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=By=
Joaquin Flores, Special Associate Editor
As a prefatory statement, let me say that Gloria La Riva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is closest to my own values followed by Jill Stein of the Green Party. It is unlikely that either of these parties will garner enough votes in the upcoming election, though it would be interesting to see what would happen if the people would stand up and vote for one third party. Unfortunately, the system is structured in such a way that it would be almost impossible for a third party candidate to win even if they got the majority of votes on the states for which they are certified.
Every four years, Americans suspend disbelief, and pretend that there is some democratic process underway.
I’ve been asked to clarify where I stand on Trump vs. Clinton, and how the importance of this election lines up with my long-held analysis that the US is an oligarchical Republic but not the ‘Democracy’ it pretends to be. Rather, the ‘Optimates‘ (as in ancient Rome) on behalf of the Patricians (Oligarchs) choose the president, not the ‘Populares’ on behalf of the proletarians and plebians (the people). (Contrary to traditional views disseminated by upper class historians, Julius Caesar was a leader of the populares, and his reforms in favor of the masses prompted the aristocracy to call him a tyrant and plot his murder. For more on this, see Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, A People’s History Of Ancient Rome
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Within the US establishment, there are many individuals, many geniuses, a fair share of dullards, insatiable self-serving crooks, maniacs, and many big egos. Power is created and recreated everyday. Power can change hands very quickly, within a limited sphere of action, normally among the Optimates.
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How do we reconcile that the Optimates choose the president they want anyway, but that simultaneously, ‘who’ the president is will have some distinct and concrete ramifications that separate him or her from the other candidate? It is complex, but can be explained in simple terms:
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Simply put, whoever the establishment wants, they will get. But for the last year, they have been trying to sort out which way they will go forward.
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If they choose Clinton, it is because they think they can maintain the same model they have been using, based on a particular type of Empire building on the neo-liberal model. It means they have some confidence in the efficacy of militarism, war, and adventurism. For this to be effective on a broader scale than under Bush, and more towards the very very scary direction we’ve seen under Obama, the left must be tied to the power institution (see Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson etc. etc.).
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“When the thick veneer of propaganda is peeled off, it’s not that difficult to see that Clinton represents the party of war, imperialism, murder, and a wanton disrespect for civilized norms and the future of existence on planet earth…”
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If they choose Trump, it is because they do not think they can maintain the same model they have been using, and will draw themselves in, and do some time saving or re-configuring of the US economy and its power mechanisms, which takes into account the US’s diminished role in the world. This ‘America First’ is also called isolationism or non-interventionism. This is because the US is broke. It would want to hide its weakness and bankruptcy under the authoritarian-ish guise of a somewhat comical made-for-reality TV ‘Strongman’. Americans could feel either very good or very scared about their president, instead of feeling either very good or very scared about the failing empire.
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Unless this election turns out to be a real upset, with drastic differences between the Clinton and Trump ledgers, this will be a “51-49” race (actually, 47-48). That means that Diebold will come into play and perhaps be used to see the victory of the candidate which represents the 4-8 year plan. So it is not a question of who we vote for, but who they want for us. But even ‘they’ do not know who they want for us, and ‘they’ are divided.
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[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s clear that there is a serious contradiction: Clinton represents the party of war, imperialism, murder, and a wanton disrespect for civilized norms and the future of existence on planet earth; but those Americans focused purely on America’s navel-gazing internal boring drama crap, the stuff policy wonks get boners for, believe she is more ‘peace like’ in the sense that she nominally makes more well publicized nods at things which, symbolically, ‘feel’ like something ‘progressive’. At any rate, poverty and the incarceration of ‘minorities’, and as well the deportations of 1st peoples and indigenous peoples from their own historic migratory lands, increased under Obama and will increase under Clinton.
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Trump, upsetting conventional analysis and norms, represents a ‘coup’ within a Republican party which no longer has a central locus of power in neo-conservatism, as these neo-conservatives, like the parasites they are, migrated into the Democratic Party where they are firmly entrenched for the coming decade or half decade. While breaking all of the internal American rules of ‘convention’ and ‘offending those with sensitive ears’, riling up the dangerous-because-still-
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I have forecasted that since Sept 2013, the US lost its claim to unchallenged empire. In a way, we can thank an unassuming but finally larger than life person, Mother Superior Agnes Mariam de la Croix in Syria, who exposed the chemical weapons lie. (Obama’s “red line” had been set to trigger an attack by the US on account of putative Assad regime atrocities, but it was soon discovered that the chemical weapons attack had been carried out by the “rebels”, and facilitated by US and Saudi intel, with the notorious Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a royal bastard, literally, as chief plotter and coordinator.) The fallout—unexpected by the imperialists—was swift: Britain could not be moved to bomb Syria, and the US —in a move to save face and gain some maneuvering time without letting go of its ultimate plan to overthrow Assad—pretended that Congress had to vote on such a matter. Not to mention that Russian diplomacy carved up the necessary space to let all sides save some face and agree to at least a momentary freeze on direct US assaults.
