The primary threat to "liberal democracy" is CIA, DHS, MI5, and MI6. It is not SVR or MSS. This has been true since the Cold War. Who did more harm to "liberal democracy", J. Edgar Hoover (who tried to extort MLK into suicide), or KGB?
At least with information in the open, people can attempt to grok the full picture for themselves.
Wikileaks can't guarantee that.
How many of them were killed/disappeared? If you can't cite a number in the hundreds (or even one case), your comparison is false.
No contest but I think GP point was not about the absolute quality of democracy right now but rather about which power did more to destroy democracy in the recent years.
Are you really saying that the FBI has and continues to celebrate a criminal [1] and their own criminal behaviour as most exemplary? For nearly half a century now? And no bi-partisan political rebuke? And are not treated with total contempt by every adult in the USA and every court in the world?
How is that remotely possible? Surely this is a conspiracy theory?
Many Americans do hate him. But it's important to note that Hoover's criminality did not extend to the average White American: his efforts focused on Black Americans, gays, and anybody sufficiently "radical" by the standards of cold war America.
Ronald Reagan also has buildings named after him, mind you.
And this doesn't come up in every single news article about the FBI? This doesn't come up to discredit every single piece of FBI evidence in court?
I would believe that kind of thing about the Soviet Union. Or some other dictatorship. And this is happening, right now, in the USA, largely ignored by media, by politicians, by courts, with massive BLM protests, you say?
>Many Americans do hate him.
Many Americans believe the world is flat. Tragically what "Many Americans" believe means nothing about credibility.
No. What I said was that Hoover was a criminal, and that his reign at the FBI was marked by illegality. Whether or not the present FBI is a criminal organization is a separate claim that I'm not going to make right now.
> And this doesn't come up in every single news article about the FBI? This doesn't come up to discredit every single piece of FBI evidence in court?
It's an established fact about the FBI, the same way that the Tuskegee Experiment is an established fact about the CDC. Both agencies (claim to) have reformed, so there's nothing to "bring up" in court.
The fact that you don't personally know about it doesn't mean it's ignored. It's taught in US high schools as a critical part of America's cold war hysteria as well as the federal government's reaction to the civil rights movement.
> Tragically what "Many Americans" believe means nothing about credibility.
You asked specifically whether Americans hold Hoover in contempt, not for the factual content of their beliefs. I think that they're right to hate him, but the base factuality of their beliefs doesn't change the fact that his public image is negative.
Lets be serious here, the FBI continues to be a criminal organization like many other three letters: due to a top down compromise system... but why do I even bother with someone who has already slyly tried to dismiss the topic as surely a conspiracy theory (the implication being all conspiracy theories are false and/or batshit crazy). If your bias and immovable opinion weren't so obvious I might tell you more about things like the mafias (including Trumps mentor, Roy Cohn) part in the Hoover compromise, and other things.
edit: I got wooshed... https://youtu.be/QKVS8TMork4?t=23
The parent is clearly lampooning this perspective, not advancing it unironically. But I can kind of understand mistaking it for the real thing, the insistence on denying the possibility of conspiracies has reached some pretty serious Poe's Law proportions.
The incredulity is 100% genuine. Just seeing how everyone reacts looking at and seeing how absolutely fucking insane it is to have the FBI and their powers in a building named "J Edgar Hoover"
Someone said the fbi reformed since those days of criminality. Why would anyone believe that while they continue to celebrate J Edgar Hoover. While they go to work to protect the rule of law to a building named J. Edgar Hoover. Why would any judge take the word of any FBI agent when they've covered up criminal behaviour, and performed it and lied about it instead of arresting J. Edgar Hoover the first second they became aware of what he was?
They said they weren't criminals when Hoover was in charge. They lied. They continue to exult Hoover while claiming they aren't criminals anymore. Who actually isn't feeling sick at the idea of believing that? Hoover is the biggest FBI hero. A vicious criminal thug running the FBI as a criminal conspiracy is the FBI's biggest hero. Says so right there on their HQ.
It's something that's impossible to get your head around. 30 years ago. No sign of it changing?
The FBI flagrantly advertise their lack of respect for the rule of law. That's on all of us.
It is who and what the FBI are! Take them at their word when they tell us this! It's so much worse than any symbol. They are out there doing their J Edgar Hoover thing with the force of law behind them! And rubbing our noses in it.
Harry S Truman wrote during his presidency: "We want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail
He was a villain by any reasonable accounting whose exploits are at this point well known and his moral deviance, bigotry, hatefulness, contempt not so much merely for the letter of the law as for its spirit and purpose. A contempt for justice as it might be understood by anyone other than a straight, white, conservative, republican, man that ultimately overshadows his accomplishments.
I get this is supposed to be a debate, but the FBI never rolled tanks into Poland or Czechoslovakia. The FBI never annexed the peninsula of a foreign country, then set up fraud elections to make it look organic.
Most importantly, the US largely ended it's support of anti-democratic forces post-cold war. The KGB has no such intention.
Except in Venezuela, Bolivia, the Middle East...
Specifically voiced support for the pro-democratic opposition leader that arguably won the election.
> the Middle East
Supported democratic reforms in Egypt against a long time pro-US dictator in Mubarak. Supported Syria's right to self-determination to the point of fighting with FSA for years.
> Bolivia
Bolivia is an interesting case, the opposition claimed fraud but i've seen no evidence of it. A black eye for sure to come down against the results of their election without proof.