A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford The range of “speakable” political subjects is dwindling fast in the U.S. Even billionaire Donald Trump is treated as beyond the pale when he speaks of a “’global elite’ that has ‘stripped’ the U.S. of its wealth in order to line the pockets of corporate and political interests.” The New York Times calls that “anti-Semitic,” while Wikileaks is slimed as a stooge of Russian intelligence for reproducing Hillary Clinton’s own words.
Unspeakable America A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford “Having no real defense against the obvious, the Clinton campaign and most of the corporate media painted Wikileaks as an arm of Russian intelligence.”
Let’s get to the point of this commentary right up front: political discourse in the United States is devoid of substance because the people who own the country and its media can no longer justify their continued rule. Capitalism -- in deep and irreversible decline, dominated by a financial class that makes nothing but exotic forms of money -- has nothing to offer the vast bulk of the people, and no solutions for any of the multiplying crises it has created. Having no real program to offer the public, the rulers and their media have no choice but to shut down any semblance of substantive political debate.
In this presidential season most of the ruling class is gathered under Hillary Clinton’s Big Tent. Republican Donald Trump is on the outs, despite his billionaire status, because he has violated several sacred taboos of the One Percent. I’m not talking about his racism -- race is central to politics in the U.S. Trump’s heresy is that he has challenged rich people’s right to take their money and the nation’s jobs, overseas. And Trump has questioned U.S. policies of endless war, regime change, and demonization of Russia.
The truth is, most Americans oppose the deindustrialization of their country, and they know who is responsible: Wall Street. And most Americans do not want to live in a world that is constantly on the brink of war. Even Donald Trump’s white nationalists yearn for some global peace and quiet and an economy with good jobs for average (white) people.
“Trump has violated sacred taboos of the One Percent.”
Hillary Clinton is deservedly known as both a warmonger and a shameless supplicant of Wall Street, whereas Trump exhibits no loyalties to anyone but himself. Wikileaks has done periodic dumps of documents proving, in Clinton and her handlers’ own words, that she is a servant of the ruling class. Having no real defense against the obvious, the Clinton campaign and most of the corporate media painted Wikileaks as an arm of Russian intelligence. The purpose of this New McCarthyism was to inoculate the public against believing Clinton’s own words, as they were spoken to bankers, and at the same time discredit Trump’s position that the U.S. should seek better relations with Russia and stop helping jihadists in Syria. Having no intention to offer peace to the American people or stop supporting the jihadists, the ruling class shut down the conversation.
The New York Times stooped to new lows of Zionistic McCarthyism, last week, when it used the broad brush of anti-Semitism to slime Donald Trump’s critique of what he called a “global elite” that had “stripped” the U.S. of its wealth in order to line the pockets of corporate and political interests. He said Hillary Clinton “meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors.” Actually, this is provably true about Hillary Clinton and her past support for so-called free trade – and it’s how today’s capitalist system works, in general. Socialists, and even left liberals, make the same case all the time. But such talk is now verboten, prohibited because the New York Times tells us that anti-Semites like to say such things about “the Jews.”
So, even for mega-capitalists like Trump, critiques of capitalism are beyond the pale – unspeakable.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
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Orion Meadows is a non-violence trainer with Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.
