Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
تجري اليوم، 20 كانون الثاني 2021، عملية انتقال السلطة في الولايات المتحدة إلى الرئيس الفائز في الانتخابات جو بايدن، في ظلّ حراب الجيش الأميركي، الذي حول، انتشاره الكثيف، العاصمة الأميركية واشنطن إلى ثكنة عسكرية، في قلبها البيت الأبيض والكونغرس، رمزاً السلطة بشقيها التنفيذي والتشريعي…
ماذا يعني ذلك وما هي دلالاته؟
أولا، للمرة الأولى منذ انتهاء الحرب الأهلية الأميركية وتحقيق الاستقرار وسيادة النظام الديمقراطي في عملية تداول السلطة عبر الانتخابات، يحصل مثل هذا الاهتزاز في العملية الديمقراطية… والذي تجسّد في اقتحام الكونغرس من قبل أنصار الرئيس الخاسر في الانتخابات دونالد ترامب، في محاولة يائسة وفاشلة لقلب نتيجة الانتخابات ومنع تسليم السلطة لـ بايدن، بدعوة انّ عمليات تزوير شابت الانتخابات، سرقت الفوز من ترامب.. الذي امتنع عن حضور حفل تسليم السلطة للرئيس الفائز، في تأكيد على رفضه الاعتراف بفوزه، وبشرعيته، وهذه سابقة تحصل للمرة الأولى في الولايات المتحدة..
ثانياً، من الواضح أنّ نشر أكثر من 25 ألف جندي من الحرس الوطني لتأمين حفل تنصيب بايدن، يكشف حجم القلق من إمكانية حصول عمليات عنف من قبل جماعات متطرفة مسلحة مؤيدة لـ ترامب، ما يؤشر إلى سيادة شعور لدى المسؤولين العسكريين والأمنيين بالقلق من حصول اضطرابات تعطل عملية تسليم السلطة، وتؤدّي إلى انتشار الفوضى وإقدام الجماعات اليمينية المتطرفة على اقتحام واحتلال المباني والمؤسسات الحكومية والبرلمانية في العديد من الولايات وبالتالي دخول أميركا في مسار من الحرب الأهلية…
ثالثاً، هذا المشهد يكشف إلى أيّ مدى تشهد الإمبراطورية الأميركية حالة من الانقسام والتصدّع في الداخل تهدّد وجودها بالتفكّك والدخول في صراعات داخلية تودي بوحدتها، دولة ومجتمعاً.
رابعاً، يظهر انتقال السلطة وسط احتدام الصراعات السياسية والعرقية، انكشاف أكذوبة الحديث عن النظام الأميركي كنموذج متقدّم في الديمقراطية واحترام حقوق الإنسان والمساواة بين المواطنين، يجب أن يُحتذى.. إنّ ما يجري يؤكد انّ هذا النظام إنما كان مطلياً بمساحيق التجميل الخادعة عن صورة الحلم الأميركي، الذي روّج له على مدى العقود الماضية، لا سيما بعد خروج أميركا من الحرب العالمية أقوى دولة اقتصادية وعسكرية، تتربّع على عرش العالم، وتحتكر المعرفة والتقنية.. لكن انتهاء عقود الازدهار الاقتصادي والرخاء والرفاه الذي نعمت به أميركا والطبقة الوسطى فيها، كشف زيف هذا الحلم، وأذاب مساحيق التجميل، وأظهر للرأي العام الطبيعة الوحشية للنظام الرأسمالي الأميركي الإمبريالي، القائم على التمييز العنصري، وتحكّم الأثرياء بالثروة، مقابل الحرمان والفقر الذي يرزح تحته عشرات الملايين من الأميركيين…
خامساً، يكشف تفجّر أزمة النظام الأميركي، انّ الأزمة التي تشهدها الإمبراطورية إنما هي أزمة بنيوية واجهت جميع الإمبراطوريات عبر التاريخ، والتي أدّت إلى اضمحلالها وتلاشيها أو تحجيم قوتها وحضورها ودورها العالمي، كما هو حال الإمبراطورية البريطانية اليوم… وهذه الأزمة مردّها غرق أميركا في الأزمات الاقتصادية والمالية، وعجزها عن حلّ هذه الأزمات عبر شنّ الحروب الاستعمارية الفاشلة التي عمّقت أزماتها بدلاً من حلها.. حيث تضاعف الدين العام إلى ما يفوق الـ 23 تريليون دولار، وتراجعت معدلات النمو الاقتصادي، مما أدّى تراجع المداخيل والعائدات المالية، في مقابل استمرار الإنفاق الهائل للحفاظ على نفوذ الإمبراطورية..
