Anatomy of the Deep State -- The Shadow Government that calls the shots

[Octafish]

Per Bill Moyers via Alternet...



D.C. Insider Mike Lofgren -- a congressional staff member for 28 years specializing in national security possessing top secret security clearance -- reports: There's a Shadow Govt. Running the Country, and It's Not Up for Re-Election. Power centers in DC and the corporate corridors of Manhattan and Silicon Valley are calling the shots. I'd recommend DUers, while the lights are still on, go to either source and download their own copy.

Anatomy of the Deep State

Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo. —"The Martyrdom of Man" by Winwood Reade (1871)

By Mike Lofgren
BillMoyers.com / Feb. 21, 2014

There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates on its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power. [1]

During the last five years, the news media have been flooded with pundits decrying the broken politics of Washington. The conventional wisdom has it that partisan gridlock and dysfunction have become the new normal. That is certainly the case, and I have been among the harshest critics of this development. But it is also imperative to acknowledge the limits of this critique as it applies to the American governmental system. On one level, the critique is self-evident: in the domain that the public can see, Congress is hopelessly deadlocked in the worst manner since the 1850s, the violently rancorous decade preceding the Civil War.

SNIP...

The Deep State is the big story of our time; it is the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the Deep State, and its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople, or London may be term-limited by its overweening sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to “lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face.” Living upon its principal in this case means that the Deep State has been extracting value from the American people in vampire-like fashion.

We are faced with two disagreeable implications. First, that the Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it is almost impervious to change. Second, that just as in so many previous empires, the Deep State is populated with those whose instinctive reaction to the failure of their policies is to double down on those very policies in the future. Iraq was a failure briefly camouflaged by the wholly propagandistic success of the so-called surge; this legerdemain allowed for the surge in Afghanistan, which equally came to naught. Undeterred by that failure, the functionaries of the Deep State plunged into Libya; the smoking rubble of the Benghazi consulate, rather than discouraging further misadventure, seemed merely to incite the itch to bomb Syria. Will the Deep State ride on the back of the American people from failure to failure until the country itself, despite its huge reserves of human and material capital, is slowly exhausted? The dusty road of empire is strewn with the bones of former great powers that exhausted themselves in like manner.
SNIP...

The final factor is Silicon Valley. Owing to secrecy and obfuscation, it is hard to know how much of the NSA’s relationship with the Valley is based on voluntary cooperation, how much is legal compulsion through FISA warrants and how much is a matter of the NSA surreptitiously breaking into technology companies’ systems. Given the Valley’s public relations requirement to mollify its customers who have privacy concerns, it is difficult to take the tech firms’ libertarian protestations about government compromise of their systems at face value, especially since they engage in similar activity against their own customers for commercial purposes. That said, evidence is accumulating that Silicon Valley is losing billions in overseas business from companies, individuals and governments that want to maintain privacy. For high-tech entrepreneurs, the cash nexus is ultimately more compelling than the Deep State’s demand for patriotic cooperation. Even legal compulsion can be combatted: unlike the individual citizen, tech firms have deep pockets and batteries of lawyers with which to fight government diktat.

CONTINUED w/LINKS to sources...

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

Thank goodness or chance for Mike Lofgren, Bill Moyers, and DU. We may yet reverse the trend of We the People paying for wars without end for privatized power and profits and its associated rich getting richer while the rest of us become Have-Nots.

[jsr]

1. Recommend

[Octafish]

7. 'Shadow CIA' buys state secrets for cash via Swiss bank accounts, claims WikiLeaks as it releases 's

This is why the State Department, Pentagon and who-knows-what-else made it a crime to visit Wikileaks.

'Shadow CIA' buys state secrets for cash via Swiss bank accounts, claims WikiLeaks as it releases 'stolen' files

Five million emails obtained from U.S.-based global security analysis firm Stratfor 'will reveal murky truth about intelligence gathering'

Julian Assange claims firm is monitoring activists for corporate giants and taking information from U.S. government department insiders

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
27th February 2012

Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks today started to publish more than five million confidential emails from the global intelligence company Stratfor.

The emails, dated from July 2004 to late December 2011, are said to reveal the 'inner workings' of US-based firm known as the 'Shadow CIA'.

Among the allegations to emerge is that Stratfor's claim to be a media organisation providing a subscription intelligence newsletter is a front for 'running paid informants networks' and 'laundering those payments through the Bahamas, through Switzerland, through private credit cards'.

Stratfor 'is monitoring Bhopal activists for Dow Chemicals, Peta activities for Coca-Cola', WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed at a press conference in London today.

SNIP...

The group said the emails expose a 'revolving door' in private intelligence companies in the U.S., claiming government and diplomatic sources give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money.

CONTINUED ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2107041/WikiLeaks-releases-stolen-files-Shadow-CIA-buys-state-secrets-cash-Swiss-bank.html

Secret government means secret beneficiaries. Unfortunately for We the People and democracy, who those beneficiaries are, is classified. Thank you, jsr, for caring about the Why.

[kelliekat44]

24. When you try to post this to FB it won't post. Hmmmm.... nt

[johnnyreb]

2. K&R

We might have to fix this before we can fix the Vote before we can fix all that other stuff.

[Octafish]

8. May explain why when we pull the lever marked 'Democrat' out pops something closer to something else

From the great Bob Fitrakis:

Did the NSA help Bush hack the vote?

Bob Fitrakis
January 9, 2006

What do we make of the President (George W Bush) boldly proclaiming that he has “spy powers?” Does he have X-ray vision too?

When he and his cronies crawl up into Cheney’s bunker with the sign on the door “He-man Woman-haters Club. No Girls Allowed (except Condi),” do they synchronize their spy decoder rings and decide what new absurd folly to unleash on the world?

Illegal invasion of Iraq, suspending writs of habeus corpus, secret CIA torture dungeons, or election rigging? Most people outgrow such childish games and fantasies by the time they’re ten years old. And by age twelve, most understand that the President is not a king. Or a dictator. That U.S. citizens have inalienable rights.

That there are such things as search warrants. If the executive branch of government is going to conduct surveillance on the American people, they have to get a warrant from the judicial branch specifying what they’re looking for and the reasons for the search.

The Bush administration’s utter contempt for the U.S. Constitution and the specific information we now know about its use of the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance network should further call into question Bush’ 2004 presidential “election.” In a recent revelation, we have learned that the NSA shared the fruits of its illegal spying on behalf of Bush with other government agencies.

What are e-voting machines and central tabulators that pass the voting results over electronic networks from the internet to phone lines? No more than data easily spied on and tapped into. The Franklin County Board of Elections, for example, tells us that it was a “transmission error” in Gahanna Ward 1B, where 638 people cast votes and Bush, the Wonder Boy, received 4258 votes. It’s not magic, nor is it an accident or an act of God. If the vote total wasn’t so hugely illogical, no one would have caught it.

CONTINUED...

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2006/1294

It's almost miraculous, what can be done with electronics. Thanks for grokking, johnnyreb!

[bobthedrummer]

3. So what a lot of US have stated/experienced for decades is, again, being verified. Better late than

never. K&R

[Octafish]

15. bobthedrummer, you've been on to their treasonous gangster capers since Day One.

And unlike most who know, you were willing to put your name on it, even if Gen. Clapper was keeping tabs on who was sending what to whom:

The original intelligence failure was including all those PAPERCLIP nazis

That takes guts, Sir.

PS: While the links are more than a decade old, some of the information can be found on the Waybac(k) Machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020614190902/http://www.goordnance.apg.army.mil/OPpaperclip.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20030425050459/http://www.infoage.org/paperclip.html

[LongTomH]

19. The Cosmosphere space museum, in Hutchinson, KS, of all places, has been very honest about..........

..........the darker side of our early space program. One of the featured displays is an actual V-2 rocket that was discovered on a railroad siding in Germany, years after the war. There are two mannequin figures in the display: an engineer, in a white lab coat (possibly representing Dr. Wernher von Braun); the other is a slave worker in a prison camp outfit.



I've had an interest in space since my childhood in the 1950s. Among the things that fed that interest were appearances by Dr. Wernher von Braun on the Walt Disney Man in Space series on TV and the books by von Braun and Willy Ley that I found in my school libraries. At the time, I almost idolized Dr. von Braun. None of the available books, magazine articles or TV appearances mentioned the conditions of workers at the Mittelwerk underground factory or the Dora concentration camp.

By the way, that V-2 at the Cosmosphere, and a V-1 also on display, were discovered by a friend of mine. He arranged for the two missiles to be transported to the Cosmosphere where they were restored and put on display.

[deaniac21]

29. I shoot for the stars

but sometimes I hit London.

[Octafish]

54. Incredible and fascinating!

Thank you, LongTomH, for sharing your friend's story. His discovery and preservation of the buzz bomb and the V-2 would make an excellent feature film. That image suggests the Cosmosphere hosts a most compelling exhibition that should attract people from around the world.

Project PAPERCLIP and the Space Race

Jim Marrs

ON MAY 19, 1945, JUST TWELVE DAYS AFTER GERMANY’S unconditional surrender, Herbert Wagner, creator of the first Nazi guided missile used in combat, landed in Washington, D.C., in a U.S. military aircraft with blacked- out windows.

Wagner was the first of a stream of Nazi scientists, technicians, and others to arrive in the United States in a program that came to be known as Project Paperclip. It began as Operation Overcast, a program authorized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to exploit the knowledge of Nazi scientists. (Overcast was mentioned but not clearly explained in the 2006 film The Good German starring George Clooney.)

This operation was renamed Paperclip and formally authorized in August 1945 by President Harry Truman, who was assured that no one with “Nazi or militaristic records” would be involved.

