week 40, 2017

This post could be called "The Russia-Gate Hysteria".
For the last year I had to read or listen something on this topic almost daily because it was impossible to avoid it. From the start it was looking like a propaganda effort because it either lacked facts, or it was based on "anonymous", or "intelligence" sources (that is, sources specialized in misinformation).
Even the occasional news that claimed to have been based on some facts, rather than earlier propaganda, turned out to be exaggerations, or were later retracted. Despite this the anti-Russian hysteria continues. It reached such scale that it is accepted as an axiom, i.e. without proof, and most Americans do not realize that it is based on racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and demagoguery.
I listen to the excitement of some friends (and tried to cool them down) who probably continue to hope that Russia gate will bring down Trump, but I did not write anything on this issue since January because what I wrote then is still valid. There have been new "developments" only in the sense that the hysteria grows bigger and bigger. There are no new facts. Only more efforts to cast a large enough net with the hope that something real will get caught.
It is astonishing to watch how most of the Western intellectuals play their role, like this highly paid journalist and author, instead of fulfilling their responsibility (which is to question the actions of those in power). I remember how I tried to explain to an American friend that nowadays the Western media is making propaganda on a level that I haven't seen in my life in communist Bulgaria. His response was that he cannot believe that there are no good people among the hundreds of professionals that work in his favorite Washington Post. Of course, there are good people in WaPo, but they are not the ones determining its editorial policy. The fact that WaPo is owned by a super-rich and unscrupulous Jeff Bezos should be enough to doubt anything in that newspaper, but my American friend, like most Westerners, believe in the objectivity of their news media.
There are a few truth warriors that dare to question or criticize the wisdom behind this propaganda, but they have no platform, and now the "deep state" is trying to squeeze even the few small independent (still surviving) news outlets by starving them from funding. One of these truth warriors is Stephen F. Cohen. Thanks to his high credentials as Russia expert, he was a leading commentator in the MSM for decades, but since the Ukrainian crisis he is no longer allowed there for the obvious reasons. Luckily, his wife is the editor of The Nation, and he can still publish there. Another one is Chris Hedges, who left The New York Times soon after he delivered this speech, in his efforts to educate his brainwashed fellow Americans...
To end this post on the anti-Russian hysteria, I recommend this article by a Professor of History at the Central Washington University. I have not seen any better, or more in dept analysis of the issue.