Deep state

[Mark Kohut]

"yeah, right" as the student said to the Philosophy professor who
had pointed out that in English, with its double negative creating a new
meaning,
there was no equivalent usage of a double positive.....

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 7:34 AM Mike Weaver via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> Hi Joseph,
>
> I think you used the phrase 'deep state' to cover something very
> different to what the MAGA advocates mean, which is the source of the
> current common use, and the one I referred to. But what you are
> describing is the mechanics of capitalism which have underpinned the
> existence of liberal democracy since WW2. The networks of intelligence
> services developed by Hoover, Dulles and their allies have their
> equivalents in every empire in human history. They have always been a
> vital source of power behind the throne, and their modern US version has
> hardly been hidden - I studied their workings at college nearly 50 years
> ago. Their current manipulation by the Trump gang is a sign of the dying
> of the post war capitalist order.
>
> Re Pynchon -  I wonder if those four books he planned in a sustained
> period of brilliant stoned focus in the late 50s/early 60s were actually
> all he had. By the time he was writing Against the Day that well had run
> dry and everything he has written since has been his attempts to focus
> his original insights on further social/political developments,
> practising his craft but so much older and more tired he has had no more
> brilliant perspectives to share.
>
> I'm about 10 chapters in on Shadow Ticket, and it is so far no more than
> an entertainment. In parallel I just finished a recent book by an author
> a few months older than Pynchon - James Lee Burke. A new story, an
> addition to his Holland family saga, so much more emotionally intense
> than ST, but also a retread of themes and responses handled to much
> greater effect in previous books in past decades. Maybe it's just a case
> of writer's gotta write, even when they've run out of profundities to
> share. New bottles for old wine.
>
> Of Shadow Ticket I agree with Laura that the internet has overtaken
> Pynchon. I often read with Wikipedia and Google Earth open to explore
> the references and geography of the novels I read. I note the likely
> references/resonances as I read ST but it's not that important to follow
> them up because the story being told does not feel deep enough for them
> to be more than witticisms. I'll save that exploration for a later read
> or maybe never...
>
> On 09/10/2025 15:01, J Tracy wrote:
> >
> > I definitely have a different take on the origin and meaning of the
> > phrase ‘ deep state’.  What you are describing, Mike, is definitely
> > one of the ways the term is being used/abused these days.  But the
> > term has much greater importance to understanding the 20th  and 21st
> > century than that.
> >
> > Here is my condensed rant on the deep state:
> >
> >  I recently read David Talbot’s *The Devil’s Chessboard : *Allen
> > Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government.
> > I had read other books on the CIA for a term paper and speech some
> > years ago, but Talbot’s deep research into the life , statements, and
> > deeds of Allen Dulles and the formation and growth of the CIA was by
> > far the best, most coherent body of research I have read,  made
> > accessible as a series of topical themes. Talbot talked to everyone
> > who knew Dulles and were willing to talk to him, and was himself
> > comfortable in the Ivy league, banking, and ultra rich  circles which
> > were essential to understand Dulles and the CIA’s appropriation of power.
> >  One could look at J Edgar Hoover as another earlier american
> > trailblazer of using secret intelligence gathering to build an agency
> > to rival and subvert constitutional government, but Dulles was even
> > more ambitious and effective.  Dulles defied FDR, lied to European
> > governments in FDR’s name, plotted against FDR’s policies in order to
> > recruit Nazis he admired into build an american secret police
> > dedicated to serving oligarchs who despised popular democracy  and the
> > idea of human rights. With this agency Dulles expanded murderous
> > International fascist coups to a kind of art form under Eisenhower and
> > with little doubt for Citizens who have studied the facts, together
> > with JJ Angleton and the mob spearheaded the assassination of JFK and
> > RFK.  There is a they and My God they killed him; and they colluded to
> > cover it up. To not recognize this coup is fatal to understanding the
> > modern US.
> >
> > Those are just 2 state actors//agencies with large budgets, but their
> > ideas, think tanks and money affect who gets promoted in the state
> > department and Military, where the wars will be fought, party politics
> > etc.  When a sec of state like Kissinger can conduct a secret bombing
> > in Cambodia or sponsor a secretive CIA assisted coup in Chile, when
> > CIA infiltrates and controls news sources across the world, when a
> >  massive child rape blackmail operation involving presidents and
> > princes  can be caught and tried twice and only one person goes to
> > jail you are no longer a constitutional republic, but a banana
> > republic with cellular tracking devices.
> >
> > The new thing that begins to be approached in Bleeding Edge but is
> > much more developed now is the rise of the surveillance,
> > communication, and financial algorithms  together with the rise of
> > banking/ investment corporations by some of the wealthiest oligarchs
> > in history. The 9-11 story was a heap of shit from a controlled
> > demolition to begin the great  Patriotic silencing and the centers of
> > control have moved on to genocide..  But apparently the rise of big
> > cheese and  anti-semitism in 30s Wisconsin is more interesting.
> >
> >  Orpheus let’s go of her hand
> > looks back
> > watches Euridice sink
> >  through the layers
> >
> > where the oil once  was
> >  where the plastic is descending
> > dispersing , filling every niche
> > like molten lava
> > where the digital footage
> > of the rapes are kept
> > where the planet's clean water is diverted
> > to the bright new artificial world
> > where the plagues and plague-cures
> > are engineered
> > where the smoke from burning forests drift
> > where the oceans are mined
> > where the prisons grow like
> > invasive weeds
> > where the other pop star sirens
> > croon the digital death song
> > where the people are entertained
> > with imaginary salvation
> > Where the fires and floods
> > and walls
> > terraform away the poor
> > Where the billions of acres
> > of lifeless soil  blow away
> > in tornado winds
> > wherever all of those SUV’s
> > are actually going
> > Where the numbers and living beings
> > Are crunched and crunched again.
> > Don’t worry he whispers
> > Don’t worry, baby, everything is gonna be alright
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Oct 8, 2025, at 3:40 PM, Mike Weaver <mike.weaver at zen.co.uk> wrote:
> >>
> >> While awaiting chapter 2 of Joseph's latest I must ask what is the
> >> deep state being referred to in the review and by Joseph.
> >>
> >> I was under the impression the deep state was a red flag waved by
> >> reactionary leaders to distract the animus from the capitalist
> >> structure onto a confection of bureaucrats, and  scheming statist
> >> decision makers who probably doesn't exist in any joined up way which
> >> could be described as either deep or state actors.
> >>
> >> Apart from that I do have to say I'm the same as Joseph, still here
> >> because I like to read comments from so many of the people here, but
> >> 50% of posts coming from one person just ain't healthy and suggests
> >> he's using the list as an outlet for something not satisfied elsewhere.
> >>
> >> Maybe it's time to take a sabbatical Mark. Come back in a year or so
> >> and see how the list has developed without your compulsive posting.
> >>
> >>
> >
> --
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>