• thewonder
    1.4k
    I had once imagined that I had been told a joke by a former Czech dissident about the National Security Agency's surveillance program, code-named "PRISM". What he said was, "that's that thing that seems more intimidating than it looks." Perhaps someone out there had actually sent this message to me or, perhaps, I had merely imagined it in a fit of mania. Nevertheless, I have spent considerable time wondering as to what he meant.

    In order to remain operative, I suspect that Samizdat had intentionally flooded the bureaucratic security apparatus of the former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic with information that could be utilized in such a manner so as to reorganize it so that they would be let to continue to disseminate information. This resulted in a certain paradox, namely that the security apparatus could exploit the phenomenon of "dual consciousness" in order to convince people to be more trusting of it. Faced with such a political aporia, the Czech dissidents gave up on dismantling the security apparatus and withdrew from society.

    The joke, I think, also disinters a certain social phenomenon generated in response to totalitarianism. People in the former ČSSR just wouldn't ever think about its security apparatus because they already tacitly knew that there was nothing that they could do to change it. As the security apparatus could utilize the information that Samizdat disseminated to justify its excessive suppression, Samizdat understood that they could not effectively counter the security apparatus without getting any information that they discovered out to the Western press as quickly as they possibly could.

    I had once also imagined another joke about women that, despite its sexist connotations, I will share so as to glean what I generally surmise of totalitarianism. It goes like this, "A man walks into a room and sees a woman reading The New York Times. He says, "a woman reading a newspaper; that's a novel idea." On its surface, it is merely sexist commentary upon that women tend not to be interested in politics. What I also think this joke calls to light, however, is that it makes sense for women to be disinterested in politics because, as they are, to this day, completely dominated by men, there is little to nothing that most of them can do about them. As the Industrial Revolution was coming to its apex, men would often bemoan that women would do things like spend an extraordinary amount of time in the bathroom fixing their hair and were, by that account, not suited for manual labor. They would also complain that they tended to be markedly disinterested in labor organizing. The reason that women would spend so much time in the bathroom is because it was the only place on the shop floor that they could speak freely among themselves. If we are to consider the role that women have in society today, there is a certain degree of truth to the claim that the utilization of the fashion industry so as to send messages has only ever been so subversive and can even be considered to have been fairly detrimental to the cause of Feminism. The sexist notions that some men have that women are just simply vain, however, are completely mistaken. The cult pathology generated by the fashion industry exists because of many women, particularly those who are poor, just simply do not have a way to cope with that there seems to be no place for them to freely organize so as to improve their living situations.

    It is through a similar form of trauma that totalitarian control is maintained. A population becomes unwittingly demoralized by the bureaucratic excess of this or that political regimen and implicitly threatened by what they can probably only imagine there is to ensure that it gets maintained. Upon uncovering information about the gulags in the former Soviet Union and its satellites, you would, then, have to produce a situation wherein said information would become widely disseminated upon the actualization of the many implicit threats that the ruling order has been making through their propaganda. As Josef Stalin became willing to deploy the excessive form of collective punishment by the systematic elimination of entire sectors of the population, he was capable of backing up what would seem to be a rather absurd claim, namely that Soviet history was going to be writ by his hand and his alone. For all that Stalin lacked as a political theorist, charming statesman, military strategist, social engineer, architect, or creative director, he was not, as some believe, an idiot. Totalitarianism is predicated upon the constant suppression of its constant revolt. An idiot could not have remained in power. What I would suggest that Stalin was was a cunning, clever, and conniving brute.

    Because Nikita Khrushchev had denounced Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, because the "Secret Speech" was leaked to The New York Times, because there was a partial attempt on the part of Soviet apparat and its satellites to limit political repression and recover from the political legacy of Josef Stalin, and, because in the former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic there came to be a movement for Socialism with a Human Face, within the apparat in the ČSSR there were people who, for whatever reasons they had to, ensured that Samizdat was let to publish while it did. There is a certain paradox to the resistance to totalitarian regimes in that the dissemination of information relies upon the political opportunism of the very security apparatus that any dissident is almost necessarily trying to destroy.

