Malooga asks everyone to read this (also here as the Feb 2 entry titled A Brief History of the New World Order).
Long and conspirish, but an interesting take of history since 1900.
Back to Main
February 4, 2009
The New World Order
Comments
All well in good in hindsight, but understanding the past can give good indications of where we are going:
Is there any limit to the amount of money the UK government will spend to bail out financial institutions? To date, no bank has published accounts showing UK-specific assets, liabilities, losses or toxic debts. If regulators know, they have not informed the public. Therefore, it is hard to know what the UK taxpayer is bailing out. Seemingly, we are writing a blank cheque without knowing the full story.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Feb 4 2009 7:25 utc | 1
Thanks, Malooga, although I don’t subscribe to such historically lengthy conspiracy theories, the last 10-odd chapters, dealing with the U.S.-China-Russia power struggle, were absolutely spot-on.
Clarification about my ‘non-conspiracy’ comment: I don’t believe McCain was selected by some ‘hidden elite’ to guarantee Obama’s victory: In fact, McCain might even have won if the economy hadn’t tanked in 1930s fashion during the crucial 2 months prior to the election. Also, Sarah Palin wasn’t ‘selected’ to guarantee Obama’s defeat. She was in fact chosen in a coldly calculated, desperate attempt to salvage McCain’s candidacy and, but for major media gaffes, it might have worked. If the so-called liberal media strongly supported Obama’s candidacy maybe it was because they, like the entire country, were fed up with 8 years of Neocon politics and Wall Street excesses.
As Freud used to say: “Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar”.
Posted by: Parviz | Feb 4 2009 7:39 utc | 2
B-per your and Malooga’s request, I read the link you provided.
I’m WITH the authors precepts and points all the way up to the end of Bush Admin (THAT’S when I expected a nuke WW3 and I’m happy it didn’t happen).
I believe in an elite banking entity and consortium, that they manipulated countries since and before 1900/WW1, and that they seek a New World Order.
I’m not sure about Obama’s place in the scheme of things, or the election that put him into the Prez spot.
I’m not sure that having a nuke WW3 is really a goal to GET to the New World Order. Seems to me it can be done financially, without the nukes.
And I’m not sure yet if Obama is the willing banking agent as described.
But time will tell, it always does.
The fact that a person of ‘change’, a BLACK person, is now President, and has NOT been eliminated speaks loudly for either pure luck, or his power and control of his fate, or of culpability with some unknown force that’s guiding his every moment (banking elite).
We’ll see. A chilling end to a really well versed theory of our history and how we GOT here. Not much tin foil needed, I don’t think.
Time will tell. Thanks to B an Malooga for the reads.
Posted by: larue | Feb 4 2009 8:42 utc | 3
Missed the new thread by seconds, so I fetch one of the double posts over here (stupid typepad).
Interesting theory Malooga, slothrop would probably see it as conformation of his ideas. I see lots of assumptions and gloss over of international events in support of the general thesis. The most interesting (relevant) conclusions of which:
The answer is that neither Russia nor China have submitted themselves to the elite’s central bank formula. They have central banks of course, but the government controls them, and uses them to achieve national objectives. In the elite’s central bank model, the central banks must be for-profit institutions, privately owned by elements of the international banking elite – not subservient instruments of national policy. In the global struggle between nationalist interests and elite banking interests, Russia and China are the last major holdouts for national sovereignty. They stand in the way of the New World Order.
Which unfortunately for slothrop, is contradicted in the following paragraph, by asserting that the empire is indeed American-centric.
This is why it has been essential for America, even while being brought to its knees economically and in most other industrial sectors, to maintain military superiority, particularly in the realm of nuclear weapons and space-based command-and-control systems. An attempt was made to subvert Russia by non-military means, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but thanks to Putin that effort finally failed. China jumped into the capitalist game, in terms of trade and exports, but it has maintained strict control over its domestic economy and it has been rapidly upgrading its military, employing the cost-effective doctrine of asymmetric warfare.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 4 2009 8:49 utc | 4
Interesting reading – thanks for the post and links.
Elaine has been making essentially the same argument re bankers, WWI, debt, hegemony, WWII, empire, and with pictures to boot.
E.g., re neither Russia nor China have submitted themselves to the elite’s central bank formula
she says today:
Chinese people bought more cars this year than Americans. This is the New World Order. Meanwhile, China ordered all the airlines in China to cut back on purchases of US and EU airplanes. And China is forcing more and more airline construction to be moved to China. As I predicted a number of years ago. Both the EU and US hoped to use high-tech aviation products to balance the trade with China. But not only has this failed, the Chinese rapidly moved towards usurping high-end technology trade items. This was their plan from day one, incidentally.
…
Now, the Japanese are closing UK factories and laying off workers in the US. The US still relies on Boeing for big trade deals and ditto, Europe with the Airbus business. Wen flew from Davos to London to yank out a huge hunk of airline manufacturing. And he is taking it home to China, for good. These things will not come back.
…
And GE is buying Chinese jets. See how easy and inevitable this is? Now, GE plans to use this Chinese jet in China. China is OK with that. They want to have an internal economy and not end up like Japan, dying day by day due to starving off all local systems. No, China wants a robust economy! Note the last sentence here: ’compete directly with Boeing and Airbus by 2020.’ Now, that is 11 years from now. The 50 Year Plan will be done by 2030. I see a pattern here. But no one believes me.
…
She ends, as usual, calling for reindustrialization of the US, but, as Richard Moore points out in Malooga’s linked article:
Under the hocus-pocus doctrine of free trade, a situation has been
created where, to the maximum extent possible, all goods and services
are generated in the lowest-waged parts of the world, and then sold on
the global market to the highest bidders.
I don’t see how reindustrialization can (be allowed to) happen in the U.S., unless widespread catastrophe forces a renewal of local production, under very adverse conditions, and unlikely to grow beyond local boundaries.
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 4 2009 11:02 utc | 5
I have seen this theory numerous times and in numerous formats over the years. Such pieces can be found most readily by substituting jewish bankers for banking elite, a wording skirted around most carefully by this writer.