انطلاقاً مما تقدّم فإنّ ما هو متوقع ان يستمرّ الصراع ويحتدم بعد انتهاء حفل النصيب اليوم.. وهذا الصراع يتغذّى من الأزمات الاقتصادية والمالية والاجتماعية، والانقسام السياسي والشعبي، واستناد ترامب إلى تأييد كتلة شعبية يمينية متطرفة ستقف معه في مواجهة إصرار الحزب الديمقراطي، الذي بات مسيطراً في مجلسي النواب والشيوخ، على محاكمة ترامب بتهم التحريض على التمرّد واقتحام الكونغرس وإساءة استخدام السلطة والفساد.. وهو الأمر الذي سيؤدّي إلى زيادة الانقسام داخل الحزب الجمهوري بين رافض لمحاكمة ترامب، وبين مؤيد لها…
هذا يعني انّ إدارة بايدن ستكون من اليوم الأول لتسلمها السلطة في مواجهة تحديات كبيرة داخلياً، الى جانب تحدّي السعي الى ترميم الدور الأميركي العالمي وإصلاح الأضرار التي أصابته، وتسبّبت بها سياسات ترامب…
The FBI says armed protests are being planned in all 50 states from January 16 until Joe Biden’s inauguration day on January 20.
It’s a living nightmare in the US right now – what else can be said?
“Hysteria” is the one word which described the United States in 2020, but in 2021 we are witnessing what happens when a hysterical sprinter just can’t stop sprinting – it is ugly.
I can objectively report that since the Electoral College decided the presidency – following the end of the Capitol Hill protest – seemingly everybody here is depressed and unhappy. The US cannot handle what is going on and everyone feels things are spinning out of control. What’s worse is that they cannot even help themselves from contributing to the spinning: The solution of those who opposed the armed protests is to antagonise the potential armed protesters?
It is ugly.
This is a pretty ambitious column, if “ambitious column” isn’t a journalistic oxymoron: I think all of the upcoming paragraphs can be turned into stand-alone columns because the US is, sadly, in such a hideously twisted shape.
It’s totally absurd to compare 9/11 to “1/6”, but that is what The New York Times did today – it only shows how inoculated modern Americans are from war on their own soil. Do Americans realise that the Capitol Hill protests are exactly what Washington has encouraged in Hong Kong, Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, etc.? And that’s just in your recent memory banks – go back to World War II and the’ve done this in half the world. I can report absolutely nobody in the Mainstream Media here is making that connection. Well, America, the sight of a bloody and brewing civil war is pretty terrible, isn’t it? Like I wrote this is a whole column, but the US has hit what is a comparatively tiny bump in the road – when compared to what they have so gleefully fomented for so very long and with such self-righteousness – and Americans are absolutely falling to pieces.
Do Americans realise that the worst thing to do right now is to spend much time consulting their corporate-dominated media? The Capitol Hill protest was spectacular for ratings, and this country – which totally lacks a sizeable, patriotic and neutral government media – wants to make big bucks until at least inauguration day by hyping what should not be hyped. Do not tune into the news during this time of hysteria – you will thank me for it.
I also have encouraged people to not tune into social media. It’s not that the average person doesn’t know what he or she is talking about – I always insist that the “person on the street” interviews I do often provide me with better insights than interviews with degreed experts – it’s that there simply is no filter. Trump is toxic on his social media because that’s what American social media is – toxic. Western, uncensored social media is seemingly designed to provide a direct counterweight to the Asian cultural model of “saving” and “giving” face. I would guess that the overwhelming majority of Americans – after this roughly 15-year experiment with it – would say that social media has been a societal and personal disappointment.
On the macro level of social media: the US has created a monster, as there simply is no way to regulate Big Tech. They are clearly a monopoly power which can shut down political speech, like with the app Parler, and yet it is their “legal right” to do so because they are a business and not a press – i.e., they have no social responsibilities, but do have all the human rights America insanely grants to corporations. This, of course, enrages an American populace which (falsely) believes their country is a global leader in defending the human right to free press. Facebook took down PressTV’s page for a few hours – of course: If they will ban President Trump on Twitter why would they hesitate much longer for Iran? We are only just comprehending what “social media” can really do to a society, but the negative case study is: the US 2020 election.
Joe Biden is being tasked with healing the whole country even though he also spent the last four years demonising half the country. That is perhaps the best way to gauge what the upcoming chances are for “reconciliation” in America. I just don’t find the idea that the United States will rally around a hugely discredited and wilfully, remorselessly divisive Democratic Party even remotely credible.
Biden has just picked his head of the CIA – it was a person who was also a top candidate for the Secretary of State (foreign minister) post. That the nation’s top spy and top diplomat are interchangeable – and that this goes uncommented upon – says a lot about the United States. Washington does not try to persuade anyone – they just apply pressure, spy on them and make sure the national needs of their allies are subverted to the national needs of the US. Angela Merkel denounced Trump’s Twitter ban, just as she denounced Obama spying on her calls. The US has no allies, and while they will blame Trump for losing all their “international standing” the reality is they had none and want none.
Today’s impeachment of Trump is a spectacularly foolish errand: they will never get the Senate supermajority to actually impeach Trump; he’s leaving in seven days; Trump is correct that it will – of course – cause “tremendous anger”; it is clearly designed to sabotage Trump’s 2024 election chances, at whatever cost to national unity; 40% of the country already feels like their presidential vote was disenfranchised – now you want to impeach their leader (which comes after the censorship of him and before the prosecution of him)? It’s just useless theatre – the US election circus continues.
