by Kit Knightly, Off Guardian:
At least, according to this new video from the New York Times:
It Turns Out the ‘Deep State’ Is Actually Kind of Awesome
The video itself is a six-minute strawman, presenting interviews with rocket scientists – as if they genuinely think that’s what people mean when they refer to the deep state – then piling on insanely manipulative attempts to “humanise” the concept of the Deep State by talking about these guys’ hobbies and interests.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
It’s cheesy and flippant and every bit as cringe as it sounds:
We went on a road trip to find out. As we met the Americans who are being dismissed as public enemies, we discovered that they are … us. They like Taylor Swift. They dance bachata. They go to bed at night watching “Star Trek” reruns. They go to work and do their jobs: saving us from Armageddon.
Let’s state the obvious – when we talk about the Deep State, we’re not talking about people protecting children from exploitation in Chicago and we’re not talking about amiable Star Trek fans building life-saving rockets – and the New York Times video production team know this as well as we all do.
We’re talking about corrupt military and intelligence agencies, with ties to big business, who really control the government using “elected” politicians as sock puppets.
We’re talking about the machinery put in place which impoverishes the poor and undermines human rights to further authoritarian control over the people whilst facilitating and accelerating the transformation of public money into private profits.
Maybe the people that do all that are also Spock-loving marathon runners, maybe not. I don’t care, I’d just like them to stop.
The propaganda bait-and-switch is as pathetic as it is clumsy. They think that by putting human faces on the lowest and most amiable rungs of Federal power they can pretend it’s nothing but love and light all the way through. By defending the defensible, they hope to give the indefensible a pass.
The clumsy message of the video couldn’t be clearer, in fact here it is word-for-word from the NYT:
When we hear “deep state,” instead of recoiling, we should rally. We should think about the workers otherwise known as our public servants, the everyday superheroes who wake up ready to dedicate their careers and their lives to serving us. These are the Americans we employ. Even though their work is often invisible, it makes our lives better.
Golly gee. How adorable.
Personally, I am old enough to remember all the way back to 2017 and the dozen different articles all explaining, in great detail, why the US does not have a deep state at all. I wrote a long response to this at the time.
Turns out they were all wrong anyhow, the US does have a Deep State after all – it’s peopled by bachata dancing Swifties who “save us from Armageddon” – and we should be very grateful for it.
It’s all reminiscent of the meme that’s been doing the rounds for years, on how the formerly unthinkable is normalised in public discourse.
- That doesn’t happen, and everyone who says it does is a conspiracy theorist.
- That happens sometimes but it’s very rare.
- That should actually happen more.
- That is happening a lot and it’s a good thing (we are currently here)
- People who don’t like this happening are the problem.
Guess that means we’ve got number five to look forward to.
