Skip to main content

When fiction trumps fact


As tempting as it is to bite on the the story the New York Post broke on Hunter Biden's emails concerning Burisma, it seems the mainstream media is not taking the bait, other than to question the veracity of the story.  It is full of so many holes that apparently even Fox news passed on the hacked emails Mayor Rudy provided via a Russian agent.  Ghouliani himself couldn't be certain the agent wasn't a spy.  That still hasn't stopped Fox and other conservative media outlets from running with the story, especially after Twitter flagged it as fake news and wouldn't allow users to share it.  Jack Dorsey has since reversed the position taken by his company, after the immense pressure that was brought upon him by Republican senators who claimed he was stifling freedom of expression.  It doesn't seem to matter as the hackneyed story is gaining almost no traction outside Magaland.  

This leads one to wonder what has become of the Grand Old Party that it so freely engages in conspiracy theories, fed by fake stories often emanating from Russian troll farms.  They allowed themselves to be completely taken by the Russian-inspired plot to make George Soros into the world's most notorious super villain since Blofeld of James Bond movies.  Conservatives have also come to accept the United Nations as every bit a pernicious influence on the world as SPECTRE.  I recently saw a friend post on facebook a meme that said UN Agenda 21 was a plot to create a new world order.  I pointed out to him that this "agenda" called for sustainable energy goals that dated back to 1992, none of which have been achieved.

The snail trail of misinformation usually links back to Russian propaganda networks like Russia Today and Sputnik that appear to have become conservative media's favorite "sources."  These are English speaking web news sites that were started in 2005 and 2014 to flood Europe and the US with "truthy" articles that play into various political biases.  It is a type of PsyOps that has very effectively targeted not just right wing media but left wing media as well, as the extremes of political parties tend to be the most susceptible to fake news that fits with their cognitive biases.

This is why the so-called Burisma scandal gained traction in the conservative media.  The story broke in 2019 when Trump was under investigation for his notorious quid pro quo with the incoming Ukrainian president over holding up military aid to the beleagured country.  He wanted some dirt on Joe Biden, who had emerged as the Democratic frontrunner.  Even the mainstream media was curious until the Republican-led Senate eventually concluded there was nothing to it.  Trump and his conservative cronies have been unable to let go of it because they have nothing else on Biden other than this fictional relationship.  No doubt, Hunter benefited by having his father as Vice-President when we was asked to join the board of Burisma back in 2013, but Hunter also had quite a lengthy resume that made him uniquely qualified for the job he held for one year.  Nevertheless, we cynically like to think everything is transactional in the Age of Trump.  It just has to be true!

I'm surprised that Republicans haven't tried to make a link between Hunter and George Soros, and that it is that dastardly former Jewish SS officer who is pulling Uncle Joe's strings.  The mission of RT for the past 16 years has been to paint Soros as the world's most corrupt human being, principally because he dared to challenge the Mighty Vlad.  You heard all kinds of horror stories about Soros, including one in which he was an SS officer during World War II.  

Pretty amazing considering he was only 11 years old at the time and grew up in a Jewish Ghetto in Budapest before fleeing Hungary as a teenager.  He made his billions speculating on currency, and at one time gave the British pound quite a scare.  Since then he has been contributing his billions to organizations that provide educational and political opportunities to young Eastern Europeans and other notable causes.  Since he lives in the US, he has taken quite an interest in American politics, backing candidates who he thinks represent social change.  This is what earned him in the enmity of Republicans, since they seem to think everything is just fine the way it is, and they don't think a Hungarian Jew, albeit a US citizen, should be meddling in American politics.

Even the smallest effort of research, like typing "Soros SS Officer" into google, will tell you these stories are false, but depending on how much you delve into conspiracy theories the true nature of Soros probably won't appear on your google page.  Thanks to algorithms these days, google gives you what you want to see based on your browsing history.  Hence, it is easy to live inside your little bubble oblivious to factual accounts.  

The Kremlin has learned to game this system as effectively as anyone, easily spreading their propaganda around the world. Ironic that Russia will be on the UN Human Rights Council, given its ugly track record in squashing human rights in its own country and its massive misinformation campaign designed to cover up its heinous domestic and foreign policy.   

The last four years, "Pootie" has pretty much called the shots thanks to a Dotardly Don, who has refused to challenge him on any level.  This of course has led many to wonder what the Russian leader has over our president, leading to rampant speculation on everything from "golden showers" to lucrative real estate deals.  Vlad is very happy with the current state of affairs and will do everything he can to keep Donald in office.  This is why he keeps feeding juicy stories about Hunter Biden at Burisma to ghouls like Giuliani through third party Russian agents based out of Ukraine, which can't be traced back to the Kremlin. It all goes through a Russian dark web, formerly used for drug deals and human trafficking, that is perfect for hiding political trails.

Even if Trump loses, the damage is done, as American credibility is at an all-time low thanks to our embattled president.  It is doubtful Uncle Joe will be able to restore that credibility any time soon.  Europe and the rest of the world are learning to become economically and politically independent from the US, although this makes them easier targets for Putin's PsyOps, which benefits from a weak global order.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005