When you point your finger at someone in blame, three fingers point back at you

For some 15 months now, all echelons of the American news media have been reporting an allegation that “the Russians” interfered in the US presidential election of 2016. The reason why is rather clear: The Democrats and the political and media establishment (which explains why some reputedly conservative outlets also drum this theme) did not want Donald Trump to win, and the fact that the American people managed to escape the media’s control enough to elect him is an unexplainable travesty which must be corrected.

But part of the theme that goes with this story is the implication that this is not fair behavior. The way the media covers this, it would seem that it is unfair to the extreme that anyone would bother the sacred tradition of the American election process.

Except for that other nations feel this way too, about their own. But the American CIA has been about the business of election interference since 1948. In a New York Times piece that broke with the pack and reported on this, it was noted that election interference is standard policy for the CIA and has been so for decades.

The lynchpin of justification was actually presented as valid reasoning just a couple weeks ago, when former CIA director James Woolsey was interviewed on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox.

The amazing thing is that Mr. Woolsey really believes that there is a difference between America interfering with the Soviets or anyone else, and the Russians interfering with America. The idea is somehow that we are a “better class of people” than to have someone do that to us.

American “interference” does not rely on only clandestine actions by our intelligence and counter intelligence agencies. In Russia, the interference has long existed from the USA, since the Soviet times and the Cold War, but it still persists today. The attack is along that only front of Marxism that actually experienced long lasting success, called “cultural Marxism.” To that end, several American TV stations are routed into Russia. There are many radio stations filled with English-language music, but unlike their American counterparts, the text is not edited. This means that the most foul language imaginable flows across the public airwaves in Moscow at any given time, and of course, the youth hear it, and many of them think it is cool. There is a lot of inertia to this, unfortunately, because many Russian people note when asked about this, “Well, we don’t know English so it’s just words; it doesn’t hurt us.” And to be sure, Russians are a lot less likely to mince words when they have something to say. The use of profanity is far less restrained in modern life here than it is even in the USA. This makes them perhaps a bit more resilient to the effects of ugly language than we expect of ourselves. Still, grotesque sexual references are not appreciated in Russian, but the airwaves are often replete with these – in English. It cannot but have some effect (parental advisory if your kids want to click on that link), just as it has in the  United States and in Europe.

But at the same time, the nation is striving to reconstitute its unmistakably Christian culture. There are forces trying to liberalize Russia according to the Western European and American models. By and large, the success is mixed. The strengthening of the institutions of family and marriage in this country, especially guided by Christian viewpoints, is having a strong effect towards resisting this. The Russian culture was always quite traditional, and in the renewed spirit of Russian nationalism it is easy to find people that simply treat the antics of the West as absurdities and as actions of very sick people. But there are also some who are taken in by the allure of the Western life, and so there is for example a distinction in attitude one might see between St Petersburg, the “Window on the West” and Moscow.

The American interference here in election processes, thankfully, is rather poorly targeted. Upholding challengers to Vladimir Putin who the West tries to glorify, like Alexei Navalny and Ksenia Sobchak, are largely laughable or seen as ineffective alternatives to the Russian people, and it seems that the Russian world view on internal politics is somewhat inscrutable to the Western mind. It probably is because the West views itself as the highest form of culture, and expects that anyone, anywhere would certainly love to ascend to that cultural plateau.

Thankfully, the Russians are not having it. They counter with the extreme depth of their own culture, which has done a lot to influence even the West, with the greatest works of literature, music, architecture, and the love that the people have for their country is amplified by the freedom to be a nation under God.

It would seem that the West has some lessons to learn – lessons that it actually used to live by itself, not so long ago.