“STALINISM ARRIVING”
Why did the seed
of totalitarianism germinate in America?
By Charles H. Slim
The result of the presidential elections in the US, will give as the
winner a former vice president like Joe Biden or ratify the mandate of the
"Outsider" Donald Trump but either of them is the next occupant of
the White House, it will not change the agenda of the Establishment that Enter
the real power in the state of the Union.
In view of the last thirty years to the present and
taking into account the acts of the Trump government, to speak of
"Stalinism" in the political reality of the United States, seems a
provocation that offends the most conspicuous para-Americans who continue to
speak of the “Lands of freedom and democracy”, but the facts are overwhelming
in revealing the opposite.
Why Stalinism? The term stems from the stark
personalism that characterized the Soviet Premier Iósif Vissariónovich
Dzhugashvili, better known in history as Joseph Stalin, who, in the shadow of
the Bolshevik Revolution, built one of the most repressive states of the 20th
century. His cunning and cruelty led him to erect a gigantic repressive
apparatus so extensive and ruthless that the limits between the state and the
people could not be elucidated. That characterized “Stalinism”.
But this qualifier is not only attributable to the
reality of Russia in the early twentieth century or even to periods after the
death of Stalin. It is a way of proceeding within the framework of a
personality of a particular ruler characterized by his lack of scruples and
ruthless exercise of power. This certainly applies to the inescapable (if
quirky) personalism of Donald Trump. There is a long contemporary history of
American politics that reveals the breakdown of its presumably democratic
system that has become one that monitors, catalogs, and files its citizens into
hateful classifications in the name of an entelechy called "National
Security."
Some claim that President Trump has been the most
transparent of all the presidents who have preceded him, but I think there is
an error of approach on this conclusion. Although, as we know, the blond
president does not mince words to express points of view (massing it on
Twitter), without prejudice to plant a journalist in the middle of a live interview
and even to assert his most irreverent whims even at the cost From expert
advice, it is true that it does not give and much less recognize the same
freedom to its citizens. But that does not make him the insane that many
believe.
Without a doubt, he can throw a stone and hide his
hand very well, and the proof of this is the diffusion of an experimental virus
that, long before it was reported in Wuhan, had escaped from the laboratories
of Fort Detrick. A low blow against China that went wrong? If it had something
to do with it, we are dealing with a little less than insane subject.
Freedom in “America” has long been chained to a
policy of secrecy and surveillance in which everyone -except the ruling class- is suspect (especially immigrants) and
much more those who criticize or do not agree with the government's actions.
That encyclical of the cowboy Bush that says “Either you are with us or with
the terrorists”, opened this era of persecutory collective psychosis that
undoubtedly extinguished the flame of freedom and transparency.
This is precisely where the discussion about where the
US is heading with a renewed Trump mandate comes in. The Bush-Cheney era
imposed the era of fear and obscurantism over which it established an
omnipresent and suffocating state on personal and civil liberties,
psychologically conditioning many to hide their ideological and religious
preferences. Being a Muslim could be the excuse to visit Guantánamo or be
transferred to any of the CIA “black sites” that it maintains around the world.
It was the beginning of policies such as the
legalization of kidnapping and torture under the argument of “lesser evils” in
the face of imperative threats such as terrorism. A monstrosity endorsed by
almost the majority of the local political class and the western hemisphere.
When Obama came to the White House, many Americans
hoped for greater transparency in government actions and the end of the
policies that violated civil and inhuman rights that had been promoted with so
much blatant since 2001. As could be seen, it was a great disappointment since
in what it did to international security, his administration was the one that
propelled the revolts in the Arab world and authorized, within the plan to
sectarianly sectionalize the Middle East, the implementation of the “Islamic
State” program.
Certainly, and despite the fact that at that time the
inconsistencies and contradictions that were observed around that “Caliphate”
and its imposed combat were denounced, it was Donald Trump who publicly
denounced such a taboo. Even Obama did more to cover up the human rights
violations carried out by the military and the CIA during the Bush
administration, than to investigate the length of the chain of complicity and
responsibility in all that.
And if that was not enough, I had the support in
foreign affairs of a true “black monk” Hillary Clinton, who as Secretary of
State unleashed her talents of cynicism and lack of scruples to accommodate
North American interests in North Africa and of course, in the Middle East.
Their role in the plot to try to overthrow the Syrian government was central
and at the same time, thousands of lives were lost due to these efforts
(weapons, training and financial support for the “rebels”). His entire role in
those days is still in a blur and in addition to the thousands of Libyans
killed, disappeared and tortured by the armed gangs that cooperated with the
CIA, it was never clear what happened to the ambassador in Benghazi who died in
suspects circumstances.
It is true, Trump exposed him to public opinion and
denounced the corruption of the political class that according to him had
plunged the United States into endless foreign wars, not caring about the
casualties among his troops and much less the massacres of civilians in the
United States, intervened countries, but the expense that the Federal Reserve
coffers had involved in sustaining those campaigns that were only a business
for certain transnationals. In view of this, the Establishment hated him and
began looking for ways to sabotage and get rid of his management. But something
happened along the way. What the hell happened?
Simply, many fell for the deception. Trump, despite
being an outsider with no background in party politics, a scandalous upstart
who only became known for a pathetic TV show, proved that he has as many faces
as a “Rubik's” cube. As we saw his criticisms of the costly wars waged abroad
and his preaching of “America first” was not a demonstration of the
long-awaited transparency. Nor does the guarantee of a restraint in caustic
policies against the civil rights of its own citizens and foreigners. Denials
of access to certain public information that are unprecedented reinforce this.
In foreign policy, without a doubt, he has crossed all
the lines even though nobody wants to admit it. He ordered without hesitation
to attack Syria in 2017 and 2018; while announcing the end of cooperation with
Turkey on the “ISIS” issue, it allowed special forces to persist in the north
and at the “Al Tanf” base in south-eastern Syria; without a doubt he let go and
the CIA looked the other way in the disgusting crime carried out by his
colleagues from the Saudi Muthabarat against the opposition journalist Jamal
Kashoggi; the order to carry out the assassination of Iranian General Qassen
Soleimani and his bombastic pro-Israeli policy to support his usurpations of
Palestinian territories and of the city of Jerusalem itself make it clear that
he did not improve on his predecessors.
Domestically, its policies of economic reactivation
for the benefit of US citizens by implementing restrictive and abusive policies
against immigration to extreme degrees, labeling them terrorists (separating
children from their parents), brought to light an underground force that
supports these policies despite being so disgraceful to the decrepit image of
the United States.
The situation created by the Coronavirus has been
another reason to question the transparency of the Trump administration. A
closed campaign of secrecy and misinformation about what is happening in the
United States regarding the effect of the pandemic forms the framework for the
suppression of the truth about how the issue was handled. The media has been as
oppressive and stealthy as its predecessors, including the silencing of the
Special Inspector General against the Pandemic, the deployment of undercover
agents and the mounting of counterintelligence operations against civilian
protesters and, of course, the refusal of a complete declassification of the
Mueller report.
If Trump is re-elected or Joe Biden triumphs, there
will be no apparent differences in the procedure, but without a doubt these
secret delaying and suppressive measures will be aggravated, leaving aside (on
behalf of National Security) the resolution on the requests for transparency in
the acts of the public administration. America to come is very different from
the one its founding fathers built.