By mid-November, more Nazi scientists, engineers, and technicians were arriving in America, including Wernher von Braun and more than seven hundred other Nazi rocket scientists.

By 1955, nearly a thousand German scientists had been granted citizenship in the United States and given prominent positions in the American scientific community. Many had been longtime members of the Nazi Party and the Gestapo, had conducted experiments on humans at concentration camps, used slave labor, and committed other war crimes.

Von Braun, who in later years became the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is one of the more recognizable names of the Paperclip scientists.

Others included:

* Major General Walter Dornberger, a close associate of von Braun’s
* Werner Heisenberg, physicist and Nobel laureate who founded quantum mechanics
* gaseous uranium centrifuge expert Dr. Paul Harteck
* Nazi atomic bomb physicist and military project leader Kurt Diebner
* uranium enrichment expert Erich Bagge
* 1944 Nobel Prize winner Otto Hahn, called the “father of nuclear chemistry”
* scientists Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker, Karl Wirtz, and Horst Korsching
* physicist Walter Gerlach

CNN reporter Linda Hunt’s 1991 book Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945–1990 first revealed the extent to which Nazi infiltration was aided by persons within the U.S. federal government and military.

Like other researchers, Hunt found many government files pertaining to recruited Nazis “missing” or otherwise unavailable. Despite government claims that Paperclip was ended in 1947, according to Hunt, this project was,

“the biggest, longest-running operation involving Nazis in our country’s history.”

“The project continued nonstop until 1973 - decades longer than was previously thought. And remnants of it are still in operation today,” she wrote.

By the 1990s, when details of Paperclip finally reached the public’s ears, the infusion of Nazis into America’s military-industrial complex was complete.

CONTINUED...

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_paperclip03.htm

More on the story: NASA's NAZIs.

On a lighter note: I had the good fortune to visit Kansas a few years back -- a nephew attended KSU, so we loaded up the old Jaguar and headed down the road from Detroit. Great school. Great state. Great people. Oh, and they have a real love of aviation and space exploration. Next time I visit, I will stop in Hutchinson to tour the Cosmosphere. Thanks also for the heads-up on the Cosmosphere. I believe it's home to the Leaning Tower of Gemini-Titan II:

[AZCat]

86. The Cosmosphere is pretty awesome.

I spent lots of time there growing up. It certainly fueled my young imagination!

[Octafish]

93. We used to have the 'Michigan Space & Science Center'in Jackson...

...but the place closed down, due, some to lack of traffic, mostly to lack of cash.

It was wonderful. Here's a good online overview:

http://heroicrelics.org/mssc/

I've taken the family to the Armstrong Space & Science Museum in Neil Armstrong's hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio.

http://www.armstrongmuseum.org/

Coincidentally, we were there on the same day he passed. We heard the news on the radio as we were driving through Ohio and decided to stop to buy a local newspaper. The Wapakoneta News, if I remember its name properly, no longer was publishing, and the big city dailies (Toledo, Dayton) had not yet covered his passing, but the nice man at the 7-11 told us about the museum. It was a special day to visit, as the staff was very, very moved by the sad news. They said it was the busiest it had been in a while.



The place is home to several historic spacecraft and aircraft, including this F5-D Skylancer flown by a most remarkable test pilot:



The place also has a most remarkable bronze.



The astounding piece, as its art, is in the back.

Like you, AZCat, and LongTomH, I love my country -- including Kansas and Ohio. I love space exploration, too.

[Octafish]

57. Perhaps 20,000 prisoners died making NAZI rockets.

Background from "Dr. Space"

http://books.google.com/books?id=pQCEqGZ5KHwC&pg=PT49&lpg=PT49&dq=linda-hunt+v-2+workers&source=bl&ots=nlJ3HX3lKX&sig=MfxCDhTlXLCBi6zIDGJKrxw13wg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RicKU-rnOcOcyQHZ2oCYBw&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=linda-hunt%20v-2%20workers&f=false

BTW: The sculpture of the prisoner at work is amazing. Thank you for telling us about this important exhibit, LongTomH!

[bobthedrummer]

60. Yes, and Walter Dornberger (former SS officer in charge of production at Peenemunde, ordered slaves

from the Dora camps executed when production fell-their bodies left hanging as an incentive to the other slaves)
Wally Dornberger was PAPERCLIPPED and made a ton of bucks at Bell Aviation producing helicopters for use in Vietnam and other places.

The NAZI's had some real geniuses and paradigm shifted hightech. When Berlin fell there was a NAZI submarine on its way to Japan with all kinds of geniuses, hightech superplans and things-including 1,200 pounds of uranium oxide that may have been used in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.

That submarine was the U-234 which surrendered to the USS Sutton. It is quite a story. One of the "guests" on board wound up in my hometown of Milwaukee working in the labs of Allen-Bradley on things that became infrared lasers, nuclear triggers, stealth technology and God knows what else. Considering his Third Reich experiences I doubt he was just a nice old scientist that hated commies.
Heinz Schlicke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Schlicke

Below are some links about the U-234 which the Masters of War here were quick to sieze for use in the Cold War and now the Shadow Government.
U-234
http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-234.htm

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/reviewsw54.htm

[kelliekat44]

22. Been saying this and trying to get others to see it for years. nt

[cantbeserious]

4. Thank You For Sharing

eom

[Octafish]

25. An example of using government office to punish critics and profit the connected...

Greg Palast explains how Barrick Gold became one of Poppy Bush's favorite charities. Of course, for pointing it out, Poppy wold make certain to give the big shaft to The Guardian and Greg Palast.

Poppy Strikes Gold

Sunday, April 27, 2008
Originally Posted July 9, 2003
By Greg Palast

EXCERPT...

And while the Bush family steadfastly believes that ex-felons should not have the right to vote for president, they have no objection to ex-cons putting presidents on their payroll. In 1996, despite pleas by U.S. church leaders, Poppy Bush gave several speeches (he charges $100,000 per talk) sponsored by organizations run by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, cult leader, tax cheat—and formerly the guest of the U.S. federal prison system. Some of the loot for the Republican effort in the 1997–2000 election cycles came from an outfit called Barrick Corporation.

The sum, while over $100,000, is comparatively small change for the GOP, yet it seemed quite a gesture for a corporation based in Canada. Technically, the funds came from those associated with the Canadian's U.S. unit, Barrick Gold Strike.

They could well afford it. [font color="green"]In the final days of the Bush (Senior) administration, the Interior Department made an extraordinary but little noticed change in procedures under the 1872 Mining Law, the gold rush–era act that permitted those whiskered small-time prospectors with their tin pans and mules to stake claims on their tiny plots. The department initiated an expedited procedure for mining companies that allowed Barrick to swiftly lay claim to the largest gold find in America. In the terminology of the law, Barrick could "perfect its patent" on the estimated $10 billion in ore—for which Barrick paid the U.S. Treasury a little under $10,000. Eureka![/font color]

Barrick, of course, had to put up cash for the initial property rights and the cost of digging out the booty (and the cost of donations, in smaller amounts, to support Nevada's Democratic senator, Harry Reid). Still, the shift in rules paid off big time: According to experts at the Mineral Policy Center of Washington, DC, Barrick saved—and the U.S. taxpayer lost—a cool billion or so. Upon taking office, Bill Clinton's new interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, called Barrick's claim the "biggest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy." Nevertheless, because the company followed the fast-track process laid out for them under Bush, this corporate Goldfinger had Babbitt by the legal nuggets. Clinton had no choice but to give them the gold mine while the public got the shaft.

Barrick says it had no contact whatsoever with the president at the time of the rules change.(1) There was always a place in Barrick's heart for the older Bush—and a place on its payroll. In 1995, Barrick hired the former president as Honorary Senior Advisor to the Toronto company's International Advisory Board. Bush joined at the suggestion of former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, who, like Bush, had been ignominiously booted from office. I was a bit surprised that the president had signed on. When Bush was voted out of the White House, he vowed never to lobby or join a corporate board. The chairman of Barrick openly boasts that granting the title "Senior Advisor" was a sly maneuver to help Bush tiptoe around this promise.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/poppy-strikes-gold/

The guy really gave rise to compassionate conservative, as in helping the rich and their corporations.

The story continues, in which Mr. Palast details how said gold mining company employed pure fascist tactics to take over the mine, a plan which involved bulldozing the miners' homes and mines, some with the miners and their families still inside.

Let that, uh, sink in for a moment. For his trouble in reporting the story, Barrick threatened to sue.

The Truth Buried Alive

—By Greg Palast, From The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Penguin/Plume, 2003)

Source: UTNE Reader
April 2003 Issue

EXCERPT...

Bad news. In July 2001, in the middle of trying to get out the word of the theft of the election in Florida, [font color="red"]I was about to become the guinea pig, the test case, for an attempt by a multinational corporation to suppress free speech in the USA using British libel law. I have a U.S.-based Web site for Americans who can’t otherwise read my columns or view my BBC television reports. The gold-mining company held my English newspaper liable for aggravated damages for my publishing the story in the USA. If I did not pull the Bush-Barrick story off my U.S. Web site, my paper would face a ruinously costly fight.(1)[/font color]

Panicked, the Guardian legal department begged me to delete not just the English versions of the story but also my Spanish translation, printed in Bolivia. (Caramba!)

The Goldfingers didn’t stop there. [font color="green"]Barrick’s lawyers told our papers that I personally would be sued in the United Kingdom over Web publications of my story in America, because the Web could be accessed in Britain. The success of this legal strategy would effectively annul the U.S. Bill of Rights.[/font color] Speak freely in the USA, but if your words are carried on a U.S. Web site, you may be sued in Britain. The Declaration of Independence would be null and void, at least for libel law. Suddenly, instead of the Internet becoming a means of spreading press freedom, the means to break through censorship, it would become the electronic highway for delivering repression.

