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The Feminist Was a Spy

uscpublicdiplomacy.org

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Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#31

Post by esafak »

tancop wrote: post #29
esafak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Majlis means parliament, and with the monarch Shah in control, that makes it a constitutional monarchy. To place a putschist general on par with that is disingenuous; it is a democratic retreat.

To be fair Iran back then wasn't a system like the UK or Sweden where the king's power is limited to signing laws. It worked more like Gulf states today with a much more personal form of government, the Shah could freely appoint ministers and dissolve parliament when he wanted. And his secret police was trained by the CIA.

The British monarch can do that too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_Unite...

Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#32

Post by k310 »

Was modern art a weapon of the CIA? [0]

> Still, whatever the truth of the extent of the CIA’s financial involvement with Abstract Expressionism, Anfam believes that it was “the best thing the institution ever paid for”. He smiles. “I’d much rather they spent money on Abstract Expressionism than toppling left-wing dictators.”

I had a similar view of my work that involved SDI "Star Wars". Better spent on my paycheck than on bombs. Don't forget, the gorgeous mirror in the Vera Rubin Telescope was one of two donated from another three-letter agency's dumpster.

I could tell you, but then you'd have to be shredded.

Buddhists like to "turn poison into medicine". So should we all.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-...

Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#33

Post by [deleted] »

6P58r3MXJSLi wrote: post #8
api wrote: post #3

People make a ridiculous deal out of someone at any point doing any work with the CIA, or a company having IQT on their cap table, or anything like that. Yeah, right, as soon as you get involved you instantly meet with the smoking man from the X-Files and see the dead aliens and become part of some kind of grand conspiracy. After that every single thing you say or do is part of some giant perfectly organized CIA plot…

> It’s a lot like guilt by association What would you think of someone who works for KGB (now FSB) and propagandizes the values of USSR (or modern Russia)? secondly: CIA job is exactly promote the image of a "liberal, nonviolent and honorable” agency, while killing thousands people to overthrown elected governments just because uncle Sam did not like them...

[deleted]

Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#34

Post by api »

Arodex wrote: post #14
api wrote: post #3

People make a ridiculous deal out of someone at any point doing any work with the CIA, or a company having IQT on their cap table, or anything like that. Yeah, right, as soon as you get involved you instantly meet with the smoking man from the X-Files and see the dead aliens and become part of some kind of grand conspiracy. After that every single thing you say or do is part of some giant perfectly organized CIA plot…

Then you don't say stuff like “In my experience The Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable”. It is not "guilt by association" anymore, it is pure complicity.

I don't even know much about her. I'm just sick of lazy conspiracism, which has totally taken over the discourse now because people aren't getting enough experience in the real world and living their life behind screens. Reality is not a TV show or a social media conspiracy theory.

I think she was probably an American liberal who worked with some people at the CIA who were nice at least to her and who also wrote about feminism.

And yes, the CIA has also done terrible things. It's a huge sprawling many-headed bureaucracy and she probably had contact with an entirely different part of it than the one running around fucking up Latin America.

Or hey, maybe since Gloria Steinem said something good about the CIA therefore all feminism and all 60s social movements were all 100% CIA psyops and everything she wrote was dictated to her through her brain implant. Could be for all I know.

Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#35

Post by dgellow »

neutronicus wrote: post #30
nonsensical_ wrote: post #12

Hmm. Feminism as a CIA psyop. They’ve done more audacious things, I suppose.

Feminism has always been bundled up in the idea of American cultural superiority that justifies pursuing hegemony (although the term used is usually "women's rights").

Feminism exists outside of the US

Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#36

Post by neutronicus »

dgellow wrote: post #35
neutronicus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feminism has always been bundled up in the idea of American cultural superiority that justifies pursuing hegemony (although the term used is usually "women's rights").

Feminism exists outside of the US

Sure. I thought briefly about using the phrase "American Feminism".

But, regardless, to be more nuanced: Feminism gets rhetorically roped into the case for Western cultural hegemony, which in turn gets used as a justification for US military adventurism.

Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#37

Post by dgellow »

neutronicus wrote: post #36
dgellow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feminism exists outside of the US

Sure. I thought briefly about using the phrase "American Feminism". But, regardless, to be more nuanced: Feminism gets rhetorically roped into the case for Western cultural hegemony, which in turn gets used as a justification for US military adventurism.

Modern feminism is generally anti-colonialist and intersectional, which goes against that specific notion

Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#38

Post by rayiner »

roenxi wrote: post #18
han-tyumi wrote: post #6

Yes, yes, the good ol' "liberal, non-violent, and honorable" CIA of the 50s and 60s. So different from the one we have now. Is this the CIA that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran after he nationalized their oil industry? Or is it the one that installed a dictatorship in Guatemala to stop land reform and tend to the whims of the United Fruit Company? Maybe it's the organization that murdered…

It interesting because the people at the CIA probably could be fairly described as "liberal, non-violent, and honorable". That sort of thing is heavily into banality of evil territory - lovely people, just a bit thoughtless about the effects they were having on huge tracts of the world. With those types the best you can hope for is at least they act rationally and effectively. It gets really sad when they do tremendo…

It’s the residual Puritanism. Foreign-facing federal agencies like the CIA were the last bastion of American WASPs. I grew up around these people because my dad worked for a contractor for USAID, which was at times a front for the State Department, and was similarly WASPy culturally. They’re lovely people. Soft-spoken, orderly and rule-following, public service-oriented, intellectually curious. But they also have this cultivated detachment from baser emotions that enable them to pursue abstract ideas to their logical conclusions without normal gut feelings and common sense getting in the way.

Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#39

Post by Arodex »

api wrote: post #34
Arodex wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you don't say stuff like “In my experience The Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable”. It is not "guilt by association" anymore, it is pure complicity.

I don't even know much about her. I'm just sick of lazy conspiracism, which has totally taken over the discourse now because people aren't getting enough experience in the real world and living their life behind screens. Reality is not a TV show or a social media conspiracy theory. I think she was probably an American liberal who worked with some people at the CIA who were nice at least to her and who also wrote abou…

This article says exactly the opposite: everything was completely coherent and known within the CIA. The information gathered on student leaders and members by the supposedly "liberal, nonviolent and honorable" side was never kept away from the "total assholes and monsters" who could sell them away to their dictator friends.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/a-friend-of-th...

Re: The Feminist Was a Spy

#40

Post by red-iron-pine »

neutronicus wrote: post #36
dgellow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feminism exists outside of the US

Sure. I thought briefly about using the phrase "American Feminism". But, regardless, to be more nuanced: Feminism gets rhetorically roped into the case for Western cultural hegemony, which in turn gets used as a justification for US military adventurism.

those goalposts have wheels, huh?
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