The Wolf at our Door…

The Wolf at our Door…

Back in 2009, on his third day in office, President Obama ordered the detention facilities at Guantanamo to be closed "as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” 

-       Trump Inherits Guantanamo's Remaining Detainees - NPR

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ordered the military to start withdrawing roughly 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, two defense officials said Thursday, an abrupt shift in the 17-year-old war there and a decision that stunned Afghan officials, who said they had not been briefed on the plans.  President Trump made the decision to pull the troops — about half the number the United States has in Afghanistan now — at the same time he decided to pull American forces out of Syria, one official said. 

-       U.S. to Withdraw About 7,000 Troops From Afghanistan, Officials Say - NY Times

The Defense Department has declined to offer details about the timing of the Syria withdrawal or whether the air campaign against the Islamic State in that country will continue apace. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has made an announcement about Trump’s order to withdraw roughly half of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. On a trip to the region over the holidays, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., dismissed reports of the order as “rumors.”  

-       U.S. forces will stay in Iraq and could reenter Syria from there, Trump says – Washington Post

By JM Hamilton (12-30-2018)

Salutations and a very Happy New Year!

Future economist and historians may eventually determine that the year 2018 marked an inflection point in global economics and politics.  Populist movements are the rise throughout the West, and centrist parties – owned by the establishment – are in retreat.  Even President Macron – the investment banker, who was going to “reform” France, and make her a beacon of failed globalism and a diseased neoliberal ideology – is beating a hasty retreat and surrendering to the demands of ordinary French citizens, who have long suffered austerity. (Apparently, the EU elites only get excited when Italian populists do not conform to Brussels’ & Germany’s budgetary and fiscal diktats… but it’s all good when a sophisticate from Rothschilds blows out his nation’s budget because he’s facing revolution from the Yellow Vests in Parisian streets.  Besides, the uprising from the vox populi is bad for the EU's image & tourism.) 

Perhaps Mr. Macron is having fever dreams about the tumbrels making there way to the The Place de la Concorde?

Mr. Trump never fails to surprise, and keeps things interesting (The MSM owes this man a debt that never can be repaid).  And his policies and twitter pronouncements spark all kinds of wondrous consequences, both intended and unintended.  And to think, if one notorious HRC had been elected in 2016, the tables might very well have been reversed during the 2018 midterms: w/ Madam President on trial and facing possible impeachment, and the GOP retaining the House.  Instead, Dems can thank their lucky stars that Trump – who ran as a populist – turned out to be the plutocracy’s champion.  POTUS Trump's greatest claim to fame, so far, being tax cuts for the rich.  That and the remarkable ability to alienate a very large number of American women, creating a mass movement against his reign, and electing a record number of women to America’s federal and state legislative bodies.  (He’s also quietly stacking the judiciary to insure the plutocracy’s agenda will be legislated from the bench for generations to come, by politicians wearing black robes.)  

Meanwhile, in a futile effort to thwart the will of the people, GOP legislatures are attempting to take a meat axe to American democracy…  the last refuge of a dying political party.

But POTUS Trump isn’t all bad: He’s attempting to accomplish at least two things POTUS Obama campaigned on, but failed to realize, before he did a complete about-face and fully adopted the globalist, neocon, and neoliberal paradigm (Stymied by Congress, Obama gambled the Dem Party’s, then, immediate future on: free trade agreements dictated by multinationals behind closed doors - see TPP, endless wars in the Middle East, nation building, and regime change).  Yes, liberals and progressives may want to give Trump credit where it is due.  Sometimes it takes a Republican to get things done, where Dems fear tread for worry of being called weak (see Nixon’s embrace of communist China). 

Trump is attempting to renegotiate trade agreements that have long favored multinationals at the expense of the US economy, labor, and the nation’s tax base (And has anyone seen China’s economy or stock market lately, as a result of Trump’s trade war?… Here, Trump doesn’t appear to be winning, but is winning, in his ability to contain and thwart Asia’s communist juggernaut, at least for the immediate future.  But you won't hear or read that, often, in the plutocratically controlled news organizations).  

Also, POTUS Trump, in a matter of days, set fire to the Pentagon and took a sledgehammer to the US Foreign Policy Establishment  - to hear the corporate, & billionaire, owned US mainstream media tell it – by, gasp, actually doing something Obama campaigned on, and promised while in office.  That is to say, our current White House occupant ordered US troops home from Afghanistan and the Middle East (aka Syria).  In fairness to Obama, our former president waffled several times on his commitments to wind down foreign wars.  Obama withdrew from and returned to Iraq; and some may recall there were a couple of meaningless surges thrown in during his two terms, w/ highly dubious outcomes.