Is it possible that I was wrong to say that a violent right-wing movement – something comparable in determination (though not at all comparable in aims) to what the US saw last summer in response to never-ending police brutality – cannot ever grow strong enough in the US to “Occupy Capitol Hill”, or something similar? I still don’t think I am wrong and that once this final week passes so will these protests. American conservatives are too status-quo loving, too law and order-worshipping and too jingoistic to really try and change America.
I think the Capitol Hill protest was a one-time act of civil disobedience which spontaneously grew beyond the intentions of the mass majority of protesters – I have seen that happen countless times in person as a journalist. It obviously never morphed into an “Occupy Capitol Hill” multi-day protest because it was obviously never intended to (and for the same reason above). The people at the front lines of such protests are always a different breed; always run the range of political views from right to left; always have a range of motivations, from being mere adrenaline-seekers to genuine political integrity. I have also seen the video footage – captured by a left-wing Black Lives Matter member (because there is always this range of values) – of a Capitol cop, whose life was not threatened, shoot and kill female protester Ashlii Babbitt. I’m appalled there’s not more MSM discussion about that, because the footage is so clear that this was police brutality, but any such discussion radically changes how the protest has to be covered by the MSM: it means taking a break from demonising the protesters, and the US corporate media does not want that.
It was totally clear in the week since Capitol Hill: It’s not enough that Biden won – the US anti-Trump elite wants blood. They want Twitter and Facebook to ban Trump, so they can censor and others (as they just did with Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and Iranian state media PressTV). They want to imprison the Capitol Hill protesters, so they can prevent any anti-Biden political protests in the next four years. They want to impeach and jail Trump, so they can prevent Trumpism from growing beyond their idiotic, “how did I get here” leader into something which could upend the world’s oldest duopoly.
These are all columns because they are all huge issues which cannot be resolved in a few sentences – only summed up. I’m only stopping because I have word limits – feel free to point out which issues weren’t included.
The bottom line on the Democrat side is: Many Americans have spent four years hysterically demonising Trump supporters – they can’t turn it off: Winning the Electoral College obviously wasn’t enough. They want animals put in cages whom they can go poke; they want to fabricate a moral high ground which they believe is so high that it exonerates them from open debate; they want compound interest on the four years they wasted on the perennial US political circus.
The other bottom line on the Republican side is: Trump supporters are in shock that they lost – every one I talked with was so very certain of his victory. Then many of them were certain the Donald would pull it out, but what the Donald did was pass up every opportunity to take a courageous stand and to essentially say, “I’ve been using you supporters all this time.” Trump supporters now see this atrocious past week as if the US elite is presenting them with only two choices: either return to being mainstream Republicans or leave politics altogether. Many will choose the latter. Many Americans will not miss them. They will still be here, I point out to the victors.
I also point out to the victors: Trump losing the election did not solve all this country’s problems, as it was long promised. America in 2021 has way too many problems for such a simple solution.
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV 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.
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV 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.
The idea that Donald J. Trump could be (even the guy cleaning up behind the horse of) a white knight acting in favor of integrity is laughable, hypocritical and certainly controversial, but that is what a disaster United States political culture truly is.
The man who has been nationally lampooned as a rich buffoon and denigrated as a real estate shark for decades prior to 2016 is now being held up by half the country as a moral leader and living “founding father”. In the American context these persons may somehow even be proven somewhat right, but that is what a disaster United States political culture truly is.
Since the November 3rd vote we’ve all been asking: Where’s Donald? Only future historians can tell us if Trump was right to wait a month before finally formally declaring that he would litigate in order to ensure a judicial verification of a highly- and long-disputed vote. That’s a long time for moral reflection, but in the context of today’s hyper-hyper-polarised US politics it’s been half a lifetime.
In the disputed election of 2000 Al Gore conceded, allegedly for the good of the country, on December 13th – the day before the Electoral College voted that year. This year the College must also cast their ballot on December 14th. On December 2nd Trump gave a 45-minute speech in which he promised to not concede, also allegedly for the good of the country.
What Trump’s speech means is that the US constitution insists that the nation’s political drama is about to explode.
Probably even sooner than December 14: December 8th is known as the “safe harbor” date, because all states must have resolved their disputes by then. Justified or not, they do not currently appear to be resolved satisfactorily for scores of millions of Americans.
For the average Bidenite the blinders are completely on – perhaps they never even could see anything “over there” in Trumpland, which for some reason is a foreign country to many Bidenites. They insist that, “It’s over”. That’s fine – nobody is paying them to give objective, hard-news, daily journalism. They’re free to editorialise all they want. However, saying, “It’s over, Biden won,” is gypsy future-telling, a way to censor political conversation and it also ignores the historical gravity of Trump’s speech – this election is not “over” in any sort of historically-normal way whatsoever: What US election has ever been “over” like this?
Maybe Trump’s speech will deserve to be ignored in the history books? Maybe it will go down as the day history was changed? As this is my editorial I’m entitled to make whatever wild prediction I like, but I’d rather use it to point out just how badly my US journalist colleagues are performing at the craft (not profession) of journalism.
