Enough of the Russia Witch Hunt

The talk of impeachment is huge right now. Trump is allegedly responsible for colluding with Russia, which caused Hillary Clinton to lose the election in 2016. Many Democrats believe that “Russia” isn’t our “ally”, and are willing to support impeachment of Donald Trump. That includes Bill Clinton who believes Jill Stein was the “Russian Alternative Candidate” and it caused Hillary to lose the General election in 2016.

First, let’s take a look at how absurdly far the “evidence” goes. Jeff Sessions met twice with a Russia Ambassador during the election. Rex Tillerson, Secretary of state, has done business with Two companies owned by the Russian Government but he’s also done business with many other countries (he owns ExxonMobil, it produces something that is essential to our fossil fuel society). Michael Flynn national security adviser appeared on RT, a state news company run by the Russian Government, just like PBS in America or BBC in Britain. He visited the GRU, a Russian Military intelligence agency in 2013, 5 years ago therefore he is guilty or something. Carter Page a Trump Political adviser. Met with top managers Rosneft a major oil company, and Gazprom a major oil company owned by the Russian state. Paul Manafort GOP operative, Trump campaign manager until mid-2016, former business partner of Roger Stone. Manafort was onetime business partners of a number of sleazy Russian business oligarchs. Felix Stater pleaded guilty to stock fraud with ties to the Russian mafia. Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner all know different people who have ties to the Russian government. Therefore, they are all guilty. It’s really absurd to make them guilty by association. Basically business people do business with foreign countries, they might not be beholden to the countries interests. However, this is absurd, almost all presidents have done favors for global Capitalists, so by claiming its a scandal when only Trump and his associates do this is very hypocritical.

Roger Stone claims to be a friend of a mystery person who knew Julian Assange would allegedly publish DNC Leak emails to flip the election to Russia’s favor. Which is also crazy because those emails openly admitted that Hillary Clinton basically cheated in the primary to win. Whether it was working closely with CNN during the debates, or just DNC colluding with Hillary Clinton. Donna Braille slipped one of the questions to Hillary Clinton.

Bill Clinton let us all know why he thinks his wife might have lost her 2016 presidential election: the Russians “preferred alternative”- the Green Party candidate Jill Stein (gasp).

While speaking in New York at a event Clinton stated Green party candidate Jill Stein was the “preferred alternative of the Russians,” and hinted that shadowy Russian actors must have cast votes for Stein instead of Clinton”.

Bill stated “We know that Jill Stein, preferred alternative of the Russians, got more — the difference in her vote in 2012, 2016 was more than the difference in the election in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,” he said. “That doesn’t mean the Russians did it, but it’s — it makes you scratch your head…Maybe the Russians did have a decisive impact.”

Clinton put his faith into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing ‘Russiagate’ probe, and he said that “we should wait for Mr. Mueller to do his work and protect him when he does.”

Mueller’s investigation has cost the American taxpayer almost $17 million to date, and it has failed to produce any evidence of collusion between the US President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Bill Clinton’s claim that the nasty Russians had their puppet candidate Jill Stein run to cause Hillary Clinton to lose. I’m sick and tired of hearing about how it wasn’t Hillary Clinton’s fault, how it was the Russians, or Jill Stein, or apathetic voters, or baskets of deplorables, or Russian bots, or Bernie Bros, or “elitist” spoiled progressives who wouldn’t get in line and vote for a Corporatist Warmonger.

Let’s not forget Bill Clinton’s wonderful contributions to this country. Contributions including: strengthening the Prison Industrial Complex, increasing Mass Incarceration with the 1994 Crime Bill, gutting Welfare, increasing the number of poor American children and black welfare recipients being subjected to the system’s most stringent welfare rules.

Clinton is also responsible for the Deregulation of Wall Street and the Great Recession, with his repealing of the Glass Steagall Act (passed after the Great Depression by FDR, separating commercial and investment banking) by passing go Gram-Leah-Bailey Act in 1999.

Clinton gutted manufacturing via free trade agreements like NAFTA. In 1979 Reagan proposed a similar trade agreement like NAFTA, but the Democrats did not approve it until Clinton pushed it in his first year in office. NAFTA created the Permanent loss of 700,000 jobs in industrial states such as California, Texas and Michigan.

Bill Clinton was responsible for the homophobic Anti-LGBT Defense of Marriage Act, one of conservatives biggest victories in 1990's. For almost a decade, same-sex couples suffered financial and emotional hardships thanks to this law. Gay couples weren’t allowed to make medical decisions for their partners, couldn’t get the major tax breaks afforded to heterosexual couples, and faced unequal treatment in many other areas of the law.

Clinton expanded the war on drugs. He rejected the US Sentencing commission to recommend to eliminate the disparity between Crack and powder cocaine. He placed a permanent eligibility ban on food stamps for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense, even marijuana possession. And he prohibited felons from living in public housing. The prison population doubled from 600,000 to about 1.2 million in the Clinton years. And 30 billion was spent in a effort to include more mandatory minimum sentences.

