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Comment by NickC25 | Hacker News Reader

> I wonder to what extent USAID really was a CIA front,

This needs to be shouted from the rooftops to the crazed Trumpers who think that USAID is a waste of money.

It's a jobs program for midwestern farmers to grow unprofitable legacy crops and then it morphs into an intelligence operation by giving those crops to the poorest of the poor as food donations in some resource rich but economically poor and geopolitically strategic areas, all while creating tremendous goodwill and ground-level intel.

And somehow, this combo deal that puts money in poor farmers' pockets AND creates tremendous political goodwill AND serves as a fountain of continuous strategic information in vital localities is seen as a bad thing by Trump fans.

I don't get it. It's probably one of the most economically beneficial operations the CIA has ever taken part of outside of trafficking cocaine.

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The counterargument is pretty simple - it was directly funding propaganda. One of the truly fascinating aspects of the USAID budget cuts was a lot of journalists suddenly looking for new funding including an astonishing 9/10 Ukrainian outlets who were drawing funding from foreign sources like USAID [0].

As a matter of principle it just isn't possible to run a democracy where the government, in its official capacity, is working to shape the narrative. I can't deny that is what has been happening for decades, but the result is a toxic soup of lies and would explain a lot about why the journalist community seems to have been slowly unmooring from reality - they're attached to the money printing pipe. People shouldn't be paying for political propaganda with their taxes; particularly not in the US where it is probably leaking into domestic politics. Those NGO networks USAID was pushing money towards appear to be hostile in the main to the Trump voter base and their political objectives.

[0] https://rsf.org/en/usa-trump-s-foreign-aid-freeze-throws-jou... - I note they put in an erratum, although given that the US is almost certainly trying to obscure where its propaganda funding there are still a lot of questions. Their source in imi.org.ua was quoting some eyebrow-raising numbers.

Quite. Only billionaires should own propaganda organizations. The toxic soup of lies should be fully private.

>As a matter of principle it just isn't possible to run a democracy where the government, in its official capacity, is working to shape the narrative.

You're not that naive...come on.

Of course it's possible to run a democracy when the government is working to shape the narrative. Every government regardless of their type tries to control narratives. That's sort of their whole thing....

100%, CIA has long controlled that narrative in this country though its subsidiaries. Just a few BIG examples:

1. USAID – Frequently used by the CIA for covert operations and as cover for agents abroad. (Washington Post [1])

2. Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) – CIA-founded and funded anti-communist intellectual network during the Cold War. [2]

3. Air America – CIA-owned airline used heavily during the Vietnam War and Laos operations. PBS [3]

4. Blockstream - CIA backed "non-profitable" company that controls the Bitcoin GitHub repository and guides development founded by useful idiots like Gregory Maxwell, "Blue Hair Matt," and a handful of other internet trolls with no real software credentials.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/usaid...

2. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1263191.The_Cultural_Col...

3. https://www.miamiherald.com/

Citation #1 is 404 - unable to find this article anywhere when googling.

Citation #2 is a link a good reads page for "The Lincoln Lawyer" - confused on how this is relevant to "air america"

Citation #3 is not a specific link to any particular article, just the miamiherald's home page.

And someone previously mentioned there is no citation for claim 4

Kind of feels like astroturfing or a bot of some sort. Mind clarifying any of this?

No reference for #4?

no references to most of it

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