    I, of course, don't live in the so-called "Eastern Europe". I will, however, say that the Central Intelligence Agency has a longstanding history of abusing the position of power that they have apparently been granted and that there being a global surveillance program which they could effectively use however it is that they see fit does leave me somewhat lacking in trust of more or less the American government as a whole. I feel like the NSA is just the sort of thing that Americans almost never think about because of that it just poses too much of a predicament for them to adequately cope with. If you know anything about Italian politics, you can discover that there are certain connections to be made between certain parties in the actual Sicilian Mafia, a number of Neo-Fascist terrorist cells, a certain Masonic lodge, a number of right-wing paramilitary organizations in Central and South America, and the Central Intelligence Agency. All of these parties operate independently of one another and it is not, as the conspiracy that I previously hatched posited, as if the CIA was just somehow orchestrating what has come to be called the Italian "deep state". To wax conspiratorial, however, our former commander in chief made a very conscious and deliberate effort to restructure the Federal Bureau of Investigation and, given that organization's history, I, personally, came not to hate, but to fear Donald Trump immensely. The legal and extra-juridical powers that the CIA can employ are quite frightening and, though they thankfully don't really seem to have done so domestically, should they go off on kind of a power trip, I don't really trust the Democratic Party led by Joe Biden to put the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, the Church Committee, to the effect of curtailing this enough to alter the steady decline in the American democracy index. Should they decide to take things too far, though I personally would prefer to drop out of politics entirely, I do kind of think that people in the United States may need to create a veritable dissident movement. The situation is clearly not as dire as the former Soviet Union under Josef Stalin or even in the former ČSSR, but, what I can foresee is an emergent form of clandestine totalitarianism that would have troubling consequences for democracy both in the United States and around the world. They have been given a device with which they given no reason for anyone to trust them with. There's a certain poverty to attempting to use the law to counter corruption on the part of the intelligence community, however, as it is often extraordinarily difficult to find any evidence or even specific parties to either use or bring to a court of law. There would also seem to need to be a broad-based nonviolent protest movement with the explicit goal of either reforming or eliminating our intelligence community. Upon considering how to get this off of the ground, as they, effectively through some form of legal positivist interpretation of what constitutes espionage, can just simply disrupt this process from the outset, I feel kind of like the Czech dissidents who just had to withdraw from society. I'd kind of just prefer to, anyways.

    Addendum:

    It is not that such a movement would be an act of espionage as per what espionage is. It is that it could technically be defined as such as per what the courts have proscribed proceeding from the Espionage Act of 1917. The First Amendment grants American citizens the right to the freedom of speech and assembly. Because it is paramount to American democracy, it is unlikely that they would bring such a movement to trial. What they would, however, be given is the internal legal justification for disrupting and dispersing such a movement at its outset. What I imagine, and I may have only imagined this, aside from that I may only imagine that they pay any attention to me whatsoever, that they have said of me is that I am a "cult leader no matter what". I have taken that as a backhanded insult. I suspect that they weren't making a mere dig, but, rather, an implicit threat. As I understand how they can back it up, I contend that it is politic of me to concede to it. I have no intention of leading a personal and political crusade. I also, however, fear what will happen to both the country that I live in and the rest of the world should every person like me, being all too well aware of what they either can or can not do, capitulate.

    Postscript:

    You may wonder as to why it is that anyone would even try to create such a movement when they could work within, primarily, the Democratic Party so as to put the Church Committee into effect. The reason that you would have to, if you don't want to wait forever, is that it would take a lot of time and effort to do so. It is also the case that, though being a member of the Democratic Party in good standing would offer you a certain immunity that someone like me would lack, doing so would be somewhat precarious. Without there being a broad-based consensus that our intelligence community needs to either be reformed or for the CIA to be shut down, meaning that all of its agents would be fired and not given other security positions, and for military intelligence to be taken over by the military and domestic intelligence to be taken over by counter-terrorism and unfortunately the FBI, which is what I think should happen, but can settle for significant reform, with which the Democratic Party can garnish votes, they just simply won't care to.

