفاهمات هي الأساس، وليس لغة العداوات التي تحضر في استعراض بايدن لمنطلقات السياسات وليس لخريطة الطريق؛ فمع روسيا عودة لاتفاقيات الحد من التسلح، رغم تصويرها مصدراً رئيسياً للخطر، ومع الصين عودة للتنافس الاقتصادي تحت سقف اتفاقية المناخ واتفاقيات التجارة الحرة، رغم اللغة التحذيرية من خطر صعود الصين وخطتها للتوسع عالمياً، ومع إيران عودة للاتفاق النووي، رغم اللغة العدائية حول سياسات إيران الإقليمية. وكل هذا مدخل لاستعادة تماسك الحلف مع أوروبا وإعادة الحياة لحلف الناتو، للتفرغ لإعادة تكوين الاقتصاد الأميركي وإعادة بناء ما يسميه بايدن بالنموذج الأميركي.

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يضع بايدن ثلاث ركائز للسياسة الخارجية توحي جميعها بالحاجة لاستهلاك ولايته الأولى في البناء الداخلي، والركائز هي، قوة النموذج، أي اعادة بناء صورة مشرقة لأميركا بعد الصورة المتوحشة التي رسمها ترامب، والركيزة الثانية هي رد الاعتبار للتحالفات، سواء ببعدها الاقتصادي مع أوروبا واليابان وكوريا الجنوبية وسواها، أو ببعدها السياسي تحت عنوان الكتلة الديمقراطية الحرة، أو ببعدها العسكري عبر تنشيط حلف الناتو، والركيزة الثالثة يسميها الجلوس على رأس الطاولة، وجوهرها إعادة العمل بالاتفاقيات التي انسحب منها ترامب، من اتفاقية الحد من التسلح الاستراتيجي مع روسيا، واتفاقية الحد من التلوث المعروفة باتفاقية باريس للمناخ، واتفاقيات التجارة الحرة مع الصين، والتفاهم النووي مع إيران، وعلى هذه الركائز يبني ترامب ما يعتبره رد الاعتبار للدبلوماسية تحت شعار «كن قوياً ولكن كن ذكياً»، حيث اللجوء للقوة العسكرية يجب ان يكون آخر الخيارات، وفي حدود ضيقة جداً ترتبط بتهديد مباشر للأمن الأميركي.

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الالتزام بأمن «إسرائيل» وتفوقها جزء من خطة بايدن، لكن من مقال بـ 4000 كلمة وردت 4 كلمات فقط عن قضايا الصراع في المنطقة هي هذه الجملة المقتضبة حول الالتزام.

الفائز بِكُرة من لهب

أميركا 2020: الإمبراطورية كما لم تُرَ من قبل!

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الثلاثاء 3 تشرين الثاني 2020

المرشّح الفائز في الانتخابات الرئاسية الأميركية، أكان جو بايدن أم دونالد ترامب، سيواجه تحدّيات وصعوبات داخلية وخارجية، نُدِر أن واجه مثلها رئيس أميركي منذ نهاية الحرب العالمية الثانية. فالذي سيتربّع على مقعد رئاسة الإمبراطورية الأميركية المنحدرة سيجد نفسه أمام شرخ داخلي لا سابق له بين «أميركتين» يخشى الكثيرون أن يفضي إلى نزاعات أهلية دامية ومديدة، وأمام مشهد دولي تتسارع فيه ديناميات صعود المنافسين، مع ما تحمله من تهديدات بالانزلاق الى صدامات مباشرة معهم يصعب التنبّؤ بنتائجها، بالتوازي مع مسار تفكّك التحالفات الموروثة من حقبات سابقة، وتصاعد الصراعات بين أفرقاء إقليميين ودوليين تتراجع قدرة الولايات المتحدة على التحكّم فيها. الفوز في الانتخابات الرئاسية، في مثل هذا السياق العام، قد لا يكون أكثر من «هدية مسمومة»، تمثّل مقدمة لسلسلة من الانتكاسات والإخفاقات سيتحمّل مسؤوليتها رئيسٌ سيجد نفسه مضطراً إلى الأخذ بخيارات أحلاها شديد المرارة.

نُذُر النزاعات الداخلية
معدّلات المشاركة المرتفعة والمفاجئة في الانتخابات الرئاسية مفاجأة غير سارّة بالنسبة إلى دونالد ترامب. سبق لهذا الأخير أن حذر، خلال مهرجان انتخابي يوم السبت الماضي، من وقوع «أحداث شديدة السوء» في حال إعلان هوية الفائز يوم 3 تشرين الثاني، متوقعاً أن تَعمّ الفوضى بلاده. لَمّح ترامب، في أكثر من مناسبة في الأسابيع الماضية، إلى احتمال وقوع عمليات تزوير بسبب التصويت عن بعد، وهو احتمالٌ نفاه مدير «أف.بي.آي» المُعيّن من قِبَله، كريس وراي. هو يعلم أن نقطة ضعفه الأبرز، التي استغلّها منافسه الديمقراطي بقوة، هي إدارته الكارثية لجائحة كورونا وتداعياتها المُروّعة إنسانياً واقتصادياً واجتماعياً في الولايات المتحدة، والتي أدت إلى تعبئة قطاع وازن من الرأي العام ضدّه. «مجموعة الأزمات الدولية»، التي تُعنى عادة بتحليل خلفيات النزاعات في البلدان «النامية» واقتراح آليات لحلّها سلمياً، أصدرت، في خطوة وُصفت بـ»الاستثنائية» من قِبَل رئيسها روبرت مالي، تقريراً يشير إلى احتمال وقوع «اضطرابات وأعمال عنف واسعة» في الولايات المتحدة على خلفية الانتخابات والتشكيك في نتائجها من قِبَل كتل وازنة من الأميركيين. التقرير، الذي نشرت «الأخبار» يوم الإثنين أهمّ ما ورد فيه، يُركّز على أن رفض ترامب لنتائج الانتخابات واحتمال إقدامه على الطعن في نتائجها أمام القضاء، إضافة إلى عوامل أخرى: «غرق الولايات المتحدة بالأسلحة وسجلها السوداوي السابق في الحروب الأهلية، والقتل العشوائي، إضافة إلى الصراع الطبقي الحادّ والعبودية وغيرها، وتنامي الحركات المنادية بتفوّق العرق الأبيض في عهد ترامب، وتزايد الظلم العنصري ضدّ السود ووحشية الشرطة، جميعها أسباب تُرجّح إمكانية حدوث أعمال عنف».

