This recent Greenwald article calls attention to the inherent
danger found in the Neo-McCarthyite campaign against Russia. Patrick Buchanan
and others have also picked up on this and are sounding the alarm.
It does not require acute skills in the art of deduction to
understand that comparisons to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are a call to arms and a
signal for war. Whether this ultimately comes to fruition or whether these
calls are disingenuous attempts at manipulating society, signalling a change in
foreign policy and the desire to implement a censorship regime is still open to
debate. Regardless of the actual goals, the campaign itself is disturbing and
whatever the outcome, Western society will be changed as a result. The events
of September 2001 continue to reverberate across the entirety of the social
spectrum. Not the contrived and largely fictitious narrative surrounding the
interpretation of that day's events and its causes but rather the way in which
that crime continues to be exploited by the American Establishment.
What a strange hour in which to live. I am consistently
reminded of the unease, dark intrigue and unreality which hovers over John
Frankenheimer's 'The Manchurian Candidate'. I was not alive when Senator Joseph
McCarthy launched his Red Scare, an amplified sequel to Capitalism's war on the
Left in the 1920's. A great deal of ink has been spilled in reference to these
periods and it's clear many were deeply affected by these episodes. From the
folk songs of the 1930's to the host of movies dealing directly and often
indirectly with the Blacklisting era, the memories of the campaign were
retained for a long time.
It was an age of untruth, distortion and conspiracy built
upon conspiracy. There were conspiracies to promote conspiracy and conspiracies
to undermine actual ones. Such is the hour in which we find ourselves.
One cannot fail to reflect on the many twists and turns found
within American society and the various ways and means by which the political
spectrum has been constantly redefined and has in many cases inverted. Though
partisans attempt to spin these histories, this dynamism instead points to the superficial
and even theatrical nature of the two-party system. One thinks of the populist
Democrats of old switching to idealism and elements within the once idealist
GOP switching to forms of populist Neo-Tribalism. Populist Democracy in the Jim
Crow South was Right-wing and thus supportive of White Nationalism. But by the
end of the 1960's a mass exodus began taking those same forces out of the
Democratic Party and into the GOP... restructuring and redefining both parties.
While the Democrats retain what are often deemed 'Leftist'
positions on a host of social issues they have all but rejected their older
affiliations with the working class. They played their part in the corruption
and compromise of Labor and the trade unions and today are a pro-Wall Street,
Capitalist and Imperialist party... just like the Right-wing Republicans they
superficially oppose.
People who think the DNC stands for Socialism or that the GOP
stands for limited government are wallowing in an unfortunate ignorance,
utterly failing to understand the modern political and economic order.
Libertarians will decry both parties and argue neither stands for free markets.
Well-meaning but ill informed their static and idealist economic model fails to
take into account that Capitalism like virtually all systems necessarily moves
through different phases of development. The Libertarian model is reductionist
in that it fails to grasp that a true free market phase is necessarily brief
and essentially unsustainable. It cannot operate in isolation, independent of
other social and political forces and while not all economic questions involve
zero-sum equations, there are elements within the system that are inevitably
bound by such limitations. Once monopolistic entities are formed, they work to impose free markets that aren't really
free. The market becomes a tool for manipulation and exploitation. But I
digress. My point is that those who think the Democratic Party is socialist
have neither grasped socialism nor the nature of modern finance capitalism and
how it functions within the American system. It is a Capitalist party with
strong right-wing commitments. It may not be socially conservative and perhaps
it is this point that confuses some. Capitalism and conservatism don't
necessarily go together and though the very notion is shocking to some, despite
the embrace of sodomy and feminism the Democratic Party retains a great deal of
classical conservatism.
Today, the Democratic Party and elements within the larger
inclusive Establishment have reincarnated an old conspiracy theory from the
McCarthyite era, one born of the John Birch Society. In those days, the fear
was with regard to the perceived threat of International Communism... a thing
they largely misidentified and misunderstood. They believed the communists had
a plan to take over the world and had deeply infiltrated the American political
order. The Birchers argued that many within the government, even some of its
highest ranking officials were in fact secret communists, traitors under orders
from Moscow.
Today, according to the narrative, Russia is once again the
villain bent on world dominance but what is its motivation? There isn't a consensus
on that point. Officially it (along with China) is labeled as a 'revisionist'
power. In other words it's an older world power that seeks to challenge the
American meta-narrative and its claims to dominance in the Post-Cold War
geopolitical order.
Does no one miss the irony here? Such language smacks of the
very concepts and claims put forward by the Project for the New American
Century (PNAC), the now defunct think-tank of the so-called Neo-Conservative
cabal that dominated the Bush administration and US policy in the wake of 9/11.
