The Powers That Be (TPTB)

‎...my bias on The Powers That Be, up to and including the "State Religion," has been not entirely informed. There are people who know people who mandate and/or oversee beneficent operations that we think have nothing to do with The Powers That Be. TPTB do far more good work than anyone really can know because so much of it is necessarily obscured for the sake of national security. I get it. I really do. Well, humbly rather, I get *the pattern.* Much of it is done because the mind that peers through the veil is immediately a loose cannon, and, if all are loose cannons - without fallback mechanisms to recognize the good in it all - then society fails.  It's crazy, but, in my view, it's what it is.