As with all things Washington, however, the public should be cautious in not fully buying into the hype surrounding revised trade agreements & the winding down of nation building.  As for the new NAFTA, or USMCA agreement, it still has to make its way through Congress, and the devil will ultimately be in the congressional amendments, details, and the enforcement mechanisms.  And as for Trump’s troop withdrawal…  Obama, once upon a time, ordered Guantanamo closed, only to be thwarted by the Deep State that runs US foreign policy and our nation’s Police & Surveillance State.  Trump, at least on these two issues - trade and unwinding nation building - has been shrewd to follow through on his campaign commitments.  Commitments that bridge the left/right political divide, and enjoy widespread public support.  (And as Trump comes under mounting pressure, as the Dems retake the House and Mr. Mueller issues his report, expect the very real possibility that the POTUS will dust off and embrace his more populist 2016 campaign promises.  Could the return of Glass-Steagall - contained w/in the 2016 Republican platform - be around the corner?)

Per the Washington Post - which has apparently changed its motto from, “democracy dies in darkness,” to “cheerleader for the military industrial complex” - the head of the Joint Chiefs called Trump’s orders on troop withdrawals “rumors.”  Perhaps someone should tell General Dunford, Junior, that the US Constitution states the US military shall suffer civilian oversight, not the other way around.  Unless, of course, unbeknownst to the American public, the United States has undergone a military coup and the Joint Chiefs have taken it upon themselves to, unilaterally, rewrite and amend the US Constitution, so that they alone are US foreign policy’s sole arbiters.

Ø Meanwhile, what is not a rumor, or in dispute – General - is the price tag for these credit card wars has reached $5 to $6 trillion, and the service load on this debt is potentially exponential.  In essence, when coupled w/ the 2008 bank bailout, America’s addiction to empire & nation building is bankrupting the United States.

Ø What is not in contention is that Americans have suffered austerity to pay for these wars, and that somewhere between 20 to 25% of US children live in poverty.

Ø There is no rumor in the fact that the military industrial complex wastes hundreds of billions of dollars in cost overruns for weapons systems that are not delivered on time and often do not deliver upon their intended purpose.  And congress fails to hold the defense cartel accountable.

Ø What’s indisputable is that US nation building in Afghanistan and the Middle East, like Vietnam before it, has been an abject failure, and following General McChrystal’s doctrine all the US has succeeded in doing is creating more terrorists in the region.

Ø Meanwhile the root cause of Middle East terrorism, and its primary sponsor – a/k/a the Royal House of Saud and oil rich monarchy states – are said, by the US foreign policy establishment, and the State Department, to be key US allies.

Ø Feeling nauseous yet?  In fact, General/POTUS Eisenhower warned us that the military industrial complex (like all cartels and monopolies) is a threat to our democracy, and that each dollar spent on war is tantamount to theft against the US citizenry.

Ø No rumor in the fact that there is an industry of academics, punditry, and think tanks dedicated to, and directly and indirectly funded by, the DOD and military industrial complex.  Not to mention many members of Congress, who are all too glad to take money from this very same industry.

Ø Of little doubt is the fear mongering that has transpired, post 9-11, has been grossly oversold & overplayed, and the US response, itself, to the 9-11 event is both absurdly disproportionate and remains entirely out of control.

Ø What is not a rumor is that poll after poll clearly demonstrates that the US citizenry supports our American troops, but no longer supports these costly and ruinous wars. (Americans can show no greater support for our troops then to send them home from endless nation building & the US empire.)

Ø What is not in dispute is the fact that our MIC owned Congress has abdicated its responsibility for waging war, and in a cowardly manner continues to rely upon the original 9-11 AUMF in allowing POTUS(s), now spanning three administrations, to wage war around the globe and expand our bankrupting US empire (all the name of fighting phantom terror.)

Ø It’s no rumor that the revolving door spins at a rapid clip, between the military brass and vast riches awaiting them working for military contractors and/or the private equity firms w/ MIC ownership stakes.  See General Mattis – who just suffered an ignominious exit from the Trump administration – and his board seat at General Dynamics.

Ø Finally, what’s not in dispute is the fact that the US spends more than the G-10 combined on our military, and yet, it’s never enough for the generals and the politicians owned by the MIC.  Meanwhile, US life expectancy is in decline, because the nation cannot take care of its own.

The academics, politicians, and writers – who constantly call for and lobby for a Pax Americana foreign policy – are right about one thing:  the US does, indeed, have an enemy, who is a direct threat to our democracy and freedom.   These groups, like the little boy who cried wolf one too many times, are forever banging the gong for war and about the imagined capabilities of our foreign adversaries. The use of misplaced fear is their primary tool. 