ستدخل الولايات المتحدة في فترة طويلة من غياب الاستقرار السياسي

وحتى إذا نجح الفريق المنتصر في الانتخابات في تجاوز مرحلة من الصراع الداخلي المحموم، فإنه سيجابَه خلال سنوات حكمه بمعارضة داخلية عنيدة من قِبَل قطاع وازن من المجتمع والنخبة السياسية الأميركيَّين. يصحّ هذا الكلام على ترامب وبايدن على حدّ سواء. المنتصر بينهما سيُتّهم بعدم تمثيل الإرادة الشعبية «الحقيقية»، وبـ»التضحية» بالمصالح الوطنية على مذبح مصالحه الخاصة ومصالح القوى السياسية والاجتماعية الداعمة له. ستترتّب على هذا الاستقطاب الداخلي العميق مساعٍ من الفريق المعارض لإفشال السياسات التي يعتمدها ذلك المنتصر بغية إضعافه وإلحاق الهزيمة به في المستقبل. بكلام آخر، ستدخل الولايات المتحدة في فترة طويلة من غياب الاستقرار السياسي، «الضروري لحسن سير النظام الديمقراطي» بحسب تعبير مُنظّريه، وتزايد للتناقضات الداخلية ستكون له انعكاسات سلبية على موقعها الدولي.

خطر الانزلاق إلى حرب مع الصين
العداء المستشري والمتزايد للصين في النخبة السياسية الأميركية، بجناحَيها الديمقراطي والجمهوري، وارتفاع مستوى التوتر معها في جوارها المباشر، في بحر الصين وحول تايوان، والإصرار على تشديد الضغوط والعقوبات التجارية والاقتصادية عليها بحجة انتهاكها لحقوق الإنسان في هونغ كونغ والسين كيانغ، جميعها عوامل تجعل من إمكانية الانزلاق نحو صدام مفتوح معها فرضية واقعية. قبل تناول المعطيات التي قد تدفع في هذا الاتجاه، لا بدّ من إدراك أبرز سمة في الوضع الدولي الراهن، وهي الانتقال من هيمنة أحادية إلى انتشار وتوزّع القوة على الصعيد الدولي، مع صعود دور أطراف جدد، وفي مقدّمتهم الصين، وتحوّلها إلى منافس من المستوى نفسه، ورفض القطب المهيمن سابقاً، وهذا هو الأهمّ، التسليم بالانتقال المذكور. مثل هذا السياق هو الذي يؤسِّس تقليدياً للنزاعات والحروب.
يرى كريستوفير لاين، أستاذ العلاقات الدولية في جامعة تكساس، في مقال لافت في العدد الأخير من «فورين أفيرز» بعنوان «العواصف القادمة»، أن فرضية استحالة الصدام المباشر بين القوى العظمى، والتي سادت بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية، أساساً بسبب خطر الإفناء المتبادل الناتج عن امتلاك كلّ منها للسلاح النووي، باتت غير مطابقة للوقائع الراهنة، وأوّلها التطور الهائل الذي تمّ في مجال الأسلحة النووية التكتيكية، والذي يتيح المجال لاستخدامها بشكل محدود، ومن دون الذهاب إلى درجة الإفناء المتبادل. الحُجّة الثانية التي تورَد أيضاً من أنصار استحالة الصدام المباشر هي تداخل المصالح الاقتصادية بين الأطراف الدوليين، وفي حالتنا هذه بين الولايات المتحدة والصين. يؤكد لاين ما سبق أن أشار اليه العديد من الباحثين، من أن مسار فسخ للشراكة بين البلدين قد بدأ في السنوات الماضية، وأن تفكيك شبكة المصالح الضخمة المشتركة يتسارع في الآونة الأخيرة، وبقرار من قيادتَيهما. علاوة على ذلك، فإن وجود مصالح مشتركة وروابط اقتصادية وثقافية عميقة لم يمنع الحرب بين بريطانيا وألمانيا في 1914، على رغم غياب أيّ أسباب مباشرة لها، كالنزاع الحدودي أو التنافس للسيطرة على بلد ما، بينهما. يردّ الأكاديمي الأميركي الدافع الرئيس للحرب إلى تعاظم القدرات العسكرية، خاصة البحرية، لألمانيا، وكذلك الاقتصادية والصناعية، وما مَثّله من تحدٍّ لقوة مهيمنة كبريطانيا، بدأت تشعر في تلك الحقبة بتراجع قدراتها. وهو يعتبر أن «هذه المسارات الانتقالية من النادر أن تتمّ بشكل سلمي. القوة المسيطرة عادة ما تكون متغطرسة، وتعطي دروساً لبقية دول العالم حول كيفية إدارة شؤونها، وتتجاهل مخاوفها وتطلّعاتها. مثل هذه القوة، بريطانيا في الماضي، أميركا اليوم، تقاوم بعناد انحدارها، والقوة الصاعدة متلهّفة للحصول على ما تعتبره حصتها العادلة من المغانم، أكانت في ميادين التجارة أم الموارد أم مناطق النفوذ». الرئيس الأميركي المقبل سيكون أمام تحدّي إدارة الصراع مع الصين، مع ضبط سقفه للحؤول دون الانزلاق نحو الحرب معها.

مسار تفكّك التحالفات
يُلام ترامب باعتباره مسؤولاً عن إضعاف تحالف الولايات المتحدة مع بقية الديمقراطيات الغربية بسبب تعريفه الضيّق للمصالح الأميركية ورؤيته «المركنتيلية». في الحقيقة، فإن الخلافات الاقتصادية والتجارية بين واشنطن وشركائها الأوروبيين، والتباينات المتزايدة في المصالح، ظهرت بوضوح للعيان منذ رئاسة أوباما، وتفاقمت بطبيعة الحال مع ترامب. في حال بقاء الأخير في السلطة، فإنها مرشّحة للمزيد من التفاقم، مع ما يستتبع ذلك من تداعيات على التحالف. في حال انتصار بايدن، وعلى رغم إعلانه نيّته «ترميم» العلاقات مع هؤلاء الشركاء، فإن طموحه إلى اتباع «سياسة خارجية لصالح الطبقة الوسطى» يعني التشدّد في مفاوضاته التجارية والاقتصادية معهم، والسعي إلى منع نموّ علاقاتهم مع منافسيه الدوليين كروسيا والصين. وتأتي النزاعات بين الدول الأعضاء في «الناتو»، كتلك الدائرة في ليبيا أو شرق المتوسط، لتُضاعف من صعوبة الحفاظ على تماسك الحلف في ظلّ التناقضات المتنامية في مصالح بعض أعضائه.
حقيقة الشرخ الداخلي في الولايات المتحدة، ومخاطر التدحرج نحو نزاع مدمّر مع الصين والاتجاه إلى تزايد الصراعات والنزاعات بين العديد من اللاعبين الدوليين، وحتى غير الدوليين، في أنحاء مختلفة من العالم، ستجعل من الفائز في الانتخابات الأميركية كَمَن فاز بِكُرة من لهب.

