Illustration by Christoph Niemann, via The New Yorker. This article was originally published with Disobedient Media.
From the latest joke-indictment by Robert Mueller to the hysteria of press-coverage of the Trump-Putin summit, the way establishment media has been acting over the past week has been nothing less than apoplectic. One might imagine, given their response, that the end was nigh and Putin personally commandeered the four horsemen of the apocalypse or something equally Biblical in tone.
However, the certifiable insanity characterizing the media's reaction to these events is not the focus of this article. Instead, we ask, how is it that the Russiagate issue is still being discussed in the first place? How did we get here, to the verge of a neo-McCarthyist second-coming, despite all aspects of this issue being repeatedly dismissed in the light of evidence?
When we part the curtain of staged madness, designed to sell fear in the gullible and provoke outrage in the skeptical, what do we actually glimpse?
The reality is that Russiagate, the neoliberal war-cry, is only spurred on by a constant shift in narrative focus. Yesterday we saw farcical indictments: today we are consumed by a summit. If the pattern holds, then tomorrow we will be delivered a new take on Mifsud, tailored to deceive and mislead once again.
In a recent Memorandum to the President penned by Bill Binney and Ray McGovern, they noted: "We now have forensic evidence that shows the data provided by Guccifer 2.0 had been manipulated and is a fabrication."
The memo, published with Consortium News, continued: "If you are wondering why so little is heard these days of accusations that Russia hacked into the U.S. election in 2016, it could be because those charges could not withstand close scrutiny. It could also be because special counsel Robert Mueller appears to have never bothered to investigate what was once the central alleged crime in Russia-gate as no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team."
This statement brings us to the crux of this piece: What do the unfolding chapters of the Russiagate fairytale have in common?
Each of them has a critical lack of evidence supporting their thesis and has been countered by credible evidence that would require a book to recount in full. Each of these branches has been shoved into the fore of press attention when convenient, for a brief moment becoming the singular focus of the establishment media's echo-chamber. When their credibility quickly fails in the light of credible countering evidence, they are whipped from view, to be replaced by a freshly fabricated aspect of a different arm of the scandal. Focus shifts like eyes at a tennis match, between the Russian hacking narrative and the Trump-Russia collusion fantasy.
First, as mentioned by McGovern and Binney, we have the thoroughly debunked Guccifer 2.0 hacking narrative. But wait, we also have the collusion narrative spawned by the dossier produced by Christopher Steele, likewise discredited. Time to focus on a mutated and contradictory version of the Guccifer 2.0 narrative! Before anyone can notice the holes, we are spun back to a new incarnation of the Trump-Russian collusion scandal, Mifsud the most mysterious and magical scholar of them all! Do we sound like a street hawker yet?
In Mifsud, we saw a narrative built to replace the collusion allegations first based on the debunked, laughable Steele dossier. The corruption involved in framing Mifsud as a Russian intelligence asset also became painfully evident, in light of his close ties with UK and Western intelligence figures, and his long-standing history at campuses where these same intelligence agencies - including the CIA and FBI, conducted training programs.
The following discussion is not intended to dismiss the incredible value and significance of work done by analysts including the Forensicator, Adam Carter, Chris Blackburn, VIPS members including former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney and CIA Veteran analyst Ray McGovern, or thinkers as diverse as Julian Assange and Richard Levine. None of these individuals were funded by or associated with Russia, and all of them have focused on factual evidence instead of ideology.
Standing on the shoulders of this methodical evidence, it seems at this point that no amount of contrary evidence, exposure or implosion will ultimately kill the undead Russiagate monstrosity. If that were possible, the Thing would have been put irrevocably into the ground over a year ago. And six months ago, and a few weeks ago.
Despite all of these arms of the Russiagate saga having been concretely refuted, the state-sanctioned legacy press continues to chant in unison in the wake of Mueller's latest toothless indictments. Again, the significance isn't in the extremity of the media hysteria, but the fact that it continues despite evidence that should have ended "Russiagate" multiple times over.
It is unkillable, immune to factual refutation. No logical response will halt its diabolical momentum, based on deception and fear. The question is no longer whether Guccifer 2.0 hacked the DNC for the Kremlin, or did Mifsud work for Putin, but was the Steele dossier legitimate? Did Trump collude with Russia? These questions have long been answered, and yet the Thing rambles on.
We must now recognize the underlying, silent reality of this charade. It is not intended to be answered, and it is brought before us with the knowledge that it does not stand on fact. From top to bottom, beginning to end, this entire scandal has been an intentional fabrication - one that is not based on a shred of truth and therefore is not intended to be believed any more than a street magician's trick. This is what allows it to continue no matter how many facts one throws at it. Evidential refutation bounces endlessly off the facade of the Russiagate figment.
Why is this? Why is it that facts don't stop the progression of this catastrophic hurricane of lies? The immortality of Russiagate is thanks to the fact that it was never intended to be perceived as truthful in the first place - it was intended to distract, not to convince. To focus attention: it is the visible hand that deflects attention in the most basic sleight of hand magic trick.
In other words, the pundits whose eyes roll back in horror at the sight of a two-hour summit between Putin and Trump are not in actuality afraid of Putin - we only need recall Uranium One to know that the neoliberal establishment does not fear Putin. Media hysteria pushing us towards a nuclear holocaust is meant to do two things: provoke fear and sell outrage. Raise CIA paychecks, inflame viewership among believers and skeptics alike. Involve you in the charade. Make you believe it is real. Create an enemy, whether Putin or Mueller is your Satan of choice.
It doesn't matter, as long as your eyes are on the Russiagate scandal. They are, thus, controlling the public narrative. That is the goal. Not proving that Russia interfered with the election, but making sure that the masses discuss nothing else. Not nuclear winter, but the threat of nuclear annihilation, because the first cold war was good for business.
It doesn't matter how many times you say: but here's how it's done, because the Thing works through distraction. It works by placing attention in the desired place in order to hide what is done in the dark. I have been guilty myself, of falling for the trick - not by believing in the veracity of the saga's claims - but by following them in order to criticize them factually. I have been, like so many of us, the cat chasing the establishment's laser pointer across a wall, trailing behind them to point out again and again that they have lied. But it has been chasing their figment nonetheless - attempting to catch that immaterial dot.
Through the observation that this soap opera was never intended to be perceived as truth but to hold attention, one finally undermines the reason for, and the reality of, its existence, in a way that factually based debunking never could.
We must now conclude that the entire fabrication of this epic was not intended to convince the public based on evidence, but was instead intended to deflect attention from the reality of the 2016 rigging of the Democratic Primary on the part of the DNC. To deflect from the US war machine in Yemen and Syria and around the world. To justify the silencing of journalists and political prisoners like Julian Assange. To ensure that the multitude of wrongs, crimes, and infinitude of acts committed in darkness never come to light.