Hillary Clinton’s Ceausescu moment. An American dictator’s controversial speech

Hillary Clinton has delivered a speech that may well go down in the annals of history as her Ceaușescu moment.

Whilst she got all of the terminology incorrect, Clinton’s attack on her most critical opponents singled the fact that what I have called the alternative-globalism has sent fear to the heart of the traditional neo-liberal/neo-con globalist establishment.

She called all media which refuses to read from the BBC/CNN script the ‘alt-right’. This is an odd choice of words for several reasons.

First of all alternative media is comprised of and watched by individuals with ideologies that can be described as both left and right. There is no rigid ideological exam one must pass in order to realise that mainstream media in the West twist information, tell untruths and act as cover for a failing and corrupt political elite.

Secondly, the old definitions of left and right are in shift. Neo-liberal globalism is as much of a source of continuation for those concerned about cultural erosion and the attack on nation states as it is for members of the global labour movement and those concerned with international human rights.

The fact of the matter is, according to traditional definitions, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is the most far right in modern American history. Here’s why:

1. She has a total disregard for constitutional protections against presidential powers to wage illegal wars (according to both US and international law)
2. Her policy of regime change is an assertive hawkish policy which has total disregard for the lives of civilians, the sovereignty of foreign states, territorial integrity of the modern political map and the charter of the United Nations.
3. She has no time for individual rights and is a key supporter of the modern mass surveillance state.
4. She ruthlessly bullies her opponents and when that doesn’t work. she resorts to corruption and worse, only some of which has been exposed by Wikileaks…more is apparently yet to come.  Think South American style fascism in the second half of the 20^th century.
5. The principles of free speech, investigative journalism and whistleblowing; principles which helped expose the corruption of the Nixon government (which in hindsight is rather minor in comparison to what the Clintons get up to), are totally disregarded. Her threats against whistle blowers are disturbing indeed.
6. Her flippancy about the executions of foreign leaders sounds pathological.
7. Her fixation with ‘bringing down Russia’ would make even the biggest Cold Warrior a bit nervous. 

And yet she calls herself the candidate of the left, somehow standing against what she calls an ‘alt-right’?

The fact is that she is worried that Trump’s populist tone combined with very centrist policies is exposing her campaign as one built around failed policies which do not reach out to people.

Trump is far more anti-war than she is, Trump talks about jobs and labour rights far more than she does, Trump speaks to the concerns of ordinary people, whilst she makes it seems that the average American’s biggest fear is concern with the existence of a man called Vladimir Putin.

She is out of touch in more than one way.

The biggest oddity in an odd speech was when she called Putin the ‘godfather’ of the ‘alt-right’.

Someone like Clinton, whose tactics with opponents are scandalous at best and suspicious at worse shouldn’t really be making mafia metaphors.

The notion that Vladimir Putin is controlling everyone in the world who opposes traditional globalism is farcical and since many in America don’t even know a great deal about modern Russia, the constant scapegoating of Putin is as stupid as it is ineffective.

The truth is that the global movement against corruption, against war, against the treatment of whistle-blowers, against supranational government, against systematic abuses of human rights,  is organic, multi-national, multi-cultural and multi-lingual.

It shows the power of people and the power of ideas, liberated as they are by new media, combining to say ‘enough is enough’.

The fact that Putin hasn’t condemned this does not imply some conspiracy, it implies he is comfortable with the changing world he lives in, unlike Hillary Clinton who is sounding more and more like a robotic, monotonous Ceaușescu, addressing a crowed of his countrymen who were fed up with him.