Although most Americans are unfamiliar with the term ‘Deep State,’ according to recent polling they are nevertheless skeptical of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy, John V. Walsh reports.
By John V. Walsh
“Public Troubled by Deep State” is the headline that the Monmouth University Polling Institute tags to its recent poll. Acknowledging that polling about the term “Deep State” is problematic because “few Americans (13%) are very familiar with the term ‘Deep State,’” the pollsters at Monmouth defined the term as follows for their interviewees: “The term Deep State refers to the possible existence of a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy.”
The Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Defense Department, as viewed with the Potomac River and Washington, D.C., in the background. (Defense Department photo)
Then they asked whether such a group exists.
Monmouth reports the results as follows: “Nearly 3-in-4 (74%) say they believe this type of apparatus exists in Washington. This includes 27% who say it definitely exists and 47% who say it probably exists. Only 1-in-5 say it does not exist (16% probably not and 5% definitely not).”
These opinions do not follow a partisan divide. The report explains that belief in the Deep State’s existence “comes from more than 7-in-10 Americans in each partisan group, although Republicans (31%) and independents (33%) are somewhat more likely than Democrats (19%) to say that the Deep State definitely exists.”
This leads the director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, Patrick Murray, to volunteer: “We usually expect opinions on the operation of government to shift depending on which party is in charge. But there’s an ominous feeling by Democrats and Republicans alike that a ‘Deep State’ of unelected operatives are pulling the levers of power.”
In addition, there are some significant but not drastic racial and ethnic differences on this question. Says the report, “Americans of black, Latino and Asian backgrounds (35%) are more likely than non-Hispanic whites (23%) to say that the Deep State definitely exists.”
The report also asked about government surveillance of the citizenry and here again there is widespread concern: Fully 8-in-10 believe that the U.S. government currently monitors or spies on the activities of American citizens, including a majority (53%) who say this activity is widespread and another 29% who say such monitoring happens but is not widespread. Just 14% say this monitoring does not happen at all. There are no substantial partisan differences in these results.
This too causes the director of the Institute to be concerned. “This is a worrisome finding. The strength of our government relies on public faith in protecting our freedoms, which is not particularly robust. And it’s not a Democratic or Republican issue. These concerns span the political spectrum,” says director Murray.
We can add to the concern about a manipulative unelected apparatus at work in the government the widespread distrust of the press summarized in this recent Gallup/Knight poll:
“*Today, 66% of Americans say most news media do not do a good job of separating fact from opinion. In 1984, 42% held this view.
“*Less than half of Americans, 44%, say they can think of a news source that reports the news objectively.
“*On a multiple-item media trust scale with scores ranging from a low of zero to a high of 100, the average American scores a 37.”
This paints a pretty grim picture of trust in both our government and our media. Perhaps “Deep Media” should be a term added to “Deep State.”
But perhaps it is cause for optimism. It seems that people are waking up and thinking for themselves. This is, perhaps, good news for those who are trying to end U.S. wars being ginned up by the Deep State.
John V. Walsh can be reached at [email protected]
The emanate historian Peter Dale Scott has been writing the history of the Deep State since the 1970s. One of his latest books to chronicle this history has recently been released by Amazon called DALLAS63. I believe it is one of the best books on the complicity of the CIA in that event. Another book that covers JFK’s murder is James Douglass’ JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE. The MSM has been hiding the truth about the coup since it happened. If a news agency states that Kennedy was killed by a “lone nut” you can be sure it is controlled by the Deep State.
Of course there is a Deep State just as there is a Bank Cartel. Only the brainwashed electorate led by an elite bi-partisan establishment cannot or will not grasp the truth. As Smedley D. Butler said of his Marines “we were the hit men for the big corporations, racketeers for capitalism” (1935) in his book “War is a Racket”.
Deep State is just the current phrase for what used to be called the Establishment or the Power Elite. It comes from Turkey, where it means the old boys network which organizes coups d’etat, assassinates “leftist” journalists and in general keeps the Kemalist status quo from changing. It’s been picked up in the USA probably because it’s colorful.
Haven’t you noticed that no matter who is elected, the wars never stop? There is definitely an Old Boys Network, an Establishment, a Deep State, whatever you call it, that want’s constant warfare.
Since it’s pretty clear that nothing important changes when a new President is elected or the opposition party takes control of Congress, it’s pretty clear that a Deep State is in control. As for the government spying on Americans, Snowden’s revelations convinced me.
That the government does NOT protect ordinary Americans’ freedoms is, again, pretty clear. The media? It’s mostly entertainment, not information and analysis. Most media are owned by 6 giant corporations, aren’t they? So the media also are part of the Deep State.
Yes, the republic is in deep trouble. Like the Roman Republic “restored” by Augustus, it is merely a front for a dictatorship. Congress and Supreme Court are largely rubber stamps. The president chooses to make war, and has for 50-60 years.
The Deep State is actually the private bankers who own the Fed, investment bankers, big-time scoundrels that manipulatebt stock prices through insider trading, buybacks, and mutual computerized transactions, trillionaire investors who bet on the future state of just about anything and make it happen, destroying countless lives and whole countries, the parties that get their puppets elected (remember, according to the Supreme Court, corporations are legal entities that can offer unlimited campaign contributions in the name of Free Speech) and cash in on state and government contracts to the point of sinking us in debt and dictate public policies to their lackey politicians, those who own the debt these people force us into, while eliminating well-paying jobs in order to bolster their profits, the parasites that are destroying this country, while we are sitting here, chatting.
