Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Taibbi doesn't think it's a whistleblower
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October 8, 2019 at 9:46 am #106383
ZooeyModeratorGotta say…this makes sense….
The ‘Whistleblower’ Probably Isn’t
It’s an insult to real whistleblowers to use the term with the Ukrainegate protagonistBy Matt Taibbi
Start with the initial headline, in the story the Washington Post “broke” on September 18th:
TRUMP’S COMMUNICATIONS WITH FOREIGN LEADER ARE PART OF WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT THAT SPURRED STANDOFF BETWEEN SPY CHIEF AND CONGRESS, FORMER OFFICIALS SAY
The unnamed person at the center of this story sure didn’t sound like a whistleblower. Our intelligence community wouldn’t wipe its ass with a real whistleblower.
Americans who’ve blown the whistle over serious offenses by the federal government either spend the rest of their lives overseas, like Edward Snowden, end up in jail, like Chelsea Manning, get arrested and ruined financially, like former NSA official Thomas Drake, have their homes raided by FBI like disabled NSA vet William Binney, or get charged with espionage like ex-CIA exposer-of-torture John Kiriakou. It’s an insult to all of these people, and the suffering they’ve weathered, to frame the ballcarrier in the Beltway’s latest partisan power contest as a whistleblower.
Drake, who was the first to expose the NSA’s secret surveillance program, seems to have fared better than most. He ended up working in an Apple Store, where he ran into Eric Holder, who was shopping for an iPhone.
I’ve met a lot of whistleblowers, in both the public and private sector. Many end up broke, living in hotels, defamed, (often) divorced, and lucky if they have any kind of job. One I knew got turned down for a waitressing job because her previous employer wouldn’t vouch for her. She had little kids.
The common thread in whistleblower stories is loneliness. Typically the employer has direct control over their ability to pursue another job in their profession. Many end up reviled as traitors, thieves, and liars. They often discover after going public that their loved ones have a limited appetite for sharing the ignominy. In virtually all cases, they end up having to start over, both personally and professionally.
With that in mind, let’s look at what we know about the first “whistleblower” in Ukrainegate:
He or she is a “CIA officer detailed to the White House”;
The account is at best partially based upon the CIA officer’s own experience, made up substantially by information from “more than a half dozen U.S. officials” and the “private accounts” of “my colleagues”;
“He or she” was instantly celebrated as a whistleblower by news networks and major newspapers.
That last detail caught the eye of Kiriakou, a former CIA Counterterrorism official who blew the whistle on the agency’s torture program.“It took me and my lawyers a full year to get [the media] to stop calling me ‘CIA Leaker John Kirakou,” he says. “That’s how long it took for me to be called a whistleblower.”
Kirakou’s crime was talking to ABC News and the New York Times about the CIA’s torture program. For talking to American journalists about the CIA, our federal government charged Kiriakou with espionage. That absurd count was ultimately dropped, but he still did 23 months at FCI Loretto in Western Pennsylvania.
When Kiriakou first saw the “whistleblower complaint,” his immediate reaction was to wonder what kind of “CIA officer” the person in question was. “If you spend a career in the CIA, you see all kinds of subterfuge and lies and crime,” he says. “This person went through a whole career and this is the thing he objects to?”
It’s fair to wonder if this is a one-person effort. Even former CIA official Robert Baer, no friend of Trump, said as much in an early confab on CNN with Brooke Baldwin:
BAER: That’s what I find remarkable, is that this whistleblower knew about that, this attempt to cover up. This is a couple of people. It isn’t just one.
BALDWIN: And on the people point, if the allegation is true, Bob, what does it say that White House officials, lawyers, wanted to cover it up?
BAER: You know, my guess, it’s a palace coup against Trump. And who knows what else they know at this point.
That sounds about right. Actual whistleblowers are alone. The Ukraine complaint seems to be the work of a group of people, supported by significant institutional power, not only in the intelligence community, but in the Democratic Party and the commercial press.
In this century we’ve lived through a president lying to get us into a war (that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and the loss of trillions in public treasure), the deployment of a vast illegal surveillance program, a drone assassination campaign, rendition, torture, extralegal detention, and other offenses, many of them mass human rights violations.
We had whistleblowers telling us about nearly all of these things. When they came forward, they desperately needed society’s help. They didn’t get it. Our government didn’t just tweet threats at them, but proceeded straight to punishment.
Bill Binney, who lost both his legs to diabetes, was dragged out of his shower by FBI agents. Jeffrey Sterling, like Kiriakou, was charged with espionage for talking to a reporter. After conviction, he asked to be imprisoned near his wife in St. Louis. They sent him to Colorado for two years. Others tried to talk to congress or their Inspectors General, only to find out their communications had been captured and cc’ed to the very agency chiefs they wanted to complain about (including former CIA chief and current MSNBC contributor John Brennan).
