From "The Nation": Against Kremlin-Baiting

[Coventina]

This article made me want to , and possibly cancel my subscription:

Anti-Trump facts, or merely allegations?

The bipartisan, nearly full-political-spectrum tsunami of factually unverified allegations that President Trump has been seditiously "compromised" by the Kremlin, with scarcely any nonpartisan pushback from influential political or media sources, is deeply alarming. Begun by the Clinton campaign in mid-2016, and exemplified by New York Times columnists (who write of a "Trump-Putin regime" in Washington), strident MSNBC hosts, and unbalanced CNN commentators, the practice is growing into a latter-day McCarthyite hysteria.


What the ever-loving fuck, Nation?

[Coventina]

1. Here is another disgusting paragraph from the article:

The allegations are driven by political forces with various agendas: the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, which wants to maintain its grip on the party by insisting that she didn't lose the election but that it was stolen by Russian President Vladimir Putin for Trump; by enemies of Trump's proposed detente with Russia, who want to discredit both him and Putin; and by Republicans and Democrats stunned that Trump essentially ran and won without either party, thereby threatening the established two-party system. Whatever the motivation, the ensuing slurs against Trump, which are already producing calls for his impeachment, pose grave threats to US and international security and to American democracy itself.


What the hell are they SMOKING?!?!?!

I seriously think I will cancel my subscription.....

[Coventina]

2. Still not appalled? Here another paragraph:

So far, no facts have been presented to back up the allegations. (Without facts, all of us are doomed to malpractice or worse.) An impartial investigation might search for such facts, if any exist, which should then be evaluated objectively - but neither may be possible in the current political atmosphere, only a witch hunt.


So, this guy is saying there's no proof of Russia's interference, even though our intelligence agencies say otherwise. Then he goes on to say that even an investigation would be illegitimate, because it would only be a "witch hunt" against poor Putin and Trump.

WHAT.THE.FUCK.

[GliderGuider]

7. I'm lucky I'm not a Democrat then

(What with being Canadian and all.) IMO Russia is waging information warfare on the USA with the intent to destabilize it and knock it off the world stage. Defeating them in that war is the essential first step toward addressing the homegrown forces of hatred, bigotry and greed that have split your nation in two. Unless you eliminate the covert Russian influence on your politics and society, the latter will not be possible. Much depends on how deeply entrenched that influence has become over the last couple of decades.

[Cha]

20. No one is "hysterical". I don't know why you would want to try and paint

Dems that way.

[KingCharlemagne]

29. Matt Taibbi has argued that Dems risk running into a dead end with

the Russia-Gate investigation such that, if Trump is exonerated on this, he will be freed up for the next eight years to implement his Satanic plans.

[Vinnie From Indy]

31. Yeah, the old "keep your powder dry" nonsense!

Trump is actually the one keeping this issue alive.

[KingCharlemagne]

34. That's an excellent point and one I had not stopped to

consider. As a 'manager' of human resources, Trump and Priebus seem singularly inept. It's their ineptitude as much as their skulduggery that is keeping the scandal front and center. When there is this much smoke, odds are there is bound to to be fire somewhere.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Putin is a malevolent force who is trying to undermine the western democracies.

Both George Walker Bush and Barack Obama extended a hand of friendship to him only to have it slapped away.

[Cosmocat]

39. YEP!

guy is BAD news ...

[hlthe2b]

5. Is this a single author? Who wrote it?

[Coventina]

6. It is by Stephen F. Cohen, a Nation contributing editor. The article was in their editorial section

I am going to send them an email and tell them that if this represents their editorial stance, generally, to please cancel my subscription.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. He's a long time Russophile and gadfly.

According to him the Soviet Union and now Russia's intentions were always laudable or at the worst neutral and our intentions have always been ignoble.

[Coventina]

9. Cohen is a Jewish last name. Russia has not exactly been kind to Jews.

Kind of strange that he would be so invested in defending them.

[BainsBane]

16. He's a long-time Putin apologist

Was full of propaganda on the invasion of Crimea, most of which has been proven false.