    A final aside:

    Unlike the former Soviet apparat, I can't quite make sense of why it is that the CIA continues as such. They've been such a geo-political bale for so long that, were they to actually promote freedom and democracy around the world and help to facilitate the development of a free press that has a fidelity to the truth, people would be so relieved that they'd be willing to let go of the past and may even come to view them favorably. Radio Free Europe has gone over extraordinarily well, to my estimation. It's never too late to change your ways or to say that you're sorry. It would take some time for them to establish trust, put trust is just the sort of thing that only can be established by that a person decides to make a show of good faith and to contribute to a better social environment for everyone. I, at least, try, y'know.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    Unlike the former Soviet apparat, I can't quite make sense of why it is that the CIA continues as such.thewonder

    But it makes lots of sense for China to keep and expand its own intelligence services. So, maybe the US, UK, Canada, Australia, etc. should just let the Chinese take over. That would create a global Chinese intelligence agency and would solve the problem once and for all.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    The situation in China is extraordinarily complex and rather troubling. Despite the economic reforms there, little has been done to alter overall power structure. I'm relatively unfamiliar with Chinese politics, and, so, couldn't give too good of an analysis of them.

    During the Cold War, the CIA ostensibly justified the arming, training, and funding of Neo-Fascist terrorist cells as "stay-behind networks" to prevent a projected Soviet invasion of Europe. To me, it seems quite clear, that, had there been a genuine fear of such an invasion, they ought to just have trained and bolstered European regular standing armies. What are these Neo-Fascist guerillas in comparison to the militaries of the European nation-states? Had they really, for whatever reason, wanted for there to be such a "fifth column", why deploy the far-Right? Surely there are some other people with weapons in the world. Given this information, I assume that such operations were not carried out in good faith, ultimately duplicitous, and fairly nefarious. By that we only stopped funding the Azov Battalion in Ukraine in 2018 after libcom effectively leaked the Neo-Fascist involvement in the Euromaidan to the associated press, I assume that such operations, to some extent, have continued even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As an aside, tt's a shame that Svoboda was involved with the protests, as they really ought to have been let to join the European Union.

    Anyways, the CIA also armed, trained, and funded the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fairly limited success there, though oft-cited as the military victory that brought down the USSR, of which Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda was born out of.

    I could give you an entire history of what they have done in the name of anti-Communism, by which I doubt that you can convince me that almost any of it has been ethical, effective, or contributive to the development of democracy.

    If there is a genuine concern with Chinese espionage in the United States, which I'd bet happens, but is rare enough not to pose any real threat to the democratic process, it seems like some other security agency here could deal with that, perhaps even more adequately.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    During the Cold War, the CIA ostensibly justified the arming, training, and funding of Neo-Fascist terrorist cells as "stay-behind networks" to prevent a projected Soviet invasion of Europe.thewonder

    The projected Soviet invasion was just a ruse to justify defense expenditure and to promote liberal or social democracy (a.k.a. Fabianism) of the kind backed by the Rockefellers as an "antidote" to Communism.

    The Mujahideen did have some impact on Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. But what finished off the Soviets was Reagan stopping US banks from providing loans to them. The Soviet Union collapsed in a matter of weeks after that.
  • thewonder
    1.4k


    I kind of doubt that Fabianism is terribly popular within the Central Intelligence Agency. I'd bet that there are a few closet proclivities towards theoretical forms of Fascism, such as Exo-Fascism or black monarchism, some reactionary elements, primarily a set of right-wing political currents, with Neoconservatism probably being the most popular, and a small minority of left-wing Liberals. I don't really know, though.

    I don't see what those Neo-Fascists have to do with Liberalism or Social Democracy. This book is about their doing that. This article is a pretty good review, though I admittedly haven't read the original text.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    I kind of doubt that Fabianism is terribly popular within the Central Intelligence Agency.thewonder

    If that is your doubt, then maybe you should look at the historical evidence. The CIA was founded by the Rockefeller Group and its Anglo-American allies. The same people that founded the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and at the same time funded the Fabians' London School of Economics (LSE) and other projects.

    David Rockefeller studied at the Fabians' LSE and wrote a senior thesis on Fabianism. Read Rockefeller's Memoirs.