Such a long-term conspiracy running through several generations does appear to be intrinsically unlikely. However, more short-term opportunism seems all too likely and, for example, several economic sites have posted the hypothesis – much as that propounded in the article – that certain bankers have purposely exacerbated the current economic crisis to prey upon weaker brethren when prices collapse. And of course the whole of Congress is entirely bought and paid for by these same bankers. So who knows.
Posted by: Fred | Feb 4 2009 11:11 utc | 6
I have argued for many years (in the face of that old putdown, ‘conspiracy nut’) that conspiracies are real, extant and identifiable. The chaos being wreaked on Iraq (with the world told “you’re with us or against us”) is almost identical to the devastation unleashed on Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (we won’t tolerate Communism anywhere”). And then the genocide in Indonesia (ditto) in the ’60’s and in Timor in the 70’s, and all aided and abetted, overtly and covertly, by the US government through the CIA. And there have been many, many ‘minor’ skirmishes during all of that time.
The desensitivation (to guns, death, war and corruption) experienced by America over the last 50 years is not shared by the rest of the world which is made to cower in horror at the moral and physical stench emanating from these actions.
Nevertheless, I have always believed that the majority of Americans would not prefer that these actions take place, and that these events do occur emanates from a large and very powerful cabal. The bush family evil empire is one thread in this rich but perverted tapestry.
The media is the grease for that apparatus. (In a filmed interview, when John Pilger asked Doug Feith a question that Doug should have known the answer to but didn’t and argued the opposite directly against established fact it was man in uniform who terminated the interview).
I do not believe that president Obama is part of this group of war mongering/profiteering, power-hungry buffoons nor do I think he is beholden to “some unknown force that’s guiding his every moment (banking elite).”
I believe president Obama is the last gasp of American democracy. His existence is a tribute the good side of human nature which has invariably been trampled by unthinking brutes throughout the ages.
The stakes are very, very high for all humanity at this time. The attempt to reduce America to 2nd or 3rd world penury is ongoing and ruthless and there is only one main representative of the common people, who is assailed on all sides by the felonious nature of some of mankind.
Tantalus has told me [para.] ‘I’m not ready to trust him just yet.’ Don’t leave it too late.
Posted by: waldo | Feb 4 2009 11:13 utc | 7
Conspiracy theories of NWO over the last century works well if you have good knowledge of 19/20th history, and very few knowledge of past histories. If you had, you’d see that some outcomes were obvious from the beginning, that many powers are acting, most of the time concurrently or at least at the same time without forming a massive global conspiracy, and at the end of the day, they all fail and fall. Like Rome, like Byzantium, like Venice, like the Mongols, like even the once mighty British Empire.
I’m more with Fred, in that WWI and WWII at least showed a lot of opportunism from many – and I tend to see more of a US nationalist and imperialist scheme than a banking one in letting Europe commit suicide twice, then picking the spoils.
That said, some elites at times, and even more in the last decades, might have the illusion they master the world, they secretly plot and their plots actually work. But at the end of the day, I’m more on Tolstoy’s side, in that their plans will eventually go wrong, like Napoleon’s did for instance.
In fact, there very well might be some unspoken and unwritten plan, or rather some unspoken gentlemen’s agreement, between powers here and there, trying to achieve a greater global control. Yet contrary to what the author wrote, I don’t think they’ll have the faintest chance to succeed. Their goals are ridiculous, they don’t have any big picture in mind except “rule and loot the planet for our profit”, they don’t have the best track record in history – no, boom and bust, depressions and recessions aren’t engineered, they happen because the whole capitalist system sucks big time, even if some at the right place at the right time can reap huge profits from them, and can even worsen them for their own good -, and as I just said, they were merely greedy opportunists during the late 19th and early 20th.
I don’t know if they plan to nuke Russia and China, but anyone with a barely functional brain knows this means end-game; as in “there won’t be a world worth ruling once it’s over”. If it’s really in some guys’ plans, then they will fuck up their plans in a major way.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Feb 4 2009 12:27 utc | 8
b, malooga, the rest of the patrons-
After reading the comments… I think regarding this subject it’s safe to say there are as many theories, as there are people on the planet.
Power attracts certain types of people, both followers and leaders. And these people usually are of similar personality types, and many also have similar backgrounds including education, religion and social status. It seems to reason that a type of group-think would percolate from with-in the group that colors their world view.
To say there is no conspiracy is ignorant; to believe there is an UBER-MIND, that controls its minions like on a Saturday morning cartoon, is childish.
Power seeks power, like seeks like, and so it becomes easy to understand how a multi-tiered social structure develops; the people running things begin to think they are different then the rest of the population because of the extra work they do to keep the show running. Graft, and the justification for it, come easy. These people are the foot soldiers in the battle making sure each of us gets fully reamed, rim to brim, before our deaths.
The problem that needs to be addressed is there are supermen living amongst us; powerful being that do not know death and have millions of tentacles reaching every corner of the earth. These beings don’t bow to a flag, nation or even a god. Of course I mean the corporations.
Corporations are the head and heart of the beast sucking blood from earth’s humans. These vampires live to suck, suck, suck from you, your children and their children’s children until the end of time (or until they get bought by a bigger sucker who sucks even more.)
You want to end the horrors on earth? Drive a wooden-stake through the heart of the world’s corporations and the blood will green the earth – big business’s last breath would be humanities first in a long time.
There will be greed, graft and malfeasance as long as humans exist. Individually we can cause grief, an inspirational leader can, well, inspire even more grief. In both these examples there is a finite time the idiot can cause the rest problems.
Incorporate the idiot and with luck, he will be causing problems fifty, one hundred, or more years, long after he’s dead.
Posted by: David | Feb 4 2009 16:08 utc | 10
The piece is worth blasting through to prove itself another contribution to the kinds of lunatic deductions repeated by some of our moa comrades here.
Conspiracy theories are products of simplistic argumentation: they personalize the operations of complex systems in order to assign responsibility for systemic crisis.
So, in this article, FDR’s malfeasance is a strategic action to enrich Wall street bankers, etc. Rather than understand how capitalism, as a system of the accumulation of capital, produces crisis as a necessary function of such accumulation, the conspiracy theorist here creates agencies in the guise of nefarious world-historic figures (jew bankers!) who design and impose the system in order to create NWO.
