Menu
Paynal © 2008
Stop Hoping That The Swamp Will Drain The Swamp By Caitlin Johnstone!!!!
(2019-05-28 at 15:26:20 )
Stop Hoping That The Swamp Will Drain The Swamp by Caitlin Johnstone
If you only tuned into United States politics within the last couple of years this will come as a major surprise, but believe it or not there was once a time when both major parties were not constantly claiming that imminent revelations are about to completely destroy the other party any minute now.
Used to be they would just focus on beating each other in elections and making each other look bad with smears and sex scandals; now in the age of Donald Trump they are both always insisting that some huge, earth-shattering revelation is right around the corner that will see the leaders of the other party dragged off in chains forever.
Enthusiastic Donald Trump supporters have been talking a lot lately about the presidents decision to give Attorney General Bill Barr the authority to declassify information regarding the shady origins of the discredited Russiagate hoax, including potentially illicit means used to secure a surveillance warrant on Donald Trump campaign staff.
For days online chatter from President Trumps base has been amping up for a huge, cataclysmic bombshell in the same language Russiagaters used to use back before Robert Mueller pissed in their Wheaties.
"There is information coming that will curl your hair," Congressman Mark Meadows told Sean Hannity on Fox News. "I can tell you that the reason why it is so visceral - the response from the Democrats is so visceral right now - is because they know, they have seen documents.
Adam Schiff has seen documents that he knows will actually put the finger pointing back at him and his Democrat colleagues, not the president of the United States."
"There is some information in these transcripts that I think has the potential to be a game changer, if it is ever made public," former Republican congressman Trey Gowdy told Fox News, referring to Federal Bureau of Investigation transcripts of recorded interactions with surveilled individuals.
"Sources tell me there will be bombshells of information," tweeted Fox News contributor Sara A Carter of the coming decassifications.
Democrats and Democrat-aligned media are responding with similarly apocalyptic language, playing right along with the same WWE script.
"While President Trump stonewalls the public from learning the truth about his obstruction of justice, Trump and Barr conspire to weaponize law enforcement and classified information against their political enemies," griped congressman, Russiagater and flamboyant drama queen Adam Schiff, adding, "The coverup has entered a new and dangerous phase. This is un-American."
"President Trumps order allowing Attorney General William P. Barr to declassify any intelligence that led to the Russia investigation sets up a potential confrontation with the Central Intelligence Agency," the New York Times warns.
"National security veterans fear a declassification order could trigger resignations and threaten the CIAs ability to conduct its core business - managing secret intelligence and sources," frets Politico.
"William Barrs New Authority to Declassify Anything He Wants Is a Threat to National Security," blares a headline from Slate.
Both sides are wrong and ridiculous.
Democrats are wrong and ridiculous for claiming a tiny bit of government transparency is dangerous, and Republicans are wrong and ridiculous to claim that game-changing bombshell revelations are going to be brought to the light by these declassifications.
Just like with the Mueller report and the "bigger than Watergate" Nunes memo before it, there may be some interesting revelations, but the swamp of DC corruption will march on completely uninterrupted.
Readers keep asking me to weigh in on this whole declassification controversy, but really I have no response to the whole thing apart from boredom and a slight flinch whenever I think about Adam Schiffs bug-eyed stare.
There is just not much going to come of it.
This is not to suggest that the intelligence communities of the United States and its allies were not up to some extremely sleazy shenanigans in planting the seeds of the Russiagate insanity which monopolized United States political attention for over two years, and it is not to suggest that those shenanigans could not be interpreted as crimes.
Abuse of government surveillance and inflicting a malignant psyop on public consciousness are extremely egregious offenses and should indeed be punished.
And, in a sane world, they would be.
But we do not live in such a world.
We live in a world where partisan divides are for show only and the powerful are never brought to account.
Having the swamp of President Trumps Justice Department investigate the swamp of Obamas intelligence community is not going to lead anywhere.
Swamp creature Bill "Iran-Contra coverup" Barr is not going to be draining the swamp any more than swamp creature Robert "Saddam has WMDs" Mueller.
The swamp cannot be used to drain itself.
It is possible that some important information will make its way to public view, like Russiagates roots in the United Kingdom intelligence, for example.
But no powerful people in the United States or its allied governments will suffer any meaningful consequences for any offenses exposed, and no significant changes in government policy or behavior will take place.
I fully support declassifying everything President Trump wants declassified (as well as the rest of the 99 percent of classified government information which is only hidden from public view out of convenience for the powerful), but the most significant thing that can possibly come of it is a slightly better-informed populace and some political damage to the Democrats in 2020.
The only people who believe these inquiries will help fix the United States of Americas problems are those who believe there are aspects of the DC power structure which are not immersed in swamp.
President Trump supporters believe the Donald Trump administration is virtuous, so they believe the Justice Department is preparing to hold powerful manipulators to legal accountability rather than cover for them and treat them with kid gloves.
Democrats believed that a former FBI Director and George W Bush crony was going to bring the Executive Branch of the United States government to its knees, because they thought that swamp monster was in some way separable from the swamp.
It does not work that way, cupcake!!!!
If people want to rid their government of the swamp of corruption, they are going to have to do it themselves.
No political insider is going to rise to the occasion and do it for you.
They can not!!!
You can not drain the swamp when you are made of swamp, any more than you can wash yourself clean with a turd-soaked loofah.
The only upheaval that is worth buying stock in is the kind which moves from the bottom up.
If you really want change, it is not going to come from the United States president or any longtime government insider.
It is going to come from real people looking to each other and agreeing to say that enough is enough, and use the power of their numbers to flush the corrupt power structure down the toilet where it belongs.
It will mean ceasing to imbue the fake partisan divide with the power of belief, and it will mean unplugging from official authorized narratives about what is going on in the world and circulating our own narratives instead.
All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of the swamp.
If you can not see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really do not understand what you are looking at.
Thanks for reading!!
Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I have written) in any way they like free of charge.
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my "sweet merchandise", buying my new book "Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone", or my previous book "Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers". The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for "my website", which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I am trying to do with this platform, "click here".