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في الدولة الإمبراطورية الأعظم في العالم التي تمثلها أميركا انتخابات، هي واحدة من عشرات الانتخابات المماثلة التي شهدتها وقدمت خلالها نموذجاً للانتقال السلمي للسلطة، بصورة جعلت منها النموذج الأعرق للديمقراطية في العالم، وفي الدولة الإمبراطورية العظمى، والنموذج الديمقراطي الأعرق، يتفق المرشحان المتنافسان على شيء واحد هو أن الانتخابات هذه المرّة قد لا تشهد انتقالاً سلمياً للسلطة، فالرئيس الحالي دونالد ترامب هو أول رئيس أميركي يهدّد بعدم التسليم بنتائج الانتخابات وعدم تسليم السلطة، والمرشح الديمقراطي جو بايدن يحذر من أعمال شغب وفوضى، ومحللون وسياسيون وخبراء كثر من النخب الوازنة في الوسطين السياسي والإعلامي يتحدّثون علناً عن خطر حرب أهلية تنتظر أميركا، والتقارير المجمع عليها من مناصري الفريقين المتنافسين تتحدّث عن حمى تسلح وعن تمرّد ولايات على الدولة الفدرالية إذا فاز المرشح المنافس للمرشح الذي يتملك غالبية كاسحة في هذه الولايات. والحديث يدور هنا عن أكثر من عشر ولايات تدين بولائها للديمقراطيين بصورة كاسحة ومثلها تدين بالولاء للجمهوريين بصورة كاسحة.

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للمرة الأولى في التاريخ الأميركي لا تملك السياسة الأميركية في الحزبين فرصة لحل أزمتها الداخلية بالتوجّه نحو الخارج، ولا يملك كل من الحزبين حلولاً سحرية لأزمات الداخل، والتغيير الجوهري الذي يراهن عليه كل من المرشحين يعني مساساً بثوابت قيمية وجودية للفريق الآخر، بصورة تجعل خسارته الانتخابات أكبر من خسارة مؤقتة بما تعنيه من فتح الطريق لمجتمع من نوع آخر، وقيم حاكمة أخرى، ما يضع وحدة الدولة والمجتمع على المحك، وفي عمق المأزق الأميركي يشترك الحزبان الواقفان وراء المرشحين في بلوغ الطريق المسدود في خوض الحروب، بعد ولايتين لجورج بوش أشد الرؤساء الجمهوريين رهاناً على الحرب الخشنة، وولايتين لباراك أوباما أشد الرؤساء الديمقراطيين رهاناً على الحرب الناعمة، والحصيلة فشل مكثف في الولايات الرئاسية الأربع، وصولاً للحرب التي شهدتها الولاية الخامسة التي كان عنوانها دونالد ترامب، وعنوانها العقوبات وحروب الحصار المالي، التي أضافت للفشل مزيداً من الفشل، لتجد أميركا نفسها أمام طريق مسدود بين حرب تعجز عن خوضها وتسوية لا تجرؤ على الخوض فيها.

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أمام الأميركيين أميركيتان مختلفتان جذرياً مع فوز كل من المرشحين المتنافسين، واحدة تلغي الأخرى، داخلياً وخارجياً، في مشاريع التنمية الاقتصادية، والتوجهات الضريبية والبيئية، وفرص العمل والأجور، والتأمينات الصحية والتعامل مع كورونا، والعلاقة بين الأعراق والإطار القانوني للمواطنة الأميركية، فأميركا ترامب بيضاء للأثرياء لا تعترف بضوابط البيئة والصحة، تسود فيها شركات النفط والسلاح والعقارات وتحصر صناعة السياسة بها، وهي أميركا التي تقع في صلب مخاطر المواجهات غير المعروفة النتائج، مع سلبيات عدائية تطال كل العالم من روسيا والصين وصولاً الى اوروبا مروراً بإيران سورية وكوريا الشمالية؛ بينما أميركا بايدن هي اميركا مختلفة جذرياً، حيث لم يعد ممكناً الكلام عن رفض العنصرية بالنسبة للسود واللاتينيين من دون تغييرات تشريعية جذرية، ولم يعد ممكناً للطبقات الوسطى وما دونها قبول الإصلاح الاجتماعي والطبي من دون نظام ضرائبي جديد، ولا يمكن الحفاظ على دعم الجماعات البيئية من دون إجراءات حاسمة ستصيب شركات النفط والسلاح في الصميم، وتنظم القطاع العقاري بمعايير يرفضها اصحاب الرأسمال العقاري. وخارجياً هي أميركا العائدة الى محاولة ترميم الجسور التي نسفها ترامب، على قاعدة الاختلاف والندية، لكن ايضاً على قاعدة التعاون والبحث عن الحلول السياسية للنزاعات، في ملف اتفاقية المناخ وملف منظمة الصحة العالمية والملف النووي الإيراني، وملف التفاوض على حلّ يستند لصيغة الدولتين للقضية الفلسطينية.

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في أميركا يكثر أنصار المرشحين من استعمال صفة المخلص في توصيف مشروعه وترشيحه، فيما خيار ترامب يعني إصابة وجودية لنصف الأميركيين، وخيار بايدن يعني إصابة وجودياً للنصف الآخر، والأهم من اسم الرابح في الانتخابات هو أن نهاية الانتخابات تعني بداية مسار مصيري خطير للإمبراطورية التي تترنح وتفقد توازنها، ليست الحرب الأهلية مجرد شائعة فيه، بعد قرنين من الصعود المستقر، يصير الشحوب والتراجع خطاً بيانياً مستداماً، والقفزة الى المجهول قاب ساعات أو أكثر، ويصير تفادي الساعة السوداء للسقوط المدوّي للإمبراطورية العظمى بذاته إنجاز غير قابل للتحقق إلا بفوز كاسح لأحد المرشحين، حيث يبدو بايدن هو الأوفر حظاً لتحقيقه، حيث فوزه الضئيل يشكل صاعق التفجير الداخلي للإمبراطورية، وفوزه الكاسح ربما يكون بوليصة تأمينها من التصدع، وربما يكون هذا حافزاً لتصويت غير متوقع لصالحه لتفادي الأسوأ، بحيث يبدو بايدن مشروع مخلص بنظر دعاة وحدة «الأمة الأميركية» من الحزبين لرد الاعتبار للسياسة ولو من موقع أضعف.

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3 weeks to election: No 2nd household stimulus? No mass protests? No pulse?

October 14, 2020

By Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog

If you had said back in May that the CARES Act would be the only fiscal stimulus in the world’s richest country surely you would have responded, “But then by October America will certainly be in pandemonium?”

Well… where’s the pandemonium?

I can best explain this American exceptionalism – that they go postal only when they should not, instead of when they should – via this October 3rd report I did for PressTV.

For those of you who don’t want to deal with the “inexplicable” glitches and stops which somehow “magically” afflict every PressTV report I try to watch from inside the US, here’s the recap: in Chicago, which is just a half-million people short of being a megacity, only about 150 people showed up for an anti-unemployment demonstration even though half the country is affected by either joblessness or under-employment.

In urban areas like San Francisco, with a metro area half the size of Chicago’s, you have 11 jobless for every one job opening, and yet… 150 people here?

As a reporter I just give the facts… and then, as I refuse to be a “useful idiot”, I also openly interpret the facts: the fact is, Americans have no idea what they are doing when it comes to politics. If you ask them whether the problem is either ignorance or apathy, they respond, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

The problem, as I am a staunch believer in (non-Obama-related types of) hope, is not with the average Joe but with the Washington elite, who even if they came from an average Joe quite obviously do not care about the average Joe anymore.

Of course, as the currently-under-confirmation-proceedings Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett proves, those tapped for the most truly elite spots are rarely from average Joe areas: Barrett would be, incredibly, the first justice who did not spend most of her life on the East Coast. To give an objective point to those in favor of the “Americans are ignorant” theory: mention “East Coast bias” to an American and they will think you are talking about how ESPN keeps talking about the Patriots and Yankees.