The all-purpose moa “USuk” thesis of “empire” does the same thing. “Amerika” (read: american foreign policy) is the agent imposing the coercion of capitalist NWO. In the “empire” thesis, there is no system of uneven economic domination called “capitalism.”
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 4 2009 16:40 utc | 11
The whole “empire” thesis is pure conspiracy theory.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 4 2009 16:43 utc | 12
slothrop – i’m reading a very good book right now on exactly how the u.s. created & implemented an ‘american century’ predicated exactly on uneven development. have you perchance heard of or read it?
American Empire: Roosevelt’s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization
reviewed by christian parenti here
Posted by: b real | Feb 4 2009 17:21 utc | 13
In my flu state I only skimmed to today, Oh! Bama.
No doubt the financial kings and wizards plays a role behind the curtain, onstage as well, see Obama, but on the whole I am not fond of accounts that emphasize this element. One can write similar polarized histories taking as key: energy (technology, agriculture), war/colonialism, changing ideologies, military and other interest groups, etc.
The specter of One-World-Gvmt. seems to be contradicted by the description of struggle between China/Russia/US.
While finance, as we all must admit today, can take on a life of its own, become decoupled as they say, it remains an accounting method that refers to other, material things, and the intelligent understand that, and act in consequence, long term. Not in the interests of ‘the people’, that goes without saying, but as canny calculation. The fraudsters who for the past 10 or more years used ‘finance’ merely to fill their own pockets – 20 something experts, etc. who fell into a temporary window of opportunity actually are a symptom of the Bankers stupidity.
I found the section on Obama fine, as I have said he is a creature of Wall St. from day one…this reflects most strongly not specifically on him as a person (as pointed out in the post) but speaks to the power structure at present operant in the US. Financial control, military might, those are the two prongs.
As a progressive, BO had to downplay the military aspect, while of course continuing US foreign policy with a new flavor, new twists, new enemies (Iraq is about ‘done’) but for finance aspect he was given carte blanche in a way, which is what his backers expected and counted on, or demanded.
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 4 2009 17:23 utc | 14
Obviously wealth and power breeds conspiracy. Advertising is a conspiracy. Taste enhancers in food are a conspiracy. Corporate lobbying is a vast conspiracy.
There are those of us, I suppose, who need to see history not as an infinite tapestry of human decisions and actions but as a very simple linear narrative. History is water flowing in a ditch, and it changes direction only when some hidden meta-group – Templars, Freemasons, bankers – open some diabolical sluice. Of course bankers have played a vital role in getting us to where we are today – that was inevitable when greed for territory and prestige was replaced by greed for money. But if that’s a conspiracy it’s one we’re all part of, every time we fill our car with gas or buy a ball point pen. We’ve become slaves to greed, but it’s our own greed that enslaves us.
Shadowy puppet-masters fulfil exactly the same role as gods. They give us the excuse to surrender our free will. Besides, we all know who the evil bankers are: we see them every night on the telly, wondering how on earth they managed to nick all our money and spend it on themselves. The only mystery is the same as it has always been: why WE let them get away with it.
Posted by: Tantalus | Feb 4 2009 17:28 utc | 15
The problem with melding the past with the present (to create a pattern of links) and then convinced it is the future makes one to go stark raving mad.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Feb 4 2009 19:56 utc | 17
Using the US as the military bastion of such an empire is illogical if you have any other options at all. The logistical hurdles of fighting protracted wars anywhere in the Eastern Hemisphere (where the labor and materials are) are such that the US’ only hope of such power projection was waiting until the locals get tired, or Ike’s “new look”, which was simply to threaten nuclear annihilation. That is not very credible when the other guy has nukes too. So you wind up having to build systems that convince everyone that you think that you can launch a successful first strike – this is “strategic deterrence”. This can enforce a sort of stasis, but is no way to advance a cause militarily. Furthermore this whole approach approach of “set the US up to dominate the world militarily” rests on the idea that “they” knew nukes would exist and be deliverable with sufficient accuracy to attempt “strategic deterrence.” That is not sensible –
What would have made more sense if such a global united banking elite existed was to invest in Germany around 1900, and colonize Russia and the Middle East economically through that, through robust rail and road systems. That was apparently Hitler’s (backers’) idea later. I have no clue what the Kaiser thought was going to happen.
That said, yes, bankers evidently get whatever they want in the US.
Posted by: boxcar mike | Feb 4 2009 20:18 utc | 18
slothrop,
I don’t see why you seem to exclude the possibility of American Empire. Surely there are nationalist elites that wish to extend hegemony to every corner of the globe and I see no logic to why capitalistic accumulation by financial elites couldn’t exist side by side with imperialistic tendencies.
Are they mutually exclusive? I think not. I think they go hand in hand.
I speculate that for some jingoistic reason you won’t allow yourself to acknowledge that level of critique of your country of birth. I only speculate hoping you will enlighten me. It seems to me an anomaly in you rational arguments. I chose the US as my country in the 1970’s when I still believed in the myth of the “freest and most democratic” society in the world. It’s taken me a long time to see through that lie and it was hard for me to admit my reason for my citizenship choice had been in error.
If our purpose is to understand better so we may act more righteously then wouldn’t a more full overview be in order even when it slaughters our most sacred cows?
As for the article it seems to me to purport more consciousness to the overriding conspiracy than has really existed. RA Wilson convinced me that conspiracies within conspiracies eventually despoil original conspiratorial intents.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 4 2009 20:34 utc | 19
I think I prefer an episode of James Burke’s Connections series to the cited piece. Conspiracy Cliff Notes? What purpose does it serve? We’ve all read the originals. Power uses its advantages and only cedes power when it is forced to. Unintended consequences or blowbacks are dealt with in their turn with the tools of bribery, coercion, temporary alliances and, if need be, military force.
A conspiracy is just a meeting you weren’t invited to. Now, get back to work.