And repression was winning. InterPress Services (IPS) of Washington, DC, sent a reporter to Tanzania with Lissu. They received a note from Barrick that said if the wire service ran a story that repeated the allegations, the company would sue. IPS did not run the story.

I was worried about Lissu. On July 19, 2001, a group of Tanzanian police interest lawyers wrote the nation’s president asking for an investigation–instead, Lissu’s law partner in Dar es Salaam was arrested. The police were hunting for Lissu. They broke into his home and office and turned them upside down looking for the names of Lissu’s sources, his whereabouts and the evidence he gathered on the mine site clearance. This was more than a legal skirmish. Over the next months, demonstrations by vicims’ families were broken up by police thugs. A member of Parliament joining protesters was beaten and hospitalized. I had to raise cash quick to get Lissu out, and with him, his copies of police files with more evidence of the killings. I called Maude Barlow, the “Ralph Nader of Canada”, head of the Council of Canadians. Without hesitation, she teamed up with Friends of the Earth in Holland, raised funds and prepared a press conference–and in August tipped the story to the Globe & Mail, Canada’s national paper.

CONTINUED...

http://www.mapcruzin.com/palast-2.htm

So. Greg Palast did something very, very bad from the insider's perspective: He told the truth, including the bits about the buried alive gold miners, as it happens. So, the Big Corporation sued and sued and sued. With their deep pockets, they can buy justice, judges, prime ministers and whoever and whatever else they need to turn a buck, even presidents and their dim sons.

PS: You are most welcome, cantbeserious! Thank you for caring and standing up for what democracy needs to thrive -- the truth.

[rhett o rick]

5. As I have stated, I have no delusions that we can defeat the giant, but I'd rather go down

fighting.

Thank you for posting this. I know there are some good books about this, do you have a recommendation?

[Octafish]

26. ''But nobody reads.'' -- Allen Dulles, Warren Commissioner, former head of CIA, fired by JFK

"But nobody reads. Don't believe people read in this country. There will be a few professors that will read the record...The public will read very little." (Allen Dulles, September 6, 1964, Warren Commission internal memo).

His very words, describing the whitewash's 26 volumes of accompanying evidence, testimony and notations. Missed, of course, are the many revelations we've had to pry out of the secret government's Top Secret vault over the past 50 years.

Regarding the Big Picture: Peter Dale Scott has what is reputed to be a magnum opus, "The Doomsday Project for Violent Power: America's Decline from Democracy to Empire since World War II" (War and Peace Library). It is due out sometime this year.

More books on the current situation:

https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?73-Books

Why don't the BFEE and their retainers -- as documented by Russ Baker in "Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, The Powerful Forces That Put It in te White House, and What Their Influence Means for America" -- want an intelligent, reading public? For one thing, Readers are Leaders. Thanks for being one, rhett o rick:

[johnnyreb]

30. Terr'ists don't like to have an educated people around.

[rhett o rick]

33. I will accept credit for reading a lot. But I will admit there are some books that I cant read

because they portray a reality that I have trouble accepting. For example, I have only read part of "The Shock Doctrine". It's difficult for me to deal with a reality where there is zero hope. I understand the hopelessness, it's just hard to read about it.

I believe everyone has their own reality bubble that is shaped by many influences. Some are content to live within the bubble and never challenge the boundaries. Others are willing to venture out and try to expand their reality bubble but realize the danger of looking too deep into the darkness.

I believe there is a shadow government. I believe that Barack Obama is a good person but is limited by those in power.

[Hestia]

63. At least pick up the book and read the last chapter - she does give a blueprint on how to change the

financial system...all is not lost - we just don't step up and reclaim it and grab it back, too polite to say No!

We need to send good energies, juju, positive thoughts, whatever to Ukraine - I hope someone read that book and others like it now that they have the availability to change their country...like someone said in the South Africa chapter - while we were out protesting and celebration our win, the money guys were in the locked rooms demanding the world and the negotiators with the S.A. didn't know what they were getting into. South African's are still paying back the very people who kept them oppressed for hundreds of years because the when they finely loosed the shackles, according to the apartheid "stole" their land and livelihoods.

There was a thread on this board a couple a couple of weeks ago - quantum mechanics is "proving" that we are all collectively creating this consciousness, right here, right now...they just keep us distracted and disconnected from each other so we won't quit creating this consciousness. The biggest fear is that We Really Will Wake Up...

[rhett o rick]

67. I own the book and will do as you suggest. I am currently reading "The God Delusion"

with "American Fascists" next. We have an undaunting task but we must fight on.

[Hestia]

103. Ain't that the truth Rick [sigh]

[BelgianMadCow]

71. Hey rhett o rick

I think I get how you feel. If you take in the entirety of the reality we're in now, it can be too much to bear. I've been "watching" for ten years, and it can be a heavy burden. I did, however, finish the Shock Doctrine. I think it's required reading - but maybe not for you, since you're "awake" anyway.

Reality is ugly, and watching too much of it will get you down. I think we do need to face the music, but at the same time we need to have positive alternatives, and also focus on those positive things that are happening. They exist, but they're just harder to find. For me, the cooperative movement has been that alternative, where I find likeminded people and where I can put my energy to a good and positive use. I think we need a LOT of positive energy, and focusing too much on the negative will impede that.

I have a friend whose analysis of the world is very similar to mine, but who is usually very upbeat and positive, to the point of me asking "hey, do you take some kind of pills?". His answer: I've stopped watching the news for a long time. I think those of us that are awake and sensitive can suffer from a "palantir"-effect - you become glued to the negativity.

My view of the world is very similar to Chris Hedges' - but, like him, I think there is hope, and resistance is never futile. We aren't made to be automatons serving "the economy", disregarding human suffering. There are counter movements and they are growing stronger and coalescing. What shape they take, is another matter. But reality is what we make it.

Sorry for presuming things about how you feel - maybe I'm wrong. Just saying - you're not alone, and people like you are why I haven't given up hope for the US.

In my darkest moments, I've found courage and hope in the below, who knows maybe so do you:

All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

[Octafish]

81. Please turn your message into an OP.

Beautiful. Profound. Heartening...

[BelgianMadCow]

90. Thank you. I did

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024560977

[woo me with science]

84. Agree with Octafish.

Please make this an OP.

Thank you for putting it here.

[BelgianMadCow]

91. I did - it's here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024560977

posted in the wee DU hours, so high sink chance, but hey

[Enthusiast]

6. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

This is not something that will just go away on its own.

Criticism.

We need loud voices of criticism to change this shadow government no matter which party controls the presidency. A lack of criticism means the citizenry is satisfied with the status quo.

[kelliekat44]

23. But it probably won't. One fourth of the deep state posts here I bet. nt

[Enthusiast]

40. And why is that?

[Octafish]

51. ''That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people...

...and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

"I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. A brave man, the NSA was turned on him. Coincidentally, he narrowly lost re-election a few years later.

PS: Remember when We the People were the government? Now, We're all suspects. Thank you, Enthusiast, for standing up against Them.

[AndyTiedye]

87. You are Mistaking Lack of Media Access for apathy

We need loud voices of criticism to change this shadow government no matter which party controls the presidency. A lack of criticism means the citizenry is satisfied with the status quo.

It means that the citizenry is effectively muzzled. The right wing controls the Tee Vee and virtually all other media. We can mount huge protests and they won't be on the news, but a dozen teabaggers will be. All we have is a few bbs's on the Internet when we can preach to the choir. And now they have taken network neutrality away.

We vote, and the majority of votes in House races were for Democrats In 2012, but the House is so Gerrymandered that its composition bears little resemblance to how we voted. The same applies to most state legislatures.

The majority of Americans support liberal Democratic positions when polled, but most liberal Democratic candidates get destroyed by the Mighty Slime Machine.

People have rarely, if ever, been less satisfied with the status quo, especially in Congress.

[riderinthestorm]

9. Bookmarking to read later when I have more time. K&R just for the synopsis alone

Looks fascinating!

[Octafish]

52. Know your BFEE: Siegelman Judge is a big-time War Profiteer

U.S. Judge Mark E. Fuller, the guy who helped railroad Gov. Don Siegelman.



Fuller just happens to be the owner of a company that's made a huge fortune off the Pentagon and War Inc via no-bid crony War on Terror largesse.

The Pork Barrel World of Judge Mark Fuller

By Scott Horton
Harper's August 6, 2007, 5:14 pm

For the last week, we’ve been examining the role played by Judge Mark Everett Fuller in the trial, conviction, and sentencing of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. Today, we examine a post-trial motion, filed in April 2007, asking Fuller to recuse himself based on his extensive private business interests, which turn very heavily on contracts with the United States Government, including the Department of Justice.

The recusal motion rested upon details about Fuller’s personal business interests. On February 22, 2007, defense attorneys obtained information that Judge Fuller held a controlling 43.75% interest in government contractor Doss Aviation, Inc. After investigating these claims for over a month, the attorneys filed a motion for Fuller’s recusal on April 18, 2007. The motion stated that Fuller’s total stake in Doss Aviation was worth between $1-5 million, and that Fuller’s income from his stock for 2004 was between $100,001 and $1 million dollars.

In other words, Judge Fuller likely made more from his business income, derived from U.S. Government contracts, than as a judge. Fuller is shown on one filing as President of the principal business, Doss Aviation, and his address is shown as One Church Street, Montgomery, Alabama, the address of the Frank M. Johnson Federal Courthouse, in which his chambers are located.

SNIP...

