US empire loyalists are so close to telling the truth when they babble about “Russian propaganda”. They are openly admitting that it is wrong to use media to manipulate the ways that Americans think and vote. Now all we need is for them to admit that they themselves do this constantly, and we’ll be on the right track.
The word “Russians” is America’s top trend on Twitter at the time of this writing because of a Mueller indictment of thirteen alleged members of a Russian troll farm, those nefarious supervillains who posted pictures of puppies and promoted Bernie Sanders to “sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. election.” Predictably, no evidence is added to cohesively tie the establishment Russia narrative together with allegations of Russia hacking the Democratic party and giving their emails to WikiLeaks, meeting with Donald Trump Jr at Trump Tower, any shenanigans with well-hydrated Russian prostitutes, or indeed anything tying the troll farm to Trump or the Russian government at all.
The focus instead is on people disguising their identities to troll Americans on social media, which we have now learned constitutes a “conspiracy to defraud the United States.” As Disobedient Media’s Elizabeth Lea Vos rightly points out, it is also behavior that the Hillary Clinton campaign is known to have funded and engaged in extensively.
In response to this underwhelming revelation, Democrats and Never-Trumpers are howling for new cold war escalations with Russia. This despite the fact that this administration has already killed Russians in Syria, greatly escalated nuclear tensions with Russia, allowed the sale of arms to Ukraine (a move Obama refused for fear of angering Moscow), establishing a permanent military presence in Syria with the goal of effecting regime change, forced RTand Sputnik to register as foreign agents, expanded NATO with the addition of Montenegro, assigned Russia hawk Kurt Volker as special representative to Ukraine, shut down a Russian consulate in San Francisco and thrown out Russian diplomats as part of continued back-and-forth hostile diplomatic exchanges.
We are already at an extremely dangerous point in the ongoing trend of continuous escalations with a country that is armed with thousands of nuclear warheads. And these deranged lunatics want more.
“Special Counsel Mueller’s indictments are further proof that Vladimir Putin directed a campaign to interfere with our elections, with the goal of tipping the outcome,” tweeted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Given these indictments, @realDonaldTrump should implement the sanctions that Congress passed immediately.”
Steven Schmidt, MSNBC analyst and former strategist for George W Bush and John McCain, said that the word “meddling” is not a sufficiently inflammatory word, because “What Russia did is ATTACK the United States. Trump and the Corrupted GOP majority refuse to defend the sovereignty of the country from this outside THREAT from a hostile state actor.”
Congressmen Ted Lieu and Adam Schiff, Senator Bernie Sanders, popular commentators Preet Bharara and Joe Walsh have all joined in the pile-on, along with many, many others, all demanding that the president do more to escalate tensions with Russia even further than he already has.
This is exactly what renowned US-Russian relations expert Stephen Cohen has been warning of: an extremely dangerous mixture of continually escalating cold war tensions coexisting with hot proxy wars between two nuclear superpowers, with a president facing immense political pressures to keep advancing and never, ever back down. A narcissist in the White House being baited by his political enemies into a game of nuclear “chicken”, without the ability to swerve when necessary.
Meanwhile what are Republicans talking about? Why, they’re all crowing about the fact that these Russia revelations began on Obama’s watch and don’t show collusion, of course.
Do you see what is happening here? There is never, ever going to be any proof of Trump-Russia collusion, because that has never been what this is about. We’ve talked about this before: America’s unelected power establishment doesn’t care about impeaching Trump, it cares about hobbling Russia in order to prevent the rise of a potential rival superpower in its ally China. All this lunacy makes perfect sense when you realize this. The US deep state is using the hysterical cult of anti-Trumpism to manufacture support for increasing escalations with Russia, and the anti-Trumpists are playing right along under the delusion that pushing for moves against Russia will hurt Trump.
Well they will not hurt Trump, because there has never been any Trump-Russia collusion. If there had been it would have been picked up by America’s sprawling surveillance networks and leaked to the Washington Post before the end of 2016, and if Trump were a Putin puppet he wouldn’t be continually escalating toward direct conflict with Russia in ways his predecessor Obama never would have dreamed of doing. They aren’t hurting Trump with these loud cries for increased sanctions and hawkishness, they’re imperiling us all.