Troubled by the Deep State recently? Think that they have you coming and going playing to your interests? Do you surmise that the major media megaphones have been twisting your ears be you on the left or the right? For what purpose have the left and the right been spinning you toward the same conclusions?
One thing might make you come to your senses and that is that whether the spin is on the right or the left the common denominator is war.
On the Left we have a barrage of anti Putin anti Russia spin which demonizes our old Cold War adversary 24/7/365 blaming Russia for our last national election supported by the Democrats with their investigations into how Russia hacked the last election.
On the Right we have the defenders of Trump and his recent replacements of his staff with war hawks dictated by Fox News and their correspondents as the new political officials in the Trump administration.
Both of the positions on the right and the left converge to blame foreign enemies and have heavy handed policies to deal with those enemies. The Left want to slap sanctions on Russia while the Right want to slap sanctions on Iran and North Korea.
The Left like the NY Times denounces Trump for not enforcing sanctions against Putin while the Right slams the Obama era peace treaty with Iran.
What a slam dunk for the Military Industrial Complex. They have managed in the span of a few months to ignite the public and the presidency to do a full 180 turnaround in a possible future where we might respect international treaties and turn it into a new era where international treaties should be fed into the grinder as useless garbage.
If anyone has a doubt about the power of the Deep State then the recent events of a president who has been schooled of the necessity of abiding by the wishes of the Deep State and who has reversed Foreign policy many times to acquiesce to that policy should no longer hold any doubts that the concerted efforts of the Deep State have been a primary influence on the current administration.
The recent appointments of Pompeo and Bolton are nothing more than Trump’s acquiescence to the Deep State in his bid to come into the fold of the NeoCon war mongers who still see our aggressor stance as key to our national interests.
Deep State = PNAC-Attacking (CIA) Company crime family syndicate : G0Bfather Poppy Bush
https://fromtheleft.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/poppy.jpg
It would help if Walsh suggested some examples of the Deep State, like the National Reconnaissance Office, NSA especially its Special Collection Service,the laser weapons of the US Navy and Air Force, HAARP, etc.
Makes it sound too much like just public paranoia.
The system (capitalism, authoritarianism) produces the deep state, and the deep state produces the system and reinforces it. If we continue to submit to the system, then it will always guarantee we have a deep state ruling us. If you want to be free of the deep state, you must get rid of the system – which has been deeply lodged in people’s consciousness. Only a change of minds can result in a change of Rulers.
We can pinpoint when this nation took a turn for the worse – when it bought the snake oil of neoliberalism.
“But for Hayek, a free market meant one free for these rentiers. Free for landlords, bankers and monopolists. That’s why his group, the Von Misians in Austria, spent their time fighting against public spending and the “threat” of socialism. He said that socialism leads to fascism. But actually it’s his Chicago school that does this. It’s the “free market” Chicago Boys who led to fascism in Chile by overthrowing the government.
So Hayek called freedom fascism, and he called fascism freedom. The first thing that the Chicago boys did in Chile was to close every economics department. Because they realized that you can’t have a Hayek-style free market unless you’re willing to kill everybody who disagrees with you. They had to kill labor leaders and tens of thousands of intellectuals. They closed every economics department in the country except for the Catholic University where they taught. There was mass murder.
If you’re not wiling to kill everybody who has a different idea than yourself, you cannot have Frederick Hayek’s free market. You cannot have Alan Greenspan or the Chicago School, you cannot have the economic freedom that is freedom for the rentiers and the FIRE sector to reduce the rest of the economy to serfdom.”
http://michael-hudson.com/2017/03/the-democracy-collaborative/
The enemies of socialism are always at work. Guess who is threatened by such a more egalitarian system?
How about back when the early Republic decided to imitate the Puritans and kill or ethnically cleanse the Indians?
“Widespread distrust of the press.” Don’t forget that internet sites are also news media. That can be seen from a few further quotes from the Gallup/Knight poll linked to: “Seventy-three percent of Americans say the spread of inaccurate information on the internet is a major problem with news coverage today; this percentage is higher than for any other potential type of news bias” and “Americans have the greatest trust in national network news and local and national newspapers to provide mostly accurate and politically balanced news. They trust cable news more than they trust internet news sources”. This is entirely in accordance with my empirical experience over 14 years of visiting US internet sites. The level of open lying, along with the sheer brazenness of the lies, takes my breath away. Equally, the message always seems to be the same, regardless of the professed ideology of the website. All that changes is that the arguments (pretexts?) are dressed up in the jargon appropriate to the professed ideology. That suggests an enormous amount of false-flagging. Of course, all of this is so flat-footed and transparent, and laid on so thick, that it couldn’t possibly fool anyone. Thus, the only real “harm” done is that the internet loses its credibility as a news source and becomes interesting only as a means of seeing what arguments the propagandists are peddling today. That, in itself, can be highly informative!
The five percent who say the deep state definitely does not exist all work for it.
I had the same thought! Cheers.
The US has been run as an empire since Alexander Hamilton surrendered our sovereign right to create our own national treasury to the early Rothschild private banking empire. Then every single US president waged a 100 yr long war against the Native Peoples to clear the land for privatization. Then successive presidents continued the Rothschild’s work moving to South America and across the Pacific. We’ve never been anything more than a hit squad for the Financial Emperors. Never. The only question is WHAT CAN BE DONE? What can we do today, tomorrow, this weekend, next week, this Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. What can we do?
