Who knew that peace was so threatening?

This headline from the British tabloid–The Times–perfectly encapsulates the frightening sentiment: “Fears grow over prospect of Trump ‘peace deal’ with Putin”.

Other headlines include– “Trump hopes he and Putin will get along. Russia experts worry they will” by the Washington Post, and “Trump Will Finally Meet With Putin Next Month. That Should Terrify You” by Mother Jones.

This follows a familiar pattern. A sizable cross-section of Americans believe that Russia poses an imminent threat and that Trump owes his presidency to Putin’s collusion because they have been told this repeatedly by the corporate media.

The Democrats, who have for decades posed as the party of peace and reconciliation, provided further proof that it was all just an act.

“Glad-handing with Vladimir Putin on the heels of these indictments would be an insult to our democracy. President Trump should cancel his meeting with Vladimir Putin until Russia takes demonstrable and transparent steps to prove that they won’t interfere in future elections,” said Senator Chuck Schumer. And, here’s Nancy Pelosi. “Every single day, I find myself asking: what do the Russians have on @realDonaldTrump personally, financially, & politically? The answer to that question is that only thing that explains his behavior & his refusal to stand up to Putin.”

Since we have a bi-partisan congressional military/industrial/complex the Republicans lost little time getting into the act.

“I think the president should listen to his security council and our secretary of Defense and our NATO allies on anything of substance dealing with the U.S. military posture. We’ve got to be careful, we’ve got to be strong,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who recently led a congressional delegation to Russia.

In a predictably timed move, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers on various charges of conspiracy against the US, days before Trump’s summit with Putin, charges Mueller has been sitting on for months.

The Mueller indictments offered no proof of the claims but at this point it’s become obvious that facts are of no concern to the always-war Beltway crowd. The facts are also of little importance to the corporate media, which endlessly repeats the lie that Russian interference in the 2016 election was confirmed by the entire intelligence community.

That account is what we in the reality based community call a lie.

Former ambassador Jack Matlock, says that, “In fact, the U.S. “intelligence community” has not done so. The intelligence community as a whole has not been tasked to make a judgment and some key members of that community did not participate in the report that is routinely cited as “proof” of “Russian interference.”

Instead, on Jan. 6, 2017, President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released an evidence-free report that was compiled by “hand-picked” analysts from the CIA, FBI and NSA, offering an “assessment” that Russia and President Putin were behind the release of the Democratic e-mails in a plot to help Trump win the presidency.

In my opinion, Russia-gate has always been intended to prevent Trump from pursuing detente with nuclear-armed Russia. It’s also been used as a cudgel to force Trump to maintain the NATA alliance that largely serves as a way to market US weapons to newly minted Eastern European NATO clients.

In fact, the eastward expansion of NATO after the dismantling of the Soviet Union, is a big part of  Russian actions that our corporate media describe as Russian expansion. NATO’s continued existence — and, in fact, its expansion — has mostly served to resuscitate the very issue it was created to solve: Russian aggression. According to declassified documents, both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were repeatedly assured by the first Bush and Clinton administrations, respectively, that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward, something Russians viewed as unacceptable.

Of course, US officials lied then, just as they are lying about the dangers of Trump’s summit with Putin now. It’s what they do.

Indeed, there are many reasons the bipartisan US establishment hates Trump. His heresies from neoliberal orthodoxies on immigration and trade are prominent. But top among them is his oft-stated intention to improve relations with Russia.

US reconciliation with Russia would yank the rug out from under the phony justifications for spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to counter a threat that ceased to exist over a quarter century ago. That’s why when it was reported soon after his January 2017 inauguration that Trump was seeking to open dialogue with the Kremlin and set an early summit with Putin there was a hysterical counteraction. In this context, the Democratic Party-led Russia-gate appears to have been used not only to explain away Clinton’s defeat but to stop Trump — possibly via impeachment or by inflicting severe political damage — because he talks about cooperation with Russia.

That kind of talk is seditious to the deep state, where war truly is the health of the state.

Look, I’m not a Trump supporter. But if he proposes a good policy, like improved relations with nuclear-armed Russia, I’m all for it. If your hatred of Trump has clouded this essential point, then you, dear reader, are a threat to our species.

Remember kids, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and peace is treason.

Update: Caitlin’s right.

“I’ve been writing about Russiagate since it started, and I can honestly say this is the worst it’s ever been, by far. The most hysterical, the most shrill, the most emotional, the most cartoonishly over-the-top and hyperbolic. The fact that Trump met with Putin in private and then publicly expressed doubt about the establishment Russia narrative has sent some political factions of America into an emotional state that is indistinguishable from what you’d expect if Russia had bombed New York City.”