The Deep State
“The chapters in this book explore many processes of politics at levels usually not acknowledged or reported and indeed repressed and denied. Normally, these deep political processes are not brought to the public eye: for example, the way in which major drug traffickers are recurringly protected by the U.S. Justice Department, or the way in which some of the top traffickers have been recurringly named in connection with the systematic sexual corruption of members of Congress. Such arrangements are in fact widely known, but rarely written about. One way or another, scholars and journalists learn to back off.
The resulting social system is relatively stable, and the fact that certain procedures are repressed from public consciousness becomes itself suppressed. Occasionally, however, such “connections” between overworld and underworld impact radically upon the public realm, and we have unexplained crises such as the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, and Contragate.
One thesis of this book is that, because of the underlying continuities of deep politics, such crises are interrelated. To study any one of them is to acquire knowledge about some of the principal players, and their procedures, in the others. In this way we become aware of a violent milieu underlying American politics, including the ex-CIA Cuban exiles and their American handlers (such as the Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis, who earlier, as we shall see, had figured in the Warren Commission files on the Kennedy assassination).”
from Deep Politics and the Death of JFK
Scott defines deep politics as “all those political practices and arrangements, deliberate or not, which are usually repressed rather than acknowledged.” What makes Scott so compelling is that he searches for information that is buried deep in the archive. So, for example, rather than trying to figure out “who killed JFK” he rigorously compares the Warren Commission (1964) to the House Select Commission on Assassinations and finds the FBI lied to the Warren Commission on several occasions about Jack Ruby. There is no recourse in his writing to a “shadow government” in control but the recognition of a political spectrum that runs from the public state to the deep state that is usually not acknowledged by mainstream political science or journalism. A key point here is the role of oversight – if oversight ever accomplishes anything – and the complete lack of oversight on many of the “programs” and activities comprising deep politics. Deep politics constitute the State as secrecy; a set of goals and practices that must remain unseen and unknown but are necessary for U.S. “democracy”. What is startling is the oblique presence of deep politics (some of its operations are eventually revealed) within the political landscape. Much of Scott’s information comes from a meticulous and rigorous compilation and comparison of sources that are available but buried deep within the archive. However even when the deep state is uncovered and its corrupt practices made public, there is often a lack of any real outrage or political opposition stemming from the revelations. As Scott explains about his methodology,
“The deep-politics paradigm… is essentially an extension of conventional political investigative methods to consideration of a much larger field of evidence, including, but not restricted to, the unacknowledged processes and events which conventional decorum excludes from our current ‘political science’ textbooks. By thus examining overt events in this larger field of deep political arrangements, it breaks down the distinction between overt and covert power, and thereby hopefully avoids the frequently asked question: Which forces are in control, the public or shadow powers?”
The above video is Scott discussing his book The Road to 9/11
On a similar note here is an interesting documentary by Bill Moyers.