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Therefore, I would like to see Trump win not because ‘we’ are going to have that call to make, but because of what it probably represents on the institutional level.
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[dropcap]I [/dropcap]wrote in December of 2015 that a Trump presidency would radicalize elements of the left, especially those rank and file democrats tied to organized labor (safely in the hands of the Democratic Party) as well as community and civil organizations which comprise the non-profit industrial complex. Recently, Rafael Correa, also made a similar statement about Latin America and that a Trump presidency would be good for radicalizing Latin America – Democrats—as amply demonstrated by the nefarious “Obama effect”— lull everyone to sleep while the same crimes, or worse, take place. I can’t say I agree with his contradictory conclusion though that Hillary would be better overall, which he doesn’t seem to try to justify. Nevertheless, the logical part of his statement makes perfect sense.
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Retreating to a world of make-believe, where formal democratic processes in the US would carry meaningful weight in political outcomes, I would say that Jill Stein and some of the energy around her and the Green Party platform, are closest to at least some of the values and positions that I would advocate for if I thought the US was a project that was either salvageable or worth saving. What is also important here in the Stein campaign is that the Green Party – through its name alone – reminds us of an another looming danger to the growing geopolitical conflict which threatens world war, and which has taken much of our attention away from the other – ecological disaster.
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At the same time, the Clinton-bots will invariably say – and they would be right – that in the two-party winner-take-all system in the US, a vote for Stein is in effect a vote for Trump. Indeed, a vote for Stein would take votes from Democrats, and in swing states this would have a significant impact, especially since we are looking at a ’51-49′ election. For these reasons, we must also not get tripped up here.
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To quote clear minded revolutionary and lucid thinker Mumia Abu-Jamal – “If Trump is the price we have to pay to defeat Clintonian neo-liberalism, then so be it”. Trump is a challenge we are prepared to take, and some of the non-voters and Stein voters will be able to find energy moving forward – even more so if the following possible scenario takes place:
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[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f Trump is serious about winning, a very important strategic move would be to channel millions upon millions into the Stein campaign in swing states. I suspect that Gary Johnson’s Libertarians will get most of their financing in the coming months from organizations connected to the Clintons.
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At any rate, these are very trying times. As I wrote in December of 2015 about the need to support Trump’s campaign, Americans need to understand that this time around they need to take one for the world team.
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The Clintons are not just politicians, they are murderers, human traffickers, drug runners, and imperialists extraordinaire. Their resume would make King Leopold II of Belgium blush. Moreover, they are some of the most public living members of the deep state – in the executive branch—because of their direct and personal relationships with the military’s top brass as well as the owners of the military industrial complex, they can launch a war without congressional approval. Trump, on the other hand doesn’t have such connections – indeed, his only connection to deep politics is through the Clintons. If the Trump campaign is not a total sham; which is to say, the Republican version of Obama – and there are indications that it is not, then what we have here would be an executive who would be quite ineffectual on foreign policy matters.
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In sum, what the world needs right now is an America with an ineffective and inexperienced ‘leader’, who doesn’t have connections to the military structures, and who will be coming to power through his own finances and mass popular support of millions of disaffected Americans.
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About the author 
Joaquin Flores, Special Associate Editor; Belgrade Correspondent, is a Mexican-American expat based in Belgrade. He is a full-time analyst and director at the Center for Syncretic Studies, a public geostrategic think-tank and consultancy firm, as well as the co-editor of Fort Russ news service. His expertise encompasses Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and he has a strong proficiency in Middle East affairs. Flores is particularly adept at analyzing ideology and the role of mass psychology, as well as the methods of the information war in the context of 4GW and New Media. He is a political scientist educated at California State University. In the US, he worked for a number of years as a labor union organizer, chief negotiator, and strategist for a major trade union federation. His work at TGP can be found here.
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As seen from abroad: Trump is the anti-bourgeois candidate, the opportunist class traitor, the spoiler and loose canon for the white male workers who have nothing to lose and care little about PC niceties like race or gender. Clinton on the contrary is the pro-bourgeoisie candidate paying lip service to everything she does not believe in but feigning interest in what Sanders pushed her to acknowledge and who promises security (though false) to the bourgeois majority and thereby metaphorically cooks them like a frog in slowly warming water unconscious of its coming death. All the vehement denunciations of Trump point… Read more »
Joaquin, you encapsulate where I am at on this situation.
I live in Florida and will vote my party, Green.
What remains to be seen is if Trump really wants to win this election.
What has been interesting is the degree to which liberals will support US imperialism. The majority don’t even have a coherent narrative when it comes to geopolitical issues–because they lack curiosity and core principles that take humanity in general into account.
Thanks for another excellent essay, Joaquin.