Comment by FormerBandmate
3 years ago
It’s how the dictators that spread that lie work. The CIA has definitely been responsible for coups and shit and they’re probably doing stuff in Russia and Ukraine that we won’t find out about for years, but they aren’t an evil shadowy cabal that controls everything
"look, these people are definitely responsible for coups, bringing down democratically elected governments, installing puppets, lying to the public, starting wars based on false premises, bombing thousands of innocent people. And yes, they might have flooded the streets with drugs and killed a few thousand more, but they aren’t an evil shadowy cabal that controls everything"
Being good at inciting chaos isn't the same thing as having control. The CIA has a demonstrable history of being good at the first, but much less so the second.
The most pop-culture conspiracy theories vastly overestimate the precision of the organization: they're more like painters than programmers. It's a whole lot of improv.
I think it's fair to say that if you can stage coups and install puppet governments then you have a fair amount of control.