Posted by: biklett | Feb 4 2009 20:35 utc | 20
as i’ve sd here from the beginning – i believe conspiracies are casual – & in essence we do the elites an honour to think they can think so far ahead. the current crisis we are in that they do noit even have the competence to view one year from another
i do not want to enter into a hell & back conversation, i think slothrops offers valuable perspectives – but finally i must make it as clear as i possibly can – i repudiate with ferocity his post modern sense of capitalism. i find it infantile & ahistoric & i see no sense within it. i will not argue banalities with a butcher
the crimes of the nazi period which can best be described as an imperialist battle that ceame a race war that was systematised into the mass production of death – was particularly german. the crimes were of german conception. yes they had existed before but the german state & its people synthesised it
so too u s imperialism has crimes which are specific to that project & this is expecially true now that it is collapsing – to hide behind the weak concept of international capital is too much for me to even listen to
u s imperialism needs to be defeated on all fronts militarily, economically & politically & then we’ll argue
sometimes slothrop”s sense is so lacking – it is not marx he ought to read but moby dick or huckleberry finn
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 4 2009 20:49 utc | 21
as i’ve sd here from the beginning – i believe conspiracies are casual – & in essence we do the elites an honour to think they can think so far ahead. the current crisis we are in that they do noit even have the competence to view one year from another
i do not want to enter into a hell & back conversation, i think slothrops offers valuable perspectives – but finally i must make it as clear as i possibly can – i repudiate with ferocity his post modern sense of capitalism. i find it infantile & ahistoric & i see no sense within it. i will not argue banalities with a butcher
the crimes of the nazi period which can best be described as an imperialist battle that ceame a race war that was systematised into the mass production of death – was particularly german. the crimes were of german conception. yes they had existed before but the german state & its people synthesised it
so too u s imperialism has crimes which are specific to that project & this is expecially true now that it is collapsing – to hide behind the weak concept of international capital is too much for me to even listen to
u s imperialism needs to be defeated on all fronts militarily, economically & politically & then we’ll argue
sometimes slothrop”s sense is so lacking – it is not marx he ought to read but moby dick or huckleberry finn
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 4 2009 20:49 utc | 22
Juannie
I want to preserve a critique of a system of domination whose success (qua system!) requires these repeated crises. The system doesn’t need FDR to appear on the world stage at the right time to set in motion circumstances assuring the survival of the system. These crises are an inevitable result of the contradictions inherent in the operation of capitalism.
The impulse to assign agency is at the heart of this “empire” euro bullshit. It’s totally a bourgeois move. Bourgeois intellectuals always reduce system to the exploits of great men. No better example of this move is the creation of marginal utility theory of value in economics. People just act in their own efficient self interest. Hooray!
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 4 2009 20:57 utc | 23
I see a lot of denial in some of these responses.
“Oh please Mama, make it all OK and I promise to pay my taxes.”
My latest theory is that one’s personal comfort zone prevents one from recognising the ugly truth. Multiply that by a hundred million or so and it really is a powerful barrier to truth recognition.
Posted by: rapt | Feb 4 2009 21:04 utc | 24
Also, it is to Schumpeter’s credit that he took Marx seriously enough to emphasize that the business cycle ends in the creative destruction of enterprise, and then the system is replenished with a new gaggle of heroic entrepreneurs. The system is all plug & play. It doesn’t discriminate between american or euro or chinese bourgeois. Crisis forever.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 4 2009 21:04 utc | 25
there are lines within the argument about elites – that on one side – in a manner quite similar to john cleese’s ‘don’t say anything about the war’ – who never ever want to analyse the crimes of empire – in fact for them they don’t exist & at the same time there is the inference that the elites are refined in their ways of the world & are extremely adaptable
they are not. they are neither refined nor adaptable. in fact they intensify their crimes. these elites are not refrined. we have often spoken of them here as a crime family & that is what they are. gangsters. they do not possess a fiendish intelligence nor is their system unbreakable
in fact what we are lucky to be witnessing today is the breaking down of that system & it’s going to get considerably worse & quickly – in a month we will see qualitative fissures that will be unparallelled in history
& the elites behave very like a crime family – trying to gain short term advantage – their long term project of a war against china is laughable today – if china farts today u s imperialism shits its pants
that is a small blessing that for all the terror brought to this world by u s imperialism – the chinese are capable of giving the creeps in washington the chills & the shakes just by a gesture & here too the russians are not without the capacity to jab u s imperialism in the ribs
when you have humiliated peoples for so long – it is not unnatural that these very same people take some pleasure in the empire’s pain
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 4 2009 22:46 utc | 27
I never read klein.
It appears that l summers doctrine (lsd) is to rescue his banking buddies. At least with lsd you swap permanent recession for global creative destruction and intercapitalist bloodletting (rather than be creatively destroyed, the hapsburgs decided to start WWI).
There are no solutions to crisis, except socialism.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 4 2009 22:55 utc | 28
@ 28
There are no solutions to crisis, except socialism.
on something at long last that we can finally agree to agree
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 4 2009 23:06 utc | 29
Let me say at this point that previous posts of mine which b put up were obviously written by me, and as such, I could generally stand behind them more or less fully for at least several days. But this is not something I wrote; this is something I found compelling, intriguing, disturbing… something I wanted to explore more, but didn’t quite trust how I felt about it.
And I must confess, it is quite a luxury to be able to post something like this and have all of my friends at this bar help me work out what I feel, see what I didn’t see. If only you could all be there through all of my…. No that’s too much like “Being John Malkovitch” for my tastes.
Well, a bunch of threads are sorting themselves out. I will attempt to put them together this evening into a coherent structure.
Posted by: Malooga | Feb 4 2009 23:11 utc | 30
state ownership of industry and capital. not workable. there will always be gangster/psychopathic individually who will rise to the levels of gov’t where their control will fuck somebody else. real free market, i.e. i trade you my chicken for your poppy, is an answer and if we agree on gold as an intermediary then ok, as long as the controllers of force don’t use that force in their avaricedic ends. unlikely eh!
