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Comment by tempodox | Hacker News Reader

27 pointstempodox6 comments

A number of citizens not liking their elected representatives has form going back many many decades, but there's more than a whiff of "51 former intelligence officials" nonsense about the whole NoKings story.

Former CIA intelligence operatives helping to organise anti-government protests feels particularly weird.

Can you expound on this? First I'm hearing of it, and I can't find anything about former CIA helping to organize.

Some flavor of coup is not out of the question given our "democracy" is being run and represented (diplomatically) by never-elected cronies like Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. The people's Congress and even the State Department are potemkins. In a real sense, a coup already happened.

The never-elected thing has been an issue for a while (though with Trump it is definitely more so than in the past), going back at least through Woodrow Wilson and surely earlier. I vividly remember when President Clinton gave work to Hillary for example, and the comments about the "two-for-one" deal where you vote for Bill and get Hillary as a bonus.

given that we don't have a king (trump would be a dictator if you thought he had absolute control over things, i don't think he has much control over things) and most people are upset about the war, it seems to me that this is misdirection to muddy the anti-war consensus in the US by attaching divisive political issues and inflammatory language to it.

divide & conquer, in my democracy? It's more likely thank you think!

The main divide and conquer I see are my fellow countrymen still transfixed by the con artist's cult of personality, thinking that all of this must be 17-d chess with some underlying goal that might end up benefiting them.

Unilaterally starting an elective illegal war (for which there is no win condition) goes to the exact point of "no kings" [autocratic authoritarian strongmen]. Even the traditional US military intelligence agencies thought attacking Iran was a poor idea, and that's saying something!

As for the name, I've certainly got my own qualms with it. But I'm not going to let that distract me from supporting the organization we do have.

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