Democrats, it is time to stop letting them bait you into calling for even more escalations with a nuclear superpower and start calling for detente instead. Republicans, it is time for you to stop putting partisan politics ahead of the survival of our species and start pushing against these dangerous escalations that your president has been playing right along with. These escalations are extremely dangerous and getting ever more so, and in the name of all that is holy I implore you to stop before the unthinkable happens.
On my knees I beg you all to stop this madness, for the sake of my children and yours. You lunatics on both sides of the political divide are going to get us all killed. In God’s name, stop. Please.
________________
Thanks for reading! My daily articles are entirely reader-funded, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter, bookmarking my website, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
These 13 indictments are a ruse. The people indicted will never stand trial in the USA - so the allegations will never need to be proven in court. It is just a way to justify the ongoing witch hunt by the deep state against Team Trump.
Doesn't the deep state use these same "Troll Farm" tactics against other nations. I am sure I heard Obama officials boasting about it and how clever they were. What is good for the goose is not so good for the gander.
What about all the other troll farms out there. Are they going to be prosecuted to0? Even the ones that target conservatives?
"well-hydrated Russian prostitutes" 😂
Ohmygoodness you're on Steemit. You probably don't remember me but I have the dubious honor of (possibly) being the very first person to donate Ethereum to you (lol)
It was for that incredible article of yours on Medium about Trump being basically Obama. I have long held vague notions of this as I watched administration after administration fill the air with smoke clouds of talking points but do essentially the same things in the world that the last guys did.
You blew that wide open for me and I've been following your work avidly ever since. Imagine my delight to find that you're on Steemit and doing superlatively well. It's awesome to have a writer of your caliber on here 👍
So well stated. Thank you @Caitlin
Russia Hacked the Election; in my humble opinion, a narrative (excuse) hastily constructed on the night of an unexpected election loss for Hillary Clinton & Co. If you like, the political version of the dog ate my homework Miss, an excuse that found immediate traction, and then became a useful tool of mass distraction, and more worryingly, actual danger.
Everywhere we look, we now hear of Russian aggression and interference. Russian aggression? I remember Reagan’s cold-war ending promise to Gorbachev; NATO will never expand East beyond Germany, well, except for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Turkey, Montenegro and Ukraine. Russian aggression? Russian fighter jets buzzing F16’s over the Black Sea, a sea bordered by exactly how many US States? Russian aggression? I could go on.
Would Russia discreetly interfere in an election if they thought they could benefit? Hell Yes. But if we’re looking for an almost perfect example of projection, then perhaps Russia Hacked the Election is it. Remember Clinton and Yeltsin? Nothing to see here, move along.
Has Trump ever had dirty dealings with Russians? He’s a NY property developer, what do you think? Could Russia, and by default Putin, have dirt on Trump? Given Trump’s known history and colourful lifestyle then I’d be very surprised if along with every other world government, they didn’t have filing cabinets full of rakable dirt.
Will Muller find a prosecutable case against Trump? Possibly, but whilst it might involve money laundering, I very much doubt it will have anything to do with Russia trying to swing an election in his favour.
I could be wrong, but in the meantime, I live in fear that one of these out of control egomaniacs is going to try and prove that his BUTTON is biggest.
Congratulations @caitlinjohnstone! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPI have not noticed, in all this "Russia" shit, any mention of the MASSES of disgruntled Bernie supporters who voted for Trump or Stein or wrote-in "Bernie"out of spite. They were not "swayed" by posts on facebook but by having their votes denied during the rigged democrat primaries in state after state. They were not brainwashed to vote Trump but rather KNEW they had been steam-rollered by the DNC Clinton machine. HRC's talk of "no fly zones" and "military options" was terrifying! That was not "Russia" - it was her own arrogant beating of war drums. Will they never stop until the missiles have flown?
You’re wrong about the reason we need to cease kvetching about Russian interference, and you’re wrong about the reason for hothouse Russophobia. We don’t need to cease complaining about Russian interference in our election because it could risk a nuclear war, or escalate the existing conventional wars in the Ukraine and Syria. That would imply that there was something wrong with Russia that we need be concerned about, but that the risk of pursuing it outweighs the gravity of their sin. From our perspective, there is nothing wrong with Russia, rather there is a great deal right with Russia, and we need to partner with them in Rapprochement (of course, from Russia’s perspective, there is a great deal which needs to be improved about Russia). One of the things that’s right with Russia is their agricultural sector, which is more biodiverse and sustainable than ours.