It was certainly quite a speech, indeed
The sitting US president publicly blasted the nation’s electoral process as having allowed, “fraud and abuse to occur on a scale never seen before”.
To my American journalist colleagues: that’s news.
Countless top American journalists refused to report on it. I’ll pass on a couple highlights:
“As president I have no higher duty than to defend the laws and the constitution of the United States,” said Trump, relating a political fact. “That is why I’m determined to protect our election system, which is now under coordinated assault and siege,” said Trump, making a claim for which he’ll have to provide overwhelming evidence, and quickly. “This is not just about honouring the votes of 74 million Americans who voted for me – it’s about ensuring that Americans can have faith in this election and in all future elections,” said Trump, in a statement which is seen in America as either patriotism or shameless partisan duplicity.
Trump listed a litany of alleged offences made across the country and claimed to have massive amounts of evidence to support him – these claims will have to be decided in court, definitively. Initially, however, they are decided in the court of public opinion.
However, the problem here is that US corporate media (and the tiny amount of state media) was so flagrantly biased against Trump’s speech that we probably can’t find 12 untainted people to fill a jury for one the many, many trials Trump seems to demand.
“Acting crazy”, “Propaganda”, “My God, He’s Completely Insane” – this all journalistically-false but very real headlines from the very top US media. This is truly treatment reserved for foreign leaders who are currently threatening war on your country, not your own president.
Amazingly, CNN wouldn’t even air the speech. Is that the last pound on the head of the 2016-begun nail in the coffin for viewing them as “America’s television media of record”? The problem is: what other US corporate entity is a better alternative?
The reason I – for the first time – feel comfortable using the term “civil war” to describe the modern US is: 74 million Trump voters may now see themselves as being attacked and violated. Any sober analysis shows that the November 3rd vote (like it or not) was a concretisation and not a repudiation of “Trumpism” – they prevailed at the state legislative and executive levels, they made gains in the House of Representatives, they will likely hold on to Senate, judges at both the Supreme Court and local level are dominated by conservatives – they won everywhere but the US presidency, in fact. Therefore, anyone with a sense of fair play and tolerance realises that they deserve to be taken seriously; anyone with a survival instinct may realise that trying to push them around may find that they are quickly outnumbered in many areas.
But media opinion and public opinion don’t have any real weight in court. However, a fatal mistake often being made abroad is assuming that US public opinion is as anti-Trump as media opinion is. One merely needs to refer to the November 3rd results to see how incorrect that idea is. Seventy-four million Trumpers do have their media, but it is certainly not read outside of the US and must be searched for domestically.
One doesn’t have to like Trump or Trumpism, but calling them all “insane” is a way to start a fight, no?
I have never given much credence to the idea that the US is going to explode in election-related violence – above all, this was a sensationalistic US media ploy to demonise Trumpism, to distract from real issues, to get ratings and to increase Democratic turnout – but the events of this week definitely push the US further along that path. It is still very far off, I must add.
Conclusion: the current state of two different battles – the electoral and the cultural
Electorally: I am not going to waste your time by falsely claiming all of Trump’s allegations have either no merit or much merit – only a hysterical partisan is doing that. We should assume that those making false election claims in court will be punished for daring to make false claims.
I will note that I don’t believe US elections can withstand serious scrutiny, and that they were repeatedly ranked by places like Harvard as the worst of the core Western democracies. Allegations of widespread voter fraud – like here in Chicago – laughingly go back to the time of Kennedy, and all Americans know this.
On the other hand, I also note that if Joe Biden’s projected victory is reversed due to proven election fraud this would be not just a “once in a century” story but even more astounding than even that, in the American context. I’m not one to bet on the longest of long shots, unless I feel like wasting some money.
Anyway, that is all just journalistic hot air: courts have to decide on evidence, which is allegedly not all presented – we should not declare prematurely. After Gore conceded prematurely they found that 14% of African-American Floridians had their ballots questionably tossed – that’s not exactly “voter fraud”, but it certainly does render the 2000 American presidential results “fraudulent”.
Nobody here cares about though, strangely? Maybe not even African-American Floridians?
Maybe it’s the media, which now includes the appallingly censorious Twitter and Facebook?
But the inexorable, oppressive, inescapable (and undoubtedly pro-Bidenite) mantra here is “we need to quickly move on”, exactly as it was in America exactly 20 years ago.
Since 2000 nothing is learned; nothing is paid for; no reparations are given; no apologies are made; if America does it or wants it no rules apply because everything they do is exceptional, but only because they live in a vacuum divorced from history and just consequences.
Electorally: The rest of the world is advised to keep waiting – who knows what whims an imperial hegemon will take?
Culturally: I believe it might somewhat explode here given the content of Trump’s speech, the seeming impossibility of coordinating a proper & broadly-accepted judicial review of the vote before the upcoming Electoral College procedures (these dates are prescribed in the US Constitution and would require an already do-nothing Congress to modify), as well as the total war against it from the US media class.