[Coventina]

17. Geez. What a tool! Thanks for the info!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. A couple of points.

It's an ideological predisposition. There used to be anti -anti communists. Now there are anti-anti Putinists.It's a good way to create a niche for oneself. Most Soviet Union/Russia observers are neutral. A smaller group is reflexively hostile and a smaller group is reflexively friendly.

He is obviously very bright and informed. He's a professor at Princeton.

Here's some more info:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_F._Cohen


BTW, he's married to Katrina Vanden Heuvel .

[Coventina]

24. Why would he defend Putin in a leftist magazine? Putin is in no way, shape, or form a leftist.

For a bright guy, it's a pretty dumb move.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

30. Putin is an authoritarian like Trump. He is definitely not on the left.

Why does Professor Cohen deign to defend him ? Because he starts from the premise we are always wrong. IMHO, that is as naive and simplistic is starting from the premise we are always right.

Putin wants to undermine liberal democracies and replace their leaders with authoritarian ones like him and Thump. I see no good in that.

[Coventina]

38. Thanks. That really helps clarify things.

Very disappointed that the Nation would publish such tripe.

[hlthe2b]

12. Katrina VH needs to address this

[Justice]

23. She is his wife.

[hlthe2b]

26. REALLY?

That is disturbing

[Crunchy Frog]

10. Stephen Cohen. Here's the link.

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-we-must-oppose-the-kremlin-baiting-against-trump/

[hlthe2b]

11. Thanks

[Coventina]

13. Thanks for posting the link. I was transcribing from my printed copy.

Like a dinosaur....

[kentuck]

14. If this was all there was...?

they might have a point.

But, this is only one issue of many. He has violated the Constitution by continuing to make money off his foreign investments. He hired an "unregistered" foreign agent as his National Security adviser! Ne'er a day goes by without a lie.

So, this story must be reported. There is too much smoke to look the other way.

[BainsBane]

15. They've jumped the shark

I subscribed for years. I'm glad I don't anymore. The editor is married to a Putin apologist, and they've driven the magazine off the cliff. Fuck them.

I think I'll subscribe to the Atlantic instead.

[BSdetect]

19. How can anyone write this tripe?

Obviously a drumpher idiot

[Crunchy Frog]

21. Going back to their Stalinist roots?

And they were ardent supporters of Stalin, back in the day.

[KingCharlemagne]

27. Um, we were allies with Stalin, back in the day. - nt

[Crunchy Frog]

32. Way before WWII. n/t

[KingCharlemagne]

35. A lot of folks "back in the day" (or "way before WWII") looked to

the USSR as the best way to advance the conditions of working men and women and solve the routine and periodic crises of capitalism. To wit, in 1933, the unemployment rate in the U.S. was 25%.

[Justice]

22. You should cancel: Stephen Cohen married to Katrina vanden Heuvel

New Republic calls Cohen “Putin’s American toady” - https://newrepublic.com/article/116820/vladimir-putin-defended-american-leftist. Read this and you will see how Cohen thinks. Horrible. When he was on during election, I researched him - totally turned me against the Nation and his wife.

A defense of Cohen which also highlights his "rationale" -- https://academeblog.org/2015/01/30/the-troubling-case-of-professor-stephen-cohen-and-the-american-association-for-slavic-east-european-and-eurasian-studies/

What offends me is that Cohen defends PUTIN not Russia.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-putin-russia-hacking-election-trump-20170103-story.html - I agree with Gary's point of view.

[Coventina]

25. Thanks! This is extremely helpful!!!

Very sad for such a long-standing magazine.

[Eyeball_Kid]

28. Wow. Maddow is doing Pulitzer-standard stuff EVERY NIGHT.

Perhaps the Nation editors are discovering that they're not relevant and are trying to carve out a position that's attractive... to some?

I don't get it.

[delisen]

33. They are 1% ers. Sarandon socialists with a long history

of speaking for "the poor." They do not however mingle with the people they claim to want to help.

Someone whose name I don't remember once said "Don't try to help people you don't like, because you will fail."

My own rule of thumb is, "If a rich, powerful, or "charismatic" person refers to the majority of people in the country as "the masses" don't expect much positive and be prepared for the negatives.

vanden Heuval and Cohen have been at it a long time--and I guess they have not been successful in helping since we now have millions more poor people and they are probably richer than ever.

