Notices by Nate Cull (natecull@mastodon.social), page 13

@Rich_Graham @zensaiyuki

Yes! It's a *very* unintuitive narrative, but it's a very real one that exists!

It makes zero sense UNLESS you look at the CIA vs FBI intelligence war in the 1970s and how that was a reflection of internal left vs right conflicts inside the military-intelligence establishment.

The CIA were the *left* edge of the military spook world. So they were seen by the conservative factions as Commies trying to subvert the system from within.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

and there were very different schools of thought about how best to do this. The libertarians, the conservatives, the Kennedy-era liberals. Each somewhat at each other's throats but working together while the USSR remained. Once the USSR folded, the internal divisions within the liberal and conservative US pro-business factions began to manifest in the really nasty culture war we see today.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham right. But the anti-Communists - and then the even more virulent hardcore conservative anti-socialists - were thinking on a slightly longer-term horizon than just the next trade deal. They wanted to make the entire world 'safe for democracy', ie, safe for US business interests to get all the trade deals they wanted, forever. And, ultimately, crush the labour movement inside the USA too.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

But the CIA, as CIA, was 1) nominally civilian not military, and 2) tended to recruit from elite north-eastern rich kids

So I think there was a big class gap between CIA people and the military, and between CIA and conservatives, both of whom saw them as a liberal elite they distrusted. And when the culture war inside the USA started to heat up in the 1960s-1970s, those 'elite liberals' became targets of conservative paranoia and hatred.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

I think 'establishing US trade deals' was certainly one part of the CIA's agenda. But also 'toppling left-leaning governments and installing harshly anti-Communist dictators'. And 'fighting Communist propaganda on the home front'. And 'just plain getting data on what other governments are doing'

These four agendas were probably run by four different sub-groups of the intelligence alphabet soup, constantly tripping over each other.

@zensaiyuki sure, no problem.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

and so I think that's why in th 1970s, we start seeing a narrative emerging - from the far right - about how many rock musicians had parents with CIA and/or military connections etc. (And ignoring about how the kids were deliberately rebelling AGAINST those military parents).

It's not because the far right saw the CIA and military (under Kennedy/Johnson) as right wing. It's because they saw them as LEFT wing, subverted by socialism.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

Right! And I'm sure they must have backed early rock-n-roll, too. Because after jazz and modern art, rock-n-roll was so quintessentially American and corporate-friendly.

I think when things exploded in the youth movements of the 1960s, that's when the conservatives really went 'hey wait, the CIA, are they really playing for our team? They done gone burned down OUR house with their LSD and devil music an dancing, they're Russians!!!!'

@Rich_Graham @zensaiyuki

'Ostensibly' they were, but they very quickly developed their own field units.

There's a reason why most of South America calls them 'the company' ('cia' is Company in Portuguese and I assume also in Spanish). It's not because they were hands-off.

But on the home front, the CIA backed a lot of edgy art, culture and literature to fight the USSR. Conservatives didn't much like that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_the_Cultural_Cold_War

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html

@zensaiyuki yikes!

Would be interested maybe in talking about that, but not if it's too triggering.

My background in Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity, which similarly wanted kids to manifest supernormal powers, is why I'm interested in the esoteric today.

@zensaiyuki See, for example, how George HW Bush was attacked for being a 'globalist' during his term of office (1988 -1992) *by the conspiratorial far right of the Republicans*.... and one of the reasons he was attacked was because he headed up the CIA.

Remember that and things become simpler. While 'CIA', on the US left is code for 'anti-Communist fascists', on the right it's code for 'elite liberals subverting down-home American values with jazz sex and rock'n'roll'

@zensaiyuki the MKULTRA stuff is personally fascinating to me because one of my hobbies is trying to disentangle the truth from the lies about esoteric subjects.

One thing I think that's worth keeping in consideration is that 'the CIA is doing evil mind control' is a meme that was seized on by the *far right* in the USA, because they saw the CIA as the *left*. And it *was* to the left of the far right.

So when you see people attacking the CIA, look for their politics.

Please do not touch any of the Amazon Fulfillment Center Biological Cybernetic Components who are currently in the Behavioural Reprogramming Cells. Their neural pathways are being incentivised for your benefit, to pass savings on to you, the consumer.

Yes, the screaming is perfectly normal. They are screams of delight at their newfound +1.5% picking efficiency.

Of course they feel fulfilled in their work. They feel *extremely* fulfilled. (crackle) Don't you, Unit #417326?

Please do not touch any of the Amazon Fulfilment Center Biological Cybernetic Components who are currently in the Behavioural Reprogramming Cells. Their neural pathways are being incentivised for your benefit, to pass savings on to you, the consumer.

Yes, the screaming is perfectly normal. They are screams of delight at their newfound efficiency.

Please do not touch any of the Amazon Fulfilment Center Biological Cybernetic Components who are currently in the Behavioural Reprogramming Cells. Their neural pathways are being incentivised for your benefit, to pass savings on to you, the consumer.

Yes, the screaming is pefectly normal. They are screams of delight at their newfound efficiency.

@zensaiyuki If the thought-form of fear menacing the town had been the *fear* of Communist insurgency, revealed to be more dangerous than the thing itself....

*then* the show would have been critiquing Reagan's 80s.

Instead, it's celebrating and embedding it as a mythologised power of good.

I don't like that, because the 1980s weren't just a nostalgic happy place. They were the cause of much of our present pain and a whole bunch of much worse coming future pain.

@zensaiyuki I don't think "just inclusion" IS the same thing as commentary and criticism, however.

Hopper's violent and authoritarian and corrupt take on policing isn't critiqued or commented on, because it doesn't have any bad consequences. It has only good consequences, so the show is tacitly justifying it.

Similarly, by the 1980s fear of Literal Reds Under The Beds being true, and not revealed to be propaganda, the show is tacitly justifying it also as correct.

@zensaiyuki I don't think "just inclusion" IS the same thing as commentary and criticism, however.

Hopper's violent and authoritarian and corrupt take on policing isn't critiqued or commented on, because it doesn't have any bad consequences. It hase only good consequences, so the show is tacitly justifying it.

Similarly, by the 1980s fear of Literal Reds Under The Beds being true, and not revealed to be propaganda, the show is tacitly justifying them as correct.

@zensaiyuki that explanation (thought form) is the best one I've come up with, yes. Also explains Eleven's psychokinetic ESP powers, as well as classic zombies and skeleton armies in fantasy, and many superheroes. The actual entity doing all the hard work is a thought-form, the biological matter is just there as a kind of... anchor or key to link it to our physical dimension. That's why bits falling off don't really matter.

https://twitter.com/sapphixy/status/1150820184128655362

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