Its very clear that various competing interests and factions within the US political establishment are pushing different agendas and strategies. These differences often play out on a regional basis.

Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, was relatively unknown on the national stage as Governor of Indiana, until Donald Trump selected him to be his running mate in 2016. In the following years, Pete Buttigieg, the Mayor of South Bend, a small college town in Northern Indiana, ran for President and became a major figure in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Now, Donald Trump has selected Amy Coney Barret, a Federal Judge who is also a resident of South Bend, Indiana as his appointee to the US Supreme Court, with Democrats loudly crying foul.

Indiana is not a wealthy state. Indiana’s residents, nicknamed “Hoosiers” have been pretty badly hit by the overall economic decline of country. Many Indiana communities have been devastated by Opioids. In the 20th Century, the city of Gary was a major center of industry with steel production and other manufacturing, but this is just history.

However, Indiana is clearly rising in political influence. In 2016, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump campaigned at events in Indiana, blasting the factory closings and blaming trade deals such as NAFTA. While Indiana may not have huge amounts of commerce, or even very many votes in the electoral college, it seems to be a hub for a certain faction of the US political establishment that is fighting for its life, seeing its influence and power challenged.

South Bend: A College Town

South Bend, where both Buttigieg and Barrett are residents is one of the most prosperous parts of the state. The city has a population of just over 300,000 people. It is home to the University of Notre Dame, a leading Roman Catholic academic institution that not only provides education but also engages in large amounts of research.

Like most of Northern Indiana, South Bend is considered to be more or less part of the Chicago Metropolitan Area, with the major metropolis just over the Illinois border. While South Bend, with its liberal college professors who vote democrat, is an outlier, Indiana’s politics are pretty solidly Republican.

The mostly rural population is deeply opposed to abortion and homosexuality. Mike Pence made headlines around the United States and the world with his “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” passed in 2015. Critics argued this was a law that would enable conservatives to practice discrimination against the LGBT community, a huge amount of national backlash followed the passing of the legislation. Indiana is one of the 19 US states that still allows corporal punishment in its public schools.

Mike Pence was a conservative, Christian radio host who blasted Obama in his broadcasts. He was elected Governor in 2013, and was selected by Donald Trump to be Vice President in 2016. Mike Pence, like many of Indiana’s residents of German and Irish ancestry, was raised as a Roman Catholic.

However, as a college student in 1978 he attended a Christian Music Festival in Kentucky. Amid the lights and music Pence had what he described as a “born again” experience and rejected Catholicism for Non-Denominational Fundamentalist Protestantism. Apparently, Pence remained active as a Catholic Youth Minister while keeping his loyalty to Evangelicals up into the 1990s along with his wife, but finally rejected Catholicism in 1995, formally joining a “Mega-Church” called Grace Evangelical Church. Fundamentalist Christianity, with its staunch support for Israel and the Neoconservative faction of US politics has been a big part of Pence’s political identity.

Divisions Among Roman Catholics, “Parachurch Organizations”

Amy Coney Barret’s controversial religious ties and history is quite similar. While Barret describes herself as Roman Catholic and grew up attending Catholic mass, is it widely understood she is part of “People of Praise,” a Charismatic “parachurch organization” that recruits Roman Catholics, but maintains beliefs and practices much closer to a brand of protestant Christianity known as Pentecostalism.

“People of Praise” hold services with loud rock and roll music with congregants getting into hypnotic trance states, often to the point of incoherently babbling or “speaking in tongues.” Members of “People of Praise” conduct exorcisms to cast out demons.

While the Vatican and bulk of the Roman Catholic Church is highly critical of Donald Trump, and Pope Francis denounces capitalism, People of Praise maintains an alliance with the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and other right-wing political organizations. These groups tends to argue that minimum wage legislation, income tax, and other economic reforms are a violation of the US constitution and it protections of private property. The US press has focused primarily the outspoken opposition to abortion espoused by the “People of Praise” organization.

While the Catholic Church has been moving further and further to the left, and been much harsher in its criticism of Donald Trump in recent years, there is a layer of Catholic police officers, prosecutors and Judges in urban areas are deeply conservative. The New York City Police Department, which is openly clashing with the elected city government, has many high ranking Irish and Italian-Americans among its ranks. They are Roman Catholic, but they reject the leftist tone of the Vatican. They feel police brutality protesters are out of control, and “law and order” must be restored. Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s first pick for the Supreme Court, who was confirmed after a very ugly showdown on Capitol Hill, was clearly from this strata.

In order to counter the overall “left turn” of the Catholic Church, parachurch organizations like “People of Praise” and right-wing voices associated with Catholicism are becoming more important to the Republican Party. Barret’s selection for the Supreme Court can be understood in this context.

With many immigrants to the United States from Latin America, the Caribbean or Asia who are Roman Catholic, the white Irish and Italian communities that once were the core of American Catholicism are losing their hegemony. While Latino, Asian and Caribbean Catholics tend to vote Democrat, white Catholics are becoming more sympathetic to the Republican Party, and more critical the Vatican.

The Neocon Wing of the CIA

A great deal has been written by about the “religious right” in the United States, and its alliance with former CIA director and US President George Herbert Walker Bush, as well as his son George W. Bush. While much of the CIA has a liberal orientation, Bush and the evangelical Christians have aligned themselves with a particular faction that is out of step with most of the agency.

Barack Obama’s CIA director John Brennan admitted that he voted for Communist candidate Gus Hall in the 1976 Presidential election. Brennan made a huge point of grandstanding against the use of torture, saying that if Obama ever asked him to torture someone he would resign. Allegations that Brennan had converted to Islam were abundant, and it was clear Brennan had directed CIA operations in Saudi Arabia for many years.

Marilyn Ferguson, the spiritual advisor to Al Gore, whose occult screeds such as “The Aquarian Conspiracy” were endorsed by all kinds of CIA linked intellectuals, praised a number of research institutes and foundations in Southern California. It has been revealed that these very facilities in California were the site of all kinds of CIA experiments and research with psychics, hallucinogens, and other liberal “counter-culture” endeavors. It was strategic thinking from the liberal wing of the CIA that enabled Southern California to be the center of the computer revolution. Silicon Valley tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, Twitter, and Facebook emerged due to direct assistance from the intelligence apparatus.

However, Trump’s CIA directors, Mike Pompeo (now Secretary of State) and Gina Haspel, come from a minority tendency within the agency. It is widely alleged that Haspel and Pompeo, like Trump, feel that the United States having a reputation for engaging in torture is a good thing, as it will cast fear into the country’s enemies. Many recall the incident in which the Bush administration was accused of taking action against CIA agent Valerie Plame and revealing her ties to the agency in retaliation for criticism. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who spent decades in the CIA, is like Pence and Barret. He is a Midwesterner from Kansas, who grew up as a Roman Catholic, but became a Evangelical after a mystical “born again” experience as a young adult.

The Bush, Neocon faction of the CIA, which is at odds with the rest of the agency in terms of strategy and world outlook, seems to have a great deal of influence in Indiana.

For example, Indiana is home to the Hammond Independent Baptist Church, which was at one point the largest church in the world. During the 1980s, the church was known to pack the hall with 20,000 people at three different services every Sunday. Reverend Jack Hyles pioneered the practice of “bus ministry” with low income families being picked up by church vans driven by volunteers each Sunday morning and driven to attend his services.

Hyles was heavily tied to the Neoconservative wing of the CIA, with his congregation getting heavily involved in the Nicaraguan Civil War during the 1980s. Hyles raised funds for the Contras as they engaged in a violent campaign against the Sandinistas, and high schools affiliated with his Church provided education to Central American children whose parents were aligned with the anti-communist factions. Decades after Hyles death, Hammond Baptist Church still maintains influence in Nicaragua and other parts of Central America as a hub of anti-communism and pro-US sentiments.

Pete Buttigieg and “Liberal” Hawks

Jack Hyles was eventually brought down due to links to several child molestation scandals, and humiliated in the press. Hammond Baptist Church has been widely described as a cult, and his daughter Linda Hyles Murphrey has spoken harshly critical of her father in TED talks.

Pete Buttigieg, who became Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and is now a prominent figure among Democrats, is openly gay. Buttigieg is also religious, having attended Roman Catholic schools, but converting to the liberal, mainline protestant denomination of Episcopalianism in response to Vatican’s longstanding opposition to Gay Marriage.

Despite describing his upbringing as attending wholesome Catholic schools, its not a secret Pete Buttigieg’s father was associated with Marxism and left-wing activism. The father of Pete Buttigieg was Joseph Anthony Buttigieg, a Notre Dame professor who has achieved notoriety for translating the writings of Antonio Gramsci. The project of translating the Italian Marxist’s prison notebooks was paid for with a grant from the US Governments Endowment for the Humanities. Joseph Anthony Buttigieg established the International Gramsci Society, an institution that seems to have cooperated with the CIA’s efforts to push the Frankfurt School, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and other “anti-Stalinist” voices among Marxist academia, most especially in western Europe.

