Decades ago, a disease plagued American minds with a madness so self-destructive it blinded many of reason and deprived human touch from any empathy. One man, engulfed in the delusions of jingoism too deep for survival, made it his mission to prevent any treachery in the U.S. He warned Senator Joseph McCarthy about the threat of the “Red Army” and helped start a witch hunt on any critic of U.S. domestic and foreign policy.
As former Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal was allured by the charisma of patriotism. He found his mental health declining and checked himself into psychiatric hospitals. The insufferable disease caused rampant paranoia and severe depression. On May 22, 1949, he was found dead after jumping from the 16th story of Bethesda Navy Hospital.
Author Walter Lippmann described Forrestal as, “a doctor who studies the disease and then contracts it himself.” The insufferable “red disease” had infiltrated one of the top politicians in the U.S. and taken him six feet under.
Former President Barack Obama ostensibly cured the disease when he criticized former Gov. Mitt Romney’s hostile foreign policy toward Russia by saying, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.” Unfortunately, the remains of the mental disease evolved into a super-virus only four years later and have yet again begun to wreak terror in the American mind.
In 2016, President Donald Trump’s campaign was accused of colluding with Russia to undermine the democratic values of the U.S. Since then, the corporate media has gone on a mass anti-Russian crusade full of reaches for evidence and unsubstantiated claims. This propaganda has not been unleashed by pure leftists, but a cesspool of corporate Democrats, neoconservatives and ex-intelligence grifters.
The media has lost credibility by giving this issue such disproportionate attention and by continuously referring to Russia as the KGB, as if it is still the Soviet Union.
It is also absolutely baffling that leftists would trust intelligence agencies that have directly assassinated liberal leaders like Fred Hampton, wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr., covertly funded anti-union violence, propped up a genocidal war in Iraq against anti-war movements and committed countless crimes against humanity.
In fact, it is absolutely hypocritical for the U.S. to cry about election interference when it has interfered in elections around the world and left continents ruined while being the world’s biggest hegemony.
The spread of Russian memes across the internet is an absolute joke compared to the assassination of former Congolese President Patrice Lumumba, the overthrowing of president Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala in favor of the fascist government of Carlos Castillo Armas, and the overthrowing of Iranian president Mohammad Mossadegh in favor of the military monarchy under the Shah.
Recently, the Obama administration couped governments in Paraguay and Honduras. Bolivian President Evo Molares accused the Trump administration of covertly funding a planned drone strike on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump is undoubtedly the neo-fascist face of the American empire and must be met with resistance, but we must be guardians of truth and history in the process. MSNBC has constantly spread rumors of Trump being recruited into the KGB as early as 1987 and depicted him as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s puppet.
This is head-scratching since Trump has proposed increased NATO spending, armed Ukraine, bombed the Russian-backed al-Assad regime in Syria and expelled Russian diplomats all against Putin’s liking.
Many of the indictments in the Russia probe are unrelated to the investigation, and such tactics have earned Special Counsel Robert Mueller warnings from a federal judge. Other indictments have been made with no evidence against Russian officials who will never see trial.
In response to the unsubstantial accusations, Russia has called former Russia ambassador Michael McFaul for questioning. McFaul has missed the fact that these are not requests but rather a satirical point exposing U.S. hypocrisy. The U.S. claims Russians avoiding trial in the U.S. is evidence but is unwilling to send its own officials to Russia for the same reason.
The Russian scare has actually targeted pure progressives with altruistic intentions. Former presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, environmentalists and black activists have all been linked to the Russian probe.
Anoa Changa is a black activist from Atlanta who has recently been smeared by NPR for spreading her message on Russian news media. Similar smears have been made against progressive Intercept journalist Glenn Greenwald for appearing on Russia Today, the Russian state-funded media.
After rising political star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic nomination for New York representative, former FBI director James Comey, an anti-Trumper who salivates at the thought of Russian frenzy, tweeted “Democrats, please, please don’t lose your minds and rush to the socialist left.”
This may be because Comey has become a multi-millionaire through positions in hedge-funds such as Bridgewater Associates and Lockheed Martin. He favors corporate Democrats who will prioritize his pocket rather than progressives who care about basic humanity. Any liberal who engages in Russian hysteria is shooting themselves in the foot, or is only concerned about social issues when their bottom line is unaffected.
Russian crimes are often brought up in justification for U.S. hostility, but were not brought up against the Obama administration’s Russia-friendly foreign policy. The U.S. cannot claim sanctimony when it backs an apartheid in Israel and supports Saudi Arabia, which has committed numerous human rights violations.
Former President Bill Clinton’s administration played a role in ousting former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev Russian in favor of Russian candidate Boris Yeltsin. Ironically this legacy haunted Clinton’s wife, Hillary in the 2016 election.
Many compare suspected Russian hacks of the Democratic National Convention to terrorist attacks such as 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. This is extremely insensitive to victims of those attacks, especially since the hacking exposed the rigging of the Democratic primary and the limits of U.S. democracy.
If the U.S. wants to stop election interference, it should propose international laws to protect democracies, and revoke its own immunity to international courts. It should also promote the use of paper ballots and revamp cyber security.
Until these changes are made, it is obvious the creators of Russian hysteria are not interested in justice but diverting any attempts at real change. They are interested in keeping a system that contains 18.5 million people under severe poverty, shrinks the middle class and takes part in systemic racism and sexism, all because their international investors and masters profit immensely.
The Russia investigation should continue to keep powers in check; however, the disproportionate media coverage and false claims are just a distraction from the real problems.
Soheil Saneei is a biological engineering Sophmore from Metairie, Louisiana.