    If you are interested in knowing the truth then you can't just state things, you need to look at the historical facts.

    The Rockefellers and allies provided financial and technical assistance to the Soviet Union through financial institutions like Chase Manhattan, Citibank, Bank of America, Morgan Guaranty Trust, and Manufacturers Hanover and organizations like the US-USSR Trade and Economic Council (USTEC).

    This went all the way back to Lenin's time when the Soviets were mass manufacturing cars and trucks under licence from Ford.

    The whole Soviet system was totally dependent on US technology and credit unbeknownst to the American public.

    The Soviet Union collapsed the minute Reagan found out and stopped that.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    In his first presidential press conference, Reagan stunned official Washington by denouncing the Soviet leadership as still dedicated to “world revolution and a one-world Socialist-Communist state.”

    Based on intelligence reports and his life-long study, Reagan concluded that Soviet communism was cracking and ready to crumble. In May 1982 he went public with his assessment of the Soviets’ systemic weakness. Speaking at his alma mater, Eureka College, he declared that the Soviet empire was “faltering because rigid centralized control has destroyed incentives for innovation, efficiency, and individual achievement.”

    He boldly predicted that “the march of freedom and democracy … will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.”

    He directed his top national security team to develop a plan to end the Cold War by winning it. The result was a series of top-secret national security decision directives that:

    • Committed the U.S. to “neutralizing” Soviet control over Eastern Europe and authorized covert action and other means to support anti-Soviet groups in the region.
    Adopted a policy of attacking a “strategic triad” of critical resources –financial credits, high technology and natural gas – essential to Soviet economic survival. Author-economist Roger Robinson said the directive was tantamount to “a secret declaration of economic war on the Soviet Union.”
    • Determined that, rather than coexist with the Soviet system, the U.S. would seek to change it fundamentally.

    The language, drafted by Harvard historian Richard Pipes, was unequivocal: America intended to “roll back” Soviet influence at every opportunity.

    It was Reagan's Strategic Triad - financial credits, high technology, and gas - that finished them off. The Soviets knew they were finished and just gave up. So much for Marx's economic genius

    How Ronald Reagan Won the Cold War | The Heritage Foundation

    99% of Americans still don't know that the Soviet Union was propped up by US credit and technology (and backed by people like the Rockefeller Group) and that it collapsed when Reagan pulled the plug on that.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    Here is Reagan’s national security decision directive (NSDD-75) that put an end to technological and financial assistance to the Soviet Union and terminated the Soviet experiment that had been going on since 1917 with US cash and technology.

    NSDD-75 Federation of American Scientists (FAS)
  • thewonder
    1.4k
    I don't think that the Rockefeller's have too much to do with the Soviet Union or even the CIA. Nelson Rockefeller actually led The United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, which published Project MKUltra.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    I don't think that the Rockefeller's have too much to do with the Soviet Union or even the CIA. Nelson Rockefeller actually led The United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, which published Project MKUltra.thewonder

    That's a shot in the dark, isn't it? From your comments I thought you were an expert on the CIA.

    In 1940 the British intelligence agency MI6 (Military Intelligence Section 6) set up an American station, the British Security Coordination (BSC) headquartered at the New York Rockefeller Center and headed by William Stephenson.

    In 1941 Stephenson set up the Office of Coordination of Information (COI) with his collaborator William Donovan as its head. In 1942, COI became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and this was reorganized after the war as the CIA.

    The CIA was directly linked with the Rockefeller-controlled CFR through its first director Allen Dulles who together with his brother John Foster Dulles were Rockefeller representatives at the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell.

    In 1943, David Rockefeller himself became a member of the US Joint Intelligence Collection Agency (JICA). The Rockefellers controlled US foreign and economic policy as well the newly established US intelligence agencies.

    British Security Co-ordination – Wikipedia

    You can also try MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations by Stephen Dorril.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I think that you're waxing fairly apophenic, here, so as to create a coherent depiction of what borderlines on conspiracy.

