Lexicus
Deity
Counterpoint: I suggest reading some of this document! In effect when you claim there has never been a "deep state", you are claiming that the Church Committee wasted its time.
The USA Deep State
- Thread starter Lexicus
- Start date
Counterpoint: I suggest reading some of this document! In effect when you claim there has never been a "deep state", you are claiming that the Church Committee wasted its time.
KaibaCorp
Warlord
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Covert, sometimes sketchy "cuz national security" activity isn't exactly the "deep state" imo.
Deep State gets thrown around by MAGA and both sides-ers as either excuses for Trump's failures or as why the Dems would be worse.
It's an ethereal catch-all for bad stuff without evidence.
Deep State gets thrown around by MAGA and both sides-ers as either excuses for Trump's failures or as why the Dems would be worse.
It's an ethereal catch-all for bad stuff without evidence.
Covert operations have been apart of all governments since Ancient times. If you consider them as a "deep state", sure. But that is not how the GOP has depicted it over the past few decades.
Lexicus
Deity
It's definitely true that the deep state as imagined by the American right is a fever dream. I believe the concept can be traced back to the Birchers' search for an excuse as to why China "fell" to Communism and settling on a fantasy of the US government being riddled with Communist spies and controlled by a cabal of pinkoes who wanted to protect the spies. This concept was then quite easy to invoke to also explain why the federal government seemed bent on imposing Communist race-mixing on innocent white Americans.
Functionally the MAGA deep state concept indeed is simply a catch-all excuse for anything that goes wrong, but it is also a handy excuse to justify continual intensification of the authoritarianism we're seeing from the administration. If any problem is caused by insufficient rooting out of the deep state, then the solution is always to intensify the ideological purging that is needed to get rid of the deep state. Like all Republican accusations these days it should also be read as presaging what MAGA hopes to accomplish - the creation of a MAGA deep state, which is basically what they're turning ICE into.
Lexicus
Deity
I suppose there are two angles to respond here. One would be that if the findings of the church committee can be summed up as "covert operations" of the sort that "all governments since ancient times" have engaged in, then one wonders why we wasted taxpayer money on all the church committee's activities. Another angle would be that the covert operations engaged in by monarchies and dictatorships have no place in a free republic.
In any case I believe that what we see in the church committee report is indeed a rogue deep state running amok. Apropos given today's date, it is very probable that that deep state murdered Martin Luther King Jr among many other people. The real issue is not with the existence of a deep state per se, the issue is that the American right's concept of the deep state is simply an excuse for a Donald Trump dictatorship.
Ajidica
High Quality Person
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Honestly, I wouldn't even reach to the CIA there as the "deep state". After the Church Committee it largely came out that the **** the CIA and spooks were getting up to was authorized by people in the government on a "wink and a nudge", leaving the spooks to take the heat.
When I talk about the "deep state" in the US, I don't really look at the spooks. The uncomfortable truth is that all of the "deep state spook" scandals have their root in programs and activities that were lawfully authorized by congress and carried out more or less with congressional / executive knowledge. They may not have known the full scale, but that they were doing something like that was known. The spooks are kept under control in the US.
Rather, the "deep state" is the nexus of media, business, and security interests that reinforce each other to create a set of assumptions that should not be questioned. For example, people like Mehdi Hassan, who isn't particularly radical, is treated by ostensibly sympathetic media as a wildly heterodox figure.
When people talk about El Trumpo and his creeps "fighting the deep state", they aren't necessarily wrong. The pro-business, vaguely pro human rights, international rule of law types that formed the post cold war "deep state" were utterly shocked by Trump I and with a lot of effort managed to keep him under control until the end. Starting in late Trump 1, the freaks, weirdos, and egomaniacs saw Trump as a vehicle for their grievance politics on a global scale. This isn't the Fox News grievance politics "I don't like brown people" stuff, but rather "I disagree with the fundamental assumptions about the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". The tech-bros and crypto bros provide the muscle to the freaks and weirdos as a vehicle for their own agenda - replacing the American liberalism that defined the post-WW2 world with basically a 12 year olds version of "social darwinism". "I'm so smart and better than everyone else, everyone who disagrees or holds me back must be evil and dealt with". We saw this with the Binance people in the CFTC actions because we have their text messages. It wasn't classic "lets try and get some extra money by sleaze, some market manipulation, and bribing some foreigners". No, it was out and out "these rules on Know Your Customer are stupid because we are smarter than the people who wrote them, I won't follow them".
