U.S. ‘News’ Media & Intel Agencies Blame Moscow for Trump’s Election
by Eric Zuesse
On November 30th, Buzzfeed bannered “Intel Officials Believe Russia Spreads Fake News”. Their ‘reporter’ (that is, stenographer of U.S. government propaganda) opened:
US intelligence officials believe Russia helped disseminate fake and propagandized news as part of a broader effort to influence and undermine the presidential election, two US intelligence sources told BuzzFeed News.
‘They’re doing this continuously, that’s a known fact,’ one US intelligence official said, requesting anonymity to discuss the sensitive national security issue.
‘This is beyond propaganda, that’s my understanding,’ the second US intelligence official said. The official said they believed those efforts likely included the dissemination of completely fake news stories…
One intelligence official said, ‘In the context, did Russia attempt to influence the US elections; the aperture is as wide as it can possibly be.'”
Then, there was this:
One of the intelligence officials who spoke to BuzzFeed News said the lack of clarity had proven to be a challenge in combating the propaganda efforts.
‘The real unanswered question is, why did they do it?’ the second US intelligence official said. ‘Is it because they love Donald Trump? Because they hated Hillary Clinton? Or just because they like undermining Western democracies?’
On this, the official said, there was no consensus.”
Even before the new U.S. President, Donald Trump, comes into office, the U.S. Establishment (of which buzzfeed is a Democratic Party mouthpiece) is trying to de-legitimize him, by alleging that he’s an ‘enemy’-agent, Vladimir Putin’s fool or worse.
This anti-Russian campaign continues the U.S. Establishment’s, and U.S. ‘news’media’s, war for Hillary Clinton (the U.S. aristocracy’s approved agent) and against Donald Trump, which propaganda-campaign during the Presidential contest was exemplified by such ‘news’-reporting as this, on 10 October 2016:
Whatever the actual truth of this matter might be (and it’s certainly not what the U.S. ’news’ media are pumping): trusting the U.S. Government to be delivering that truth would be foolhardy, after, for example, George W. Bush and his Administration having lied this nation into invading Iraq in 2003 and the U.S. propaganda-media such as The New York Times and Washington Post having reported stenographically the Government’s lies and suppressed the contrary known truths — and the U.S. ‘intelligence’ agencies that had pumped the lies became blamed afterward for it all, as if they had originated the ‘errors’ — even the cover-ups were then lies, because the lies originated in the President of the United States and the U.S. ‘news’ media refused to publish the disproofs of them.
Only fools trust the U.S. Government and its ‘news’ media anymore. After all, how many of these ‘news’ media have reported the truth that the Obama Administration perpetrated in February 2014 a bloody coup (fronted by anti-corruption demonstrations) to overthrow the Moscow-friendly Ukrainian government headed by Viktor Yanukovych and replace it with a fascist and even nazi (or racist-fascist) government that blames Russians (instead of, like Hitler’s nazism) Jews (because the U.S. aristocracy hates Russians, not Jews), all in order for the U.S. to be able to place missiles in Ukraine on Russia’s very doorstep? And how many reported the ethnic-cleansing operation by that new U.S.-installed government, to exterminate the residents in the region of Ukraine that had voted 90% for Yanukovych — the Ukrainian President whom Obama had just ousted?
And the entire U.S. Government basis for sanctions against Russia is based upon Russia’s ‘conquest’ of Crimea, which occurred three weeks after Obama grabbed Ukraine and was anything but a ‘conquest’ though Obama called it that and his ’news’ media pumped the lie and ignored the fact that Crimea’s return to being again part of Russia was a direct response by Crimeans against Obama’s theft and replacement of the Ukrainian government that 75% of Crimeans had voted for.
Are the U.S. ‘news’ media and government any more trustworthy now than they were in 2002 — or in 2014?
Many of the U.S.-billionaire-owned and controlled ‘news’ media, both in the U.S. and associated aristocracies, have now officially formed a censorship-operation, called “First Draft News”, to systematize their filtering-out of facts (such as I have here linked to regarding Ukraine and Crimea) that they don’t want their respective publics to have access to.