While Buttigieg’s father may have marched against the Vietnam War, Pete has no such opposition to imperialism. Buttigieg seems to have a hawkish foreign policy view, having served in Afghanistan and emphasized his military service as key credential for President. Buttigieg made a point of accusing Bernie Sanders of being “Trump-like” during his 2020 Presidential campaign, and condemning Sanders for making positive statements about Cuba and the former Soviet Union. Buttigieg, with his equating of Trump and Bernie Sanders, and his emphasis on US military interventions, may be closer to the Neocon wing of the CIA than many suspect.

Pete Buttigieg’s identity as a gay man does not seem to contradict hawkish US foreign policy. Let’s not forget that the Hillary Clinton State Department, that unleashed chaos in Libya, Syria, Honduras, and across the planet issued a special statement to the LGBT community: “People around the globe are working hard to support you and to bring an end to the injustices and dangers you face. That is certainly true for my country. And you have an ally in the United States of America and you have millions of friends among the American people.”

Just as Southern California has served as a base for the liberal, more faction within the CIA, the impoverished rust belt state of Indiana, most especially its slightly more prosperous town of South Bend, seems to be a hub of Neoconservatives. Though the Neocons were riding high in the 1980s and 90s, since the disaster of the Bush years and the 2008-2009 financial meltdown, they have been on the defensive. Isolationists and economic nationalists attack them from the right, while soft power liberals challenge them from the left.

As the Neoconservatives push back against continued opposition to their hard-nose foreign policy, they are hedging their bets in 2016 elections. Pompeo and Pence are building up more influence within the Trump camp and seem to be pressuring Trump away from his populist and isolation rhetoric. Meanwhile, John Bolton and many figures from the administration of George W. Bush now back Biden, proclaiming Trump is a sign of the dangerous “illiberalism” in the world, which US military interventions must roll back.

As the Neocons battle to maintain their place in American politics, Indiana, a state that is clearly their territory, is likely to continue rising in prominence.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The Wall Street Journal, the more conservative daily newspaper of New York City voiced support for Trump’s moves against TikTok in an official editorial, while also raising some mild apprehensions. The August 5th editorial said: “Mr. Trump has threatened a ban, but that would weaken competition and do nothing to limit Chinese big-footing abroad.” It seems apparent to the WSJ editors that TikTok would not disappear simply because it was banned from the US market, and that the restraints and compromises TikTok has made to remain available in the United States would no longer be in effect.

However, in the Wall Street Journal’s criticism of TikTok, some odd statements appeared. The editors wrote: “Last year TikTok was accused of censoring videos of Hong Kong protests. ByteDance denied this and said protest videos didn’t appear in users feeds because they weren’t popular with users.”

The editorial goes on to quote ByteDance, the parent company behind TikTok, as saying it restricted “demonisation or distortion of local or other countries’ history such as the May 1998 riots of Indonesia, Cambodian genocide, Tiananmen incidents” and “highly controversial topics, such as separatism, religion sect conflicts, conflicts between ethnic groups…”

Are Social Media Apps Require To Promote Instability?

The implication behind the Wall Street Journal’s words is that somehow it is the duty of TikTok and other social media apps to promote events like the Hong Kong Protests. TikTok has never censored such videos and many critics of the Chinese government who support the Hong Kong protests are vocal on the app. However, TikTok has not highlighted these videos and allowed them to show up in newsfeeds the way western apps such as Facebook and Twitter have.

It is no secret that the US State Department and intelligence apparatus has used social media to advance its goals. During the Arab Spring events of 2011, the Hillary Clinton State Department was quite open about the fact that it coordinated with Google/Alphabet and other tech giants. Jared Andrew Cohen of Jigsaw directly advised Hillary Clinton during this time, and is currently an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Leaks have revealed that facebook has “News Curators” who select which stories go viral and which stories do not. Individuals targeted by the US government such as Alexander Dugin, have been removed from platforms like youtube.

Its not secret that Washington used Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other outlets to push its geopolitical agenda, and attempt to weaken Russia and China and other anti-imperialist states. However, the new question is this: Was Social Media created simply to serve empire? Was this the entire purpose to begin with?

Washington and Silicon Valley

In 1999, the newly accessible internet was key in enabling the Falun Gong extremists to stage a series of well coordinated protests across the Chinese mainland. It was in response to these moves that China began exercising more control over the world wide web. The same year we saw US State Department backed “activists” in Otpor engage in a series of disruptions that eventually resulted in bringing down Milosevic and the socialist government of Serbia. They utilized the internet for their actions as well.

The links of Silicon Valley to American intelligence are no secret either. Loans from the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies enabled Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Erich Schmidt and others to set up their tech monopolies.

As far back at the 1970s, US geopolitical strategists realized that despite the fact that the USSR was very effective at developing computer technology on its own, it simply did not have the resources to invest in it. The NATO treaty banning the sale or sharing of high technology to the USSR and the constant need for spending in the nuclear arms race (dubbed an arms “catch up” by Michael Parenti) made it impossible for the USSR to build its own silicon valley.

The US market sector wasn’t exactly promoting the computer revolution either, as it involved quite a bit of risk. However, the intelligence agencies, seeing an opening geopolitically, arranged for southern California to have a government subsidized tech boom. This put the USA ahead of the Soviet Union and centered the emerging global tech sector around the United States.

So, if the Computer Revolution itself was a scheme to advance US power, and the social media giants openly work with the US state department and intelligence apparatus… was social media a plot all along?

Was the entire goal of social media to coordinate protests and disruptions around the world? Was Facebook, Twitter, and youtube set up simply for the purpose of destabilizing anti-imperialist countries and securing the post-Cold War hegemony of Wall Street and London?

The idea that TikTok is illegitimate as a social media app, simply for not allowing Hong Kong Protest videos to blow up in people’s news feeds, certainly gives that impression. Social media may have been a geopolitical scheme all along.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

On Thursday April 30th, protesters, some carrying firearms, marched into the Michigan state capitol building. The demonstration was just the latest of a stream of protests demanding  an end to the lockdown and social distancing.

Despite giving daily briefings to the country amidst the pandemic, and urging social distancing, US President Donald Trump has tweeted in support of these protests, which are taking place across the country. Trump has also singled out Michigan’s democratic governor for criticism. It seems there is a widespread mobilization opposing necessary health measures throughout the United States.

It is unclear what the protesters want. Some echo the sentiments of Glenn Beck and Texas Lt. Governor, Dan Patrick, that the lives of elderly and vulnerable people should be sacrificed for the sake of revving up America’s economy. Others echo claims circulating on social media, alleging that the pandemic is a hoax conducted by enemies of Donald Trump. Signs follow the ideological brand of the 2008-2010 Tea Party protests that opposed Obama’s healthcare plan. Slogans include “Social Distancing is Communism” and there are placards containing references to Hitler, the US Constitution, Liberty, and Tyranny.

Meanwhile, there are also mobilizations of the organized political left. Examples of these include: car caravans calling for a rent freeze, strikes and organizing among essential workers. Unrest is brewing in US society as the economy is the worst it has been in decades. Unemployment numbers have reached level not seen since the Great Depression. The chasm between two factions in the US economic ruling class, divisions which expanded under Obama and became even more intense following the 2016 elections, are sharper than ever.

Who is Behind The Anti-Lock Down Protests?

The people responsible for the right wing mobilizations are a coalition of millionaires and billionaires who feel like they are locked out by the ultra-rich. This is the coalition that took Trump to the White House in 2016. Amidst the pandemic, these lower levels of American capital are watching the blood gush from their financial wounds.

With oil prices lower than they have ever been, an essential part of the Trump coalition, fracking companies, have begun to face the possibility of their ultimate demise. Frackers were already extracting oil and natural gas from American shale on credit from banks, with low oil prices hurting their profit margins. The New York Times published an op-ed by Bethany McLean with the headline: “Coronavirus May Kill Our Fracking Fever Dream” predicting that the pandemic will finish them off for good.

Meanwhile, the other big names among the Trump camp are also suffering. AmWay, the multi-level marketing scheme that enriched Trump’s billionaire Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has watched its sales plummet. Hobby Lobby, whose CEO, David Green, was one of Trump’s most outspoken supporters, closed all of its stores until further notice on April 7th. NASCAR is hoping to resume its season in late May, but its CEO, Jim France, son of outspoken Trump supporter, Brian France, has undoubtedly lost significant amounts of money from the cancelled races and lost advertisement revenue. While Home Depot, owned by Trump supporter, Bernie Marcus, has managed to stay open as an essential business, it has been forced to accept limited hours, and sales have significantly decreased in the spring months that usually generate about 30% of annual sales.

