In an article titled “The Deep State Is the State” posted on counterpunch.org 5-26-17, Ron Jacobs says, “The deep state isn’t some enigmatic entity operating outside the US government. It’s the US state itself. Like all elements of that state, the so-called deep state exists to enforce the economic supremacy of US capitalism. It does so primarily via the secret domestic and international police forces like the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies. The operations of these agencies run the gamut from surveillance to propaganda to covert and overt military actions…Some of its better known manifestations include the failed attempt in 1961 to invade revolutionary Cuba (the Bay of Pigs), the use of psychoactive drugs on unsuspecting individuals as part of a mind control study during the ‘50s, ‘60s, and 70s, and numerous attempts to subvert governments considered anti-American. Among the latter actions one can include covert operations against Vietnamese independence forces and the murder of the Congolese president Patrice Lumumba in 1961. The ‘60s also saw the intensification of spying on and disrupting various groups involved in civil rights and antiwar organizing,” including the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, sleeping in his own home, on December 4, 1969.

“The entire government has been owned by big business and the banking industry for more than a century, if not since its inception. That ownership has been dominated by the military-industrial complex” since World War II. The deep state’s role in the current uproar over Russia and Michael Flynn isn’t an attempt to take over the government. It’s an attempt to regain control, since its current leadership represents the factions of the US establishment that were removed from power in November 2016.

Donald Trump isn’t against the deep state. He’s against it being used against himself and his cohorts. In the world of capitalist power, the factions Trump represents are not the same factions represented by the presidents former FBI director Comey served – Bush and Obama…Whoever controls the deep state controls the US. The struggle we’re witnessing between the FBI and the Trump White House is part of a power struggle between US power elites.

When the ruling class is in crisis, as it is now, the job of the left isn’t to choose one side or the other or to accept their narratives. It’s to go to the root of the crisis and organize resistance to the ruling class itself.”