But the math is simple: Two-thirds of the country voted. That means one-third of the country doesn’t care and probably wants it over. One third went to Biden. So it’s fair to guess that for almost 70% of the voting eligible population, “It’s over”. Really. Any talk of civil war must include this endemic American apathy, caused by the atrociousness inequality of their antiquated and aristocratic system, which implicitly sides with the status quo in its irresponsible sloth.
A reversal of Biden’s projected win implies, as I wrote, something of a revolution. In history civil wars have been launched by one-third of the population, but winning them without recourse to secession is certainly rare, and a change installed by only one-third of the population is not a revolution at all. Certainly, any Trumper “explosion” would have to be entirely grassroots, as the media wouldn’t cover it any more than they covered Trump’s historic speech, and it would have to be nearly clandestine, as Facebook and Twitter are now so incredibly and heavily censored. Finally, the US is imperialist and thus there is no revolution possible at all – Trumper or otherwise – they are barely able to have a functioning “democracy with imperialist characteristics”.
I can report that despite what a disaster United States political culture truly is the US system – like it or not – certainly seems to be democratically supported by the (highly propagandised) majority, therefore the world is obligated to respect its processes and results.
The problem for the entire world is that many inside the US do not or will not support the processes surrounding this 2020 presidential election, and that implies either broken processes or a broken culture.
When the imperial hegemon’s culture is broken that is either cause for concern or celebration, depending on your class. And maybe the US is not broken, but just breaking?
In this file photo, Joe Biden speaks during a press conference at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware on November 16, 2020. (AFP photo)
(Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV 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.)
Monday, 23 November 2020 6:50 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 23 November 2020 7:01 AM ]
For four years The New York Times editorial page has been unreadable because into every column – no matter the subject – an anti-Trump diatribe was inserted. For the world’s many billions who think there actually are issues other than the president of the United States, their obsession was incredibly tedious.
It reminded me of how the World Socialist Web Site ends every column with a reminder that the only solution – no matter the subject – is Trotskyist revolution. At least they keep that at the bottom, so you can avoid it if you want.
The difference between the two is that one is openly opposed to neoliberalism and neo-imperialism, while the other censors any discussion of these enormously crucial and socially-devastating concepts.
Joe Biden recently made waves for snapping at a reporter asking a difficult question, and it reminded us of how very coddled he was during the presidential campaign. But a possible change from Sleepy Joe to Cranky Joe may or may not be a problem – that depends on if his apparent election win survives the judicial oversight of the vote, something which is supported by 46% of America (per a poll by The Economist) but 0% of their mainstream media.
The bigger potential issue – and it’s a global one, because foreign journalists often ape the US, in what Iranians have called for 75 years “Westoxification” (being intoxicated by Westernism) – is what the US media actually evolves into post-Trump (if he loses).
In one of the many positive unintended consequences of Donald Trump, the US media went from the slavish sucking up to power during the Dubya Bush era of “wars without bodybags”, to “everybody loves Obama (even though in 2012 he beat Mitt Romney just 51% to 47%), to rediscovering that the press is not actually merely the public relations team of the government.
If Biden wins, will the US mainstream media quickly revert to sucking up to power? Will it be still only softball questions for President Biden?
Or does four years of decent reporting – sadly combined with a concurrent journalistic era of hysterical fear-mongering, Russophobia, urging hatred of one’s differently-voting neighbour and a moral outrage which rested upon a wilful ignorance regarding what Trump supporters really believe – actually have an impact?
The question reminded of an ancient Chinese aphorism: “The murder of a ruler by his minister, or of a father by his son, is not the result of events of one morning or one evening.”
The radicalisation of fake-leftists into faker fake-leftists? Or will the US truly reform its imperialist ways?
The larger point of that aphorism is that actions have consequences, and that if we allow things to go too far down the wrong road an unjust ruler gets murdered, or a country becomes as incredibly internally divided as the US now is.
Journalists are supposed to be combative and even provocative, but the problem here is entirely with the never-stated ideology of Bidenism. (Please note that is entirely different from me writing: the problem is with the rabidity of the never-Trumper ideology.)
Because actions have consequences, we should grasp that Bidenism is not just a “return to (the 2015) normal” but also includes a vindictive, ever-more flaming evangelical insistence that US-led Westernism (neoliberalism and neo-imperialism) is the one true religion, which Donald Trump was heretically and treasonously wrong to even partially call into question.
Who are these unreadable new and old columnists of The New York Times? I can tell you what they are not: they are not journalists who openly denounce imperialism, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the oppression of the Wall Street high finance class or the other key ideas which differentiate leftism from centrism and rightism.
No, the loudest Bidenites are people who are upset that Trump is now trying to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq; are upset that Trump did not bomb Syria; could not care less about the famine in Yemen; and who would not have expressed outrage at all for the assassination of Iranian anti-terror hero Qasem Soleimani if Barack Obama had killed him.
The idea that Biden’s foreign policy is going to be less belligerent than Trump’s is something based only on hope and not on the past four years (nor Biden’s 47 years in public service). Just look at how Bidenites are preparing to deal with Trumpers and ask yourself: is the neo-imperial hegemon really going to treat foreigners – especially Muslims in oil-rich areas – better than their very own neighbors?