But the bewildering lack of any 2nd stimulus for households so emphatically proves that the Democratic leadership does not care about the average Joe (Republicans only care about an average Joe if said Joe is willing to reject all government assistance in every form) that even CNN had to hold Nancy Pelosi’s feet to the fire for the first time since Trump won the Republican primaries in 2016. Pelosi accused Wolf Blitzer and CNN of – now get ready to laugh – being “apologists for Republicans” simply because he pressed her on the bewildering and poverty-fuelling lack of a 2nd household stimulus.

LOL – maybe the Russians have flipped Wolf, eh Nancy? Putin’s power is limitless!

No, it’s just bewildering to even the CNN journalists as to why Democratic leadership refuses to alleviate massive economic suffering. I explained it here: No 2nd stimulus? Time to admit both parties want to destroy the average American, for those in the inexperienced youth class who can’t believe that Democrats could be as merciless and self-interested as those aren’t-they-just-ghastly conservatives.

Is this another boring article of me complaining about the super-failures of the super-capitalist imperialist US in 2020?

No, it’s to point out how wrong I am. Way back on May 28, in an article titled August 1: when the unemployment runs out and a new era of US labor battles begin I correctly opined, “I think there is no chance that the US 1% authorises an extension of the $600 per week extra past August 1 – it was totally out of keeping with US ideology to begin with, and yet another indicator of the hysteria which swept the US regarding coronavirus.” But – as I often can’t keep my mouth shut – I foolishly added, “Buy some popcorn and watch the show – August 1 is going to see public labor-related rage for the first time since the 1930s.”

So it’s less than three weeks until the election – where’s the labor-related rage?

I was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, again yesterday – the place is still totally boarded up, which seems rather much to me: There hasn’t been any widespread social rebellion since the end of August, anywhere. This article asks why that is?

The answer is the super-failures of the super-capitalist imperialist US that the US system produces tremendous political apathy, which has a side effect of increasing political ignorance.

As proof: I cannot express how pleas to “get out and vote” amazingly outnumber the advertisements for McDonalds, Coke and Beyonce combined – that seems like an impossibility, no? But such is the enormous political inertia here.

This apathy results in cases such as the nation’s third-largest city mustering only 150 people, 95% of whom were under 30, as the youth class has not relinquished that unique American optimism which eventually buckles under the reality encountered outside of school of the super-failures of the super-capitalist imperialist US.

If the trend of calm continues, the 2020 record will have to state that it was only Black-related issues which caused public protest despite the massive, massive societal chaos.

We can perhaps explain this by noting that the only truly successful protests in the US since nearly 1917 (the first year of socialist success) have been for Black-related issues. Stick with what works, I guess?

Indeed, the last grassroots, from-the-streets victory by White Americans was in 1920 – the year that anti-alcohol Prohibition was passed, as was women’s suffrage. Ever since socialism became a real thing it should be clear that White Americans are not about to march under anything resembling that successful banner, as it obviously opposes US domination.

Don’t tell me that Baby Boomers stopped Vietnam – the Vietnamese resistance booted out the invaders in 1975, not Western hippies. Americans didn’t flee until 8 full years after the “Summer of Love”.

2020 proves what we have known since those fun, marijuana-fuelled protests of the 1960s: White Americans simply don’t protest.

Republicans don’t protest, period. After all, they are status quo-lovers, and they aren’t about to muck up the system which they believe is the best in the world and always will be.

Democrats aren’t protesting because their elite leadership in 2020 has kept them overflowing with fear (corona), anger (Trump), identity politics (Black Lives Matter (which is not nonsense to Black people, of course, but which is inherently a minority-based movement as opposed to a broad, class-based, majority movement), and – above all – the rabid, competitive, evangelical fervor to win short-term growth via any means necessary in November’s elections.

But the bottom line is: for decades Americans have insisted on the status quo and violently rejected the call for any sort of revolutionary change in the economic and political structures upon which several centuries of Western culture has been based (bourgeois, aristocratic liberalism (for those who can afford it)). They have said to any nation or person – if you are not totally with us in maintaining these structures which preserve the status quo then we are totally against you.

Indeed, this is why I have always thought that “Civil War II is coming” worries are rather nonsense and impossible: Americans, for myriad reasons – ranging from fear of each other to smug complacency to apocalyptic apathy – simply don’t upset the apple cart. They are propagandised to always be selling apples, no matter how rotten they obviously are.

So there are no protests and I am proved wrong. But it is my job to opine, and thus to look foolish because – as a journalist – my learning is done in public.

But hope springs eternal – perhaps in the coming days Americans will indeed harness their widespread inner pandemonium against a leadership class which can’t even suggest that they eat cake amid massive hunger and shortages.

Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

Naqqash: I predict US civil war after 2020 Presidential Election

Source

October 14, 2020

In a recent interview with Syrian television, senior Lebanese political analyst Anees Naqqash says that he predicts that an American ‘civil war’ will ensue from the 2020 US presidential election on November 3, regardless of whether Donald Trump wins or loses the election.

Source: Syrian Al-Akhbariya, via the ‘Kalam Siyasi’ YouTube channel

Date: October 11, 2020

(Important Note: Please help us keep producing independent translations for you by contributing as little as $1/month here)

Transcript:

Naqqash:

Today, if we want to talk about America, we cannot confine our discussion (to America’s situation) in eastern Syria and Iraq, rather, we need to talk about America (as a power) within America (itself). What is the situation of America in America?

I’m one of those who are predicting – following the US elections – the outbreak of widespread chaos in America, to such an extent that it may lead to (the United States) becoming a failed state. Meaning that things will get out of control to such an extent that (Americans) will not be able to identify who is actually (president); they won’t be able to have central decision-making; there will be rebel states; and there is a high possibility that a civil war will ensue.

However, (what is more confidently anticipated is that) violence will become prevalent, and some of the states will rebel against federalism and the federal government in Washington. As for Washington represented by the figure of Trump, it will not accept the election results, in case Trump fails in the elections.

Host:

What do you predict (will happen)?

Naqqash:

I personally predict a civil war. (I base this prediction upon the available) statistics, studies, and my (long-running) observation of the dynamics (of the United States).

Host:

Will a civil war break out due to the re-election of Donald Trump or due to his failure to be re-elected to the White House?

Naqqash:

In both cases. The severe ideological, ethnic, intellectual, social and economic polarisation between the very wealthy classes (and the poor) – it is embarrassing to use this term ‘class’ even, because when you have only 10% of Americans possessing 88% of (America’s) wealth, this is no longer a class, this is (more accurately understood) as an “elite” (group) that is holding onto all of (America’s) wealth, this while the poverty of other (Americans) worsens day by day.

There is a critical situation in the United States, till now gone unnoticed to many in the world, because they continue to see (America) as this invincible power that cannot fall. Yet, the Soviet Union was like (the US today) and we all saw how it collapsed. All empires collapse suddenly because they have been (critically) damaged from the inside.