The desperation to end the lockdown on the part of many millionaire and billionaire capitalists is quite real. They face financial ruin. Meanwhile, they are very well aware that certain competitors are fortified enough to ride out the storm.

Who benefits from the lockdown?

Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos is an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump. He owns the Washington Post, a publication that has been harshly critical of the administration. While the lockdown has been bad for most US businesses, on April 14th, Amazon’s stock reached its all-time high. Amazon is hiring new employees to deliver products, and Bezos has made billions.

The big four super-major oil companies that dominate the New York Stock exchange and function like a mini-cartel, are happily watching their competitors in fracking and drilling suffer amidst the oil price drops. With the elimination of frackers, Exxon-Mobile, BP, Chevron, and Shell Oil would walk out of the lockdown with an even more well established monopoly than before.

Social media giants are certainly not suffering as Americans sit at home, updating their status, tweeting, posting pictures and watching ads. These types of corporations that already function as a natural monopoly are quite happy to see a large percentage of the US population working from home.

Many of the conspiracy theories that claim the pandemic is a hoax focus on Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft. Bill Gates is an outspoken Malthusian who believes the human population must be decreased. In the conspiracy theories, Bill Gates has become a stand in poster boy for a faction of the US ruling class long-labelled “The Eastern Establishment.” The Rockefeller Family, whose Standard Oil is now reincarnated as Exxon-Mobile, the Morgans, the Duponts, the Mellons, and the “old money” elite that has been the most powerful faction in US politics for generations, represents a more managerial wing of the American elite. These are the elements that worked with Cecil Rhodes’ Round Table Group, and eventually gave birth to the Council on Foreign Relations. Rockefeller money worked to create the Trilateral Commission, Planned Parenthood, the Asia Society, and many of the other institutions that have crafted US government policy in a long-term and strategic way.

These forces favor stability and long-term hegemony over their own short-term economic growth. They are closer to the Intelligence Agencies than the military, and friendlier to Silicon Valley than to retail owners and industrialists. The ideological right-wing has long targeted this wing of American politics, from the 1950s when the John Birch Society accused the Rockefellers of being Communists, up to the rants of Alex Jones denouncing Goldman Sachs and calling for “real capitalism.” These forces have entrenched themselves well enough, and built up enough of a monopolistic position, that the pandemic will not put them out of business. Rather, the pandemic is a convenient way to clear out their competitors and secure their position. As the lower levels of capital bleed, they call out their powerful nemesis with rage, realizing that while they have much to lose, the Eastern Establishment is likely to emerge even more powerful and dominant.

The often quoted words of Canadian Scholar, Roland Wright, have a much deeper meaning than the many who quote them realize. In “Short History of Progress, ” Wright quipped: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” This, of course, pointed to the widespread belief in “rags to riches” Horatio Alger stories, and the idea that the US free-market system creates endless opportunities to become wealthy, available to anyone if they work hard enough.

In 2020, as socialism is becoming more popular and as a self-described “Democratic Socialist” is the front-runner in the Democratic Party’s Presidential primary, these deep-seated beliefs among the population have not really changed. Socialism, to most Bernie Sanders’ supporters and millennials,  simply means “the government providing more services” while capitalism still means “working hard to get ahead.” Socialism is becoming more popular because the American dream is in decline.

A generation of young people, facing lifelong assignments of short-term service sector jobs, crippled by student debt, gripped with depression and hopelessness, and heavily medicated, believe that asking the government for more social services is not unreasonable. Since the 1950s, the rhetoric of Neoliberalism has declared that programs like cash assistance, student financial assistance, minimum wage laws, workplace protections, food assistance, and other mechanisms for aiding the downtrodden are “socialism.” The Neoclassical economics taught in  American universities proliferates this deception.

Americans who think they are knowledgeable about economics will recite about how in “real capitalism” the government steps aside, and free competition produces the optimal outcome. The postal service, the paved roads, and social security for the elderly are found to be contrary to the sacred American free market, and an example of “socialism.”

Due to the fact that the debate has been relentlessly framed in these distorted terms, “Socialism” has become more popular.  Millennials feel as if the American dream is dead. The ideal suburban home has been foreclosed. The well-paying factory job has been replaced by a short-term, part-time  gig at Starbucks. The dignity of adulthood has been stripped away, with millions of young people living at home, working under the burden of student debt. The younger generation is looking ahead to a declining standard of living and feeling that some form of economic relief must be provided. This generation says “Ok, fine! I guess we are socialists.”

A Different Socialism Throughout US History

But if one goes back to the days prior to the Cold War and McCarthyism, when Socialism was widespread and popular in the United States, it was not rooted in pessimism and a belief that the American dream was dead. On the contrary, the implementation of a centrally planned economy was said to be the ultimate fulfillment of the American dream.

Communist Party General Secretary, Earl Browder, who ran for President in 1936 and 1940, and presided over an organization of hundreds of thousands of people who were key in the Roosevelt Coalition, and helped coin his slogan: “Communism is 20th Century Americanism.”

William Z. Foster, the Communist Party Chairman who ran for President in 1932, composed a booklet entitled “Toward Soviet America” to describe his vision of a post-capitalist society. Foster’s text spoke of mobilizing the population relentlessly to increase social wealth,  and praising Stalin’s five-year plans. The vision of the US Communist Party was one of transforming the USA into a high tech utopia of unlimited abundance by eliminating the senselessness of greed.

Though he disowned the label of socialism, the most powerful figure with anti-capitalist ideas during the 1930s was Louisiana governor, senator and political boss, Huey Long. Long’s “Share Our Wealth” movement employed the slogan “Every Man A King,” used by earlier American populists like William Jennings Bryan. Long proclaimed: “We say to America’s 125 million, none shall be too big, and none shall be too poor. None shall work too much, and none should be idle. No luxurious mansions empty, none walking the streets… In this land bless by the smile of the creator, with everything to be eaten, to be worn, to be consumed, America will become a land, sharing the fruits of the land; not for the favored few, not to satisfy greed, but that all may live in the land by which the Lord has provided an abundance sufficient for the luxury and convenience of the people.”

Prior to his assassination, Long heavily taxed the Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Long’s administration used the money to wipe out illiteracy in Louisiana to pave new roads and build new bridges across the state enabling rural farmers to sell their crops. With the tax revenue acquired at the expense of Standard Oil, Long created a vast business, financial and media apparatus in Louisiana that was centered around the state. Much like the private sector in contemporary Venezuela and China does not function according to the laws of the market, depending on subsidies and being compelled to obey central planners, Louisiana experienced huge amounts of growth and poverty alleviation with Huey Long and his mass movement of supporters controlling the economy.

The African-American community in particular benefited from Long’s efforts. Long had risen to power by opposing the Ku Klux Klan and aligning with Roman Catholics. Long enabled African-American women to become nurses, and appointed African-American ministers to lead local chapters of his “Share Our Wealth” movement. Huey Newton, the founder of the Black Panther Party, was born in Louisiana, and his parents were so supportive of Huey Long, they named their son “Huey” after the great statesman.

The state-controlled economic apparatus Long built was swiftly broken up after his assassination on the steps of the state capitol building on September 10th, 1935.

It should be noted that Long was hated by the US Communist Party and many within the labor movement, despite being a progressive reformer. The reason for this is that Long had come to power by building a movement of smaller business owners and farmers and taxing Standard Oil. The Communists and labor activists, on the other hand, worked within the Roosevelt coalition, seeing the liberal Rockefeller oil dynasty as an ally in a Popular Front against the pro-Fascist National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).

While Communists and Labor backed Roosevelt, Long planned to run against Roosevelt in the 1936 election, and would most likely have received backing from the NAM. The factory owners did not see Long as a threat, as he had no relationship with labor unions and very little manufacturing took place in his state. While Roosevelt and the Communists aligned with the Rockefellers against the factory owners, Long’s power was based on fighting against the Rockefellers and he may have aligned with factory owners in this effort.

Pessimistic Socialism: A Cold War Creation

Bernie Sanders’ political career is rooted in the political crisis of the 1960s and 70s. Sanders was a young activist from Brooklyn who opposed the Vietnam War and supported the Civil Rights Movement. At the time, the United States had a booming economy amid the post-war economic expansion.

