Deep State Blues: Everybody’s Doing It!

Conspiracy Theory experts are popping up like psilocybin mushrooms in cowshit, fruiting from the corporate media. A New York Times headline for their Distortions column read, Barr Is Not Part of a Secret Anti-Trump Plot. In Fact, There Is No Secret Anti-Trump Plot. If that was a tweet, a Qanoner would go wild with the capitalization choices. Of course it’s not “secret.” 

David Brooks wrote about conspiracy theories in his NY Times “liberal” op-ed the same day. He admitted they “have become the most effective community bonding mechanisms of the 21st century”, lending a sense of superiority, secret knowledge that provides agency and liberation. He makes it sound glamorous. Plus there’s the bonding.

Frank Bruni balanced Brooks with his The Deep State Is on a Roll centrist opinion piece that day. Bruni invents a definition for Deep State, “A legion of tradition minded public officials and civil servants in every branch of government.” John le Carre used it in his 2013 spy novel, A Delicate Truth  to describe the hidden power brokers in Great Britain, but the concept of a Shadow Government was popularized in the states as military intelligence conspiracies that assassinated the Kennedy’s, Malcolm, King, Lennon and anyone with dirt on the Clintons.

Wikipedia places this in a wide river of conspiracy theories “where central banks, Freemasons, intelligenc, think tanks, organized Jewry, the Vatican, secret societies, Jesuits, globalist elites, and/or supranational organizations  manipulate governments to serve their agenda”, often hidden in plain sight.  Real conspiracy expert might accuse the collective of showing its roots by leaving out the Communists, Soviet, Chinese and fifth column democratic socialists. Others might conjecture on the online encyclopedia hiding other schemers, Insurance Overlords, Petroleum Kingpins, more alien varieties than Howard Johnson had flavors, and don’t forget J.R. “Bob”, Master of Slack and the Church of the SubGenius.

Mike Lofgren’s 2016 book: The Deep State: The Fall Of The Constitution And The Rise Of A Shadow Government unearthed the term, which went viral with Trump's election. Now it's a meme, although the concept always was, a real conundrum.

“Thank god for the Deep State”, John McLaughlin, a former acting director of the C.I.A. said to the National Press Club last year. “Conspiracy Theories” itself is a trademarked CIA disinformation label, created in the 60’s after they sacked Camelot to cast doubt on the coincidences, anomalies, fabrications and factual evidence of collusion dug out by independent reporters. 

They even scattered disinformation to muddy the waters. Separating the wheat from the chaff is the unthanked task of real conspiracy experts. Admitting there is a Deep State was Beyond the Pale for mainstream media only four years ago. If nothing else, Trump bridged that abyss.

NPR interviewed a Word Health Organization expert on relieving “vaccine hesitancy.” If targeted messages don’t work, Take It or Else! is Bill Gates tattoo. Even publicly supported KPFA, a Berkeley leftist Pacifica radio station is hosting conspiracy experts. (I’m not talking about Bonnie Faulkner’s Guns and Butter show, banished from their airwaves after she crossed a conspiracy fact line.) 

One claimed Qanon and anti-vaxxers were linking up, a conspiracy cult of opposites attract, due to some crossover FB likes. Another claimed the craze for conspiracies was a right wing thing and traced “baseless claims of election fraud” to their outlets. Had to laugh. Never been in a pass the dutchie lefty circle without a new conspiracy coming up, head nodding all around. New Age marketing scams are more convoluted than their Ascension Promises. 

Corporate Fascists seem to have more money to pay their pet experts, except for George Soros and the family wealth foundations. The Far Left is left out, unless you’re promoting transgender pet rights, and the Far Right has to rely on colloidal silver and dehydrated food ads.

I’m an expert on conspiracy experts, if there were such a category. Skindiving in the outer fringes of conspiracy fact and fiction, reporting on coral reefs of conspiracy facts for forty years in the Free Press. Tinfoil hat, grassy knoll, loony fringe stories. America’s loved ‘em since the colonists blamed the Tyrannous King and the Merciless Savages for their troubles in the Declaration of Independence. 

Dove into the vast ocean of conspiracy theories and started some ripples on small ponds. Moonlandings hoax, 9-11 Truth, New World Order, Golden Triangle to Skull and Bones, Rose Crossed Illuminati to Men in Black and Dim Bulbs. Chemtrail spraying, HAARP, ancient secrets, Biblical Prophecy, reptilian aliens, subterranean caverns, Mother Ships and CIA drug dealing. Cannabis cults and stolen elections, EMFs to GMOs. Pulled back the curtain on the Medical Monopoly, alternative cures, fluoride in the water, mercury in dental fillings and vaccines killing babies. 

Stuff you’ll never get from corporate presstitutes. Of course, they’ve gone tabloid now.  Thanks to craigslist sucking up classified ad revenue, free content online and clickable web-ads chipping away at the rest of the literate class. Journalism is like a buggy whip in a self driving car. A dying art, and like most commercial art owned by the rich. 

The fourth estate is just another service industry, like the first three. Beholden to the financial elite and their managerial class that hold their stock and provide their capital. Desperate for attention, they’re finally rep conspiracy theories, instead of totally ignoring them. Theystill shun 9/11 Truth and Vaccine Facts, naturally, and they never interview a real conspiracy expert to challenge the conventional narrative. Only these ignorant shills. 

The corporate press treats most conspiracy theories with disdain, unless it’s an official one, from magic bullets to three towers, two planes, discredited doctors and correlation not causation. They’ve moved through ridicule to condemnation phase, next is the cold blooded kill. Thus the market for experts mansplaining how alternative conspiracies are the refuge of anxious know nothings. Giving advice about psychological tactics to overcome “vaccine hesitancy” or drown out claims of “baseless election fraud.” They counsel their audience to empathize with their crazy uncle in the corner, don’t argue or listen to his rant, and gently lead them back to the wide path of wisdom we all agree on.

These are not even psychological experts, or they would warn of countertransference, when the therapist falls into the rabbit hole. They obviously haven’t researched conspiracies, before calling them “evidence free.”  That’s projection. Any conspiracy spear that pokes through their shield must have some evidence, unless a strawman thrown out by the Deep State. That’s the beauty of conspiracies, they are plausible with less than conclusive proof.  A mystery to be puzzled. Unless you’re a true believer. 

Thus the obvious need for psychological experts who promise to heal the delusions of the unhinged with aversion therapy, proper meds, extinction challenges, cognitive dissonance and psychic driving. Mind control is funded. The military has trained them, or they’ve trained the military. 

Conspiracy theory is like a fractal crop circle, or the Minotaur’s Maze, the farther in, the more unescapable. Real experts have crawled deep into caves with headlamps, unraveled Ariadne’s thread, held the mirror to the Gorgon, beheaded the Bull, brought back the Rough Beast and held their findings to the Light.  These media shills are babes in the woods, assuaging their own anxieties with a trail of breadcrumbs that lead back to the Deep State. Never Look Back!