“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them.”
— Karl Marx
The U.S. capitalist class’ media mouthpieces and think tanks have been on overdrive with the narrative that this is not a “normal” election year (New York Times, 9/24/16) or even that “this is the most important election since 1932” (Brookings, 12/18/15). This election finds the U.S. ruling class in volatile condition, with their imperialist power declining relative to growing Russian and Chinese imperialism. For the international working class, however, this election is important for another reason: the U.S. bosses are betting on Hillary Clinton’s “pragmatism” (NYT) to unite the U.S. working class behind the embattled flag of U.S. imperialism.
A lopsided majority of the boss-owned media supports Clinton, and openly labels Trump a racist. The U.S. bosses are well aware that bigger imperialist wars are looming. They cannot afford rebellions like Ferguson, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, and Charlotte. Meanwhile, Clinton, a “progressive,” campaigns on a slogan for U.S. working-class and ruling-class unity: “Stronger Together.”
There is nothing progressive about Hillary Clinton’s long service to U.S. imperialism’s racist, sexist, and genocidal reign of international terror. Progressive workers should join the international revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party, and smash the imperialist system Clinton and Trump serve!
Trump Talks, Clinton Kills
The bosses contrast Clinton with the media frenzy over Trump’s more open racism, sexism, and his cartoonish behavior every time he’s near a microphone. Millions of workers rightfully shudder at Trump’s loyal core of fascist KKK and neo-Nazi supporters. His vague, Nazi-style policies include expanding racist “stop and frisk” policing nationwide, along with carpet bombing [ISIS] into oblivion” (Chicago Tribune, 12/16/15).
Clinton’s credentials as an imperialist murderer go far beyond idiot Trump’s. Her apprenticeship as a mass murderer began in her White House days in the 1990s at the side of her mentor, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Albright orchestrated the starvation of 500,000 Iraqi children and famously said their deaths were “worth it.” Albright was carrying out the orders of Bill Clinton, who, “On October 31, 1998… signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support ‘regime change’ in Iraq” (Huffington Post 2/5).
Between sanctions, air strikes and “no-fly zones,” the Clintons continued the destruction of the first Iraq war through the 1990s while turning their attention to the Balkans and the
1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing a decade of misery in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: “I urged him to bomb,” she told reporter Lucinda Frank (Huffington Post 2/5).
The Kosovo war was preceded by a propaganda campaign of disinformation to the international working class, declaring the need for a “humanitarian bombing” campaign for the Serbians. Again Albright is quoted as saying, “They [the Serbs] need bombing, and that’s what they’re going to get” (CounterPunch, 5/3/16). This disinformation campaign was useful practice for the U.S. bosses for their 2003 invasion of Iraq under George W. Bush.
Elected a Senator representing New York in 2002, Clinton’s most famous act was to vote for the Bush administration to invade Iraq. Ironically, in trying to defend her support for the war as it clearly became a disaster, and place blame on Bush, Clinton revealed that she actually never believed that there were any weapons of mass destruction there.
“The consensus [on weapons of mass destruction] was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration,” she said. “It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared. But I think that in the case of the [Bush] administration, they really believed it” (CNN, 4/21/2004).
Wrong. Members of the second Bush administration didn’t “really believe it,” as was shown by the brazen lies told by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in the build up to the war. (Huffington Post 4/7/2013) The U.S. rulers were looking for any excuse to invade to secure U.S. control of oil profits. And Clinton was more than willing to do her part.
Clinton Steps Up Service to U.S. Imperialism
After eight years of championing U.S. imperialism in the Senate (and doing little else), Clinton lost her presidential bid to fellow Senator Barack Obama in 2008. Obama chose Clinton to join his administration as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. Clinton upped her game to serve U.S. imperialism by publicly befriending arch-imperialist war criminal Henry Kissinger. As Secretary of State under Nixon, he is the architect of the following invasions, bombings, and genocides: Vietnam (1970), Cambodia and Laos (1970), Bangladesh (1971), Chile (1973), and Indonesia/ East Timor (1975).
