Monday, February 17, 2020

The Russia Hoax Continues and Both Dems and Repugs Push It - By Boyd D. Cathey


Although the farcical Mueller Commission is now ended and even the results it came up with, practically speaking, effectively exonerated the president, to listen to various members of the media, including many Fox pundits, most Democrats and many Republicans, it was if there was no “investigation” at all. The same “Russia Hoax” narrative continues: just listen to Representative Adam Schiff spiel on for a while. For such national personalities nothing has really changed.
This template, despite what we now know and always have known, continues frenetically and unabated before our eyes. It’s why Roger Stone faces prison time, essentially because he was convicted for lying about non-existent Russian subversion in America elections.
“Russia is bad,” we are told, and its president, Vladimir Putin, is really, really bad. Why, he may be as bad as, let’s see, maybe those old Commies prior to 1991, or maybe he IS a Commie? Certainly, say Fox interviewees like Representatives Dan Crenshaw and Adan Kinzinger, or Neoconservative publicists such as Jonah Goldberg. Communism, it seems, still rampages and “Russia is still our Number One Enemy” (remember Mitt Romney saying that?).
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My friend Dr. Paul Gottfried just recently sent me a news article; it concerns something President Vladimir Putin recently said and was
quoted by Reuters news service (February 13), specifically, that in no uncertain terms he totally ruled out homosexual marriage in Russia. In reference to discussions over modifications to the Russian constitution he declared: “As far as ‘parent number 1’ and ‘parent number 2’ goes, I’ve already spoken publicly about this and I’ll repeat it again: as long as I’m president this will not happen. There will be dad and mum.”
Indeed, back in December, addressing a meeting in the Kremlin Putin forcefully reaffirmed his nation’s commitment to traditional matrimony:
President Vladimir Putin remarked at a recent Kremlin meeting that some countries are replacing the word “mother” out of concerns for political correctness, something he hoped ‘would never happen in Russia’. Putin was referring to a law passed in France earlier this year which mandates that schools refrain from using ‘father’ and ‘mother’ and instead use ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’. According to government MP ValĂ©rie Petit, the change was necessary because using ‘father’ and ‘mother’ is “old fashioned” and doesn’t meet the needs of “social equality.” Don’t expect to see Russia following suit.
During a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations, a Kremlin advisory group, Putin told delegates, “You said the word mother ‘can’t be replaced.’ It turns out, perhaps, it can; in some countries, they now have ‘parent number one’ and ‘parent number two.’ I hope we will never have that (in Russia). I will do everything to stop it.”
Back in June, Vladimir Putin commented on a similar topic, asserting that liberalism was in its death throws thanks to forced multiculturalism. “The ruling elites have broken away from the people,” Putin told the Financial Times, adding that the “so-called liberal idea has outlived its purpose.”
This is not new; Putin’s statements and vision for Russia are not secret. Yet, to listen to the American media, very little of what he has said and very little of the legislative action of the Russian Duma (parliament) is reported by the American press. Or, if it is reported, it is done in such a way as to portray the Russian president and his country in an extremely negative and hostile light. Russia, it is repeated daily, is “authoritarian,” anti-democratic, does not respect human rights and persecutes minorities (e.g., homosexuals, lesbians, etc.); it is aggressive and has “invaded” its neighbors (e.g., Ukraine, Georgia). And Putin is a “KGB thug” who “wants to restore the Soviet Union” (cf., Representative Kinzinger).
Over the past six or so years I have written extensively about this narrative. Very simply it is the iron-cage ideological framework that now dominates both Democratic and Republican parties, with a few exceptions. There are voices raised in objection to it: Professors Stephen Cohen (Princeton University) and Paul Robinson (University of Ottawa), and Tucker Carlson on his nightly television program (with guests like former colonel and consultant Douglas MacGregor), and maybe Senator Rand Paul in Congress. But those voices are few in the spectrum of political opinion here in the United States.
The major media, including to a large extent Fox, simply avoid actually quoting Putin, and every action taken in Russia is a perceived threat to America, or to “the sanctity of our democratic elections.”
When was the last time, for instance, that you heard a major American news outlet actually cite something Putin said, a speech, an official statement of Russian policy? Just to take one example—there are many—back on September 20, 2013 he spoke to the annual International Valdai Forum. Here is just a portion of that speech, made before a gathering of representatives from around the world:
“…We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilisation. They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious and even sexual. They are implementing policies that equate large families with same-sex partnerships, belief in God with the belief in Satan.
“The excesses of political correctness have reached the point where people are seriously talking about registering political parties whose aim is to promote paedophilia. People in many European countries are embarrassed or afraid to talk about their religious affiliations. Holidays are abolished or even called something different; their essence is hidden away, as is their moral foundation. And people are aggressively trying to export this model all over the world. I am convinced that this opens a direct path to degradation and primitivism, resulting in a profound demographic and moral crisis.
“What else but the loss of the ability to self-reproduce could act as the greatest testimony of the moral crisis facing a human society? Today almost all developed nations are no longer able to reproduce themselves, even with the help of migration. Without the values ​​embedded in Christianity and other world religions, without the standards of morality that have taken shape over millennia, people will inevitably lose their human dignity. We consider it natural and right to defend these values​​. One must respect every minority’s right to be different, but the rights of the majority must not be put into question.”
I have cited these remarks previously; they are not unique. For Putin has been saying the same thing for years—and enacting legislation mirroring what he says that also reflects the desires and aspirations of the great majority of Russia’s citizenry.
Back a little over five years ago I authored a longish researched essay on Vladimir Putin and what has been and is going on in Russia since the fall of Communism in the fall of 1991. Although the essay could use some updating, the essential information I provide remains accurate and, I believe, useful.
I am passing it along today:
Reprinted from My Corner by Boyd Cathey.
Copyright © Boyd D. Cathey