The intelligence/organized crime/oligarch/political boss nexus has been growing and metastasizing in USA ever since non Rx narcotics were first outlawed and the profitability of the new government "enabled" black markets exploded. Post WWI, prohibition of alcohol threw gasoline on that fire and birthed the control structures we face today. It is still hanging on, defying attempts to decriminalize and treat addiction rather than punish addicts.
I don't see any easy way to disentangle this from our government, it is hard enough to get most people to even acknowledge it exists.
Despite the brief notice given to Vietnam era CIA Heroin smuggling to buy the loyalty of SE Asian strong men and simultaneously degrade black power and youth civil rights movements and their later minority targeted crack cocaine marketing operations, cocaine financed arming of the contras in defiance of Congress & etc., nobody wants to admit they live in a country where these things are business as usual & de facto parts of our national policy, not just occasional imperfections.
And you don't even want to know how and why the LSD related youth culture in USA was started- Though they soon enough realized THAT one was counterproductive and actually tried fairly effectively to stamp it out.
Fantastic research and an immensely clarifying presentation. What actually unites the supposed opposites -- democratically structured institutions and organized crime -- is another pair of paradoxical bedfellows: greed and consumer contentment. In other words, it's a complex system built around the efficient use of money. Crime is by far the most efficient way of amassing money. (and the amassing encourages monopoly, the second most efficient way, with the advantage of being legal). Drugs are, of course, the most lucrative commodity, though arms aren't far behind. The logic is complete: drugs are not just illegal substances, they are the ultimate object of consumption in a society whose members are schooled to think of themselves as patriotic consumers. And of course the illegality is the key to two things: profitability and the capacity to build effective parallel armies that ensure order thanks to their complicity with the secret forces of the security state. Now I understand why it's so easy to admire such a brilliantly constructed three-tiered system and why it has been so successful subduing humanity. What's most astonishing is that a bit of research reveals its structure and logic, available to all... but willfully ignored by the "consumer media." It isn't just corporate, it's built to serve and reinforce consumer culture. Perhaps the most effective drug this admirable system has managed to produce!
Really great rundown. Superb stuff. And still the highest decision making apparatus seems hidden. It may simply be an instinctive hunger built into the capitalist organism, like the need to eat. The need to continuously make and reinvest profit is the mainspring of capitalism--the corollary being the need for ever expanding markets and profits. Shutting off private financial access to an area (China, USSR, Russia, Iran, DPRK, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, etc) becomes like denying an organism food. The response doesn't have to be decided upon. It is the natural response of the organism. An organism doesn't decide to devour and eat; it must. At the top of the oligarchy the needs of the system are understood. They don't have to be enunciated. They don't have to be broadcast or coordinated, any more than you need to be told to breathe. Let me make an additional point. Marxists do not believe the ruling class is monolithic. They do, of course, believe that the government, as Marx said, is the instrument of the ruling class. But this does not assume the ruling class is not made up of competing factions. In fact your description of the top tier of the tripartite system meshes quite nicely with the Marxist notion of what the ruling class actually is. The fundamental requirement of the ruling class is the preservation of private property, expanding markets and extractive profits. There may be oligarchic factions, but they all need the same basic environment to prosper, thus fundamental unity. The security apparatus is assumed to be the "Deep State" because it is largely invisible. But it is not. It has interests, but it is essentially a tool. The Deep State is actually the instinctive behavior of the ruling class essential for its own profit and preservation.
I am a historical materialist, and as you basically say, my scholarship is totally compatible with a historical materialist perspective of how the capitalist world works. Western "Leftists" typically do not see the 'deep state', or if they do, they would only say that it is the hdden apex of "the state" when in fact, it is much more. There is the 'apex' meaning of the term, but there's also the broader 'regime' use of the term. That is where there is some pluralism--the oligarchic "game of thrones."
The intelligence/organized crime/oligarch/political boss nexus has been growing and metastasizing in USA ever since non Rx narcotics were first outlawed and the profitability of the new government "enabled" black markets exploded. Post WWI, prohibition of alcohol threw gasoline on that fire and birthed the control structures we face today. It is still hanging on, defying attempts to decriminalize and treat addiction rather than punish addicts.
I don't see any easy way to disentangle this from our government, it is hard enough to get most people to even acknowledge it exists.
Despite the brief notice given to Vietnam era CIA Heroin smuggling to buy the loyalty of SE Asian strong men and simultaneously degrade black power and youth civil rights movements and their later minority targeted crack cocaine marketing operations, cocaine financed arming of the contras in defiance of Congress & etc., nobody wants to admit they live in a country where these things are business as usual & de facto parts of our national policy, not just occasional imperfections.
And you don't even want to know how and why the LSD related youth culture in USA was started- Though they soon enough realized THAT one was counterproductive and actually tried fairly effectively to stamp it out.
Fantastic research and an immensely clarifying presentation. What actually unites the supposed opposites -- democratically structured institutions and organized crime -- is another pair of paradoxical bedfellows: greed and consumer contentment. In other words, it's a complex system built around the efficient use of money. Crime is by far the most efficient way of amassing money. (and the amassing encourages monopoly, the second most efficient way, with the advantage of being legal). Drugs are, of course, the most lucrative commodity, though arms aren't far behind. The logic is complete: drugs are not just illegal substances, they are the ultimate object of consumption in a society whose members are schooled to think of themselves as patriotic consumers. And of course the illegality is the key to two things: profitability and the capacity to build effective parallel armies that ensure order thanks to their complicity with the secret forces of the security state. Now I understand why it's so easy to admire such a brilliantly constructed three-tiered system and why it has been so successful subduing humanity. What's most astonishing is that a bit of research reveals its structure and logic, available to all... but willfully ignored by the "consumer media." It isn't just corporate, it's built to serve and reinforce consumer culture. Perhaps the most effective drug this admirable system has managed to produce!
Really great rundown. Superb stuff. And still the highest decision making apparatus seems hidden. It may simply be an instinctive hunger built into the capitalist organism, like the need to eat. The need to continuously make and reinvest profit is the mainspring of capitalism--the corollary being the need for ever expanding markets and profits. Shutting off private financial access to an area (China, USSR, Russia, Iran, DPRK, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, etc) becomes like denying an organism food. The response doesn't have to be decided upon. It is the natural response of the organism. An organism doesn't decide to devour and eat; it must. At the top of the oligarchy the needs of the system are understood. They don't have to be enunciated. They don't have to be broadcast or coordinated, any more than you need to be told to breathe. Let me make an additional point. Marxists do not believe the ruling class is monolithic. They do, of course, believe that the government, as Marx said, is the instrument of the ruling class. But this does not assume the ruling class is not made up of competing factions. In fact your description of the top tier of the tripartite system meshes quite nicely with the Marxist notion of what the ruling class actually is. The fundamental requirement of the ruling class is the preservation of private property, expanding markets and extractive profits. There may be oligarchic factions, but they all need the same basic environment to prosper, thus fundamental unity. The security apparatus is assumed to be the "Deep State" because it is largely invisible. But it is not. It has interests, but it is essentially a tool. The Deep State is actually the instinctive behavior of the ruling class essential for its own profit and preservation.
I am a historical materialist, and as you basically say, my scholarship is totally compatible with a historical materialist perspective of how the capitalist world works. Western "Leftists" typically do not see the 'deep state', or if they do, they would only say that it is the hdden apex of "the state" when in fact, it is much more. There is the 'apex' meaning of the term, but there's also the broader 'regime' use of the term. That is where there is some pluralism--the oligarchic "game of thrones."