    The Office of Strategic Services was modelled after whatever you want to call British intelligence before the Second World War, but was not somehow orchestrated by MI6. MI6 and MI5 were both created during the Second World War, along with a number of other intelligence branches, for the respective specializations in finance and counter-intelligence. A set of parties within British intelligence were involved with the Greek junta, the "Regime of Colonels", beginning in 1967, I believe, along with the CIA. Up until 1937, British intelligence has gone on the record to have described their relationship with the Gestapo as having been "cordial". There's a long and tenuous history of British intelligence, but as they are today, they don't pose nearly the predicament that the CIA does. It could even be argued that it may be somewhat requisite for them to facilitate the creation of a veritable intelligence community globally.

    The CIA, itself, is just simply reactionary. They also happen to be extraordinarily corrupt. They can, perhaps, argue that their network of influence within any number of mafias or terrorist cells is somehow necessary to keep them in check, but, given their longstanding history of doing things like completely ignoring international law, I fail to see what trust can be put in them now. As it seems unlikely for the American populace to decide to dissolve the organization, it needs to be reformed. Despite that there are reactionaries within MI6, it also seems like it will be somewhat necessary for them to facilitate that that happens. The only CIA operation that I can even think of that reflects well upon them was what they had to do with Radio Free Europe. I have invoked that so as to suggest that, in so far that they are going to become a veritable intelligence organization, which is to say one that actually protects and promotes freedom and democracy, they should proceed from there.

    The greatest irony of the CIA, I think, is its unofficial motto. John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.", is engraved at their headquarters. If we are not to consider whatever intelligence operations the Chinese government is involved with, the CIA has now become the world's most foremost black propagandists. They also happen to somewhat known for only releasing information about their operations, often those undertaken with little to no oversight or popular support, twenty to thirty years after the fact.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    I think that you're waxing fairly apophenic, here, so as to create a coherent depiction of what borderlines on conspiracy.

    Am I really?

    In 1973 the Rockefellers’ Chase Manhattan was the first American bank to open offices in Moscow after which they started to expand their operations in Russia and China.

    In the same year, David Rockefeller founded the Trilateral Commission (I don't think I need to tell you what that is) and visited China after which he praised the Chinese Revolution for producing “more efficient and dedicated administration” and fostering “high morale and community purpose”.

    “From a China Traveler”, New York Times, Aug. 10 1973

    Through their close collaborator and US government adviser Henry Kissinger, the Rockefellers launched their program of rapprochement between the West and the Communist Bloc.

    In 1976 the Rockefellers set up the UN Independent Commission on International Development Issues headed by Willy Brandt, president of the Fabian Society-founded Socialist International.

    And you are saying the Rockefellers "don't have too much to do" with the Soviet Union or the Fabians or the CIA or anything?

    So, what exactly do you reckon they were doing all day long? Twiddling their thumbs maybe?

    How do you run an international banking and oil empire without having anything to do with anything???
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    MI6 and MI5 were both created during the Second World War,thewonder

    Sorry, but that is a lie, isn't it? Unless you mean the "Second World War" on some other planet.

    MI6 was created in 1909 See Secret Intelligence Service - Wikipedia

    Are you sure you are an Anarchist and not something else?
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I have conceptualized Meta-Anarchism so as to be able to leave the Anarchist movement and paradoxically become relatively a-political, but that is neither here nor there.

    The Secret Service Bureau was created in 1909. Military Intelligence, Section 6, which later became MI6 was created during the Second World War. There were over twenty different intelligence branches that the British military had employed during the war. It was after the war that MI6 came to specialize in foreign intelligence and MI5 came to specialize in domestic intelligence.

    I'm not saying that contemporary British intelligence is all that great. There are probably all kinds of things that are off about it. I'm just saying that, in so far that the CIA can be reformed, it may requisite to rely upon that British intelligence facilitates that they are.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    The Secret Service Bureau was created in 1909.thewonder

    Exactly, 1909. MI6 was just a name later used for convenience. The organization was the same from inception in 1909.

    The Secret Service Bureau created in 1909 was established by the Admiralty and the War Office to spy on the Germans. So it was Military Intelligence from the start.

    Anyway, you haven't answered my question, "How do you run an international banking and oil empire without having anything to do with anything???"