• In the progress of time, and through our own base carelessness and ignorance, we have permitted the money-industry, by the virtue of its business, to attain a political and economic influence so powerful that it has actually undermined the authority of the state and usurped the power of democratic government. Vincent Vickers.
• I needed the good will of the legislature of four states. I formed the legislature bodies with my own money. I found it was cheaper that way. Jay Gould.
Where are these quotes in schools, so that the people can be aware of the dangers to be vigilant about? By what subtle, unconscious propaganda instinct are these vital warning quotes kept out of schools without anyone issuing a command?
At this overdrive point in the colossal destruction of everyone’s everything the only thing it makes any sense to me to do is to keep saying and saying the truth, whether or not I think people are listening to what is necessary to retrieve our chance to have a future:
We humans are down to 2 choices: We will either, through the proper education, rid ourselves and each other of the diabolically stupid idea to keep using division of labor as an excuse to allow unlimited fortunes on this planet thereby creating an unsurvivable, tyranny-slavery RATIO of overpayoverpower to underpayunderpower that can’t but increase at an everescalating pace, or we WILL succumb to the all-negative results of having the next and the next and the next wealthpower giants, ad infinitum until the violence attached to the extreme injustice sets off the final bomb.
• Rouse up, O young people of the new age! Set your foreheads against the ignorant hirelings, for we have hirelings in the [military] camp, the court and the universities who would, if they could, forever repress mental, and prolong corporeal, war. William Blake.
Higher and lower hourly pay is the glue of the monolithic, unlimited-fortunes, totalitarian state. Everyone in the cobbled-together unlimited fortunes dystem we have as our tradition is bribed by higher pay, threatened by lower pay. Bribery sounds good, you get money, but it is slavery. You get money for sacrificing freedom of speech and thought. What is not said is soon not thought. You sacrifice mind and honor. The soldiers of bureaucracy, military, and politics sacrifice their lives and their honor the second they agree not to think and speak freely.
To think is to live. To agree not to think is to commit suicide. Happiness is everyone’s everything, happiness depends on truth, truth depends on freedom of speech and thought, therefore we sacrifice everything in sacrificing free speech. The suppression of free speech in the military, the bureaucracy, politics, business, the media and even the universities, is the norm. Higher and lower pay is the death of happiness. With equal hourly pay, there are many other places to go if you speak out. With very unequal hourly pay, there are the strongest motives to stay in the monolith of lies, untruth and unhappiness. The higher in the monolith you are, the more you lose financially in leaving it for integrity. Equal hourly pay is freedom, unequal hourly pay is slavery. Good people, sensing the nature of things in unlimited-fortunes systems, tend to stay out of politics etc, or to leave it sooner, and thus leave the field to the worst, those who least know the importance of truth in happiness. So concentration of money is concentration of evil, that is, of ignorance, denial, unrealism, disinformation, flattery, immaturity and all other forms of poverty of sense.
• Neither the lords nor the shogun can be depended upon [to save the country], and so our only hope lies in grassroot heroes. Yoshida Shoin.
Present governments have very little need to reflect the people. And perfect governments can at best only reflect the people. Government can only be as good as the people’s awareness and insight. Change from driving on Catastrophe Street towards Extinction Corner can only be made by a sufficient number of people heroically determining to seek better opinions and understandings. Governments can only be a shadow of the people. What if the people are just shadows of the government?
• You can say that this administration will have the first, complete, far-reaching attack on the problem of hunger in history. Use all the rhetoric, so long as it doesn’t cost money. Richard Nixon.
Can we fully grasp how evil this is? This is the normal soul of leadership in unlimited-fortunes systems. How much ground have we lost from pursuit of happiness when we have such high tolerance of this level of cynicism? Do we deceive ourselves that his utter lovelessness is reserved for the hungry alone?
• The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life walking down a high-walled land with people of our own kind, the same economic situation, the same national background and education and religious outlook. And beyond those walls, all humanity lies, unknown and unseen, and untouched by our restricted and impoverished lives. Florence Luscomb.
The human tribe is the greatest fun in life. And unlimited-fortunes systems have cut us off from it. We know in our hearts that there is widespread injury, because we are careful who we mix with. We are anxious about mixing with people with lower incomes, we are forced to be careful with people with higher incomes, and we may be mistreated by people beside us who use us to get higher. The overpay-underpay ratio robs everyone of a great happiness to mix freely with all others.
• Plenty overwhelms us and we do not know how to distribute the wealth we can now produce. H.G. Wells.
• Practically everyone now bemoans Western man’s sense of alienation, lack of community, and inability to find ways of organizing society for human ends. We have reached the end of the road that was built on the set of traits held out for male identity: advance at any cost, pay any price, drive out all competitors, and kill them if necessary. Jean Miller.
• Let the revolting distinction of rich and poor disappear once for all, the distinction of great and small, of masters and slaves, of governors and governed. Let there be no artificial differences between human beings. Since all have the same needs and the same faculties, let there be one education for all, one food for all. Francois Babeuf.
Against this is the human vice of loving to be king of the castle, and others to be the dirty rascals. But it is a vice, because it produces unhappiness, not the happiness people expect of it. It is a vice born of gross lack of imagination, inability to imagine that people are unlikely to enjoy being dirty rascal. This sentiment of equality would save the world if it were common! Babeuf was in a position, between the robber and robbed classes, to see the lack of superior merit of the robber class. If anything, the merit lay on the side of the working classes rather than of the leisure classes. The main difference between nature and society is that in nature humanity is largely wrestling with nature. In society everyone is largely wrestling with each other to grab from each other – our economics is a self-harming all-grab-for-all, grab off and grab back endless fight with no concept of justice to limit the grabbing.