Doss Aviation and its subsidiaries also held contracts with the FBI. This is problematic when one considers that FBI agents were present at Siegelman’s trial, and that Fuller took the extraordinary step of inviting them to sit at counsel’s table throughout trial. Moreover, while the case was pending, Doss Aviation received a $178 million contract from the federal government.

CONTINUED...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000762

There's a special place for Judge Fuller, and it's not on the bench.

PS: Above is a repost of an OP. Nothing's changed, except one of the reporters is now in jail on trumped up charges, too.

PPS: Sorry if I add to the Shadow Government link list, but it is all of a piece. Thank you, riderinthestorm, for standing up to these warmongering traitors.

[deutsey]

10. Thanks, as always, for your posts!

You probably are aware of Moyers' documentary from the '80s called The Secret Government. For those how aren't:

[Octafish]

53. 'Smells Like Coup Spirit'

You are most welcome, deutsey! Thank you for the heads-up!

For DUers new to the subject, while the world went through big changes on 9-11 and from Selection 2000, the Teams didn't. On one side, there are those who believe Secret Government has a place in democracy, so long as they're running the show.

Smells Like Coup Spirit

By Dwayne Eutsey

April 27, 2001-Thanks to the investigative reporting of journalists such
as Greg Palast, more evidence of a coordinated effort to disenfranchise
tens of thousands of registered voters (mostly African American) is
surfacing in Florida. When these reports are considered within the context
of police roadblocks, cases of intimidation, and possible large-scale
voter fraud and ballot tampering, fears of an orchestrated dirty election
become more substantiated.

There is another aspect of the 2000 election in Florida that remains
largely untouched, however: the possibility of a domestic covert
intelligence operation designed to make certain that America didn't go
Democratic "due to the irresponsibility of its own people," to paraphrase
Henry Kissinger's remark concerning overthrowing the democratically
elected government in Chile.

Perhaps the possibility of such an operation in the US is too far-fetched
to take seriously, or perhaps there isn't enough evidence to proceed with
documenting such suspicions. Unfortunately, history proves that the
former assumption is naive (Watergate, Iran-Contra, and documented CIA
activities against US citizens come immediately to mind). Regarding
evidence, it's the nature of the covert beast to leave no fingerprints and
smoking guns behind (unless you're setting up a patsy). However, if you
can't find a corpse laying around, the stench in the air can often reveal,
nonetheless, that a murder victim's body is covered up somewhere nearby.

What follows here is not an expose of how a CIA-backed coup in Florida
helped kill the democratic process in November. It is an effort, however,
to draw attention to the disturbing stink surrounding events in the 2000
election that are similar to known CIA actions that thwarted democracy in
other countries, namely Guatemala in the 1950s and Chile in 1973. To
avoid the appearance of "conspiracy theorizing" on my part, I've limited
the information presented here to what can be verified. I have also
limited the focus of this survey to very broad similarities. Many others
connections exist and warrant further investigation (such as claims that
former CIA/FBI agent Charles Kane, who was involved in possible absentee
ballot tampering in Florida, played a role in the Bay of Pigs invasion and
CIA coups and dirty tricks around the world. He allegedly retired in the
mid-'70s and would have been employed during the Agency's heyday of covert
operations).

Hopefully, this general overview will help prompt others to conduct a more
thorough look into murky activities that, taken as a whole, suggest the
spirit of CIA-Coups-Past may have paid an unwelcome visit last November to
Florida.

Historical Background

By placing these facts within the larger historical context of CIA coup
activity, many of the baffling events transpiring in Florida last year
begin to make some sense. The same players (CIA, powerful corporations,
rightwing militarists), the same motives (preserving economic/political
power), and even the same tactics (armed violence, fortunately, being one
exception) begin to emerge that suggest some unpleasant connections among
them.

For easier comparison, I break down these similarities according to coup
patterns in Guatemala, Chile, and Florida. Unless otherwise noted, the
information here is from David Halberstam's excellent book, The Fifties,
and from the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with
Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Report).

Guatemala: Prior to the legitimate election of Jacobo Arbenz to the
presidency in the early '50s, United Fruit Company controls most of the
country's land, economy, and politics. The land reform policies that
Arbenz wants to implement, which would redistribute United
Fruit-controlled land to Guatemalans, threaten United Fruit's economic
interests and political power in the region. United Fruit has close ties
to powerful figures in America, including Allen Dulles (Director of the
CIA) and his brother Foster (Secretary of State). The Dulles brothers and
others portray Arbenz as a communist threat and convince President
Eisenhower that a coup is in America's best interest.

Chile: Despite CIA covert efforts to defeat him, socialist Salvador
Allende is elected as president in 1970. His plan to nationalize Chilean
industries poses a direct threat to the reactionary Nixon Administration
and the multinational corporate interests it represents. Prior to
Allende's election, the CIA spent years and millions of dollars waging a
propaganda war to maintain a US/corporate-friendly government in Chile.
After the election, the Agency is instrumental in implementing Henry
Kissinger's desire to thwart Allende's policies and in supporting a
military coup being planned by General Augusto Pinochet.

Florida: Strategically important in the CIA's covert war against Cuba
(and other troublespots throughout Central and South America), Florida has
been home to CIA mercenary training camps since at least the '50s (such as
one in Opa-Locka).

There is also an interesting Bush connection to Florida (apart from Jeb
Bush holding the state's governorship). According to a report in The
Nation, days after the Kennedy assassination in 1963 a memo from J. Edgar
Hoover stated that a "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency"
had been briefed regarding the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in
Miami to the murder. Although George H.W. Bush claims the name he shares
with the "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" is coincidental, a source for the
story observed: "I know [Bush] was involved in the Caribbean. I know he
was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy assassination.
There was a very definite worry that some Cuban groups were going to move
against Castro and attempt to blame it on the CIA." (see Joseph McBride,
"'George Bush,' CIA Operative," The Nation, July 16/23, 1988, p. 42).

The Players

What follows is a very general review of similar interests and
organizations involved in some manner in Guatemala, Chile, and Florida.

Guatemala:

CIA: Director Allen Dulles is a key player in organizing the coup.

Multinational: United Fruit Company is known as "el pulpo" ("the
octopus&quot because of its pervasive influence over so many facets of the
country.

Rightwing Militarists Takeover: A reactionary military junta is installed
after the coup, fronted by the CIA-selected Carlos Enrique Castillo Armas.
The junta is responsible for the mass murder of dissidents and years of
brutal repression.

Chile:

CIA: For a detailed analysis of widespread US covert activities in Chile,
see the Church Report.

Multinationals: "In addition to providing information and cover to the
CIA, multinational corporations also participated in covert attempts to
influence Chilean politics." Church Report. Among the corporations
actively opposed to Allende's election and his socialist experiment were
ITT, Pepsi-Cola, and the Chase Manhattan Bank.

Rightwing Militarists Takeover: With CIA support and the blessings of the
Nixon Administration, General Augusto Pinochet establishes a brutal and
reactionary military junta after the coup. As in Guatemala, the junta is
repressive and responsible for the mass murder of dissidents (including
Americans Charles Horman and Frank Terrugi, both of whom were tortured and
executed. According to a US State Department memo dated August 25, 1976,
the CIA "may have played an unfortunate part" in both deaths. See
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19991008/01-04.htm).

Florida:

CIA: At least one "former" CIA operative (Charles Kane) is implicated in
shady activities during the Florida election. The attorney for those
investigating Kane's involvement in tampering with absentee ballots said
Kane's efforts were part of a "sinister underground conspiracy." ("Florida
Official Admits Helping GOP," Associated Press, December 7, 2000).

Multinationals: Oil, insurance, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, etc., all have
concerns about a Gore presidency and its potential for regulatory
activism. These corporations are eager to bring "business special
interests into politics so they can take over the regulatory bodies of
government and regulate themselves. ("America in the Grip of Bush's 'Iron
Triangle,'" The Observer, December 3, 2000).

Rightwing Militarists Takeover: The Bush Administration has established
"itself as the most brazenly rightwing of modern times. As the ecstatic
head of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation enthuses, the new crowd
are 'more Reaganite than the Reagan administration.'" (The Guardian,
April 25, 2001). Among the appointments Bush has made are Cold Warriors
(e.g., Donald Rumsfield), old Iran/Contra characters and intelligence
operatives (e.g., John Negroponte and Otto Reich; see The Nation, May 7,
2001: "Lie to the Media, Get a Job," by Eric Alterman).

Tactics

Media Manipulation/Reality Distortion

Guatemala: CIA "deftly created a fictional war over the airwaves, one in
which the government troops faltered and refused to fight and in which the
liberation troops were relentlessly moving toward Guatemala City."
Halberstam

Chile: "Press placements [by the CIA] were attractive because each
placement might produce a multiplier effect, being picked up and replayed
by media outlets other than the one in which it originally came out."
Church Report

Florida: John Ellis, Bush's first cousin, at the rightwing Fox News
decides to declare the state for Bush after 2 a.m., causing the other
networks to do likewise, creating the lasting (and false) impression that
Bush won the election.

Press Collusion

Guatemala: " . . . one crucial ingredient left for the success of the coup
. . . was the cooperation, voluntary and involuntary, of the American
press. This meant it was necessary for the press corps to tell the public
that the coup was the work of an indigenous Guatemalan force." Halberstam

Practically all American reporters cooperate, with the exception of NYT
reporter Sydney Gruson. After CIA director Allen Dulles puts pressure on
the Times, Gruson is removed from covering Guatemala. "It was an important
moment," writes Halberstam, "a warning to the paper's top executives about
the potential difference between the agenda of the secret government and
that of serious journalism."

