I started this post as a reply to esquimaux in my recent post (http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2018/7/27/132017/974) Karma Knows ALL Secrets. And…It ALWAYS Collects Its Debts. Eventually. It grew, so here it is as a standalone.

Esquimaux wrote:

I can’t take the pro-Russia “left” like counterpunch and consortium news and MOA and some of the Intercept writers like Greenwald.

My answer follows.

Read on.

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Being anti-RussiaGate is not necessarily the same as being “pro-Russia,” esquimaux. For example, I am not “pro-Russia.” Why? Because I’ve been there and smelled that. I feel sorry for the people of Russia. They’ve been had too, only by a steel-fisted oligarch/spy/dictator. The difference between here and there that I saw a few years ago was as follows:

They…masses of them…know that they’ve been had, and they also know that they can’t do a goddamned thing about it. Plus…if something did happen to derail the oligarchy in charge, the utter economic devastation that followed the fall of the U.S.S.R. is still fresh in people’s minds. They’re pretty much stuck with what they’ve got.

In the U.S.? It’s different. The mainstream U.S. propaganda machine (Also known as “The Governmental Media Complex”) is so much more sophisticated than is Russia’s. It is almost invisible to most Americans, and thus much more effective. Only a small percentage of us consciously reject it. The rest? It’s just one big laughfest/hatefest. Silly news about cute litle kitty kats and and temporary superstars, interspersed with various imprecations hurled at whatever target is assigned to any given organ of that complex.

Hate Republicans!!!

Hate Democrats!!!

Hate minorities!!!

Hate those who do hate minorities!!!

Hate Russia!!!

Hate the people who do not hate Russia!!!

Hate the police!!!

Hate the people who do hate the police!!!

And so on…

Meanwhile:

But above all, do not hate corporate America!!!

They’re the good guys.

Buy buy buy buy buy buy buy!!!

The result?

Clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp.

The March of the Capitalist Zombies.

Bush II post-9/11 (https:/www.c-span.org/video?c4552776/bush-shopping-quote):

The American people…have got tuh [smarmy expression.]…go about their business.

[smarmy expression #2, #3, etc..] …[not get] to the point…where people don’t conduct business…where people don’t shop!

Post-the Blood For Oil Iraq War (https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/washington/20text-bush.html) :

…and I encourage you to go shopping more.

So it goes…

Later…

AG

P.S. Regarding your Counterpunch opinion, read this vicious 2014 putdown of Putin from its primary editor, Jeffrey St. Claire (Google this one if you are curious-the site won’t even take a typed-out URL for it. “Sucuri” indeed!!):

Down the River With Vladimir Putin

—snip—

But the consensus of the [Colorado River] guides is clear. The crudest, cheapest and most demeaning patrons are Russian men, led by their President Vladimir Putin.

A couple of years ago Vladimir Putin journeyed to the American Southwest to take his son on an initiation ritual. The boy’s mother is now an American citizen. First stop was a big game ranch in Texas, where Putin and Jr blasted zebras, antelopes and bison. Apparently, Putin, reenacting a scene out of Mailer’s Why Are We In Vietnam, marked his son’s forehead in the blood of one of these hapless creatures.

Then it was on to Moab, Utah, for a raft trip down Cataract Canyon on the Colorado River. The Moab river guide community is still shaking its head from its close encounter with the Russian president and former KGB man. “We get a lot of whacked-out people coming down the river, but Putin really is a dangerous guy, a real mobster,” a guide told me.

“His packs were loaded with guns, vodka and tens of thousands of dollars in cash,” the guide said. “He seemed to be a little on edge. He was a real bully. He was drunk much of the time and bossed people around as if they were his personal slaves. They refused to use the Groover. They pissed and shat wherever they wanted. They fired off their guns. They caught channel catfish and bashed their heads in with rocks.”
Putin and his son were soon bored with the redbrick canyons and Class five rapids. “By the third day, Putin demanded that the guides call in a helicopter to have his party picked up and flown out. Then he got drunk and began to threaten the guides. He started bragging about how many people he had personally killed. More than 40, he said.”

The rafts finally exited Cataract and motored across 30 miles of Lake Powell’s flat water to the marina complex at Hite The next step on the Putties’ tour was supposed to be a four-wheeler excursion tearing up the desert in the bizarre Needles District of Canyonlands. But Putin opted for a more traditional form of initiation for his son, straight out of Notes from the Underground. From the Hite marina, he placed a call to Las Vegas.

“Get us some whores,” Putin shouted into his cellphone. “Price is no object.”
—snip—

Yup.

That damned Commie Jeffrey St. Claire surely loves him some Putin!!!

And yet…Counterpunch abounds with anti-RussiaGate articles.

Why?

As I said above, being anti-RussiaGate is not necessarily the same thing as being “pro-Russia.”

Or pro-Putin.

It’s just anti-hype!!!