Aasof’s Reflections

This week on Facebook: Is a kind of interlude which, to my mind, is not divorced from my previous posts. The Deep State is a term I am familiar with and a recent article reminded me of it. Regarding the recently elected President of the USA, Bill Bonner wrote in Money Week, There are many moving parts in the Deep State. Trump can try to pit one against another but he needs broad support in Congress. It is said that he has a Republican majority in the House and the Senate ready to do his bidding. This is not true. What he has — is a pack of clever self seeking politicians sharpening their long knives.

Something that confirms all fears and many conspiracy theories about government is finding out what our elected representatives would put into law if they could. — P. J. O’Rourke

While the following articles seem to suggest that the Deep State is a problem peculiar to the USA, this is not the case¹. The Deep State is the source of political power in every country, a global totalitarianism that is independent of any  political system but one that enables notional democracy to function under its aegis. The Deep State will always seek to usurp any attempts by an electorate, revolutions, coups d’état, to make it otherwise.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. ― Theodore Roosevelt

It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: That we are in the process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarch who have always existed and presumably always will always exist to get people to love their servitude. — Aldous Huxley

Monday 20/3/2017 What Is the Deep State? I do not think our time is all that different from those that have gone before it, insofar as the substance and types of our actions are concerned.  Every age has its thieves and hypocrites, in high and low places. Rather, what is a little more distinctive of us is the numbers, the sheer number of people whose character, or a lack thereof, fits a common pattern— mean, petty, deceitful, and often wilfully ignorant of moral constraints, lacking in civility and grace, and utterly unrepentant of it.

Tuesday 21/3/2017 The Deep State: The Unelected Shadow Government Is Here to Stay: Two shadow governments, which make a mockery of representative government and the “reassurance ritual” of voting, have been a long time in the making. Yet they have been so shrouded in secrecy, well hidden from the eyes and ears of the American people, that they exist and function in contravention to the principles of democratic government.

I Liked Ike — click to view

Wednesday 22/3/2017 What Is the Deep State? What is the “deep state”? The New York Times has given us an explainer on the concept, which doesn’t explain much. Things are bad, but not as bad as Turkey or Egypt, the Times says, which really do have deep states; and besides, leaks from the deep state will save us from the deep state.

Thursday 23/3/2017 The Deep State and the Dark Arts: The deep state is the link between military interventions and trans-pacific trade deals, between sanctions and IMF loans. All of these tools, be they arms or loans or legal structures, serve a single purpose: the overarching control of world resources by a global community of corporate elites. One can also see how these three instruments of policy and power all do tremendous damage to a particular entity, the nation-state.

 Friday 24/3/2017 Exposing the Real Deep State: Despite the myth of “democracy,” real power is held by those who control the essentials of any given state, province, district, or community. Essentials include control over monetary instruments, essential infrastructure such as water, power, communication, and transportation, control over manufacturing, healthcare, and basic public services, as well as more obvious forms of power such as control over police and military forces.

 ¹Why The Deep State Always Wins (pdf): Like Turkey and Egypt, Ukraine also has a deep state. The New York Times describes it as being choreographed by a league of oligarchs. The ultra-wealthy industrialists wield such power in Ukraine that they form what amounts to a shadow government, with empires of steel and coal, telecoms and media, and armies of workers.