The current “scandal” is a caricature version of such episodes. Imagine the mania on the airwaves if Donald Trump were to have his Justice Department arrest the “whistleblower” and charge him with 35 years of offenses, as Thomas Drake faced. Trump incidentally still might try something like this. It’s what any autocrat of the Mobute Sese Seko/Enver Hoxha school would do, for starters, to mutinying intelligence officials within his own government.
Trump almost certainly is not going to do that, however, as the man is too dumb to realize he’s the titular commander of an executive branch that has been jailing people for talking too much for over a decade. On the off chance that he does try it, don’t hold your breath waiting for news networks to tell you he’s just following an established pattern.
I have a lot of qualms about impeachment/“Ukrainegate,” beginning with this headline premise of the lone, conscience-stricken defender of democracy arrayed against the mighty Trump. I don’t see it. Donald Trump is a jackass who got elected basically by accident, campaigning against a political establishment too blind to its own unpopularity to see what was coming.
In 2016 we saw a pair of electoral revolts, one on the right and one on the left, against the cratering popularity of our political elite. The rightist populist revolt succeeded, the Sanders movement did not. Ukrainegate to me looks like a continuation of Russiagate, which was a reaction of that defeated political elite to the rightists. I don’t feel solidarity with either group.
The argument that’s supposed to be galvanizing everyone right now is the idea that we need to “stand up and be counted,” because failing to rally to the cause is effectively advocacy for Trump. This line of thinking is based on the presumption that Trump is clearly worse than the people opposing him.
That might prove to be true, but if we’re talking about the treatment of whistleblowers, Trump has a long way to go before he approaches the brutal record of the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, as well as the cheerleading Washington political establishment. Forgetting this is likely just the first in what will prove to be many deceptions about a hardcore insider political battle whose subtext is a lot more shadowy and ambiguous than news audiences are being led to believe.
October 8, 2019 at 10:35 am #106397
wvParticipantYeah, thats my view, basically. Hedges too. Lee Camp, Aaron Mate, etc.
I dont know how else one can explain the difference between how this ‘whistleblower’ is being treated by the Dem-Media/Deep-State, and the other whistleblowers have been treated.
How does one account for the difference? This guy is a ‘courageous hero who needs protected’. The others are ‘traitors who belong in prison’.
How does one account for that?
w
vOctober 8, 2019 at 2:27 pm #106412ZooeyModeratorYeah. Once Taibbi pointed that out, it just seemed obvious.
October 8, 2019 at 3:23 pm #106415wvParticipantCaitlin:https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/msm-defends-cias-whistleblower-ignores-actual-whistleblowers-5fbe577d988d
MSM Defends CIA’s “Whistleblower”, Ignores Actual Whistleblowers
Caitlin JohnstoneThe word “whistleblower” has been trending in news headlines lately, but not for the reasons that any sane person might hope for.
“Read the whistleblower complaint regarding President Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky”, says The Washington Post. “Trump responds to hearing on whistleblower complaint”, says MSNBC. “Trump-Ukraine scandal: what did the whistleblower say and how serious is it?”, writes The Guardian. “Whistleblower complaint says White House tried to ‘lock down’ Ukraine call records” announces CBS. “Whistleblower’s complaint is a devastating report from a savvy official”, declares CNN.
So who is this “savvy official”? Who is this courageous whistleblower who boldly shone the light of truth upon the mechanisms of power in the interests of the common man? Who is this brave, selfless individual who set off an impeachment inquiry by taking a stand and revealing the fact that the US president made a phone call in July urging Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to help investigate corruption allegations against Joe Biden and his son?
Well believe it or not, according to The New York Times this brave, noble whistleblower who the mainstream media are currently championing is an officer for the Central Intelligence Agency.
“The whistle-blower who revealed that President Trump sought foreign help for his re-election and that the White House sought to cover it up is a CIA officer who was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity,” The New York Times reports. “The man has since returned to the CIA, the people said. Little else is known about him.”
So there you have it. A mysterious stranger from the lying, torturing, propagandizing, drug trafficking, assassinating, coup-staging, warmongering, psychopathic CIA was working in the White House, heroically provided the political/media class with politically powerful information out of the goodness of his heart, and then vanished off into the Langley sunset. Clearly there is nothing suspicious about this story at all.
In all seriousness, even to call this spook a “whistleblower” is ridiculous on its face. You don’t get to call someone from the US intelligence community a whistleblower unless they are actually whistleblowing on the US intelligence community. That’s not a thing. A CIA officer who exposes information about government officials is an operative performing an operation unless proven otherwise, because that’s what the CIA does; it liberally leaks information wherever it’s convenient for CIA agendas while withholding all other information behind a veil of government secrecy.
