The media campaign is relentless. And yet who can deny, Trump
has compromised himself at various points. He's corrupt and in clear violation
of numerous laws and precedents. In terms of policy, his opponents make noise
but then largely capitulate. There are dozens of issues that could be pursued
but instead the focus is almost exclusively on the Anti-Russia campaign.
If one watches outlets like CBS or listens to NPR or BBC it
almost becomes laughable. At times it seems like one out of every three stories
is either something directly about the Anti-Russia narrative vis-à-vis Western
politics, Anti-Russia stories about Syria (or some other geopolitical hot spot),
or some other aspect of business, sports or anything else that can be thought
of.
Putin may be deplorable and an enemy of Evangelical
Christianity and yet Western media is simply put, a bad joke. This is literally
as bad if not worse than it was during some of the worst periods of the Cold
War. I don't get the impression that the Anti-Russian hysteria has overtaken popular
television, at least not yet. I could be mistaken as I don't have regular
television and have not really watched any mainstream programmes in a good
twenty-plus years. And yet I remember the television shows of the 1970's and
1980's with great clarity and the Russians were frequently the villains.
Revisiting some of those old shows is at times comical for this reason.
So I can't speak to popular television but in terms of the
news....
The Mueller probe garners almost constant attention and is
the focus of not only news bulletins but in-depth programmes. It has turned
into a rather complicated narrative, filled with assorted fascinating and at
times sordid characters and there are many opinions and narratives being
imposed by the various experts and talking heads.
And yet we're still waiting for the smoking gun.
But there are indictments and people going to jail, someone
will proclaim.
Right, but if you take a moment and look into these things
you'll find that none of it has to do with the Russia-Trump collusion
narrative. Mueller is digging around and finding all kinds of dirt and he's
using it as leverage to try and break people, to try and shake out evidence
that fits the narrative. He's going to keep going until something breaks, until
something sticks. The indictments are disingenuous, pressure tactics to break
down and threaten people with destruction... unless they talk.
Well they're talking and cutting deals, but guess what?
There's still no smoking gun.
So far, despite the breathless news coverage, there's really been
nothing remarkable, at least in terms of Trump-Putin collusion. And considering
the probe has been ongoing for almost a year and a half – that is pretty
remarkable. In fact that's probably the most profound and remarkable thing
about the Mueller probe.
And anyone who has followed post-Cold War history will not be
surprised.
There's actually a precedent for what is happening and it
wasn't all that long ago. Just twenty years ago we watched Ken Starr spends
months on end investigating the Clintons and the Whitewater deal in Arkansas.
Now what's perhaps most interesting is that there was dirt
aplenty. The Clintons are highly corrupt and Whitewater was the tip of the
iceberg. Starr is not an incompetent and in fact he's pretty well connected to
the centres of power. So why did his investigation fail? And fail it did, for
in the end it was a scoop from Linda Tripp about Monica Lewinsky that finally
opened the door to impeachment. The Whitewater investigation went sideways and
ended up leaving aside all the evidence of corruption, for the sensationalism
of a presidential tryst in the Oval Office. Clinton was humiliated by the
salacious account of the affair. I remember sitting in my recliner after work
reading Time magazine's report and thinking 'yikes'. Even as someone who didn't
like Clinton, the Starr Report seemed beyond the pale and ultimately
destructive to the integrity of the office. Twenty years later and in light of
the Trump era, it seems relatively tame.
The truth is the characters and events surrounding Clinton
and his time in Arkansas were enough to bring down significant sections of the
government. The dirt was there but it was not dirt the Establishment wanted to
be revealed. Following the Clinton money trail (in sincerity) would have
exposed massive corruption and criminality within the executive branch,
intelligence agencies, law enforcement, banking and so much more.
Whitewater was actually an existential threat to the US
system. Why was it allowed to continue? It was a gun pointed at Clinton's head,
and make no mistake he had his enemies. The Establishment is not monolithic and
yet it maintains a unity when it comes to certain core issues and principles.
But beyond that core, it's all love and war, intrigue and
betrayals. Clinton barely survived and was forever tarnished by it. The
investigations can be used as revenge, for personal vendettas, for blackmail
and for cleaning house and that's what the Mueller probe is (I contend) all
about.
It's a gun pointed at the Executive and a means to keep some kind
of control over the White House. Additionally the probe itself is a tool of a
larger social agenda geared toward censorship and restriction as well as a new
post-2011 foreign policy paradigm. It's brilliant really and it will be
interesting to see how it ends.
Just remember when it comes to 'investigations' the
Establishment relies on men like Starr and Mueller. They expose what's needed
to serve the immediate political goals and yet at the same time they are
orchestrating and facilitating the cover-up. They are protecting the system,
functioning more as fixers than investigators.
In the meantime there's a lot of drama but the real drama is
ignored. Manafort is certainly a corrupt character. Donald Trump learned the
ropes from Roy Cohn. Do you think he's going to associate with wholesome
people? He's a criminal and a deeply immoral person but for all the noise the
media is making... they're pretty much giving him a pass on about 95% of his
misdeeds and even many of his policies. What happened to the immigration
scandal, the children being locked up? Trump 'caved' or so it was said. And yet
the issue hasn't gone away, not by a long shot, and yet the news has largely
dropped the coverage and congress isn't interested. That's just one of at least
a dozen issues that could be pursued. The alternative media has shed some light
on these issues and the democrats that are willing to comment seem to suggest
that if they can just get control of congress, they'll pursue these issues in
earnest.
But will they? It's hard not to be cynical about their
motives. It seems like it's all politics in the end. While I have no regard for
Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh, it's hard to deny this attempt to revive the
Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill episode is little more than a political stunt.
We know that Manafort was working for Victor Yanukovich, the
president ousted by the US backed coup in 2014. Yanukovich is usually portrayed
as the pro-Russian politician, Putin's proxy and yet the evidence suggests that
Manafort was actually helping to steer Yanukovich and Ukraine toward the West.
What does this reveal? It tells us that many of the figures, many of the allies
and satraps of the greater powers are not always loyal and are often trying to
triangulate and keep their options open. US satellites do it and yet if they
get too far out of line, Washington will turn against them.
Remember everyone is scheming against everyone. No one trusts
anybody and well they shouldn't. It's literally dog-eat-dog but in terms of the
American spectacle, Mueller is a corrupt joke as are his Establishment media
allies. Those that defend Trump, such as the various harlots also known as the
Evangelical leadership... they too are a disgrace.
It seems difficult for some to grasp but the reality is
this....
Putin is evil and anti-Christian and yet he's no more evil
than the US presidents that oppose him. Some chafe at such moral equivalence
but I am happy to engage them on that point. They either don't know their own
history or have chosen to ignore it. Putin is if anything logical and his
policy is largely an expression not of aggression but of measured and yet
increasingly escalatory response.
Trump is evil and also anti-Christian. Like Putin he's
corrupt and criminal and he literally has closets full of skeletons. And yet
Trump's 2016 victory has not been explained by our media. The truth of it
terrifies the Establishment and this is why they are desperate to re-shape the
narrative. As a Christian I find him deplorable and yet what's most shocking to
me, are not so much his policies but the obscene, unpolished and undignified
manner in which he conducts himself. Will he harm the US dominated global
order? Yes and no and yet also as a Christian I am not terribly saddened by the
possibility.
But to me the greatest villains are the people that are
supposed to be the truth tellers. The media and America's Evangelical leaders
in many ways bear the greatest amount of guilt in this travesty, in this absurd
spectacle.
And it's not over.
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