I predict we’ll see violence (in the US). So far, Trump hints that (he will deem) the election “rigged” if he loses. Meanwhile, (opponents) say that if Trump wins again the coming years will witness the destruction of America. There are Democratic states that cannot bear to be ruled by Trump for another four years. They cannot bear it.

During the Corona (pandemic), these (states) began to disobey and rebel against Trump. How could they bear a second term of Trump, especially if this causes their destruction? They cannot bear (another 4 years of Trump), neither culturally, nor economically, nor politically.  

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U.S. on the edge of a civil war

Source

October 10, 2020 – 18:38

As Trump spent the year warning about voter fraud, the Oath Keepers and other Trump’s supporters were listening. 

“What would happen, I wondered, if Trump lost, said the election had been stolen, and refused to concede? Or the flip side: What if he won and his opponents poured into the streets in protest?” Defense One

writer Mike Giglio wrote on October 4. 

The U.S. was already seeing a surge in political violence. In August, the FBI put out a bulletin that warned of a possible escalation heading into the election. 

“How much worse would things get if trained professionals took up arms?” Giglio asked, according to Defense One.

The American Civil War began because slaveholding Southern nationalists refused to recognize the lawful election of Abraham Lincoln. The underlying cause may have been fear that a Republican president would ban the expansion of slavery into the West, but the triggering incident was losing a presidential election.

Aaron Sheehan-Dean, the Fred C. Frey professor of Southern studies at Louisiana State University, said, “We are confronted with a similar crisis today. According to the reporting of Barton Gellman in the Atlantic, a group of loyalists is laying the groundwork to disregard the results of the November presidential election if they send Democrat Joe Biden to the White House. These new fire-eaters, taking a cue from President Trump himself, advance what scientists call a ‘non-falsifiable hypothesis’. If Trump wins the election, the system works; if he loses, the system is corrupt. Any critique of this logic is only more proof that hidden forces are conspiring against him. The danger this posture poses to the United States is as great as the one manifested by Southern secession in 1861.”

Sheehan-Dean added, “While states are not threatening to leave the Union today, Lincoln faced a similar situation to the one confronting us.” 

America is already split, Trump Nation has seceded

Robert Reich wrote in the Guardian that “before Trump, most Americans weren’t especially passionate about politics. But Trump’s MO has been to force people to become passionate about him – to take fierce sides for or against. And he considers himself president only of the former, whom he calls ‘my people’.

Trump came to office with no agenda except to feed his monstrous ego. He has never fueled his base. His base has fueled him. Its adoration sustains him.
So does the antipathy of his detractors. Presidents usually try to appease their critics. Trump has gone out of his way to offend them. ‘I do bring rage out,’ he unapologetically told Bob Woodward in 2016.”

Robert Reich went on to say, “in this way, he has turned America into a gargantuan projection of his own pathological narcissism.

His entire re-election platform is found in his use of the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘them’. ‘We’ are people who love him, Trump Nation. ‘They’ hate him.”

In late August, near the end of a somnolent address on the South Lawn of the White House, accepting the Republican nomination, Trump extemporized: “The fact is, we’re here – and they’re not.” It drew a standing ovation.

At a recent White House news conference, a CNN correspondent asked if Trump condemned the behavior of his supporters in Portland, Oregon. In response, he charged: “Your supporters, and they are your supporters indeed, shot a young gentleman.”

In Trump’s eyes, CNN exists in a different country: Anti-Trump Nation.

Polls warning of civil war, violence

Meanwhile, a new poll shows a large swath of Americans harbor deep reservations about the election results weeks before Election Day and are concerned about what actions people might resort to as a consequence.

The YouGov poll of 1,999 registered voters found that nearly half – 47% – disagree with the idea that the election “is likely to be fair and honest.”

And that slightly more than half – 51% – won’t “generally agree on who is the legitimately elected president of the United States.” The online poll was conducted Oct.1-2 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.56 percentage points.

In addition, a YouGov poll of 1,505 voters found that 56% said they expect to see “an increase in violence as a result of the election.” That question had a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.

For Fry and many other Trump supporters, the concern over the election’s legitimacy is tied to the largely unproven claims Trump has raised about potential fraud involving millions of mail-in ballots that already have begun to pour in to election office across the nation.

Leaked FBI report warns of violence in advance of election

A leaked September 29 FBI intelligence report prepared by the Dallas, Texas, field office warns that leading up to the November election, “Boogaloo adherents” and “militia violent extremists” are increasing “violent and criminal activity” in the Dallas area.

The assessment was made the same day Trump, in the first presidential debate with his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, refused to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, instead instructing the fascistic street gang the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”

The intelligence document, leaked to the Nation’s national security reporter Ken Klippenstein, confirms that the federal government continues to downplay the threat violent far-right groups pose to the general population. It also demonstrates that homicidal terrorist violence overwhelmingly emanates not from amorphous “Antifa” or “insurrectionary anarchist” groups, as the New York Times recently argued, but from far-right anti-communist and racist groups. These include the Proud Boys, “Boogaloo” and “back the blue” militia groups such as the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters (III).
 
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of far-right Oath Keepers, believed it had an ally in the White House for the first time. In 2016, when Trump had warned of election fraud, Rhodes put out a call for members to quietly monitor polling stations. 

When Trump warned of an invasion by undocumented immigrants, Rhodes traveled to the southern border with an Oath Keepers patrol. He sent members to “protect” Trump supporters from the protesters at his rallies and appeared in the VIP section at one of them, standing in the front row in a black Oath Keepers shirt. When Trump warned of the potential for civil war at the start of the impeachment inquiry last fall, Rhodes voiced his assent on Twitter. “This is the truth,” he wrote. “This is where we are.”

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Trump Says November Election ‘Out of Control’

By Staff, Agencies

US President Donald Trump again raised the alarm about possible voter fraud in the November election, saying the situation is “out of control” and the vote is “rigged.”

“Breaking News: 50,000 OHIO VOTERS getting WRONG ABSENTEE BALLOTS. Out of control. A Rigged Election!!!” Trump tweeted on Friday, days after he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the reelection bid to Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Last week, Trump tweeted “Rigged election!” and also posted a video purportedly showing a man caught on camera while paying cash for ballot exchange.

The video showed a man buying a registration form for an absentee ballot for a voter, giving him “pocket money” of $200 and expecting to collect his ballot when the voter receives it.

Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on mail voting, claiming that mail-in ballots lead to mass voter fraud.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic however millions of people prefer not to vote in person.

At least in nine states, every registered voter will automatically be mailed an application to request an absentee ballot.

Experts believe that by escalating his ongoing attack on mail-in ballots, Trump is preparing the ground to contest the election as” rigged or fraudulent” in the event of losing the election, and push the US into chaos.

Last month, Trump refused to commit to leave office peacefully if he loses the election.

Asked if he loses this year’s election to Biden, will he accept the results and commit to a peaceful transition, Trump said, “We’re going to have to see what happens.”

“We’ll want to have — get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very — we’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation,’ he said.

American political commentator and journalist Thomas Friedman has warned that the United States could be headed towards a second civil war after Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and relinquish his office should he lose in the election.