Another is that, for all its faults, the soviet model [has been demonstrably more successful] (https://www.opednews.com/articles/Red-Hangover-by-Kristen-G-by-Deena-Stryker-Authoritarianism_Capitalism_Democracy_Far-right-180104-713.html) at providing employment, health care, community and cultural preservation, than the neoliberal model now ascendant.
The notion that [we’re going after Russia to get to China] (https://medium.com/@johnmensing/youve-gotten-yourself-into-a-false-dichotomy-here-which-started-by-my-reckoning-when-you-bought-8e89445dc6fb) persists in your analysis. If we wanted to hobble China, we could have enacted sanctions when they began ringing Indochina and Southeast Asia with military installations. Instead, President Clinton was more interested in collecting donations from the Lippo Group. If the U.S. business elites were interested in curtailing China’s rise or confronting China, they could have ended technology transfers and enacted tariffs to enforce parity with labor practices and workplace standards (as Dennis Kucinich called for during his Presidential campaign).
China and Russia compete for influence. If the U.S. hobbles Russia, it helps China.
You’re quite right in calling Russophobia nonsense. I don’t know how to fix it, but proceeding with a flawed analysis as to why it is the hate week rhetoric du jour makes for an inauspicious foothold. You’re also quite right — and have been quite right all along — in calling out David Brock, Correct the Record, and, in the wake of Trump’s ascension, the rump of Mrs. Clinton’s coterie, for engaging in exactly the kind of shenanigans they are accusing Russia of. Caught by Wikileaks and an internet savvy public with a knife in their hands and their clothes covered in blood, they point to Putin and scream, “He did it!”
This is a pretty great comment. I was listening to an interview with the Saker and Catherine Austin Fitts this morning and they spoke about a lot of this. The sanctions the US is imposing on Russia is actually really helping Russia out, bringing their money back to the country and, as you said, their agriculture is great. All this also helps Putin's popularity in his own country. To think that the powers that shouldn't be would actually start a nuclear war is, in my mind, ridiculous. No bunker for the elite will keep you safe in a nuclear war, and I think they know that. Not to say the situation in the world isn't dangerous, but as history shows, it always is.
Another great point in this interview is how sanctions helps to reverse globalism because it makes countries more self sufficient. I have always thought that and just shook my head at countries who can't feed themselves or build things. Why wouldn't you? It's like the uproar about taking away fresh produce from people on food stamps. Why don't you have a garden and grow your own food? It's cheap and if you do it right, it requires little land and little work.
I don't know how to fix the Russophobia nonsense either, I just refuse to participate in it. We had dinner with a friend recently and he was so passionately convinced Trump was owned by Putin I just changed the subject immediately. The latest, "The NRA is funded by Russia!" is not even surprising anymore. Once you leave the farm and have an outside view, you see how it was possible for people to burn 'witches.'
Hey, Caitlin. You're a Russian cat.
Just found you, Caitlin! What a great post. Resonates with my frustrations. Look forward to reading your older and new posts. Oh yeah, I almost forgot...
Dear Straitjacket manufacturers...Please ramp up your production. Thank you!
Love your headlines! Thank you for making me feel just a bit more sane in these insane times.
Unfortunately, the central bankers are in need of a massive bailout, on the scale that they needed right before WWI and WWII.
Clearly, if anyone wants to impeach Trump, there's REAL EVIDENCE of collusion - real illegal collusion with proof and evidence - with the Saudi's and Israeli's. Want to impeach him...easy. Use those two instances of collusion.
Nope...this is neo-McCarthyism. Might want to plan for fleeing somewhere that nukes won't fall pretty soon, IMHO.
US Military has been marching towards complete, global dominance since USSR fell. US Empire is in 70% of the globe, and growing.
Who stopped Hitler, when German tried to take over the world? Yup...the Russians.
Who could possibly stop the US Military? Well, if the Russians join up with the Chinese, they might slow down the US Empire just long enough for it to collapse before nukes fall, but I wouldn't bet my children's life on it.
I understand that South of the Equator might be our best option for survival.
Another brilliant response to the continuous war mongering by the establishment and its shills. Thank you for your continued perseverance in challenging this dangerous propaganda!