Last Sunday, the International Olympic Committee ruled fairly, to not ban over 300 Russian athletes because of the impropriety of a few. The "Olympic" front of the war on Vladimir Putin and Russia failed, even though 10,000 western media outlets and every crooked corporate type on the globe demanded a Russia ban. The IOC took a little flack, but weeks of lobbying to hurt the Russians failed. It was expected you see, but time to move on.
The November elections are around the corner. Barry Sanders' bid for the White House was squelched, but the very party he was running to represent. Hillary's henchmen saw to it the "Bern" was put out for good. It was as if we could have counted on it, you know? Some democrats squawked, a few media outlets tried to pay attention, but then a diversion was needed, as if expected. Emails revealing just how savage and crooked the whole electoral mess is, and how mean and nasty Hillary is.... they had a poll impact. For the first time in months, Hillary trailed Trump. Something had to be done, as expected.
Then the Trump-Putin ticket became the news. Allegations from a paid off security company owned mostly by Google were used as fuel for a "Putingate", the Kremlin allegedly behind the WikiLeaks dump of DNC files. Now The New York Times is "helping us" understand if there are links in between Trump and Putin, and so is the BBC, and 10,000 others. All this is, as expected. Or am I wrong?
Am I the only one on Earth who wonders, at how formerly credible news sources feel about being told to be so biased? You do realize of course, that this is what you are seeing happen? The tail is wagging the dog. Western mainstream media is cyclical, like clockwork, bombarding us with a hammering propaganda assault, day after live long day. One "phase" after another, the drone of Obama good-Putin bad, Hillary good-Trump bad, NATO good-Russia bad... Can you feel it? Has anyone catalogued it? The systematic nature of this Orwellian cycle is there, for anyone to notice. The same mechanics of misinformation are used in each instance where corporate media delivers our daily dose.
Instead of focusing on just how crooked Hillary Clinton is, big media has cooked up an alternative buzz. The New York Times reports "researchers have concluded that the national committee was breached by two Russian intelligence agencies." But we heard this before, and those sources were proven non-credible. First and foremost, those researchers at cyber security firm CrowdStrike, are in fact bought and paid for by Google and others behind. Remember, this is the same "Google" that allegedly helped the NSA spy on everybody. Secondly, a famous Russian hacker claimed responsibility for the DNC hack. The fact being, there was never any linkage indicated in between the Kremlin and the DNC. The attentive reader needs to be asking questions like; "Why would Google invest $100 million in a cyber security company?" All this seems predictable too, but let's look further on.
The BBC story lists many of the alleged connections in between the Russian president, and Trump's network. Predictably, there is no mention of Hillary Clinton's ties to the anti-Russia mob. A Putin-Trump hating reporter Josh Marshall is even sourced, for his condemnation of the alleged Trump-Putin connections. Looking at Marshall's evidence I find a 2008 statement found on press release dump site eTurbonews, of a 2008 statement by Donald Jr. at a real estate conference back then.
"Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."Predictably (again) this is being parroted all over the internet today.
What is also predictable in these reports are the missing pieces of context. The statement mainstream media is harping on today was made at a time when every real estate developer worth a nickel was looking at emerging markets, and in particular Russia. Donald Trump Jr. stated:
"The emerging world in general attributes such brand premium to real estate that we are looking all over the place, primarily Russia. There are countries that have not been fully tapped by us such as Thailand, Vietnam and Argentina. We are currently looking at potential deals. Our interest is really everywhere because there is a lot of new money in the emerging markets which appeal to certain brands whether ego-driven or having the life-jacket effect that we feel gives added-value to our investment."Today's reports do not reflect the younger Trumps concerned, nor do they tell us of his candidness about doing business in Russia. The snipped taken out of context is what matters. 2008-2009 was an eventful investing time in Russia, let's remember. Nat Rothschild and legendary American hedge fund billionaire John Paulson bought into Russian aluminum company Rusal, but no one has accused them of collusion with Putin. George Soros's Quantum Fund reportedly lost over $2 billion on hedging the ruble and other Russian investments, but no one has accused Soros of being buddy-buddy with Putin or Dmitry Medvedev (who was president at the time). I could go on-and-on, but my point is well made already. "Predictably", assertions against Donald Trump the presidential candidate lead inextricably to Hillary too. The current story covers the fact that the Clinton Foundation was involved in the "Uranium" scandal during 2009. Yes, while Donald Trump "investments" were seeing some Russian cash flowing in, the Secretary of State was benefiting from selling off the United States' strategic uranium reserves to Russia. Amazingly, nobody has suggested Bill and Hillary Clinton are controlled by Mr. Putin.
Like I said, this is all so predictable. As a news person, all I really have to do each morning is type in "Putin" or "Trump" into Google, and my world is set right again. The New York Times or Washington Post tells me all I need to know. Putin bad - central banks good, Hillary for president - nothing else matters. And in social media, the allegiances and payoffs dot the landscape, while rumors of Putin misdeeds abound. The world is as it has always has been, with powerful people forcing decisions down our throats.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook".
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