[rad-green] Chris Hedges: The removal of Trump from office would not threaten corporate power....

*https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/11/04/enemy-within-deep-indeed
<https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/11/04/enemy-within-deep-indeed>Truthdig
        November 4, 2019*



*The Enemy Within Is Deep Indeed**The removal of Trump from office would
not threaten corporate power. It would not restore civil liberties,
including our right to privacy and due process. It would not demilitarize
the police or champion the rights of the working class. It would not impede
the profits of the fossil fuel and banking industries. It would not address
the climate emergency. It would not disrupt the warrantless surveillance of
the public.*

*by Chris Hedges*


[image: The entire political and governmental system is corrupt. (Photo:
John Sonderman/Flickr cc 2.0)]

*The entire political and governmental system is corrupt. (Photo: John
Sonderman/Flickr cc 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/>)*

Our democracy is not in peril—we do not live in a democracy. The image of
our democracy is in peril. The deep state—the generals, bankers,
corporatists, lobbyists, intelligence chiefs, government bureaucrats and
technocrats—is intent on salvaging the brand. It is hard to trumpet
yourself as the world’s guardian of freedom and liberty with Donald Trump
blathering on incoherently about himself, inciting racist violence,
insulting our traditional allies along with the courts, the press and
Congress, tweeting misspelled inanities and impulsively denouncing or
sabotaging bipartisan domestic and foreign policy. But Trump’s most
unforgivable sin in the eyes of the deep state is his criticism of the
empire’s endless wars, even though he lacks the intellectual and
organizational skills to oversee a disengagement.

The deep state committed the greatest strategic blunder in American history
when it invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Such fatal military
fiascoes, a feature of all late empires, are called acts of
“micro-militarism.” Dying empires historically squander the last capital
they have, economic, political and military, on futile, intractable and
unwinnable conflicts until they collapse. They seek in these acts of
micro-militarism to recapture a former dominance and lost stature. Disaster
piles on disaster. The architects of our imperial death spiral, however,
are untouchable. The clueless generals and politicians who propel the
empire into expanding chaos and fiscal collapse are successful at one
thing—perpetuating themselves. No one is held accountable. A servile press
treats these mandarins with near-religious veneration. Generals and
politicians, many of whom should have been cashiered or put on trial, are
upon retirement given lucrative seats on the boards of the weapons
manufacturers, for whom these wars are immensely profitable. They are
called upon by a fawning press to provide analysis to the public of the
mess they created. They are held up as exemplars of integrity, selfless
service and patriotism.

After nearly two decades, every purported objective used to justify our
wars in the Middle East has been upended. The invasion of Afghanistan
<https://www.truthdig.com/articles/afghanistan-war-out-of-sight-out-of-mind/>
was
supposed to wipe out al-Qaida. Instead, al-Qaida migrated to fill the power
vacuums the deep state created in the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen.
The war in Afghanistan morphed into a war with the Taliban, which now
controls most of the country and is threatening the corrupt regime we prop
up in Kabul. The deep state orchestrated the invasion of Iraq, which had
nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11. It confidently predicted it could
build a Western-style democracy and weaken Iran’s power in the region.
Instead, it destroyed Iraq as a unified country, setting warring ethnic and
religious factions against each other. Iran, which is closely tied to the
dominant Shiite government in Baghdad, emerged even stronger. The deep
state armed “moderate” rebels in Syria in an effort to topple President
Bashar Assad, but when it realized it could not control the jihadists—to
whom it had provide some $500 million in weapons and assistance—the deep
state began to bomb them and arm Kurdish rebels to fight them. These Kurds
would later be betrayed by Trump. The “war on terror” spread like a plague
from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya to Yemen, which after five years of
war is suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. The
financial cost for this misery and death is between $5 trillion and $8
trillion. The human cost runs into hundreds of thousands of dead and
wounded, shattered cities, towns and infrastructure and millions of
refugees.