Bidenites essentially want to criminalise working for Trumpism, censor Trumpist analyses, and make Trump the very first president to ever be prosecuted (what happened to the outrage of Trump’s calls to prosecute “crooked Hillary”?). These are all “radical” in the very worst sense of the word. The obstacle in implementing such radical policies is that Trumpism won at every level on November 3rd except the presidency, in a total concretisation and not repudiation of Trumpism, whether one likes that or not; the problem is that Bidenites at this time in 2016 were, incredibly, already talking publicly about impeaching the then-president-elect Trump, gutting their credibility.
These do not seem like the people who are going to herald a new era of tolerance for non-American ideas because they can’t even tolerate half of America’s ideas. Bidenism may turn out to be “Western universal values” on steroids because Bidenites realise there truly is a threat to the 2015 status quo, which they are obviously hell-bent on suppressing.
These do not seem like the people who are going to become more tolerant of those who do not accept America’s fake-leftist and divisive identity politics, which are entirely based around one thing: distracting from opposition to and the discussion of both neo-imperialism and neoliberalism.
Like Obama, will Biden get a Nobel Peace Prize for his election campaign?
Many of us are old enough to have seen the failure of this idea, currently held by many non-Americans, that the switching from a Republican to a Democrat will herald an entirely new era free from American belligerence.
The younger class may not remember the intense hatred Democrats had for George W. Bush, but the proof of it is in that shocking, totally unmerited Nobel. In 2013 Obama would be credibly quoted as saying, “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”
If things really do change for the better if Biden wins, journalists will have to have changed as well. Of course, we cannot expect their publishers and editors to allow them to be towards Biden but a fraction of how oppositional they were with Trump, but the younger generation of reporters have now been weaned on journalistic ideas which may prove hard for neoliberal and neo-imperialist forces to rein in.
However, the problem of their essential fake-leftism – of Bidenism – remains, no?
And this is a problem for journalists worldwide, who often read the US mainstream media and are so proud that they can understand a foreign language so well that they may fail to realise they are also imbibing Biden’s latent, never-stated neoliberalism and neo-imperialism; they are so happy Trump is gone they forget the corruption and anti-“universal values” stances which got him elected in the first place.
The worry is that instead of a genuine move away from American rightism, journalists in the US and abroad only imbibe a key hallmark of Bidenism: intolerance for dissent and the refusal to engage in dispassionate conversation about vital societal issues. The worry is that they become accepting of Bidenism’s flaming insistence that Western liberalism is the only acceptable form of human society worldwide – this is all adds up to the “unradical radicalism” of Bidenism.
Journalists must be skeptical, but they must be accurate – refusing to report on the reality of American Trumpism is as bad as those Americans whose family relations who have become frozen because of their inability to tolerate their relative’s right to vote as they wish.
That’s an American problem, but the idea that Bidenism is actually an anti-imperial and anti-neoliberal movement, or that it will continue Trump’s relative drawdown of American forces worldwide – that’s something you’ve never actually heard from Bidenites.
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV 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.
The United States repeatedly has the worst elections of all the Western core democracies.
That’s not “Iranian meddling” but Harvard and their 2019 Electoral Integrity Index. They ranked US elections just 57th in the world.
One wonders how much further they will fall in this year’s ranking?
If we honestly ask if American elections have integrity I think everyone has the same answer, and it’s as serious as a heart-attack:
You don’t want to go there. American elections cannot withstand serious scrutiny.
So if President Donald Trump actually wants a second term, it’s likely there for the taking. He’ll have to ride out weeks of personal stress even worse than the televised Watergate hearings in 1973, but he won’t come out like Richard Nixon just for insisting that American elections finally get looked at honestly.
I don’t think that Trump has engaged in vote fraud, but I must report that half of the US still believes that Democrats did. Mail-in balloting has unnecessarily stressed an already corruption-filled system, per Harvard. In a democracy it does not matter if perceptions of voter fraud run on partisan lines – if such perceptions are widespread they simply must be resolved satisfactorily.
Nobody has tested the integrity of US elections in recent memory. Not in even in 2000, when they rushed to install George W. Bush 37 days after the election. We later found that an unforgivable 14% of African-American votes had been questionably rejected in they key state of Florida.
Americans shouldn’t forget things like that, and many don’t. Many just permanently stay away from elections and encourage others to do the same.
Democrats want to pin all the blame for the current election mistrust on Trump, but such a view acts as if the world began in 2016.
This is an election system which could not stand serious scrutiny, and now it is cracking at the end of this year of unprecedented pressures.
Half the country is begging Trump: stress it further.
His supporters are asking Trump to be a martyr and refuse to concede
This is an absolutely history-making moment in time, and this hard-news journalist never resorts to such hyperbole: This is the moment when Donald Trump can choose between going down in history likely portrayed as a buffoon, or he can take on the establishment “Swamp” by forcing it to investigate allegations of structural corruption by elites.
It’s a stunning idea, and unthinkable to half the country here, who is being swamped with the insistence that Joe Biden is the president-elect even though the votes counting is still ongoing, even though he leads by a mere average of 21,000 votes over four states, and in an election which has been tainted by corruption accusations for months.
