This is a depressing view inside the FBI. It does not contradict any of the impressions I have already gleaned from ex-FBI agents I’ve talked to, and projects I’ve worked on where they have been involved. As usual, “not all FBI” – sure, there are some that are talented and not white supremacists – but those people (as the article shows) had to learn to work within a system that was incompetent and white supremacist.
A few years ago I became a fanatical convert to full cast audiobooks. That’s where the book is presented more like a radio drama than just someone reading aloud.
The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is an odd piece of legislation; it was another centrist bit of legislation signed into law by Bill Clinton. I’m not going to say it’s bullshit because it was produced under Clinton. It’s bullshit because it’s American.
Success has many parents, who have PR machines behind them and trumpet it to the skies. Failure is, as they say, an orphan. In the case of Afghanistan, like Iraq, the war party has diligently flicked the remaining scraps of egg from its face and declared everything is the current administration’s fault (for doing exactly what the previous administration was planning to do).
As we’ve mentioned before, the FBI supposedly provided 25% of the KKK’s membership during the civil rights era. [stderr] I don’t blame you in the slightest if that is unbelievable – it took me a while to decide that it was probably true. And, we can see the damage that the FBI’s “penetrate and suborn” tactics do: I was listening to Ibram Kendi’s anti-racism podcast the other day, [kendi] and he was discussing anti-asian racism, and mentioned that Richard Aoki [stderr] as an example of Black/Asian cooperation. Oops, no. I wrote him a terse note to check Aoki’s background more carefully – he was an FBI agent trying to get Black Panthers killed, not help them.
I made a passing comment about John Dillinger, the other day, and it reminded me that I really don’t know anything about that, except for what is in Public Enemies and other movies.
The US political system is incredibly corrupt. There are perhaps a few mere millionaires in congress, but they’re the tip of an iceberg made of shit – it’s their children or spouses that are grabbing money hand over fist. I remember back in the 90s when the US media was all a’cry about the corruption of Saddam Hussein’s children, but they were ham-fisted amateurs compared to the Washington set.
This posting will be a bit image-heavy.