“You know, I began my career as a journalist covering Lebanon’s second civil war in its history, and I’m terrified to find myself ending my career as a journalist covering America’s potential second civil war in its history,” Friedman told Anderson Cooper in an interview with CNN.

“You really believe that?” Cooper asked.

“I think what happened in the last few days is a six-alarm fire,” said Friedman, later adding, “The President of the United States has told us ‘Either I win the election or I delegitimize the election.’ Those are your choices, folks.”

The New York Times columnist also criticized Republicans for not standing up to Trump.

لبنان والمنطقة والعالم وفرضيّة الفراغ الرئاسيّ الأميركيّ!

ناصر قنديل

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في ظل خطاب سياسي متشنّج طائفياً ومتموضع على خطوط التماس الإقليمية والدولية، يدخل لبنان مرحلة الانتظار من دون حكومة، وتبقى المبادرة الفرنسية على الطاولة محاولة البحث عن اوكسجين تدرك أن حجبه عنها كان من صمامات واشنطن، وأن إعادة ضخّه تتم من هناك، لأن نادي رؤساء الحكومات السابقين الذي تناغم مع العقوبات الأميركية ورمى المبادرة الفرنسية بحجر المداورة، لن يتراجع من دون إشارة أميركية معاكسة لا تبدو في الأفق، في ظل استقطاب أميركي أوروبي متصاعد حول الموقف من العقوبات الأممية على إيران، والتهديد الأميركي المعلن لكل من لا يلتزم بالعقوبات، بالتعرّض للعقوبات، مقابل قلق أوروبي عام وفرنسي خاص من تعميم الفوضى بغياب أرضية سياسية صلبة للتعامل مع تحديات المتوسط، في ظل لامبالاة أميركية بالمخاطر التي تهدّد مصالح أوروبا وأمنها، بنتيجة الفراغ الاستراتيجي، الناتج عن اللاحرب واللاسلم، ومواصلة التصعيد السياسي.

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لا شيء يقول إن هناك آفاقاً قريبة لتغير الصورة، والكثير من المراقبين في المنطقة وأوروبا يدعون للتأقلم مع مواصلة الفراغ رغم مخاطره المتسارعة، لأن لا شيء سيتغيّر قبل الانتخابات الرئاسية الأميركية، ويتركز البحث في باريس وبيروت، وسواهما من العواصم على كيفية إدارة تخفض الخسائر في مرحلة الانتظار لشهرين على الأقل، حيث يتحدّث الكثيرون عن أرجحية تفاهم أميركي إيراني يوفر مناخاً جديداً في المنطقة، يشكل مظلة تسويات متعددة الاتجاهات، أهمها فرص انتعاش جديدة للمبادرة الفرنسيّة بنسخة متجدّدة، ويعتقد هؤلاء أنه مهما كانت نتائج الانتخابات الرئاسية الأميركية، فإن الفائز أمامه خيار حتميّ هو الذهاب للتفاهم مع إيران، لأن التصعيد التفاوضيّ لا أفق أمامه في تغيير موقف إيران ولا إضعاف مصادر قوتها، ولأن التوظيف الانتخابيّ للخطاب التصعيدي سيكون قد انتهى، لكن هذا التحليل الافتراضي رغم سيطرته على التقديرات المتداولة لا يأخذ بالاعتبار عاملين كبيرين، يمثلهما مستجدان لم يحضرا إلى المشهد عبثاً، هما من جهة التطور النوعي في العلاقات الصينية الأميركية الذي بلغ وزير الخارجية الأميركية بوصفه بالتحول الاستراتيجي الخطير، ومن جهة مقابلة التطبيع الخليجي «الإسرائيلي» الذي وصفته كل مستويات القيادة في إيران، بالتحول الاستراتيجي الخطير.

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بعض التحليلات الواردة من واشنطن، والمعزّزة بتقارير ومعلومات موثوقة تقول إن الاستحقاق الرئاسي الأميركي المقبل، لن يمر بيُسر وسلاسة، وإن الانقسام الاجتماعي والعرقي الذي يشق صفوف المجتمع الأميركي، يخيم بظلاله على الاستحقاق الرئاسي، المحاط بمزاج عنصري أبيض يقف خلف الرئيس دونالد ترامب، وبالمقابل فقدان الحزب الديمقراطي دعم الطبقة الوسطى البيضاء، وربما تحوّله إلى حزب للأميركيين السود، في ظل ميليشيات بيضاء مسلحة تهدّد بالحرب الأهلية وتمرّد ولايات في حال فشل ترامب، يقابلها تسلح ميليشيات من السود يدعمها الديمقراطيون تهدّد بالمثل في حال فوزه، وفي ظل بطالة تتحوّل الى جائحة تطال أربعين مليون أميركي يتحولون إلى وقود لهذه الميليشيات، وصعوبة إنجاز انتخابات مجمع عليها في ظل التعقيدات التي يفرضها وباء كورونا، بحيث يتوقع أن تفوق الطعون قدرة أي محاكم محلية وصولاً للمحكمة الدستورية العليا، التي تواجه تحديات نقص في قوامها ومحاولات من ترامب للسيطرة عليها، لكن مع فرضية تتقدم عنوانها الفراغ الرئاسي، أي أن تنتهي الانتخابات ويعلن كل فريق مرشحه فائزاً، ومرور موعد نهاية الولاية الأولى لترامب من دون أن تكون النتيجة الحاسمة القابلة لتحقيق الإجماع قد ظهرت، في ظل تمهيد إعلامي لاستدراج المؤسسة العسكرية إلى الساحة السياسية لملء الفراغ المفترض.

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من وحي هذه المقدّمات هناك من يدعو للتأقلم مع هذا الفراغ المتوقع لفترة تتجاوز موعد الاستحقاق الرئاسي، ولعدم التيقن بأن الوضع الدولي لا يزال قادراً على تشكيل مظلة للحروب او لمنعها، وللتسويات أو إعاقتها، ومضمون الفرضية يستدعي عدم هدر الوقت بانتظار لا سقف له، سيتدهور وضع بلدان كثيرة خلاله نحو المزيد من الأزمات المالية والسياسية والأمنية، ولبنان في طليعتها.

Is America Worth Saving? Trump’s 1776 Commission and the True Cause of the American Revolution

September 21, 2020

By Matthew Ehret for the Saker Blog

Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission announced on in Constitution Hall on September 17 has ruffled more than a few feathers across the radical left who have been clearly exposed as nothing more than ideological post-truth mobs who are driven by impulses that threaten to tear America down into Civil War. While I am not saying that everything about America’s past is as peachy clean as many Americans, including the President, wish to believe, the fact is that this commission represents an extremely important defense of history and the Constitution itself at a time when it is most needed.

In honor of this effort to fight off the cultural Marxists that have infused twisted narratives into the psyches of citizens for too many decades that profess a view that nothing but hypocrisy and slavery gave rise to America, I would like to do something a bit different. In this short essay, I will shed light on some of the positive traditions of the too-often forgotten America whose Father of Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, shaped not merely a revolution of 13 independent-minded colonies against the British Empire, but rather a global movement stretching from France, Russia, Poland, Ireland, Prussia, India and Africa!