    Using a magic wand or something?
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I'm not saying that the Rockefellers didn't have an extraordinary amount of wealth and influence in the world; I'm saying that your notions of that they were somehow behind the Soviet Union, the Fabians, British intelligence, and American intelligence is conspiratorial. Apophenia refers to "the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things." I think that you've just read too far into their political legacy.

    The Secret Service Bureau and the military intelligence carried deployed during the Second World War, though I am sure such worlds are small enough for there to have been any number of familiar faces, were different intelligence organizations.

    As it concerns intelligence reform, I think that people have to weigh their options. I have already highlighted how it is that there is little that the American populace can do to reform the CIA. The CIA is primarily responsible for any number of geo-political plights that have been created by the intelligence community internationally. They created the inherent flaw within German intelligence by setting up the Gehlen organization. Germany, perhaps the most powerful Europen nation-state, could have otherwise been the most natural ally in reforming the CIA. The CIA has arguably waged consistent acts of espionage in France. If French intelligence were capable of significantly reforming them, they probably would have done so already. Israeli intelligence has a longstanding history of collaboration with the CIA and, even though they necessarily have to be in opposition to their collaboration with Neo-Fascists and other terrorists, they don't seem to either care to or be capable of reforming the CIA in any significant manner. There are a lot of other intelligence agencies in the world, and, perhaps, a broad-based coalition could be put to the effect of reforming the CIA, but, when it comes to the world's major powers, who we are left with is the U.K.. It is not because I assume for British intelligence to be all that laudable that I am suggesting that we will have to rely on them in order to reform the CIA and the intelligence community globally; it is because I can not think of another party who is capable of doing so.

    Though, in a way, I kind of am an actual Anarcho-Pacifist spy, I am not a member of the international intelligence community. What I am putting forth here is both ultimately and necessarily somewhat speculative.

    By that the U.K. has chosen to leave the European Union, it seems like it will be somewhat difficult to convince them to facilitate that the CIA is reformed. Brexit, to me, is indicative of that the British government intends to follow through with their continuation of a foreign policy that is more or less in line with that of the United States.

    I do, however, assume that British intelligence has finally given up on that an intelligence service ought to be an adventurist venture within clandestine diplomacy and Old World nation-building and has become somewhat committed to an intelligence community that does actually do what people entrust to it, namely the protection and promotion of freedom and democracy both domestically and abroad. I feel slightly more inclined to trust MI5 over MI6, but that is neither here nor there. Regardless as to what there is to say of British intelligence, and I am sure there is much, the only party who, to me, seems to be capable of facilitating that the CIA is reformed so that there can exist a veritable international intelligence community is them.

    It's kind of like how, no matter how anyone feels about police collaboration within a labor organization, should their organization be threatened by racketeering, the only option that they have is to give the Federal Bureau of Investigation what information they will need to ensure that the organization doesn't go under. They wouldn't be able to back the other party down otherwise.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    I'm not saying that the Rockefellers didn't have an extraordinary amount of wealth and influencethewonder

    OK, so how did they run their international banking and oil empire? Why is it so difficult to answer a simple question?
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I have put forth my theories and opinions to the best of my abilities already. I just think that assume for the Rockefellers to have had more of global influence than they actually did. Clearly, they had an extraordinary influence. I just think that you're kind of waxing conspiratorial so as to create an overarching narrative of the extraordinary influence of the Fabians, motivated by your opposition to them within the Labour Party. The Rockefellers were one of the most influential industrialists in all of human history. Industrialists don't control the intelligence trade, however.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    I just think that you're kind of waxing conspiratorial so as to create an overarching narrative of the extraordinary influence of the Fabians, motivated by your opposition to them within the Labour Party.thewonder

    Not at all. You accused me (unfairly in my opinion) of "waxing fairly apophenic, here, so as to create a coherent depiction of what borderlines on conspiracy".

    Quite apart from the fact that there is nothing wrong with presenting a coherent argument (unless you would prefer me to be incoherent like yourself), I think you should give me a chance to show that I am talking about facts, not "conspiracy theory", don't you?

    You have already admitted that the Rockefellers "clearly had an extraordinary influence".