Clinton expanded the Death Penalty. In 1992, then-Arkansas Gov. Clinton allowed his state to execute Ricky Ray Rector, a convicted murderer with severe mental impairments. Clinton did this to establish his tough on crimes credentials as a national candidate. The 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty to 60 additional crimes including three that don’t involve murder: espionage, treason, and drug trafficking in large amounts.

Clinton returned to Cold War priorities rather than trying to end it. Clinton had a historic opportunity to attempt a cooperative, non aggressive, international model based on international law. Clinton often gave lip service while at the same time working on a far reaching economic and political agenda to bring Eastern Europe into the NATO-EU-US coalition. Clinton National Security Advisor Anthony Lake summarized Clinton’s position as “Throughout the cold war, we contained a global threat to market democracies: now we should seek to enlarge their reach.” Clinton’s administration participated worldwide in the former Soviet States of Eastern Eurpoe and the Balkans, with the notorious “shock doctrine” of horrific neoliberal economic reforms in exchange for IMF loans: cutting wages and corporate taxes, increasing working hours and slashing social programs. Bill Clinton set the stage for the clash at Russia border overseen by Obama in Ukraine in 2015. Clinton turned the Lincoln bedroom, the historic second floor bedroom used by Abraham Lincoln personal time in office, into a overnight apartment for high roller big time political donors. Those who gave the most stayed overnight as White House guests. George W. Bush criticized Clinton on the campaign trail for doing this but continued the practice afterwards.

Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical factory in North, Sudan. Clinton claimed the factory was producing a deadly nerve agent and maintained connections to Osama bin Laden. The plant provided 50 percent of Sudan’s medicines and was the country’s main source of antimalarial drugs. This bombing caused bolstering terrorism. Noam Chomsky wrote these bombings of pharmaceutical company in Sudan were comparable to 9/11.

Bill Clinton was responsible for the Iraq Sanctions which decimated Iraq’s economy. Although the sanctions started under George HW. Bush, Clinton made the record clear that there would be no difference in policy between one administration to the next on this issue. Some within the Democratic Party at the time noted the Humanitarian crisis at the time. Which continued to get worse as time went on. Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden cited the sanctions as one of his primary motives behind the 9/11 attacks on New York City and Washington, DC in 2001.

In Clinton’s second term he initiated Plan Colombia, a multibillion-dollar effort to reduce that country’s coca and cocaine production and end a decades-long war between Bogota and leftist FARC rebels. Roughly 80 percent of U.S. aid under Plan Colombia was military assistance, making Colombia the third largest recipient of foreign aid after Israel and Egypt. It strengthed the Colombian military, which was allied with rightwing paramilitary groups. It made gains against drug trade and the FARCbut at huge cost. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands became internal refugees. Concern over human rights abuses in the Columbian security forces resulted in the passage of the Leahy Provision, which barred anti-drug aid to any military unit involved in human right abuses. Clinton apologized to Mexico in 2015 for the War on Drugs and NAFTA opened the floodgates to illegal drugs hidden in the massive flows of legitimate commerce across the border. Large Corporations weren’t the only ones to benefit from Free Trade, so were Mexican drug traffickers.

Clinton was highly regarded by the African American community for his ability to articulate how racism impacted their communities. However, when it mattered most, he dropped the ball on race when it was completely unnecessary. It started when he blasted hip hop artist Sistah Souljah, who after the Los Angeles riots after the LA police beat truck driver Rodney king, stated “If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?” Clinton responded later at Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition conference in Washington by saying “We can’t get anywhere in this country pointing the finger at one another across racial lines.” He compared her remarks to former KKK wizard David Duke. Clinton did this to appeal to white voters and distance himself from Rev. Jackson, still a key leader at the time in the Democratic Party.

In 2016 shortly after the election the New York Times went and interviewed some of the voters Milwaukee, Wisconsin in a barbershop in one of the poorest areas in the city. In Wisconsin Trump won by 27,000 votes. One of the people interviewed was a barber, Cedric Fleming stated “I don’t feel bad. Milwaukee is tired. Both of them were terrible. They never do anything for us anyway”

Hillary Clinton assumed she would win Wisconsin but in 2016 68.3 percent was the lowest turnout in 16 years (2000 election). Of the City’s 15 council districts, the decline in turnout from 2012 to 2016 in the five poorest was consistently much greater than the drop seen in wealthier districts.

The New York Times wrote, “The biggest drop was here in District 15, a stretch of fading wooden homes, sandwich shops and fast-food restaurants that is 84 percent black. In this district, voter turnout declined by 19.5 percent from 2012 figures”

This district is home to most of Milwaukee’s poorest residents and has one of the nations highest per capita incarceration rates.

In the local barbershop the talk of politics always comes back to one man, Mr. Obama. His election infused many here with a feeling of connection. But their lives have not gotten appreciably better and sourness has set in. Some like 38 year old Maanaan Sabir claimed, “We went to the beach and then eight years happened”.

All four barbers had voted for Mr. Obama, but in 2016 only two could barely muster enthusiasm to vote and even then it was sort of protest vote. One even wrote in Clinton’s democratic opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the other wrote himself in.

Jahn Toney, 45, stated “I’m so Numb” he said no president in his lifetime had done anything to improve the lives of black people, including Obama who he voted for twice. He stated “It’s like I should have known this would happen. We’re worse off than before.”

