November  6, 2017

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

What is the REAL Russian Scandal and Who Is Involved and Why?

Friends,

I had planned to comment on the status of the “Russians Did It!” so-called “investigations” again today—there are additional details which do not appear in the Mainstream Media, nor on that normal source for “conservatives,” Fox News. And I will do that more fully in the near future.

Revelations from over the past couple of weeks continue to mount concerning the involvement of the Hillary campaign and the Democratic National Committee who paid for—and had manufactured—that fake dossier that was apparently used by the Obama administration and the FBI, and subsequently forms the basis for both the Congressional investigations AND the Special Counsel efforts.

Much to the delight—and relief—of the Neoconservatives, the Russian responsibility for the dossier continues unchanged in the public mind. It was, goes the Neocon narrative, Russian (=Kremlin) operatives who supplied the unseemly (and fake) intelligence; so, the revised narrative is that it was Hillary, after all, that the Kremlin wanted to elect!  Thus, at last, those inveterate Russophobes—the John McCains, Lindsey Grahams, Bill Kristols, many Fox pundits—can get that terrifying monkey off their collective backs, and, as they have consistently done since the election of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency, return fully to their uncontrolled hatred of that country. Like the hapless Mitt Romney they are much more at home with the slogan of Russia as “America’s most significant global adversary.”

“The more things change, the more they remain the same,” is a phrase attributed to mid-19^th century French writer, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (“plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose”). And there is no better application than in this case. What we behold is both the cultural Marxist Left, Democrats and Mainstream Media all arrayed in battle formations against those authoritarian and reactionary Russians and their Stalinesque dictator Putin—and the Neocon pseudo-Right, likewise arrayed in battle formations also against those authoritarian and reactionary Russians and their Stalinesque dictator Putin.

The righteous finger-pointing now comes mostly from the Neocons, whereas a few months ago, it was the Nancy Pelosis and Mark Warners and CNN and MSNBC who were doing most of the finger pointing. The scenario has changed, but the evil villain and the ultimate culprit remain the same—“reactionary” Russia and its desire to “meddle” in American elections.

What is it that brings the far Left and the pseudo-Right together in this frenzied anti-Russian crusade?

I have suggested in earlier commentaries and in several published articles that the actual and profound reason is to be found in the common ideological bases and essential worldview of both the contemporary American Left and Neoconservatism. Both have their philosophical origins in a zealously globalist Trotskyite Marxism which was excommunicated by the Soviets in the 1930s, but then flourished in the United States, and eventually, gained mastery over much of American higher education, media, and entertainment. And now in numerous ways it dominates American political discourse on both the Left and the pseudo-Right—from the erection of talismanic symbols that control our language and shape our common social goals, such as “human rights” and the demand for equality, and thus, the continual and never-ending “fight” against “racism” (and “sexism”), a fight that now is extended into every sphere, every nook and cranny of American life—to the belief in a form of “directed” globalism (“dirigisme”), whether centered in such international organizations as the European Union (EU), or in the intricate series and layers of economic and military entanglements that increasingly have become bureaucratic, managerial, and, yes, authoritarian—to the stigmatization of white European and American Christians historically as “oppressors” whose “white supremacism” must be overthrown.

And even with this brief and incomplete description, some of the deeper reasons for the Russophobic “united front” by the Left and Pseudo-Right neocons begin to emerge into view. For the trajectory of Russia under its president Vladimir Putin is the near exact contrary. It has revived a devotion to its unique and nationalist history and past; while in the West our dominant elites wish to jettison and reject ours. It has rediscovered its essentially religious and very traditional Christian past, which defines what it means to be Russia and a Russian; while our Western elites seek to despoil us of ours. It rejects the idea of Western democracy, which now is little more than the bought-and-paid-for rule of kleptocrats and unseen, unelected bureaucratic “managers.”  

The unrestrained Russophobia of a John McCain or a Bill Kristol or Max Boot is grounded in their essential belief in such concepts as international “human rights” and America’s role as the global “enforcer” of those rights, which impels them to condemn Russia’s “persecution” of homosexuals, its institution of mandatory Christian religious instruction in its public schools (which they condemn as “religious intolerance”), and its refusal to accept the economic and political straightjacket of the EU or other “international organizations.” Additionally, as many of the leading Neocon pundits and writers are of Russian Jewish descent and Russian nationalism and Orthodoxy imply for them various forms of historical anti-semitism and the pre-revolutionary era anti-Jewish pogroms, Putin’s Russia is seen as symbolizing a possible recrudescence of those evils (despite the strong support he has received from Russia’s native Jewish population).