But where this tribe of armchair warriors is wrong is that the enemy, our enemy, is not outside the United States, but from within; our real threat is not foreign but domestic.  That enemy is a rapacious military industrial complex that is bankrupting the nation; and, arguably, an elite military brass, who, often, not only have placed their career interests above the national interest, but who also believe they know, exclusively, what is best for the nation’s foreign policy (despite numerous failures).  Combined, the MIC & the military brass – with aid from the MSM and financing from Wall Street - have formed a Deep State that appears to be willing to ignore both the US Constitution, and the civilian oversight called for within the same document, directly and indirectly, overtly and passively.

POTUS Madison said it best: 

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Who knew the truth could be so radical?

The politicians and pundits are right: there is a wolf at the door, but that wolf has already entered and closed the door, and the DOD/MIC has made us all slaves to the Federal Reserve and the Wall Street banks that finance the debt created to support war w/out end and the MIC’s unconscionable waste and fraud.  This debt is ultimately unpayable, and yet, Wall Street insists that we keep up the charade and continue to suffer domestic austerity, as a nation, in the service of the national debt.  

Notice, however, that austerity does not extend to the unauditable DOD/MIC (or plutocratic or Wall St. bailouts), which hoovers up over half of America’s discretionary federal spending.

Let’s hope that POTUS Trump is both sincere and successful in reining in the generals and bringing our US troops home.  Our fighting force deserves better, and may actually be called upon someday to fight a real battle for our nation's survival.  As it stands, the DOD, the MIC, and its various cheerleaders & experts have cried wolf one too many times, all in the service of a ravenous cartel.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2018

Corporate America Embraces Authoritarianism

Corporate America Embraces Authoritarianism

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

- Justice Brandeis

By JM Hamilton (12-16-2018)

A great deal was written last week about the GOP's rejection of democracy and election outcomes.  More specifically, a reoccurring theme has emerged in North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin, whereby the Republican state legislative bodies have sought to strip incoming Democratic governors & AGs of the very power that they were perfectly willing to allow GOP governors and AGs to wield prior to defeat. The Republican attack against democracy is multi-pronged: if they aren't stripping incoming Democrats of power, or writing new laws to thwart democracy, itself, they are out to disenfranchise Democratic voters, via voter suppression. Who says Jim Crow is dead?  Fear runs deep throughout the Republican party and its base: fear of change - economic & political - and the fear of the loss, and primacy, of dated & failed beliefs and racist values.  That the GOP - and in particular, the donor class - works against the interests of its own base is no longer news or a surprise.

What is surprising, as pointed out in the NY Times, is that the donor class (corporations, multinationals, and billionaires) are in open support of some of these same anti-democratic initiatives, directly and indirectly, expressly and tacitly.  JMH has written for several years about how the concentration of economic power, into too few hands, is a direct threat to our democracy.  But this too should not come as a shock, for corporations and multinationals are authoritarian models.  When the C-Suite makes a decision about the direction of the company, or financing for say, the latest round of financial engineering, it doesn't run those decisions by the rank-and-file employees w/in the organization, nor does it consult w/ government. 

And as we've seen throughout the US economy - which is increasingly being written about in the MSM - the concentration of economic power in industry after industry (as they consolidate into cartels, duopolies, & monopolies) is only growing.  To such an extent that the private sector - and its anticompetitive bias - is a direct threat to capitalism itself, as well as the attendant benefits of capitalism (as defined by competition, a focus on customer service, innovation, and rising wages as business are forced to compete for labor, etc.).  

The growing concentration w/in industry after industry is a form of corporate dictatorship over the private sector, and ultimately, the public sector.

It's a well known maxim that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so it is, particularly, w/ economic power.  And that economic power translates into near total political power (thanks to Citizens United & SCOTUS) in regards the sway the billionaire, and multinational, class hold over the Republican party, and indeed, over establishment Democrats, especially of the Clintonian mold.  Establishment Dems too, certainly aren't above feathering their own nests and are all too often engaged in gerrymandering, as well.  Billionaires aren't exactly known for their humility.  The authoritarian nature of the corporate model, where a C-Suite CEO makes a decision and it is often followed w/out question, often translates into the political world, where we see executive, legislative, judicial - as well as, fiscal & monetary policy - capture.  As POTUS Trump indicated in the 2016 primaries, he often called upon his fellow Republican candidates, post - donation, and he would tell them to jump, and they'd ask how high.  If that isn't a dictatorship, it's not too short a walk to the authoritarian model.

By way of example, US foreign policy coddles dictatorships around the globe.  US foreign policy is often a direct reflection of US multinational interests that stand the most to gain from these authoritarian/totalitarian commercial & political alliances: whether it be Big Oil; the military industrial complex; or a multinational, say Apple, that desires to exploit Asian and SE Asian labor & overseas tax laws.  The US barely pays lip service to democracy and human rights any longer, let alone seek its spread.  