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 4 2009 23:19 utc | 31
slothrop # 23
But the elites keep capitalism in place. It could be changed and was under FDR to limit it’s overriding legal supremacy. We can legislate capitalism out of existence in it’s evil actions and preserve it in it’s positive actions. The major obstruction is the US effectively imperialistic pronouncement that corporations are legitimately and legally persons protected under the biull of rights. What a piece of legislative barf and a pox on all those that legalized it and those that use it for the most despicable acts that the human psyche can imagine. All under the umbrella of corporate personhood. All legally dedicated to the maximization of shareholder/nonproductive/speculative profit above and exclusive of any other possible motive. The most efficacious facilitator for ruthless cut throat psychopathic avarice that a real human could imagine.
Sorry, I’m on a rant. Cathartic and we all occasionally do it so I guess I shouldn’t apologize.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 4 2009 23:26 utc | 32
There are no solutions to crisis, except socialism.
on something at long last that we can finally agree to agree
your comment to slothrop, still steel, was as heart warming as anything I have heard lately. You two were one of the strongest drawing cards for me at the very beginning. You comradeship was inspiring and assuring. But then… well we all know things kind of went south. What a fookin awful expression. My ancestors over there would have known better. Ha, idyllic thinking.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 5 2009 0:14 utc | 33
Well, I don’t see as mutually exclusive both the imperialist leanings of some in the US elite (and in part of the US population as well) and the pitfalls and sins of capitalism as such. As slothrop seems to say, capitalism is a bad thing as such, and many on this planet would be in a situation just as bad if another nation was the current capitalist hegemon. On the other hand, as Rgiap said, each capitalist power has its own perverse ways of corrupting the world. So, I think it’s quite possible to be against capitalism as a whole, and against current US imperialism, which currently is the most prominent expression of capitalist power – or even, it’s possible to fight both and to pay great attention to US power, because halting US power’s expansion now might cripple the capitalist system for a time before it manages to rearrange itself or to pick a new power as its new champion.
And to go back to the original article, I didn’t mean to imply it was pure bogus in my first early comment. Many points are interesting, many are valid. I just don’t really buy the whole picture – it’s not as if boom and bust, recessions and the like appeared in 1900, just as I don’t see a single coherent plan by the same people for the last 130 years, but rather different people of the same class, with their own fortunes and personal interests, acting quite similarly when opportunities occur.
And I don’t doubt that there are a few right now that fancy themselves as players, schemers, masters of the world, or hope to soon be kings thanks to some clever plan. I just don’t expect them to succeed as well as they hope – and many conspiracy theories say they will.
Still, in fact, I’m not sure that having goons trying to apply some global conspiracy and fail is a far better situation – with a clearly better outcome – than having masterminds that actually succeed at taking global power thanks to some efficient conspiracy. Given the current state of the world, a global conspiracy that fail at running the planet will be nearly as destructive for mankind and the Earth than a global conspiracy that actually works and succeeds.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Feb 5 2009 1:41 utc | 34
The past looks like curve fitting. Meaning since we know that the US gained from WWI, we can say that was somebody’s plan. If things had gone differently, as either the Germans or French had planned, we could have said that was the plan.
The future looks crazy. There is no elite anywhere that wants a nuclear war. At all. Elites take their children to Disney World. They stay in the nicest suites, but they don’t want to raise their children in bomb shelters.
After Russia got its weapons, nuclear arms everywhere became a game of bluff. Iran is right when it says that nuclear weapons aren’t helping Israel and don’t have any real use.
Colonialism against the global south seems to be less intense than it was 100 years ago, and 200 years ago there was active slavery imposed by the global north on the Global South. China, which is now fully high tech, was part of the global south 100 years ago. India also. Russia was part of the global south 200 years ago.
Posted by: Arnold Evans | Feb 5 2009 2:13 utc | 35
Vindication for my thesis–that unlimited accumulation produces crises globally, no decoupling–is supplied by the fact that the recession is indeed global, no matter how you windowdress the putatively national practices of capitalism.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 5 2009 2:24 utc | 36
It’s really important that the moribund “empire” thesis is debunked even normatively because no national practices of regulation can hope avert crisis this recession brings. Authors like John Gray and I forget the French polemicist who argues that if you just get rid of neoliberalism and america, everything will be hunky-dory, are daily proved to be wrong in their obstinate defenses of the “empire” thesis.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 5 2009 2:30 utc | 37
Watch Gomorrah, the italian film. It kicks ass. This is not ot.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 5 2009 4:16 utc | 38
Very interesting read, both the article and everyone’s comments. I waste far too much time and elevate my blood pressure far too much here at the Moon.
The events chronicled here are all pretty much historical fact. I’ve seen them described elsewhere through many different sources. Those responsible are probably beyond my ability to discern, although I immediately think of the usual suspects. History is written by those who eliminated any other voices, though. Thanks for a good read.
Posted by: Jim T. | Feb 5 2009 5:15 utc | 39
NORAD stood down for the 1st time in history, that and that alone is enough to conclude: INSIDE JOB …
I put my foil hat on and look around at how bad things just might get for the middle and lower classes, and I think that this is exactly the plan. Lower their quality of life enough to where they will gladly accept developing-world wages and 12-hour work days. Then we can move manufacturing back to the US. Profit!
But, you know, ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’… Coltrane taught me that.
With God On Our Side- 1963 Dylan
Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I’s taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I’s made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don’t count the dead
When God’s on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I’ve learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side.
In a many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 5 2009 9:15 utc | 40
Mineta testimony on Cheney stand down/shoot down censored
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 5 2009 9:17 utc | 41
@Tangerine just did my flu round for the year, I slept in the bathroom floor a few nights. It was a nice and cool temperature…lol geez.. hope you feel better.
meanwhile…
Fuck The People
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 5 2009 9:35 utc | 42
Dubbing down the asses…
higher ed
Evidence of the Tuition Bubble
Commentators have increasingly been wondering if the end might finally be in sight for the many years’ worth of steady and often not-so-slow increases in college tuitions. How much longer, the thinking goes, will American students and parents be able to afford — and/or put up with — rapidly rising prices and expenditures on higher education?