A CIA officer who exposes information about CIA wrongdoings without the CIA’s permission is a whistleblower. A CIA officer who exposes information about someone else is just a spook doing spook things. You can recognize the latter by the way the mass media supports, applauds and employs them. You can recognize the former by the way they have been persecuted, imprisoned, and/or died under mysterious circumstances.
But if you listen to the billionaire media, we should be calling this CIA officer a whistleblower, we should be enraged at The New York Times for exposing that CIA officer’s identity, and we should be raising a small fortune on GoFundMe for “legal aid” that this CIA officer will never need.
“The idea that the media needs to ‘protect’ a high-level CIA officer making explosive claims about the president, which have now been used as the basis for impeachment proceedings, is such an insane perversion of journalistic ethics,” journalist Michael Tracey tweeted today on this new development….see link
October 8, 2019 at 5:14 pm #106418
Billy_TParticipantI think Taibbi is overthinking this, and letting his paranoia meter get the best of him.
He’s not accounting for the obvious: The whistleblower’s account syncs up very closely with Trump’s own summary of the call in question, which he made public, plus the text messages that have been released, plus Trump’s own public entreaty for China to help him out recently, plus calls to the UK, Australia, Italy . . . plus trips by Barr and Giuliani on the same mission. None of this has been refuted even by the players in question.
This isn’t rocket science, or “deep state” voodoo, or a James Bond novel. It’s simply a very stupid man-child, who has no business being president, who frequently causes the people surrounding him to be stunned, and many times a day insults them and anyone with the nerve to be critical. It makes perfect sense that given his odious nature, he’d provoke this. And I couldn’t care less that the whistleblower is from the CIA. The second one, and those likely to speak out later, will probably be from different departments or just the West Wing.
Taibbi and others are letting that one (possible) fact get in the way of their judgment. They’re letting the idea of a “spook” them, and burdening this one person with the entire history of said agency. That goes waaay beyond mere bias. That’s flat out nonsensical.
Lastly . . . the reason why this is different from past instances of whistleblowing, as far as the way he or she is being treated . . . is that person hasn’t been publicly outed yet, though the political right and Trump’s cultists are trying desperately to do just that. Taibbi also seems to have forgotten that Trump called him/her a traitor and suggested execution was in order. Again, this is prior to any “outing.” Taibbi and company should at least wait until that happens before making comparisons with the Snowdens, et al.
I like Taibbi, but I don’t think he’s thought this out.
October 8, 2019 at 5:22 pm #106419Billy_TParticipantA CIA officer who exposes information about CIA wrongdoings without the CIA’s permission is a whistleblower. A CIA officer who exposes information about someone else is just a spook doing spook things. You can recognize the latter by the way the mass media supports, applauds and employs them. You can recognize the former by the way they have been persecuted, imprisoned, and/or died under mysterious circumstances.
The above baffles me. Apparently this person was assigned to the White House. He or she wasn’t hidden. He or she spoke with several among White House staff who told that person about a series of questionable actions/calls/etc. etc. by Trump, Barr and Giuliani, and felt the need to take it to his/her IG. That person went through all the proper channels. Sought advice on how best to do just that.
I’m baffled by these lefty attacks on someone bringing an abuse of presidential powers to the public. One would think the entire left would support this, especially given Trump’s history, resume and ideological standing on the far right.
The whole world seems to have gone mad, including my own side.
And this baffles me even more:
“The idea that the media needs to ‘protect’ a high-level CIA officer making explosive claims about the president, which have now been used as the basis for impeachment proceedings, is such an insane perversion of journalistic ethics,” journalist Michael Tracey tweeted today on this new development….see link
Is it an insane perversion to try to protect someone from being killed? Cuz after Trump called him a traitor and suggested he be executed, the rabid right was whipped up into a frenzy. They’ve got bounty on the guy, and it’s all over 4chan and 8chan, apparently. We’ve already had several mass killings after one of Trump’s public rants, and several other attempts.
Come on, people. Again, this isn’t rocket science.
October 8, 2019 at 5:46 pm #106421Billy_TParticipantAddendum:
It appears almost certain that Trump, in this situation, acted on completely personal and political grounds . . . for no one but himself. That’s the main reason why this is unlike pretty much all previous known whistleblower cases.
