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by Danny Haiphong
Why ask what lies in Hillary Clinton’s heart? She has already shown the world that she loves war and bankers. When #BlackLivesMatter activists inquired of her inner feelings, Clinton lectured them “about what she believed was their flawed strategy” and “told them to change laws and policies, not minds.” Clinton’s record is clear: “Her racist and anti-working class policies have ruined countless lives.”
On Black Lives Matter, Hillary Clinton, and the Necessity of Demands
by Danny Haiphong
“The Black Lives Matter conversation with Hillary Clinton teaches us critical lessons for future movement building efforts.”
"We came, we saw, he died," said then State Department head Hillary Clinton soon after leading the successful extrajudicial lynching of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Her statement came after the US-NATO imperialist invasion overthrew one of the few truly independent nations left on the African continent. But Hillary's grossly racist and paternalistic statement went largely unheard in the US precisely because the rule of imperialism has been so normalized and cleverly cloaked in the two-party corporate state. The election of 2016 is quickly approaching and the stars are aligned for Hilary Clinton to become the next Democratic Party presidential candidate. Black Lives Matter Boston and Worcester activists made a media splash following their encounter with Clinton earlier in the month. The encounter imparted two lessons: we must know who Hillary Clinton is and why demands are important for the struggle against imperialism as a whole.
First, just who is Hillary Clinton? I wrote about the former secretary of state in 2014, detailing how the prospect of her taking the reigns from the Obama Administration meant more of the same imperialist Democratic Party politics to come. Hillary has never seen a war she did not like, whether waged on Black people in the US or nations abroad. Hillary supported the Iraq invasion of 2003 and the Afghan invasion before that. She was instrumental in the destabilization of Libya and remains actively involved in doing the same to Syria. Hillary has stated many times that her presidency would mean the obliteration of Iran and further provocations toward Russia. And this only skims the surface of Hilary Clinton's imperialist war policy.
Furthermore, Hillary Clinton is a capitalist. Her racist and anti-working class policies have ruined countless lives. She began her career as a corporate lawyer and Wal-Mart board member. In these roles, Hillary worked tirelessly to keep wages low for Wal-Mart workers and austerity and bank bailouts high on the imperial agenda. When she became the "First Lady" of President Bill Clinton, she was an outspoken supporter of her husband's expansion of the Mass Black Incarceration State, his destruction of welfare, and his facilitation of the genocidal war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which continues to this day. She currently receives millions in donations from the largest banks to protect their predatory lending, austerity, and privatization measures. Hillary Clinton has always been, and will always be, an enemy of the oppressed for as long as her class is in power.
“She was instrumental in the destabilization of Libya and remains actively involved in doing the same to Syria.”
So when Black Lives Matter Boston and Worcester activists attempted to appeal to her sensibilities and feelings, they quickly learned that she possesses none that overrule her thirst for profit and power. Hillary lectured the activists about what she believed was their flawed strategy. She told them to change laws and policies, not minds. But the activists lacked demands that could have forced Hillary to explain just how she would change laws and policies related to the Mass Black Incarceration State. Hillary used the space to paternalistically treat the activists like children in typical white supremacist fashion. The activists’ response to her racist paternalism included a request for Hilary to come up with a plan to reverse the US regime’s racist criminal justice policies. One activist even stated she "looked up" to Hillary Clinton as a young feminist. To “look up” to Hillary and expect her to reverse policies that have shaped her very career sheds light on both the importance of demands and a larger crisis of consciousness.
Glen Ford makes the point that demands are central to the development of a mass movement for fundamental transformation. Demands help communicate to the masses that the ruling class’s system of capitalism and white supremacy is diametrically opposed to their interests. A solid program of demands provides the potential for temporary relief from oppression and forces the ruling order to react to the movement on the movement's terms. The reaction of the capitalist class and its state protectors gives the movement an educational opportunity. The capitalist class will either attempt to co-opt the demands or fail to meet them entirely. Whatever the case, the movement must then prepare to respond with unrelenting pressure on the ruling system to outstretch its capacity to meet the demands or brutally repress the movement, effectively showing the people whose side the system is really on.
“One activist even stated she "looked up" to Hillary Clinton as a young feminist.”
Such a scenario is dependent upon a movement conscious of power and how it operates under the dictates of 21st century imperialism. It also requires a deep understanding of the historic and global struggle against imperialist development. Only then can the leadership of a social movement arm itself with specific demands that are absolutely necessary for the improvement of the oppressed condition. One such demand is for divestment from the trillion-dollar military and prison machine and a reinvestment of these funds in housing, healthcare, and education for all. The United Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) holds this as a primary demand. The fruits of this demand cannot be achieved under the capitalist system, as both austerity and war are necessary to maximize profit in the midst of permanent crisis.
More concretely, the Black is Back Coalition has put forth a demand for Black community control throughout the US. Glen Ford defines the demand in simple terms, stating, "The choice is simple: either Black people discipline, direct, and hire and fire the police in their community, or the police continue to beat, kill and terrorize Black people in their own neighborhoods." The demand for Black Community Control channels Vladimir Lenin's "State and Revolution." In this critical work, Lenin explains that the transfer of power from the capitalist class to the oppressed can only be maintained and protected when an armed people that represents society replaces the imperialist army standing above society. Black community control of the police is an important step toward self-determination. It is a direct challenge to the rule of capital and its armed protectors.
The question of demands ultimately leads to a larger conversation of how we should relate to the imperialist system’s presidential Candidates. Thus far, Black Lives Matter leadership has urged Hillary, Bernie and the entire Democratic Party field to come up with their own plan to address racism in the US and at the same time deliver a historical analysis of racism that shows they know “Black Lives Matter.” But this same history, from George Washington’s ownership of hundreds of Black people as slaves to Hillary Clinton’s bloody policy of plunder in Haiti, Libya, and wherever Black people reside indicates that US presidents are also members of the ruling class whose very existence relies on oppression. Hillary and the Democratic Party haven’t been forced to meet demands on the movement’s terms, a move that could potentially show her true relationship to the oppressed. What she has been asked to do, and what many corporate media appearances by Black Lives Matter activists have reinforced, is to put forth a more positive Presidential campaign. This can only lead to more votes for the Democratic Party rather than a mass movement toward revolutionary alternatives.
“Black community control of the police is an important step toward self-determination.”
To be clear, I support Black Lives Matter and its just fight against racism and police brutality. Black Lives Matter leaders and activists emerged in August of 2014 to fill the political vacuum in Boston with direct actions and mobilizations in the streets. Black Lives Matter Boston was also instrumental in preventing the Olympics from coming to Boston. Furthermore, their interruption of the corporate Pride March in Boston earlier this summer was an important step in challenging the white liberal grip over LBGTQ politics. So this piece is by no means a condemnation of the work BLM Boston has done in service of the movement. However, criticism and self-criticism have historically been important elements of past movements. It should be carried out in an open manner to insure mass participation.
Whether this will happen or not remains to be seen. What is certain is that Hillary Clinton is going to be the next Democratic Party candidate. Another certainty is the continuation of war, austerity, and racism under her or anyone else’s rule. The Black Lives Matter conversation with Hillary Clinton teaches us critical lessons for future movement building efforts. Demands are central to the development of a mass movement against imperialism. Without them, Hillary Clinton and her imperialist backers will surely continue their savage exploitation of oppressed people as the imperial system declines and decays. And any action against US presidents that doesn’t expose the primary contradiction between the interests of the state and the interests of the oppressed will inevitably lead to the solidification of the state’s legitimacy.