The reaction to the Trump inauguration and yesterday’s multiple protest rallies has been swift and plentiful. The most obvious conclusion for me was that the energy seen across this country can't be simply a "protest" against the POTUS. It obligates us to organize toward a Peoples' Party outside the two-party stranglehold.

A couple of comments on my experience of the weekend before part four of the discussion of the Trump Presidency.

I observed carefully Trump’s interaction with the CIA at Langley and it was very much an event of hugs and kisses. The CIA spokeswoman who introduced the Pres and VP said the agency would serve them with everything in its power, would safeguard this country, would help American interests around the world and spread our values. And yes, many CIA employees who wanted to greet the Pres couldn't be there because there was not enough room in the hall.

Trump was narcissistic to be sure, but praised the agency to high heaven, promised that under his command the CIA would be acknowledged more consistently and emphatically for its work, and he would return to Langley for more dialogues. Also that he would build a bigger theater so that more people could attend. The crowd applauded Trump throughout, and with cheers and whistles. Without any sign of a past disagreement. There was a chilling truth under this amity. The hint at least of a resurgent CIA.

My other experience was truly uplifting. I was privileged to be in the audience when Cornel West spoke on the evening of inauguration day. On this occasion, a significant part of the crowd was young Black students. As always, Brother West’s knowledge and reasoning communicated through his “prophetic” eloquence is a sumptuous banquet for thought. I’ll come back to details of his speech another time-- in another essay. For now, a few morsels.

Brother West pointed out how the Trump Presidency was the dangerous culmination of so many years of neo-liberal power and policies in all spheres. Call the new administration neo or proto or crypto fascist, he said, but the widening gap between haves and have nots, between the immensely powerful and wealthy and the powerless working poor has resulted in the present situation. As such, the stakes couldn’t be higher for anyone who fights inequality and injustice. And you have to be unafraid in this. Martin Luther King Jr. told Stokely Carmichael once, “I would rather be dead than afraid.”

A couple of other points he made: you cannot address problems of American democracy without addressing American imperialism and how so many people “disowned” MLK when HE started emphasizing this point.

Develop a critical consciousness like MLK and not echo a “brand”. You can’t allow yourself to be defined in stereotypes. Jim Crow was American terrorism and the Black freedom movement was always an anti-terrorist movement. You have to be anti-fascist across the board, across the globe.

Much more about Cornel West's powerful accounting and soulful exhortations in this talk another time.

At last! NY Times front page headline, December 12, 2016

Read the piece if you trust the Times, or not.

The accompanying picture shows two Black women sitting in chairs, trying for a “second chance”. Towards the front, a woman in a green sweater, about Oprah’s age. Behind her, a smartly dressed smiling youth, I’d say a bit younger than Beyonce.

Now, in the counties around where I live, most of the poor women in such a bind would be white and dirty blonde or brunette, looking nothing like Gloria Steinem or Madonna. You see, even when identity politics are imposed on us—that is, being poor = being Black, the “inequality-constant” between haves and have-nots, the 5% and 95%, remains intact. NYT knows that very well.

The variable here is that some of the 95% can raise the cash, others cannot—as the headline suggests. Neither Hillary with her foundation/email scandal, nor Donald with his phony university payout, will ever have a criminal record. They both have “enough cash”, just like Oprah and Beyonce and Steinem and Madonna. So the real variable here is what kind of reprimand (if any) and how much cash laid out would close the case.

Fears about Trump seem to arise from two different directions. One from above (the 5%) and one from below (the 95%). Our multi-millionaire class of real and fake media experts, politicians of various shades (the US Senate is a millionaires’ club after all), austere academics and fervent business people too are worried about Trump’s appointees to various posts, particularly important cabinet positions.

After much cogitation and suspense, Rex Tillerson of EXXON has been nominated for Secretary of State because of his knowledge of international business and his friendly connection to Russia. Earlier, Terry Branstad was picked to be the Ambassador to China because of his close ties with Beijing. John Kelly for Homeland Security, Scott Pruitt for the EPA and Betsy DeVos for Education are “naturals”. Kelly has worried about border security for a long time, Pruitt has actually sued the EPA and the billionaire DeVos doesn’t care much for Public School education for the masses. And yes, we can’t leave out Steve Mnuchin with all his Wall Street experience to head Treasury and Gen. Mattis the “humane warrior” for the DOD—two other natural fits. Yes?

We can look at other nominees and get confused here and there, but the OVERALL CONSISTENCY CANNOT BE DENIED. This is the company CEO finding his managers. I would argue that armed with Obama’s attribute of the “pragmatic president”, TRUMP IS BRINGING TO THE SURFACE WHO RULES AMERICA, and how his people will govern the country. His opponents, especially Democrats, would like to see this STRUCTURAL CONSTANT remain more disguised. Don’t get too close to Wall Street—stay away a couple of blocks. Others in the 5% are not sure how this reorganization of the State would affect their vested interests. It is almost certain that all these nominees will be confirmed sooner or later.

