IS THIS GOVERNMENT REAL, OR A POST-MODERN ILLUSION?

Dennis comments ♦ June 26, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

Who’s in charge? Bureaucratic war leaves us at the mercy of snake oil salesmen and spooks 3-30-17

According to Corporate Watch’s profile, Hill & Knowlton opened offices all around the world from the mid-1950s. Susan Trento, the author of The Power House, a biography of Hill and Knowlton’s Robert Keith Gray, writes that they opened many overseas offices on the advice of then-CIA director Allen W Dulles. Gray also used to brag about checking major decisions personally with CIA director William Casey, whom he considered a close personal friend. Hill and Knowlton’s overseas offices were the perfect cover for the ever-expanding CIA. Unlike other cover jobs, being a public relations specialist did not require technical training for CIA officers. This, in its description. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. I believe we are witnessing an all-out bureaucratic civil war between intelligence gathering factions.
While editing my memoirs, and reflecting upon this year’s bizarre election, a speculation occurred to me regarding the FBI’s interference with the election and the democratic process. Now I admit my theory is somewhat far-fetched, but there is ample evidence to support it. Several assumptions regarding her postmodern society need to be made as does an understanding of the works of modern-day social and political theorists.
My first assumption is that the elected leaders of this country are not the real policymakers or power in our government. They reign over a government which functions by itself and operates cultures that, over the decades and centuries, define the particular department, bureau, or agency. Of course, elected officials have us some influence but only to the degree, they are allowed by the culture of the institution or the leaders that make most of this of the decisions. What I am speculating here is that because of security clearances, a culture of fear and other reasons, no outsider could fully control a particular agency or department.
One of my first clients was a woman named Gayla Tannenbaum. She was referred to me by a friend who practiced law in Chicago. That experience was to define my career and life since that fateful day.
The saga of Mrs. Tannenbaum and another of my clients named Professor Riha was in the news for over a year. Much has been written about the Riha affair. The affair exposed myriad intelligence activities and agents at the University of Colorado, including a story that the CU president was an agent of some sort. There were stories about the infiltration of student groups by CIA operatives; there were stories about agent provocateurs; there were stories of death and destruction of student activist, and there were stories about massive conspiracies and gemstones.
Those of you that have known me over the last four decades realize how devastating this affair was, not only for me but for the nation. Briefly, the following events occurred. Thomas Riha, a University of Colorado Political Science disappeared after marrying the niece of the Czech STB, (equivalent to Russian KGB). Many incidents were reported in the local papers. Mrs. Tannenbaum, some sort of operative either for ONI or some other military intelligence unit was accused of causing Riha’s disappearance. Police and prosecutors in two jurisdictions got involved and Mrs. Tannenbaum was prosecuted for related offenses in Denver and Boulder. She was declared insane in Boulder District Court and sent to the state hospital in Pueblo, Colorado.
David Wise of the Washington Post wrote about this in his book, Politics of Lying, that this scuttled the Huston plan to combine all intelligence agencies and brought down the Nixon Government. Several Senate and Congressional committees investigated this including the Pike and Church committees. After publishing several reports on abuses of citizens by the U. S. intelligence agencies, Congress legislation saw to it that we would never find out as much as we did at that time about Government misconduct. Several other congressional investigations further chronicled governmental misconduct which was promptly ignored by the press or buried in the papers. We are facing a similar situation between the House and Senate intelligence committees, grid locking any investigations.
The result was that the FBI-CIA war was left behind in the news in favor of Super bowl, Dancing with the Stars, other TV shows and trivia that sells news and advertising. However, the battle raged with the FBI losing with the loss of J. Edgar Hoover and various revelations by congressional committees and investigative reporters who lived long enough to report, unlike Gary Webb and Danny Casolaro who died of mysterious suicides.
With the Trump candidacy, the FBI saw their chance. The campaign made an issue over Mrs. Clinton’s emails while Secretary of State. She had used a private server which may not have been secure. Driven on by cheerleaders crying “lock her up,” the FBI dreamt up a way to capitalize on the issue and sabotage the CIA. The CIA was probably blackmailed into not interfering with the Clintons since, according to Terry Reed’s Compromised, the CIA ran an Iran-Contra cocaine-weapons operation out of Mena Arkansas when Bill Clinton was Governor. Leaks and slanderous allegations against President Clinton didn’t’ seem to weaken the CIA’s position. Nor did various investigations. The “Octopus” or “Enterprise” was making too much money from operations and proprietaries to be shut down. Essentially, they were too big to control and too secret to govern. So, the FBI bided its time until recently.
Now, dear reader, I ask you to suspend preconceived perceptions, views, and prejudices and let your imaginations roam, just as Eco has you do in Foucault’s Pendulum and just look at events in historical context. Suspend judgment on conspiracy theory, speculation and the view of a benevolent government run by altruistic citizens, and ask the question of “Who Benefits?” There are no conspiracies. That is a fiction sold by the masters to conceal the fact that all the bad things we see are structural.
Many want to believe in conspiracies. This is what the rulers want because it keeps the citizenry from thinking and talking about “structure. “When I first identified participants in the practice of packing corpses of soldiers shipped from Viet Nam to the states, I thought in terms of conspiracy. Now, after four decades, I see the same behavior with different players. That must be structural.
How can such a thing be structural? Because we allow it to be so by our neglect and selfishness, encouraged to be ignorant and amused with games and trivia. We are distracted and encouraged to be ignorant. We need to wise up and pay attention.