Trump committed political heresy when he dared to point out the folly of
unchecked militarism. He will pay for it. The deep state intends to replace
him with someone—perhaps Mike Pence, as morally and intellectually vacuous
as Trump—who will do what he or she is told. This is the role of America’s
executive: Personify and humanize the empire. Do so with pomp and dignity.
Barack Obama—who speciously reinterpreted the 2001 Authorization for Use of
Military Force to give the executive the right to assassinate anyone
abroad, even a U.S. citizen, deemed to be a terrorist—excelled at the game.

The removal of Trump from office would not threaten corporate power. It
would not restore civil liberties, including our right to privacy and due
process. It would not demilitarize the police or champion the rights of the
working class. It would not impede the profits of the fossil fuel and
banking industries. It would not address the climate emergency. It would
not disrupt the warrantless surveillance of the public. It would not end
extraordinary renditions, the kidnapping of those around the globe
considered to be enemies of the state. It would not halt the assassinations
by militarized drones. It would not halt the separation of children from
their parents and the warehousing of these children in filthy, overcrowded
conditions. It would not remedy the consolidation of wealth and power by
the oligarchs and the further impoverishment of the citizenry. The
expansion of our prison system and of black sites throughout the world,
sites where we torture, would continue, as would the gunning down of poor,
unarmed citizens in urban wastelands. Most importantly, the catastrophic
foreign wars that have resulted in a series of failed states and wasted
trillions of taxpayer dollars, would remain sacrosanct, enthusiastically
embraced by the leaders of the two ruling parties, puppets of the deep
state.

The deep state not only intends to prevent, as it did in 2016, Bernie
Sanders or any other progressive Democrat from achieving power, but has
signaled that it will destroy any politician who attempts to question the
maintenance and expansion of empire.

The impeachment of Trump, despite the enthusiasm of the liberal elite, is
mostly cosmetic. The entire political and governmental system is corrupt.
Hunter Biden was reportedly paid $50,000 a month to sit on the board of the
Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, although he has no training or
experience in the gas industry. He had previously worked for the credit
card corporation MBNA, which was one of Joe Biden’s largest campaign
contributors when he was a senator from Delaware. Hunter Biden was hired by
Burisma Holdings for the same reason he was hired by MBNA. His father, long
a tool of corporate power and the military-industrial complex, in short the
deep state, was a senator and later the vice president. Joe Biden, the
Clintons and the Democratic Party leaders personify the legalized bribery
that defines their rivals in the Republican Party. Corporate candidates in
the two ruling parties are preselected, funded and anointed. If they do not
abide by the demands of the deep state, which protects corporate interests
and the management of empire, they are removed. There is even a word for it—
primarying <https://www.press.umich.edu/5181079/getting_primaried>.
Corporate lobbyists write the laws. The courts enforce them. There is no
way in the American political system to vote against the interests of
Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, AT&T, Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, Alphabet,
Facebook, Apple, Exxon Mobil, Lockheed Martin, UnitedHealth Group or
Northrop Grumman.

We, the American public, are spectators. An audience. Who will be seated
when the game of musical chairs stops? Will Trump be able to hold on to
power? Will Pence be the new president? Or will the deep state elevate a
political hack like Biden or a neoliberal apologist such as Pete Butiggieg,
Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris to the White House? Will it draft Michael
Bloomberg, John Kerry, Sherrod Brown or, God forbid, Hillary Clinton? And
what if the deep state fails? What if the rot in the Republican Party, or
what Glen Ford <https://www.blackagendareport.com/about-us> calls Trump’s
“white man’s party,” is so profound it won’t sign on for the political
extinction of the most incompetent president in American history? The power
struggle, which includes blocking Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren from
obtaining the Democratic Party nomination, will make for months of great
television and generate billions in advertising revenue.

The war between the deep state and Trump began the moment he was elected.
Former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper—both now paid news cable commentators—along with
former FBI head James Comey soon would accuse Trump of being a tool of
Moscow. Intelligence agencies leaked salacious stories about “pee tapes
<https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/donald-trump-pee-tape.html>” and blackmail,
plus reports of “repeated contacts” with Russian intelligence. Brennan,
Clapper and Comey were quickly joined by other former intelligence
officials, including Michael Hayden, Michael Morell
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/michael-morell/> and Andrew McCabe.
Their attacks were then amplified by former senior military leaders
including William McRaven <https://lbj.utexas.edu/mcraven-william>, James
Mattis, H.R. McMaster, John Kelly, James Stavridis
<https://www.carlyle.com/corporate-overview/operating-executives-advisors/admiral-james-stavridis>
and
Barry McCaffrey.