Without this global perspective and an appreciation for the international array of global patriots who risked their lives for the American cause, then the true heritage of America as a kindred spirit with Russia and China would remain forgotten when it is needed most sitting as we are on the cusp of a new world war.

America’s Revolution as an International Affair

As I laid out in a recent paper “Why Canada Failed the Ben Franklin Challenge of 1776”, Franklin’s sad return to the Continental Congress in New York from Quebec in May, 1776 was one of the few defeats suffered by the statesman. Franklin’s decades of work to bring the French Colony of Quebec into the independence movement was sabotaged by 1) the slavish illiteracy rampant among the peasants of the feudal system inherited from France, and 2) the rampant corruption of the Catholic clergy elite which signed a devil’s pact with the British Empire to keep the peasants locked into the empire. These factors would play into the collapse of the French Revolution in 1789 as we will see shortly.

One month after this failed effort, a four-man committee led by Franklin drafted the Declaration of Independence on July 2^nd and made public on July 4^th proclaiming:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Although a slave owning degenerate named Thomas Jefferson is sadly given sole credit for this document (fueling the argument of those proclaiming America to be a nation built on hypocrisy), the fact is that the great abolitionist Ben Franklin guided the writing of this document from start to finish. Over 40 corrections to Jefferson’s drafts were made by the old statesman including the erasure of Jefferson’s desired wording of “property” derived from his love of John Locke for the higher Leibnizian idea of “happiness” preferred by Franklin.

Franklin had already fought to unite the colonies for over twenty years beginning with his 1754 Plan of Union at the outset of the French-Indian War adopted by the Albany Congress, but rejected by the individual colonies who were always kept divided amongst themselves. Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon had its origins not in 1776, but actually during the battle of 1754 and it was an open secret that the British Elite of the 18^th century collaborated closely with French oligarchical families to keep the troublesome colonialists subjugated, and underdeveloped as part of the “balance of power” game of empire.

After Franklin’s July 4, 1776 success, he knew that America’s fate hinged upon his ability to engage the international network of statesmen, and scientists whom he had organized over the course of 40 years and especially since his 1752 discovery of electricity made him an international sensation earning him the title “Prometheus of America”.

This post-1776 phase of his plan took him to France where he was made America’s ambassador in Paris. It was here, that Franklin arranged the French-American Treaty of Alliance of 1778 that turned the tide of the revolution towards the American cause which had zero chance of success before this moment.

Franklin had already organized his allies in Prussia where Friedrich the Great voiced open support for the cause and the great military strategist Wilhelm von Steuben became the Inspector General of the Continental Army providing military drills and modern military techniques to the undisciplined “citizen soldiers” of the USA. The republican Polish military engineer and colonel Tadeusz Kosciuszko served as Brigadier-General in the Continental Army and the young Marquis Lafayette who arrived illegally in America along with other French troops before the 1778 alliance treaty, made invaluable contributions to the cause. Over twenty generals of the Continental Congress were Irishmen, and many led the later efforts to create an Irish revolution in 1798-99.

In his ambassadorial station in France, Franklin met many members of the European intelligentsia- including key Russian figures. Among them included a young woman named Ekaterina Dashkova– the younger sister of Catherine the Great and president of the Russian Academy of Sciences who became friends with the elder scientist and was soon inducted into Franklin’s Philosophical Society (becoming the society’s first woman and first Russian). In turn, Dashkova made Franklin the first American member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1781. It was through these connections that Franklin played a leading role in organizing the League of Armed Neutrality under the helm of Catherine the Great which ensured that vital supplies and arms would make their way from Europe to America without being blocked by British ships. Within the first 12 months, this League grew to include the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and Prussia. To this day, Russia’s league created the foundations of Maritime law.

This early alliance sewed the seeds of a larger tradition of U.S.-Russia friendship which saved both nations and which were covered in a recent conference titled The Historic Clash Between Open vs Closed Systems on August 15.

Franklin’s French networks had deep connections into India as well, which made themselves felt in the French-Indian alliance of 1780 that saw pro-American Muslim leader Hydar Ali lead thousands of Indian soldiers on a march across Western Ghats where they attacked the strategic British Base of Fort St. George near the Port town of Madras. Ali was supported by French troops on land and sea under the command of Admiral Suffren. Hydar Ali had already defeated the British in 1760 and represented a powerful independence force in India that kept British oligarchs up at night (It would still be many years before Britain would gain control of this “Crown Jewel” of the empire).

During this conflict, Hydar Ali’s forces innovated rockets which decimated British troops, and forced Britain to re-direct over 20% of their naval fleet from fighting in the Americas- this was a vital boon to the French and American forces a world away. Hydar Ali’s son Tipu Sultan even wrote a message to the Continental Congress in 1781 saying: “every blow that is struck in the cause of American liberty throughout the world, in France, India, and elsewhere and so long as a single insolent savage tyrant remains the struggle shall continue.”

America’s flagship of the Continental fleet was named the Hydar Ali in his honor.

In Morocco, the French were able to arrange an important dialogue between Emperor Sidi Mohammed and American officials which saved American shipping from the ravages of Barbary pirates who ruled the coasts of Africa and the Straits of Gibraltar. During the opening of the war, the British made sure to inform these Barbary pirates of American shipping and used these forces against American ships bound for Europe. Sidi Mohammed agreed to supply protection for America’s ships and guaranteed them safe harbor from the Tunisian and Algerian pirates. Soon the Continental Congress had passed an act which called for Franklin to lead a team of negotiators to work out a deal with Morocco and other North African countries.

Although international political chaos and the constant treachery and intrigue within America during its early years resulted in very little progress on this front, it is noteworthy that Morocco was the first nation in the world to recognize America’s independence on December 20, 1777.

Even though Franklin didn’t appear to have any direct contact with the Chinese during this period (who were busy fending off the British Empire’s lusting dogs of the East India Company who were preparing a new phase of Asiatic expansion), Chinese thought did figure prominently in the thinking of Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin had published many writings on Confucius from 1737-1757, which shaped many points of wisdom in the Poor Richards Almanac. Writing to a friend in 1747, Franklin stated “Confucius was my example. I followed Confucius”. As Professor David Wang points out, many of his insights into civil administration and law derived from his studies of China. On Franklin’s over arching Confucian world view, Dr. Wang stated:

“Benjamin Franklin’s interest in Chinese civilization was so wide that it included all substances from Confucius philosophy to industrial technologies. Then the question is why Franklin spent so much time and energy on studying Chinese civilization. Franklin believed that “what assurance of the Future can be better founded than that which is built on Experience of the Past?”. Franklin’s strive to draw wisdom from Chinese civilization was based on his belief that China was “the most ancient, and from long Experience the wisest of Nations”. For Franklin, obtaining positive elements from Chinese civilization was important for developing the American way of life.”

While there are many more chapters to this international story, the lesson I wanted readers to come away with is that America was both more than you thought it was and also less than it was meant to be.

According to the intentions of such renaissance men as Franklin, the American cause was never meant to be a “local issue” defined by 13 rebelling colonies, but rather a new age of reason for all mankind.

