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[#205] METAPARAPOLITICS: AN INTERVENTION, Part 5: Parastates, Narcobanks, & The Final Frontier of Deep Politics
🕑 Added 2024-08-07 00:12:51 +0000 UTCDimitri and Khalid wrap up their Metaparapolitics intervention with a close reading of several essays from “Government of the Shadows”: Eric Wilson’s “Deconstructing the Shadows”, whether “Parapolitics” should be a distinct academic discipline, “shadow governance” and the continuation of ‘informal Empire’ by other means, parastates, sub-states, world systems theory, how “coolness” can be weaponized in sus ways, Peter Dale Scott’s “Drugs, Anti-communism and Extra-legal Repression in Mexico”, speculating about the most occulted levels of deep political activity, and more.
![[#205] METAPARAPOLITICS: AN INTERVENTION, Part 5: Parastates, Narcobanks, & The Final Frontier of Deep Politics](https://img5.runfaps.com/storage/2/ax/vx/e9630c-019e83b4-5c02-7099-a31e-93ed8fa8591a.jpg)
![[#205] METAPARAPOLITICS: AN INTERVENTION, Part 5: Parastates, Narcobanks, & The Final Frontier of Deep Politics](https://img10.runfaps.com/storage/6/nj/kc/e9630c-019e83b4-5c02-789a-9a4b-ed72b3fa5cb2.png)
![[#205] METAPARAPOLITICS: AN INTERVENTION, Part 5: Parastates, Narcobanks, & The Final Frontier of Deep Politics](https://img5.runfaps.com/storage/10/ba/iw/e9630c-019e83b4-5c05-7c0b-8eac-2c8832d5f3e4.png)
![[#205] METAPARAPOLITICS: AN INTERVENTION, Part 5: Parastates, Narcobanks, & The Final Frontier of Deep Politics](https://img5.runfaps.com/storage/12/ya/gf/e9630c-019e83b4-5c08-7c1f-b0fa-c09454db20f3.png)
Comments
Tristan Ryan
Decent Poli Sci practicioners take heed of the discipline's initial raison d'etre being a context gathering exercise for informed, "scientific" application of USA's immense post-WWII leverage. Then as now, the discipline's return on investment for university funders, state or oligarch, is in the utility of the conceptial tools produced for sounder, more productive management of empire. The winning team doing oppo research to keep their edge. As secrecy became more and more du jour year by year, the material facts upon which sound analysis depend become less knowable. Of increasingly limited utility, Poli Sci serves its patrons now through its credulity, it's willingness to tell a story based on the official record and to balk at people who insist that what is missing and cannot be known with certainty is pertinent and material. It's a framework to 'erm' away inconvenient information, and to apply via co-sign credibility to dubious accounts from interested state actors with proud histories of lying to their greatest advantage. Then scold the critical set as unprofessional malcontents not willing to extend the presumption of good faith, pardon them from polite circles. I think a lot of Poli Sci people are pot commited by the time they square themselves with that ugliness, it's the water they swim in, it's the trade they apprenticed in. People like Peter Dale Scott do what they can in the faculty and publishing environment they find themselves in, and have seen enough people of sound critical mind ostracized to the hinterlands that they lose their taste for pugilism. Quietly prolific in their fields, neck deep in the archive, keeping the faith that it all means something even and that pursuit of truth is a good onto itself. It's nice to see his stuff in renaissance while doctrinaire Poli Sci work feeds the moths.
Captain Ted
I would love if you guys did the "destabilising coolness" ep. Reminds me of "the rule of cool" which means you can ignore all other rules and do something if it's cool enough (i know the term from ttrpgs but it's used in movies etc as well)