• I am talking about myself as the type of the idle, rich young man, not myself the individual. I have an income between US$10,000-20,000 a year. [In 2000 dollars, around one million a year.] I spend all of it. I produce nothing. My income doesn’t descend upon me like manna from heaven. It can be traced. Some of it comes from the profits of a daily newspaper, some of it from Chicago real estate, some from the profits made by the Pennsylvania and other railroads, some from the profits of the US Steel Corporation, some from the profits of the American Tobacco Company. It takes to support me about 20 times as much as it takes to support an average working man or farmer. And the funny thing about it is that these working men and farmers work hard all year round, while I don’t work at all. The work of the working people, and nothing else, produces wealth, which, by some hocuspocus arrangement, is transferred to me, leaving them bare. While they support me in splendid style, what do I do for them? Let the candid upholder of the present order answer, for I am not aware of doing anything for them. Joseph Patterson.
First, we can ruminate on the fact that quotes like this are vanishingly rare.
Second, we can wonder why people are so comfortable with this state of affairs. Justice produces happiness. Injustice produces unhappiness. Justice is equal pay for equal work. The state built on injustice cannot stand. Never has. Never will. Therefore this state of affairs, this present order, that is, this present dystem or dystopia, produces unhappiness and decline and fall. Therefore this state of things is incompatible with pursuit of happiness and patriotism, love of country. Everyone who is comfortable with this state of affairs is an enemy of their country, is anti-happiness. Therefore it must be either that people’s will is to the destruction of happiness and order, or that they are ignorant, unaware. I am guessing that it is the latter, but it is hard to see how people can be unaware.
Perhaps they think unlimited wealth is bad, but they don’t feel powerful enough to do anything about it. Or they just assume that everything in society is good, the same way that animals ‘assume’ that everything is good. Or they think that the rich don’t take that much of the pie. For millennia, people have joined armies for plunder, or because they thought they were defending their country from bad people. For millennia, ordinary folk have murdered billions of other ordinary folk, manipulated by the super-rich. For millennia, ordinary folk have been willing to take orders to plunder and to defend against plunder, and to watch the generals take the profits. For millennia, they have bought the myth of the evil of the ordinary person on the other side of the battle. They have been easy to convince that the enemy rank and file is the enemy, that the generals and kings on both sides who order the wars are not the enemy. The people have been unable to doubt the virtue of their own generals. It ought to have always been obvious that as no one can work more than twice as long or hard as the average person over a lifetime, anyone with far more than twice the average fortune has more money than they deserve, has somehow got ownership of wealth not theirs, is a plain thief. People have been willing for millennia to be robbed, to be killed, to be forced to murder.
Will they now be willing to become extinct for this dysfunctional system? Or will they now part company with their strange love affair with unjust and unnecessary, deep and vast poverty, suffering, pain, disease, horrors and terrors? Or not? Will it be left to some other intelligent universe species to wonder why we pursued accelerating danger and suffering unblinkingly to extinction? Is it that people have never absorbed the fact that pay injustice will ever-grow if left unattended? If it is just that people do not know that the super-overpaid take 90+% of people’s earnings, they will do something as soon as they know it. But somehow I do not think that they will do anything if they learn this fact. It seems that there is something, I cannot begin to imagine what, makes people not want to acknowledge that fact, makes people hide from that fact. Is it that people simply do not see big things, as Plato, Heraclitus, Jesus, Thoreau and proverb say? Can’t see the forest. Is it that most people would really rather suffer and die than think? Is it that most people simply can’t think? The goddess Isis is supposed to have said: If they knew they were blind, they wouldn’t be blind. That is, it is far worse not to know you are blind than merely to be blind. It is 1000 times worse. People who know they are blind take precautions. The humblest creature in the animal world pursues its happiness 100%. The snail shoulders his burden and gets on with pursuit of his happiness 100%.
What has happened to us that we don’t or can’t pursue our own happiness? Has evolution in us reached a point of self-defeating over-complexity? How hard is it to know that if someone runs off with the money, it is bad news? Something tells me that, when you tell people that 1% of people get 90+% of world earnings, it has no impact at all. All extremes are vices. The leading vice, destroyer of happiness, for most people seems to be unlimited over-generosity to the wealthpower giants.
Beautiful essay E. Leete. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. Strangely – for a critic like me – I can find nothing to disagree with in your gift. The truth of economic inequality is at the foundation of all our problems. In my ideal society everyone is paid the same equal share of the human world’s productivity year by year. And no one is allowed to amass economic value much beyond the average in society. No one is permitted to be wealthy, and no one is permitted to be poor. There are other features of such a society that I could expand on, but the pressing nature of waking the population to the eminent danger of our self-extinction due to ignorance, and the falsehoods inculcated by our terminally ill culture, demand my attention more than the lineaments of a possible utopia.
marry me.
:)
Rothschilds shmothschilds. Conspiracy fiction, unrelated to reality.
Not a Deep State, but an Imperial State:
https://swprs.org/the-american-empire-and-its-media/
Those who wanted to know have known this for decades. The U.S. has been run as an Empire since at least WW2. ‘Democracy’ is mostly a marketing ploy to pacify the populace.
Thanks for this Tom F. Simple, short, direct and great charts. It reads like a who’s who of 911 suspects too. No group in the entire world had the expertise, technical ability and access to bring down three steel-frame buildings at free fall speed in one day than those listed here. These mugs are all over Kroll, who owned the security services of the Twin Towers, all over the two impact zone floors and all over the delayed response times on that day that allowed things to happen.
I think there is a great need to define deep state.. Here is my attempt at it.
The deep state is an icon; it represents or marks an underlying highly anti-competitive truth. It warns that an organization, group, corporation or person, financially and politically capable to execute, its intentions, has targeted the independent members of a large economic sector or the political structure of a nation, its government or an organization, group, corporation or person that is governed by such a targeted nation.
The icon projects organized capability to perform; it projects capacity to organize in order to “over- power and decimate” the economics of a nation, the independent members of a global industry, or the target industry or target business governed by a target nation; it projects the capacity to arrange “the political process[ can force the target nation to change it laws], or a segment thereof, of a target nation, state, county, or city. In short the icon “deep state” is a warning, it projects a high powered threat to all “non-deep state” public and private interest [regime change, privatization, take over or elimination of competition or the elimination of competitive factors are in play].
The icon “deep state” is meant to mean a organization, group or person seeking to take, possess, control, the profits and benefits; by any means possible. Deep State maybe Pharaoh, Oligarchs, or Capitalist but they are playing the game of monopoly. Monopoly has a problem, in monopoly, everyone is a loser, except one.
The “Deep state” icon, is not just about military, it represents entities that operate in, or that control, very large economic segments of our globe (arms & weapon manufactures and sales, providers of private armies, providers of security services, producers of oil and gas, providers of privatized public services and their equipment providers; this includes water, electricity, sewage, dams, construction, banking, river, air, and ocean transport services , news coverage, food producers, manufacturers, election activities and the like). Not all mega corporations or wealthy persons are “deep state”. Thus there is a who are they problem? There is a what is the problem? There is a what do they want problem.
The very real situation is that the battlefield NAZIs were eliminated. The boardroom NAZIs (the globalist financiers and industrialists who wanted more than just a successful business) along with their intelligence assets (ratlines, CIA, MI6, etc…) lived to fight another day. Their primary target, post-war, was to undermine and capture USA, and make it do its bidding. They moved on this plan the day Roosevelt died. They finally secured their objective by the time W took office…”Mission accomplished”. WWII and the atom bomb caused The Intervention to activate (those who have been watching over us for tens of thousands of years, fondly thought of in religious terms during more primitive times). The post-war years has been a covert World war between all Deep State elements, unified in their objectives, and the Interventionists. The goal of the deep state players is simply to preserve the status quo of the global oligarchy with all of its hundreds of trillions of dollars of existing assets. The Interventionists goal is to liberate the population and enable them to advance, in mind, heart and soul, society, technology, etc…to a higher, more humane level of existence, and come to know the rest of the Universe out there. For this to happen, the oligarchy will have to be “turned” or forced to cease their malign operations. This is slowly happening. The Interventionists don’t do ” collateral damage” so it’s a delicate, long-term operation.
Just watch the documentary “Unacknowdged”. This will clarify things, after you connect the dots.
Roosevelt was a gigantic impediment to the globalist plans. He was anti-Wall Street (code for boardroom NAZIs, which was a world-wide phenomenon like communism…”oligarchs of the world unite”). Eisenhower, who supposedly met the Interventionists, gave a veiled warning to the nation about the boardroom NAZIs (MIC). JFK was setting up to confront them and was murdered for it. Trump looks to be the first Prez since JFK to confront the Globalists. He’s got timing on his side, although generally unaware of the big picture. This comment probably won’t make it past the moderator. No matter. The Intervention proceeds apace, with or without color commentary.
The reality of the existing Deep State , makes the movie, Wizard of Oz, worthy of another view or two.
Of course Baum was a radical in his day.
The term Deep State is overly dramatic, and it puts the ordinary citizen off. Sounds like a “conspiracy theory”. What it really refers to is very simple: the richest and most powerful people control our government, and much of what happens in our country. I think that formulation makes a lot of sense to most people. It’s obvious. That they would prefer to do their controlling from behind the scenes is also obvious. We all understand that bribery is something you want keep secret. And if threats and coercion are involved even more secrecy is desired, since these things are against the law, and could also cause public outrage at the perpetrators. I think most people know that rich and powerful people have ways of avoiding taxes, and also tend to break any laws that limit their ability to make profits.
So maybe those of us trying to wake people up to our deeply corrupt oligarchs should avoid talk of a deep state, and make our accusations simple and easy to demonstrate to anyone. For that matter, even the term oligarch might be a little mystifying. How about just calling them Fat Cats?
Or pigs.
Yes, this is old news. Just not participating in what they are “selling” should help. Selling means their propaganda, or “crap in, crap out”. Stingers in the cell towers and overhead drones, one of which was overhead in 2006 can unnerve us. Take care of what you have to do and ignore these charlatans. They have to watch their own heads ,too. It goes almost without saying that they have a lot of nerve intruding in our lives and they piss me off, also. I wouldn’t want to see where they end up.
Wealthpower giants can’t even SEE the ants they step on, let alone be able to CARE about us.
From https://www.mikelofgren.net/1-percents-contempt-democracy/
“As I’ve written, many in our acquisitive class have seceded from America, not in the sense of physically leaving the country, but by becoming psychologically disconnected from it and indifferent to its fate other than as a source of loot. Like the British in India, they were in the country but not of it, and administering it through their hired subordinates. Our plutocracy’s detachment from civic life (other than by controlling politicians with money) cannot help but feed apathy, or even contempt, for democracy.”
I would argue that it is more than the “acquisitive class” that has seceded. There is a huge portion of our population that have opted out from engaging in politics or civic matters, and most of them are more informed as to the goings on in the entertainment industry than they are in matters of war and peace. The plutocracy has detached themselves by living on the other side of the country club wall, the proles have detached themselves with “Entertainment Tonight”.
The rich has always governed over the rest.
What is different now is that this time they don’t protect those whom they exploit, consider them and whole countries dispensable, and are ready to move on after robbing you of everything.
How about calling them by name? Rothschild. Rockefeller. Bush. Goldman Sachs. Etc.
A little research ought to create a nice line-up. Of course they’re all protected by a mile high
pile of legal mumbo jumbo – denying they own anything. But if we can shine a light on them –
then – then – then what??
The Dulles brothers
What you are describing is nothing but a set-up fro class warfare. It implies a broad brush for all people with wealth prey on everyone else. Doesen’t differentiate between the entrepenuer or family businessman who puts his employees welfare and community first vs. the Wall street shark that makes his money by buying companies and breaking them in to pieces and parts to make a fast buck. Oligarch is actually a very good term especially to describe individuals like George Soros, The Koch bros. etc. and how they buy politicians and other public servants and are major owners of the major media conglomerates not to hard to understand. Also people need to be aware that many of their secret societies such as the Builderbergs promote depopulating the planet ideally to 1-billion or less.
All of the commenters make sense on some level, but Mike K seemed to get to it best for me. The state is simply the administrative manifestation, including its armed/repressive components, of capitalist class rule. To expect a ruling class to give democratic rights to the class it exploits is naive. That’s a reflection of a limited political consciousness. Of course the “deep state” controls decision making and the voting process that supposedly reflects democracy does not. What is called the deep state is simply the normal functioning of capitalism, not some revelation of a hidden totalitarianism. It’s not hiding; it’s in plain sight.
The deep state merely illustrates that our “elected” government has been so corrupted by money that the rich oligarchs who currently do run our government do so through corrupt, sell out politicians who will readily agree to sign off on legislation written by the oligarchs or their attorneys. Look, politicians aren’t supposed to become rich by serving in public office, but look at the Clintons.for example. The are floating in money as is Schumer, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnel. They certainly don’t gain their fantastic wealth from a congressman’s $180,000 annual salary.
“…a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy.”
I don’t agree with that definition of “deep state”. That makes it sould like some kind of loony conspiracy theory, which plays right into the hands of those who would deny its influence.
Here’s how Mike Lofgren describes it:
“[A] hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. …[I]t is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched.”
http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/
It should be uncontroversial to say that there are influential individuals and institutions outside of the elected government, which is all I think Lofgren means by “deep state”.
Furthermore, the influence of the deep state on national policy is no conspiracy either, but well documented. Most CN readers are probably aware of the 2014 study by Gilens and Page:
“Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
More Mike Lofgren here: https://www.mikelofgren.net/
I enjoy reading his works
“Fully 8-in-10 believe that the U.S. government currently monitors or spies on the activities of American citizens … This too causes the director of the Institute to be concerned. ‘This is a worrisome finding. The strength of our government relies on public faith in protecting our freedoms, which is not particularly robust.…'”
This ticks me off a little. The polling director is concerned that people in the U.S. think that the government has them under surveillance, not that the government has in fact engaged in massive data collection (established fact) and may well be doing much more and worse. Why is he more solicitous for “the strength of our government” than for the rights of its citizens?
Analogous problem: all the people wringing their hands post-Ferguson protests about the worsening of “race relations” in the U.S. They are misidentifying a legitimate response to a problem as being the problem.
How long will it take for people to recognize that the government is not spying on them constantly? That had been assigned to the corporations, like social media, phone/internet service companies, Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc., long time ego. These corporations vacuum up all of the information and they just provide unlimited access for the government. In return, the government cuts their tax rates, allows them to get away with anything that hurts the people.
Yes, the end result is the same, but the dirty work is done by the corporations. If the government has the need for monitor some people’s activities directly, those people are in deep trouble…
My definition of government surveillance encompasses what you describe, Al Pinto. Why do you think other people don’t understand this?
I wouldn’t get hung up on the distinction anyway: when NSA installs – with the company’s knowledge and consent – a splitter at a telecom’s central location that captures all data that passes through, is that what you consider government or corporate surveillance? Why worry about the label?
The NSA collects it all…but even more concerning is the propensity to “share” data. Fusion centers plus large number of jobs and clearances can bring snooping to a local level quick. There are college degrees in Homeland Security for jobs that include working within private business. I think Wal-Mart has snapped my photo and probably even done a retinal scan.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-matter-faq
Yep, all that evidence is there to use against you, should the powers that be ever feel the need to eradicate you or your influence. Mostly they’ve got bigger fish to fry, but consider that citizens, mostly innocuous drones just trying to get by, have already been born whose entire life histories will be stored digitally by the government. Heck, if there’s an afterlife, maybe St. Peter can farm out your final judgement to the NSA.
This post was also by the actual Realist. Don’t be fooled by imitations.
I’ve been having suspicions St. Pete isn’t worth a damn!
The whole war-on-terror scam served at least two purposes.
1. Doing away with constitutional rights.
2. Create new elements robbing the taxpayer for spying on him. The fact that collected data can be decontextualized and used against you as needed is only a bonus.
At today’s tech level, you are just about fully predictable by owning a cell phone with your contacts. Data collection sharpens the results, because it shows which of your contacts are alive. Cell phone batteries are sealed for a reason.
What can you do about it? Perhaps write regular mail and/or see friends in person…
NSA spies on everyone.
Al Pinto:
I agree with you that “corporations vacuum up all of the information and they just provide unlimited access for the government in return. What makes this information gathering truly insidious, what enables it to remain hidden, is that very little “dirty work” is required. When we sign on to the internet or use our smartphones, we are complicit in aiding and abetting the process by willingly, comfortably, surrendering information that ought to remain private. In 1984, the populace was warned that “Big Brother is watching you.” We should pay heed to media critic Mark Crispin Miller’s modern-day warning that “Big Brother is you, watching.”
Al Pinto:
There should be a quotation mark after the word “return” in the first sentence. I don’t know why it was eliminated.
Only one slight nitpick from me. The term “deep state” was meant to be a generalization of the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) to be a comprehensive term incorporating ALL of the players associated with the MIC, and as such INCLUDES most of our oligarchs AND what you are labeling the “deep media.” The term “mainstream media” (MSM) is that part of the media which is part of the deep state (It is owned by oligarchs), and therefore there is no need of the additional term “deep media.” The MSM IS the deep media.
Good point, and let’s add more than just the Media. Ray McGovern referred to it as the Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence Media Complex. Seems accurate.
I look at the MSM as a tool of the Deep State. They dispense whatever narrative is demanded by the Deep State. If tomorrow the DS’s agenda required the belief that the sky is pink, the MSM would describe it thusly. And most people would dutifully remember it that way.
O’Brien made this all quite clear to Winston Smith, who ultimately came to accept it once his mind was cleaned.
This post is certified as coming from the actual Realist.
Realist-
I am wondering if the moderators could use some kind of tool to keep a person from stealing someone’s handle. I would think it’d be easy enough to allow a handle to be associated with a single e-mail address, and to not allow duplicates. Perhaps you should contact them.
Most Americans, I assume, are struggling just to earn a living for themselves & their families? Their concerns are local & just putting food on the table & keeping a roof over their heads is their number one priority? The concept of a ALL POWERFUL Deepstate controlling every aspect of their lives doesn’t consciously compute on a rational level for them & although you always would like to think that your Govt is acting in your best interests, there must be a nagging thought, in the back of their minds? What is that thought? Americans are coming to the slow realisation that there is something seriously wrong with their Country & whose controlling it? When their main agenda is to spend trillions of dollars on ludicrous, never ending wars & on the MIC rather than spending this money on your own citizens, then you know something is systematically wrong? That’s money that’s not going on Healthcare, housing, Education, infrastructure & other vital services? The realisation that everything concerning their Govt is a lie & that this fascist, Shadow Govt of unelected, cabal of evil people is controlling things, behind the scenes, staggers the imagination? And like the cowards they are, they hide in the darkness, using their corrupt propaganda wing, the MSM into manipulating what you should think, feel & how to act, which is perhaps the most insideous goal of this Deepstate, to keep people ignorant & stupid? A ignorant, uninformed, stupid population who doesn’t question the Deepstate agenda & who doesn’t even believe whether they exist at all is great for them? But there’s a saying that states,”You can fool some of the people, some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people, all of the time”? Thinking people around the World are waking up to this Deepstate & there satanic agenda to dominate the World?
Yes, the system is set up so that most wage earners have absolutely no time to indulge
in following alternative news sites which might give them some perspective on current
events (bonus points if you are old enough to remember when we actually discussed
‘current events’ in a class setting, and students could actually speak their minds . . . )
The young women I know today are totally overwhelmed with responsibilities : family,
work, bills to pay. That is their life. Their husbands are supportive but no one is engaged
in the civil vectors of society — the local networking for political change, the outraged
resistance to involuntary taxation funding the war economy, the connected response to
impossible demands. They are just treading water and hoping for the best for their kids.
It’s a different world from when my kids were young and I could actually redirect my taxes
into a war tax escrow account, be visited by a friendly IRS agent who was sympathetic to
my position (I was not withholding taxes due, simply redirecting them), and not end up
censured or hauled in front of a tax judge or worse. Now everyone toes the line. Because,
the terrorists. 9-11 changed everything. Just look at how pickup truck designs became so
very different shortly thereafter. Before 9-11, pickup trucks were ‘normal’, with nice styling
and ‘functional’, without a lot of add-on junk. Now, they look like mini-tanks, with huge grills
capable of taking out pedestrians, ridiculous lights that blind any oncoming motorists, and
enough add-ons to outfit a state-of-the-art troop carrier. I don’t think any of that is an
accident. It’s deliberately designed to appeal to the ‘new American Warriors’.
And as the pickup truck design has morphed, so has our identity. While our young families
tread water (at best), the growing single / military demographic has become the face of the
country, both at home and abroad.
And our kids attend ‘attack hardened’ elementary schools that look like concentration camps.
“Yes, the system is set up so that most wage earners have absolutely no time to indulge
in following alternative news sites which might give them some perspective on current
events …”
I disagree. The majority of people have time to watch crap on TV (and other forms of entertainment)….they chose to be uninformed. The price of a free electorate is taking the time to be informed.
I seriously think there’s something in the water/air/food supply.
American Idol anyone?
Nancy-
I have been thinking that Starbucks is putting a mind altering drug in their lattes. How else to explain the liberals sudden embrace of the war machine?
Not the genuine Realist. Just so people know.
You only start to question things once you lose your employment and means to support your family. The 2008 financial crisis where the only ones bailed out were the bankers and elite corporate titans has had a lasting effect on the population. Many including professionals like myself were forced in to self employment and taking menial jobs just so our families could survive however I have noticed since rejoining the workforce in my profession that those who did not experience employment loss are least likely to believe in any kind of deep state. They complain often but only parrot what they are being told by either liberal or conservative spin media depending on their political preference. It is sad because many of these individuals are highly skilled and educated but can’t see the forest from the trees.
Nailed it! These are people who do have the time and resources to make a difference, but they are much too comfortable to step outside their own little worlds.
I think they used to be referred to as the “bourgeoisie.”
Think about the birth of CIA in 1948. Mandated to operate in secret. Think Eisenhower’s warning in 1961 farewell speech about unwarranted influence of military industrial complex from our never-before permanent armaments industry. Think about the Assassination of JFK as a successful deep state operation, with the Warren Commission fiction lasting all these years
They hide in plain site. Perhaps we should consider a thorough investigation of the Senior Executive Service. This collection of prioritized elitist psychopath wana b’s are the pool of “talent” our elected leaders use to fill openings in the civil service deep state. This collection of misfit oligarch toys need to be sent back to the north pole. The 74% must have some qualified people to fill the ranks. Sort of like a new “Peace corps” dedicated to TRUE CITIZEN GOVERNENCE. Oh well, I suppose it’s to f__king late for that.
I agree>It seems people are waking up.Thats good news.What we can do about it is more problematic.
Nothing can be done by human efforts alone. A higher power, independent of the oligarchs and this planet, is required. That is happening. Religionists will take this the wrong way. What they think is irrelevant. The Truth will prevail.
Once they own our food supply chain and our water supply (hint: they already do), any attempt to do anything against the current course of event comes with the threat of starvation, dehydration, false flag attacks and, in the best-case scenario, anarchy.
Good comment. I just keep thinking about it and talking about it, recognizing it’s functions as they arise in the news. The FBI -CIA operation against Trump is obvious, as was invasion of Iraq, NATO expansion, lies about Syria/Assad and cold war on Putin/Russia.
So, let’s teach the general public that the “Deep State” is real. Then, let’s teach the general public that the “Deep Media” is real. Once the general public understands the existence and the implications of these two entities, let’s teach them something else. The general public should know that the oligarchs own the “Deep State” and the “Deep Media” and therefore to re-establish democracy in the US should start by eliminating the oligarchs. Any attempt to remove the deep state/media prior to the oligarchs will be futile.
It’s not like we are not there already, but by the time the general public understands this, we will be in deep….
Yes. The deep state means those with deep pockets. Money controls our government. Money is our God – it controls almost everything in America. Follow the money and you will understand why things happen the way they do.
Greed is out of control. In my 74 years I have never seen it so bad.
“Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common.” – Assyrian Clay Tablet, ca. 2800 BC
In other words, having the idea to have wealthpower giants has always provided myriad very negative results for the human species.
There is no reason to allow unlimited fortunes. There is every REASON not to.
Who are you, posting under my name? I see you’ve done it several times on this thread. I don’t disagree with your remarks, but people are going to get confused about our identities. I suggest you choose another handle.
Very good summary of the situation. To introduce skeptical friends and family to the oligarchy, a batch of key evidence in easily readable form is gathered in “War Profiteer Story”
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
Agree. But the American public is shallow and not very bright…this is a tough challenge.
If enough people like those who comment here start spending some time every day educating for justice in wealth and against the extreme injustice of unlimited fortunes, at some point we have each one teaching two others to strike the root and eventually the herd tendency HELPS us win the gift of pay justice for the world.
If it sounds like a lot of work, compare the amount of work coming to us all if we DON’T murder the stupid idea to allow an unnecessary ratio to keep marching us to autogenocide.
Disciples of justice–I like.p
Not the real me here either.
Perhaps your email address was duplicated in the post. That would be an explanation. How would one combat a hack that exploited your email address?
The American public is preoccupied with staying out of the homeless shelter, earning enough to pay for both food and rent, things like that. Politics is higher on the pyramid of values.
yes, but many of our problems result from political playground.
In my view, we start with the Military industrial complex announced by Eisenhower in January 1961 which comprised a substantial portion of his Farewell Address just before JFK’s inauguration. He said that America now has a permanent armaments industry that we never had before in our history as a nation. He said we must guard against the ‘unwarranted influence’ of this military industrial complex at local state and federal levels. Ike’s term, ‘unwarranted influence’ acknowledged a new public-private policy and profit agenda respecting America’s capacity and willingness to make war in the world. ‘Unwarranted influence’ is an accurate ‘deep state’ descriptor. 57 years later, The Complex is more accurately recognized today as including national security and media.
Very true. DeTocqueville noted in his 1838 Democracy in America that US state or federal laws compelling equal distribution of inheritances had eliminated oligarchy by reducing vast estates to small holdings in a few generations. I don’t know of any such laws now, and we need further laws such as progressive taxation of higher incomes to reduce oligarchy power. We need amendments to restrict funding of mass media and elections to limited individual contributions, to free these tools of democracy from money power.
The fact that the public is unaware or in despair as to a solution to oligarchy means that new forms of political education are needed, such as personal interaction, social/community groups, and library debating societies.
New progressive parties are needed to form coalitions to depose the oligarchy party duopoly.