How many citizens have we lost to unreported government action? My
feeling is that it is far greater than 3,000 - but I have no idea. I
mean, would someone be surprised if a drug lord is gunned down in his
home? No. Would someone be upset if a powerful business leader
suddenly 'lost it'? No. Would someone be upset if members of a
powerful democratic family has a run of bad luck (skiing accidents,
airplane crashes, unfortunate auto accidents, assasinations of
successful candidates) following the assasination of one of their
members when they were President of the US? No. Would someone be
concerned about the death of artists who have a powerful influence on
society, but one that is not easily controlled or runs counter to the
mainstream body politic? No. If these patterns are not just the
ravings of a paranoid - if they do reflect the operation of a very deep
undercover agency in the US - then we are already through the looking
glass - and likely have been for a long time.

Probably since the Civil War. That long ago. Recall that the spy in
popular fiction changed radically after the downing of the U2 spy
plane. A literature created by 'former' spies! And during the 'family
jewels' it was interesting to see what sort of TV programs were
popular. Get Smart, which portrayed spies as buffoons, I Spy which
portrayed spies as supermen, Man from Uncle, Mission Impossible, and
Wild Wild West - each with its own message, each innervating the public
against certain aspects of government excess.

It seems quite reasonable to say that we do not want political
discourse in this country to tear it apart! This is what happend
during the Civil War. So, it shouldn't be surprising if there was some
sort of response to it. Lincoln is the first assasination of a
President in this period. Was it the operation of a new agency? Who
knows? Unlikely perhaps. But, its fun to think of other possible
events following the Civil War. Events that don't seem to have
parallels before the Civil War. The escape of Mormon Church founder
John Smith after his arrest in St. Louis is highly suspect as a
domestic intelligence operation. The bad press, and later bad luck of
Henry Ford after a meteoric rise to power after doubling of wages at
his factory and him talking of the obligations of business owners and a
possible run for the presidency, is another possible indicator. And
who can forget the murder of Huey Long after the success of his "every
man a king" campaign against FDR? Long was murdered much as Ceaser was
murdered, which predicted the mode of death of nearly every visionary
leader of the latter half of the 20th century.

If such agencies exist, and are operating, I suspect that during the
cold war there wre contingency plans to expand their role in the
political disourse of the nation in the event of a nuclear attack on
the US. This seems like a reasonable thing to do in that context. Of
course, once these plans are long-standing, they might get implemented
if the technology develops along the lines conducive to it, and with
far lesser provocation than a nuclear attack. This may be the period
in which we're living right now.

I would urge a far less stringent course of action to those who are
really writing history, than the dissolution of such agencies, which
are likely an important part of our strength as a nation in the modern
world. Namely, that they keep good records of what they're doing for
future generations to look at. Of course, they don't need my urging.
Longitudinal studies of populations are of paramount importance in
predicting things. So, I'm certain there are records aplenty.
Hopefully they apply technies to themselves as well, and become
familiar with the common mode failures of their systems before trying
them on the whole population. Certain indicators from the 'family
jewels' of the 70s show that this is very likely (trying out LSD on
controlled populations for example)

Finally, I wonder about the success of intelligence enhancing
technologies in the consumer electronics front - GPS enabled portable
telephones with color cameras built right in - and lack of success of
technologies that weaken the strength of a central governments - a
flying car. Of course there are mundane explanations for all these
seeming patterns of things. But that would be the mark of a well
wrought disinformation campaign. So, anyone thinking along these
lines, and who is outside and has no certain knowledge of things, have
nothing of substance to base any well reasoned argument upon. And, any
discussion of apparent patterns of abuse, the assasination of JFK for
example, is subsumed in the poularized version of events (looking at a
magic bullet rather than a continuing pattern of bad luck affecting the
only political family that would likely get to the bottom of the
assasination if they ever attained power - so they cannot - and in the
end, the idea of a Kennedy ever being President again will be a joke -
on the level of 'let George do it.' even centuries from today)