The activism of the 1960s radical was not rooted in populism or rallying the masses to oppose the greedy oligarchy. Rather, it was rooted in moralistic outrage at racism and war. Young people saw US society as overly authoritarian and overly demanding of conformity. These young people wore long hair, used drugs, listened to rock music, engaged in sexual promiscuity and their individual identity was at odds with society. Sometimes they compared themselves to the free thinkers within Nazi Germany who heroically refused to be “good Germans” and go along with Nazi atrocities, but instead “spoke truth to power” and faced heavy persecution.

Demoralization with US society, and a feeling that the American dream is a totalitarian myth seemed to define the 1960s political left. The Woodstock Festival of 1969 involved Jimmy Hendrix playing the US National Anthem distorted with electronic feedback. Counter-Culture activist, Abbie Hoffman, dressed in an American flag T-shirt. Anti-war activists marched in tattered, ripped up US army uniforms. The message of the 1960s left was “The American dream is a lie. The country has no future. Find inner peace and stop working so hard. Don’t be a sheep and obey authority. Think for yourself.”

In May of 1970, New York City experienced the infamous “Hard Hat Riots” where union construction workers who supported Richard Nixon attacked anti-war protesters with baseball bats and then proceeded to patrol Greenwich Village looking for any long-haired or counter-cultural individual and attacking them. If the “Hard Hats” had spotted a young Bernie Sanders, he most likely would have been a target, as he fit the profile of a non-conforming, free-thinking anti-war “hippie” that they despised.

On April 22nd, 1970, as celebrations of Lenin’s 100th Birthday took place across the planet, the United States convened its first “Earth Day.” Instead of celebrating the birth of the Communist Revolutionary, leftists and socialists in the United States marched with green flags and spoke of how consumerism, overpopulation, and extravagance was killing “Mother Earth.”

While the Communist Party and various Marxist-Leninist groups opposed the counter-culture, the US government covertly supported it. The Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA program, funded entities like the Frankfurt School, the Trotskyist magazine Partisan Review, the art of Jackson Pollock, and other iconic “New Left” thinking of the era.

The middle class, non-conformist, anti-populist New Left was covertly created by US intelligence agencies. Brzezinski, Soros, and Kissinger effectively unleashed their creation against the Soviet Union and its allies, first at the “Prague Spring” of 1968, and most effectively in the late 1980s, creating the political crisis that toppled the Soviet Union.

Can American Leftism Save Itself?

Anna Louise Strong, the American journalist who expatriated to Moscow and eventually to Beijing, published an autobiography in 1935 entitled “I Change Worlds: The Remaking of American.” Her text described her childhood as the daughter of a Midwestern clergyman, and her desire to be “right in her soul” by going out and making big achievements for humanity. It described how Americans are known around the world for their “motor-mindedness,” and their relentless, creative, pioneer spirit.

Strong described how during the Great Depression and poverty created amid technological achievements and abundance, this American spirit was fading away. However, she said she found this Americanism in Moscow. As Stalin mobilized the entire nation to rapidly raise living standards and become an industrial superpower, the Soviet people were the new “pioneers” and to paraphrase Earl Browder, “Communism was the New Americanism.”

The reality is that the nearly Utopian optimism, the relentless drive to achieve motivated by a desire to be “right in your soul,” along with the entrepreneurial motor-mindedness which Strong described are all still alive in America. The reason the Republican Party maintains so much strength, and social-democracy and the welfare state has always been weak in the United States, is rooted in how widespread these sentiments are. Americans are simply not pessimistic. They are goal-driven. They are relentless, self-sacrificing, and motivated. The invoked reality of the US as a “nation of immigrants” may be deeply insensitive to the descendants of slaves and indigenous populations, but it points to an ideological and psychological strand of thinking that has been inculcated in nearly everyone in the country from birth until death. The American dream may be dead, but the mythology and “work ethic” behind it are not.

Amid a financial meltdown and economic decline, pessimism is certainly rising. Among the younger generation, the suicide rate increases together with drug addiction, form a very harsh reality. While Trump beats his chest boasting of buildings he constructed and promising to “Make America Great Again,” no Bernie Sanders’ rally is complete without massive applause following a line about legalizing marijuana.

“Yes we can!” Without Capitalism

So far, the typical young adherent to Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialism seems to say “The economy is rigged by the billionaires. We can’t really get rich and get ahead. The American dream is a big fat lie. This country was founded on racism, the genocide of Native Americans, and slavery. The government helps out the rich people all the time, so why can’t they give me some free stuff for a change!”

Such sentiments are completely justified, but they lack any overall dynamic power. Political movements do not only depend on popular opinion but on the ability to motivate people to bring a vision into reality. If the Sanders movement remains merely an expression of pessimism and relativism, it will not be able to really capture America. The desire for truth and the “work ethic” of rugged individualism and self-sacrifice is too deeply rooted among the population, and skepticism, cynicism, frustration, and jealousy are not enough to dislodge or counter it.

A vision of free healthcare, free college tuition, and legalized drugs is simply not enough to push millions into motion. It is a sensible proposal, but it does not induce fanaticism. In the face of a right-wing whose vision is rooted in entrenched values and a powerful, though fading myth about “what made America great,” it is not strong enough to succeed.

However, if Sanders’ already popular calls for economic justice and rallying of young people around a collectivist vision of “Not Me, Us!” could learn to harness the American “motor-mindedness” it could be exponentially more powerful. If the widespread American desire to fight for a better life were injected into a collective vision for re-forging the entire country and liquidating alienation in a mass effort for economic rebirth and construction, the Sanders movement could become unstoppable.

If Bernie Sanders could learn to sound more like Huey Long, William Z. Foster, or Anna Louise Strong, and less like Abbie Hoffman, his movement could create a political explosion like nothing seen before.  As Obama created mass excitement with his “Yes we can” optimism and patriotism, Sanders could take this hopefulness to another level. He could say “Yes we can, without capitalism!”

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Eighteen years ago, the US led the NATO invasion of Afghanistan for the stated purpose of toppling the Taliban government and crushing the Al Qaeda forces they were harboring. Now, after more than 4,000 US military personnel and contractors have been killed, and over a trillion dollars spent, a peace agreement between the USA and the Taliban appears to be in the works.

But what led up to this optimism about a possible US withdrawal from Afghanistan and a reduction in chaos? The current hope of peace  was preceded by a string of revelations about how completely false the western media’s narrative and the words of US officials about the war have been.

In December of 2019, the Washington Post revealed that it had obtained a string of documents revealing that US officials had consistently lied through their teeth. Progress wasn’t being made in Afghanistan. The country was in a state of confusion and chaos, amid constant setbacks. Due to a lack of progress and clear strategy, the generals overseeing US Afghan operations had also changed frequently during the 18 years of occupation.

Supporting The Terrorism of “The Enemy”

Furthermore, it turns out that protection money has been routinely paid to the Taliban by US military corporations. In the hopes of preventing terrorist attacks on their facilities, US corporations contracted by the Pentagon have paid out billions of dollars to the US governments’ officially designated battlefield enemy. It is a direct violation of US law to provide any material support to the Taliban, but the law concerning this has been routinely disregarded with the Pentagon knowing and approving of it.

This new revelation fits in with some older revelations. In 2014, the New York Times revealed that the Port Authority Police of New York and New Jersey had infiltrated an Afghanistan based terrorist group called Jundallah. According to the New York Times, Thomas McHale traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, “The unusual origins and the long-running nature of the United States’ relationship with Jundallah are emblematic of the vast expansion of intelligence operations since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”

According to the New York Times, McHale operated a network of informants within Jundallah while the group conducted terrorist bombings against the Islamic Republic of Iran. McHale traveled to Afghanistan, operating undercover as a member of Jundallah, even after the US government officially designated Jundallah as a terrorist group in 2010.

Jundallah is a group of Sunni, Wahhabi extremists who view the Islamic Republic as “Shia Apostates.” Their goal is to break away the predominantly Sunni regions of Iran that border Afghanistan. While McHale operated within Jundallah in 2006, they bombed a bus of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Prior to that, they had attacked the motorcade of Iranian President Ahmadenjad.

China is currently cracking down on Islamic separatists in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Extremists who want to break Xinjiang away from China have been linked to knife attacks and other violence in China. Not surprisingly, support for the terrorist groups and extremists in Xinjiang has come from just over the border, in Afghanistan.

A Heroin Boom

Since the 2001 US-led invasion, Afghanistan has become the world’s leading opium producer, accounting for roughly 89% of total heroin production. Heroin is a very big problem in Iran, with almost 3 million users, the highest rate of heroin use of any country in the world. Most of the heroin flowing in Iran originates right over the border in Afghanistan.

Russia, north of Afghanistan, also faces a big problem from heroin being smuggled in. China has worked hard to crack down on Afghan heroin as well.

