Useless distractions

Julian Assange got annoyed recently in an interview with Amy Goodman, from Democracy Now!, after being asked to defend himself against Roger Stone’s comments claiming he had contact with Assange, and I can’t say I blame him. The left wing media has spent a year on this Russia narrative, which is falling apart the more it is scrutinized. There is no evidence they hacked our election.

As for Donald Trump being used by Vladimir Putin, I will buy that he has some sort of financial ties going on, but the idea that Russia helped him get elected is not a viable talking point and continues to be debunked as nothing short of a neo-McCarthyist attempt by neo-liberal conservatives to distract the public from their own corruption.

Even Bernie Sanders got caught misrepresenting the facts on this. He told Chris Cuomo earlier this year that he had seen overwhelming evidence that Russia tampered with our election. Late last month, Glenn Greenwald posted an article on The Intercept showing how false that information was and how thoroughly that narrative has been debunked.

I am more than a little angry at progressives who have forced us to deal with this completely useless distraction rather than focus our mental energy on organizing a political revolution around our common values.

This story was originally published October 11, 2017 at 8:34 PM with the headline "Useless distractions."