The Deep State, Hillary Clinton and fake democracy - NYTimes

[EdwardBernays]

Examining Who Runs the United States

A former C.I.A. officer with experience in Turkey wrote a provocative essay this summer about the “deep state.” The phrase refers to a parallel “secret government” embedded in the military and intelligence services, whose purpose is to provide a check on electoral democracy.

But Turkey wasn’t the target of the essay, written by Philip Giraldi. He was aiming, as his headline declared, at “Deep State America.”

Mr. Giraldi, executive director of the Council for the National Interest, a foreign-policy advocacy group in Washington, called the American deep state of today an “unelected, unappointed, and unaccountable presence within the system that actually manages what is taking place behind the scenes.”

In contrast to Turkey, where Mr. Giraldi said a covert “deep state” had taken root in the security realm, the American deep state of his description consists of visible people like the Clintons and the former C.I.A. director David H. Petraeus, concentrated around New York and Washington, who live at the fertile nexus of government and corporate power: Capitol Hill aides and legislators who cash in as lobbyists; former politicians who earn millions speaking to banks, or landing sinecures with them; technocrats who ricochet between Goldman Sachs and the Treasury Department; billionaire kingmakers dangling political donations; thinkers whose tanks are financed by corporations with a financial stake in their research.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/us/examining-who-runs-the-united-states.html?_r=3&referer=http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message2962478/pg1

Deep State America

Democracy is often subverted by special interests operating behind the scenes.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/deep-state-america/

Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.” All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.

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

[Scuba]

1. Cue the conspiracy theorist crowd in 3-2-1 ....

[FlatBaroque]

7. v look here v.... you beat him here by mere seconds!!

[lewebley3]

8. The New York times is a rag:They publish stories with left out facts

[Segami]

9. So, which paper would you consider

to be a good source of reliable information since you think the NYT "is a rag"?

Just curious.

[lewebley3]

10. A paper that is has reliable information, not many nowadays

Last edited Wed Nov 18, 2015, 04:35 PM - Edit history (1)

New York times completely mislead the public on Hillary emails.
most of the info the got came from the GOP.

[Segami]

12. Yes, but which paper do YOU consider

to be a reliable source of information?

[Tommy2Tone]

2. The guy's a nut.

Was he wearing a tin foil hat when he wrote this?

[upaloopa]

3. Nobody but nobody is afraid, scared or whatever of Bernie Sanders

I can understand the right being worried about their clown car but to think movers and shakers on the right are fearing Bernie's campaign is rediculous.

[sabrina 1]

6. Well, Donald Trump has stated that he wants Hillary because 'she will be easier to beat'!

Not to mention that Bernie IS beating all the Repubs while Hillary is far less effective against them.

[TwilightGardener]

4. Are there people here who don't believe in the existence of the deep state?

I'm convinced it's real, and it keeps us forever fucked.

[stevenleser]

11. I don't believe in the existence of the deep state.

In any country, even a dictatorship, even one as repressive as Iraq under Hussein or Germany under Hitler, there are interest groups that exert pressure on the government.

Some of them are groups whose ideals and goals we generally (or completely in some cases) agree with, like Code Pink or the NAACP, and some we don't.

Elevating that to the conspiracy that some have done, that of a nefarious organization that controls the government and can trump congress and/or the President is silly.

[TwilightGardener]

13. Well, good for you. I know this: nothing ever seriously threatens the status quo.

Nobody ever achieves power in this country while posing a threat to the usual ways of doing business--the permanent deep state. Some of it is financial related, some national security related, and it will never change, and it doesn't exist to benefit me or any other non-connected ordinary person. The original author, writing in American Conservative, notes that disgraced fuckups like Petraeus move seamlessly between military, CIA, and private equity/finance. These people never leave power, truly. They don't serve America, they don't serve you and me. They serve themselves and the interests who need their services.

[stevenleser]

14. Really? Ask an LGBT person whether their status quo has changed in the last eight years.

Ask someone who couldnt afford to see a doctor who now has expanded medicaid or has a policy through the exchange whether the status quo has changed.

It's changed a lot just in the last eight years.

[TwilightGardener]

15. You think what's referred to as the Deep State

has anything to do with social issues or cultural divides? Of course it doesn't. The real powers that run this country don't give a fuck if someone terminates a pregnancy or marries a same-gender partner. That's just political culture wars that GOP uses to get votes from their dumb hicks. You think that now everybody's forced to purchase insurance that the status quo has changed? Insurance companies are going down the shitter? You think somewhat expanded Medicaid (which many states did not do) is a real threat to powerful interests? Come on. The Affordable Care Act helps people and was needed, but it only passed because it was allowed to--it didn't threaten the status quo enough.

[stevenleser]

16. Code Pink is a group that puts pressure on the government regarding national security issues.

So no, if you read my post, I did not have a narrow focus on social or cultural divides.

[TwilightGardener]

17. Code Pink has about as much impact on the deep state and national security

as a deer fly has on a deer's butt.

[stevenleser]

18. Well, there is no deep state. But in terms of their impact on the government, I am sure they make

many folks think about their actions and votes.

[TwilightGardener]

19. I'm certain there is. It's Booz Allen, it's KBR and Halliburton, it's Lockheed Martin,

it's Raytheon, it's Goldman Sachs, it's JP Morgan, and on and on--all intertwined inextricably with our government, elected and permanent bureaucrats. And I don't think Code Pink has much impact on anything.

[raouldukelives]

22. Not unless one of them is a shareholder.

Then they would at least have a positive impact towards a deep state. Which apparently doesn't exist. So it doesn't matter.

[leftofcool]

5. The black helicopters are coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dreamnightwind]

20. Thanks, we are absolutely living under a Deep State

The political leaders are changed by elections. Power just keeps on doing what it wants, in slightly different contexts depending on who runs Congress or who is in the White House, but power mostly operates behind those forces and doesn't change hands with elections. It's been that way for some time now, and gets more entrenched with each election where we don't address it.

Foreign policy (both military and covert), domestic "security" issues, corporate access to government, the financial industry, thy give up noting without a massive fight from the citizens, and maybe not even then (Occupy was an attempt to address this, and was brutally put down, under a Democratic administration).

Until more people realize this and are willing to call it out, fighting for real change rather than the token changes power concedes, we live at their mercy.

And it isn't even just about us. The entire planet is under the thumb of the forces that run our government behind the scenes, using our tax-dollars to finance the military and paramilitary that imposes its will everywhere. U.S. citizens get blamed for their actions, though nobody asks us citizens if we approve of their actions, that's "off the table" (or under the table).

Sad to see ignorance or just complicity displayed in this thread by some. The truth is ugly, but it is the truth nonetheless. The greatest among us acknowledge it rather than ridiculing it.

[RiverLover]

21. +1

Well said.