1. To manufacture a false narrative about Mueller’s probe
2. To manufacture a false narrative about one of his political rivals.
3. Use foreign powers to help him.
4. Offer carrots and/or sticks to get them to come on board.Trump isn’t acting as the usual head of state in this particular case. He’s not promoting the usual post-war US policy, and being outed for some aspect of it. That’s why the whistleblower hasn’t gotten bombarded yet by “the Establishment.” That’s why his or her life hasn’t been torn to shreds yet. He or she isn’t a threat to the oligarchy. He or she is just a threat to a deeply unpopular, very stupid person, working solely on his own behalf, fighting his own inner demons, which include the last election.
IMO, if the whistleblower were exposing established, sanctified, oligarchical policies that are supposed to remain hidden . . . then that person gets hammered from all sides. This is not that. Which is why it makes no sense to compare it with the past.
October 9, 2019 at 2:20 pm #106453
PA RamParticipantBilly, I agree.
I have to split with Taibbi on this one.
The bottom line is the whistleblower was correct. His information was good. This is no sort of set-up.
If we allow Trump this–what is next? Where would Matt seriously draw the line?
Or is the crime less important that who reports it? And what happens to them afterward?
What happened to the other whistleblowers was wrong.
But that can’t save this President.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick
October 9, 2019 at 3:57 pm #106459Billy_TParticipantBilly, I agree.
I have to split with Taibbi on this one.
The bottom line is the whistleblower was correct. His information was good. This is no sort of set-up.
If we allow Trump this–what is next? Where would Matt seriously draw the line?
Or is the crime less important that who reports it? And what happens to them afterward?
What happened to the other whistleblowers was wrong.
But that can’t save this President.
For nearly three years, the old horror movie metaphor of “the call is coming from inside the house” has been in effect. That’s what reporters have been telling us indirectly, and the vast majority of their reporting has been corroborated. Yeah, Trump and his circle start out calling it “fake news,” but they soon stop doing that and run the gamut from, “We only did it in this case” to “Yes, there are these other cases that we forgot to mention but it was all no big deal” to “We have every right to do this!” to “Stop persecuting us!!”
Time and time again, Trump and his circle end up confirming that reporting — eventually.
So this is waaay beyond the whistleblower. This is the norm for this White House, and they’ve already admitted that they moved the transcripts to the double secret servers . . . which actually breaks the law. If there was nothing wrong with them, there’s no reason to do that.
(Same with Russiagate. If Trump and company had done nothing wrong, there was never any reason for their endless lies and obstruction)
I think Taibbi and a few of his peers are far too quick to dismiss these things, and confuse legit critique of the media with what ends up being all too close to Trump’s own defense of his actions.
October 9, 2019 at 4:43 pm #106461wvParticipantBilly, I agree.
I have to split with Taibbi on this one.
The bottom line is the whistleblower was correct. His information was good. This is no sort of set-up.
.
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Well, I cant speak for Taibbi but i ‘think’ i know what he and hedges and C.Johnstone and Lee Camp and some others mean. I dont think they are saying the CIA-guy is ‘wrong’. I dont think they are saying he made anything up to get trump. His information is probly ‘good’. But that doesnt mean its not what you called ‘a set-up’. By that I just mean that the CIA could bring down any president (Just my opinion). They could ‘go after’ almost anybody and find stuff on them. Its purty clear to ‘me’ (and others) that major-factions of the deep-state (CIA) dont like Trump AT ALL. And for reasons we will never know, they probly ‘are’ indeed ‘going after’ Donald Trump. That IN NO WAY means the info is false. It just means if it were their Darling Hillary, or Obama or one of their faves, they’d probly never have come forward with this.
None of that means I’m proTrump. Trump is Satan. But so is the CIA. Can we impeach them both?
I’ve decided I am in favor of the Dem-Demons impeaching one of the Rep-Demons, fwiw. Sure, impeach Trump.
But i just look at it like…oh…if Goebbels or Mengele managed to impeach Hitler. Would it be a good thing? I dunno, i suppose. 🙂w
vOctober 9, 2019 at 5:28 pm #106465Billy_TParticipantWV,
IMNSHO . . . I think the folks you cite err by starting out with that premise, which just so happens to coincide with Trump’s own public stance. That the deep state is out to get him.
Personally, until we have evidence to support Trump’s theory — and there isn’t any — I think it’s a really bad assumption/premise, and pretty much the root of what I consider their subsequent misreading of events.
As in, their entire stance on Trump, his admin, Russiagate, and now this whistleblower, is fully dependent on a major assumption that they’ve never been able to prove. Yes, the CIA has a horrible history. Yes, it’s done some obscenely disgusting and terrible things. But that does not mean that it is currently acting on behalf of forces opposed to Trump, or has or would protect the Dems, given the same situations. Trump, in fact, has his own hand-picked guys to run these agencies. He’s the head honcho, not some powerless Joe or Jane, victimized by the machinery of the system.
