The FBI and the President – Mutual Manipulation
By James Petras
February 12, 2018 "Information
Clearing House"
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Few government organizations have been
engaged in violation of the US citizens’
constitutional rights for as long a time and
against as many individuals as the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Seldom has
there been greater collusion in the
perpetration of crimes against civil
liberties, electoral freedom and free and
lawful expression as what has taken place
between the FBI and the US Justice
Department.
In the past, the FBI and Justice Department
secured the enthusiastic support and public
acclaim from the conservative members of the
US Congress, members of the judiciary at all
levels and the mass media. The leading
liberal voices, public figures, educators,
intellectuals and progressive dissenters
opposing the FBI and their witch-hunting
tactics were all from the left. Today, the
right and the left have changed places: The
most powerful voices endorsing the FBI and
the Justice Department’s fabrications, and
abuse of constitutional rights are on the
left, the liberal wing of the Democratic
Party and famous liberal media corporations
and public opinion makers.
The recently published Congressional memo,
authored by Congressman Devin Nunes,
provides ample proof that the FBI spied on
Trump campaign workers with the intent to
undermine the Republican candidate and
sabotage his bid for the presidency.
Private sector investigators, hired by
Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton and the
Democratic National Committee, worked with
pro-Clinton operatives within the FBI and
Justice Department to violate the national
electoral process while flouting rules
governing wiretaps on US citizens. This was
done with the approval of the sitting
Democratic President Barack Obama.
The liberals and Democrats and their allies
in the FBI, political police and other
elements of the security state apparatus
were deeply involved in an attempt to
implicate Russian government officials in a
plot to manipulate US public opinion on
Trump’s behalf and corrupt the outcome of
the election. However, the FBI, the Justice
Department and Special Prosecutor Robert
Mueller have produced no evidence of
collusion linking the Russian government to
a campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton’s
candidacy in favor of Trump. This is
despite thousands of interviews and threats
of long prison sentences against former
Trump campaign advisers. Instead, they
focus their attack on Trump’s early campaign
promise to find common ground in improving
economic and diplomatic ties between the US
and Russia, especially in confronting jihadi
terrorists.
The liberal-progressive FBI cohort turned
into rabid Russia-bashers demanding that
Trump take a highly aggressive stance
against Moscow, while systematically
eliminating his military and security
advisors who expressed anti-confrontation
sentiments. In the spirit of a Joe
McCarthy, the liberal-left launched
hysterical attacks on any and every Trump
campaign adviser who had spoken to, dined
with or exchanged eyebrows with any and all
Russians!
The conversion of liberalism to the pursuit
of political purges is unprecedented. Their
collective amnesia about the long-term,
large-scale involvement by the FBI in the
worst criminal violations of democratic
values is reprehensible. The FBI’s
anti-communist crusade led to the purge of
thousands of trade unionists from the
mid-1940’s onward, decimating the AFL-CIO.
They blacklisted actors, screen writers,
artists, teachers, university academics,
researchers, scientists, journalists and
civil rights leaders as part of their
sweeping purge of civil society.
The FBI investigated the private lives of
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, even
threatening their family members. They
illegally spied on and infiltrated civil
liberties organizations, and used
provocateurs and spies in anti-war groups.
Individuals lives were destroyed, some were
driven to suicide; important popular
American organizations were undermined to
the detriment of millions. This has been
its focus since its beginning and continues
with the current fabrication of anti-Russian
propaganda and investigations.
President
Trump: Victim and Executor
President Trump has pursued an agenda
mirroring the police state operations of the
FBI – only on a global scale. Trump’s
violation of international law includes
collaboration and support for Saudi Arabia’s
tyrannical invasion and destruction of the
sovereign nation of Yemen; intensified aid
and support for Israel’s ethnic war against
the Palestinian people; severe sanctions and
threatened nuclear first-strike against
North Korea (DPRK); increased deployment of
US special forces in collaboration with the
jihadi terrorist war to overthrow the
legitimate government of Syria;
coup-mongering, sabotage, sanctions and
economic blockade of Venezuela; NATO
missile and nuclear encirclement of Russia;
and the growing naval threats against China.
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Domestically, Trump’s response to the FBI’s
blackmail has been to replace the original
political leadership with his own version;
to expand and increase the police state
powers against immigrants; to increase the
powers of the major tech companies to police
and intensify work-place exploitation and
the invasion of citizens’ privacy; to expand
the unleash the power of state agents to
torture suspects and to saturate all public
events, celebrations and activities with
open displays of jingoism and militarism
with the goal of creating pro-war public
opinion.
In a word: From the right to the left there
are no political options to choose from
among the two ruling political parties.
Popular political movements and mass
demonstrations have risen up against Trump
with clear justification, but have since
dissolved and been absorbed. They came
together from diverse sectors: Women against
sexual abuse and workplace humiliation;
African-Americans against police impunity
and violence; and immigrants against mass
expulsion and harassment. They staged mass
demonstrations and then declined as their
‘anti-Trump’ animus was frustrated by the
liberal-democrats hell-bent on pursuing the
Russian connection.
In the face of the national-political
debacle local and regional movements became
the vehicle to support the struggles. Women
organized at some workplaces and gained
better protection of their rights;
African-Americans vividly documented and
published video evidence of the systematic
brutal violation of their rights by the
police state and effectively acted to
restrain local police violence in a few
localities; immigrant workers and especially
their children gained broad public sympathy
and allies within religious and political
organizations; and anti-Trump movements
combined with critics of the
liberal/democrat apparatus to build broader
movements and especially oppose growing
war-fever.
Abroad, bi-partisan wars have failed to
defeat independent state and mass popular
resistance struggles for national
sovereignty everywhere – from North Korea,
Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Venezuela and
beyond.
Even the fight within the two-headed
reactionary party of the US oligarchy has
had a positive effect. Each side is
hell-bent on exposing the state-sponsored
crimes of the other. In an unprecedented
and historic sense, the US and world public
is witness to the spies, lies and crimes of
the leadership and elite on prime time and
on the wide screen. We head in two
directions. In one direction, there are the
threats of nuclear war, economic collapse,
environmental disasters and a full blown
police state. In the other direction, there
is the demise of empire, a revived and
renewed civil society rooted in a
participatory economy and a renewed moral
order.
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. - https://petras.lahaine.org/
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