Some of the biggest issues for many in the neighborhood is health insuracne, Mr. Fleming lost his health Coverage after his divorce three years ago and has struggled to find a policy he could afford. He finally found one for 300 a month, but this is still to much. Mr. Fleming stated: “Ain’t none of this been working,” he said. He did not vote.

The biggest reason why many did not vote was the candidates themselves. To some, it was like having to choose between broccoli and liver.

An avid supporter of Mrs. Clinton, spent months trying to convince her grandson to vote her. But he could not get over his revulsion at what he saw as trust issues related to the Clinton Foundation.

One exception was Justin Babar, who said he voted for Mr. Trump as a protest against Mrs. Clinton. He blamed her husband’s policies for putting him in prison for 20 years. Mr. Babar wasn’t worried when asked about Trump’s open racism. “It’s better than smiling to my face but going behind closed doors and voting against our kids,” he said.

Tarvus Hawthorne, 45, a program coordinator at a local nonprofit, agreed.

“He was real, unlike a lot of liberal Democrats who are just as racist” but keep it hidden, he said. “You can reason with them all day long, but they think they know it all. They want to have control. That they know what’s best for ‘those people.’”

Half of all eligible voters did not cast ballots in 2016.

The Russia-Trump allegations are not only ridiculous but nationalistic, leaving people to blindly support their country against another country. This is just attitudes hungover from the Cold War that are dangerous and harmful to peace. Whenever the mainstream news cover a story intensely that is a “scandal” like the Russia gate, it is usually done to distract people from the real scandals. Think about how we all know what Watergate, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, OJ Simpson scandal, Iran-Contra (although that’s a legitimate scandal). Most of the scandals the public is familiar with are not nearly as important as the ones they do not know as household names. Scandals like COINTELPRO, Operation Mongoose, Operation Condor, Operation Mockingbird, Operation CHAOS, and Operation AJAX. These are the real scandals that most Americans don’t know about. It’s almost like the corporate media doesn’t want you to know what’s really going on, and is continuously trying to push a agenda.

Trump may be many things, he’s sometimes a buffon who says silly things, he’s unhinged, he’s a racist, he’s xenophobic, he’s a billionaire, he’s a Capitalist, he’s nationalistic, he’s a Imperialist but at the same time he’s against intervention (a contradiction), and he’s doesn’t believe in Climate Change, but something about Trump stuck with people and made them go out and vote for him. Some might say it was the racism and they would be right, but it might also be that they were hurt by the policies of the establishment and Trump was their symbol to throw a molotov cocktail at the system that had screwed them over. Trump played himself in the election as Anti-Establishment and his supporters ate it up.

The Clintons are Wall Street backed, free trade supporting, anti worker, closet-racist, militaristic, imperialistic, warmongers Corporate Neoliberal Capitalists,. They are the most corporate supported politicians along with the Bushes. The Clintons are wolves in sheep’s clothing, where as Trump is wolf in wolves clothing. Where as Trump does horrible things, he does them out in the open, whereas when the Clintons do horrible things, they do them behind closed doors. The American people will no longer support them and they are fed up with them.

For Democrats to focus on the alleged aquisations that Trump is Putin’s puppet, is not only absurd but a losing strategy. You cannot just be against Trump, you have to provide a real alternative for people to believe in. If there is no clear real alternative that people can believe in and that people can support, than their will be no change. That is not the resistance, the resistance will come from the millions of people mobilized in the streets organizing for real structural and fundamental change.

The idea of impeaching Trump is the worst thing being thrown around right now. Not only does it not fix the problems that led to the Trump presidency, but it leaves us with Mike Pence, a far more dangerous person to have power, because he will actually get things done. Donald Trump is a gift to the left and many are blowing this opportunity to mobilize people and build movements of change and resistance. By not focusing on the issues at hand, as well as also trying to push impeachment, many get even more disenfranchised with those supporting these ideas because it only alienates those who are hurting and provides them with no alternative to really bring the change that is needed.

Russia is not the working classes enemy, Capitalism is the working classes enemy. It’s always been the enemy, we can not allow ourselves to be distracted from this fact. Our government is run by the super rich, for the super wealthy under a Capitalist system that is running on its last legs and doing whatever is possible to stay dominant throughout the world. It’s time we break the last legs of this system.

Works Cited

“Bill Clinton Reveals Why Hillary Lost (Hint: Jill Stein & Russia).” RT International, RT, www.rt.com/usa/428942-bill-clinton-blames-jill-stein-russia/.

Crowley, Michael, et al. “All of Trump’s Ties to Russia, in 7 Charts.” About Us, POLITICO, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868.

Staff, AlterNet. “15 Ways Bill Clinton’s White House Failed America and the World.” Alternet, www.alternet.org/election-2016/15-ways-bill-clintons-white-house-failed-america-and-world.

Tavernise, Sabrina. “Many in Milwaukee Neighborhood Didn’t Vote — and Don’t Regret It.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Dec. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/many-in-milwaukee-neighborhood-didnt-vote-and-dont-regret-it.html.