A cultural change over my lifetime has been whether it’s cool to believe in the existence of a deep state. There was first a big change from the 1960s to the 1970s, when handsome actors like Warren Beatty and Robert Redford, made deep state conspiracy thrillers.
The class connotations are important to recall: Conspiracy theorizing in 1975 was upscale, leftist, and sexy. After awhile though, it became downscale, like Randy Quaid in 1996′s Independence Day.
Here’s an NYT article that tries to gently introduce readers to the fact that practically everybody in Turkey is a conspiracy theorist, perhaps for good reasons. The reporter appear convinced that of course the deep state notion is useful in understanding Turkey, but he has to initially act like it’s some wild and crazy 1970s idea.
Comments to Steve Sailer:
* The first problem of the Deep State concept is one of definition, how is it defined and how is it different from typical elite or oligarchic machinations?
The second problem is that the Deep State concept implies decisions are still taken at the level of the nation-state. For example policies resulting from globalization are obviously not due to national cabals all independently agreeing to the same suicidal policies for the citizens and nation states. There is instead a Deep Globe of Davos men and women pulling the strings of the individual national marionettes in order to destroy the various nation-states.
One interesting fact is that is that the leaders of Turkey have not yet made the transformation from being national leaders to being Globalist marionettes. But after some amuse-bouches of EU subsidies and early benefits once accepted into the EU, the Globalist hope would be they could do an end-around Turkey’s nationalist leaders and support a new elite of Young Globalist Turks who could lead Turkey into the Globalist fold.
* Didn’t the Bourne movies reintroduce the deep state concept in recent years? The way I remember it, we went from deep state villains post-Watergate (e.g., Three Days Of The Condor) to secretive government types being generally good guys during the Reagan years (e.g., the Archangel character in Air Wolf). Then, the Bourne movies start during W.’s first term.
* So basically in America conspiracy theories have gone from signalling membership of the upper intellectual classes to being a pastime of Birchers and the loony left. So obviously nobody in the intellectual elites believes in conspiracies anymore.
I’ve fallen prey of that too. Except that my homeland (Italy) often brings me back to the ground. First of all, half (and potentially all) of the country is ruled by a secret cabal of powerful men with strong connection into politics and no reluctance to using violence to achieve their goals – known to the rest of the world as the mafia (but if you want to be sophisticated, you should distinguish between the main four regional mafias: Campania’s camorra, the most violent and fragmented, basically owns the city of Naples; Calabria’s ‘ndrangheta, which basically owns a monopoly on the import of cocaine into Europe thanks to its connections to Latin American drug cartels, and which controls all the illegal trade into Rotterdam; Puglia’s Sacra Corona Unita, which is the softest of the four and has diversified into renewable energy; and the one and only Sicilian mafia, AKA the Cupola, AKA Cosa Nostra, supposedly defeated after losing the “War of the Mafia against the State” in the early 1990s, or triumphant after getting Berlusconi elected in 1994, depending on which conspiracy you choose to believe).
Then there’s the Italian secret service, thrice disbanded for conspiring against the State (yes, literally; Wikipedia has a good summary under “Italian intelligence agencies”), the second of which followed the 1990 government admission that yes, Gladio was real, it had weapons, it had CIA backing, but no of course it wasn’t planting bombs in the 1970s when the Communist Party was on the brink of joining government (you decide whether you believe that or not).
Funnily enough, it was the second incarnation of the Italian secret service (SISMI) that forged the documents that “proved” Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake from Niger to make nuclear bombs, which the US and UK used to justify the war. When that came up in 2007 it led to the third disbanding and reforming of the secret services. I’m sure it has worked this time.
* I did seem to note though that the NYT writer seemed almost wistful with regret that there is no judicial means to jail wreckers that post anti-narrative writing onto the internet. That would make it oh so much more easy for the American Deep State. Instead we have to take a round about means of “non-platforming” and shaming dissenters.
