Harry Targ
The
Washington Post late Friday night published an explosive story that, in many
ways, is classic American journalism of the worst sort: the key claims are
based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in
turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly
believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret.
Glenn Greenwald, “Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs
Are No Substitute for Evidence,” The
Intercept, 12/10/16.
The “liberal” cable news outlet MSNBC, print media,
and social media went ballistic Friday night, December 9, over the release of a
story in the “objective” Washington Post
that the CIA had found a connection between Russian hackers, WikiLeaks, and the
release of damaging stories about presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.
Rachel Maddow was positively breathless as she
reported the Post story which in effect explains the Clinton loss as a result
of Russian interference. Weaving a yarn of conspiracy, Maddow also implicated
the leadership of the Republican Party in Congress for opposing any
investigation of the CIA warning before the elections. The Republican leader,
Senator Mitch McConnell questioned the credibility and partisanship of the CIA
claims about a Putin/Trump collaboration.
Maddow further linked the CIA claims that Russia
used the distribution of hacked messages to embarrass candidate Hillary Clinton
to Trump’s alleged close ties to Russia, his investments in the Russian energy industry,
and rumors that the next Secretary of State would be an Exxon/Mobil CEO, whose
corporation has close ties to Russia. (She correctly pointed out that if Russia
had sided with the Clinton candidacy, the Republicans would have been outraged).
Maddow, the Post, and many social media outlets have suggested that all this
adds up to a severe constitutional crisis. A foreign nation, Russia, had
interfered with free elections in American democracy. She implied that the U.S.
would never engage in such conduct overseas nor should it accept outside
interference in the electoral process at home.
The story is flawed from so many perspectives it is
difficult to disentangle the real threats to American society.
First, the United States has been interfering in
elections all across the globe at least since the onset of the Cold War. The
same CIA that is the hero in this story created Christian Democratic parties in
Europe shortly after World War Two to challenge the popularity of Communist parties
across the continent. It was instrumental in creating and supporting virulently
anti-Communist trade unions in Europe and Latin America. And it funded the
development of a panoply of anti-Communist scholarly networks inspired by the
Congress for Cultural Freedom. Some of the most revered scholars, writers,
artists, were knowingly or unknowingly compromised by the CIA political agenda.
In recent times, anti-Communist and erratic Russia
President Boris Yeltsin received aid and campaign advice from the Clinton
Administration during the Russian leader’s 1996 run for reelection. Yeltsin was
being challenged by candidates from Russian nationalist and Communist parties.
The victory of either would have slowed or reversed the so-called “shock
therapy” conversions from a state-directed to a neoliberal economy introduced
by a compliant Yeltsin.
Of course, interference in the politics of other
countries has been an unfortunate staple of United States foreign policy
throughout the world, particularly in Latin America: Guatemala, the Dominican
Republic, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and most recently,
Honduras and Venezuela. These patterns of interference have not been merely
gossipy stories leaked to the media but the funneling of money, sabotage,
training and support of coup plotters, and other direct, physical forms of
intervention.
In addition, inside the Beltway an influential group
of foreign policy elites have been pressuring the Obama Administration to
expand efforts to push back Russia, including undermining Vladimir Putin’s rule
(Putin is no different a political dictator and supporter of crony capitalism
than the earlier U.S. favorite Boris Yeltsin).* The United States and its NATO
allies, violating promises from the 1990s, have been placing troops and bases
in Poland and the Baltic states. The United States played a significant role in
the campaign that led to the ouster of the elected leader of Ukraine (a plot
organized by a neoconservative State Department ally of Hillary Clinton). In
short, leading foreign policymakers have been lobbying for a New Cold War. And,
the “liberal media” stereotype of an aging, macho, shirtless, dictator provides
a superb visual image of the enemy. And to the contrary, candidate Trump hinted
at the possibility of reducing tensions between the United States and Russia.
Further, the aforementioned media have assumed but
not demonstrated in any way that the alleged Russian hacking and the use of
WikiLeaks (an opponent believed inside the Beltway to be almost as nefarious as
Putin) to publicize compromising e-mails determined the outcome of the
elections. This is in juxtaposition to the electronic libraries of published
articles seeking to explain the election outcomes. Many election analyses have correctly
highlighted factors shaping the election including such variables as class,
race, region, anti-immigrant sentiments, voter suppression, and campaign
tactics. “Fake News” (as opposed to the
usual mainstream media distortions) is the latest variable added to the list of
explanations. It is the case that the allegations of Russian hacking uncovered
by the CIA months ago and resurfacing now is the Washington Post, MSNBC, USA Today,
CNN version of “Fake News.”
What makes all this so serious is that lying has
become the standard practice in discourse about politics in the U.S. political
system. The rightwing, from the Reagan period to the present, has developed a
mantra of a “post-factual world,” one that rejects the four hundred year
enlightenment idea that facts exist. Now media institutions, for most part
“centrists” in their political orientation, have increasingly mirrored this
rightwing practice. They generate their own fake news stories.
The problem is that more Americans, from all
demographics and ideologies, are losing confidence in most sources of
information. They are becoming cynical about a corrupt political system and
increasingly find themselves powerless in a world of economic marginalization,
racism, sexism, and homophobia. They increasingly live in a world of ecological
devastation: the air, the water, the climate are all threatened.
We desperately need a new politics: authentic,
honest, rigorous, and one that speaks from and to the vast majority of
humankind which has become victims, not agents of their own destiny, in part
because they cannot access the truth.
*Stephen Cohen, “CNN Gets Schooled by Stephen Cohen
on DNC Hack,Trump-Putin Links (Video),” Russia
Insider, Russia-insider.com August 1, 2016.