Chile: Excerpts from the Church Report . . ."The most common form of a
propaganda project is simply the development of 'assets' in media
organizations who can place articles or be asked to write them."
"According to CIA documents, the Time correspondent in Chile apparently
had accepted Allende's protestations of moderation and constitutionality
at face value. Briefings requested by Time and provided by the CIA in
Washington resulted in a change in the basic thrust of the Time story on
Allende's September 4 victory and in the timing of that story." "According
to the CIA, partial returns showed that 726 articles, broadcasts,
editorials, and similar items directly resulted from Agency activity. The
Agency had no way to measure the scope of the multiplier effect . . . but
concluded that its contribution was both substantial and significant."

Florida: After Election Day, airwaves are saturated with rightwing
commentators, such as Ann Coulter, accusing Gore of being a "nutcase" who
is trying to steal an election that was, at the very least, in dispute; at
the most, it was a victory for Gore. (See "GOP Won by Planting Seeds of
Deception, by Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, December 14, 2000).

Lewis Lapham of Harper's noted that the "poisonous language" and
"paranoid" arguments being aired at the time were mostly coming from
rightwingers (although the Democrats were not free from "unctuous
statement, rank hypocrisy, and bitter diatribe.&quot Still, when it came to
rancor and speciousness, he "didn't find the same sort of stupidity on the
Democratic side of the dispute."

A sidenote on the Press and the CIA: There are a number of articles
exposing the connections between the US media and the CIA. The most
famous expose was Carl Bernstein's "The CIA and the Media" in the October
20, 1977 issue of Rolling Stone. In it, Bernstein reveals the cooperation
during the '50s and '60s between major US media outlets and the
intelligence community, including, CBS, New York Times, Time, the Miami
Herald, and hundreds of others. The NY Times recently reported,
ironically enough, that the CIA has included news wire services (the now
Moonie-owned UPI, for example) as part of its "regular propaganda
apparatus;" this apparatus also included "Miami exile contacts with
Florida papers."

Although this report is based on a CIA document from the early '60s, it
was also reported this year (or underreported) that US Army psychological
operations personnel (responsible for spreading propaganda) were placed at
CNN's TV, radio, and satellite bureaus during the Kosovo war. (From a
report by Alexander Cockburn in Counterpunch, cited among AlterNet's Top
Ten Censored Stories of 2000).

Staging "Spontaneous" Revolts/Protests

Guatemala: CIA creates the "rebel army" that is supposed to be an
indigenous uprising. "One of the CIA's main responsibilities was to keep
American journalists out of the area lest they find out how pathetic
Castillo Armas's army really was." Halberstam

Chile: "The CIA was directed to undertake an effort to promote a military
coup in Chile to prevent the accession to power of Salvador Allende."
(This particular coup fell apart). Church Report.

Florida: Republican operatives are bussed into Miami in a GOP-orchestrated
campaign to shut down the recount effort and intimidate (and even
physically assault) Democratic election officials.

Targeting Special Groups for Propaganda

Chile: "The covert propaganda efforts in Chile also included 'black'
propaganda-material falsely purporting to be the product of a particular
individual or group . . . the CIA used 'black' propaganda to sow discord
between the Communists and the Socialists and between the national labor
confederation and the Chilean Communist Party." Church Report

Florida: African Americans received calls the weekend before the election
from a speaker who falsely claimed to be with the NAACP, asking them to
vote for Bush. (Midwest Today, December 2000: "Scary Facts About the
Florida Vote," by Larry Jordan).

Conclusion

Where does mere coincidence end and meaningful patterns begin? Even if
the events in Florida listed here (along with the more detailed reports
being filed by investigative journalists) are removed from the context of
covert actions, it is easy to conclude that something profoundly
disturbing happened in the previous election.

Reviewing the increasing amount of evidence demonstrating just how dirty
the 2000 election was, however, is it so unreasonable to think that those
interests whose hands remain sullied from Florida would have sunk one
notch lower into the murky depths of covert operations? What are the
limits when the objective is to grab power at any cost?

And what will those who seized that power do next time in order to hold on
to it?

SOURCE (I remember this from DU, but now the NSAGOOGLE finds it on Bartcop): http://www.bartcop.com/coupsp.htm

On the other side, are those who believe in democracy, where We the People are the government. Those include deutsey.

[go west young man]

11. Kicked and recommended.

[Octafish]

94. America’s Deep State -- Moving America Backward

We’re Going Backwards!

America’s Deep State

by ROBERT HUNZIKER
CounterPunch, Feb. 25, 2014

EXCERPT...

Or, as for another example, since 9/11, the US has built the equivalent of three Pentagons in the immediate DC metro area for over 400,000 private contractors, defense contractors, and intelligence operators all of whom have top-secret security clearances, which prompts the immediate observation that, in all likelihood, somebody would have to be a real schmuck not to get top-secret clearance.

As recently as 15 years ago, no one would’ve guessed the country would expand Pentagon operations by three times within a decade. And, as with the Pentagon, all governmental functions are increasingly “privatized,” meaning the power shifts from accountable officials of the government to unaccountable private contractors. For example, 70% of the intelligence budget goes to private contractors. Conspicuously, and remarkably, America is outsourcing its own intelligence-gathering.

And, it’s outsourcing war as well, for example, in Iraq, most of the participants came from private contractors, to wit: “By 2008, the US Department of Defense employed 155,826 private contractors in Iraq – and 152,275 troops. This degree of privatization is unprecedented in modern warfare,” Molly Dunigan, A Lesson from Iraq War: How to Outsource War to Private Contractors, The Christian Science Monitor, March 19, 2013.

In essence, accountability within the American political system is increasingly a lost cause, even in the field of battle. As of today, it’s little wonder the Pentagon cannot account for several trillions of dollars. For starters, as far back as 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld publicly admitted to unaccountable Pentagon funds amounting to $2.3 trillion, which, at the time, was nearly 20% of annual GDP… gone missing?

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/25/americas-deep-state/

PS: Thanks, go west young man, for keeping us moving forward.

[tblue37]

12. KnR. nt

[Octafish]

97. WikiLeaks Goes Inside Corporate America's Wannabe CIA

What do Coke, Goldman, the Marines, and the Knights of Columbus have in common?
They all paid Stratfor to act as their own private intelligence agency.

—By Adam Weinstein
MotherJones | Mon Feb. 27, 2012

Coca-Cola asked about stability problems in China in advance of the Beijing Olympics. Northrup Grumman asked—twice—about the possibility of Japan getting nuclear weapons. Intel asked about Hezbollah's presence in Latin America "and their general ability to blow things up." And the owner of the Radisson Hotel chain inquired: "[D]o you have an expected completion date for the Militant Islamist Perception Report we ordered?"

The 200-plus emails that have been released from WikiLeaks' cache of "Global Intelligence Files"—more than 5 million messages lifted from Stratfor, a private "global intelligence" firm—are a comical mix of breathless geopolitical intrigue and workplace chitchat, equal parts Tom Clancy and Office Space. But the trove also offers insights into the business of corporate intelligence, showing how multinational companies paid Stratfor tens of thousands of dollars to watch global hotspots, cover their competitors, and even monitor pesky activists.

It was all part of Stratfor's "Global Vantage" plan, a subscription-based program for companies to obtain personalized intelligence briefings. Launched in 2006, the service became an overnight success: Organizations as diverse as Coke, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, the Marine Corps, Duke Energy, and Georgetown University plunked down $20,000 or more a year to get their hands on tailored sensitive information. As Stratfor's leaked master client list shows, major military contractors were well represented, as were Big Oil and agribusiness.

Internal documents show how Global Vantage helped build the reputation—and the 300,000-strong client list—of Stratfor, a Texas-based private intelligence company. In an email last year, CEO and founder George Friedman told his employees that the CIA saw them as direct competitors: "Everyone in Langley knows that we do things they have never been able to do with a small fraction of their resources. They have always asked how we did it. We can now show them and maybe they can learn." After Osama bin Laden was killed, Stratfor's vice president for intelligence (a former State Department security agent) claimed in an internal email, "I can get access to the materials seized from the OBL safe house."

SNIP...

Multinationals also asked Stratfor to run plumbing operations against perceived anti-corporate enemies. In May 2006, a Stratfor rep named Anya excitedly reported on her conversation with someone from Intel. "Answered client question about activist group, he thanks us, VERY happy with information," she wrote. "Possible opportunity for upsell—talking with Public policy group about more information." The following month, Stratfor sent "activist information on Iraq contractors" to Lincoln Group and Bechtel, two of the biggest private military companies to grab contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Using publicly available information, Stratfor also kept tabs on the Yes Men on behalf of Dow Chemical and Union Carbide, regular targets of the anti-corporate pranksters.

CONTINUED...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/wikileaks-strafor-leak-corporate-intelligence

Secret Government boiled down: Welfare for the Warmongers via Socialized Costs plus Privatized Profits.

[MindMover]

13. A borgs confession .... WOW ... like we didn't know this is going on now ...

[Octafish]

98. We Asked the Five Eyes About What They Were Up To. Here's What They Said.

by Caroline Wilson Palow
Published on Sunday, February 23, 2014 by Privacy International

Would you like to read the current international agreements establishing the intelligence sharing arrangements that underpin the work of the NSA and GCHQ? The rules that govern massive, coordinated communications surveillance operations, hacking, and the exploitation of networks and devices in the name of national security and the public interest?

What about the guidelines that set the boundaries of what certain cooperating intelligence agencies can and cannot do to the citizens of their own countries, and to foreigners?

Well, you can’t.

