Mike Benz Details Part I (of III) of the History of the Intelligence State

If you dare to mention the past evils perpetrated by the CIA, most modern-day Democrats will call you names, including "conspiracy theorist." They don't want to consider whether the utterly bizarre informational ecosystem many of us see every day has anything to do with a government agency with a long and unbroken history of lies, violence and interfering with the democratic process in dozens of countries.

As though the CIA meddlings in the democratic process of dozens of countries haven't been documented. See here.

You know, Democrats used to be highly suspicious about the CIA . . . Democrats have admitted that the CIA has and uses coercive power against politicians. See this statement by Chuck Schumer. [Video has since been taken down by Youtube].

None of this should be controversial. I highly recommend David Talbot's expose on the CIA, the Devil’s Chessboard. And see here. And here.

The CIA does not operate on its own as a "rogue" agency. As Mike Benz has carefully discussed on numerous occasions (here is one), it is one aspect of the "Blob," an amalgam of agencies, cutouts and government actors who meddle in the democratic process in mysteriously coordinated ways, all of them taking orders from the State Department.

Today I finished watching and transcribing a 40 minute talk Mike gave at Hillsdale College: "The History of the Intelligence State." I offer the full transcription here and suggest that the next time you are accused of being a conspiracy theorist by a modern-day Democrat, that you tell them this sordid true story about what has long driven and enabled our country's foreign policy. That was in the good old days, however. For instance, during the time JFK was murdered (See JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass (2010). We are now seeing the national security state turned inward, making a farce of our elections.

Here's an excerpt:

[NSC 10-2] sanctioned US intelligence to carry out a broad range of covert operations, including propaganda, economic warfare, demolition, subversion, sabotage, sponsored by George Kennan. He was the one who pushed for this right after he wrote the inauguration of organized political warfare.

But he would later say it was the greatest mistake he ever made because of the monster it created. Because what NSC 10-2 two did was it gave the intelligence community this burgeoning, newly created CIA and the we now have 17 intelligence agencies plus the ODNI. They transformed not just from spy organizations, but to lie organizations. What I mean by that is because of this phrase that is used in NSE, 10-2, I'm going to read it. All of these activities, which are normally illegal, can be carried out so long as they are planned and executed, so that any US government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons, and that if uncovered, the US government can plausibly deny any responsibility for them. I'm going to actually just show you the exact language here. This is again, 1948: All covert operations, all of these sabotage, demolition, controlling the media, they are now legal, as long as they are planned and executed, so that any US government responsibility is not evident to unauthorized persons.

So you are cast out of Eden effectively if you eat the apple of the fruit of the tree of knowledge you are not allowed to know. And they are not allowed to tell you. Their job is to lie to you. And if they do get caught, the US government can then lie above the agency level, above the CIA. The State Department gets to lie to the world because the CIA had these covert links, and they can say it was not an official sanctioned US government operation. Something went rogue. Someone wasn't authorized, someone took it into their own hands.

And I'm just going to read this analysis that I think is a useful summary. Plausible deniability encouraged the autonomy of this newly created CIA, which is created the year earlier or year earlier, and other covert action agencies in order to protect the visible authorities of the government. And we're going to come back to that as we discuss the power structure of all these different organizations. But I want to drive this point home immediately, which is that this was seen as a major growth opportunity because of how effective it was in the 1940s and the 1950s to be able to take over the world through diplomacy through duplicity. But the problem with diplomacy through duplicity, plausible deniability is the core doctrine that governs the interagency, which controls all of our major US, government operations on national security, foreign policy and international interests.

Because you lie to the outside world, you need to also lie to your own citizens to keep the outside from finding out. So while the lies may help you successfully acquire an empire. You now have to permanently maintain an empire of lies. Not just abroad, but at home.

Continue ReadingMike Benz Details Part I (of III) of the History of the Intelligence State

X in the Crosshairs in Brazil (With the Censorship Encouraged by the United States)

Glenn Greenwald on System Update Sept 24, 2024, #340:

[I]n Brazil, that country's authoritarian Supreme Court justice ordered X banished from the entire country as a result of Musk's refusal to censor the long list of accounts that the judge ordered banned, a list that included members of Brazil's Congress who were democratically elected by the country's population, including some with the highest vote totals of anyone in the country. With the stroke of a pen, this judge ordered X and other platforms to censor those people. Yet, over the last week, X has begun taking all the required steps to regain entry in Brazil to once again be allowed to be in Brazil, including banning all of those accounts that the judge ordered banished, as well as pledging future obedience to all forthcoming judicial orders.

All of this raises some valid questions about state sovereignty, just like the U.S. decision to ban or force the sale of TikTok does, but more so, it illustrates the rapidly escalating regime of censorship being imposed for real on online speech, expression, activism and journalism and the increasingly severe weapons being used by these states to ensure that that control continues to be consolidated in their hands.

[More . . . ]

Continue ReadingX in the Crosshairs in Brazil (With the Censorship Encouraged by the United States)

Chris Hedges Comments on the U.S. Security State and the DNC

Chris Hedges was recently on Glenn Greenwald's System Update offering a wide-ranging analysis of current events. I copied the following excerpts concerning the U.S. Security State and the disturbing transformation of the DNC:

G. Greenwald: Anyone covering foreign policy and covering wars as you did for so long, obviously has to deal with, in all sorts of ways, the U.S. security state, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and sort of how it influences a lot of these policies. There's no way to understand one without the other. After 9/11, we saw this series of whistleblowers from within the U.S. Security State, and people like William Binney, Thomas Drake, and, of course, culminating with Edward Snowden, all have the same grievance, namely, that the whole foundation of this secret part of our government that would act without democratic accountability and outside of any transparency would be the one taboo would ever be turning their power inward to manipulate the American population and domestic population. And a lot of that came forward primarily based on their grievance, that that was the thing that they thought would never happen. And they were seeing that more and more and more and more, that almost as much as these agencies were focused on foreign governments, they were focused on our domestic politics as well. I know there's been a lot of that since the creation of the U.S. Security State, but do you agree that that has gotten worse and more dire, more evident – the idea that the U.S. Security State now plays a bigger role than ever before in our domestic politics?

