You know lifes become a joke when the US Department of Justice starts requiring foreign media to register as foreign agents. Will the BBC be forced to issue a disclaimer with every broadcast and web posting: Proceed with caution British propaganda ahead? Dont bet the ranch on it.
Such distinctions are reserved for the current bogeyman of the moment, i.e. typically some marginal outlet with a small-to-minuscule audience, in this case RT, formerly Russia Today, and its companion web site Sputnik. Banned from advertising on Twitter, and the subject of an official investigation by both houses of Congress and a special counsel, these two relatively minor state-sponsored outlets are nonetheless credited with nearly single-handedly putting Donald Trump in the White House.
It didnt take much to create the kind of atmosphere in which a direct assault on the First Amendment goes largely unnoticed and even implicitly supported. A mysterious Russian troll farm amplifying the perfidious divisiveness of RT/Sputnik disinformation, a few hundred thousand bucks in Facebook ads (mostly placed after the election), and the expert testimony of professional hysterics who traffic in the mythology of the new cold war. Such are the ingredients that go into the making of a new industry, or rather a revived one: Kremlinology.
Compared to the experts of yesteryear, todays Kremlinologists are a crankish lot. Bereft of any real knowledge of either Russian politics or the language, their elaborate conspiracy theories are unanchored by observable facts. Instead, we are treated to a series of mysterious links, and seemingly ambiguous meetings, which add up to a monumental nothing. Twitter accounts that may or may not be real human beings retweet fake news generated and centrally directed by Vladimir Putin, and this so they tell us was a meaningful and even a decisive factor in the 2016 presidential election. Yes, this nonsense is now the conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C., where the foreign lobbies that matter, the ones with real power, rule the roost.
Since professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have done such a thorough job documenting the power and influence of Israels lobby in the US, the often decisive role played by AIPAC and allied groups is today largely acknowledged, even by the lobbys partisans. If you have time or inclination, its worth looking into how AIPAC surely not an insignificant force and its predecessors were exempted from having to register under the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Senator William J. Fulbright and the lobby had quite a go-round during congressional hearings on the subject.
How many foreign-funded thinktanks in Washington are pushing an agenda dictated by the amount of cold hard cash flowing into their coffers from abroad? Shall we have the public pronouncements of the Alliance to Secure Democracy funded by a bakers dozen of foreign governments labeled with the requisite Department of Justice disclaimer? What about the sainted Brookings Institution, which is on the take from a couple of dubious sources? And if not, why not?
Ranked in terms of their real influence and reach, the Russians are on a par with Syria, Zimbabwe, and the office of the Orleanist Pretender to the French Throne. The lobbyists with real clout the Saudis, the Israelis, the EU/Franco-Gerrman bloc, the China lobbies (Taiwan and the mainland), not to mention George Soros, who surely qualifies as a country are given free rein. If the feds are now intent on strictly enforcing the FARA, there are an awful lot of folks in the Imperial City who are going to have to come out of the closet, so to speak, and admit theyre simply megaphones for foreign actors.
If were going to start prohibiting or even limiting the activities of foreign lobbyists, then groups like the Atlantic Council flush with foreign cash are going to be set back on their heels. Which is why a strict double standard is in place and will remain so.
Indeed, ordinary standards of all sort, including the rules of evidence, have been thrown underfoot in the Blame Russia stampede to such an extent that to express certain views say, on NATO expansion, or the wisdom of carrying out provocative military exercises at the gates of Moscow is to be labeled an unconscious agent of the Russian state. Which means, of course, that anyone who challenges the new cold war paradigm, and criticizes US foreign policy as hegemonist, not in our interests, and dangerous, is part of the alleged Russian conspiracy to undermine our democracy.
Like the Kremlinologists of the 1950s, our phony experts are shameless opportunists looking to cash in on the latest fad: unlike their predecessors, however, none of these people actually knows anything about Russia, foreign policy, or Putinism, so-called. The old school anti-Communist experts who solemnly testified before Congress that subversion was everywhere in our midst at least had some real experience: many of them were ex-Communists, who knew the ideology and its adherents inside out.
Not so this latest batch: their insubstantial visions of ghostly cyber-armies who somehow maneuvered not only the election of Donald Trump but also pulled off Brexit, are unconvincing. Yet propaganda, to be effective, neednt be all that convincing: volume and the power of sheer repetition are often enough to achieve the desired result, which in this case is to demonize anyone who opposes the new cold war with Russia.
Thats why, time after time, we see the professional smear-mongers going after Antiwar.com, as well as any other alternative media that fails to go along with the mainstream script. Thus I was treated to the ridiculous spectacle of seeing the Russians blamed for the Catalonian secession movement on the grounds that I being reliably pro-Russian supported the Catalan cause!
The War Party wants to drive anyone who opposes their agenda out of the public square, and silence proponents of peace once and for all. The next phase of this witch-hunt is to go after Putins so-called dupes and fellow travelers, which means anyone who opposes our foreign policy of global intervention but cant be directly tied to Russia.
The militarists dont want a foreign policy debate: their whole modus operandi is to shut down debate, to delegitimize dissent from the bipartisan interventionist status quo as a Russian covert operation. Youll notice that their favorite argument these days is that such-and-such is divisive. Brazen and quite clever, actually, this openly censorious quasi-authoritarian tone is really an act of desperation. Faced with the publics overwhelming opposition to new wars, the War Party has decided to simply outlaw the opposition that is, to shut it down in the name of curbing foreign influence.
As we have seen, however, whats really going on here is the fierce competition of foreign interests. Its a question of which foreign interests will gain the favor of the Empire, and thus the upper hand, at any given moment. In the Washington casino, every conceivable country and would-be country is represented with cash on the table, hoping the Wheel of Fashion will turn in their direction. Every interest has a place at the table with a singe exception. The lobby for America, the one pressure group that puts American interests first, is nowhere in evidence. Im afraid its too much to expect that US government officials are and ought to be the front line defenders of American interests narrowly conceived.
If anyone is surprised that journalists havent been the first ones to protest the imposition of content regulations on foreign media, then they are being naïve. The liberal media has been agitating for some form of censorship, whether governmental edicts against hate speech or corporate conformity compacts, and Russia-gate has been their bread and butter. Perhaps this accounts for the tepid statement of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which declared Were uncomfortable with governments deciding what constitutes journalism or propaganda.
An outright assault on the First Amendment is a mere discomfort: is that the Founders I hear weeping?
The Freedom of the Press Foundation worried that the DOJ decision opens up serious risk of retaliation for many brave journalists who work in Russia both independent reporters who may get funding from the US and the US governments own Voice of America. So their big worry is what this will do to US government propaganda efforts: no hint that a far more important principle is at stake.
Whats in store for us is a full-fledged no-holds-barred all-out witch hunt, with the reincarnation and rebranding of the ill-favored House Un-American Activities Committee, and, worse, the revival of the hysteria that made it possible. There cant be any compromise in a fight of this kind: the enemy is out to illegalize us. They want to make dissent the equivalent of treason. We cant let them succeed.