Here we go again

[Note to readers: It is important to understand that “news” in the US is put forward by only a few entities, and is not a random process. The major organs are dominated by intelligence agency moles who sit at critical junctures. This situation was first exposed by the Church Committee in the late 1970’s, and has never again been addressed by an official body. So it is safe to assume it still exists. But there is not unanimity behind the scenes as various powerful factions make power plays to achieve unstated objectives, so that the appearance of “news” that is repeated and emphasized to achieve maximum impact (i.e. the Monica Lewinski tabloid scandal) is public notice to one faction that another faction is making a play. Evidence to support this view can be found on any given day in the important stories that do not see light of day, non-barking dogs. So now we have the Snowden affair, which could easily be suppressed and ignored, as are the Kiriakou and Brown incidents. Instead, it is being heavily promoted in mouthpiece news organs.]
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The Watergate affair that eventually brought down Richard Nixon was both circus and farce. Imagine this: Highly trained CIA/FBI agents commit a clumsy burglary, almost begging to be caught. There is no apparent purpose for it. The men involved all have shady backgrounds, many in the Bay of Pigs. Two were involved in the Kennedy assassination:

• E. Howard Hunt, who confessed on his death bed to his son that he was part of it, but only as a “back bencher;”
• Frank Sturgis, suspected by some in the JFK research community to be one of the gunmen in Dealey Plaza that day.

It gets stranger still. The Washington Post, not a beacon of journalistic integrity, takes the lead in a long series of disclosures seemingly timed to keep the story alive. The American public is tortured daily with incessant bleating as Watergate drowns out all other news. The “scandal” gets worse as CIA agent Alex Butterfield reveals to congress the existence of tapes, already known to all anyway. They are subpoenaed, and an 18 minute gap is discovered in one. What was erased? Probably nothing important, but it sure looked bad. Two reporters for the Post, one genuine and the other a CIA mole, become national heroes as they write down the story as related to them by “Deep Throat.” Decades later DT is revealed to great fanfare, but sadly, Mark Felt by that time is lost to Alzheimer’s, oblivious of his heroic deeds.

It was a stage play. Russ Baker, in his book Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America, posits that George H.W. Bush, who was tagged to be the vice presidential choice in 1968, was snubbed by Nixon in his selection of Spiro Agnew (himself brought down by a manufactured scandal prior to Nixon’s resignation).*

That’s American news gathering, Kabuki Theater with real scoundrels writing the stage play. It’s reassuring for me to know that as worthless as American journalism is now, it was worthless then too.

I only bring this up because of the way the Snowden affair is playing out. Is Edward our modern-day bungling burglar? He hasn’t told us anything new, and the people outraged by the surveillance state cannot possibly be surprised, as it’s been going on forever. It has only changed with better technology. J Edgar Hoover, after all, ruled DC for nearly 37 years based on what he knew about people.

Importantly, the scandal is being fed to us in serial fashion, each episode a new revelation and a little worse than the one before. At the center of it now is the Washington Post, not exactly a beacon of journalistic integrity.

Nixon knew what was going down and played defense, but had to give it up. (“It all goes back to the Bay of Pigs,” he said, probably a euphemism for the JFK assassination.) The Obama crowd knows what’s up. Something big is at stake here, some policy objective or grudge. Sadly, as with Watergate, there is probably nothing in it for us. It’s just palace intrigue. If the “scandal” suddenly ends one day, if the silly coiffured mouthpieces of journalism go back to reporting on the Kardashian family, then we will know that the drivers of this theater production got what they wanted.
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*It appears to me, in retrospect, that in selecting Agnew Nixon was buying a life insurance policy. Having a Bush as VP is dangerous business, as Reagan learned (if he wasn’t completely clueless).