The State Goes Deep

 "American Exception – Empire and the Deep State,” by Aaron Good, 2022

This is a left sociological look at what Good calls 'the deep state.' He considers it part of a 'tripartite' state – the public political one we all know, the security state (CIA, FBI, NSA, military, justice system) we also are aware of, and a secretive 'deep state' developed after WWII. This latter involves the planning and control groups of a permanent elite. This 'state' exists and continues its policies no matter what happens in Congress, the Presidency or the Supreme Court. It is uncontrolled by the population, law or 'democracy' and in fact undermines them. It is the creation of a ruling class that seeks to control the world financially. It is a post-war creation of 'hegemonic imperialism' according to Good.

Good spends time arguing or agreeing with dozens of sociological theorists – real politik 'realists;' neo-cons, liberals, neo-liberals; 'new left' or historical materialists and post-modern cultural leftists. The book meditates on the nature of the state, going back to Plato, Hobbes and Locke. He oddly cites a reduction in nationalism as one of the crimes of the international ruling elites, which is certainly not leftist, and perhaps shows he leans to social democracy. The other crimes are the failure to follow international and national laws, the encouragement of anti-democratic forces and their buttressing of severe inequality. He calls their ignoring of national and international legal norms 'exceptionism,' not exceptionalism.

This seems to be the project of the whole capital system. Marxists understand 'the state' to have all these component parts, though the parts evolve through the development of capital and technology. That state is dominated by a monied ruling class. It's really very simple. Good thinks Marxist explanations are 'economist' and so wants to dress them up, or hide them.

THE DEEP STATE

Good is instead inspired by C.Wright Mills' analysis of the state, which opposed the idea of a 'dualistic state' with only political and security sides. Mills saw it as also containing the dominant role of the capitalist class, the elite, the overworld, whatever you want to call them - but don't call them the ruling class! Good finally defines his idea of the 'deep state' – and its not Rothschild bankers, Jews, Masons, QAnon conspiracies, George Soros, aliens, NSA surveillance or assassination programs. The 'deep state' is the constellation of non-official political bodies like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Safari Group, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the Atlantic Council, the Pinay Circle, the World Anti-Communist League, key law firms like Sullivan & Cromwell or 'consulting' firms like McKinsey, Rand & Booz Allen. He doesn't mention more international bodies. These are all made up of top members of the U.S. capitalist class, cultural elite, military and political strata. They have an international orientation, as capital is global. They hold the real political power, far above changes in Congress or President.

Their existence explains why U.S. policy has stayed relatively unchanged since the late 1970s, why laws mean little to the uber-class, why democracy has decreased and inequality increased. These powerful deliberative bodies could also be called a “deep political system,” which seems more accurate and doesn't borrow a phrase from the Trumpists.  Trumpists identify the 'deep state' as the NSA/CIA/FBI - who are not that deep. This fleshes out a Marxist understanding, which Mills was doing too. Marx called the state “the executive committee of the ruling class.”

ITS DEVELOPMENT

Good tracks the very familiar history of the Cold War and McCarthyism, the arms race and war economy, assassinations and coups, Vietnam and Watergate as the 'deep state' developed. Of note were the state assassinations of the Kennedys and MLK, and the continuing cover-ups. These killings have been called a 'security state' coup which reversed Kennedy's peace plans, putting cold warrior LBJ in charge. Kennedy's administration was full of enemies, some from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. His Treasury Secretary Dillion, a Rockefeller ally, was an advocate of assassinating people like Lumumba. However Good has no proof as to the involvement of capitalist advisory groups in this domestic coup and cover-up – only the FBI and CIA.

Good considers Watergate to be a deep-state attempt to remove the last New Dealer and détente advocate – the Republican Richard Nixon. Good has evidence of the U.S.' secret sponsoring of oil price hikes in the 1970s in order for petrodollars to flow back into U.S. treasuries, a decision made behind closed doors. Carter was backed by the Rockefeller-controlled Trilateral Commission and was the first to institute neo-liberalism in the Democratic Party. But Rockefeller turned against Carter due to his human rights verbiage, so his henchmen made sure the Iranian hostages were not released before the election.(Note: The Saudis have just announced they might accept currencies other than dollars for oil. Iraq, Libya and Syria suggested this before. China and Russia agree.)