What if it’s simply this? Occam’s Razor, etc. etc.
Trump has done some really stupid, awful things and brought all of this on himself. It’s on him and his enablers. There is no particular faction out to get him. He just keeps stepping in it, has his “fixers” clean up the mess, and these messes keep piling up to such a degree that some of the people surrounding him have simply had enough. That’s been the pattern in his life. His father bailed him out over the course of decades, to the tune of 400 million dollars, and set him up with his own “fixers” first, and then Trump added his own later. He’s always been protected that way. He’s always done truly reprehensible things and gotten away with them, and few people were willing to go up against him because he’s also always been a bully with great resources.
Just imagine for a moment: Trump brought all of this on himself and no particular faction — deep state or otherwise — was ever out to get him. People are just reacting to his words and deeds, and justifiably so. Those words and deeds came first.
October 9, 2019 at 6:59 pm #106471wvParticipantWV,
IMNSHO . . . I think the folks you cite err by starting out with that premise, which just so happens to coincide with Trump’s own public stance. That the deep state is out to get him.
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You really think Trump and the CIA have been getting along, BT? I dont. Some of us have been talking about his feud with a faction of the CIA from the very beginning of his term. Its been written about a lot.
“….Wash Post, Trump is feuding with the CIA, but he could end up making it stronger,
January 20, 2017
During the transition period from November through January, Donald Trump developed perhaps the most publicly antagonistic relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies of any incoming president in decades. He compared the agencies to Nazis, disdained their reports as fake and dismissed their assessments of foreign interference in the 2016 election. In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, outgoing CIA director John Brennan called Trump’s allegations “repugnant.” Other intelligence officials have expressed a sense of dread about what’s to come…..” WashPost:https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/20/soldier-spies/October 9, 2019 at 7:51 pm #106475Billy_TParticipantWV,
IMNSHO . . . I think the folks you cite err by starting out with that premise, which just so happens to coincide with Trump’s own public stance. That the deep state is out to get him.
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You really think Trump and the CIA have been getting along, BT? I dont. Some of us have been talking about his feud with a faction of the CIA from the very beginning of his term. Its been written about a lot.
“….Wash Post, Trump is feuding with the CIA, but he could end up making it stronger,
January 20, 2017
During the transition period from November through January, Donald Trump developed perhaps the most publicly antagonistic relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies of any incoming president in decades. He compared the agencies to Nazis, disdained their reports as fake and dismissed their assessments of foreign interference in the 2016 election. In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, outgoing CIA director John Brennan called Trump’s allegations “repugnant.” Other intelligence officials have expressed a sense of dread about what’s to come…..” WashPost:https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/20/soldier-spies/Yes, Trump has gone after them from even before Day One. Why? Because they had the nerve to hold the consensus that, yes, Russia interfered in our election and did so to help Trump. The Republican-led Senate just reaffirmed that view yesterday. All the Trump-appointed Intel folks agree that this happened, and that Trump was the beneficiary, and that just messes with Trump’s mind to no end.
Again, thought experiment: Rather than see this as a “deep state” plot against Trump, imagine instead the Intel community’s sensible reaction to his unprecedented, endless, daily, public attacks. His words, his deeds provoked this feud and kept it going.
In order for the premise in question to work, the one shared by the people you cite, they’d have to reverse the order of things. That the Intel community, which just happened to be dominated by Republicans for generations even before Trump named his own team, acted first to “take down” Trump. Not that they had legitimate reason to investigate his campaign, and later to respond to Trump’s daily bashing. That they supposedly invented all of this stuff just to “get Trump.”
I don’t buy that for a second. I see Trump completely obsessed with the idea that anyone would question his win, on any grounds, and that he simply couldn’t help himself but go after them endlessly. I’m also absolutely certain that he knows they got it right to begin with, that he is guilty of “collusion,” and lying about it, and covering it all up, and obstructing the Mueller probe, etc. etc. He knows they know, and that’s killing him to this day. Why else would he send his AG, his personal lawyer, his state department, around the world to manufacture an alternate narrative that supposedly exonerates Russia and Trump in the process?
Again, I don’t see this being nearly as complex as the Mates, Greenwalds and company do. Trump isn’t being persecuted. There is no “deep state” conspiracy against him, especially not as configured by the right. He’s committing egregious offenses and being called on those. That’s it, IMO.
October 9, 2019 at 7:58 pm #106478Billy_TParticipantAlso: We both agree that the US is guilty of interfering around the world too. To this day. I think to a greater degree than Russia. Trump himself tried to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela, and there must be a thousand instances of things like that we don’t know about.