What they are applying as pressure is the cynical power of “inevitability”. Maybe Trump really did get fewer votes, so why put the nation through stress?
That common view should be rejected in favor of the martyrs who came before, such as the disenfranchised Black Floridians of 2000. And how long can honest reckonings be put off without destroying faith in the system? Destroyed faith in society has a price, and America has a problem with honest talk, but this is truly la chance for redemption.
That’s why Joe Biden’s early declaration was so reckless, self-interested and – in the worst sense of the word – Trumpian. Biden’s promised redemption is already false – he did not have faith in allowing the US system to play out.
It seems like a difficult task, but I contend that Trump has everything going for him – he has the one thing nobody really has, which is time. All Trump has to do is let the process play out: if he lost fairly, he will garner much credit for standing up for the common voter; if he wins the presidency, he’s a hero who reversed the tide.
Trump’s Achilles’ heel is that he cannot do this with dignity, but when every other election this century has been disputed, one person’s foolish behavior isn’t the main issue for American society anymore.
There really is no rush: a new president doesn’t take over until January 20. But imperialists abhor a vacuum. They don’t know who is in charge and, thus who to follow, and thus who to plot to destroy. Imperialist cultures are exceptional and distorted like this in ways smaller countries can’t imagine.
This, “We’re the slave-master,” pride is also why a small country can take their time and get an election right, but the US is rushing to judgement no matter how many it disenfranchises. They know they have to constantly project total strength: every day they do not is another day the colonized will question the slave-master’s true power and abilities.
What is this 21st century “Trumpism” really? We are about to finally find out.
‘Trumpism’ isn’t the name of a proper political party – will one be found or is it over already?
Certainly, like the Yellow Vests in France, it was immediately and falsely slammed as xenophobic. That’s now a pathetic, false and boring argument: Trump won a greater percentage of minority votes than any Republican in 60 years. So we don’t really know what it is, due to this propaganda.
The reality is that their opposition to 1%-benefiting globalization, their demand for patriotic sovereignty and their opposition to 1%-benefiting “universal values” are the reasons for the corporate-mainstream vilification of both.
If Trump gives up the adjective of “Trumpian” Republican will no longer be necessary because the world’s oldest duopoly sucks the revolutionary spirit out of every third-party movement. I doubt you have heard of the “Bull Moose Party”, even though Teddy Roosevelt is on Mount Rushmore?
If Trump really stands his ground right “Trumpian” could shed its perceptions of xenophobia and be associated with a spirit of rigor and democratic egalitarianism. It would be a coup against the 1%’s efforts, and to win that Trump has to get absolutely crucified in the next three months.
We’ve never known just how serious about politics Trump is, no?
He used to be a reality-show star, but he has certainly put in a lot of work for four years. Key senators have said that Trump is within his rights to demand recounts and transparency. Now we will find out how fighting he is willing to do – he still has a ton of power.
Trump been vilified for four years, and revolutionaries are made, not born. Surely he is aware of the problems which those without power cannot possibly stand up to? He who is more aware is necessarily more responsible.
But how deep is Trump’s Trumpism?
It’s very easy to cynically say that Trump will only ever be a tool of the pro-Zionist camp, or that he is only in this to make money, or that all he seeks is fame or even infamy. Maybe all this is quite true, and he’s gone further than he ever imagined or even wanted to?
It doesn’t matter to me: The better point to make is that Trumpism is very real to its supporters. Like the Yellow Vests they actually do have genuine virtues. They see corruption and they want it out, but all they have is one vote each – they are not the president.
Right now is the time if Trump shows he has learned how to be a public servant after four years, or if perhaps many are right to conclude that “democracy with American characteristics” is incapable of producing humble, selfless public servants, and only corrupt, self-interested ones.
If Americans cannot have a transparent election they cannot possibly achieve even moderate progress: This is country which has opposed revolutionary tactics for 200+ years – everyone here is committed to reformism of the American system. If Trump does not make a stand here – if he bows to the forces of cynical inevitability – Trumpism remains half a personality cult, half a brand name and certainly half-finished at best. Trumpism will have made a point, but not a real impact.
The average American should not be punished – they have a right to free and transparent elections, and the whole world knows that they don’t get them. 2020 is yet another recent example. It seems unfortunate that it is up to Donald Trump to help him and her, but it is too early to judge: he may yet get added onto Mount Rushmore, as he hopes.
What is certain one week after their initial vote is that the US has had a vote, and a winner (two of them) – there is only one logical conclusion: concession/inauguration.
Until that happens it will be a steadily-increasing drip of chaotic news. That is not a bad thing for the world, nor one to be feared by Americans, but it is intensely feared by their 1%.
(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
Why is it that US news channels censored a press conference by a President of the United States?
Why is it that tech giants feel the need to censor Trump’s tweets?
Why is it that in key Dem states the GOP observers were not allowed to actually observe anything?
Why did the Dems counter-sue just to try to prevent GOP observers from observing the ballot count?