At times I used to wonder whether The Nation was a hobby or a front--like many believee the old Paris Review was a C.I.A, front

The old NYC left did suffer McCarthyism and I can see someone from that era trying to frame current events in terms of the history of the Left in NYC.

Many from that period were slow to acknowledge the evils of Stalin. they were often binary thinkers and equated Hitler with evil (rightly so) and saw USSR communism as the idealistic opposite and therefore good.

[KingCharlemagne]

36. Were it not for the sacrifices borne by the citizens and soldiers of the

USSR, we would likely all be speaking German, goose-stepping and Sieg Heiling.

The USSR fought and defeated Nazi Germany along a 2,000-mile front while the bourgeois democracies dinked around down in North Africa.

[Coventina]

40. Totally 100% agree with you on the heroism & sacrifice of Russia/USSR during WWII.

But that is no reason to defend Putin NOW.

[KingCharlemagne]

41. Putin is a friggin' capitalist, same as Trump. I don't defend

capitalists; I despise them. I defend socialists and communists.

[Coventina]

42. Apologies if I wasn't clear. I wasn't accusing you of defending Putin.

Just making a general statement, and specifically toward the article in question.

[KingCharlemagne]

45. I do think the Russian Federation has legitimate national

security concerns, same as we do and every nation state does. But Putin deserves no defense as the leader of a capitalist-imperialist regime, same as Trump deserves no defense.

[delisen]

46. Yes and the USSR amply rewarded itself with a bouquet of captive nations

and peoples, and burnished its reputation with a forced labor and prison system which was the envy of dictators throughout the world.

Authoritarianism of the so-called left or the so-called right is authoritarianism.

[KingCharlemagne]

49. Wow! This is ingratitude exemplified. 26 million Soviet citizens gave

their lives so YOU would nor have to speak German, ffs. The least you could do is gracefully acknowledge their sacrifice for YOU.

[Crunchy Frog]

54. They gave their lives because they were invaded. Period.

The enormous loss of life was in large part due to Stalin's lack of preparation for the upcoming invasion. He just couldn't believe that his old buddy Hitler would double cross him like that, with their non-aggression pact and all.

I admire the heroism of the Russians in fighting off the German invasion of their country, but they fought because their country was invaded, not for any higher principle.

[KingCharlemagne]

55. The point is while the UK and US were dinking around in North Africa and

playing footsie with DeGaulle's Free French, the USSR was fighting and defeating Nazi Germany along a 2,000-mile front.

When the Allies finally got off their asses and invaded Normandy in 1944, they faced 59 German divisions. Why? Because over 150 German divisions remained on the Eastern Front. Had the USSR not tied down the Wehrmacht in the East, Hitler would have easily squashed the Allues like pathetic little bugs.

Putin lost an uncle in the Sieve of Leningrad, fwiw. Almost every Soviet citizen lost at least one family member. We in the US owe the citizens of the former USSR a huge debt of gratitude, imo.

[panader0]

59. My dad was one of those "dinking around" in North Africa.

50 combat missions and Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf
clusters. Please do no denigrate his service or those who gave their lives.

[KingCharlemagne]

65. I dont think its denigrating anyone's service to note that, while the

U.S. lost some 250,000 soldiers' lives in the European theater (including North Africa), the USSR lost 26,000,000 lives. IOW, the Soviets lost 100 men for every 1 we lost.

[Crunchy Frog]

61. And the Russians were "dinking around" in Poland, Finland, the Baltics, and Romania,

and playing footsie with the Nazis, while the Germans were blitzkrieging their way across Europe. The Russians fought the Germans because they were invaded.

My college Russian professor survived the Siege (non sieve) of Leningrad as a young child BTW. I'd imagine that she must have lost some relatives to that, as well as the Nazi campaign to exterminate Jews in all the areas they occupied.