Kindred spirits across Europe watched in horror as the first European nation to attempt revolution led by Lafayette and other leaders of Franklin’s network (who made the American cause a success) was overthrown by a Jacobin “color revolution”. The noble origins of the June 20, 1789 Tennis Court Oath which kick started the French Revolution were soon lost as a bloodbath (directed by British assets from the Foreign Office) channelled the rage of France’s peasant population against ALL of the elite, corrupt and noble alike, proclaiming “the revolution has no need of scientists”. The sound of the guillotine lopping off the heads of the great revolutionary astronomer/mayor of Paris Jean-Sylvain Bailey and chemist Antoine Lavoisier still resonates as a shame of France. Lafayette only saved his head long enough to end up in an Austrian dungeon for 5 years as punishment for fighting to overthrow hereditary systems and was immortalized in Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio in 1805.

The pro-humanist forces of Europe slowly came undone during the Napoleonic wars which culminated in the 1815 Congress of Vienna and Holy Alliance which re-established “peace” by banning dangerous books, teaching, and art that might awaken revolutionary feelings in the minds and hearts of Europeans. These Orwellian laws were outlined in the Carlsbad decrees of 1819 and ruined more than a few lives of great statesmen and teachers. This story was told in my paper “Kissinger’s Adoration of the 1815 Congress of Vienna”.

During this time, the British Empire came out again as a force of evil preparing a new phase of its global conquest with a crushing of the Hydar Ali spirit in India and a new age of opium wars against China.

In spite of this growing darkness, great poets who dreamed of that better age of reason produced some of the greatest and under-appreciated poetry with Percy Shelley and John Keats leading that movement in Britain, Robbie Burns in Scotland and such figures as Schubert, Heine, Schumann and Beethoven representing this spark in Vienna and Germany. Palmerston-Mazzini’s “Young Europe” anarchist mobs were periodically deployed to disrupt constructive nationalist tendencies throughout this period- laying the groundwork for “color revolutions” of the 20-21^st centuries.

Beethoven’s 1824 Ninth Symphony setting Schiller’s great poem an “Ode to Joy” to music was a celebration of that dreamed-of age of brotherhood and creative reason which Franklin devoted his life to accomplishing and which today’s multipolar alliance has again awoken as a potential alternative to an age of darkness, war and collapse facing humanity in the 21st century.

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The author delivered a lecture on July 1, 2020 on this topic viewable here:

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation

Now reporting from the US! Wait… this is what the whole world must be like?

Heavily-armed police stand outside the Kenosha Country courthouse, Aug. 26, 2020.

Saturday, 29 August 2020 4:14 AM  [ Last Update: Saturday, 29 August 2020 4:14 AM ]

By Ramin Mazaheri 

It is amusing that one of the first people I spoke with in Kenosha, Wisconsin – as I filmed a car dealership whose entire inventory had been torched – was a French journalist, considering that I have been posted in France for over a decade. It really is a small and interconnected world….

The situation in Kenosha is a microcosm of the United States in 2020 – tragedy on top of tragedy on top of tragedy:

A Black man wantonly paralysed by cops, his three sons forced to watch, ethnic-based violence deteriorating a community already gutted by anti-patriotic neoliberal economics, shops frantically boarding up their windows after having been shuttered during a pandemic lockdown, a 17-year old shooting and killing two protesters – there is just a complete lack of security everywhere over here.

The failure to provide physical security for their citizens is the ultimate failure of any government, no? Providing physical security is the primary reason anyone ever elevated a king, president, tribal elders, communist party, whatever. In the US, however, insecurity is as rampant in real life as it is absent from their seemingly innumerable, slick television shows.

There is no security for Black men here. There is also no security for the home of the cop who shot Jacob Blake so savagely – locals told me they expect his house to be burned down shortly, and that his street is now full of strange cars at night. There’s not going to be any security for that 17-year old shooter when he gets to prison – I can’t see how he’ll survive in a US prison where ethnic-based gangs are seemingly encouraged to proliferate.

Security for Black men, security for prisoners, security for protesters, security via basic health care, security from total economic ruin – these are all things which governments could provide but which are cruelly withheld from the American people. This perpetual insecurity perpetually creates tragedy on top of tragedy on top of tragedy in a country which is most definitely not poor.

Reporting on the United States for this election season/Civil War II is going to require the constant presentation of contradictions, most of them impossible to reconcile (thus “Civil War II”). One guiding idea should prevail, however: the leaders on both sides are so inherently reactionary, power-hungry and arrogant that there is no side which can be chosen with a full heart.

That’s not me calling for (so-called) “objective reporting”, but simply reporting how Americans already feel: Polls reveal that 60% of Joe Biden voters support him only in order to stop Donald Trump, with just 30% voting because they actually support Biden (for his performance or temperament).

This is nearly exactly the same as in France, where in 2017 precisely 24% of the electorate voted for Emmanuel Macron’s proposals or personality – nearly half of his voters only wanted to block neo-fascist Marine Le Pen. In both Western countries voters somehow get stuck with trying to block a far-right candidate, which is to say they are manipulated into voting for a right-wing, aristocratic privilege-protecting candidate who only works to ensure the security of his 1%-er backers.

The problem is not the Western people themselves – the problem is baked into the Western liberal democratic system, which obviously creates and protects a self-perpetuating aristocracy which leans drastically to the political and economic right-wing. Western liberal democracy is seemingly guaranteed to produce political cynicism, distrust and disunity.

This has culminated in a widespread perception in the US that an American maintains his or her security only as long as the government remains uninvolved – this anarchic view is not some sort of universal value but a somewhat logical response to the insecurities perpetuated by the West’s essentially aristocratic (bourgeois), pre-1917-inspired systems.

However, in a time of major crisis a degraded, neglected and neglectful government is unable or unwilling to respond, and that explains why the dog-eat-dog, decentralised US system has had such a terrible pandemic response; that explains why even their small towns are up in flames.

The governor of Wisconsin required four days to finally visit Kenosha – I guess other parts of Wisconsin were making international news/burning down? Or perhaps he put his own safety and interests first. Local law enforcement has been appallingly tight-lipped regarding information on the shooting – above all they want to protect their own little cop aristocracy, even though this lack of democratic transparency drastically inflamed tensions and almost certainly led to the tragic shooting of protesters.

In America there is a constant and often hysterical desire for self-protection – to protect your job, your often meagre “benefits”, your property, your body, etc. – no matter what the cost to anyone else or to society. This is a direct result of the American’s system guaranteed inability to fulfil the primary directive of any type of government: to provide security.

This is not some sort of sad inevitability, as neoliberals and libertarians insist. And although they insist otherwise, there are indeed alternate choices to the American/Western system of societal construction. However, when it comes to nations with alternative views and inspirations – Iran, China, Cuba, etc. – prominent Western politicians lie about these nations just as easily as Trump lies about Biden, or as much as Democratic leaders obfuscate in general.

Craziness in Portland, Minneapolis and Chicago – perhaps to be expected in America, but in Kenosha? Shocking… but not when you think it over.

Will the selection of Trump or Biden end the average American’s crazy, endemic instability amid so much wealth and resources? Not likely.

Americans know that all too well, and it helps explain why there is so much rebellion going on.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

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