Why do the media conglomerates all declare Biden the victor even though they all know for a fact that this is false (only the courts can declare a victor)?
Why is it that FoxNews was spearheading the anti-Trump cheering during this entire week?
Why is it that the US deep state needs EU leaders to suddenly all congratulate Biden on a victory?
Think of what is coming next: lawsuits in state and federal courts, right?
Then IF the Dems felt confident that the Trump campaign had no case, why not simply relax, wait and see the courts reject the Trump campaign’s petitions?
But no, instead, they are acting exactly as if they were all terrified that the courts might do something which would compromise the victory of the Biden campaign!
The very fact of the need for such extreme haste and such un-retractable statements can only be explained by the fear of the Dems that something in their coup plans might go wrong. And, after all, it is said that Giuliani won over 4000 lawsuits in his career, and he would scare me too
So, in a way, we could consider the Dems massive push to win in the court of public opinion a clear sign that they are much more afraid of a court of law.
Good.
Will they succeed? Yeah, probably, Trump’s “aggregate power” is dwarfed the the power of the multi-billion dollars interests who are using all their “propaganda firepower” to settle the issue before the courts get to.
Yet another proof that the Dems are no democrats at all, but a completely immoral gang of USA-hating thugs who are willing to destroy their own country to defeat any outsider, good or bad, daring to challenge them. They very much remind me of Kerensky and his own gang of masonic plutocrats.
Still, until we actually see that the USSC is also willing to betray the people of the USA, we can still keep a tiny little sense of hope in our hearts.
But we now all better prepare for the worst, because if the USSC also caves in, it will be the end of the United States as we know them.
“We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over. Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor. In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process. Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media.
“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated. The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots. This is the only way to ensure the public has full confidence in our election. It remains shocking that the Biden campaign refuses to agree with this basic principle and wants ballots counted even if they are fraudulent, manufactured, or cast by ineligible or deceased voters. Only a party engaged in wrongdoing would unlawfully keep observers out of the count room – and then fight in court to block their access.
“So what is Biden hiding? I will not rest until the American People have the honest vote count they deserve and that Democracy demands.”
Remember when Donald Trump said before the 2016 Elections, he wanted to be President to clean up the swamp in Washington? Well, he may be just doing that. President Trump may have just launched a massive sting operation against the rotten flagrant corruption of the “Democrats”. He knew they were planning a massive election fraud, when they insisted on mail-in votes, similar to the absentee votes, and asked that the mail-in votes would be counted at the end.
Pretext for the mail-in votes was “covid” – social distancing, not getting near each other standing in line for voting. A perfect excuse, transformed into a massive voter fraud.
Between 3:30 AM and 4:30 AM, they “found” 140,000 mail-in ballots for Biden in Wisconsin; Between 3:30 AM and 5:00 AM, they “found” 200,000 mail-in ballots for Biden in Michigan; Between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM, they found a million (1,000,000) mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania
Republicans were not allowed to be near the ballot counting as observers, as is the common rule in election vote counting, that the opposition is present, to observe the counting process. Example given in Pennsylvania by former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, who denounces “fraud and corruption” in Philadelphia, his home town; see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9898bDivIl0&feature=youtu.be
And fraud and corruption has been going on in at least two more States, Wisconsin and Michigan, and possibly also in Georgia – and maybe others.
President Trump did not agree in principle with the mail-in vote from citizens withing the US, because that is usually not done. Absentee votes yes, from military and Americans living abroad, but not from US citizens living in the US. He finally agreed, but said these mail-in votes must have been received before the voting deadline – 3 November – and must be counted first.
However, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) decided differently, namely that the mail-in votes would be counted last. This leaves room for fraud, as these latter votes will most likely not be matched against votes already cast, nor will they be scrutinized with the rigor of validity the way the ballots cast at the polls are checked, so duplicate votes maybe possible. There have indeed been reports of “dead” people voting.
Trump had sizable leads in the key swing states Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, and also in Georgia – until the mail-in ballots arrived and were counted – see above. That’s when the pendulum swung to the other side, giving Biden the win.
Today, 7 November, it was announced that Joe Biden had “won” the elections with 290 electoral votes (270 needed), against 214 of Donald Trump.
The Trump Team must have suspected that fraud may be part of the “Democrats” strategy. They have planned a sting operation, assisted by the CIA. Each valid ballot distributed to the eligible voters has a small almost unrecognizable water mark.
Law suits are already under way in the three key swing states and more may follow. Recounts will be requested. On the basis of the recounts and the watermarks on the valid ballots, the level of fraud may be determined.
So, the election is far from over, and may end up like in 2000 in the Supreme Court for a final decision. But we are not there yet.
There are other dangers too.
Already now, street riots take place. Protests for or against Woke, the Blacks, the police… you name it. They are funded by disruptive forces, like the Soros Open Society Foundation and others, with similar objectives. More of such riots may ensue, the longer the final decision is postponed. Wouldn’t such social upheavals be a good reason to declare officially a state of emergency – merging into Martial Law?
That would be the ultimate example for the world to see a totally defunct and dystopian “Democracy”.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals such as Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO) and more. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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