So in a sense Trump did "fight the deep state" and won, but the likely replacement is far darker without any of the understanding a social bargain needs to be maintained.
amadeus
✻ Come on down! ✻
The deepest state is Delaware, averaging just 60 feet above sea level. The deepest individual point is in Death Valley, CA which is -200 feet.
A better term for it might be a “deeply-embedded state,” for which I would include civil service organs and non-profit organizations that depend on the status quo. Nobody in any sector wants to vote themselves out of a job.
Lexicus
Deity
This is exactly why you'd call it the deep state - it is systemic, not a secret cabal in the government that controls the rest of the government. Apropos:
The spooks, congress, the executive, the business community, etc shared many of these assumptions during the pre-Church committee time.
Well yes, transitioning from a professionalized civil service to executive-as-pure-instrument-of-the-President's-will is not going to be enjoyable for anyone except the President.
EnglishEdward
Deity
@ Ajidica
That is the best summary of "deep state" so far on this thread.
That is the best summary of "deep state" so far on this thread.
r16
not deity
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- 12,589
there is only one single Deep State . Every other description is an imitation . Not that the "authentic" one is real but anyhow .
after 1967 , as anything seems possible and even the sky is any kind of a limit , Israel decides Turkey must be added to the Confrontation States . Mind the decision makers of the time are Socialists , like 100% atheists , too . The Arab world insists the two lines in the Israeli flag are the Nile and Euphrates , there can never be peace as the Zionists will not stop and one must remember there are lots of people alive who were born as the subjects of the Ottoman Empire . Telling anyone who would listen that the Turks would keep things under control . Quite rudely at times but eventually .
so , the Israelis decide there should be a Baathist coup in Turkey , a military junta , a younger generation officers without those who have served under Atatürk himself to follow reason that might be offered rudely . The Military , those who have served Atatürk , eventually wake up and the Left Wing coup is realised as a Right Wing intervention that will do nicely to curtail Israeli influence that would lead to a lot of friction by big talk from condemnation of Israeli outrages with no teeth .
this is the time some Goverment Minister will be saying "they have dug under us" , you know , something in the deep .
didn't really pan out , too . The Israeli police chief that oversaw the trial of Adolf Eichmann retired and became Israeli Consul General or whatever to Istanbul , was abducted by Leftist urban guerilla attempters and killed . Despite the ransom collected by Turkish Jewish community and stuff . The rumours being some Nazi war criminal , living in France or Syria paid the Leftists for murder and he was free to roam in Turkey , too . If 1973 was not such a thing , the Israeli Phantoms would join the Greek Phantoms in 1974 in beyond visual range missile shoots on the now dead Turkish Air Force .
the Deep State is all negative ,Jews traitors selling drugs , women and the secrets of the country , working as liars , influence agents and propaganda assets , sabotaging the economy , parasites who need to be ethnically cleansed , especially according to Islamists who condone such things when done by people closely related to Britain or America or Germany .
it is a nice sounding thing for the MAGA crowd who wouldn't care for truth anyhow . The thing in America is the ESTABLISHMENT . Can't be that big a word to spell .
after 1967 , as anything seems possible and even the sky is any kind of a limit , Israel decides Turkey must be added to the Confrontation States . Mind the decision makers of the time are Socialists , like 100% atheists , too . The Arab world insists the two lines in the Israeli flag are the Nile and Euphrates , there can never be peace as the Zionists will not stop and one must remember there are lots of people alive who were born as the subjects of the Ottoman Empire . Telling anyone who would listen that the Turks would keep things under control . Quite rudely at times but eventually .