The Russia conspiracy, after the release of the Mueller report, proved to
be a dud. The deep state actors, however, were re-energized by Trump’s
decision to pressure the government of Ukraine to investigate Biden. Trump,
this time, seems to have given his deep state enemies enough rope to hang
him.

The impeachment of Trump marks a new and frightening chapter in American
politics. The deep state has shown its face. It has made a public
declaration that it will not tolerate dissent, although Trump’s dissent is
rhetorical, mercurial and ineffectual. The effort to impeach Trump sends an
ominous message to the American left. The deep state not only intends to
prevent, as it did in 2016, Bernie Sanders or any other progressive
Democrat from achieving power, but has signaled that it will destroy any
politician who attempts to question the maintenance and expansion of
empire. Its animus toward the left is far more pronounced than its animus
toward Trump. And its resources to destroy those on the left are nearly
inexhaustible.

The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin
<https://www.truthdig.com/articles/sheldon-wolin-and-inverted-totalitarianism/>
saw
it all in his 2008 book “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the
Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism.” He wrote:

The political role of corporate power, the corruption of the political and
representative processes by the lobbying industry, the expansion of
executive power at the expense of constitutional limitations, and the
degradation of political dialogue promoted by the media are the basics of
the system, not excrescences upon it. The system would remain in place even
if the Democratic Party attained a majority; and should that circumstance
arise, the system will set tight limits to unwelcome changes, as is
foreshadowed in the timidity of current Democratic proposals for reform. In
the last analysis the much-lauded stability and conservatism of the
American system owe nothing to lofty ideals, and everything to the
irrefutable fact that it is shot through with corruption and awash in
contributions primarily from wealthy and corporate donors. When a minimum
of a million dollars is required of House candidates and elected judges,
and when patriotism is for the draft-free to extol and for the ordinary
citizen to serve, in such times it is a simple act of bad faith to claim
that politics-as-we-now-know-it can miraculously cure the evils which are
essential to its existence.

There are no internal or external checks on the deep state. The democratic
institutions, including the press, that once gave citizens a voice and a
say in the exercise of power have been neutered. The deep state will
further the corporate consolidation of wealth and power, expand the social
inequality that has thrust half of Americans into poverty or near poverty,
strip us of our remaining civil liberties and feed the rapacious appetites
of the military and the war industry. The resources of the state will be
squandered as the federal deficit balloons. The frustration and feelings of
stagnation among a disempowered and neglected citizenry, which contributed
to the election of Trump, will mount.

There will come a moment of reckoning, as there has during the last few
days in Lebanon
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-protests-taboos/lebanons-protesters-turn-on-their-leaders-breaking-taboos-idUSKBN1X91PH>
 and Chile
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/chilean-women-hold-march-silence-killed-unrest-191101235242425.html>.
Social unrest is inevitable. Any population can be pushed only so far. The
deep state, incapable of reform and determined to retain its grip on power,
will morph under the threat of popular unrest into a corporatized fascism.
It has at its disposal the legal and physical tools to instantly turn the
United States into a police state. This is the real danger behind the deep
state’s drive to impeach Trump. It is a stark message to obey or be
silenced. Trump, in the end, is not the problem. We are. And if the deep
state fails to rid itself of Trump it will, however reluctantly, use him to
carry out its dirty work. Trump, if he manages to survive in power, will
get his military parades. We will get, with or without Trump, tyranny.

Chris Hedges <http://www.commondreams.org/author/chris-hedges> writes a
regular column for Truthdig.com <http://www.truthdig.com/>. Hedges
graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a
foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many
books, including:* War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400034639?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim>, What
Every Person Should Know About War
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743255127?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim>,
and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743284437?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim>  *His
most recent book is* Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the
Triumph of Spectacle
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568584377?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim>.*

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