This issue of press-control has nothing to do with the question of whether Trump was the better candidate (Americans preferred Bernie Sanders, whom the aristocracy blocked from winning the Democratic nomination), but everything to do with Trump’s inheriting a U.S. aristocracy — and its associated foreign aristocracies, and their respective press-operations — that’s hostile not only to him, but to Putin, and hoping to be able to oust both.
In an ‘oligarchy’ (more honestly called an “aristocracy” because it’s not found only in “banana republics”) such as the U.S. Government is, this institutionalized lying is the reality; and the historical background to it can be found here and here. I presented the post-1990 portion of it here. Back in 1992, the BBC did a documentary about the history of it between the end of World War II and the end of the Soviet Union, and that’s here.
On November 30th, Spencer Ackerman and Julian Borger, in Britain’s Guardian, headlined about this ongoing operation, now against Trump:
“US legislation proposes new committee to counteract Russian ‘covert influence’: Congress set to review bills to authorize intelligence body to oppose Russian interference and propaganda, which could be at odds with Trump administration.”
The big question now is whether Trump will do the bidding of the U.S. aristocracy, or whether he’ll actually go to war against them and bring crashing down the fascist operation that has controlled the U.S. Government since at least 1990 and which is commonly called “neoconservatism”. The signs on that are not yet clear. Here, from Michael Averko, is the best discussion I’ve found of an important part of that: Trump’s search for a suitable U.S. Secretary of State.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
HaHaHa it’s so funny those peopled called ‘intelligence agencies´in USA, with statement like that. They’re shooting their own foot meaning they’re just kids in a game of men!!
Then Trump needs to have a second look at his favorite pick for intelligence director, Admiral Michael Rogers, because Rogers just testified before Congress that Russia definitely interfered with the election.
Other than libel laws there are none that mandate the media to be truthful. This is the nature of a free press in the hands of the sociopathic 1%. A dumbed down, fear filled citizenry are made to feel impotent against the machine when the very answer is in front of them…discent, vote with one’s wallet, contact advertisers by the millions, etc. But alas, the proles shiver at the thought, so they watch their tellies and drink the koolaid. 🙁
I think Eric needs a bit of help to tease out more explicitly for American readers the real significance of the anti-Russian, anti-fake-news hysteria in their country:
So . . . therefore . . . consequently . . . it absolutely follows that:
(There aren’t enough ‘twists’ in Eric’s article for ordinary Americans to understand it properly. Glad I could help.)
–N
(To my American cousins: it’s not about the president, whether Trump or Hillary. It’s about rescinding the First Amendment, eh. Because, you know, rednecks armed with the truth are more dangerous than rednecks armed with guns. (Remember Mary Harris “Mother” Jones and The Battle of Blair Mountain. Another rare and forgotten person and moment in American history.))
A very brief history of the Arch Purveyor of Fake News
The destruction of the fourth estate where freedom of the press was defended by trade union solidarity began internationally and crucially in the UK over 30 years ago with Murdoch backed by the Thatcher government.
Murdoch’s victory in the Wapping dispute led directly to the practices we now see exposed – a process documented in Nick Davies’s book, Flat Earth News, which describes the relentless pressure to deliver stories even if that meant distorting the truth, inventing a quote or inventing a whole story or breaking the law.
This led eventually, as we all know, to the hacking scandal where Murdoch’s News Group newspapers paid out millions to stop evidence emerging of phone bugging, hacking and other law-breaking by journalists coming to light. What was uncovered was that such activity was routine and endemic – directed at ministers, MPs, actors, sports stars and many fake news narratives.
We should not forget the history behind Murdoch is one of collusion with Governments in the US, UK and internationally. His illegal and corrupt methods and practices well documented are now legend. So it of no surprise that so many see who the purveyors of fake news really are.
This is where we believe the lies and fake news really emanates from and history is on our side in this belief!