    Do you stand by your own statement, or are you retracting it?

    If you stand by it, it seems to me that you're contradicting yourself. You are saying that the Rockefellers "had extraordinary influence" yet in the same breath you're denying that they had extraordinary influence.

    If they did have extraordinary influence, how exactly did they exert that influence?

    And, to go back to my question, How did the Rockefellers run their international banking and oil empire?

    Are you refusing to answer this simple question for fear that the answer might show that the Rockefellers had more power and influence than you are prepared to admit?
  • thewonder
    1.4k
    What I'm saying is that the Rockefellers did not have the control over the intelligence community that you have alleged. That's how you are "waxing conspiratorial". I'm not saying that they weren't powerful industrialists. I suspect that you have drawn connections between them, the Fabians, and the intelligence trade so as to present an overarching narrative that suits your opposition to the Fabians within the Labour Party. That's how people come to craft conspiracy theories. In the past, I have done so, myself.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    What I'm saying is that the Rockefellers did not have the control over the intelligence community that you have allegedthewonder

    And what I'm saying is that David Rockefeller must have had some control over intelligence agencies if he was involved in creating them. He also set up his own intelligence agency in French North Africa during the war.

    It's in his Memoirs.

    "I set about creating my own intelligence network from scratch. I did have some advantages. I spoke French and understood the political and economic situation better than most. In addition, I had letters of introduction to a number of influential people, two of whom proved to be of immense help"

    Rockefeller established wide contacts in the region through the general manager of Standard Oil in N Africa, the powerful head of the Banque National pour le Commercial l'Industrie (a business friend), Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King (a friend of his father), Canadian General G Varnier (a friend of Mackenzie King) and other people in the Allied diplomatic community, etc.

    So, basically, you're denying the sources, Rockefeller's own statements, just for the sake of contradicting me.

    And you're saying you are not in denial?
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    There's a difference between being involved with intelligence and orchestrating it. I'm not discounting your claim in regards to what you have just cited of Rockefeller. I'm discounting that he set up either British or American intelligence.

    People tend to assume that wealth is just behind whatever it is that they have qualms with when it comes to any form ruling order. I don't see things that way. For me, they're just after power. There are a lot of advantages that being wealthy offers a person, including that of a certain degree of political power, but an adherence to a kind of strict materialism in the general critique of capital, I think, is just all too simplistic of a way of seeing the world.

    This thread has put forth a set of theories concerning the intelligence community, particularly the CIA, as they proceed from what I have posited of samizdat in the former ČSSR. I felt that it was a fairly interesting theory that was somewhat politically pertinent. Only you are interested in talking about this, however, and you just seem to be making an attempt to divert the conversation to one about the Fabians, of which you already have a thread going on. I, myself, diverted that thread to some extent, mistakenly believing for it to just be about political conspiracy generally, which I did apologize for, among other aspects of my general habits, and am fairly unsure, when I have explained to you that I am not terribly interested in the Fabians, as I don't live in the U.K., as to why you are so invested in engaging me in conversation about them.

    My bad, I guess. I don't hold any of this against you or anything. I'm sure that Fabian control over the Labour movement is a somewhat pressing issue, but, as I don't live in the U.K., I just don't think that it ought to be too much of a concern of mine. That's all that I've really been trying to explain.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    Only you are interested in talking about this, however, and you just seem to be making an attempt to divert the conversation to one about the Fabians, of which you already have a thread going on.thewonder

    Not at all, I only mentioned the Fabians here in passing simply to refute your claim that the Rockefellers had nothing to do with anything, when David Rockefeller admits in his own Memoirs that he studied at the London Fabians' LSE that was funded by his father and wrote a thesis on Fabianism.

    Every other sentence of yours is about the CIA. You seem to think that the CIA is controlled by an alt-right cabal. I pointed out to you that this isn't the case.

    You are saying that the Rockefellers had "extraordinary amount of wealth and influence" and when I ask you what that extraordinary influence consisted in and how it was exerted, or how the Rockefellers ran their international banking and oil empire, you change the subject and claim that the Rockefellers "didn't have that amount of influence". That doesn't make sense.

