Syria, Russia, And What I Can Say With Certainty (Part 2)

In my last blog I stated that I couldn’t be certain that President Assad did not use chemical weapons on his own people. Today I would like to state that I do not know for certain that Russia did not do the thing. After all, I am not privy to the information available to the people who make the secret documents that said Russia did the thing. Of course, the very fact that the people who said Russia did the thing are not forthcoming with the evidence is one of the reasons why I am unable to state anything with certainty. In fact, the very people who say Russia did the thing are hiding in the shadows. The people who have the secret knowledge that leads us to war couldn’t find someone to step forward to put his face and reputation on the product they are selling. Perhaps everyone learned from Colin Powell’s example.

Now I’m sure a lot of people reading this are angry about my characterizing what occurred as “Russia doing the thing”. In their minds it is quite clear that Russia hacked the DNC’s files in order to release them and cause embarrassment for their chosen candidate, Hillary Clinton, causing her to lose. We will discuss the likelihood and possible impact of that later. My point is, once that idea got into the minds of those who wanted Hillary as president and were in denial about the election of Trump, it opened whole new vistas in their minds. Vague notions floated in the minds of Hillary supporters. Unlimited depths of subterfuge must have been involved in order for them to be so out of touch with reality. An explanation was required (one not blaming Hillary Clinton or the DNC), and Russian hacking was something to hold on to.

I’m not saying Russia didn’t hack the DNC, I’m just saying the story has taken control of the minds of the Democrats and is being used as an excuse to avoid confronting the President on the issues that mattered to Bernie Sanders supporters: climate change, peace, single payer health care, etc. Instead, the Russian hacking story can now be used to support the wars the Democrats never seemed to have a problem with in the first place, though they are ostensibly the peace party by default. The line between Democrats and Republicans needed to be clear, and Russian hacking was just the issue. It was the perfect distraction for the fact that the neocons in the middle were agreeing far more than appearances dictated.

The idea was seized upon by Democrats whose comfortable and convenient conception of reality just got flushed down the toilet. It was a convenient escape hatch for those who didn’t want to face reality. And Putin was the perfect strawman, the Darth Vader or Valdemort in their adolescent escapist fantasies. The all-seeing eye that sat enthroned in the lands to the east sees all, pierces clouds, shadow, earth, and flesh. Let the theories and the imagination run wild.

If Putin was capable of swinging the election, just how far did his involvement go? Is Trump a dupe unwittingly controlled by Russian operatives? Is he a willing traitor to his country? Is he a Manchurian Candidate who was mind-controlled through the use of brainwashing and drugs?

Did the Russians help him overcome his Republican candidates as well, knowing that he could then defeat Hillary? Did the Russians have secret videos of Russian prostitutes peeing on Donald Trump which they were using to blackmail him? Did Russian hackers cause Brexit? Did Russians hack a Vermont utility grid? How much more are the Russians responsible for that we’ve been unaware of until this moment?

All of these theories accepted as fact rest upon the statements of anonymous agents with dubious motives. Cults are formed on revelations that don’t stand the light of criticism, reason, or facts. Cult leaders do everything in their power to assure you that the world is out to get you and that they alone possess the facts you seek.

That’s the problem with speculation without verification. Once you start down that road there’s nothing holding you back from traveling a road free of facts. There’s nothing keeping you tied to reality. That is the road to madness.

When reality becomes too unpleasant, it’s time to create a fantasy world to live in. You may disagree with my assessment that this is what you’ve done, but anyone viewing it from the outside can see it quite clearly.

It might all seem as clear as day to you, but to someone willing to pepper their thoughts with a degree of skepticism, it seems much different. One could compare it to Orwell’s 1984, but I prefer comparing it to Franz Kafka’s The Trial. In it a man is accused of some unstated crime by anonymous sources. Throughout the entire novel he is never given the relevant information as to his situation but must instead rely on the government’s assertions. With the entire Russian hacking story, we are not given the information thoughtful people require to make intelligent decisions but are instead given the choice between accepting the narrative supplied by anonymous authorities or else be labeled ignorant and traitorous by the official media outlets.

