Johnstone on the deep state

Hey, WV,

Hope all is well —

Deep state is not a conspiracy theory, it’s a concept used in political analysis to describe the ways that unelected power structures like multinational plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies tend to collaborate with one another in order to advance their own agendas. The fact that such plutocrats and agencies (A) exist, (B) have power, (C) are unelected, (D) tend to form alliances with each other and (E) try to advance their own agendas is not disputable; the only thing you can dispute is the nature and extent of their operations.

The above reads fine to me. But, unfortunately, it’s not how the folks on the right view the “deep state,” and that’s why I think — just my own view — it’s become counterproductive for lefties to use the term.

I prefer C. Wright Mills’ “power elite,” because I think it better reflects the way things work in America, as opposed to countries where the term is more accurately applied, like Turkey and Egypt.

Our system has always been one of control from the outside, not the inside. Our rich have pulled government strings from the outside of government. Where the term “deep state” was first applied, families, extended families, even “clans” ruled from the inside for generations. That hasn’t been our way.

I also think the term all but destroys the distinction between career civil servants and the few people at the top — or sparsely scattered among the rank and file — who really do act across a range from basic immorality all the way to the heinous and the secular version of “evil.” MOST of the government is composed of career civil servants, who do not engage in super-villainy, and I fear the term basically folds all of them over into Lex Luther status or worse . . . and this just plays into the hands of the right — even the far right.

But I think this aspect is the worse of all: The focus on “the deep state” takes our eyes off the people actually pulling the strings in the American system, which has always been our capitalist business owners, and those who are super-rich via other means. As long as we concentrate on just the Gubmint, we let them off the hook.

We need to do both/and.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Hey, WV,

The above reads fine to me. But, unfortunately, it’s not how the folks on the right view the “deep state,”…

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Well that is part of her point. The righties use the term ‘their’ way. The Dems use the term as a synonym for “conspiracy” and thus dismiss any critique of “the whatever” — and She says she basically now just uses the term around critical thinkers….etc and so froth.

I only use the term in certain contexts. Like on this board where i have a chance to explore what i mean. Or might mean. Same with “corporotacracy”. I dont use that term in court 🙂

One aspect of my inner-life that has grown since i became a “leftist” iz…i have to spend more time thinking about what i can say, and when i can say it, and where i can say it, and where i cant say it, etc.

Ya know.

There’s only about three or four people here in Motown that i can use the term “deep state” with. Almost everyone else, i have to take my notions and…oh…”translate” them into “mainstream speech” if ya know what i mean. I try and find memes and notions that wont cause the Dem-Reps i’m surrounded by to melt-down. 🙂

Dont do any good to cause Rep-Dems to melt-down.

w
v
“There are people in the world all the time who know…But they keep quiet. They just move about quietly, saving the people who know they are in a trap. And then, for the ones who have got out, it’s like coming around from chloroform. They realize that all their lives they’ve been asleep and dreaming. And then it’s their turn to learn the rules and the timing. And they become the ones to live quietly in the world, just as human beings might if there were only a few human beings on a planet that had monkeys on it for inhabitants, but the monkeys had the possibility of learning to think like human beings. But in the poor sad monkeys’ damaged brains there’s a knowledge half-buried. they sometimes think that if they only knew how, if only they could remember properly, then they could get out of the trap, they could stop being zombies.”
…
Doris Lessing, Briefing for a Descent into Hell

Apologies, WV.

I just read the above and then it reminded me of something. You already explained your rationale more than a few times, and I just flat out forgot. And you explained it well.

You shouldn’t have to keep doing that. I hate it when that happens to me.

I recently went through something similar when I had a long discussion about actual socialist theory with this person who seemed to understand it at first, that what I was talking about, the left-anarchist stuff, bringing up Chomsky and Kropotkin and community-based, decentralized, cooperative, fully democratic economies . . . that this was nothing remotely like Stalin and Mao and so on. But then he just fell back on all of that and shouted “What about Stalin and Mao and the millions they killed!!” And I’d answer, well, I’m not talking about anything like that. That’s not “socialism.”

But he was all, Stalin and Mao!! And I was all, federated, community-based cooperatives, non-violent, peace-lovin’ etc. etc. etc . . . and he was all, but, but Stalin and Mao and millions of dead people!!

I don’t know how to talk about this stuff to most folks. I try. But it doesn’t seem to work, even with my amazing analogies!!

;>)

Or,

Me: We’re serving seafood and vegan dinners at this gathering. That’s it. Nothing else, per democratic vote. No meat. No steak. No hamburgers. Cuz everyone said that’s what they want.

Them: Everyone knows if you serve hamburgers and steak, it will ruin everything!! Come on, don’t you see that!!

Me: We’re serving seafood and vegan, not beef.

Them: Figures you’d want to serve steak and hamburger!! Stalinist!!