<story><title>Operation Midnight Climax: How the CIA Dosed S.F. Citizens with LSD (2012)</title><url>https://www.sfweekly.com/news/operation-midnight-climax-how-the-cia-dosed-s-f-citizens-with-lsd/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dcolkitt</author><text>I think it’s actually shocking how &lt;i&gt;few&lt;/i&gt; people seem to agree with this. In particular, the speed with which most of the left pivoted to reverence for the “intelligence community” simply because it was politically expedient after 2016.&lt;p&gt;How many times did we hear breathless tirades about how the president wasn’t “respecting” the recommendations of intelligence agencies, or leaking classified intelligence. As if democratic representative of the American people was responsible to the unelected agency heads instead of vice versa.&lt;p&gt;I voted against Trump twice, but when you get to the point where not even POTUS has the right to challenge the CIA and NSA, you’re no longer living in a democracy.</text></item><item><author>adamrezich</author><text>intelligence agencies have too much power and independence from government. I think this is one of those things that pretty much everyone agrees with regardless of political affiliation, yet nothing gets done about it, and these entities keep growing and growing</text></item><item><author>vmception</author><text>The CIA really bothers me, but it alone is a red herring. Congress consciously and sometimes inadvertently commissions additional organizations. All Federal agencies are created by statute, and they can autonomously create others subsidiaries and divisions. There are several organizations that are specifically in intelligence and do all sorts of messed up things for supposed national security or geopolitical purposes, and they are mostly unknown, even heads of state are unfamiliar with them not because they are secret but because theyre mostly irrelevant.&lt;p&gt;So to focus on the CIA allows the rest of it to go on unimpededed.&lt;p&gt;Its like hiring a model to act like your close friend so that your girlfriend focuses all her attention on her waiting for infidelity with that specific person and you can always disprove that there wasn&amp;#x27;t .... with her. But no further scrutiny goes on, when there should be.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dragonwriter</author><text>&amp;gt; In particular, the speed with which most of the left pivoted to reverence for the “intelligence community” simply because it was politically expedient after 2016.&lt;p&gt;I think you are either confusing the Democratic center-right (whuch has always had reverence for the intelligence community and defense establishment) with “most of the left&amp;quot;, or confusing opposing abnormally blatant political abuse of (and by political officials within) the national security apparatus with reverence for that same apparatus, or both.</text></comment>
<story><title>Operation Midnight Climax: How the CIA Dosed S.F. Citizens with LSD (2012)</title><url>https://www.sfweekly.com/news/operation-midnight-climax-how-the-cia-dosed-s-f-citizens-with-lsd/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dcolkitt</author><text>I think it’s actually shocking how &lt;i&gt;few&lt;/i&gt; people seem to agree with this. In particular, the speed with which most of the left pivoted to reverence for the “intelligence community” simply because it was politically expedient after 2016.&lt;p&gt;How many times did we hear breathless tirades about how the president wasn’t “respecting” the recommendations of intelligence agencies, or leaking classified intelligence. As if democratic representative of the American people was responsible to the unelected agency heads instead of vice versa.&lt;p&gt;I voted against Trump twice, but when you get to the point where not even POTUS has the right to challenge the CIA and NSA, you’re no longer living in a democracy.</text></item><item><author>adamrezich</author><text>intelligence agencies have too much power and independence from government. I think this is one of those things that pretty much everyone agrees with regardless of political affiliation, yet nothing gets done about it, and these entities keep growing and growing</text></item><item><author>vmception</author><text>The CIA really bothers me, but it alone is a red herring. Congress consciously and sometimes inadvertently commissions additional organizations. All Federal agencies are created by statute, and they can autonomously create others subsidiaries and divisions. There are several organizations that are specifically in intelligence and do all sorts of messed up things for supposed national security or geopolitical purposes, and they are mostly unknown, even heads of state are unfamiliar with them not because they are secret but because theyre mostly irrelevant.&lt;p&gt;So to focus on the CIA allows the rest of it to go on unimpededed.&lt;p&gt;Its like hiring a model to act like your close friend so that your girlfriend focuses all her attention on her waiting for infidelity with that specific person and you can always disprove that there wasn&amp;#x27;t .... with her. But no further scrutiny goes on, when there should be.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maybelsyrup</author><text>I think this is one of the great propaganda successes of the last few years for any American institution (or set of institutions, which I guess better describes the intelligence community).&lt;p&gt;That the US secret services (spy agencies) and secret police (FBI) have been able to wrap themselves in the flag and convince millions of alleged progressives that they&amp;#x27;re good and honorable and upright and sincere - and to do so so incredibly cheaply (John Brennan doesn&amp;#x27;t pay CNN to let him on prime time) - is bananas. They made Russiagate into QAnon for liberals in about 30 seconds and are now on their victory lap, laughing in our faces with the diverse woke CIA commercials [0]. In a way you have to respect it - it&amp;#x27;s like watching the Harlem Globetrotters.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;m.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=fvkiDqYBHUw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;m.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=fvkiDqYBHUw&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>