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points by kspacewalk2 16 hours ago | 0 comments
>Back then the establishment used the CIA/FBI to prevent a multi-coalition, working class movement across ethnicity, unions, and religions that would have made the US a better democracy.

It's communism. Cold War. All there is to it. As with much other evil, this was done because the FBI feared that Big Bad Uncle Ivan will somehow gain influence over this leader and use it for leverage in the Cold War.

The same multitudes of extramarital affairs and other racy and embarrassing stuff that Dr King took part in, as a reverend, could be used by communists to blackmail him into working for them or making decisions that favour the Soviet Union. Is it far-fetched? Sure. Is it, in hindsight, paranoid and stupid? Yep. But can we say with certainty, without hindsight, that it was impossible, when you have an entire organization dedicated to rooting out hidden influence of the enemy in an existential covert global struggle?

And it wasn't all paranoia. The Soviet Union under Stalin was extremely good at infiltrating American academia, civil society and government. The Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, etc. The US government went from ignoring the problem and dealing with it so incompetently actual Soviet spies were in almost cabinet-level positions, to hysterically over-reacting and ruining the lives of people like Dr King "just in case".

[–] cowlevel 15 hours ago
There's another country that has infiltrated the whole American government, and a third country that is often said to have infiltrated American academia and civil society, but we don't seem to worry about them. Why the distinction?
[–] kspacewalk2 15 hours ago
I'm not sure what your question is. Did someone draw a distinction? If you transplanted the 1960s FBI to modern times and told them to look for influence in favour of Russia or Israel or whoever you mean but for some reason don't name, and told them to use the same tactics, they probably would try.
[–] jackb4040 15 hours ago
The USS Liberty happened in the 1960s. It's downright silly to pretend the American state would ever have had a similar orientation towards a rival superpower vs its own unsinkable aircraft carrier.
[–] kspacewalk2 14 hours ago
You're now the second person doing this. I won't try to keep up with the conspiracies, and multiple levels of unstated implications based on the assumptions about those conspiracies being facts. Israel has never been, nor will likely ever be a superpower or anything akin to a near-peer adversary of the United States, so I'm not too sure what there is to talk about. Still waiting for anyone to propose a topic.
[–] ricksunny 14 hours ago
But you don’t understand it’s okay when Mossad and Shin Bet do it.
[–] DFHippie 15 hours ago
It's pretty good under Putin, too. Better, actually. They don't use the same narrative template, but they're picking tools with more power. It turns out it's really easy to manipulate narcissists and authoritarian followers.

(well, the Russian Federation, not the USSR)