What if Putin did it? That's the question I've been getting a lot of lately. The proverbial 'it' being the oft-repeated accusation that the Russian government, under the direction of Czar ubermensch Vladimir Putin, colluded with Donald Trump in the 2016 election. I happen to be one of a handful of people on the left who has never bought into this half baked conspiracy theory, cooked up by Democrats to explain how they lost the White House to a reality TV monster and picked up by the so-called intelligence community to justify their purse shriveling budgets. But still I get asked, usually by some limp-wristed Whole-Foods progressive, what if Putin did it?
Since I've grown blue in the face trying to explain to these well intentioned morons that after 18+ months the worst thing that the biggest investigation since Watergate has managed to uncover is a mercenary Slavic clickbait farm and the kind of casual run-ins with Russian oligarchs that are sadly de rigueur for existence in the Washington swamplands, I figured I might as well just answer the goddamn question, which has developed a vibrant new layer of cacophony in the wake of Robert Mueller's latest wave of baseless indictments against Russian nationals who will never stand trial. So what if Putin did it? I would have to shrug my shoulders and say Karma's a bitch.
First off, let us dispense of the fairy tale that America is somehow a vibrant and glowing democracy who's chastity must be defended at all cost. If the 2016 election, a competition between the two most hated creatures in the universe, proved anything it's that this foul wasteland of a nation has reached near dystopian levels of plutocratic corruption. Two people, who no one likes, became front-runners in a "popular" election because they knew how to suck all the right cocks to get there. Even the ostensive dark horse, one Donald J. Trump, only achieved the coin to compete by hustling his ass for corporate welfare bucks like a two-dollar whore. So, whatever Putin did or didn't pervert, it wasn't a goddamn democracy. We lost that decades ago if we ever had it to begin with.
With that being said, what exactly are we accusing Putin of doing? What does the decidedly vague accusation of meddling actually entail. According to the bitching banshees of the DNC and their favorite neocon gumshoe Mueller, the Russians are the source of the "hacked" emails released on Wikileaks proving the already well-known fact that the Democratic establishment rigged the primaries for Hillary. Never mind that a great deal of the ex-intelligence agents who have been weened off the deep state tit have confirmed that all available evidence actually points to a leak within the DNC.... Is the worst accusation the Dems can lob at the Russians really that they told us the truth about our so-called democracy? Oh, lordy! Such treachery. This coming from a party that backed an administration who hacked into our own and everyone else's emails every fucking day. It's like a burglar bitching about his ex ripping off his stash. Cry me a fucking river you terminal hypocrites.
What else do we have in evil Putin's hypothetical bag of election tricks? Another popular theory is that the Russians were behind a cyber hurricane of fake news and propaganda seeking destabilization if not outright regime change. This is the perfect kind of conspiracy theory, the kind that is empirically impossible to disprove. The only real evidence that has been presented to us is that certain trolls were the product of Russian software. But anyone with a two-bit Macintosh can use software from any damn country they please. Is it possible that Russia could be behind such a campaign of chaos? Of coarse. It's also very possible that this accusation is a textbook case of Freudian projection, because we know for a fact that the United States has been using these tactics across the globe for decades. We know because they do it quite openly. We even have an entire branch of the State Department devoted to such projects.
The National Endowment for Democracy was started by the original neocon president, Ronald Reagan, to give our regime change projects a veneer of humanitarian legitimacy. This wretched organization is openly funding dumpster burning hooligans in Nicaragua and Venezuela as we speak. And they have funneled billions (with a B) into the pockets of those dapper neo-Nazi cum-rags who overthrew the democratically elected government of Russia's next door neighbor and cultural promised land Ukraine, creating one colossal dumpster fire raging at the Kremlin's door step. And this doesn't even include the '96 Russian presidential election that we helped that drunken puppet Boris Yeltsin steal. Are we really going to pretend like we're the victims of a phenomena we birthed and continue to foster openly. Talk about the pot calling the kettle meddlesome.
Speaking of which, the most blatant accusation of Russian meddling is also the most ridiculous. The erotic fan fiction of ex-MI6 spook Christopher Steele (essentially ghost written by the DNC) that the Donald is the unwitting puppet of the Kremlin thanks in part to a hidden camera video of the would-be president engaged in a lesbian piss party (and where was I?). Good stuff. Sexy stuff. But more than a little far-fetched considering that the source of this rumor was basically being paid to come up with it. But let's assume this one is true, and I really wish it was. Once again, I love to be the bitch to say we've been there, we've done that.
Back in the '60's the United States became utterly fixated with removing Indonesia's left-wing nationalist strongman, Sukarno, largely because he sought to remain neutral during the last Cold War, a crime the CIA considered worse than communism. One of the house of Dulles' many tricks they tried to play on what was by most accounts a relatively benevolent dictator (at least compared to his American backed neighbors and predecessors) involved spreading facetious rumors that Sukarno was involved in an illicit affair with his pretty young Soviet nurse. In one of the stranger chapters of the Cold War, the Agency even went so far as to produce no fewer than three phony porno movies of the two making the beast with two backs but even with a latex Sukarno mask (no joke) they still couldn't manage to find a believable body double for the dastardly neutralist. The US fell back on a complicated false flag coup that ended with Sukarno spending the rest of his days under house arrest and as many as a million Indonesian communists (and suspected communists) slaughtered in cold blood with our full support. Now that's how you meddle.
My point is, America has made a genuine cottage industry out of fucking with other countries governments, many of them more democratic than our own. I don't buy Putin following our cue. It's too reckless, it's not his style, and with Trump escalating bloodbaths in both Ukraine and Syria, it sure as fuck didn't work. KGB types like Putin are chess players. They play the long game, slow, methodical, measured, and they always have. That's why their rap sheet of Cold War hi-jinks isn't nearly as entertaining as ours. We're Quentin Tarantino , they're Andrei Tarkovsky, and I don't see Tarkovsky directing a B-grade blockbuster like Donald Does Washington.
But if Putin did do it, if Putin did throw a monkey wrench into our already flimsy excuse for a plutocracy, I would be hard pressed not to suggest that the Kremlin has more than earned the right to one low blow considering that they've spent the better part of a century fending off the dirtiest boxer in the sport. And what would make him any worse than the Koch Brothers, George Soros, Sheldon Adelson, or any of the rest of the stateside oligarchs who hardly have America's interests at heart when they "meddle" with our elections. This is already a dirty game, what's one more wolf in the hen house?
Long story short, we're already fucked, dearest motherfuckers. We don't need Putin to pop our cherry.
Peace, Love, & Empathy- CH
Soundtrack: Songs that influenced this post
* Friends of P by the Rentals
* Where is My Mind? by the Pixies
* Human Behavior by Bjork
* Passing Out by Strand of Oaks
* Golden Streams by the Hidden Cameras
* Monkey Wrench by Foo Fighter
* The Nothing Song by Sigur Ros
* Karma Police by Radiohead
Great work, comrade.
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