A Shift Back on Aid
Clinical, methodical, and damn systemic…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 5 2009 11:54 utc | 43
uncle i am better but still coughing and feverish a bit at nite i started to answer yr post about laws and maybe when i get it back together i can make s’thing of it those cold tiles, no way
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 5 2009 17:04 utc | 44
uncle i am better but still coughing and feverish a bit at nite i started to answer yr post about laws and maybe when i get it back together i can make s’thing of it those cold tiles, no way
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 5 2009 17:06 utc | 45
This site is getting worse than lbo-talk — if you miss it for a day you just can’t catch up!
I don’t see anything inconsistent between the concept of a general “capitalist” system, and the concept of a financial elite which eventually come to control it. Marx doesn’t limit capitalists to those who literally possess the means of production, or says the system only flourishes within a national economy.
The main issue posed by this article is whether there is a single identifiable group of financial elites, consciously pursuing a plan of global domination by “creative destruction”, or whether the pattern of events described here came about by chance, or predictably by laws, to which individual elites have adapted themselves opportunistically.
In a sense, it doesn’t matter which, as long as the reader becomes aware of the way the supposed conspiratorial group, or impersonal laws, are revealed in events and patterns we can see in our lives –e.g. the wealth grab of the bankers of the moment, the immiseration of the third world, the slide of the first world into the third, the persistance of wars, etc.
In other words, I dont care if my partner believes in a secret cabal of Rothschilds (of whom George Soros is one agent), as long as she understands that they’re merely the tip of a system that has to be changed.
As for WW I and II, there’s plenty of evidence that the main factors leading up to them were financial (see Paul Henn’s excellent treatment of pre WW II “The Low Dishonest Decade”). And as for the concept of an ultimate “world government”, the evidence is all around us, in GATT, the WTO (which has legal priority over national legislation which it deems “restrictive” of free trade), and an array of non-democratic NGOs now administrating most of the world’s poorest regions.
The real question, rgiap, is whether we can get to socialism via “the Multitude” (amorphous global resistance), or whether we have to have a nationalist reaction to create the conditions of “socialism in one country.”
Posted by: seneca | Feb 5 2009 18:51 utc | 46
My last word on CT… and in particular, 9/11
“interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art”
‘What has happened is – now you all have to turn your brains around – the greatest work of art there has ever been. That minds could achieve something in one act, which we in music cannot even dream of, that people rehearse like crazy for ten years, totally fanatically for one concert, and then die. This is the greatest possible work of art in the entire cosmos. Imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on one performance, and then 5000 people are chased into the Afterlife, in one moment. This I could not do. Compared to this, we are nothing as composers… Imagine this, that I could create a work of art now and you all were not only surprised, but you would fall down immediately, you would be dead and you would be reborn, because it is simply too insane. Some artists also try to cross the boundaries of what could ever be possible or imagined, to wake us up, to open another world for us.’
Stockhausen on the 9/11 attack
‘..the greatest work of art..ever..’
Coda?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 5 2009 19:12 utc | 47
seneca
in latin america – it seems you have a mixture of the twwo processus working simultaneously. i admire deeply antonio negri’s work but i am as is obvious, a leninist so it is difficult to see how certain countrie can arrive at their solution(s) without passing through a national(democratic)ist phase.
the defeat of capital is so irrevocable today – that it will take great subtlety of the emerging economies – in fact they have already shown some of this & they are nowhere near as vulnerable as the west
if war does not become generalised – then it will be a repeat of the thirties with socialist countries exposing to all the world the inherent malfunction of capital – but in this instance – federal works project will not work – in fact they are born to fail & they don’t even compensate in the slightest to the actual depth of the crisis. the people too have access to information about the crisis that reveals its real & fundamental criminality. for me, that is the central question – what will the people do in these circumstances confronted by information that exposes the real heart of this crisis
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 5 2009 19:21 utc | 48
I do appreciate the original post and subsequent conversation. I think the degree that we are willing to believe a coordinated plan has been implemented and is going successfully forward directly effects the degree of action people are willing to take. the more omnipotence we bestow upon the PTB, the less we believe in our ability to resist. nothing could be better for competing global elites than that.
Posted by: Lizard | Feb 5 2009 23:41 utc | 51
there is no word in the english language that is more beautiful than resistance
how it is created, in every instance is beautiful – the monkey’s smashing heaven is beautiful, is elementally & inherently beautiful
latin america is breath by breath building something that is new – that is being made from the elements – it is clear they are becoming freer than those in the west
i miss pedro’s intervention here on why he is so ambivalent about the processus taking place – i cannot conceive of actions amongst the left with the exception of daniel ortega’s irritable responses but he has a right to be embittered & again the information on nicaragua is small but i believe generally what is happening is such a baeutiful creation of the people themselves & it is highlighted by the gangsters of colombia & mexico who take the yankee path & where the people keep on dissapearing literally & figuratively
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 6 2009 0:05 utc | 52
@31
there will always be gangster/psychopathic individually who will rise to the levels of gov’t where their control will fuck somebody else.
this is the history of mankind in one sentence,
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Feb 6 2009 2:26 utc | 53
the irony of all this is that we were warned
less by marx than by balzac or flaubert, alfred doblin, theodor dreiser, john dos passos, herman melville in the 18th, 19th & 20th century there was a wealth of words in different languages that told us the beast was sick, that it was infected, that it was condemned – so when the day of the locusts arrived – as it has certainly arrived – we cannot say we did not know
even the australians had the fortune or misfortune to have a seer, xavier herber in his magnificent epic, poor fellow my country – would tell of the pestilence that is modern day capitalism
they saw it – told us – what we know now – you cannot look at a rothko without acknowledging what a barrren place this world has become, the world of commodities, tthat world already crucified in the work of that genius colin mccahon
we know well the way this world was constructed & our white skin privilege has protected us for too long, allowed the crimes to be continued & allowed our dreams to be crushed. the great kandinsky was warning us in his canvases that the time of our dreaming had ended & the torn tableaux of arshile gorky put the full stop to that
no we know well the crimes of our masters & it is sad to say we have not done enough to defeat them & it will be sf in a future if one indeed exists that it was hubris in the end that caught the american empire & pulled it to the ground where it crawled, wounded creating havoc with the worlds it had come to detest
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 6 2009 3:04 utc | 54
David Icke is right, reptilian overlords from planet Draco really do rule the world, and here is the proof
Posted by: Lizard | Feb 6 2009 4:11 utc | 55
thanks Malooga for the link to the summary.