Prior to 2001, the world was amazed at how much the Taliban had reduced opium poppy production. US and UN officials praised the Taliban for its anti-drug efforts. The US invasion has dramatically reversed this, with poppy production skyrocketing.

A Strategic Epicenter of Chaos

Since 2001 Afghanistan has been a mess of instability. The US-led occupation has not stabilized the country. It has caused drugs and terrorist groups to get bigger, and intensified poverty and insecurity. The United Nations reports that over 100,000 civilians have been killed or injured in Afghanistan over the past 10 years.

Not only have over 4000 US troops and contractors died, but in 2017, a New York Times article revealed that a large number of CIA agents have been killed in Afghanistan, as well. The details of their deaths remain largely classified, but a number of them have been embedded with local fighting groups and militias.

Furthermore, in 2015, it came to light  that US troops were told to ignore the fact that underage boys were being used as sex slaves by Afghan soldiers. This practice of homosexual pedophilia among US aligned Afghan fighters was widespread.

So, what exactly has the United States been doing in Afghanistan for the past 18 years?

The answer can be easily discovered by looking at a map. Afghanistan sits at the center of the Eurasian world Island. On three sides of it are the top three geopolitical rivals of the United States.

Afghanistan has been kept as a strategic epicenter of chaos. The drugs, terrorism, sex trafficking and other instability in Afghanistan has spilled over into Iran, Russia, and China. All three countries have been forced to devote huge efforts to defeating security threats based in Afghanistan.

An unstable Afghanistan serves to weaken three major anti-imperialist states, and help maintain US global dominance.

Does the new peace deal, in which the Taliban will play a role in the government, pave the way to more stability?

The larger question is… does the USA really want stability? All evidence points to the contrary.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

At the Feb 25th Democratic Presidential Debate, Bernie Sanders responded  to his critics saying: “Occasionally it might be good to be honest about American foreign policy, and that includes acknowledging the fact that America has overthrown governments in Chile, in Guatemala, in Iran, and when dictators, whether it’s the Cubans or the Chinese do something good, you acknowledge that.”

For a few days preceding the debate, Sanders had been subject to harsh criticism in the media for his history of praising the Cuban and Nicaraguan governments, and his defense of those words, saying in regards to the Cuban revolution “it’s unfair to say that everything was bad.”

Sanders’ many detractors considered these words to be treasonous because they praised a longtime opponent of the United States in the international arena. Anti-Castro Cubans residing in Miami, Republicans, and Sanders Democratic opponents all argued that a politician who would make such statements was unfit for office.

However, this did not hurt Bernie Sanders, and polls continue to show him as a favored candidate among Democratic voters. While the media seems to view Sanders with contempt, this makes him more attractive to the public.

This seems to exactly parallel the Republican Primary Election of 2016. During a Presidential Debate with other Republican Candidates, Donald J. Trump turned to Jeb Bush and said: “Obviously the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake,George Bush made a mistake…Obviously we can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty…We should have never been in Iraq, they lied, they said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none and they knew that there were none.”

Of course, Trump was widely criticized by Republicans for these words, among other statements. As Trump was widely condemned by both the establishment of the Republican Party and the mainstream media, he became more popular.

Who was Leo Strauss?

The two figures often named as the ideological fathers of Neoconservativism are Irving Kristol and Leo Strauss. Irving Kristol was a New York City Trotskyist who became disillusioned by socialism during the Second World War, later headed up the CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom Program in the 1950s, and eventually became a Republican strategist.

Leo Strauss, however, was a very different figure. Strauss was a Jewish philosophy professor who fled to the United States during the rise of the Nazis during the 1930s. He taught at Columbia University, the New School, and eventually the University of Chicago. Prior to leaving Germany, Strauss had a significant philosophical dialogue with the Nazi jurist and legal theorist, Carl Schmitt.

Strauss’ academic work focused on the history of western philosophy, specifically the teachings of Plato and Socrates. Strauss argued that the work of the Greek philosophers had deeper meaning in the context of the era they were written, and should be reconsidered in this light.

Strauss was known to pick out students who he considered to be full of great potential, and bring them under his mentorship in a close-knit circle. Strauss told his students they were “Philosopher Kings’ ‘ intended to rule over the rest of humanity. Among those who studied under Strauss were Susan Sontag, Paul Wolfowitz, and Allan David Bloom.

No More Cowboy Presidents

An article in “The Nation” described Strauss’ worldview: “Intellectuals, he believed, would have to spread an ideology of good and evil, whether they believed it or not, so that the American people could be mobilized against the enemies of freedom. For this reason Strauss, we learn in one of many telling asides, was a huge fan of the TV series Gunsmoke and its Manichean depiction of good and evil.”

Strauss wanted Americans to see the world in terms of pure black and white, good and evil. The United States was to be the infallible “shining city on a hill” and its enemies were to forces of absolute evil with no redeeming attributes. The role of intellectuals is to reduce the world to a melodrama, with a plot simple enough for the inferior classes to understand and be mobilized around. The cowboy-themed 1950’s TV show called “Gunsmoke” was according to Strauss, the ideal for how Americans should come to understand geopolitics.

Ronald Reagan was a 1950’s actor who had portrayed cowboys, and his ascendancy as President in many ways showed how deeply influential Strauss was. Reagan spoke of the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and delivered his oval office addresses in dramatized, Hollywood sounding voice, like a silver screen sheriff rounding up a posse.

George H.W. Bush famously rebuked Bill Clinton for pointing out stagnation and economic hardships, saying: “My opponent says America is a nation in decline… Don’t let anyone tell you America is second rate, especially someone running for President.”

George W. Bush echoed the Reagan-era formulas, talking about the need to “smoke him out” regarding Osama Bin Laden, and bringing news reporters to watch him clear brush on his Texas ranch.

Former US President Barack Obama was widely criticized by Republicans as being the first President of the United States who did not believe in “American exceptionalism.” Oddly, the phrase “American Exceptionalism” was actually coined by Joseph Stalin in his repudiation of Jay Lovestone, who led a faction of the US Communist Party that rejected Moscow’s leadership.

Regardless, the rise of Trump in 2016, and the rise of Sanders in 2020, both in the face of widespread media opposition, and both of them harshly criticizing US foreign policy, seems to show that Leo Strauss’ narrative has failed.

Americans simply do not see the USA as the infallible protagonist in a 1950’s western TV program, and they clearly don’t want a President who talks like one either. Poll after poll shows that the US public disapproves of foreign military entanglements and distrusts the mainstream media.

As the 2020 election approaches, with Trump accusing Sanders of being a “Communist” and Trump believed by many of his supporters to be waging some kind of shadow war against the “deep state,” political strategists will be forced to cut their teeth on very new political terrain.

Americans no longer believe in American exceptionalism, and appealing to it just does not seem to work anymore.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The words they use to describe her are nasty, cliché, but all too familiar. They call her “Princess,” “Oligarch,” and accuse her of “embezzlement” “peddling influence” etc. The truth is that Isabel Dos Santos, the richest woman in Africa, has for decades been on the hit list of the most powerful people in the world.  In the first month of 2020, the international media has doubled down, taken aim, and decided to go for the kill.

And who are the hitmen? The same folks who brought you the Panama Papers, the shady International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The outlet with ties to the Democracy Fund of the United Nations, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation is repeating their same old mantra. They accuse independent leaders around the world, from Russia, China, Latin America, and Africa of being “corrupt.” They display in rather convenient “leaks,” as if it is somehow shocking, that the leaders of countries with massive populations and resources in-fact possess lots of wealth. The international audience is led to the conclusion that the targeted leader should be removed.

Misuse of government funds and other malpractice is certainly a plague rampant in many developing countries. When nations are working to raise themselves out of poverty, shady practices often become a kind of way of life as the population learns to “take care of each other.” The result is often widespread inefficiency.

But what is the obvious goal of these Soros, USAID backed ICIJ operations? To keep intact the corrupt, monopolistic global financial order that exists by selectively targeting those who challenge it. The deeply corrupt global order where Wall Street and London bankers rule the world, keeping it poor so they can stay rich, pushing policies of “de-regulation” and “free markets” that have failed over and over, never gets called into question.

“Corruption” charges were used to oust Dilma Roussef, to imprison Lula Di Silva who would have won the 2018 election according to every poll, and install autocratic free market demagogue Jiar Bolsanaro in Brazil. “Corruption” allegations are constantly used to stir up opposition to the Putin government by forces who were quite satisfied with the free market looting during the Yeltsin-era, and dislike that Russia has been restored as an economic power and energy exporter. Leftist Vice President Christina Kirchner in Argentina was also hit with a series of “corruption” charges by supporters of the IMF and the free market policies, who attempted to undo her progressive reforms during the Mauricio Macri.

