@snoopydawg

Who Benefits?

Why then does the RussiaGate discourse have so much traction? Who benefits?

RussiaGate serves the interest of a (No. 1) corrupted Democratic Party, whose biased and arguably incompetent campaign management lost it the 2016 election, in alliance (No. 2) with powerful factions of the U.S. industrial-military-surveillance establishment that for the past 19 years, through NATO and other malleable international agencies, has sought to undermine Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership, dismember Russia and the Russian Federation (undoubtedly for the benefit of Western capital) and, more latterly, further contain China in a perpetual and titanic struggle for the heart of EurAsia.

In so far as Trump had indicated (for whatever reasons) in the course of his campaign that he disagreed with at least some aspects of this long-term strategy, he came to be viewed as unreliable by the U.S. security state.

While serving the immediate purpose of containing Trump, U.S. accusations of Russian meddling in U.S. elections were farcical in the context of a well-chronicled history of U.S. “meddling” in the elections and politics of nations for over 100 years. This meddling across all hemispheres has included the staging of coups, invasions and occupations on false pretext in addition to numerous instances of “color revolution” strategies involving the financing of opposition parties and provoking uprisings, frequently coupled with economic warfare (sanctions).

A further beneficiary (No.3) is the sum of all those interests that favor a narrowing of public expression to a framework supportive of neoliberal imperialism. Paradoxically exploiting the moral panic associated with both Trump’s plaintive wailing about “fake news” whenever mainstream media coverage is critical of him, and social media embarrassment over exposure of their big-data sales to powerful corporate customers, these interests have called for more regulation of, as well as self-censorship by, social media.

How many websites have been banned from Farcebook, Twitler and Goggled since Russia Gate started? Think that the police haven't been wanting any excuse to get Cop Watch off the Internet? Why? Because they were holding cops accountable for their murderous ways. The Atlantic Council joined with FB to decide who should be censured because they were telling us the truth about the PTB.

This is a good article that you might enjoy reading the whole thing.

Easy. The corporations and the rich. Of course. We knew that was one reason why democrats focused on it since Her lost the easiest election in history to a game show host and and failed real estate mongrel.

For over two years RussiaGate has accounted for a substantial proportion of all mainstream U.S. media political journalism and, because U.S. media have significant agenda-setting propulsion, of global media coverage as well. The timing has been catastrophic. The Trump administration has shredded environmental protections,jettisoned nuclear agreements, exacerbated tensions with U.S. rivals and pandered to the rich.

In place of sustained media attention to the end of the human species from global warming, its even more imminent demise in nuclear warfare, or the further evisceration of democratic discourse in a society riven by historically unprecedented wealth inequalities and unbridled capitalistic greed, corporate media suffocate their publics with a puerile narrative of alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

The RussiaGate discourse is profoundly mendacious and hypocritical. It presumes that the U.S. electoral system enjoys a high degree of public trust and security. Nothing could be further from the truth. The U.S. democratic system is deeply entrenched in a dystopian two-party system dominated by the rich and largely answerable to corporate oligopolies; it is ideologically beholden to the values of extreme capitalism and imperialist domination. Problems with the U.S. electoral system and media are extensive and well documented.

U.S. electoral procedures are profoundly compromised by an Electoral College that detaches votes counted from votes that count. The composition of electoral districts has been gerrymandered to minimize the possibility of electoral surprises. Voting is dependent on easily hackable corporate-manufactured electronic voting systems. Right-wing administrations reach into a tool-box of voter-suppression tactics that run the gamut from minimizing available voting centers and voting machines through to excessive voter identification requirements and the elimination of swathes of the voting lists (e.g. groups such as people who have committed felonies or people whose names are similar to those of felons, or people who have not voted in previous elections). Even the results of campaigns are corrupted when outgoing regimes abuse their remaining weeks in power to push through regulations or legislation that will scuttle the efforts of their successors. Democratic theory presupposes the formal equivalence of voice in the battlefield of ideas. Nothing could be further from the reality of the U.S. “democratic” system in which a small number of powerful interests enjoy ear-splitting megaphonic advantage on the basis of often anonymous “dark” money donations filtered through SuperPacs and their ilk, operating outside the confines of (the somewhat more transparently monitored) electoral campaigns.

Browsing the wreck list a few years ago and you'd see lots of diaries on important issues that affect people's lives. But now? Russia Gate. Mueller has Trump over a barrel. Trump Trump Trump Trump. And other topics related to Trump's presidency, but not so much other issues that are more important like wars, climate change, and lots of other issues that we have covered here. And the biggest cheerleader for distracting people is Rachel Russian Madcow. I remember a time when Rachel would be talking non stop about the injustice being done to Julian Assange. The kids are very happy at what's happening to him because they think he worked with Putin to keep Her out of the WH. Never mind that he isn't being charged for that. And Chelsea and Snowden? Nary a word. Of course Snowden won't talk about Russia because he too is Putin's puppet. Even though it was Obama that stuck him in Russia as he was trying to get somewhere else.

Lots of cui Bono..

Oops sorry I got distracted by my rant. People who buy into Russia Gate say that Putin wants to sow discord in this country by getting Trump to do his bidding. By placing those ads that emphasized the BLM and today I learned that Trump fired Coates because Vlad told him to. Gee..I wonder why Vlad took so long to decide that he should go?

But their biggest thing is that Russian interference destroyed our democracy and its process. How in the world could Russia have made it worse? Gerrymandering. Long voting lines. Voting machines that are easily hacked. Super delegates and the DNC admitting that they can override the voters and choose whomever they want. But Russia...right?