Chris Hedges: Yeah, it's completely unaccountable and you can't control it. That's the problem. And Arnold Toynbee when he writes about the decline of the Empire, talks about these rogue intelligence, military complexes, institutions that essentially can no longer be regulated, can no longer be constrained. All of the people who led us into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya, you know, there should be accountability there. Not only is there no accountability, but the same people are leading us into the disasters in Ukraine and funneling weapons to sustain the genocide in Gaza. And that's very dangerous because, at the beginning of an empire, empires are very judicious, usually about the use of force. What characterizes declining dying empires is military adventurism, where they seek to gain a diminishing or a loss to Germany through a military fiasco. And I think we can start with Vietnam and go basically right through just one military debacle after another. What we've done in the Middle East is probably the greatest strategic blunder, you know, in American history.

Continue ReadingChris Hedges Comments on the U.S. Security State and the DNC

George Carlin Bit on Assassination, Etc.

I don't think of Donald Trump as a big advocate for peace and harmony, but he has spoken out against U.S. warmongering far more than Kamala Harris, who now has the endorsements of Dick Cheney and his minions.  If you are a candidate who speaks out against U.S. warmongering, you are threatening the  jobs of the U.S. military and U.S. security state employees. It also appears that you are risking your own life.

Assassination. You know what's interesting about assassination? Well, not only does it change those popularity polls in a big fucking hurry, but it's also interesting to notice who it is we assassinate. You ever notice who it is? Stop to think of who it is we kill. It's always people who've told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Jesus Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin, Luther King, Medgar Evers Malcolm X John Lennon, they all said, try to live together peacefully. Bam, right in the fucking head. Apparently, we're not ready for that. Yeah, that's difficult behavior for us.

Continue ReadingGeorge Carlin Bit on Assassination, Etc.

The Health State of the Nation

I'm currently reading Good Energy, a new excellent and horrifying book by Dr. Casey Means. Dr. Casey Means:

"I learned virtually nothing at Stanford Medical School about the tens of thousands of scientific papers that elucidate the root causes of why American health is plummeting.”

“I did not learn that for each additional serving of ultra-processed food we eat, early mortality increases by 18%.

This now makes up 67% of the foods our kids are eating. I took zero nutrition courses in medical school.

I didn’t learn that 82% of independently-funded studies show harm from processed food, while 93% of industry-sponsored studies reflect no harm.

I didn’t learn that 95% of the people who created the recent USDA food guidelines for America had significant conflicts of interest with the food industry.

I did not learn that one billion pounds of synthetic pesticides are being sprayed on our foods every single year. 99% of the farmland in the United States is sprayed with synthetic pesticides, many from China and Germany, and these invisible, tasteless chemicals are strongly linked to autism, ADHD, sex hormone disruption, thyroid disease, sperm dysfunction, Alzheimer’s, dementia, birth defects, cancer, obesity, liver dysfunction, female infertility and more.

I did not learn that the eight billion tons of plastic that have been produced just in the last 100 years … are being broken down into microplastics that are now filling our food, our water, and we are now even inhaling them in our air, and that very recent research … tells us that now about 0.5% of our brains by weight are plastic.

I didn’t learn that there are more than 80,000 toxins that have entered our food, water, air, and homes by industry, many of which are banned in Europe, and they are known to alter our gene expression, alter our microbiome composition and the lining of our gut, and disrupt our hormones.

I didn’t learn that heavy metals like aluminum and lead are present in our food, our baby formula, personal care products, our soil, and many of the mandated medications like vaccines, and that these metals are neurotoxic and inflammatory.

I didn’t learn that the average American walks a paltry 3,500 steps per day even though we know, based on science and top journals, that simply walking 7,000 steps a day slashes by 40-60% our risk of Alzheimer’s, dementia, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and obesity.

I certainly did not learn that medical error and medications are the third-leading cause of death in the US.

I didn’t learn that just five nights of sleep deprivation can induce full-blown pre-diabetes. I learned nothing about sleep, and we’re getting about 20% less sleep on average than we were 100 years ago.

I didn’t learn that American children are getting less time outdoors now than a maximum security prisoner, and on average, adults spend 93% of their time indoors, even though we know from the science that separation from sunlight destroys our circadian biology, and circadian biology dictated our cellular biology.

I didn’t learn that professional organizations that we get out practice guidelines from, like the American Diabetes Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have taken tens of millions of dollars from Coke, Cadbury, processed food companies and vaccine manufacturers like Moderna.

I didn’t learn that if you address these root causes that all lead to metabolic dysfunction and help patients change their food and lifestyle patterns … we could reverse the chronic disease crisis in America, save millions of lives and trillions of dollars in healthcare costs per year.

This is a spiritual crisis. We are choosing death over life, we are choosing darkness over light.

We need a return to courage. We need a return to common sense and intuition. We need a return to awe for the sheer miraculousness of our lives.

We need all hands on deck."

Source: Sen. Ron Johnson’s Roundtable on “American Health and Nutrition: A Second Opinion”

Continue ReadingThe Health State of the Nation