Supposedly they 'went away' and faded into the sunset with the decline of the
Bush administration and its many failures. But that's not the case. By 2009
with the arrival of Obama they simply re-cast themselves and yesterday's PNAC
is today's Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). Not all former members have signed
on but many are still active. For a time they operated behind the scenes, out
of government but still quite active in the fields of academia and journalism
still promoting wars of aggression and empire. Once pariahs they are now a part
of the mainstream and many of their allies and protégés have once more come to
the fore. They did much to shape Obama's foreign policy especially during his
second term. At present some of these figures are tightly allied with elements
of the Trump administration and others are openly collaborating with the DNC to
drive Trump from office. In other words they are still deeply involved in
academia, journalism and in both the formal and deep state.
And yet this Anti-Trump campaign serves multiple purposes.
They are in the process generating a shift in foreign policy (whether Trump
stays or goes) and seeking to expand the Patriot Act's repressive provisions...
all in the name of security.
The fear is not of communism though there are still some dim-witted
folk who insist that Putin and his allies represent old KGB dreams of revived
Stalinism. While the former-KGB connections to the oligarchs cannot be denied
there is nothing to indicate a desire to return to Leninism, Stalinism or
Marxism in any form. Rather they represent Oligarchical Monopolist Capitalism.
The clash is not over systems, though some have tried to argue Putin represents
Anti-Liberalism and thus the debate can be cast in a Modernity vs. Reactionary
grid, but none of these paradigms are all that compelling to the man on the
street.
At the end of the day, Moscow and its allies and certainly
Beijing represent a threat to American dominance and supremacy. As openly
oligarchical and authoritarian Capitalist powers they are challenging American
unipolarity and instead wish the world to revert to regional historic multi-polarity.
This is their mortal sin.
Since the American public has for the most part failed to
grasp the true nature of the American Empire and the fact that this growing
conflict is in reality a referendum on the paradigm itself, the Establishment
desperately wishes to keep the public in the dark. That way the narrative can
be controlled. Are they interested in truth and elucidation in order to further
the aims and influence of democracy? Quite the opposite. Instead they are
attempting something much less subtle, even crude.
Russia has become the embodiment of evil and the
Establishment is waging an aggressive propaganda campaign to win over the public
to this belief. Only then will the planned and seemingly inevitable war be
supported.
In other words we in the West have to learn to hate again. In
Cold War America we hated the Russians, we loathed them. It really came out
during events like the Olympics and indeed the West has done all it can to
discredit the Russians and humiliate them during the recent round of winter
games. The fact that the American Olympic committee is swimming in filth and a
widespread cover-up of abuse has been downplayed while the Russians have been
relentlessly targeted and shamed for alleged doping. Maybe they're guilty. Who
can say? I know one thing, Western media and institutions can no longer be
trusted.
A war is being waged on free speech and political expression.
Any sentiment or opinion challenging the status quo is deemed treasonous. Did
you support Jill Stein and the Green Party? You're a traitor who has been
brainwashed by Russian propaganda.
Did you support Bernie Sanders? The same must be true. And of
course people only voted for Trump because they were misled and deceived by a
propaganda campaign born in Moscow. Every social division is being blamed on
Moscow and Putin the new Mephistopheles. From racial divisions to the gun
debate, everything is the fault of the Russians.
Never mind the fact that Sanders was conspiratorially
undermined by his own political party... and then so stupid (or corrupt) as to
channel his votes back into it.
We're led to believe that a handful of computer geeks with a
budget that represents a fraction of a percent of what is spent on political
activism and advertising in this country was able by means of Facebook banners,
trolling and silly memes to not only manipulate the US presidential election,
but to cause riots on the streets and even bring about Brexit.
It is quite an outlandish conspiracy theory, reminiscent of
Bircher mythology and McCarthyite pablum.
I believe in conspiracies and I also think there have been
some pretty prominent and stunning historical episodes finding their origin in
them. And yet this one exceeds most in both its improbable incoherence and in
the magnitude of its claims.
And yet many clearly believe it. The media has certainly
played its part and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's carefully timed and yet
largely silly and unrelated rash of indictments continues to provide grist for
the media's campaign.
This coupled with the media's criminally negligent and often
misleading reporting on a host of issues from urban Black protest (especially
in Baltimore) to the Syrian War has allowed them to define (or redefine) the
context and manipulate the populace. Russia is always painted as an enemy.
