This comes from Black Agenda Report and their editing is always atrocious.
However, if you can overlook the clumsy repetition, the content of the
article is meaningful.
Miriam
Freedom Rider: Putin, Trump And Manafort
By Margaret Kimberley, blackagendareport.com
November 2nd, 2017
"Anyone and anything connected to Russia gets the double standard treatment
and is targeted for attack."
The American propaganda campaign being waged against the Russian Federation
and its president Vladimir Putin has reached a stage of perverse perfection.
It is virtually impossible to put forth a dissenting opinion that will be
accepted or considered worthy of consideration. The Democrats are leading
the charge to silence and censor and they are getting buy-in from people who
otherwise consider themselves to be progressive.
This columnist has been interviewed on Radio Sputnik on two occasions. That
fact should not be at all noteworthy but in the current atmosphere of
Russophobia being pushed by the corporate media and Democratic politicians,
it is a risky statement to make. Sputnik International is a Russian
government entity, just as the BBC is "state run media" on behalf of the
British government and the CBC for Canada. But anyone and anything connected
to Russia gets the double standard treatment and is targeted for attack.
Marcus Ferrell was until recently a campaign staffer for Georgia
gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. He resigned after the Atlanta Journal
Constitution revealed that he had been a guest on the program By Any Means
Necessary which is hosted by Sputnik. Ferrell didn't discuss Russia at all.
Confederate monuments were the topic of conversation. But the level of fear
is so great that he felt compelled to resign. His boss made no effort to
fight against the tide and she didn't defend him either.
"PBS features so-called experts who outdo one another in stoking
anti-Russian flames."
Every day a new shoe drops in this faux scandal. Twitter announced that it
would not accept advertisements from Sputnik or RT, formerly known as Russia
Today. Sputnik had never even paid for ads on Twitter but why be bothered by
facts when ginned up phony outrage is so readily available.
It is Democrats who demanded that Facebook and Twitter stop telling the
truth about Eastern European click bait schemes and instead join in that
party's witch hunt. Now we are told that Russian social media posts meant to
influence American politics reached 126 million people on Facebook over a
two-year period. Of course the last paragraphs of that story reveal that
only one out of 23,000 pieces of content actually reached anyone. That fact
is too inconvenient and makes for a bad headline.
While social media giants are submitting to marching orders, the state and
corporate sponsored Public Broadcasting System (PBS) produced its second
anti-Putin documentary in as many years. First "Putin's Way" in 2015 and now
"Putin's Revenge" feature so-called experts who outdo one another in stoking
anti-Russian flames. PBS can never seem to find any expert who can make
counter arguments.
"The legal wheels are turning to get Trump out of office and Russia is the
pretext for the action."
While the corporate media compete to see who can dumb down the country the
fastest, the legal wheels are turning to get Trump out of office and Russia
is the pretext for the action. Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort
has been indicted for tax fraud. His indictment is just the beginning of the
bipartisan effort to end the Trump presidency. They hope to resume doing the
elites' business without hindrance from the man who is so bad for the
neoliberal brand.
Nothing matters to liberals more than getting Trump out of office. Their
juvenile political understanding was turned upside down by Hillary Clinton's
defeat and they haven't been the same since. They are obsessed with the man
they hate. They have been fed a steady diet of red meat which explains away
their illusions about the failed Democratic Party and the fact that millions
of their fellow citizens don't see the world the way they do.
Paul Manafort was a long time Republican Party operative going back to the
days of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign. He used his connections to
become a lobbyist, a hired gun for governments ranging from Nigeria to the
Philippines to Kenya to Romania to Ukraine. Manafort would not be facing
serious legal jeopardy if he hadn't taken on that particular gig.
"Democrats' juvenile political understanding was turned upside down by
Hillary Clinton's defeat."
We are told that Ukraine's former president Victor Yanukovich was "pro
Russian" and that Manafort's representation proves Russian interference in
the 2016 presidential campaign. Neither statement is true but no one knows
outside of the small circle of people who make herculean efforts to educate
themselves about world affairs.
As the old saying goes, the fix is in. Manafort is just the first notch on
former FBI director Robert Mueller's gun. He will go after other Trump
connected cronies and relatives who have done shady business but that won't
be the reason for the pursuit. There are many sleazy American lobbyists and
business people but no one cares until there is a moment when their downfall
is politically useful.
Free speech is being undermined, the left are losing their access to media
and prosecutors are going after crooks, but not because they want justice to
be done. If Putin was trying to destroy America he couldn't do a better job
than the media, crooked politicians and the deluded liberals who all work
together.