But to me, that’s all the more reason to accept that Russia did what it did. It likely sees it as a justified response in on-going geopolitical chess going back generations. We do it. They do it. Back and forth, etc. Not sure why anyone would think we do it and they don’t, that they’re angels, or something.
Occam’s razor. Trump actually is guilty. Russia actually did interfere, as we did and do around the world. The MSM actually got it right. Too many cases of Trump and his circle eventually admitting to what the MSM wrote for it to be a grand conspiracy against him, in my view.
(Gonna post a grand theory about the MSM tomorrow, btw. Would enjoy reading your response)
October 11, 2019 at 7:26 pm #106553ZooeyModeratorI’m with wv. I think his interpretation of Taibbi is correct.
You look at all the whistleblowers…the ones who blow the whistle on what the government or corporations are doing. They go through hell.
This whistleblower was greeted instantly as a hero. And that would not happen unless the Powers – the intelligence community and the billionaires – saw the report as being a good thing. If they saw it as a bad thing, it would have been reported that way…just like every other whistleblowing event.
And…the stuff IS true. It’s not fabricated. Trump has admitted to it. It’s true. Like wv says…they usually just sit on this stuff.
The fact that people in the Deep State are complicit in this doesn’t exonerate Trump. He’s guilty. And it’s no surprise many actors in the Deep State don’t like his erratic behavior, and the damage he is doing to the stability of international relations, and economic outcomes. There IS a deep state. Just cuz Trump believes in the deep state is some delusional way doesn’t change that fact.
October 11, 2019 at 8:19 pm #106554
znModeratorI don’t buy the “deep state” metaphor, personally.
I mean there are career employeess in the different intel agencies and the state dept. But the idea that they are somehow unified or represent some kind of bloc strikes me as completely implausible.
Bureaucracies have their own factions which can and do resist executive policy. But that was even happening during the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, when an unprecedented number of intel professionals came to the press and declared the administration’s rationale for war was bogus.
The “deep state” theory turns all that kind of stuff into what strikes me as a dark fantasy novel style conspiracy. The first conspiracy part of it being that it’s somehow homogenous and unified and driven by the same goals and values. Naw…career professionals who exist in different factions. And that has always been true.
I will never listen patiently to someone excusing Trump even a little on the basis of the “deep state” thing. There’s a faction of the left that does that kind of thing and I never buy it.
Just an opinion.
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October 11, 2019 at 8:42 pm #106555Billy_TParticipantZN,
Well said. I’m in agreement with all of it.
The concept of the deep state, applied to America, is an invention of the right, and arose when Trump won the office. Prior to that, its use was limited to Turkey and Egypt, primarily in reference to generational control behind the scenes, regardless of who ostensibly controlled the government, and primarily by the military. In those two countries, the upper echelons of the military acted as gatekeeper, patron, supplier of favors and creator of lasting networks.
The American left has traditionally talked of a “power elite,” but not a “deep state.” We have financial elites who pull strings, but our bureaucracy of career fed employees is largely impervious to direct string-pulling, with the vast majority of that being done to political leaders and their appointees — a decided minority in DC. Obviously, orders trickle down and the impact is felt. But the vast majority of federal workers are just middle class blokes, keep their heads down and do their jobs. I grew up with them. Many in my family worked for the government. They went to college, got degrees mostly in the Humanities, and chose what once was considered a secure, lifetime job with good benefits and okay pay, rather than the business world. They chose “public service” instead of personal enrichment.
The vast majority of them would make for rather boring James Bond villains.
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This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by
Billy_T.
October 11, 2019 at 8:55 pm #106557Billy_TParticipantAs for the first whistleblower. There isn’t the slightest bit of evidence needed to justify the assumptions Taibbi makes. Automatic suspicion isn’t an argument. Paranoia isn’t an argument. He’s usually better than this.
Is it possible he’s right? Certainly. But the argument that a real whistleblower would be torn to shreds falls apart when we learn how many whistleblowers come forward on a monthly basis, and no one hears about them.
We only hear about the Snowdens, etc. There are literally hundreds of them each month, and they don’t get shredded. They don’t even lose their jobs. They aren’t outed. It’s routine for this to happen. If Taibbi had looked into that aspect, perhaps he wouldn’t have jumped the gun like he did. If he had actually read about how “normal” the process is, and that the first whistleblower followed it to the letter, he wouldn’t have written what he did.
But even beyond the normality of the existence of government whistleblowers, the subsequent offers now before the committees will certainly support the first unnamed source. Trump’s own words and deeds already have. The ousted ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, who testified today (despite the White House’s attempt to stop her) lent further support.
And then there was the arrest of the two Giuliani cronies, on their way out of the country, lending more support to Yovanovitch and the first whistleblower.