Am not sure Putin and China’s nasty boys are more than potential opposition, for they’re in position to speak truth to the masses beyond their borders and are mute. In particular, Putin could publicize the Ukrainian-Russian research into oil as non-fossil fuel (i.e. peak oil is sham and thus so are wars based on same) and Chinese could denounce all big terror actions so far as done by running dogs not of Islam but of irreligious finance.
Also doubt nuclear climax. We’ve been marinated in fear of such, and fleeced to the quick to pay for “protection”, but standard geology still says quakes will move the lightening glaciers, splash go the coasts, and armies of the anticipators will be effective on inlanders in shock. Genetically focused bio-weapons are also very cost effective, for inland potential problems, Asian especially.
Part I
So many great replies; Let me attempt a response.
Moore is very skilled at creating a believable narrative. Obviously, there is a necessary reductivism involved in such a description, but the key elements remain. His greatest weakness, to my mind, is that in attempting to delve into elite consciousness he greatly — and perhaps fatally — minimizes opposing forces of resistance. “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men…”
We have problems in our world and we have solutions. Here Moore attempts to describe a problem. I do like the fact that he tries to link many seemingly disparate global events into a coherent thread. In a sense, all Historys are thesis’ waiting to be proved or disproved. I was interested in everyone’s reaction as to how well he succeeded. I judge about a 50-60% acceptance rating for his thesis.
I think, after reading everyone’s comments, that I am most interested in two themes: How much influence does finance capital have over other processes and interest groups? And, to what extent do elites plan and how can knowledge of those plans empower resistance. I will address both of these themes here, but I would love to see further explorations along these lines in the future.
First a word about “conspiracy” theory; I hate that word because of its blatant deprecatory nature. I would much prefer a more neutral descriptor such as “non-public organization.” I have served on a dozen Boards, committees, communities groups, and the like, generally of a “progressive” or civically enlightened nature. Very often (not always), one or two small factions arise, comprising 10-25% of the group, who seem to vie for the allegiance of the other members, or even to control the group. I have been a member of the silent majority at times, and at other times, in other groups, I’ve been one of the vocal leaders. So I conclude that what I am observing is not a personal power pathology, but rather a group psychological pattern. Democratic processes, like consensus, are meant to guard against such phenomena. In real world high-power situations, I can only imagine this phenomena would be greatly accentuated, often resulting in extreme concentration of power. Many times, working in “progressive” groups I have been a party to a minority secretly agreeing to press for a pre-agreed agenda. This could be as benign as agreeing to not ask redundant questions so that we could get home at a reasonable hour, or as emphatic as agreeing to attempt to fire or oust someone. Therefore, I believe that I have seen many real conspiracies in my life, and that the psychological mechanisms involved are quite ordinary.
Let’s begin at the end. Lizard is concerned that, “the degree that we are willing to believe a coordinated plan has been implemented and is going successfully forward directly effects the degree of action people are willing to take. the more omnipotence we bestow upon the PTB, the less we believe in our ability to resist. nothing could be better for competing global elites than that.” Clearly, our world possesses a stochastic nature, but not because of a lack of predictable actions. Also, I do not believe that there is necessarily a relationship between a coherent plan and automatically bestowed omnipotence. A plan, in an of itself, is just a proposed road-map, and possesses no fetishistic quality. Not knowing a plan can only lead to random and ineffective resistance. Knowledge of a plan’s details allows for analysis of its weaknesses and pointed resistance along multiple lines and vulnerabilities. In other words, public knowledge of a plan diminishes any sense of omnipotence. R’giap is the first one to remind of of the base venality, the sheer greedy stupidity of the elite. This was obviously visible in the first years of the Iraq invasion. In this month’s “The Sun” magazine, Paul Krassner relates how the CIA developed LSD as part of its mind control program, but ironically it’s use only freed minds from elite beliefs and made them harder to control. So, yes, elites do fuck-up – sometimes quite painfully and sometimes quite pleasurably and humorously.
Next, do elites plan? The evidentiary record here is voluminous, and the results are quite clear: Very often elites plan, but sometimes they, and their representative leaders, act by the seat of their pants.
What do these plans look like? How far in advance are they made? In 1785, Jefferson, in France, heard numerous plans to better explore the Pacific Northwest. In 1786 John Ledyard (local boy) told Thomas Jefferson that he planned to walk across Siberia, ride a Russian fur-trade vessel to cross the ocean, and then walk all the way to the American capital. What could Jefferson have been thinking when he heard this? At that time, only a small swath of the Eastern seaboard was settled, averaging perhaps 100-200 miles in width. And yet, only 17 years later, in a stroke of almost unparalleled brilliance (and luck), Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase. The deal was financed by private financiers: Barings. Jefferson, and other elites, realized that to control the continent one must control the river systems. One look at that vast system (a system I have studied deeply since Katrina) on a map – the very system which today allows the US to control the world’s food supply – and you see the knowledge and forethought involved. One sees how the elite operate in more ways than one: Jefferson himself, along with the opposition Federalists, believed his actions to be illegal, yet they steamrolled the legislation through – by two votes! Lewis and Clark set out immediately to survey the purchase and what lay beyond. Manifest Destiny, the purposely vague media-disseminated public propaganda campaign did not commence until some forty years later. The Alaska Purchase was finalized in 1867 – eighty two years after the initial conception in Jefferson’s mind. It was over 100 years from the establishment of the initial whaling station at Lahaina in Hawaii until Statehood. In 1800, this might have all sounded to the average person, like some crazy conspiracy theory. Seen through the lens of History, it is evident that a series of discrete events was part of an integral and successful elite plan. (Reading this, can one doubt that the Israelis have a long-term plan? That does not imply that they will be successful, only that dreamers who rise to power become planners.)