Meanwhile, many politicians in the “free” western capitalist countries have offshore bank accounts, take care of their relatives and business associates, and otherwise engage in notably corrupt behavior. The President of the United States is pretty obviously tied to a chain of “Trump Hotels” around the world, and many questions have been raised about that since the 2016 elections. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s son conveniently got a well paying job at a Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian Natural Gas corporation, at the very moment when the USA was backing the “EuroMaiden” events that toppled President Yanukovych.

An Oil Rich Country, Kept Poor by Western Capitalism

Angola is not a poor country. It has lots of oil. Its natural gas potential is just being realized. It has minerals and a vast population. However, poverty is widespread in this southern African nation. Until 1975, Angola was a colony of Portugal. The population lived as colonial slaves, worked to death, kept in poverty, as their resources were utilized to line the pockets of Portuguese businessmen.

The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was formed in 1956 to throw off the colonial chains. The MPLA was a Marxist-Leninist political organization backed and armed by the Soviet Union. It waged a guerilla insurgency, fighting Portuguese troops, right up until the Carnation Revolution.  When the fascist government of Portugal fell in 1975, colonial territories were granted independence. The MPLA took power as the elected government of a newly free Angola.

Immediately following independence, the apartheid government of South Africa invaded Angola. Over 65,000 Cuban soldiers were sent to support the MPLA in fighting off this and subsequent invasions by the apartheid regime. Cuba continued to maintain a military presence in Angola to support the MPLA.

At the time of independence, the United States government had already been arming and training a group of terrorists and extremists called the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) that conducted assassinations and other acts of violence against the MPLA.  UNITA at first claimed to be Maoist Communists and had relations with China, but by the late 1970s they were Evangelical Christians and advocates of western capitalism. The United States was their primary supporter, and anti-communism was their rallying cry.

The leader of the CIA trained and armed UNITA terrorists like  Jonas Savimbi. Savimbi murdered civilians, bombed schools and hospitals and committed horrendous atrocities. Savimbi was a practitioner of witchcraft and a literal cannibal, who ate the corpses of MPLA soldiers. The horrendous atrocities of Jonas Savimbi has been well documented, but this did not stop the Reagan White House and other US administrations from embracing them as freedom fighters.

The goal of the MPLA was to peacefully develop Angola into a prosperous socialist country. This was not possible in a state of total civil war, as US-backed terrorists ravaged the country for 27 years. Even when peace was finally declared in 2002, the United Nations noted that Angola was littered with landmines, and most of its bridges and essential infrastructure had been destroyed.

“Angola Starts Now!”

In 2002, with peace declared, the MPLA declared “Angola Starts Now!” and began to eradicate poverty and economically develop the country. Their efforts were aided significantly by the highest oil prices in world history. The GDP increased at a staggeringly high average of 11.1% from 2001 to 2010. China worked with Angola to build new railways connecting previously isolated parts of the country. The capital city of Luanda became a prosperous business center. Millions of Angolans were lifted from poverty.

Who was key in making all of this happen? Isabel Dos Santos. Isabel is the daughter of the country’s first elected President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos. It is largely because of her efforts that Angola now has a state controlled mobile telecommunications corporation, Unitel. She also helped to set up Banco de Fomento Angola and Banco BIC, two private banks based in Angola. These are banks subsidized with state oil profits, that have provided loans allowing the domestic economy of Angola to flourish. Isabel Dos Santos has traveled around the world working to bring foreign investment into her homeland.

In 2016 Isabel Dos Santos moved out of the private sector and was named as the director of Sonangol, the state-run oil company that remains at the center of the Angolan economy. Much like Putin did in Russia with Gazprom and Rosneft, Sonagol is a “national champion.” It is a state-controlled energy corporation utilized to create economic growth and stabilize the market. It was with Sonangol’s proceeds that the mining and agricultural sectors were stimulated.

Nigeria is now the top oil exporting country in Africa. It has been a playground for Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Exxon-Mobile for years. Nigeria has a few billionaires, but the population is overwhelmingly poor and illiterate. While lots of oil is extracted and lots of profits made by western corporations, nothing like Angola’s economic boom of 2002-2014 has ever happened in Nigeria, despite decades and decades in the oil business. The successes of Angola cannot be blamed on high oil prices alone, but rather on state central planning, utilizing oil proceeds to eradicate poverty and construct.

Isabel Dos Santos has spent very little time working in government. She prides herself on her success as a businesswoman in the private sector. Her dynamic leadership and strategic management of private companies, in coordination with state central planners, created all kinds of spectacular results. “There are thousands of people whom we gave their first job,” she told BBC.

When a new President took office in 2017, the Wall Street Journal celebrated Isabel Dos Santos’ departure. It accused her of running “turgid bureaucracy.” American oil companies were angry that she “required that they buy supplies from select domestic firms.” Dos Santos enforced environmental laws, and would not privatize the newly discovered natural gas resources that “by law belongs to the government.” Immediately before  the ouster of Isabel Dos Santos from Sonangol, Total, BP, Haliburton, and Exxon-Mobile had terminated their relationship with the state-run firm. It appears that the big oil bankers almost demanded her ouster from the new administration of President Juan Lourenço and their wish was granted.

A Failed Administration Scapegoating Its Predecessors

Lourenço promised to usher in an “economic miracle” with his free market reforms once elected. The opposite has occurred. Unemployment has risen. Strikes and social unrest are also increasing. 28% of Angola’s population lives on less than $1.90 per day. Lourenço has signed on with the International Monetary Fund, known for pushing deregulation and Milton Friedman style economic reforms in exchange for “development loans.”

Since he cannot fix the economy, Lourenço seems to be focused scapegoating his predecessors, who presided over huge economic achievements. President João Lourenço calls himself “the terminator,” and he has worked hard to single out members of the Dos Santos family and their allies for prosecution. 45 cases are currently in court, and Isabel Dos Santos is now among those facing charges, as is her younger brother.

However, a BBC article published on January 16th seems to have revealed that the campaign against Santos isn’t simply about retaliation against the Dos Santos family. During  an interview, Isabel Dos Santos “declined four times to rule out” running for the Presidency. Later she told a Portuguese network “it’s possible” that she may intend run for head of state in 2022.

And what else, she could very well win, despite massive huge efforts to besmirch her reputation with the convenient “Luanda Leaks” presented by the Soros, USAID tied outlet. To Angolans who have endured decades of civil war followed by miraculous amounts of growth, the name “Dos Santos” is associated with the legacy of the anti-colonial struggle, as well as a decade of exciting hope.

The “Iron Lady” Southern Africa Needs?

Indicating why she might consider a Presidential run, she told BBC “President Lourenço is fighting for absolute power. There’s a strong wish to neutralize any influence that [former] President Dos Santos might still have in the MPLA…. If a different candidate would appear [ahead of the 2022 presidential election] supported by former President Dos Santos or allies linked to him, that would really challenge [Mr Lourenço’s] position because his current track record is very, very poor.”

In fact, Isabel Dos Santos could be the kind of leader that Southern Africa desperately needs. Her father was a guerilla fighter who fought the Portuguese and went into exile. Her mother was a Russian Communist. While the MPLA backed away from Soviet-style Marxism-Leninism in 1991, it remains a Democratic Socialist Party, and its members are dedicated to building a society where all Angolans have what they need. Already, from both the private sector and as the head of Sonangol, Dos Santos has put into practice a successful implementation of policies that could be called “petro-socialism” i.e. using state-run oil profits to centralize and build up an economy.

On the northern end of the continent, Libya flourished under such policies. The Islamic Socialist government of Moammar Gaddafi built the world’s largest irrigation system, “the man-made river.” Libya had the highest life expectancy on the African continent until 2011 and had achieved universal housing and literacy. Libya worked hard to suppress Al-Qaida and terrorist groups and provided financial support to the Irish Republican Army, the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, and many other socialist and anti-imperialist forces around the world. In his final year, Gaddaffi openly spoke of establishing an African currency and an African bank, laying the basis for independence from western financial power.

All of this culminated in the USA funding an uprising against him, and NATO bombing campaign that destroyed the country. During Gaddaffi’s leadership, Africans from across the continent piled into the Libya where the state provided them with employment. Now, in a war-torn, newly impoverished and destroyed post-Gaddafi, pro-western Libya, Africans are trying to get out on rafts, and drowning in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe.

Russia and China were both deeply impoverished countries at the beginning of the 20th Century, but it was with state central planning, mobilizing the population and rationally organizing the economy that they became superpowers. Both countries have learned the lessons of the Soviet Union’s demise, and recognize the need for foreign investment and a private sector, which will  allow more entrepreneurialism.

