Photo from Philadelphia Anti-Trump Protest ~Creative Commons
by Danny Haiphong, from Black Agenda Report, November 20, 2018
Enemies of the people do not become heroes of the people just because Trump dislikes them and they dislike Trump.
“Mueller is a pig agent of the ruling class.”
Thousands of Democrats poured into the streets in cities across the United States to protest the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions earlier this month . The protests were organized by large non-profit groups such as MoveOn and Indivisible. These groups vowed to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Trump. They saw Jeff Session’s resignation as a sign that Trump will put an end to Mueller’s endless campaign to investigate claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections. What the protests really indicated, however, was the extent to which the Democrat Party will pander to its own form of fascism to serve reactionary political ends.
One might ask what exactly the protests sought to protect. By all accounts, Jeff Sessions is one of the most egregious white supremacist politicians of the White Man’s Party. Furthermore, Democrats have already verbalized that they will use their House majority to exercise subpoena rights of Mueller’s final report should Trump move to end the investigation. There is a consensus within the U.S. state, other than maybe Trump himself, that the Mueller investigation is not only legitimate but also necessary to the upkeep of “American democracy.” The desire to defend a bankrupt investigation into the nothing burger that is the claim of Russian interference has driven Democrats to openly defend and align with the most heinous white supremacist elements that the U.S. state has to offer.
“The left has no dog in this fight.”
The accusations that Trump “colluded” with Russia to win the 2016 election remain evidence-free despite over two years of non-stop media coverage and investigation into the matter. This bankrupt narrative essentially blames Russia for Trump. It is a desperate attempt on the part of the Democrat Party to flee from accountability for its own shortcomings and drum up war sentiments toward Russia in service of Wall Street, the Pentagon, and U.S. spy agencies. The left has no dog in this fight.Yet no viable or visible left formation other than independent media such as Black Agenda Report, MintPress News, RT, and the like have taken the time to condemn Mueller and his ruling class minions. The tendency of the left to condemn Trump and Trump alone has become a diseased excuse to move politically in the direction of fascism under the guise of “resistance.”
Few have bothered to ask who Robert Mueller really is and what his investigation hopes to achieve. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has served in the FBI and the Department of Justice for decades. His achievements include the coverup of several crimes committed by the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus in the investigations of the September 11thattacks. Mueller diligently supported the expansion of the surveillance state’s capacity to spy on every single electronic communication made by U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike. Mueller’s extensive record of support for imperialist wars and draconian surveillance state measures has been well-documented by former FBI agents and corporate media sources.
“The FBI has been deliberately targeting the nascent Black movement in Ferguson.”
For Black America and the oppressed people of the world, Mueller’s very position as a leader in the U.S. intelligence apparatus disqualifies him as a hero of the people.The U.S. intelligence apparatus has played a significant role in the most heinous crimes of humanity. FBI, CIA, and military operations first targeted communists, especially Black communists, in the early to mid-20thcentury. Then the intelligence spooks, under the umbrella of COINTELPRO, waged war against Black revolutionary organizations such as the Black Panther Party and their allies in the 1960s and 1970s. This led to the imprisonment of dozens of Black revolutionaries such as Mumia Abu-Jamal and the assassination of others such as Fred Hampton. State terror led by the U.S. intelligence apparatus has continued in the form of the FBI’s war against “Black Identity Extremists.”Several Ferguson activists, most recently the hanging of Danye Jones , have been mysteriously murdered since it was revealed that the FBI has been deliberately targeting the nascent Black movement in Ferguson.
As for the world situation, the crimes of the U.S. intelligence apparatus are too exhaustive to review in one article. The CIA and its attendant partners in the intelligence and military apparatus have murdered tens of millions of people in over fifty nations over the last five decades. US intelligence agencies have participated in the overthrow of democratically-elected and socialist-oriented governments in all corners of the globe. This includes interventions as recent as the destabilization of the Ukrainian government in 2014 to as far back as the overthrow of the Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953. Both Cynthia McKinney and Dan Kovalik have recently released exhaustive texts that detail the full extent of the U.S. intelligence apparatus’ tendency to destroy other countries in the service of capitalist accumulation and military domination.
“Mueller’s very position as a leader in the U.S. intelligence apparatus disqualifies him as a hero of the people.”
What Kovalik and McKinney reveal is that the function of the US intelligence apparatus is to divide and conquer the oppressed people of the world through counterinsurgency warfare. This warfare includes the realm of ideology, which is why the U.S. intelligence apparatus spends so much time (and money) collaborating with the corporate media. The warfare waged by the U.S. intelligence apparatus has created the perception that the only friend that Black America or any exploited class in the United States possesses resides in the FBI. If this perception can be conceived as reality, then the U.S. has entered a new, more dangerous era of fascism. U.S. intelligence agencies have operated as the enemies of all people for more than a century and have collaborated with fascists in the United States and fascists abroad to secure the interests of their corporate masters.
The central purpose of the U.S. intelligence agencies has not changed just because Mueller has been nominated by Trump’s ruling class opponents to investigate the current Administration. Mueller is a pig agent of the ruling class.Enemies of the people do not become heroes of the people just because Trump dislikes them and they dislike Trump. Those on the real left who remember the principles and examples set by the Black liberation and socialist movements of a generation ago understand that the class character of the U.S. intelligence agencies is not only inherently white supremacist and capitalist, but also fascist as well.Leftists who engage in political hobnobbing with Mueller’s investigation are not leftists at all. They are merely pathetic pawns in a deadly game of imperialist chess.
“One cannot be antifascist without being anti-war, anti-capitalist, and pro-socialist.”
#ProtectMueller is a fascist hashtag of the liberal variety. True antifascists oppose war with Russia at all costs. They oppose the U.S. intelligence agencies as arms of a military state that currently receives over one trillion dollars in extracted surplus value and taxes from the poor to wage wars on behalf of the rich. They oppose Trump based on legitimate policy issues such as the threats of military repression of the Central American refugees heading to the United States and speak up even louder about the U.S. bipartisan war agenda that has created the conditions for migration in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala in the first place. They oppose Trump’s Administration when it falls into anti-China, anti-Russia redbaiting and war-mongering but remain wholly against corporate free-trade agreements and regime change wars even if Trump voices similar rhetorical positions.
In truth, one cannot be antifascist without being anti-war, anti-capitalist, and pro-socialist. Fascism is a seed that develops from capitalism. That seed has long grown into the deadliest empire known to humanity led by the United States. The socialization of imperialist production is the only antidote. Anyone who wants to #ProtectMueller is loyal to the cause of fascism and not the socialist antidote that we need in these desperate times.
Danny Haiphong is an activist and journalist in the New York City area. He and Roberto Sirvent are co-authors of the forthcoming book entitled “American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: The Fake News of US Empire” (Skyhorse Publishing). He can be reached at wakeupriseup1990(at)gmail.com