    If you want to continue the discussion on your own, you are free to do so. But if you want to engage in dialogue with others, then you can't deny the sources adduced by them while producing zero sources of your own.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    You had claimed the Rockefellers had set up either British or American intelligence, I don't actually recall, which is what I was discounting. Perhaps I merely misread you, though?

    As per the title and content of this thread, though, though I'm one talk, it is not about the Rockefellers.

    To speculate, though I previously have given a depiction of what I think that the political make-up of the CIA is like, I'd suggest that the alt-Right is a reflection of their social ecology to a certain extent. It's like something that they projected into the world for fear of what they, themselves are like. That's just speculation, though.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    Things are better now, but under the previous administration, ostensive Tea Party Republican, Michael Richard Pompeo was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. It seems rather doubtful to me that the director of the world's foremost intelligence organization could rationally believe in the Tea Party movement. It was this kind of popular manipulation that I found to be rather troubling of the Trump administration. If he was a Tea Party Republican, then, why was he leading our intelligence service? If it was kind of a ploy, it'd seem to be rather troubling.

    William Joseph Burns seems to be pretty alright, though, as far as they go.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    That's just speculation, though.thewonder

    That's what I was trying to point out to you. You keep making claims without producing any evidence to back them up, like someone who's been conditioned to think in a certain way. Obviously, I've no idea who you are. But to me you sound like someone who's been indoctrinated by some far-left cult, no offense intended. I was trying to explain to you that the CIA is not controlled by the alt-Right.

    That's why I brought up David Rockefeller and the first CIA directors who were lawyers representing Rockefeller interests. The Rockefellers were not alt-right, they were on the left of the Republican Party and sponsored many left-wing projects. But if you've decided that you don't want to believe me, and that you don't want to check the sources either then, unfortunately, nothing can be done.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I'm not saying that the Rockefellers haven't ever been involved with what you might call "progressive" initiatives or even the intelligence community; I'm just saying that they didn't set up British or American intelligence. That's what I thought that you had said, but, perhaps, I have misread you?

    This thread may be somewhat dated, as the Biden administration seems to have recovered from the reshuffling of our security agencies on the part of the Trump administration, and, so, may be somewhat alarmist by that account.

    Almost any conversation about intelligence is necessarily speculative, though. This documentary is about the "stay-behind networks". If you surf Wikipedia for long enough, you can uncover an often unspoken history of the CIA.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    I'm just saying that they didn't set up British or American intelligence. That's what I thought that you had said, but, perhaps, I have misread you?thewonder

    I just told you that the very first CIA director was Allen Dulles, partner at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell that was representing Rockefeller interests.

    Allen Dulles - Wikipedia

    That's why I asked you if you knew how the Rockefellers ran their banking and oil empire, because they did it through lawyers like Dulles.

    But if you're denying the facts then possibly you've been indoctrinated too far for anything to be done about it. So, I can't help you.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I see what you're saying then. I don't think that it's fair of you to allege any indoctrination, though. They've been involved with a number of coups and authoritarian right-wing regimes in Western Asia and Central and South America, as well as that the "stay-behind networks" came out of the Italian courts in the mid-1980s. This is well known, somewhat well documented, and widely discussed in parts of the world outside of the so-called "West".
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    I don't think that it's fair of you to allege any indoctrination, though.thewonder

    Well, it isn't fair of you to allege "conspiracy theory" either, when I was just trying to help you understand some facts that you seemed unaware of. I'm just being honest and I'm telling you what you sound like to me.

    But anyway, let's start again.

    You are talking a lot about the CIA.

    I'm saying that Rockefeller representative Allen Dulles was the first director of the CIA.

    Allen Dulles - Wikipedia

    Do you or do you not accept this?
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I am not disputing that Allen Dulles was the first director of the CIA or that he was as a corporate lawyer and partner at Sullivan & Cromwell. I am disputing the narrative that you had previously presented of David Rockefeller's network of influence to have been powerful enough to suit the CIA to the purpose of protecting his industrial empire. I'm not even entirely sure as to what Sullivan & Cromwell has to do with David Rockefeller.
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