Putin hasn't always helped but from his perspective he's trying to stave off a
very aggressive NATO. So when he touts his nuclear weapons... a signal to back
off.... he's painted as the aggressor. This is even while NATO continues to
encircle Russia and surround it with missile systems... systems which purport
to be defensive, but this is misleading and everyone but the American media
(and thus public) knows this. Washington withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty (ABM) in 2002 and from Moscow's perspective this was a signal
change, a sign of impending aggression. It confirmed their fears of NATO
expansion and the attempt to fragment and destroy Russia both economically and
politically. The US accuses Russia of being in violation of the 1987
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and Moscow responds that the US
has violated the agreement on multiple fronts. From Russia's standpoint the
unilateral withdrawal from the ABM by the United States more or less signalled
an end to the subsequent Reagan era treaties that were founded at the very
least on the relationship and doctrines established by the 1972 ABM.
The American public has paid little attention to the fact
that Washington has continued to shift its nuclear posture. And if Trump is a
pawn and tool of Russia, a Manchurian Candidate, then Putin's plan has massively
backfired. Just last month in February 2018 the Pentagon released the latest
Nuclear Posture Review in which Russia is marked as an enemy of the United
States. The document makes clear the trajectory since the second term of the
Obama administration... to change American doctrine with regard to nuclear
weapons. The US has shifted its position and aggressively moved nuclear weapons
to the fore of its geostrategic strategy. They have expanded the scenarios in
which they would be used and are developing new short-range weapon systems.
This Trump administration document undoubtedly sent
shockwaves through the corridors of the Kremlin. And from Russia's perspective
the 25 year campaign to destroy their nation has moved into the next phase.
The American public doesn't grasp this and thus Putin's
statements touting Russian nuclear might are certain to be misunderstood. You
can count on the Western media to play its part in distorting the context and
painting Putin as the new Hitler.
Putin's enemies, even the Neo-fascist variety are touted as
heroic dissidents and champions of democracy and Western Liberalism. The scale
and scope of the lies has reached such an extent it's hard to take in.
One need not look too hard or deep to locate financial
corruption among those affiliated with Donald Trump. Do the lines between
financial and political corruption get a little blurry? Certainly they do but
for all the noise a careful examination of the indictments demonstrates once
again... there's very little to suggest a Russian plot.... at least the plot
that is presented to us. We find corruption but nothing suggesting the grand
conspiracy let alone evidence that these supposed efforts swung the US
presidential election.
Was there a conspiracy to collaborate with the Trump campaign
in order to defeat Hillary Clinton? Did said conspiracy successfully change the
outcome of the 2016 US presidential election? Obviously if the first question
is answered in the negative, the second question is rendered moot. But even if
the first question is proved true it does not follow that the second question
must be answered in the affirmative.
In the meantime we have ex-intelligence officials from the
CIA et al. candidly admitting that the US has for decades manipulated
international elections on a massive scale. But they add with assurance, these
things were only done in the cause of democracy.
One might attempt to ignore the prima facie absurdity and
contradiction of such statements as indeed many seem to do, but no one can deny
there's an element of hypocrisy here and that factor probably more than
anything else motivates me to continue following this story and to resist and
reject the mainstream narrative.
So once again even if the Russians tried to spit into the
wind hoping to manipulate the US system... they had every right to. The truth
is the United States has meddled in the politics of virtually every nation on Earth (including Russia) and
many on a long-term and regular basis.
But apart from some political ads and playing at troll
there's little evidence to suggest a grand Russian plot... let alone its success. Dare someone raise the
question as to what degree of democracy is even present in the United States?
Many nations run ads and seek the help of lobbyists when it
comes to democracy in both allied and rival nations. This is nothing new. Are
we going to pretend that Britain, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, India etc. have
no interest in US politics? Are we going to pretend they don't spend reasonably
large sums of money to influence think-tanks, meet with politicians and/or fund
campaigns, social media and super-pacs? Even the mainstream press has reported
on the efforts of Israel and other nations to do this very thing. The Supreme
Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling all but opened the floodgates for foreign
powers to anonymously pour money into US elections.
It hardly needs repeating, but at this point it must be
stressed that Putin is indeed an evil man and an enemy of Christ but this
reality does not make the American Establishment a force for truth and good let
alone somehow representative of Christ's Kingdom. War might bring a harvest of
profits and an expansion of power but for most people of the world it's a vile
and immoral reality that brings only death and suffering.
We are in a period of madness.
For my part the outrage is not due to some desire to defend
Putin or in any way elevate his person. Rather it is born of reaction to the grand
series of lies and deceptions that have been fed to the people of the West. The
desire here is for the truth to spoken... shouted in the face of lies and even
murder. The West has been lied to about World War II, the Cold War, its causes,
course and ending and certainly US policy since 1989. These lies and the false narratives built
upon them are bringing the world to the brink of catastrophe if not cataclysm.
