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*Reading the tea leaves* This list has a tea leaf reading session going on about why FBI Director Comey was fired by President Donald Trump. After stirring them again, and examining them under a magnifying glass, I have come up with the following reasoning. First of all Donald Trump is in deep trouble over the issue of Russia. It’s not just the Democrats who have an anti-Russia program, it is the “internationalist” Republicans of the John McCain ilk. In fact, there is little evidence that any significant sector of the Republican party supports Trump’s Russian turn. The Russian intervention into the elections was not an invention of hysterical Democrats or of the New York Times. Cyber-warfare has been going on world-wide for some time among businesses and states. The North Korean cyber-attack against the Sony Films picture *The Interview *may have been the funniest moment, but there have been plenty of serious moments including the very recent attack against hospitals in the UK. In any case, Trump’s infatuation with Vladimir Putin and Putin’s support for Trump were both on the record in the media of the world. Why wouldn’t Putin try to help Trump? He would have been an idiot not to. The Russian state remains a competitor to the American state in geopolitics. It has the only nuclear arsenal that can compete with that of the USA, and it is aggressively countering US/NATO pressure on it: most notably by its land grab in the Ukraine and its genocidal role in Syria. Although both US and Russian imperialism are counter-revolutionary through and through, that does not mean that their geopolitical interests are identical. The French and German empires of 1914 were thoroughly counterrevolutionary, but their geopolitical interests clashed. What interests are at stake? First of all client states. Every client state an imperial power has is a client! Who buys arms from the biggest arms merchant in the world? (that would be the USA) It’s client states! Who buys arms from the Russians? Not too many client states these days, but the market of the old Soviet Union is still holding up. Oh, and then there is Syria. Nevertheless, a significant sector of big US corporations are heavily invested in Russia, and the GOP is still the party of business despite the Clinton’s efforts to bring them all into the Democratic party family. Corporations heavily invested in Russia include not only Mr. Tillerson’s alma mater Exxon, but Boeing, Pepsi, Ford, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's, Mondelez International, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Cargill, Alcoa, General Electric, and Morgan Stanley. They would like to have their cake and eat it, too. Keep the geopolitical power of the United States, diminish Russian power still further, but get rid of the sanctions against Russia so that they could get on with business. Fat chance. One significant overlap of ideology and interest between Putin and Trump is on global warming. It doesn’t exist! But, if it did, opening up the arctic to oil exploration and development would be just that much easier. Why not make the Arctic Ocean navigable – and drillable - 365 days a year! So far there is no evidence that President Trump is a deep thinker or strategist. Trump appears to be a blow-hard idiot and a bully who was the right man, in the right place at the right time. His Russia turn could be no more than admiration and attraction for other blow-hard bullies. But, maybe the man is more than he seems. At the very least, he is a cunning and corrupt real estate developer. Certainly, he has been attracted to doing business with the cunning and corrupt operators in Moscow. Apparently, he has made no big deals in Russia, but Trump is a man who has not released his income tax returns, and who has built an opaque business empire of interlocking private partnerships that no one has yet deciphered. What kinds of dirty deals are hiding in that labyrinth can only be guessed at, but some dirty deals in Russia would easily fit into Trump’s pattern of behavior. And this raises another issue that the American ruling class has with Trump. They do not like to be robbed. Sharp business practices are routine, and that is why they do not normally put one of their own in the White House. They hire lawyers like Obama and the Clintons, or put the idiot son in charge. Now, the President is a member of their own class who is out to rob the rest of the members of the country club and use the powers of the state to do it. True, a few of them have jumped on board. Some to participate in the plunder, and others to try to control him, to guide him, to use him. This in fact is what most of the Republican Party has been trying to do since the election. And, it is also what most of the Democratic Party is up to. But, if that effort fails, they will get rid of him. If they do, Russia will be part of the real reason, and most likely will be the legal grounds for impeachment. Anthony _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
