“The Russia witch hunt looks more ridiculous each day.”

The House and Senate Intelligence Committee hearings of recent weeks have intensified the multifaceted war raging in Washington. One aspect of the war is targeted at Russia, with a number of intelligence agencies and military officials foaming at the mouth to destabilize the Russian Federation. Trump is caught in the crossfire of a broader anti-Russian attack. His attempt to carve out independent foreign policy space on the question of Russia has left him accused of wheeling and dealing with Washington’s public enemy number one, Vladimir Putin. Yet the allegations that serve as the basis of “Russia trials” remain fact-free, raising questions about the purpose of the exercise.

The two-party corporate duopoly’s neo-conservative leadership from Republican Lindsay Graham to Democrat Adam Schiff has stated that the purpose of the hearings is to delineate Trump’s ties to the Russian Federation. An investigation on the matter has been underway since as far back as March 2016. So far, nothing of any substance has been revealed. All accusations have remained just that, accusations. MI6 flunkies and intelligence lapdogs for empire have made many erroneous claims, such as Trump’s so called “dossier” in Russia and his collaboration with Putin and RT to smear the Clinton campaign. These assertions lack proof and provide little basis for criminal intent to begin with. Thus, the Russia witch hunt looks more ridiculous each day.

“Black and Latino neighborhoods spend over fifty percent of all income on rent.”

Even without evidence, there are some who view the allegations as credible. A recent poll conducted by CBS reveals that over 60 percent of Democratic Party voters believe that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. The findings are in keeping with the historic role of the Democratic Party and the crisis of the imperialist system that the party inhabits. Democratic Party administrations in the post-Civil Rights era have loyally served as the graveyard of social movements. Labor movement leaders were the first to kneel to the Democrats, spending the last half century fighting for political patronage at the expense of their membership. The Democrats then successfully garnered support for “humanitarian interventions” in Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria. Obama placed the final nail in the left’s coffin by imprisoning Black politics in a cell of conservatism.

The crisis of the imperialist system has rendered the bi-partisan consensus on capitalism, racism, and war naked to the masses. Establishment opposition to Trump has only reinforced the material conditions of deprivation that exist domestically and globally. A new report from the World Health Organization reveals that global depression rates increased by 18 percent from 2005-2015. The rise in depression parallels the rise of unemployment and inequality worldwide. In 2015, it was projected that the global unemployment rate remained 27 million higher than in 2007. Global capitalism has usurped the surplus value and wealth of billions of people worldwide, producing a situation where six individuals own half of the world’s wealth and the rest of the population owns next to nothing.

“Over 60 percent of Democratic Party voters believe that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.”

These conditions do not escape the people of the United States, especially Black Americans. The real estate hub Zillow recently reported that Black and Latino neighborhoods spend over fifty percent of all income on rent alone. In Boston, Black Americans pay a staggering seventy percent of their income to remain housed. This is in keeping with an older study by the Federal Reserve that found Black Americans possess a net worth of zero in the city of Boston. Boston does not stand alone as a sanctuary for Black economic misery. On a national scale, it would take Black Americans nearly 228 years to amass the equivalent wealth of White America, with single Black women in the US possessing a net worth of just $500 dollars.

Donald Trump’s Presidency has spurred a last ditch effort to legitimize the two-party corporate duopoly. Not only does the Trump-Russia connection fable serve the empire’s insatiable lust to provoke a war with Russia, but it also provides a convenient distraction from the bi-partisan consensus on the triple evils of war, capitalism, and white supremacy. As workers continue to struggle with debt, low-wage work, and the increasing cost of healthcare, housing, and education, their gaze has been temporarily averted to the Russian boogeyman. The most recent numbers estimate that Black and Brown Americans continue to occupy seventy percent of the total prison population, with elders serving eleven times longer sentences than those convicted for the same crimes in the 1980s . However, global capitalism’s racial character in the US is easier to ignore when buried beneath the lies of the ruling system.

“Global capitalism has usurped the surplus value and wealth of billions of people worldwide.”

The biggest lie being shoved down the throats of the masses isn’t coming from Donald Trump. Trump’s denial of climate change, antagonism toward federal regulation, and racist opposition to migration pales in comparison to the consequences of Washington’s anti-Russian narrative parroted by the “deep state.” The former are long-standing policies of the two-party duopoly inherited and intensified by the Trump order. The latter, on the other hand, has the potential to proliferate a World War situation of nuclear proportions. More troubling is that Washington’s anti-Russian war games have successfully kept the anti-war movement in an infantile state.

Republican Administrations have historically spurred increased anti-war activity among the masses dating back to Nixon. However, the Democratic Party base has been fractured and divided along political lines. There are those who have aligned with the Democratic Party’s war against the Russian government. This stratum possesses a rabid lust for war on behalf of its finance capitalist paymasters. The Bernie Sanders fraction, on the other hand, remains loyal to the goal of reviving the Democratic Party and has largely ignored questions of war and peace with the hopes of gaining influence in future electoral cycles. However, fractures in the Democratic Party have provided the opportunity to raise questions that were thoroughly suppressed during Obama’s reign.

hire Russian-speakers to serve as extras in their drills. Reports have also surfaced from the UN that over 80 percent of Ukrainians now live in poverty after the NATO-backed coup in 2014. Ukraine was one of the first dominoes to fall in the broader US and NATO war against Russia. Washington’s anti-Russia madness cannot be taken lightly if considered in this context.

Then there is the question of Syria, the breadbasket of civilization forced into chaos by a US-NATO-GCC backed proxy war beginning in 2011. The Trump Administration at first appeared ready to change US policy in Syria significantly, ending direct aid to proxy groups while increasing military operations against ISIS. This led the Administration to concede that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s future is up to the Syrian people one day and then completely reverse its position shortly thereafter. Within a week, imperialist-backed terrorists launched a new chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people, which Trump blamed on the Syrian government. The Pentagon followed up with missile strikes on a Syrian airbase near Homs, indicating that the regime change war on Syria is far from over with Trump as President. Trump’s contradictory foreign policy is the result of a historic struggle inside of Washington between Trump-aligned forces and the neo-conservative “deep state.” Syria’s alliance with Russia has only intensified the US imperial jingoism against its government and people, making it difficult for progressive forces in the US to mobilize against the war in this time of systemic crisis.

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“The Bernie Sanders faction has largely ignored questions of war and peace with the hopes of gaining influence in future electoral cycles.”

US imperialism’s intractable crisis is too large to hide behind the veil of a so-called “Russian threat.” The crisis becomes more acute by the day, suffocating poor and working class people inside of a burning house. What Martin Luther King Jr. called the triple evils of war, racism, and materialism (capitalism) are the driving forces of a planetary collapse that threatens to send humanity into a death spiral of ecological destruction, nuclear annihilation, economic turbulence, or all of the above. The process has already begun. The moment is pregnant with possibility, but the historic leader of the radical left in the US, the Black liberation movement, remains in repair after decades of repression. Without an independent force for working class organization and Black liberation, Washington’s anti-Russia madness has been able to intoxicate the political narrative in the United States to the point where little attention is being paid to anything else. An intensified war on Syria could change this, but not necessarily for the better. Washington’s anti-Russia madness must be attacked on all fronts if the triple evil’s of capitalism, racism, and war are to resurface as the primary targets of radical opposition in our time.

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Danny Haiphong is an Asian activist and political analyst in the Boston area. He can be reached at wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com