Given the authoritarian nature of the C-Suite vandals running the nation is it any wonder?  As Justice Brandeis said, we can either have democracy in this country, or concentrated wealth and power, but we cannot have both.

The MSM often describes POTUS Trump as a toddler, or what the French like to refer to as an enfant terrible, but is our corporate dictatorship any different?  They demand that their interests be met by the federal and state governments, and the federal and state governments nearly always comply to the point of abject subservience.  This has devolved into a fiscal, and political, crisis in many Western governments - as tax cuts are provided to the rich - while everyone else dines at austerity's table and receives little or no tax relief (and in some instances, tax increases).  Witness as POTUS Trump, and his cabinet, defends a tyrant, and Saudi Arabia, the number one sponsor of terror on the planet, all so that the MIC can continue its multibillion dollar weapons sale.  Wall Street banks and shadow banking have hijacked central banks, the Fed, and monetary policy for so long, that Americans no longer know what it is like to have the markets determine interest rates & yields... and should interest rates rise too high, the fallout has been compared to a tantrum, as financial interests and the exceptionally wealthy retaliate against any hint of monetary normalization, by withdrawing from markets.  Big Pharma has become both a classic, and real time, example of a cartel colluding on patented medicines to extract extravagant rents from a US citizenry, facing the hardship of stagnating wages.  

There likely is no cartel on the planet that is more powerful; and yet, our democracy seems powerless to stop it.

Demonstrators gather at the Arc of Triomphe in Paris during a protests on Dec. 1. 

Photographer: Lucas Barioluet/AFP via Getty images, by way of Bloomberg, LP

The irony in all this - and in keeping w/ Newton's third law - is the terrifying concentration of power, and the globalism and neoliberalism ideology that has allowed this to occur, are already suffering considerable blowback.  Throughout the West so-called centrist political parties - and the defenders of the laissez faire faith that has metastasized into authoritarianism - in both government & the private sector - are facing a fierce backlash. So far, this backlash has been channeled into hard right and hard left political parties.  The financial & political elite - who just want to maintain power and the status quo - are, to some extent, fine w/ all this (although they’d prefer that their owned centrist parties return to power).  As long as, the 99% are warring w/ each other - over the color of one's skin, gender, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic origins - that's all right by the corporate elite, as it keeps the heat & spotlight off the aristocracy.

But something new is happening, and we are seeing this in Europe, the noncentrist left and right are uniting.  We saw this in Italy first w/ the right-wing, League, and the left-wing, Five Star, joining forces to form a government, w/ their joint nemesis being the EU elites (who are merely anti-democratic puppets for the banker & multinational set).  And now, France has demonstrated the same left/right merger in the Yellow Vest movement, where again, a great number of the population have figured out the enemy is not each other but the financial and political elite, who President Macron is a party to and represents.  What else would we expect from an investment banker, but doubling-down on the failed beliefs that: markets are self-regulating and need no oversight; Western labor is to be crushed to compete w/ emerging market workers; and the only "free trade" worth doing is that which is dictated by crony-governments and multinationals.  As for those elites counting on the economic growth fairy to create a rising tide that raises all yachts & lifeboats, keep dreaming.

Where is all this headed?  Well, likely, for a great deal of economic & market disruption, and possibly the loss of some - financially engineered - and monopolistic profits, as the momentum behind populism continues to grow.  Corporations, multinationals, and robber barons are said to hate change, and anything that disrupts profits flow; but in seeking & finding guaranteed profits - by co-opting and owning democratic institutions (to the detriment of the majority of the West's citizens), and consolidating into cartel & monopoly w/in industry after industry - they have sewn the seeds of their own economic disruptions.  

In short, the exorbitant profits many of the monopolies earn today are a direct threat to democracy itself & unsustainable.

(Public officials are said to be concerned about the untoward influence illegal drug cartels hold over Western democracy; hence, the drive towards cannabis legalization and the elimination of blackmarkets.  So why aren't our elected officials equally concerned about the far more debilitating effects of another cartel: Big Pharma?)

Populism is on the rise, and for a very good reason: cartels and monopolies, and the billionaire set are anti-democratic, antisocial, and arguably, psychopathic in their singular lust for power and profits.  As a consequence of rising wage & wealth inequality, the people are rising up, and they want their economies & governments back.  And of course, they will be seeking a more populist approach to fiscal, monetary, and trade policies that for too long have been dictated to further the bankocracy's & kleptocracy's interests, exclusively.   

Investors and multinationals may look back, someday, on the present Neo-Gilded Age with longing, because the ride has already grown bumpy.  The guaranteed profits & uncertainty created by the elites - to the detriment of the world - is more than likely to unwind in ways both foreseen and unforeseen.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2018