Again, a thought experiment: What if Trump is just flat out guilty of obsession with the 2016 election, because he knows he cheated? What if he also knows he can’t win unless he cheats again in 2020, and that he’s very likely to go to jail if he isn’t president — the only thing that stopped Mueller from indicting him in the first place? What if there is no “deep state” out to get him? Just people reacting to the appalling things he does and says? Justifiable reactions.
Occam’s razor.
October 12, 2019 at 1:53 pm #106572ZooeyModeratorNobody here is claiming that everybody in the Deep State is involved in this, or that they all agree. I would think this might be around half a dozen people. Probably fairly high up in the food chain.
October 12, 2019 at 2:11 pm #106573znModeratorNobody here is claiming that everybody in the Deep State is involved in this, or that they all agree. I would think this might be around half a dozen people. Probably fairly high up in the food chain.
Yeah possibly in this case. In which case, we have bureaucratic resistance from entrenched professionals.
Which is par for the course. Happens.
Does that deserve a fancy name? Like Deep State? For one thing that term is meant to name not some actors in one incident, but an ongoing, homogenous, unified entity that is more than the actors in one incident. Both the right and left versions of that term name something big and unitary etc.
If some entrenched professionals got appalled at certain executive actions in one incident, that’s one thing. Condemning that because the CIA played dirty tricks in central america doesn’t strike me as all that relevant.
But none of that is important.
What IS important is that after long last, after months of lying around basking in sleepy indifference, we now have ourselves a real genuine actual BOARD WAR.
That’s what matters.
October 12, 2019 at 2:23 pm #106574Billy_TParticipantNobody here is claiming that everybody in the Deep State is involved in this, or that they all agree. I would think this might be around half a dozen people. Probably fairly high up in the food chain.
Zooey,
What is your own, personal conception of the “deep state,” and what do you think it’s up to in this case?
Trump and the right’s, of course, is basically this: The Dems and the Media are treasonous bastards, in league together to take down their heroic champion, Trump. They hold this belief despite the fact that one of the main actors in this supposed conspiracy, Comey, actually was a huge factor in helping Trump get elected. He kept quiet about an ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign, while letting the public know all about investigation into HRC — twice. If he (a Republican) and all the other actors supposedly involved, pretty much all of whom were Republicans too, had actually wanted to stop Trump, they would have reversed that public disclosure. As in, tell the public Trump was under investigation, while hiding the one on Clinton.
Also, there is no Mueller probe if Trump doesn’t fire Comey. It doesn’t exist. Trump, in reality, brought all of this on himself, both before and after his “win.”
I know you know all this already. But I am curious about your take on the deep state itself. I’m betting it differs radically from the right’s.
Also, if there was a deep state conspiracy — left-wing or right-wing version — it obviously failed utterly. So if this deep state does exist, it doesn’t have the power some attribute to it. It seriously screwed up its supposed “coup” attempt, from all indications.
October 12, 2019 at 2:31 pm #106575Billy_TParticipantDoes that deserve a fancy name? Like Deep State? For one thing that term is meant to name not some actors in one incident, but an ongoing, homogenous, unified entity that is more than the actors in one incident. Both the right and left versions of that term name something big and unitary etc.
If some entrenched professionals got appalled at certain executive actions in one incident, that’s one thing. Condemning that because the CIA played dirty tricks in central america doesn’t strike me as all that relevant.
Concisely put. Again, I agree.
Cool picture, too. Is that from perhaps the best battle scene in all of TV history? Game of Thrones, the battle of the bastards?
Here’s one site’s take on the rankings (twelve best). I think their second choice should be the first.
https://www.vulture.com/article/game-of-thrones-battles-ranked.html
October 12, 2019 at 3:14 pm #106578ZooeyModeratorDeep State to me is a term that refers to career government people, with the Intelligence and Security arms being the most powerful. It is people who work for the government, but don’t face elections, many of whom have long careers, and therefore have long, institutional memories. They think much longer term in their strategies than elected officials, who are more short-term thinkers and planners, and more focused on themselves, rather than on institutional goals.
There is a deep state. I mean…there just is.
The fact that the right wing lunatics think that the Deep State is a monolithic, anti-American, liberal, hellhole bureaucracy is about as important to me as the Flat Earth Society.
I think in most of the deep state, the actors basically do what their missions tells them to do…study and inspect agricultural issues, serve environmental needs, produce reports on diseases and auto accidents, examine educational practices and outcomes, and so on.
The CIA and NSA, and to some degree other agencies like DoD, TSA, ICE, FBI, etc., serve the long term interests of the rich and powerful – amorphous financial interests.
