@"and then immediately contradict yourself to allow for reality" yeah, see reality refuses simplicity, the point that the most recent election broke the mold is interesting, but it doesn't change my thesis.
For decades.... blah... was happening, then in 2016 the failure of political parties to cater to the needs of the poor allowed Trump and Sanders to gain huge amounts of support where the parties traditionally would not have dared.
I would actually say this supports my position, at least in the fact that voters have felt unrepresented. My narrative that they haven't felt represented because they haven't been, and that is what the powerful want is kinda self-evident.
Ok, so taking what we (mostly) agree on (re:cointelpro), isn't it possible given the abuses of the FBI that they also arranged the assassination of MLK jnr? You gave a good summary of the case, more detailed than i was aware of. But you seem to assume his confession was true.
The trial didn't go to a jury, so his confession would have been more or less enough to convict (assuming there was no reasonable doubt brought up). And he confessed to avoid execution.
It is also possible that he did kill MLK but was influenced to do so by the FBI, because they wanted MLK dead.
Regardless of what actually happened in that specific killing. You can see how activists in the anti-war movement would have seen the FBI's abuses as symptoms of a oppressive society. They were engaged in their democratic right to protest (even against the vietnam war) and the FBI were abusing their power to disorganise their protests.
When you're toting the 'land of the free' it is definitely worth noting that many people were not free to take a political position and engage in the process to change their country for the better - or more properly, they were free to, but it got you onto an FBI list.
Now in a 'post 9/11' world, the kinds of powers which the FBI had in the 60s/70s has returned. No longer justified by 'the red scare' it is now the 'war on terror' (which as it turns out is a much better foe, because you can never kill terror, it will never come to an end, unlike the USSR).
I'll get back to Illuminati-like conspiracy theories in a bit. Because i think i haven't conveyed my meaning very well. But for now a comparison with the USSR seems apt.
Is the US an authoritarian country like the USSR? No, there are certainly far more freedoms, and given a choice i'd probably choose to risk starving in the US over risking being sent to a gulag in the USSR. But it is clear that those freedoms have limits.
The US has (in the past and present, according to Snowden) limited these 'democratic freedoms' to those who were sufficiently patriotic. And here's the SCARY bit, they get to decide what 'being patriotic' means; eg: having Japanese parents was enough in world war 2 to be sent to a camp. Being against the Vietnam war was unpatriotic... etc.
So yeah, freedom to be a patriot is some kind of freedom... in fact, i believe i posted links above to the people's history, where it is proposed that creating this 'idea of patriotism' of national identity with the US was a massively successful one, which managed to unite multiple groups with conflicting interests, by telling them that the idea - this proxy - was their own best interest. Being 'in favour of America' can mean everyone agrees, even if what they think America stands for differs from person to person.
So yeah, celebrate the 4th, but realise it was a lie, invented to unify many people who had different interests under one banner. The revolution never would have succeeded if not for the French (who had their own interests which happened to include weakening the British). And the very idea of freedom has been repeatedly betrayed by 'national interest' - which is usually determined by the most powerful groups.