Which puts a lot of Left-leaning people in a very difficult position. To say that Clinton lost because of the positions she chose to defend, and perhaps worse, to suggest she lost because she refused to defend the principles most important to the left, has become tantamount to treason. To want more liberal and progressive policies from the left is no longer acceptable. A line has been drawn in the sand as to what can and cannot be discussed. There is such a thing as being too liberal, and those who ask too much from the left are not actually leftists but persons willing to betray their country and leave it in the hands of the enemy, namely Donald Trump, AKA Putin’s puppet.

Of course, the underlying rationale here is that the reason the establishment candidate lost is because the stupid traitorous Bernie Bros didn’t accept the only rational choice and vote for Clinton. Because of this we now have Soviet troops goose stepping down main street (don’t worry about inaccuracies or mixed metaphors, only Russian stooges would do such a thing. In fact, it is best you keep your mouth shut and your critical thinking skills in neutral). And whatever you do, don’t stop to think that the Republicans won by voting for the outsider candidate and perhaps that is a tactic the Left might employ. This is not the way Democrats do things—better to vote for the compromise candidate and lose than risk what lay beyond the accepted limits proscribed by the party. Whatever the Democrats say, it is they and not the Republicans keeping socialized medicine from becoming a talking point.

Here are some of the problems I have with the official story as delivered by James Comey and the anonymous minions who are quoted by reporters who do not investigate:

• ·         The portrait drawn of Putin is of some grandmaster chessman both complicit in everything that is wrong in the U.S. and as evil as Boris Badinov. His motivations are that of an imp looking to create chaos in any manner possible for us. Such a template is the same one used over and over whenever the U.S. wants to take military action.
• ·         Implicit in our demonization of Vladimir Putin is that something should be done about him. We miss the old days when a Western backed drunk like Boris Yeltsin permitted his country to run according to our blueprint. In other words, our worst fears are that Russia might be doing to us what we have already done to them.
• ·         If Russians hacked the DNC then Clinton’s use of emails was every bit as damaging as the Republicans said it was.
• ·         If the Russians were responsible for Wikileaks’ revelations, then the assertion is that they were the reason Hillary Clinton lost the election, not James Comey’s late hour announcement that they were reviewing her emails. Not being a fan of Hillary Clinton myself, I perused the evidence Wikileaks released and found them a bit of a yawn. Believe me, if there was something there I thought was particularly damning against Hillary, I would have shared it. But I did not do so even once.
• ·         The revelations in Wikileaks were too elaborate to be effective propaganda. They required thought and an attention span. If Russia had wanted to influence the elections in favor of Donald Trump, there were far more effective means of doing so. Do what all politicians everywhere do: lie. Make allegations that ISIS had video of prostitutes peeing on Hillary, cast doubts upon the nation of Hillary’s birth. Just make something up. How naïve must the Russians be if they think truth has any part in swaying the U.S. elections?
• ·         Intelligence agencies reveal information for a specific reason, not because they believe the American public has a right to know. Any information they release is in order to advance an agenda. Hence the reason we were never told about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq until we wanted to overthrow the man we sold such weapons to in the first place. Ironically, by that time he no longer had them. The point is, there is a reason the intelligence agencies released information—or, rather, assertions—that the election was hacked. They want the population to react in a certain manner, or else they would have dealt with any possible hacking covertly as they do with most things.
• ·         If we truly had any interest in protecting our nation against the influence of other nations, we would have done something about Israel and Saudi Arabia long ago. No candidate can hope to gain the presidency without first kowtowing to AIPAC, the lobbying group whose job it is to promote strong support for Israel. As for Saudi Arabia, you might want to check how much they’ve contributed to The Clinton Foundation, all for humanitarian concerns, no doubt. It’s hard to find people more concerned about the welfare of others than the House Of Saud.
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• Lastly, the primary doubt I have about the Russian hacking story is the media that has presented it. But that I will save for my next blog, the third and final of “Syria, Russia, And What I Can Say With Certainty”.