Two foreign countries, Israel and Russia, are influencing American public opinion and policy through their respective intelligence agencies, dangerously undermining US democracy.
In December, the New York Times ran a story called Screams Without Words, which detailed sexual crimes against Israeli women by Hamas on Oct. 7. The article has since been debunked and found to have been researched and written by an Israeli Defense Force intelligence soldier and her in-law. Too late though, the damage has been done as Israel has the support of the United States to eliminate Hamas while slaughtering Palestinian civilians.
At the same time, Republican members of Congress who refuse to pass funding for Ukraine, and also defend Donald Trump, initiated impeachment proceedings against President Biden and his son based on information provided by Russian intelligence. This too has been proven to be false, and yet the damage has been done in smearing Biden and justifying Trump’s candidacy even though he instigated an insurrection on Jan. 6.
These two current examples show that foreign interference in American policy and opinion is out in the open, and will influence the 2024 Presidential election through fake news from America’s “paper of record” and official Congressional lies.
As outlined in Back Circle Theory, this type of corruption degrades American democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of its media and its government.
Legitimacy is a basic condition for the use of power by a legally constituted government, and it is a lot more important than most people recognize. If Americans lose confidence in the ability of the media and government to be fair, and is instead proven to be corrupt, then it opens the door for more partisanship, mob violence and can lead to civil war or a coup.
“As the values of the government’s actors become increasingly politicized, legitimacy becomes a cancer that both sides compete against each other for a treatment. . . This back and forth of both sides claiming the other’s treatment is illegitimate. . . intensifies, enabling the cancer to metastasize until legitimacy itself dies.”*
The best way to combat the corruption that leads the country’s institutions to lose its legitimacy in the eyes of its citizenry, is for the public to be aware of this so that it supports the Constitution’s system of checks and balances of the accumulation of power. This is done by forcing the media and its Congressional representatives to admit to wrongdoing, pay a price for the wrongdoing (accountability) and outline how they will do better in the future.
Please, do some research on these two topics of foreign intelligence interference. Tell your coworkers and friends and post about it on social media. Our democratic legitimacy is at stake.
Eamon Loingsigh