Oh just calm down and don’t worry so much. See, the “five eyes” are not REALLY “international community” as you guys (on the left and on the right and those completely and EXCEPTIONALLY confused) believe. Murdoch has influence over governments of (some) of the “five eyes” only. Well – tough. The beauty of being from the “third” (or even “second”) world is – we watch “western news” more as an entertainment than really news. Believe it or not but we do have our own news and at least some of that is not in ownership (eh, free market) of western propaganda pushers (Atlanticists and NATO stooges). THAT is why we want to protect our NATIONAL state against b/s called “internationalism” – oh you call us “right wing” and “nationalists” and we (as all barbarians should) are backward looking and ya know that sort of sad story. How dare we build fences to protect our land from refugees created by the “five eyes”!? How barbarian and inhuman that is! Well, that is us – barbarians. Love it or hate it – who cares 😉
Good point – it is interesting to note that Leveson Part 2 – which was to investigate the depth of collusion between the press and police (MI5, MI6, GCHQ wouldn’t get a look in!) – didn’t happen. That leaves the Leveson Inquiry as a limited hangout to further curtail press freedoms.
Power inherent in the “Snoopers Charter” potentially means that journalistic sources could be compromised (read they will be compromised) – so true investigate journalism is now dead too.
Welcome to the era of the ‘Ministry of Post Truth’ – Orwell’s worst nightmare just came true.
‘Russia’ didn’t cause Trump’s Election to be President of the United States: WE did.
America disregarded the ‘main stream media’ Propaganda, and thought for Herself.
Sometime last year the editor of “Time” had the gall to characterize the United States as an “empire.” Right out there in print. Yes, it’s the truth (for once “Time” is telling it like it is) but most of my poor deluded friends (the ones who believe that NPR,MSNBC, CNN, and PBS are telling them the truth) still think we live in a democracy.
British political scientists have a highly technical name to describe such behaviour; “sore-loser” syndrome.
This occurs when the loser – and/or their supporters – cannot face the fact that they lost.
We have seen similar behaviour over here in the wake of the Brexit “Leave” majority vote.
The losers cannot believe their highly persuasive arguments to “Remain” were – err – unpersuasive.
Ultimately, the electorate is to blame for being too stupid and unsophisticated to vote the “right” way.
If only the better-informed “elite” could change the electorate, then things would be so much better.
I really have no idea how a Trump presidency will work out – there just are no precedents to follow.
But he unquestionably is the winner under the present system for electing a US President.
If the “elite” don’t like the existing system, they should find a way to change it, instead of whining all day long.
Make no bones about it: Trump will be bad, very bad for the USA. He’s a climate denier, Muslim baiter (now working on a Muslim registry with the telcoms), Mexican hater, anti GLBT, and his main idea for getting the economy going is gutting environmental regulations, Wall St regulations, worker safety regulations–pretty much pro-corporate big business interests all the way around: what’s good for the CEOs in the boardroom is good for America. “Drain the swamp”? Hardly: all of his choices for top cabinet positions are connected to Wall Street or are billionaires.
You say you don’t have any idea how a Trump presidency will work out? Let me help you with that question. One way to determine how a Trump presidency will work out is to look at his choices for cabinet positions. Let’s look at Trump’s nomination for arguably the most important cabinet post, that of Secretary of Treasury: Steven Mnuchin. Who is Steven Mnuchin? He is a multimillionaire who worked at Goldman Sachs for more than 20 years, and was dubbed “foreclosure king” for buying up distressed mortgages and evicting thousands of homeowners during the financial crisis–while Obama was giving billions to Goldman Sachs in TARP payouts. Trump campaigned saying “I will drain the swamp” if elected–then gets elected and brings in Goldman Sachs’ Mnuchin to run the Treasury. More neo-liberal corporate tax cuts, exactly, exactly the same fiscal policy as Clinton, Bush, or Obama: tax cuts for the rich and fuck all else. There’s your “change”.
It was bad enough during the Cold War when the intelligentsia forgot that it was just propaganda-aimed at the proles- and began to believe in the anti-communist nonsense that the US pumped out.