The official media sanctioned presentation is compelling but
only to the ignorant. The serious student of history knows better. Christians
of all people should be the most qualified in this regard. Unaffiliated in
terms of tribe and nation, we as the truth-telling pilgrim people should have
the best perspective. But alas all too often this is not the case.
The West operates under the veneer of morality and apart from
periods of naked imperialism, wars must be publically justified and given an
acceptable gloss. The lies that mask men's real aims must be dressed up and
we've seen this on many occasions. In fact the lies seem to just keep
escalating in this age of mass media... something older governments did not
have to contend with.
Earlier generations remembered the Maine, bought into the
lies of the Lusitania and drank deep of the deceptions of World War II.* After
1945, a period of insanity truly enveloped the world and lies to justify wars
and proxy wars marked the period that we came to call the Cold War. In terms of
US ground wars, the many lies of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, used to justify
the insertion of 'combat troops' marked a modern watershed. Since then, from
Grenada to the incubator babies and a fantasy Iraqi army on the Saudi border, the
lies have continued. I woke up in the 1990s realising we were being told
something less than the truth when it came to the Balkans. It was a poignant
episode to me for in addition to wrestling with the history and propaganda I
was for the first time an actual part of the US war machine. I was a cog in the
wheel of violence and even while I began to question my nationalist upbringing
in light of my conversion to Christ I also had to wrestle with a bitter
reality. As one put it, it's shocking to grow up dreaming of becoming Luke
Skywalker to find out that you've become an imperial stormtrooper. And indeed
that reality hit me hard. It made me sick.
With fully open and thankfully civilian eyes I watched 9/11
unfold and all the madness that followed in its bloody wake. I knew right away
that the whole story was not being told and that the events were being used as
a platform to usher in a new age of imperialism. I didn't understand the half
of it and in many ways I think technology has outpaced the social engineering.
New wars and crises are needed and just as ordered, the stage is being set.
I was not taken in for a moment by the argument for Iraqi
WMD. I remember exactly where I was (plumbing a bathtub) as I listened to
Powell's farcical presentation to the UN Security Council. I knew it was a
fraud and said so as often and as loudly as I could.
We are witnessing the beginnings of just such a campaign...
one akin to the insanity that gripped the United States from September 2001 to
March 2003. Lies heaped upon lies. But once the shooting starts none of it
seems to matter anymore. It's as if history is reset, at least in the minds of
the public.
Continue reading part 2
Continue reading part 2
*Don't misunderstand me here. I am in no way questioning the
evil of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan but I do question the common narratives
leading up to the war, the role played by the US and the West, and what the war
was really all about. I don't in any way dispute the numbers or the crimes,
rather the interpretation of its cause, course and conclusion.
Additionally, while the Jewish Holocaust is constantly cited,
many ignore the fact that Barbarossa, the June 1941 invasion of Russia by Nazi
Germany and its Eastern European allies was in many ways just as much of a
genocidal campaign as was The Final Solution. The Nazis through their Master
Plan for the East or Generalplan Ost (GPO) intended to enslave and largely annihilate
the Slavic peoples and Stalinist Russia in particular was in its sights. The
Eastern Front, the Bloodlands as Timothy Snyder called it, the scene of the
greatest conflagration in history resulted in the death of well over 20 million
Russians. Some counts are considerably higher. By most estimations about 2/3 of
that number were civilians. From the perspective of Russia, this was a
holocaust and one that has been deliberately ignored by the West. For some, the
Russians gain little sympathy due to the blood on Stalin's hands, his crimes
against the Russians, Poles, Finns, Ukrainians and the peoples of Central Asia.
It is admittedly complicated and yet the Nazi invasion
represented an existential threat not just to the Soviet Union and Mother
Russia but to a culture and people group. If Israeli brutality and aggression
is permitted in light of Holocaust memory, what then of Russia? Have they no
claims? Are they not allowed to evoke the horrific past? Are they not allowed
to appeal to history in order to craft a doctrine of defense? Russia's memory
is a little longer than the West's. Their history is marked by invasion and the
though they have ultimately driven back their foes in every case... the costs
are beyond reckoning. They know this and thus they will continue to support a
leader who will defend them.
I do not say any of this thinking is right, moral or
representative of today's reality but that is how they think and it is not
without reason. Additionally the Byzantine world of which Russia is a part and
is largely the heir has a long history of Western intrigues and betrayals. What
seems irrelevant ancient history to the Western mind is very pertinent to the
peoples of Eurasia and the East. Apart from the paid hacks and propagandists
that inhabit Establishment funded universities and think-tanks, actual Western
historians know this but few speak out and the few that do are castigated and
effectively silenced.