So, thus, the conjunction and harmony of Max Boot’s and Romney’s view, with George Soros’s view that Russia is now globally, “enemy number one.” And thus, also, some of the reasons for that unseemly ideological “marriage”….

Back at the beginning of 2015 (December 29, 2014), I wrote a long, heavily documented article about Putin and Putin’s Russia, attempting to shed some light on his past and the various largely spurious accusations leveled against him. It was reprinted by over thirteen web sites, both in the United States and overseas, and translated into Italian, Russian and a couple of other languages. I won’t reproduce it today, although it may be accessed at: http://www.unz.com/article/examining-the-hatred-of-vladimir-putin-and-russia/ (I have revised and updated it since then and can send that newer version to anyone requesting it.) Rather, today I will offer some details of what the media, in its near entirety, does not report, or, if it does, it does with a pronounced and virulent anti-Putin bias.

Over the past few months Russia has been commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the bloody Bolshevik Revolution (1917), the results of which included the violent and horrible deaths of approximately 100 million human  beings (according to the authoritative Black Book of Communism). Vladimir Putin has repeatedly traveled to various sites of infamous Communist murder and criminality from that era, and has dedicated memorials—“walls of grief”—and newly-erected and rebuilt Christian churches to memorialize and honor those victims. Russian cinema has, likewise, joined this effort of memory and correcting the Marxist view of history, with numerous (and popular) films that portray a frankly, very open anti-Communist viewpoint.

You would think that the Western media and our Western political leaders would welcome this—that after the life-and-death struggle with Communism for over seven decades our leaders would celebrate this turn of events.

But, no, rather Putin’s praxis is seen as nothing more than “calculating,” the “insincere use” of those anniversaries to consolidate his “dictatorial” or “neo-Stalinist” rule, and, more grievously, his refusal to fully accept all those wonderful fruits of Western-style globalism and, yes, his unreasonable rejection of the triumph of that other variant of Marxism, the dominant Cultural Marxism which pervades the West.

Is this not, then, Leon Trotsky’s revenge? Stalin’s legions were incapable of bringing down the Christian West, and Soviet Communism of the doddering Kremlin commissars ended up on that “ash heap of history.” But Trotsky, whom Stalin had murdered in his Mexican exile in 1940, now, with his millions of ideological descendants and godchildren, appears well on his way to actual and ultimate triumph.

Today, then, I let me recommend several items that offer a perspectives on what has happened in and to Russia since August 1991, when Vladimir Putin—that ex-KGB bureaucrat—was largely responsible for thwarting and defeating the KGB coup against the incipient anti-Communist Russian republic. (Yes, that is just one fact most of our Neocon pundits like to omit.) First, I link London-based Professor Paul Robinson’s examination of how the Establishment Western media continues to ignore Putin’s open and vigorous rejection of Soviet Communism and his exhibited desire to memorialize its victims. [https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/wall-of-grief/  ]

Secondly, I think it of continuing significant to recall that the great and inveterate anti-Communist, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, praised Putin’s efforts to revive Russia’s traditional Christian and moral heritage, and, equally, Putin praised Solzhenitsyn’s valiant opposition to Godless Communism. Shortly after his death The Washington Post (August 5, 2008) reported: “Solzhenitsyn embraced Putin’s Russia….In the last years of his long and stubbornly contrarian life, Alexander Solzhenitsyn finally found a political system he could embrace: Vladimir Putin's Russia.”  [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/04/AR2008080401925.html]

Third, from that epitome of Establishment Deep State “high” journalism, I recommend to you a December 20, 2013 article from The Atlantic monthly [“Vladimir Putin, Conservative Icon,” https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/vladimir-putin-conservative-icon/282572/], worryingly suggesting that Putin was becoming the head of a “worldwide traditionalist conservative crusade” against the progressivist and modern West. It literally sends shivers down their secularist spines. Yet, the article is fascinating for offering a view in not only the minds of the cultural Marxist Left, but, with a certain irony, found in much of basic Neocon thinking.

