The right-wing legacy of Jimmy Carter

The death of former President Jimmy Carter, at the age of 100, has become the occasion for his public canonization, as the corporate media, former and current US presidents Biden, Trump, Clinton and Bush, and a multitude of leaders of world capitalism join hands to praise Carter as an advocate of peace, human rights and aid to the poor and downtrodden.

Carter left office in January 1981, so more than half of all Americans, and far more than half of the world’s population, have no memory of his presidency. They perhaps know something of his post-presidency, which combined humanitarian efforts in the poorest countries in the world—Habitat for Humanity, campaigns against guinea worm and other debilitating diseases—with occasional diplomatic missions on behalf of American imperialism.

The question for the working class is not to evaluate Carter as a human being in comparison to those who succeeded him in the White House. The downward curve is unmistakable, reflecting the decline of the American ruling class as a whole, culminating in the senile warmonger Biden and the demented fascist Trump.

The purpose of this brief review of the history of Carter’s presidency is to make a Marxist assessment of a president who, like all the leaders of American imperialism, defended the interests of the capitalist ruling elite against its overseas enemies and, above all, against the working class at home.

Carter’s four-year presidency was a critical transition point in American politics. It marked a definitive shift in the political trajectory of the Democratic Party, which was moving sharply to the right, breaking its association with the policies of limited social reform. These were begun under Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s and continued through the “Fair Deal” of Truman, the “New Frontier” of Kennedy and the “Great Society” of Lyndon Johnson, ending in the debacle of the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

[wsws.org]

The end of every criminal presidency brings forth a new delusional reality towards a blissful glorification. History suffering an erasure of factuality. We witness their cheerful reunions during special occasions despite their past brutal campaigns against each other. Facades exposed. Their deaths exacerbate yet another book of fallacies.

A prime example is Robert Parry's investigative work in regards to Reagan's Iran-Contra crimes. His endless search for the missing hours of GHWB he never managed to find that were left out or erased from the white house transcript. Certain they would be a means to tying him to a crime to blow his case wide open. Eventually he found a trove of paper files in an abandoned office that would provide considerable evidence of crimes. By this time however, the Reagan presidency was years over. Ships, bridges, streets, already having been named after him, his library, no news company would touch the findings. The ultimate factor in Robert Parry leaving corporate media and beginning the first Internet news site in 1995. With the death of Reagan, and Bush, all those crimes erased within undeserving glorifications. The crimes and unethical practices never to really reap the notification they genuinely deserve, the same as their victims worldwide and domestically. The latter, sadly, more so. And among the latter, many of our own within gruesome and inhumane ways in which only their families live with alone. Their own torment of not fully understanding, even recognizing, the crimes their family member/s and themselves were victims of. The betrayal of the glorification of patriotism. Still existing after 24 years of Middle East wars.

{Carter’s function was to refurbish the bloodstained record of American imperialism, after decades of wars, coups and assassinations, with the ludicrous pretense that the foreign policy of the most powerful imperialist nation would now be based on the defense of “human rights.” At the same time, in the wake of the open criminality and corruption of the Nixon administration, Carter projected an image of piety and personal modesty and pledged to establish a government that would “never lie to you.”}

An unknown propelled into the presidency by bankers and anti-communist. There's that name again.

{His elevation to the Democratic presidential nomination was the product of a well-orchestrated effort in ruling circles. Carter was invited onto the Trilateral Commission, the panel financed by Chase Manhattan banker David Rockefeller and directed by fanatical anticommunist Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski to groom advocates for the policies demanded by the financial elite: fiscal austerity at home and bristling anti-Soviet militarism abroad.

Brzezinski became the foreign policy guru to the Democratic candidate and then held the position of National Security Advisor—previously occupied by Henry Kissinger—throughout Carter’s term. There he spearheaded actions around the world that were the precursors of today’s drive by American imperialism towards World War III.}

Brzezinski's name came up in the Chris Hedges article I posted just days ago. Embedded in my commentary I provided 2 links exposing his ties to Ukrainian fascist within the US as a Polish immigrant. The manipulative means his fascist and terrorist policies that provided the very scenario that have been spreading around the globe since. Millions have suffered do to them. Our own in regards to the Middle East in the illegal Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Ultimately, with a high potential, more will be killed in Syria soon. To be heard of anyways, that aren't making the news today.

{It was the Carter-Brzezinski foreign policy that brought Saudi multimillionaire Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan and gave birth to Al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Brzezinski would later remark that “a few stirred-up Muslims” was a small price to pay for the collapse of the Soviet Union.}

Tell that to the families who paid the ultimate price in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just a small price? I'm not afraid to speak out for them even though they don't!

Much has been made in the past days’ media blitz of Carter’s role in brokering the 1979 Camp David Accords, which ended the most dangerous military threat to Israel by cementing a “peace” deal with Egypt. This gave Israel a free hand to carry out unrestricted attacks on the Palestinian people, a road that led straight to the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank by fascistic Jewish settlers and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

I'll let you go on to read the rest of the results of his presidency. And the horrible counter effects of the next administration to come in afterwards. But answer me this Batmen, and Catwomen. How do we go from a major catastrophe for the deaths of eight soldiers in a helicopter crash, to silence for the deaths of nearly 9000 soldiers that are never mentioned. Not counting 10s of thousands of other harms! Anywhere! I seem to be the only one who ever brings this up!?! No president or representative is ever belligerently attacked as Carter was for those deaths compared to the reality of the crimes since. No one mentions Brzezinski's role either!?! Distractions much? Yea, don't mention the players behind the curtain!