While the Snowden revelations have exposed much about the extensive sharing of intelligence between the countries of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance - the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - we still have no way of accessing current versions of the treaties and agreements that underpin the arrangement. Up until those revelations, the very existence of the alliance - not to mention the extent of its activities and sharing - remained for the most part secret, with the exception of a few pieces of information gleaned by investigative journalists and academics. While Snowden has helped to shine a light on some of the Five Eyes activities, today we still remain in the dark about the rules that the Five Eyes allies have agreed to abide by.

That's why, in an attempt to begin to shine a light on the alliance, Privacy International and individuals associated with Privacy International sent Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to authorities in all five countries.

In the dark

The alliance began shortly after World War II, and its constituent governments share intelligence by default. Its existence has been noted in history books, and was confirmed by the release of a handful of historical documents (dating from 1940 to 1956) by the NSA and the UK National Archives in 2010. One of those documents, a draft of the original 1946 UKUSA agreement, explains that the exchange of collected signals intelligence (SIGINT) would be “unrestricted”, and that ““all raw traffic shall continue to be exchanged”. The draft also authorizes the (1) collection of traffic; (2) acquisition of communications documents and equipment; (3) traffic analysis; (4) cryptanalysis; (5) decryption and translation; and (6) acquisition of information regarding communications organizations, procedures, practices and equipment.

But we do not know how the sharing of such information is regulated - and we certainly have no insight into whether the human rights obligations of the Five Eyes countries are being taken into account. Indeed, what we do know raises concern that the agencies are playing a game of jurisdictional arbitrage, seeking to exploit differing standards in national legislation. Given the vast operational integration we now know the agencies enjoy, it is essential the legal framework governing this relationship is public.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/02/23-1

Friendly Fascism: It's like democracy. But, it's not.

[woo me with science]

14. K&R

[WillyT]

16. K & R !!!

[Bonhomme Richard]

17. One consistency in our Government for the past 100 years has been the …….

War on labor with maybe the exception of WW1 and WW2. All policy, both foreign and domestic, has been directed toward keeping the workers in check and making sure they don't get a foothold anywhere because if they succeed it will spread here.
The only reason for the success of union growth in the 30's is because the population had had enough of the gilded assholes and they were, for once, afraid for their wealth. When the sheep were back in their pens it was time to lower the hammer on unionism.

[Bonhomme Richard]

18. It brings to mind this quote from U.S. Grant

“The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre--what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation. Under the old regime they were looked down upon by those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it according to direction.”
― Ulysses S. Grant

They have managed to bring southern economics to the rest of us.

[rhett o rick]

34. I believe that most of the poor bastards that died for the South didnt have a choice.

As all wars, it wasnt their war. They had no slaves. They were forced to fight, as today.

I have mixed emotions about "supporting the troops". I lived thru the Vietnam era. The brave told the government to f-off, that they would not be pawns to the MIC. Those that went and fought deserve some respect. But who is braver, the ones that obeyed when told to gun down children or those that refused?

[Enthusiast]

41. I have thought the same many times.

Now we can get a sample of what would have happened if the South had won the American Civil War, without the slavery of course.

That's a great quote, one I've never heard. Grant was saying that the bulk of legal voters were trapped in their own ignorance. It continues today.

[Bonhomme Richard]

44. I am reading his personal memoirs and...

he had a lot of foresight. He, and many other officers thought that the war on Mexico was a political setup tied to increasing slave states and was an unjust war. He did his duty but didn't believe the war was justified. Things haven't changed much.

[nilesobek]

56. I wonder how old the term, "poor white trash," is?

That's at least 140 years ago.

[Octafish]

58. During Divine Destiny's Westward Push, they used blankets infected with smallpox.

Today, they still use war to cull the herd of the "Üntermensch." And the thing is, "They" are not confined to Germany. Edwin Black explains:

Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection

by Edwin Black
Sunday, November 9, 2003

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a so-called Master Race.

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little-known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the pseudoscience aimed at "improving" the human race. In its extreme, racist form, this meant wiping away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in 27 states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the 20th century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little-known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles Goethe, as well as members of the California state Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.

CONTINUED...

http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/offSiteArchive/www.sfgate.com/index.html

After the war, they became more subtle. Today, their children are still hard at work.

[Enthusiast]

59. Most Americans are completely unaware

Last edited Sun Feb 23, 2014, 02:57 PM - Edit history (1)

of the eugenics movement in the US. It's one of those things that was purged from the public eye, like Manifest Destiny, the Sand Creek and the My-Lai massacres. There are too many ugly chapters to list here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre

We now know that eugenics was the pseudoscience. Evolution and natural selection reward greater genetic variation. No one can predict the future value of specific genes.

[Octafish]

82. The descendants of the original greedheads rule the roost.

Their strategy was to wipe out the indigenous population, or at least reduce it to ethnographic insignificance. Territories would become states once the "Whites" outnumbered the native people, or in the case Spanish speaking regions from Texas to Oregon, the Mexicans.

Their descendants now hold that one group is entitled to lord it over another, even considering "lesser beings" as chattel, property to be used as needed and discarded when done.

The people who tried to overthrow FDR in 1933 had kids.

[Enthusiast]

83. Oh. I remember that one.

That was great!

[LongTomH]

20. More on The Deep State from Henry Giroux at Bill Moyers.com

Henry Giroux on Resisting the Neoliberal Revolution:

The notion of the “Deep State” as outlined by Mike Lofgren may be useful in pointing to a new configuration of power in the US in which corporate sovereignty replaces political sovereignty, but it is not enough to simply expose the hidden institutions and structures of power.

What we have in the US today is fundamentally a new mode of politics, one wedded to a notion of “power unaccompanied by accountability of any kind,” and this poses a deep and dire threat to democracy itself, because such power is difficult to understand, analyze and counter.

I would suggest that what needs to be addressed is some sense of how this unique authoritarian conjuncture of power and politics came into place. More specifically, there is no mention by Lofgren of the collapse of the social state that began in the 1970s with the rise of neoliberal capitalism, a far more dangerous form of market fundamentalism than we had seen in the first Gilded Age. Nor is there a sustained analysis of what is new about this ideology.

............//snip

The biggest problem facing the US may not be its repressive institutions, modes of governance and the militarization of everyday life, but the interiority of neoliberal nihilism, the hatred of democratic relations and the embrace of a culture of cruelty. The role of culture as an educative force, a new and powerful force in politics is central here and is vastly underplayed in the essay (which of course cannot include everything). For instance, in what ways does the Deep State use the major cultural apparatuses to convince people that there is no alternative to existing relations of power, that consumerism is the ultimate mark of citizenship and that making money is the essence of individual and social responsibility?

Edited to add There are a number of articles on Bill Moyers.com and Bill's Facebook page in response to the Lofgren post:

Juan Cole on the Vulnerability of the Network

Andrew Bacevich on Washington’s Tacit Consensus

[jsr]

32. +1

[woo me with science]

66. +1

[woo me with science]

88. kick

[woo me with science]

89. kick

[raindaddy]

21. Thank you!

I think many of us have understood this for a while, but it's great to see it defined so well on a mainstream site...

[FSogol]

27. What a bunch of bollocks. "Shadow government" is a nonsense term to give an excuse to the

terminally lazy to avoid voting, but to keep whining. What is the point of voting if there is are nefarious shadowy government agents interfering with everything?

Articles and nonsense like this are an attempt to get people to stay home and not vote. It is pathetic it is entertained here.

Hosts and admins: Isn't there a creative speculation group for this type nonsense? Shouldn't attempts at vote suppression of Democrats be taken at least half as seriously as posts about swimsuit models?

[Octafish]

28. You should read more and learn.

The Shadow Government is real. Its members' interests and roles in voter suppression and vote fraud are open for discussion, too.

Almost forgot: I've written about this, a whole thread once.

[rhett o rick]

68. You can spot a conservative right off by their absolute closed-minded certainty.

I dont claim to know if there is or isnt a shadow government but it sure makes sense. Why wouldnt they when they can. The intelligence agencies have been given carte blanc to do whatever they want for the promise to keep us safe. We give them unlimited funding with no oversight. Why wouldnt they form a shadow government.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

42. LOL!!! nt

[Holly_Hobby]

46. I would posit that YOUR post is creative speculation n/t

[tomp]

47. your attitude is part of the problem. nt

[BlueJac]

49. Not BS in my book..

I been thinking this way for years after seeing broken promises by one Democrat after another taking office.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

55. Did I just read on DU that Bill Moyers is trying to trick people into not voting?

Your ignorance may know no bounds.

[FSogol]

64. Oooo, you totally got away with a call out and you did it before the shadow government

turned out the lights! You think intellect is behind exaggerated statements like "while the lights are still on"?

at the Alcoa gang.

[bobthedrummer]

75. And you've served on hundreds of juries here from your Virginia home-lol! n/t

[sabrina 1]

80. You haven't addressed anything in the article, leading ME, and I could be wrong, to the conclusion

that you haven't read it. But seem afraid of the facts outlined by someone who has far more credibility than someone puking on an internet forum.

If you have something to back up your claim other than a puke 'smiley' or anything to refute the facts outlined in the article, that might have some impact.

Just whining for censorship only makes the facts MORE believable. And I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that! just to demonstrate the impact of smileys!!

[JohnyCanuck]

31. k&R n/t

[steve2470]

35. best article I've read in a LONG time

highly recommended !

[ReRe]

36. K&R

This week's issue of Bill Moyers is getting some fierce recognition. Many here complain that we have heard this all before and ignore the number that is hearing it for the first time. Not just here on DU but out there in America. It needs to be repeated and documented and heard over and over again, each time reaching more and more people. Thank you for this OP. It has many links and I plan to spend some time here tonight checking out each and every one.

Knowledge is power.

[jsr]

38. Some would rather relegate it to obscurity

and keep it out of direct sunlight.