October 12, 2019 at 3:23 pm #106580ZooeyModeratorIf some entrenched professionals got appalled at certain executive actions in one incident, that’s one thing. Condemning that because the CIA played dirty tricks in central america doesn’t strike me as all that relevant.
Whose condemning it?
I may not be reading this closely, but I don’t think anybody is saying that the fact that the whistle blower isn’t a single, lone hero, but is instead of collection of people within the intelligence community with enough support (or power) to throw this out there with impunity means that anyone is calling these revelations illegitimate.
All anybody is saying is that this isn’t a whistle blower in the same sense that Snowden, Manning, Drake, Binning, and Kiriakou were.
October 12, 2019 at 3:35 pm #106582znModeratorI don’t know what the pic is, BT. But it’s not from GOT.
October 12, 2019 at 3:38 pm #106584Billy_TParticipantThanks, Zooey.
That’s helpful.
Personally, I think Trump and the right have killed off the term, appropriating it for themselves, perhaps forever. Similar to “fake news,” which started out meaning actual, state-sponsored propaganda campaigns, regardless of provenance (including the US, obviously), but now just means any reportage critical of Trump.
They, of course, think it’s deeply sinister, coordinated, perhaps even global. But, in the real world, it’s just any reporting that makes Trump look bad.
I doubt the left can take back either term. We’ve never been very good at . . . well, reverse appropriation.
;>)
Anyway . . . I think it’s really on this last section that we may differ the most. No biggie. Doesn’t really matter. Big picture, I think we’re all on the same page:
The CIA and NSA, and to some degree other agencies like DoD, TSA, ICE, FBI, etc., serve the long term interests of the rich and powerful – amorphous financial interests.
Will shorten the post by responding in the next one . . .
October 12, 2019 at 3:42 pm #106585Billy_TParticipantIn my view, the top of the heap of each agency is likely to work hard on behalf of the rich and powerful. Ironically, the “deep state” isn’t very deep in that regard. Even in the Intel community, the vast majority of career Joe and Janes believe their mission is a “patriotic” one — to “keep America safe” and “get the bad guys.” I bet most — aside from rogue factions — sincerely believe this. It’s the leadership tier, IMO, that all too often has other ideas. The political class, as opposed to the grunts.
Exceptions obviously occur at all levels. Bad apples at all levels. Surprising cases of “good guys” here and there at the upper levels too. But in the aggregate, I think once you leave the political class, you’re more likely to get the basically well-intentioned. Of course, if they say yes to coups and assassinations and torture and black ops and black sites . . . all of that goes out the window. They’re complicit and responsible at the same time. They’re committing atrocities at that point.
October 12, 2019 at 3:44 pm #106587Billy_TParticipantI don’t know what the pic is, BT. But it’s not from GOT.
When you check the image location, the title includes game of thrones and battle of the bastards. Might be a mistake. But that’s what they called it.
October 12, 2019 at 3:53 pm #106589znModeratorI don’t know what the pic is, BT. But it’s not from GOT.
When you check the image location, the title includes game of thrones and battle of the bastards. Might be a mistake. But that’s what they called it.
Well, yeah. That;s what I said.
October 12, 2019 at 3:56 pm #106590Billy_TParticipantTaibbi is often sarcastic, so it’s sometimes difficult to know how much of this he really means . . . but here’s a good section to discuss:
So there you have it. A mysterious stranger from the lying, torturing, propagandizing, drug trafficking, assassinating, coup-staging, warmongering, psychopathic CIA was working in the White House, heroically provided the political/media class with politically powerful information out of the goodness of his heart, and then vanished off into the Langley sunset. Clearly there is nothing suspicious about this story at all.
In all seriousness, even to call this spook a “whistleblower” is ridiculous on its face. You don’t get to call someone from the US intelligence community a whistleblower unless they are actually whistleblowing on the US intelligence community. That’s not a thing.
Actually, Taibbi is wrong here. There is no rule that says a whistleblower has to stay within the confines of his or her agency or department, when it comes to exposing what they see as wrongdoing, abuse of power, etc. It actually does qualify as whistleblower if X from Y agency exposes something from Z agency.
And, again . . . while Taibbi is obviously correct about the historical wrongs committed by the various Intel and Law Enforcement agencies . . . and it’s ongoing . . . it’s not good journalistic practice to assume this particular person is continuing that history. It wasn’t even good journalistic practice of the NYT to say he/she is CIA. That obviously has prejudiced a host of Americans against him/her from the getgo.
Ironically, this helps Trump on both the right and the left. The NYT did him a favor and potentially put the man/woman at risk.
Me? I’d rather wait until we have a lot more information before I judge the person in question, or their depiction of events. So far, it appears to be supported by the facts, by Trump’s own words and deeds, and others who are coming forward as we speak.
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