Abby Martin's Bogus Argument For Why RT is Not Kremlin Propaganda

By Brandon Martinez

Russia's loyalist groupies and online attack dogs are flipping out over this US gov report on Russian meddling during the US election. They're calling it "fake news". Well, I haven't read it yet – and I doubt most of the trolls howling about "fake news" have read it either – so I'll hold judgement until that point. But I wonder why these same uber-skeptical truth crusaders seem to accept any Russian claims of US meddling in Russia. The Kremlin has for years blamed all of its internal ills on the US, from anti-Kremlin riots to its failing economy. Putin and his supporters routinely claim the Russian opposition are on the CIA payroll. All of this is gobbled up by our "red pilled" friends in the "alt-media" – there's nothing that can't be blamed on a CIA conspiracy that they won't instantly accept, and dispense widely, as fact.

The truth is that while the DNC hacking allegations may not have solid footing, at the very least Russia coordinated an "influence campaign" to pull for Trump in the election, dispatching its online troll army to pose as pro-Trump Americans and heavily slanting news coverage on RT to favour Trump. Trump was the clear favourite for the Russians as he'd made all kinds of remarks sympathetic to Putin during the campaign and even questioned the validity of NATO as an organization, which sent the Russians over the moon. Of course the Russians were working overtime to put Trump in the White House... he was, unwittingly, their man.

Now, listen to what Abby Martin says at around 2:30 in this interview.

She says that RT let her keep her job after criticizing the Kremlin for its actions in Crimea on air, so therefore RT is not slanted Kremlin propaganda. Her "critique" of Russia was a 30 second clip in ONE episode. She subsequently had on her show a bunch of pro-Russian hacks to push the Russian narrative on Ukraine. Moreover, her RT show was focused entirely on critiquing the US government and foreign policy. Other than one tiny segment which she quickly back peddled on, she never criticized Putin or Russia or China or any Eastern big power. So her general output was fully consistent with what the Kremlin wanted: focused attacks on the West. So of course RT had no real reason to get rid of her since she was generally towing the Kremlin line on most issues. Oh, and let's ignore the fact that a bunch of RT journalists resigned saying they were effectively propaganda tools unable to dissent against Kremlin narratives.

Also consider that it's possible the whole Martin on-air stunt over Crimea was staged to give RT a talking point to say they're not slanted and allow intellectual freedom on the network when we all know that's not true. It served them to do this at the time when they were taking heavy criticism for their skewed coverage of Ukraine.

I offer more commentary here: