Political Memes

< nerd-moment rant >

CIA is a big institution, and gathered a lot of very useful data, which it shares in the World Factbook. (At least those things that can be attained by open research, which is a lot) CIA also engages in espionage not only to gain hidden and secret information but to serve state interests, typically how the state department (under the executive) defines interests of the state.

And as with most espionage organizations, CIA is not above engaging in cruel, sometimes violent shenanigans. During the cold war, CIA secured the Americas from influence of the Soviet Union (containment) but also arranged exploitation rights to US centered companies, and were often messy about it. To be fair KGB was also about trying to influence countries to sell to USSR, so there was incentive to act aggressively and escalate towards brutality.

( Incidentally, all those American interest companies are now multi-national corporations, which means they have no real allegiance to the US, and evade paying taxes anyway. )

Also during the cold war, CIA was big on SIGINT (intercepting communications and listening in) where KGB was big on HUMINT (infiltrating offices and coercing officials to report to KGB). This is not to say these are the only methods they respectively used (CIA liked finding officials in need and bribing them, often arranging for goods and services they'd otherwise not have access to), so when KGB captured (and brutally killed) a spy, it was usually the informant, not the CIA employed handler that turned them.

Also of note, the Most Brutal Spy Agency award (probably a dagger-shaped trophy) would go to... Deuxième Bureau of the French Republic, who liked exotic James-Bond-style cinematic deaths, like throwing people out of a helicopter over a body of water. KGB did feed Oleg Penkovsky into a blast furnace, but he was a mole in KGB feeding information to the US. Moles are embarrassing when uncovered and no one likes them.

Anyhow, CIA = incompetent is a mostly 21st century trope, when George W. Bush and his administration replaced all the top management with cronies at a time post-USSR Russia (and the entire Baltic region) was undergoing a lot of political upheaval. The US needed a robust intelligence sector managing foreign affairs at the time. But that was just not meant to be.

The whole Valerie Plame incident (in which the administration burned a CIA employee for political revenge -- she escaped and made it home) demonstrated the meager level of respect Bush and crew had for the intelligence sector. After that, CIA, now a subdivision of DHS became reputed for torture and drone strike campaigns (which massacred fifty civilians for every killed POI), and worked with NSA to spy on Americans, under the color of looking for Terrorists.

Shit only gets worse from there. CIA would use the NSA mass surveillance program intel to create dossiers on Americans. Despite its conflicts with fourth-amendment protections, these files are used by secret courts -- FISA -- for secret trials, violating fifth- and sixth-amendment protections. These trials putting convicts on the Disposition Matrix (id est, Obama's kill list ) for abduction and rendition or straight execution.

And all these resources were available for Trump when he came into office. Fortunately he got in a spat with the CIA directorate in 2017, so they weren't as chummy with the White House early on as they were during the Obama administration. But now he has all those resources (though the upper echelons are MAGA loyalists and consequently double-plus-inept)

In the 1980s I wanted to be a spy... CIA researcher at Langley, actually, but I couldn't handle the language requirements. Also being a field operative is really, really hard on the soul, and it's no wonder James Bond drinks like Ian Flemming.

< /nmr >

If a socio-economic system incentives greed to the point where a person who is not greedy is literally unable to succeed, can you really say that greed is human nature?

You believe that capitalism can only be unrestrained.

I believe that the modern proponents of capitalism are fighting tooth and nail against any kind of restraint and that they are winning. I believe that the inherent premise of capitalism - that private ownership of capital and self interest will lead to market forces creating competition and the optimisation of the economy - are naive and false.

Yes, Europe has caged the leopard of capitalism with regulation and social welfare programs. It's just silly to me that so many sing the praises of a leopard when it must be kept caged at all times and watched constantly. Still in this form, it occasionally manages to devour a face or two before it's shoved back in its cage and the bars are repaired. Orbit gets out and rampages for a while, like is happening in the US. Clearly, powering your economy via caged leopard only way to do things.

There’s no one concept which makes for a good system in a totally undiluted form. Pure centralized economy: disaster. Pure capitalism, disaster.

If you think socialism necessarily means a centrally planned economy then you understand socialist movements about as well as you understand the superiority of capitalism.

It's honestly just a flipping of the premises of capitalism. That public ownership of capital and a focus on collective welfare and democracy rather than self interest is a better central pillar for an economy. The premise is that private ownership of capital driven by self interest will always gain a disproportionate amount of power and work against the public good.

What's really frustrating is that the disproportionate power granted to capitalists under capitalism has allowed them to undermined any attempts to try anything else. Every single time any government has turned to socialist values, whether by coup or peaceful elections, capitalists have used every power at their disposal to sabotage it. It reminds me of places like Haiti - the slaves overthrew their masters and the world made their lives hell for it... for generations.

If the capitalists don't manage to outright overthrow the government of the socialist state, the capitalists band together against it to such an extent that the socialist state often turns to authoritarian tactics to try and keep it's ideals. I'm not here to defend those tactics, just lament that the capitalist forces are so capable of preventing any real experimentation with socialism. It's a plague to them because it threatens their power. Seriously - look up any socialist state and I'm positive you'll find capitalist powers trying to overthrow or sabotage them.

Yes, there are also self proclaimed communist/socialist states that are closer to dictatorships. The Nazis also claimed to be socialists in order to get the support of the people. Clearly an unfortunate circumstance that muddies the water. No true Scotsman and all that.