[ReRe]

43. Yeah...

... some hate the truth. But far more love it.

[pacalo]

37. K&R!

[arikara]

39. K&R and bookmarking

This is DU as it should be.

Thanks for staying and still posting, Octafish.

[Holly_Hobby]

45. Recommend n/t

[BlueJac]

48. Good stuff..

Thanks. I will spread this around.

[Romulox]

50. Re: Silicon Valley. I have long suspected that the NSA/CIA/US gov't shaped Google from the ground

floor--that is to say, Google's dominance may in large part be owed to its complicity in the Surveillance State.

Remember all the other search engines? Yahoo, Alta Vista, Hotbot, and so on? History is quickly forgetting these "also rans" in the backdoor key and data collation, I mean, internet search industry.

[El_Johns]

61. I remember reading about google's ties to us intelligence back when they were starting up.

[jsr]

73. It's a natural partnership

[Octafish]

78. INSLAW/Promis

BFEE connected pukes stole the patents and the INSLAW "PROsecutor Management Information System" software from a private company owned by a husband and wife developers in the mid-80s. The Hamiltons sued and a Federal judge ruled against the government, finding that members of the U.S. Government engaged in a criminal conspiracy to steal the software and privatize the profits, ripping off the owners for a lot of loot. So, rather than pony up, the Reagan-Bush-Meese Justice Department turned the failed prosecutor into the Appeals judge who then ruled for them.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw.html

The government's appointed agents, the BFEE connected friends of Reagan-Bush-Meese, would go on to sell it to countries around the world interested in monitoring "criminal cases" as they wound through their GULAGs. Later on, the software is alleged to have been used for all sorts of back-door dealings to find out "Who" was "Where" in "Which" GULAG.

[bobthedrummer]

62. Kick for visibility of what is in the shadows n/t

[Samantha]

65. Thanks for posting this important information, Octafish

and taking one for the team! Some people have zero tolerance for placing controversial subjects in the sunlight. How fortunate we are to have you here doing your fine work.

Basically, anyone paying attention for the last few decades sensed, if not knew, the controls are behind the fog.

Sam

[ProSense]

69. Interesting

It's starts off weaving a tale of a sinister shadow government, and ends with some vague conventional wisdom, explaining why it's losing "dominance."

<...>

But there is another more structural reason the Deep State may have peaked in the extent of its dominance. While it seems to float above the constitutional state, its essentially parasitic, extractive nature means that it is still tethered to the formal proceedings of governance. The Deep State thrives when there is tolerable functionality in the day-to-day operations of the federal government. As long as appropriations bills get passed on time, promotion lists get confirmed, black (i.e., secret) budgets get rubber stamped, special tax subsidies for certain corporations are approved without controversy, as long as too many awkward questions are not asked, the gears of the hybrid state will mesh noiselessly. But when one house of Congress is taken over by Tea Party wahhabites, life for the ruling class becomes more trying.

<...>

The House vote to defund the NSA’s illegal surveillance programs was equally illustrative of the disruptive nature of the Tea Party insurgency. Civil-liberties Democrats alone would never have come so close to victory; Tea Party stalwart Justin Amash (R-MI), who has also upset the business community for his debt-limit fundamentalism, was the lead Republican sponsor of the NSA amendment, and most of the Republicans who voted with him were aligned with the Tea Party.

The final factor is Silicon Valley. Owing to secrecy and obfuscation, it is hard to know how much of the NSA’s relationship with the Valley is based on voluntary cooperation, how much is legal compulsion through FISA warrants and how much is a matter of the NSA surreptitiously breaking into technology companies’ systems. Given the Valley’s public relations requirement to mollify its customers who have privacy concerns, it is difficult to take the tech firms’ libertarian protestations about government compromise of their systems at face value, especially since they engage in similar activity against their own customers for commercial purposes. That said, evidence is accumulating that Silicon Valley is losing billions in overseas business from companies, individuals and governments that want to maintain privacy. For high-tech entrepreneurs, the cash nexus is ultimately more compelling than the Deep State’s demand for patriotic cooperation. Even legal compulsion can be combatted: unlike the individual citizen, tech firms have deep pockets and batteries of lawyers with which to fight government diktat.

This pushback has gone so far that on Jan. 17, President Obama announced revisions to the NSA’s data collection programs, including withdrawing the NSA’s custody of a domestic telephone record database, expanding requirements for judicial warrants and ceasing to spy on (undefined) “friendly foreign leaders.” Critics have denounced the changes as a cosmetic public relations move, but they are still significant in that the clamor has gotten so loud that the president feels the political need to address it.

- more -

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/dc-insider-theres-shadow-govt-running-country-and-its-not-re-election

[wildbilln864]

70. kick. n/t

[Oilwellian]

72. Fantastic piece by the great Bill Moyers

K&R

[Oilwellian]

74. There's also a thread on DKos covering Lofgren's article

Great responses to Lofgren's piece.

[fredamae]

76. So many warned us-taught us

this was happening---so many more couldn't believe how "it could happen here".....................

[get the red out]

77. Only various details ever surprise me

I have come to believe completely in a shadow government over the years.

[Oscarmonster13]

79. I just stumbled upon this today...

glad I did a search to see if anyone else had posted it here

wow, just wow...right?
I am only about halfway through and wanted to get your thoughts...this is not conspiracy, this is the reality of a culture that is invisible right before our eyes. The question is, how do we empower ourselves with this going on? Just mind our own business and grow our food and ...? I dunno. But it's chilling nonetheless...

[wildbilln864]

85. kick. n/t

[Hotler]

92. Kicking...n/t

[woo me with science]

95. kick

[H2O Man]

96. Recommended.

Thank you for this! Much appreciated.

It's curious: as a young man, Bill Moyers fit right into Washington, DC. And not everything he did -- for example, while working for LBJ -- was good. He had some strange beliefs about King, and the culture changes Martin was seeking to promote.

As an older man, his thinking and insight offers our nation so much more. Yet, his search for Truth has resulted in his being marginalized by the power elite.

[Octafish]

109. Does NSA target JFK websites? (They won’t answer the question)

Does the NSA target websites about the assassination of President Kennedy for “cognitive infiltration?”

Jefferson Morley
JFKfacts.org, Feb. 27, 2014

That’s the question raised the latest revelations that Western intelligence agencies mount “online covert operations” as reported by Glenn Greenwald and NBC News.

From a GCHQ slideshow:Western intelligence agencies seek to ‘deny, disrupt, degrade and deceive’ online targets.
“These agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself,” Greenwald wrote earlier this week in The Intercept. The accompanying documents, from Edward Snowden, prove the claim.

The “Online Covert Operations,” mounted by the Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), targeted the hacker’s collective Anonymous and other perceived enemies, not just suspected terrorists, in 2010 and 2011, the documents show.

Nothing in the GCHQ slideshows indicates that JFK conspiracy sites have been targeted. But there is reason to inquire.

Obama aide proposed ‘cognitive infiltration’

As Greenwald notes, one former adviser to President Obama, Cass Sunstein has advocated using such tactics against online JFK discussion groups.

Cass Sunstein expressed worries about JFK Web sites in 2008.

Sunstein, former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote a controversial paper in 2008 proposing that the US government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” JFK online groups and websites to combat their supposedly harmful message.

Sunstein proposed sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups” to combat what he views as false and damaging “conspiracy theories” about the September 11 attacks, the moon landing, and JFK’s assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule theorized that JFK conspiracy theories spread via “reputational cascades.”

In a reputational cascade, they opine, “people think that they know what is right, or what is likely to be right, but they nonetheless go along with the crowd in order to maintain the good opinion of others.”

They cited JFK as an example:

“Suppose that Albert suggests that the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy, and that Barbara concurs with Albert, not because she actually thinks that Albert is right, but because she does not wish to seem, to Albert, to be some kind of dupe. If Albert and Barbara say that the CIA was responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy, Cynthia might not contradict them publicly and might even appear to share their judgment — not because she believes that judgment to be correct, but because she does not want to face their hostility or lose their good opinion. It should be easy to see how this process might generate a cascade. Once Albert, Barbara, and Cynthia offer a united front on the issue, their friend David might be reluctant to contradict them even if he thinks that they are wrong.”

(I must say that this scenario is laughably off the mark when it comes to the JFK Facts audience. Our readers don’t defer to anyone’s else’s judgment on the question of JFK and the CIA.)

What is to be done?

Sunstein and Vermeule argued “there would seem to be ample reason for government efforts to introduce some cognitive diversity into the groups that generate conspiracy theories. Social cascades are sometimes quite fragile, precisely because they are based on small slivers of information. Once corrective information is introduced, large numbers of people can be shifted to different views. If government is able to have credibility, or to act through credible agents, it might well be successful in dislodging beliefs that are held only because no one contradicts them.”

Within a year of writing those words, Sunstein was working in the White House.

Most anti-conspiratorial JFK writers I know regarded Sunstein’s proposals as embarrassing and inappropriate. Only the most paranoid among us thought a Western intelligence agency actually might take up such a mission.

A threat to my business?

As the proprietor of a growing JFK website, I have to ask: did GCHQ or NSA ever take up Sunstein’s suggestion and target (gulp) me and my customers?

I put two questions to the NSA Public Affairs office, first at 12:22 yesterday and again at 8:22 this morning.

(1) Does NSA engage in “false flag operations” where material is posted to the Internet and falsely attributed to someone else?;

(2) Does NSA engage in efforts to influence or manipulate online discourse about the assassination of President Kennedy?
The NSA Public Affairs office ([e-mail]) did not respond to my questions.

CONTINUED w/Links n Lots more...

http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/does-nsa-target-jfk-web-sites-they-wont-answer-the-question/#more-12794

FTR: I met Mr. Morley at Duquesne. He is TOPS in every way. IMO, everybody who cares about JFK and democracy should support him and his work.

Regarding young Bill Moyers. Oh, yeah. A lot of the something got knocked out of him over the years. The one to watch, though, was Jack Valenti. A webmaster before there was one.

[raouldukelives]

99. K&R

So glad Bill Moyers is still bringing a light to the roaches. Sad this cannot garner the attention that swimwear would.
Every buck in Wall St is a buck against me having representational democracy. The more money they have, the louder they will talk.

[Quantess]

106. Can we get Bill Moyers to go onstage and twerk with Miley Cyrus?

That would do the trick.

[MinM]

100. Peter Dale Scott defines the term "Deep State"

For some background here's the definition of the term "Deep State" from the Cal Berkeley professor who popularized the term (Peter Dale Scott):

The term “Deep state” comes from Turkey. They invented it after the wreck of a speeding Mercedes in 1996 in which the passengers were a Member of Parliament, a beauty queen, a local senior police captain, and an important drug trafficker in Turkey who was also the head of a criminal paramilitary organization – the Grey Wolves – that went around killing people. And it became very obvious in Turkey that there were a covert relationship between the police who officially were looking for this man – even though a policeman was there with him in the car – and these people who committed crimes on behalf of the state. The state that you commit crimes for is not a state that can show its hand to the people, it’s a hidden state, a covert structure. In Turkey, they called it the Deep state...

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31782

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101679653#post1

[MisterP]

102. same as when the NSC funded gunrunning by drugrunning

the Argentines in fact led the torch in funding murder by hooking up with Nazis and kingpins to create an autonomous, stand-alone complex "defending Western civilization"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Charly

[MinM]

113. Peter Dale Scott contin...

The Deep State, The Shadow Government and the Wall Street Overworld

The “deep state” was defined by the UK newsletter On Religion as “the embedded anti-democratic power structures within a government, something very few democracies can claim to be free from.”10 The term originated in Turkey in 1996, to refer to U.S.-backed elements, primarily in the intelligence services and military, who had repeatedly used violence to interfere with and realign Turkey’s democratic political process. Sometimes the definition is restricted to elements within the government (or “a state-within-the state”), but more often in Turkey the term is expanded, for historical reasons, to include “members of the Turkish underworld.”11 In this essay I shall use “deep state” in the larger sense, to include both the second level of secret government inside Washington and those outsiders powerful enough, in either the underworld or overworld, to give it direction. In short I shall equate the term “deep state” with what in 1993 I termed a “deep political system:” “ one which habitually resorts to decision-making and enforcement procedures outside as well as inside those publicly sanctioned by law and society.”12

Like myself, Lofgren suggests an ambiguous symbiosis between two aspects of the American deep state:

1) the Beltway agencies of the shadow government, like the CIA and NSA, which have been instituted by the public state and now overshadow it, and

2) the much older power of Wall Street, referring to the powerful banks and law firms located there.

In their words,

It is not too much to say that Wall Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative beyond the dreams of avarice – certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee.13

I shall argue that in the 1950s Wall Street was a dominating complex. It included not just banks and oil firms but also the oil majors whose cartel arrangements were successfully defended against the U.S. Government by the Wall Street law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, home to the Dulles brothers. This larger complex is what I mean by the Wall Street overworld...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-state-the-deep-state-and-the-wall-street-overworld/5372843

[go west young man]

101. Another kick and recommend.

As this is super important info.

[Octafish]

107. FBI Redacts Letter About Drone Usage That Was Already Published In Full

from the redaction-by-random-number-generator dept

The government’s overclassification problem has turned its redaction efforts into a farce. When not deploying questionable exceptions to avoid returning responsive documents to FOIA requests, government agencies are cranking out amateurishly redacted pages that leave info exposed in one response and covered up in the next. No wonder they fear the “mosaic” approachto FOIA requests. If they’d just come up with some meaningful redaction guidelines, they could avoid this. Instead, things like the following bit of stupidity happen.

When outgoing director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee last July that the FBI was in the “initial stages” of developing guidelines for its drone program, a handful of privacy hawks in Congress perked up and requested more details. The FBI released correspondence with three members of Congress—Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX)—in its latest bundle. Paul had already posted in full the FBI’s answers to questions about the scope and purpose of domestic UAV surveillance, but FBI FOIA officers still saw fit to sanitize them.

Here are the two versions of the same document, with the legislator’s clean copy up top and the needlessly redacted version sent to Muckrock below it.





CONTINUED...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/fbi-redacts-letter-about-drone-usage-that-was-already-published-in-full-by-sen-rand-paul/5371368

Ain't Democracy grand? Thanks for being for it, go west young man!

[Rex]

104. The vampire squid never dies and we will never stop talking about the monster.

Much to the chagrin of some.

[Octafish]

105. Know your BFEE: Behind the Curtain -- Booz Allen Hamilton and its Owner, The Carlyle Group

Behind the Curtain: Booz Allen Hamilton and its Owner, The Carlyle Group

Written by Bob Adelmann
The New American; June 13, 2013

According to writers Thomas Heath and Marjorie Censer at the Washington Post, The Carlyle Group and its errant child, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), have a public relations problem, thanks to NSA leaker and former BAH employee Edward Snowden. By the time top management at BAH learned that one of their top level agents had gone rogue, and terminated his employment, it was too late.

For years Carlyle had, according to the Post, “nurtured a reputation as a financially sophisticated asset manager that buys and sells everything from railroads to oil refineries”; but now the light from the Snowden revelations has revealed nothing more than two companies, parent and child, “bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits.”

And have they ever. When The Carlyle Group bought BAH back in 2008, it was totally dependent upon government contracts in the fields of information technology (IT) and systems engineering for its bread and butter. But there wasn't much butter: After two years the company’s gross revenues were $5.1 billion but net profits were a minuscule $25 million, close to a rounding error on the company’s financial statement. In 2012, however, BAH grossed $5.8 billion and showed earnings of $219 million, nearly a nine-fold increase in net revenues and a nice gain in value for Carlyle.

Unwittingly, the Post authors exposed the real reason for the jump in profitability: close ties and interconnected relationships between top people at Carlyle and BAH, and the agencies with which they are working. The authors quoted George Price, an equity analyst at BB&T Capital: "[Booz Allen has] got a great brand, they've focused over time on hiring top people, including bringing on people who have a lot of senior government experience." (Emphasis added.)

For instance, James Clapper had a stint at BAH before becoming the current Director of National Intelligence; George Little consulted with BAH before taking a position at the Central Intelligence Agency; John McConnell, now vice chairman at BAH, was director of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the ‘90s before moving up to director of national intelligence in 2007; Todd Park began his career with BAH and now serves as the country's chief technology officer; James Woolsey, currently a senior vice president at BAH, served in the past as director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and so on.

BAH has had more than a little problem with self-dealing and conflicts of interest over the years. For instance in 2006 the European Commission asked the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Privacy International (PI) to investigate BAH’s involvement with President George Bush’s SWIFT surveillance program, which was viewed by that administration as “just another tool” in its so-called “War on Terror.” The only problem is that it was illegal, as it violated U.S., Belgian, and European privacy laws. BAH was right in the middle of it. According to the ACLU/PI report,

Though Booz Allen’s role is to verify that the access to the SWIFT data is not abused, its relationship with the U.S. Government calls its objectivity significantly into question. (Emphasis added.)

Among Booz Allen’s senior consulting staff are several former members of the intelligence community, including a former Director of the CIA and a former director of the NSA.

As noted by Barry Steinhardt, an ACLU director, “It’s bad enough that the [Bush] administration is trying to hold out a private company as a substitute for genuine checks and balances on its surveillance activities. But of all companies to perform audits on a secret surveillance program, it would be difficult to find one less objective and more intertwined with the U.S. government security establishment.” (Emphasis added.)

CONTINUED w Links n Privatized INTEL...

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15696-behind-the-curtain-booz-allen-hamilton-and-its-owner-the-carlyle-group

Thanks, Rex! It's good to live in a democracy, a republic built on equal justice for all. So, that's why it's worth the sweat to get back to that.

[Rex]

108. Thanks, I did not know Booz Allen was owned by Carlyle!

And to think...we have some ahem *characters* around here that love to pretend the BFEE is not real. I pity their ignorance.

[Octafish]

110. There isn't enough money in the world for some people.

So, they hire henchmen to help them steal more.

They can afford publicists, hacks and disinformationists, too.

They can't afford you or me, though, Rex.



There isn't enough money to pay you or me to help them get away with their various treasons, from Congo to the present day. There isn't a share big enough to give you or me to help them pass and carry their loot off to Switzerland via the Caymans, as the rest of the nation gets poorer and hungrier and colder and sicker and dumber and servile.

Such characters are in service to what passes for the STASI of the national security state, lapdogs to the Have Mores. Pointing that out is weird to them. They've even intimated that I and the people at the Duquesne JFK conference do it "for the money" as if they don't know that the only people who get to sell their books on tee vee say "Oswald did it."

[go west young man]

111. Check out the growth in Carlyle stock

since Snowdons revelations. http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Stock/CG (you may have to use the 3 year chart) It shows a steady upward climb and an increase of over $12 per share since the revelations, coupled with steady growth (up,up, up, pattern followed by slight downtrends on new revelations, followed by more upward growth). This pattern shows that investors know they have inside industrial information that they are using to reward themselves. Otherwise the stock would have been declining in value. This conflict of interest and obvious use of inside information should be being investigated. It's amazing no one is on this. The growth chart is staring us all in the face and laughing all the way to the bank.

[woo me with science]

112. kick