John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN KIRIAKOU IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“Neither Rain, Sleet, nor Snow Will Stop the Post Office From Spying on You

“It’s called the “Mail Cover Program” and it’s run by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Yes, even the Post Office is spying on us”

 

Good little piece.

I like the personal anecdote about sending his wife a card from prison (where this convicted CIA whistleblower spent just short of two years), something which highlights humble realities of life in a national security state.

“In general, Americans don’t–or at least haven’t–objected to a gradual loss of civil liberties and constitutional rights. That has to stop.”

The first part of that statement seems so true. But the herd behavior of populations, so counted upon by advertisers and marketers, is very much also counted upon by the power establishment and its security apparatus. I say “its” because that’s who is largely being served, not people in general.

I personally take a dark view of the second part of the statement, “That has to stop.”

There is no effective political mechanism for dealing with the situation.

The parties are both married to the security state through money.

Government by, of, and for the privileged and wealthy is what you have.

The combination of the various security mechanisms, the military, and the bought-and-paid-for members of the legislature work round the clock for their interests.

That is what the Dark State is, what America is.

Small independent voices heard in American politics are just that, small and independent. They are tolerated, but they have no power or hope of power.

The more prominent seeming-rebels – a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren – are just more of the same old, same old, dressed up in jeans and beads.

When you support activities like America’s outlaw work in Venezuela, when you support Dark State creatures like Hillary Clinton, and when you vote for Pentagon budgets, when you parrot all the lines about Iran or Syria, you are only a pretend critic, a potential reformer of nothing that counts. Moreover, even your more fanciful ideas about matters such as education and healthcare have zero chance ever without fundamental reform. That’s Sanders and Warren, completely.

The truth is that any kind of serious popular movement has almost no chance of accomplishing anything in a contemporary, advanced Western state. Just look at France’s Gilets Jaunes. There was a genuine, spontaneous popular movement and it started to have some impact, but France’s national security apparatus – and France is a state just like the United States in the way it is run – now appears to have quieted them with false accusations of being associated with anti-Semitism and a possibly contrived provocative event.

Sorry, but that really is how I see America, and I consider myself very much a realist.

 

 

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY

 

“The CIA Is Out of Control, Has Been Since the 50’s”

 

No other result is possible given all the circumstances of the organization.

You create a secretive organization which has relatively little oversight.

Its members are given to understand that they can lie, even under oath. Director Helms openly said as much during the Warren Commission’s investigation into Kennedy’s assassination.

You pass laws, pretty much for appearances, about matters like the organization not spying on its own people, but the organization just goes around these laws with various subterfuges, and no one in authority corrects them. CIA has always spied on Americans through one device or another, especially by using other friendly intelligence services to get around the laws.

You give the organization virtually unlimited resources.

You task it with very dark deeds in other countries, great numbers of them, so that they become inured to such activities. As any student of human psychology knows, once people get used to doing things in one area of activity – such as dirty tricks in countries abroad – they will gradually slip into acceptance of using the same methods anywhere. People’s minds are not compartmentalized like a set of laws.

Moreover, on the “operations” side of the house – as opposed to the purely intelligence-collecting side, the CIA having what are almost two distinct businesses under one roof – the nature of the work involved requires the services of very specific types of individuals.

Narcissists and psychopaths, intelligent ones, are both needed by the organization and attracted to the nature of its well-paid work, people pretty well without conscience, as you may well understand by such operations as we do know about.

One, the CIA’s International Torture Gulag, a collection of black “rendition” sites scattered in several countries where kidnapped people are secretly imprisoned. I have no idea if it still operates, but it did for many years. The CIA’s current Director, Gina Haspel, headed up one of these, and her icy smile would have been one of the last things some unfortunates saw.

Two, America’s industrial-level extrajudicial killing operation with drones and missiles and kill lists, where employees sit in secret rooms in front of computer screens to play violent computer games with real humans. They kill people they know nothing about, people who have no legal rights, people who are legally guilty of nothing. They also frequently kill other bystanders in error, but neither bystanders nor targets are guilty of anything.

Three, the plotting against and overthrow of governments in other countries, often even democratic governments if they look like stumbling blocks to American interests. Just a few well-known examples include democratic governments in Guatemala, Chile, and Iran. A whole list of leaders has been eliminated since the 1950s, and an even longer list of countries have experienced destructive black operations.

Four, the utter corruption of many foreign leaders through the use of blackmail, threats, and secret payments. These are methods are used on leaders of “friendly” and allied countries. Talk about interfering in other people’s elections, CIA has been relentless in such activities.

CIA’s ability to do what would be unacceptable things is aided greatly by little accountability and plenty of resources.

In general, we all know what effects power has on people. It corrupts, and the closer you get to absolute power, the closer you get to absolute corruption.

Readers may enjoy these articles about CIA:

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/the-cia-and-americas-presidents-some-rarely-discussed-truths-shaping-contemporary-american-democracy/