However, Russia and China continue to get stronger because they have not fallen into the trap of “profits in command” and the chaos of the market. All across the developing world, the absolute failure of Milton Friedman-style economics can be seen. Even the Bretton Woods institutions now admit that they have been “too Neoliberal.” All out “free trade” Adam Smith-style capitalism is not the answer, for Angola or any other country.

If Isabel Dos Santos, a savvy businesswoman was elected, carrying with her a family name that is associated with better times, and resilient leadership, she could very well turn things around. As Russia becomes more involved in helping strengthen African countries, and  as China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank works to build infrastructure to help the development of independent economies, Isabel Dos Santos has great potential as a leader. With her strength and boldness, she could bring economic growth, financial independence, and hope to millions of people, not just in her own country, but throughout the region.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

After the Democratic Primary Debate on February 7th, 2020, MSNBC host, Chris Matthews, did what he normally does, which is  give his opinion. However, instead of being clear or coherent and basing his opinion on facts, he let loose a very paranoid sounding, and somewhat confused diatribe against US Senator Bernie Sanders, the Presidential candidate currently leading in the polls.

He said: “I have my own views of the word ‘socialist’ and I’d be glad to share them with you in private. They go back to the early 1950s. I have an attitude about them. I remember the Cold War, I have an attitude towards Castro. I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering, okay? So, I have a problem with people who take the other side. I don’t know who Bernie supports over these years. I don’t know what he means by socialist.” 

This is not the only odd primetime TV moment related to Bernie Sanders and his presidential campaign. Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s program in January of 2019, former Assistant FBI Director, Terry Tuchie, proclaimed:

“The electorate in some places is putting more and progressives and self-described socialists in positions and, ironically, years ago – when I first got into the FBI – one of the missions of the FBI in its counterintelligence efforts was to try to keep these people out of office.”

Why did they call it “COINTELPRO”?

Many Americans would roll their eyes if they were told that the FBI had interfered in elections and systemically worked to destroy the lives of activists, resulting in multiple deaths. The term “conspiracy theory” would be thrown out and people would exclaim: “Everyone knows America has freedom!” “This country isn’t a dictatorship! That could never happen here!”

The knowledge, or lack thereof, relating to the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program is a deeply tragic example of how easily the American public is influenced. The program was first revealed when FBI files were stolen from offices and leaked to the press in 1971. When the Congressional Church Committee investigated the FBI and CIA in 1975, their misdeeds became a matter of public record. However, afterward it disappeared from public consciousness.

The Congressional testimony and files released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that the FBI had a massive program with the sole purpose of meddling in US politics. The FBI worked to destroy the US Communist Party, despite the fact that the Supreme Court had specifically ruled that it was a legal organization in its 1957 Yates v. United States ruling.

The FBI went after the Civil Rights Movement, planting stories in the media, and slandering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a homosexual and a Soviet agent. The anti-Vietnam War protest movement  was also  targeted, as were many left-wing and Black Nationalist groups. FBI actions resulted in the death of many activists from the Black Panther Party.

The Socialist Workers Party sued the FBI, documenting 18 years of harassment which had destroyed lives, prevented victories at the ballot box, and otherwise violated US law. The organization was awarded a settlement of $264,000 in 1987.

Among those who campaigned for the Socialist Workers Party in the 1980 and 1984 elections, as the court proceedings against the most powerful law enforcement agency in the United States went on, was an up and coming Vermont politician named Bernie Sanders.

So, why was this FBI program called COINTELPRO or Counter Intelligence Program? The reason was that the FBI did not consider left-wing political parties and activism to be a legitimate part of American discourse. The Communist Party USA, and eventually the Civil Rights Movement, Black Nationalism, and the larger left-wing milieu, were labelled as “intelligence” because they were considered to be penetration of the United States by the Soviet Union and China.

During the 1930s, The Soviet Union became a global superpower with its 5 year economic plans.  The Soviet-led Communist International had pre-empted the Second World War by building massive anti-fascist coalitions starting in 1935. While the Communist Party USA openly used the slogan “Communism is 20th Century Americanism” and insisted it was a domestic political movement rooted in progressive and democratic struggles, the FBI considered the Communist Party USA to be nothing more than a wing of the KGB. The fact that the party had longtime labor giants like William Z. Foster, salt of the earth, Midwestern American steelworkers like Gus Hall, or beloved African American academics like Angela Davis as its leaders, made no difference.

Different Strategies to Oppose Marxism

The reality is, however, that not all of the American deep state agreed with the FBI. The US Central Intelligence Agency, following the strategies of Zbiegnew Brzezniski, had the opposite approach. With the Congress for Cultural Freedom Program, the CIA funneled money to Marxist and Communist writers and thinkers in the USA and Western Europe. The Frankfurt School, a German institution that pushed an anti-Soviet version of Marxism that focused on cultural criticism, was covertly built up and supported. The CIA bankrolled the publication of Partisan Review, a Trotskyite magazine that pushed a critique of western capitalism alongside a condemnation of the USSR and China. All of these efforts resulted in the historic breaks, in which the Italian Communist Party, the Spanish Communist Party, and other massive Communist organizations denounced the Soviet Union. Zbiegnew Brzezniski spoke very enthusiastically about the “Eurocommunists”as useful to the United States in its geopolitical efforts.

Left-wing voices were essential in the CIA’s effort to fight the Soviet Union with soft power. Joint “days of action” against Nuclear energy in which Soviet citizens and US citizens took to the streets simultaneously, along with  a constant inflow of western cultural figures in the Soviet Union, all set the stage for the fall of the USSR in the 1980s.

But this did not stop the Republican Party, voices linked to the military industrial complex, and the FBI itself from denouncing anything but full on anti-communism as treason. A clear difference of strategy existed, and the fall of Jimmy Carter and the rise of Ronald Reagan represented a clear polarization within the US intelligence and military apparatus.

Can Bernie Sanders be forgiven?

In the 1970s, Bernie Sanders sounded like a Marxist. He called for the workers to control the means of production. He was associated with Trotskyists, Social-Democrats and peace activists. He praised Fidel Castro and the Sandinistas of Nicaragua. Sanders always had strong criticism of the USSR, and his admiration of international leftist forces never seemed to go beyond Latin America.

In the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Bernie Sanders foreign policy views shifted even closer to the Pentagon. Despite being a longtime peace activist, Sander’s supported Clinton and NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. This shift prompted peace activists to protest in front of his office, and ended his friendship with Marxist writer, Michael Parenti. Sanders supported the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, though he strongly opposed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Though Sander’s praised Hugo Chavez in his early years, in 2016 he denounced him as a “dead Communist dictator.” Sanders has spoken of Maduro, Chavez’ successor, in harsh terms such as “tyrant.”

Furthermore, Sanders no longer advocates the Marxist understanding of socialism. He has made this clear on numerous occasions, saying: “I don’t believe the government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal.”

At one 2015 Presidential debate, Sanders went as far as saying that he does not oppose capitalism, and that Democratic Socialism exists merely to facilitate a profit centered economy, saying:

“Everybody is in agreement. We are a great entrepreneurial nation. We have to encourage that. Of course, we have to support small and medium-size businesses. But you can have all of the growth that you want, and it doesn’t mean anything if all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent… We should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.”

But the tone of the  Chris Matthew rant about public executions seems to indicate that many within the US deep state do not believe in Sanders change of heart. Despite the Soviet Union having collapsed and Sanders’ views drastically shifting, it appears that many in the US government view him as a Soviet agent.

The beliefs underlying the COINTELPRO program, that all left-wing views are merely an expression of foreign influence appears to be very well alive.

As Sanders polls well, and wins democratic primaries, the question must be asked: Will this long standing deep-state grudge be strong enough to keep him from being the Democratic Nominee?

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

At the conclusion of the impeachment trial, the vote was taken, and all Republicans voted in unison to keep Trump in office. There was however, one notable exception. US Senator Mitt Romney was the single Republican to vote to convict Trump on charges of abuse of power.

The media has chalked this up to merely a personal tension between the two men. The reality is, however, that in his longstanding tension with Trump, Mitt Romney represents more than himself. Romney, as a US Senator from Utah, represents the Mormon Axis. This is a center of power within the US government apparatus that leans conservative but very much has its own agenda, competing with other forces within the Republican Party, as well as within the FBI and CIA.

A Modern Day Mystery Cult

In Ancient Rome, the official state religion included worship of mythological deities, such as Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. After the fall of the Roman Republic, the state religion also incorporated the belief in the divinity of the Emperor as God in human form assigned to rule over all the world.

