• DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    To finish the quote on her CIA relationship, since context is important:

    In May 1975, Redstockings, a radical feminist group, published a report that Steinem and others put together on the Vienna Youth Festival and its attendees for the Independent Research Service.[112][113] Redstockings raised the question of whether Steinem had continuing ties with the CIA, which Steinem denied.[114] Steinem defended her relationship to the CIA, saying: “In my experience The Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable.”

    Honestly I figured the context would clear things up, but the rest of the quote makes her come off as an apologist for an organization known to play as dirty as the KGB, and especially during that era. However just because something is funded by an entity such as the CIA doesn’t always mean that the organization is part of, partner in, or even a willing partner with something like the CIA, same with the KGB or its descendants, espionage operates on leverage, and it all depends on what kind of hold you have over the “asset(s)”.

    • thesmokingman@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      I think the Medium article is bullshit. It doesn’t provide anything more than the Wikipedia for its sources and all Wikipedia says is what you quoted. Direct organization funding by the CIA does not mean an employee is a CIA agent. Lots of DARPA projects that we use for radical things were made by radicals that vehemently opposed everything but government grants (many others were either agents or supporter; Surveillance Valley is a great read).

      She’s totally a fucking stooge though. There’s no fucking way you say that about the CIA then (or in hindsight about then when she wrote her biography given all the other things that came out since then) without being a fucking stooge. I don’t think we can conclude anything more than that without more context, which I’ve yet to find.

      • delirious_owl@discuss.online
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        7 months ago

        You’re right that the coffee purchased by the CIA isn’t inherently evil just because it was bought with CIA dollars.

        I’d guess 99% of the dollars spent by the CIA were for bad things, however.