cypherpunks Digest, Vol 24, Issue 33

[Tim Beelen]

On 6/17/2015 1:57 PM, Softy wrote:
>
>     Surely, you understand why they did this? There is a perfectly good
>     rationale for running these kind of operations. It's just that you're
>     miffed about the fact that you're not able to do anything about it.
>
>     So if you're part of some impotent government that does not know
>     how to,
>     or wants to project power, instantly you're at the mercy of
>     institutions
>     of governments that can. No amount of tree-hugging or moral high
>     ground
>     is going to save you from extinction.
>
>     And it's not all that bad. It's mostly power-play and politics really.
>
>     >
>     >
>     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking
>     >
>     > "Once you set up a covert operation to supply arms and money, it's
>     > very difficult to separate it from the kind of people who are
>     involved
>
>
>
> ​ Do you claim to understand why the Reagan administration "did this" 
> operation which eventually came to be known as Iran-Contra?
> If so, then you can explain how "blocking the fall of [soviet] 
> dominoes" directly correlates to the distribution of drugs in specific 
> Black-American communities.​
>
I'm not an expert on everything. but if you want to sell drugs, you 
don't do it in your own neighborhood. That is probably not the answer 
you'd expected but that's the level of pragmatism I'd expect.

> ​You can in hindsight claim to agree with the end goal of "blocking 
> Communism" however, in hindsight, you would be lambasted as failing to 
> see through the Administration's propaganda.
I'll bite. True. I just feel to see how that's the underlying cause. 
After the second WW the US was left with a huge defense industry. Du-uh 
they want to keep making money so the underlying cause most likely is 
money and defense contracts. The rest is just icing on the cupcake.

So, all-in-all you're kind of extrapolating here. And from this point on 
I know that you and I no longer speak the same language. Even though we 
use the same words, they convey different ideas.

Communism in the the true sense of it's implementation means 
expropriation... by force. And the way that it happened in Russia, with 
all it's true communists is that everything effectively belonged to the 
state. You, in hindsight, can not deny this because it's a stupid fact. 
Like gravity. That is probably not what you read in Das Kapital.

Regardless of how you feel about this form of government, this scared 
the shit out of the folks back here because it's Capitalism's 
antithesis. *disclaimer: I'm pointing stuff out.

Now you might read propaganda from that day  and age, and come to an 
entirely different conclusion about the severity of this problem. 
Probably because your definition of communism is very much like that of 
Marx's Das Kapital. Which in the light of what the USSR effectively did 
was not that great.

>
> Still claiming to support the means to that end, squarely puts you in 
> the realm of the Abusers of Power.
> Abuse because the voting population never had any chance to understand 
> what was being done in their name.
>

Okay, this is where you fall flat on your face. Americans, however you 
feel about them, do not identify themselves with their government.*1 So, 
you don't get to be even close to understand how to make a difference 
even if you wanted to. Because if they actually took their government 
serious, things would have been different.

-----
1: You'll find that just about every American represents themselves and 
the country. This explains all those fricken flags. That is what makes 
us so loud and obnoxious. Because it's a continuous play of 
grandstanding, conceding in private... rinse, repeat. So the only thing 
you'd need to do is provide a viable alternative and wham bam not only 
will it be embraced, it will become American. That in a nutshell is why 
I like this country. Less superficial bullshit through the process of 
self-defeating properties of superficial bullshit.

Like the Borg in Star Trek. But the Borg in this story are actually all 
hot sociable supermodels in their model cube-Home. That wave flags, eat 
nice food, have awesome entertainment, and shoot you if you are part of 
some weirdo hive-mind. They are much nicer then Borg really.



> This is the cycle of Power Abuse which has many in the world turned 
> against the US (and increasingly its people not just government). As 
> long as the (secret) three-letter agencies conduct (secret) operations 
> using (secret) means and continue to be governed with (secret) 
> mandates driven by an administration's (secret) beliefs without 
> Transparent and Democratic oversight this trend will continue until 
> its logical conclusion.  Sadly.
>

Turning against is such a ridiculous way to explain what is going on. 
It's called fallen from grace. People are trying to walk away from U.S. 
Hegemony. And that is fine with me. Foreign governments are relying too 
much on American military power as I see it. That is why they don't run 
very fast. If they are running at all.

The only problem with this "logical" conclusion is that, to me, it can 
go ever which way. If tomorrow people are fed up, they'll change it to 
whatever. That is also why people in power decided they need secret 
courts with secret interpretations of secret laws.

The U.S. population is not the U.S. government. And the way you sell it 
to them they don't want to be either.

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