Kissinger is directly responsible for the deaths of millions of workers, and the torture and maiming of millions more. Yet, Clinton sought and “relied on [Kissinger’s] counsel” (CounterPunch, 5/3).
In 2011, Clinton led the effort to engulf North Africa and the Middle East in mass destruction for oil by inciting and backing not one, but two civil wars, in Libya and Syria. It was during this period that the U.S. bosses were suffering from their failing imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and fueling hatred of U.S. imperialism throughout the Middle East. In a desperate attempt to create a pro-U.S. movement there, the U.S. ruling class helped initiate the so-called “Arab Spring.” The recent leaks of Clinton’s personal emails include aide Huma Abedin. The following from Situation Report No. 1 09/14/I, “I’m giving you [Clinton] credit for inspiring the ‘peaceful’ protests,” with regard to the massive demonstrations in Egypt, with quotation marks around the word “peaceful” (Wikileaks Clinton Email Archive).
The civil war in Egypt was followed up by U.S. sponsored militias inciting civil wars in Libya and Syria. Unable to build a pro-U.S. movement they could rely on, the U.S. bosses had Obama and Clinton cynically increase the intensity of the wars by providing arms to all sides. This situation is summed up by the headline “In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA” (Chicago Tribune 3/27) and resulting in mass carnage in the area.
It Takes a Pillage: Hillary and Haiti
The Clintons’ history advancing U.S. capitalist interests in Haiti dates back to the first months of their marriage, in 1975. The Clintons visited Haiti at the invitation of an executive at Citibank, one of the U.S. ruling class’ biggest banks. In 1909, Citibank (then National City Bank of New York) took over the majority stake in Haiti’s banking from the French government. In 1915, when German imperialism competed with U.S. interests there, Citibank pressed the U.S. government to invade and brutally occupy Haiti for 19 years.
Citibank, now Citigroup, has continued its exploitation of Haiti’s cheap labor pool. Following the 2010 earthquake, Hillary, from her end as Secretary of State, coordinated a $16 billion “gold rush” of “aid” contracts with her Clinton Global Initiative (CounterPunch, 4/14). With more than 300,000 workers dead, the Clintons capitalized on disaster with the aim to turn Haiti into Citigroup’s low-wage haven based in garments, tourism, and call centers (CounterPunch, 4/11).
In thanks, “Clinton is the top recipient of Citigroup campaign cash in the 2016 election” (International Business Times, 9/27).
Bigger Stakes for Declining U.S. Imperialism
As the Russian bosses now try to take advantage of the U.S.-created bloodbath in the Middle East, Clinton is stepping up as the Bomber-in-Chief announcing expanding Obama’s systematic drone strike campaign. Once again, Clinton is demonstrating her willingness to do her part for the U.S. bosses as U.S. rivalry with Russian and Chinese imperialism slides towards world war from Syria to the South China Sea.
Capitalism murders and enslaves workers around the world every day. U.S.-style capitalism especially features mass racist incarceration, mass racist unemployment, slave labor work conditions for millions of immigrant and women workers, denial of healthcare, poisoned drinking water, and racist police terror against Black workers and, increasingly, immigrant and Muslim workers. Unemployed U.S.-born and immigrant workers often join the military to find work.
When the bosses face economic and political crises like the ones developing now between China, Russia and the U.S., the level of murder rises to new heights. The U.S. bosses are well aware that the fight for top dog status is “resovled” through war. Fully aware that Trump is utterly incapable of uniting the working class behind U.S. imperialism, they want liberal “Stronger Together” Clinton to galvanize the working class.
Don’t Vote, Organize!
The bosses wars pit worker versus worker in a death spiral that will only be broken by communist revolution. The working class can end the capitalist wars, but we have to reject their electoral circus and murderous politicians in favor of confidence in the working class. Our class history shows this.
In 1932, when the capitalist class bet on FDR, the U.S. capitalist class was in another crisis—and they faced down an international, communist-led working class that fought like hell. PLP picks up that legacy of the old communist movement! We carry it forward under the banner of smashing capitalism and all borders with millions of workers fighting for communist revolution. It’s not about Clinton or Trump—it’s about capitalism. Join our movement, and fight back!