Finally, to end this column, from the large collection of Putin’s speeches that I have archived, I quote an excerpt of Putin’s “State of the State” address to the Russian people, December 13, 2013—it is similar in tone to the one he made this past December 2017. I have quoted portions of this before, but is an excellent representation of the rhetoric and imagery, and the historical references that the Russian president employs in most of his addresses, and also exemplifies the type of conservative legislation his political party, United Russia, has enacted in the Russian Duma. (The UR party hold 340 of the 450 seats.)

“Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual address to the Federal Assembly [Published time: December 13, 2013 03:39  Edited time: December 16, 2013 12:17 - President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin: Citizens of Russia, members of the Council of Federation and the State Duma [….]  Our Constitution brings together two fundamental priorities – the supreme value of rights and freedoms of citizens [….] These provisions of our fundamental law are inviolable [….] I think the most important task is to clarify the general principles of the local self-government organization, and develop strong, independent, financially sustainable local authorities[....]

“Colleagues, the upcoming year of 2014 has been declared as the Year of Culture. It must become the year of genuine enlightenment, getting back to our cultural roots, to patriotism and Christian morality.  We all know the encompassing, unifying role that Russian culture and language have played in the history of our multi-ethnical nation. We need to build on this when shaping our policy, including in education.

“We need schools that don’t just teach, which is crucially important of course. We need schools that can bring up a moral personality which has absorbed the values of the country, its history and traditions, a personality with a vision, a rich inner culture, which are capable of creative and independent thinking [....]

“We must tighten the rules for the employment of migrants that come to Russia. We must make employers more responsible for using foreign workers. And, of course, if they live and work in Russia, if they use the benefits of our education and healthcare systems, they need to pay taxes and other payments.

“Finally, we need to toughen control over foreign citizens’ purposes for entering the country; all civilized countries do that. The country has to know what a foreigner comes to Russia for and how long he plans to stay here for. Apart from that, we have to address the problem with those foreigners who have entered the country visa-free and are staying here for a long time without certain purpose. They claim to have no certain purposes but apparently they do have some – it is just that the government remains unaware. The period of their stay must be limited. Those who violate the rules of stay will be prohibited from entering Russia for the period from three to 10 years, depending on the severity of the violation.

“These measures will set up an additional barrier for foreign citizens who, to put it frankly, are either involved in shady and even criminal activities, or work illegally - often in indecent conditions - and unfortunately become victims of crimes themselves [....]

“...we will strive to be leaders by defending international law, making sure that national sovereignty, independence and identity are respected. This is a natural approach for a country like Russia with its great history and culture, its vast experience in the area of different ethnicities living in harmony, side by side, in one state. This is different from the so-called tolerance, which is gender-free and futile.

“Today many countries revisit their moral standards, erasing national traditions and boundaries between different ethnicities and cultures. Society is asked to respect every person’s right to freedom of thought, political views and private life. But now people also have to treat evil and good equally, which is strange, because these are opposite things. Not only does such destruction of traditional values have negative effects on societies, but it is also anti-democratic to the core, because these are abstract ideas applied to real life despite of what the majority of people think. Most people don’t accept such changes and suggested revisions.

“And we know that more and more people in the world support our approach of protecting traditional values, which have been a spiritual and moral foundation of our civilization and every nation. We value the traditional Christian family and genuine human life, including a person’s religious life; not just material, but also spiritual values.

“Of course, this is a conservative position. But as Nikolai Berdyaev said, the meaning of conservatism is not to prevent moving forward and upward, but to prevent moving backwards and downward, into chaotic darkness, back to the primitive state.

“We have seen in recent years how attempts to impose a presumably more progressive model of development on other countries in reality led to regress, barbarity and massive bloodshed. This happened in a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa. These dramatic events took place in Syria [....]”

The Russian president has summed up better than I can what I have been writing and saying about post-Communist Russia now for several years: Communism is dead, but not Marxism. Rather it has been transmogrified in the West into a two-headed Hydra monster that goes by the names, generically of “cultural Marxism,” and more insidiously, “Neoconservatism.” Its object all along has been to neuter and castrate any opposition to its ongoing progress and transformation of what was once the “Christian West.” Russia now has become—topsy-turvy—the major enemy of that progression, and the army arrayed against it stretches all the way from John McCain and Bill Kristol, to Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.