I'm grateful that Hitler didn't learn the lessons from Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and timed the invasion such that the Germans would be deep within Russian territory when the Russian winter hit. I'm sorry, but I don't buy that they were fighting and dying on my behalf, and I bear them no gratitude for it, though they certainly have my sympathy and admiration. For fighting the Germans, that is, not for invading Poland and Finland and the Baltics.

You believe what you want, but don't try to make me go along with it, because I won't. Sorry.

[Crunchy Frog]

53. They didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts.

They were attacked, invaded, occupied, and subjected to extreme brutality, by the Germans. Naturally, they would be expected to fight back.

And for the 1st few years of the war, they had a non-aggression pact with Germany, and an agreement to carve up Poland. They helped to supply the Nazi war machine, while invading and conquering their half of Poland, and the Baltics. Stalin's lack of preparedness for Germany's invasion, and his general lack of concern for the lives of his subjects, were contributing factors in the massive casualties suffered by the Soviet Union.

The time of the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact was a period of great confusion and cognitive dissonance for the pro-Soviet, anti-fascist lefties of the time, as one can see if one reads old back issues of The Nation and other such publications from that era. Many people in the present era don't even know that it happened.

[KingCharlemagne]

56. When someone does you a solid, do you always second guess their motives? - nt

[Crunchy Frog]

57. Who "did me a solid"?

I'm very sorry, but the Russians were not doing me a personal favor when they defended themselves against a foreign attack. If you want to believe that they were doing you a personal favor, you are entirely free to do so.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

58. Might as well throw this out Re: North Africa.

My pops had medals for baseball and swimming and was an amateur boxer when Uncle Sam called and sent him to North Africa to help fight Rommel's army . He took shrapnel in the gut and eye and contacted malaria. He was in Walter Reed Hospital for six months and had several operations to save his eye. They saved it cosmetically , but he lost the sight. His atletic career was obviously over.

Yes, the Russians fought valiantly, but they brought a lot of misery on themselves by allying with NAZI Germany in the first place.

[Crunchy Frog]

64. Well obviously, he was just dinking around.

Honestly, I appreciate his service and sacrifice.

[bettyellen]

67. Dinked around? My dad fought in N Africa, France and was a POW - he never helped Nazis the way

Russians did in Eastern Europe. WTF?

[bettyellen]

51. I was trying to figure out Masha Gessen's "leave Putin alone"take on this as

Well? She seems like she is minimizing the issues with Putin because she is anti-Hillary? She kept talking about poor Bernie Sanders reactions and that bullshit about Hillary wanting war with Putin.... people need to get over the Hillary part of all this and look at where we are now.
I'd really hoped from some insight from her but it seemed really partisan- just partisan apologist nonsense to me.

[wishstar]

37. I skimmed the article- but didn't see author mention ALL THE LYING by Trump & Co.

Article was printed a couple weeks ago, before new lies have come out including about Repub platform changes, but when this article was written there already had been plenty of inexplicable lying about the Russian connections- don't see this discussed in article.

[JHan]

43. Jonathan Chait dealt* with this nonsense a couple years ago..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028774791

[Coventina]

44. Thanks!! Very enlightening!

Thank you for posting!

[flamingdem]

47. Some at the Nation have a long term warm and fuzzy with Russia

from the Soviet Union days

[Blue_Tires]

48. No big surprise that Moscow has a lot of useful idiots and paid tools

in the influential leftist pundit-blogosphere... I've regularly pointed out the hypocrisy of the Intercept, consortium news, etc, but now the Young Turks and other sites are fully pimping the Russian narrative...

[Coventina]

50. Kicking for afternoon crowd.

[underthematrix]

52. Russian intel psyops

[Ilsa]

60. Yeah. Give up, turn your tv on to Wheel of Fortune, DWtS, and shuddup. Thanks for nothing, Katrina.

[underthematrix]

62. Gee. I've never watched Wheel of Fortune or Dancing

With The Stars.

But I do read which I highly recommend to you. By read I mean REAL books.

[Ilsa]

63. I've never seen DWtS,

and I love to read (currently reading Any Human Heart). Wheel of fortune has been around 33 or more years. Can't say I've never seen it.

[underthematrix]

66. I'm reading Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power

and We Are The Change We Seek - Speeches of President Obama