so , the Israelis decide there should be a Baathist coup in Turkey , a military junta , a younger generation officers without those who have served under Atatürk himself to follow reason that might be offered rudely . The Military , those who have served Atatürk , eventually wake up and the Left Wing coup is realised as a Right Wing intervention that will do nicely to curtail Israeli influence that would lead to a lot of friction by big talk from condemnation of Israeli outrages with no teeth .
this is the time some Goverment Minister will be saying "they have dug under us" , you know , something in the deep .
didn't really pan out , too . The Israeli police chief that oversaw the trial of Adolf Eichmann retired and became Israeli Consul General or whatever to Istanbul , was abducted by Leftist urban guerilla attempters and killed . Despite the ransom collected by Turkish Jewish community and stuff . The rumours being some Nazi war criminal , living in France or Syria paid the Leftists for murder and he was free to roam in Turkey , too . If 1973 was not such a thing , the Israeli Phantoms would join the Greek Phantoms in 1974 in beyond visual range missile shoots on the now dead Turkish Air Force .
the Deep State is all negative ,
it is a nice sounding thing for the MAGA crowd who wouldn't care for truth anyhow . The thing in America is the ESTABLISHMENT . Can't be that big a word to spell .
Joij21
🔥It's Joever!🔥
Did Nixon not have a deep state via Watergate? Reagan with Iran CONTRA? Did the CIA not kill Kennedy? Was the military industrial complex and intelligence agencies not behind the push for more war in Vietnam? Did the NSA not spy on us under Bush and Obama? (And still right now)
Lexicus
Deity
The idea that Oswald wasn't a CIA asset at the time he pulled the trigger strains credulity to the breaking point imo.
KaibaCorp
Warlord
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Define "CIA asset" though. Ruby was a "FBI informant" or something because he had previously been questioned by the FBI years before the Kennedy stuff. By the same token there were "FBI informants" at Jan 6th or whatever Maga morons screech. I could probably go to a Taylor Swift concert and pull "FBI informants" out of a crowd that big.
Oswald was an American who served in the military, went to live in Russia, didn't like it, came home. He went to to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City shortly before the assassination as he wanted to emigrate there. The parade route was setup, agreed upon and in the papers for the first time something like 2-3 days before the assassination. So any CIA theories would have to account for the fact they planned all this in 48-72 hours. And that's not even getting into any of the physical evidence.
Oswald was an American who served in the military, went to live in Russia, didn't like it, came home. He went to to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City shortly before the assassination as he wanted to emigrate there. The parade route was setup, agreed upon and in the papers for the first time something like 2-3 days before the assassination. So any CIA theories would have to account for the fact they planned all this in 48-72 hours. And that's not even getting into any of the physical evidence.
Klaus Hergersheimer
Emperor
I imagine the intelligence community tries out all sorts of stupid things in the name of counter-whatever, like the time they tried to bug a cat, but a car ran it over 
www.smithsonianmag.com
The CIA Experimented On Animals in the 1960s Too. Just Ask ‘Acoustic Kitty’
Turns out that cats really don't take direction well
www.smithsonianmag.com
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Nixon just had a bunch of inept and corrupt people he brought into his administration. The same goes for Reagan. Who killed Kennedy? More likely the mafia than the CIA. No deep state is necessary when you hire or appoint bad people to do your dirty work. Trump is the modern version of that.
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Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Spoiler :
Lexicus
Deity
What does the physical evidence have to do with the question of whether Oswald "acted alone"?
Joij21
🔥It's Joever!🔥
You didn't address Bush and Obama and the Snowden revelations.
Lexicus
Deity
The sheer volume of weird coincidences in the matter and the...shall we say, suspicious backgrounds of many of Oswald's associates. I don't think there was an actual CIA plot to kill Kennedy, but I also do not believe that Oswald truly acted alone in the sense meant by the Warren Commission. The most plausible theory I've heard is that Oswald was a (probably unwitting) part of a plan by "rogue" elements in the CIA to try to draw Kennedy into a second try at regime change in Cuba after the failure of Bay of Pigs, which was effed up in magnificent fashion by Oswald actually blowing the President's head open, at which point the CIA likely burned any evidence that could directly connect them to Oswald.