ITS CONSOLIDATION

Good claims the Reagan Administration was the consolidation of the now well-organized 'deep state.' He says the 'Volcker shock' of the early 1980s to raise interest rates to an insane level was a 'deep state' operation. Volcker was Rockefeller-backed and a member of the Group of 30, Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission. After the CIA was partially discredited, secret funding for projects was run through the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which is still a corrupt conduit for private CIA actions, and included funding the Safari Club, a group of Middle Eastern security agencies led by the Saudis and used by the CIA against progressives and nationalists.

KEY EVENTS

Good focuses on the 1. Kennedy assassinations, 2. the Watergate affair, 3. the timing of the Iranian hostage release, 4. Iran-Contra and 5. 9/11/01 - all conspiratorial events that determined and changed political control of the U.S. He terms these “structural deep events.” However his text seem to tie them more to the 'security state' than any deep-state of civilian organizations. Nixon's recognition of China and withdrawal from Vietnam angered the militarist 'Prussians.' This accounts for the aggressive methods used against Nixon around Watergate, including what can only be termed an intentionally botched burglary. Key players against Nixon over Watergate were connected to the CIA, who also played a role in the Kennedy assassinations. Nixon knew this and after the burglary, threatened to reveal it, which might have sealed his fate. Even his 'war on drugs' irritated the CIA, which associated with organized crime and used drugs as currency.

Good goes into the long and tight relationship between the CIA, drug runners, certain dirty banks, mobsters and their counter-revolutionary plans – conditions which led to the Iran-Contra scandal. BCCI, Wachovia and HSBC all handled CIA drug and arms money in the 1980s, along with Saudi Arabia, using the money for the Contras, the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and other Salafist forces fighting nationalists and socialists. The Iranian hostage drama put Reagan in office, capping 'deep' state control. 9/11 allowed a massive increase in domestic surveillance and illegal wars, occupations, sanctions and bombing campaigns. None of this is new information.

Good believes the continuing “Doomsday Project/Continuity of Government” plan guides the U.S. deep state, especially during key moments. It dictates what the government will do in times of any kind of emergency. He claims the plan has significant ties to private ruling class groups - but most of his facts go back to the influence of security state actors, though I assume some have ties to these civilian groups.

NOW?

So the present question is, what are these hidden uber-reactionary actors doing right now? Re Trump? Re the leftish Democrats? Re Ukraine? Re inflation? Re oil or the dollar? Re the environment? Good's book might help people identify the present work of these 'invisible' and not so invisible hands. And doing so without falling into conspiracy-land, where everything is a conspiracy, planned or Kabuki theater as the simple-minded claim.

The book shows the political establishment is riven by factionalism at certain points, which some leftists can't believe. Noam Chomsky is the poster-child for this. Good called these breaks an “establishment civil war” between “militarist neoconservatives and commercially-minded neoliberals.” There are certainly other breaks, like the present one between those who want authoritarianism and those who want to preserve the appearance of democracy, though not the fact.

A good, if repetitive look at recent U.S. history since WWII that does not quite make its case that a 'deep political system' embodied in organizations is behind certain events, as what they do IS mostly secret. If Good had focused on key examples, the book might have been more useful, at least for people already familiar with the general history. But his goal seems to have been to academically challenge 'dualism,' in line with Mills.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: “Giants – the Global Power Elite” (Phillips) “The Capitalists of the 21^st Century,” “The Devil's Chessboard” (Talbot); “They Killed Our President” (Ventura); “Orders To Kill” (Pepper); “War With Russia?” (Cohen); “Why the U.S. Will Never Be a Social Democracy,” “The Democrats: A Critical History” (Selfa); “Strategy of Deception,” “After the Fact – the Truth About Fake News.”

And I got it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

January 26, 2023