So I look at the matter this way.

The State in the American and other established, class-divided democracies represents the authority of the 5%, but the State also NEEDS THE APPROVAL OF THE 95% whom it must protect through various programs under different branches of government. THIS STRUCTURE HAS REMAINED CONSTANT IN INDUSTRIAL AND POST-INDUSTRIAL AMERICA. (Trickle-down economics is one version of this architecture.) Thus, there has always been tension and occasional conflicts between the interests of the 5% and certain functions of the State.

What Trump seems to be doing is rapidly REDUCING THE GAP between the power of the ruling CLASS and the exercise of this power through agencies of the STATE. This is the variable now in my view.

Another way to look at this may be to go back to Chris Hedges’ claim that the corporate coup has taken place already and “they” have won. Trump is simply making this transformation apparent, remembering well that Wall Street or finance capital is integral to this coup. The stock-market continues to do well and the NFL and College football are making tons of money. Just count up all those bowl games and playoff combats. I don’t see panic in such quarters. Most of us don’t understand what stock market numbers mean—because we are not investors. But consumers we are urged to be, every living moment.

How could these “existential” truths possibly change with Trump as POTUS 45?

Now, INTRA-CLASS conflicts naturally continue through allegations and denunciations, for example in the new Russian scare. No less than the noble intelligence agency called the CIA has unearthed that through some ingenious hacking, Russia influenced the outcome of this presidential election. Really?

I had written on another occasion that of course Russian hackers would want to find dirty email secrets inside the beltway and the campaigns, but so would everyone else in the world.

What? Hackers from the US government hold the moral high ground of no hacking and no interference in elections abroad?

In real history, the United States has tried NOT ONLY TO INFLUENCE the elections in many countries, but in fact NEGATED OR REVERSED THE OUTCOME. And yes, with the CIA as the vanguard. More than any other Nation State since the end of traditional colonialism of the recent past. Who can imagine that the current governments of IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN and HONDURAS would exist without being sanctioned by the US? If the Russian menace is a dangerous farce for the US, then let us look back at tragedy.

As examples, let us remember the DULY ELECTED governments of a few countries in the 20th Century: IRAN, CONGO, CHILE and INDONESIA. They span the globe pretty well. You can add others.

In Iran, a US arranged coup toppled an elected government led by the Prime Minister Md. Mossadegh and reinstalled the Shah (Reza Pahlavi) as head of state.
THAT WAS IN 1953 WHEN EISENHOWER WAS PRESIDENT.

In Congo, Patrice Lumumba became the first elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960 and was killed in 1961 through interlaced assassination plots of the Belgian and American governments.
JFK WAS PRESIDENT THEN.

In Indonesia, President Sukarno was deposed by the head of the army General Suharto in 1966, because in the sixties he became more left-leaning, and a was part of the non-aligned movement in Asia, without doubt more pro-Soviet in the cold war era. In this case, the British Foreign Office took the lead in ousting Sukarno, assisted by the CIA. What followed was years of a blood bath—the elimination of “Communists” in Indonesia.
LBJ WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS PRESIDENCY THAT YEAR.

Chile probably remains fresher in many memories. There, in 1970 Salvador Allende was the first Socialist to become president of a Latin American country through open elections. HE was killed in 1973. There’s much evidence of collaboration between the Pentagon and Chilean generals that resulted in the military coup led by Augusto Pinochet whose regime was one of the bloodiest in modern history.
THOSE WERE THE NIXON-KISSINGER YEARS IN AMERICA.

So, American FOREIGN POLICY HAS REMAINED QUITE CONSTANT over many years, and so has the role of the CIA in “influencing” many elections in many countries. So now, in abject denial of this tragic constancy, suddenly we must get angry at a new-found Russian effort to make Trump the President?

The role of Hillary’s people is quite despicable in this context. THEY PLAYED MANY DIRTY TRICKS TO GET BERNIE OUT OF THE PRIMARIES, including rigging votes. They (along with Obama) loudly proclaimed that our election system is fair and just. That the outcome ought to be accepted by everyone. UNTIL… until Trump won. IT IS A SHAME THAT A PERSON LIKE JILL STEIN GOT SUCKED INTO THIS FARCE. THE TIME NOW IS TO FIGHT FOR THE 95% NOT RECOUNT VOTES.

I must point out too that maintaining the INTEGRITY OF AMERICA’S ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS, elections between ONLY TWO PARTIES, DOMINANCE OF THE US IN THE WORLD are all matters dear to the President Elect’s heart. Let’s watch how he does his job.

Remembering Cornel West again: in the choice between only the neo-liberal and the neo-fascist candidates—as ascertained before the election—we have got the latter. A pragmatic one at that.

What does that mean in the real world?