However, throughout the history of the Roman Empire, ‘“mystery cults’” continued to emerge, and at various times became deeply influential. These religious sects did not deny the existence of Rome’s official Gods, but had a specific deity that they held above others. Adherents of the Mystery Cults had a very specific set of beliefs, lived according to a specific set of rules, and centered their lives around a particular deity. The cult of Isis, for example, worshipped a goddess from the Egyptian tradition. The cult of Mithras was a Roman re-interpretation of the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra.

These sects were referred to as “Mystery Cults” or sometimes simply as “Mysteries” because their beliefs were not a matter of public record, and were not available to non-believers. Members of such cults were called “initiates” and after undergoing certain rituals and becoming members, they became privy to information about the group’s beliefs and practices. The cult of Mithras had seven layers of initiation, with full knowledge of Mithriac beliefs only reserved for a layer of the most trusted adherents.

The Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), commonly called “The Mormons” in US vernacular, functions as a powerful “Mystery Cult” within US society. While Mormon missionaries knock on doors throughout America proselytizing their faith, they are very reluctant to have open conversations about theology. Recruitment is conducted on the basis of presenting LDS as a friendly, happy community with prominent and influential members. The beliefs and concepts of Mormonism, though widely public on the internet, are considered to be internal and not for discussion with non-believers. This has been especially true after TV programs, like South Park, and Broadway musicals like “The Book of Mormon” subjected LDS theology to emphatic ridicule.

Mormonism began in 1820 when a treasure hunter and alcoholic named Joseph Smith claimed to have a vision in the US State of New York. In his vision, Smith reported that he was made aware that he was a prophet and informed instructed that all existing Christian churches were false. Eventually, Smith claimed to have been visited by Angels, and presented with a book of golden plates,  and giving testimony of events that took place on the continent of North America prior to European settlement. Mormonism preaches that Native Americans are actually a lost tribe of ancient Jews, and that Christ visited what is now the United States centuries ago.

In its early years, one of the principal beliefs of the Latter Days Saints Movement was that polygamy was an acceptable practice. As a result, LDS adherents were constantly forced to move further westward, as its members frequently faced legal consequences for violating US marriage laws. The founder, Joseph Smith was killed by a hostile mob in 1844, but the faith continued, moving further westward and eventually establishing Salt Lake City, Utah as its headquarters.

As Utah became a US territory, tensions with Washington DC were frequent. Federal troops were often stationed in Utah, and many Mormons were jailed for polygamy. In 1890, the LDS church officially abandoned polygamy. Utah was ultimately granted statehood in 1896.

Mormonism existed as a kind of fringe religion in US society, but began to greatly expand during the Cold War. Starting in the 1950s, Mormons emphasized the centrality of the United States in their theology, and joined Anti-Communist organizations such as the John Birch Society. As a result of their alliance with the Republican Party and anti-communism, LDS adherents became increasingly accepted and respected in conservative circles.

Much like the Isis and Mithra worshippers of ancient Rome, becoming a full Mormon in contemporary America requires a lengthy process of initiation. When becoming a church member, Mormons participate in complex rituals and are even given special undergarments. Each Mormon is required to do a lengthy assignment of mission work in early adulthood, typically 2 years for males and 18 months for females.

“As Close To You As Your Telephone”

The US Department of Justice is a longstanding institution within the executive branch of the Federal Government. Many wrongfully assume that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is merely an essential division of the Justice Department, doing investigative and police work at a federal level. This assumption is incorrect.

The US Department of Justice had its Bureau of Investigation in 1908, and its National Bureau of Criminal Identification even earlier. What is now the FBI was created specifically as a dominion of J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover had been a congressional librarian, and at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, he had become the resident expert on Communism in Washington DC. The fiery anti-communist orator, who lectured members of congress about “The Red Menace” eventually was eventually  hired by the Department of Justice to conduct its “Palmer Raids” against foreign born radicals. In 1924, Hoover was appointed as the director of the Bureau of Investigation, the first incarnation of the modern FBI.

Anti-communism was the FBI’s primary focus, and the organization often functioned as a kind of personality cult around J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI went after notorious bank robbers and organized crime during the 1930s and worked hard to raise its own notoriety. Comic books and radio programs sponsored by the FBI portrayed Hoover as an action hero. Hoover gave radio speeches to the US public, and learning to love his personality was central to the training of new agents. Hoover popularized the phrase “The FBI is as close to you as your telephone,” in the 1950s, urging Americans to report any Communist or potentially subversive activities.

Mormons Go To Washington

Writer Steven Weitzman  from of the University of Pennsylvania describes the FBI’s relationship with religious organizations in an interview with The Atlantic saying: “The FBI has been a major player in shaping the religious landscape of the United States. It did so by lending its support to certain religious leaders, by introducing its own religious rhetoric into the broader culture, and by harassing or delegitimizing religious actors who were deemed to be threatening or subversive in some way. The religious ideology of a group like the Mormons-, who came to embrace the United States as almost a religious virtue—that needs to be understood in the larger context of Mormon history. Mormons were subject to persecution by the federal government in the 19th century, so their attitude toward the government has to be understood as part of a larger struggle for survival.”

Though Mormons had presence in the FBI from its earliest days, in the 1970s after Hoover’s death, their influence y greatly expanded within the bureau. The FBI currently had a recruitment program specifically for LDS members. According to Business Insider:

“Mormon missionaries are valued for their foreign language skills, abstinence from drugs and alcohol, and respect for authority.”

In the 1970s, the Mormons also became very prominent within the CIA. An article from Atlas Obscura cites a report on the CIA: “One 1975 report on the CIA, for instance, included the tidbit that one Mormon-owned PR firm made some “overseas offices available…as cover for Agency employees operating abroad.”

As Mormons collected data for the CIA, and helped provide cover for agents operating abroad, their international missionary work also grew greatly expanded. The religious sect expanded far beyond Utah, with new converts across the world.

While evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity is popular in the Midwest and south, it is in western states like Idaho, Arizona, and Washington that Mormonism has had a geographic concentration. Mormons have worked hard to maintain influence within the Boy Scouts of America and other community groups within their regions of strength. Often the evangelical Christian right has aligned with Mormons to oppose homosexuality and abortion, but overall the two groupings have completely contrary worldviews. Though the Mormons are the top religion among FBI and CIA agents, it is mainstream Christianity’s unwavering belief that Mormons they are heretics and cultists. has not changed.

Salt Lake City Disapproves of Trump

As Donald Trump moved toward becoming the Republican nominee in 2016, the Mormon wing of the Republican Party was not quiet about disliking Trump. Mitt Romney gave a press conference urging all Republicans to do anything possible to stop him, saying “Trump is fraud.”

In Utah, former CIA officer Evan McMullen, a prominent figure in the LDS Church, was placed on the state ballot as a Presidential candidate. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck, formerly a former national TV host and  himself a Mormon convert, announced himself as a “Never Trumper” as well, and urged Republicans not to vote for Trump at the polls.

However, right before the elections in November of 2016, Evan McMullen’s supporters backed away from him, and the majority of Mormons in Utah ended up voting for Trump. Around the same time, FBI director James Comey held a press conference announcing that the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails was being reopened. Many blamed Comey’s actions for helping Trump to be victorious.

Furthermore, a few months into Trump’s presidency, Glenn Beck changed his tune, and announced that he had come around to supporting the President.

However, Trump fired FBI director , James Comey, in May of 2017, causing many voices associated with the FBI to declare Trump to be disrespecting the agency’s autonomy.

Romney’s decision to cast his vote in favor of removing Trump seems to indicate that the tensions between US President Donald Trump, and a powerful faction within the US intelligence apparatus are still ongoing. Romney openly declared that his LDS faith was essential in his decision. The Atlantic reported, after speaking with him: “Romney, a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, described to me the power of taking an oath before God: “It’s something which I take very seriously.” Throughout the trial, he said, he was guided by his father’s favorite verse of Mormon scripture: Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good. “I have gone through a process of very thorough analysis and searching, and I have prayed through this process,” he told me. “But I don’t pretend that God told me what to do.’” In the end, the evidence was inescapable. “The president did in fact pressure a foreign government to corrupt our election process,” Romney said. “And really, corrupting an election process in a democratic republic is about as abusive and egregious an act against the Constitution—and one’s oath—that I can imagine. It’s what autocrats do.”

Interestingly,  in December, leaks about massive tax fraud facilitated by the LDS Church leadership found their way to America’s front pages. in December. Furthermore, the embarrassing revelation that Romney had set up an alias twitter account in order to praise himself also found its way to the headlines.

It’sIts very clear that the political influence and power centered around Salt Lake City has a very uncomfortable relationship with the commander-in-chief. A kind of back room conflict is taking place, not between political parties or even between deep state entities, but between the LDS faction and its rivals.

It will be hard to predict how exactly this plays out, especially as the 2020 elections get closer.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.