Now we have got to the stage where nobody, except for the intellectuals, believes the propaganda: you ask a Trump supporter in Michigan or Kentucky whether Russian propaganda influenced the vote and they will laugh at you. Go to New York, or any college campus in the land, and superficially intelligent people will subscribe to a propaganda narrative, so crazy that ‘Reds under the bed’ seems proper caution.
Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first send mad- and believing that Russia elected Trump is an unmistakable indication of insanity-albeit of the self induced nature.
We need an alt-left; it’s not just that establishment leftism has been coopted as that it has completely lost its mind & soul. The number of parallel universe conversations I have had with liberals who treat the election of Trump as a moral apocalypse but who seem weirdly amnesiac about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, drone bombing, and on and on — a recent series of moral apocalypses of an entirely different order than “tacky bozo is the figurehead of a protest vote”: I feel constantly like I am walking around with my head tilted, like a puzzled cat.
An alternative to this “Left” you mean?
From the Angry Arab:
“The article on Hizbollah in Jacobin (which basically says that Hariri and March 14 were leading Lebanon toward a socialist republic but Hizbollah prevented them from doing so) offers a most original theory of what happened on May 7, 2008: “As explained by trade unionist Ahmad Dirani, Hizbullah’s military intervention was “aimed against the possibility of a large trade union and workers mobilization taking the lead against the government in a democratic way. Hizbullah did not favor this option.” Dirani argued that such a mobilization would not only have achieved social gains around economic issues but also could have addressed the threat to Hizbullah’s telecommunication system.” So the evidence is this one person. Can we know who this person is? What is his politics? And what is his evidence? Or evidence when it used in an argument against Hizbollah is not really important? “Reassessing Hizbullah’s Socioeconomic Policies in Lebanon,” Joseph Daher, Middle East Journal, Summer 216., p. 412. This is rather comical: so his entire (highly original theory which not even hard-core foes of Hizbullah in Lebanon have peddled) is based entirely on the opinion of ONE person, who just happens to be a political operative active in the political camp of Hizbullah’s enemies of Lebanon. The best part is this: this guy’s dissertation on Hizbullah has been published (or will be published) by the University of Chicago Press, and one of the blurbs of the books says, to the effect that this is a good book because it is politically hostile to the agenda of the party. I kid you not. Look: there are legitimate and credible leftist critiques of Hizbullah but in Lebanon and Syria: there is a political propaganda effort to criticize Hizbullah for not being a leftist but from supporters of the Saudi regime….”
Or this one:
“Stein has denied that she initiated the recounts in an effort to shift the result of the election and install Clinton in the White House, claiming that she is merely seeking to verify the results of the election against any possibility of tampering by cyberattack from Russian-based hackers.
But in taking up the claims by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party of a massive effort by Moscow to disrupt the 2016 election, Stein has solidarized herself politically with an effort closely akin to McCarthyite witch-hunting. No evidence of Russian government intervention in the US elections has been presented, either by the US government or the corporate media outlets, most notably the New York Times and Washington Post, which have promoted the “Russian hacking” story so assiduously…”
Now, if they REALLY believe in all that it is GREAT NEWS! Why? Well, let’s face it – we don’t belong to the same “civilisation” as the “five eyes” and never will. Meaning, we are bound to be opposed to each other (that might or might not lead to direct conflict). So, if your opposition makes completely inaccurate and wrong assessment it will proceed with measures that will be complete failure. Well, one cannot wish much more than that from his opposition. Dear Americans – Putin and Russian propaganda have chosen your president and you should really be pissed off like a hell because of that. You should arrest all your “intellectuals” that don’t go along with Clinton mafia, ban all news that does not follow their script etc. And certainly, you should spend trillions of dollars more on your defence on great projects as F-35 and your super-cool looking littoral warships till your economy completely collapses. And then you can blame Russia for all that if it makes you feel good. Good luck with all that and you can always count on my support. Kisses from Serbia 😉
Reblogged this on EU: Ramshackle Empire and commented:
I’ve said this several times – in the Cold War the first to be discarded by the media is the truth.
There have been quite a few before you saying the same or similar things: “In war, truth is the first casualty”. Aeschylus – Greek tragic dramatist (525 BC – 456 BC).