(Looking at where the US empire is at the present, one can only draw comparisons with the ever hapless French of that time period. In 1788, the French expedition to colonize the Northwest was destroyed at Botany Bay. By 1804, they had been defeated and bankrupted by brave little Haiti. About the Louisiana Purchase, Napoleon Bonaparte remarked, “This accession of territory affirms forever the power of the United States, and I have given England a maritime rival who sooner or later will humble her pride.” True, but according to Moore, the elites simply switched vehicles.)
What do elite plans look like today? According to conspiracy theorists (snark), elite planners primarily secrete themselves in two nefarious places: Think Tanks and Universities, both of which are funded by rich people like themselves. (Some hide in corporations or as lobbyists.) Generally these secret elite plans are hidden between the pages of fat, lucrative, hard-cover books. Sure, there is a diversity of opinion between these individual groups, but all opinions fall within a very narrow band of permissible thinking. One can opine that it was “unnecessary” or “the wrong time” to invade Iraq. The obvious fact that it was blatantly illegal and immoral is beyond those bounds. American Exceptionalism and unlimited growth seem to still be basic requirements of those plans.
In the next installment I will discuss the preeminence of finance capital, and address individual comments and solutions.
Posted by: Malooga | Feb 6 2009 8:21 utc | 57
Malooga #57: in those
dozen Boards, committees, communities groups, and the like
weren’t decisions essentially decided by those who garnered the funding and those who provided the labor? Every business or social or political or religious group I’ve been in deferred to those who made getting something done possible, essentially those who financed it.
In the larger society, whenever opposition becomes visible, it’s infiltrated and steered in self defeating ways by provocateurs and energy sinks. If money rules, how can those who rule the money not rule the rest?
The only hope would be to change how the money is ruled, first by changing who rules it.
As I’ve said here before, only elite vulnerability I see is via the child rape and sacrifice crimes, but that’s an even more unhearable approach than the word “conspiracy”.
Thanks for launching this thread and for 57, Malooga – look forward to your next installment.
Re How much influence does finance capital have over other processes and interest groups? And, to what extent do elites plan and how can knowledge of those plans empower resistance.
Would that include the forex reserves of China (and its rival Japan), and, especially, China’s long term plans, likely to be at odds with those of western elites?
Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 6 2009 13:58 utc | 59
dozen Boards, committees, communities groups, and the like
weren’t decisions essentially decided by those who garnered the funding and those who provided the labor?
Boards and committess set long-term policy, and research and make recommendations. Management is responsible for implementing those policies by garnering funding, providing labor, doing the actual work, etc. (At least that is the theory, and that is how it should work in a functional organization. For various reasons beyond the scope of this discussion, it rarely does.) Boards and Committees ostensibly purport to function democratically. Workplaces in the Western world are autocratic structures — one does what one’s boss mandates and follows company policy, or else… (Of course there are avenues of protest and legal recourse open, but these all involve significant risk — loss of affiliation with the group one is attempting to change.)
Sometimes Management or Labor has a seat at the Director table, but outside of Soviets and worker’s/artists/producer co-operatives, rarely a controlling interest.
So what I’m describing is the process by which the few supposed democratic institutions in our society can be, and often are, hijacked or subverted. In the case of the well-meaning, as I have described, the reason is because we have so little experience in and with true democratic structures in our society, and so little training in how they function. (Outside of the one which we are channelled to see as the ONLY authentic democratic process: elections.) In the case of the venal and corrupt, subversion is very intentional.
Posted by: Malooga | Feb 6 2009 14:59 utc | 60
One issue that should be addressed alongside this discussion is that of human nature.
How much control do people in power have over their own thinking and decision making?
I prefer to simplify people into three basic groups:
The laborers-people who are happy working and just want things to be the same old, same old. Raise families, buy stuff, drink some beer (this is in america, I’m sure in other parts of the world they’d be happy with a bowl of rice)
Thinker/Doers–This group is our business, education and political class. These are the folks who hate to see idol hands, they themselves are always scheming, planning and figuring ways to achieve big goals, usually with the dirty work being done by the labor class.
The Philosophers–This is a group of people I imagine to be like us. People who contemplate the whys and hows of the human situation… people who wonder if there is a “better way”. This group has many religious people too. This is the group that usually gives voice to complaints made by the laborers and mediates between the other two groups.
These are painted with broad brushstrokes. This is just a general outlook and I realize at different times we’ve each experienced a taste of the other groups, but in the “big picture” we tend to be one of the three.
Imagine each of these groups as being contained in their own bubble of thick film. It is easier for an individual to stay in their group than to fight their way thru the film to leave their bubble and then fight to enter into a different bubble. Are you still with me? This is kooky I know, but I don’t have any other language to use to describe my thoughts.
Once a person enters into a bubble of thought, they only perceive the world from that particular bubble, regardless of what bubble they started off in. The others sharing their bubble are continually reinforcing the group-think and are mostly doing so unthinkingly.
The bubble’s group collective of similar thinking breeds a singular conscience; one mind, so to speak, and individuals become lost in the group. A person in one group may have a thought that would be echoed in another bubble, but in the gooey film of their bubble, no one hears. There could be some good analogies made to radio frequencies or light waves and filters, but I think I’m having trouble with the simple bubble…
Each of the three groups has very different ideals of what life on earth should be like; with each collective’s views unique.
These bubbles are individually, and unconsciously, working to achieve their group’s general goals. The members of a bubble are continually providing each other feedback on their efforts (this is also taking place unconsciously… people following the successful leads of their peers, abandoning practices that aren’t successful.)
The Business bubble ends up controlling what life’s like for the other two bubbles, because they not only have most of the resources at their disposal, they also have the passion to achieve their goals. The Laborers don’t care as long as things stay the same, or get a bit better. The philosophers spend too much time arguing theory and regardless, most are people who have chosen to leave one of the other bubbles, and getting them to reorganize is like herding cats…
I agree the rich rule the world, I just don’t see a day this will change. The names of the rich may change, but the way those names act, won’t.
Posted by: David | Feb 6 2009 17:13 utc | 61
How much influence does finance capital have over other processes and interest groups?
I think plushtown’s answer goes a long way in answering this. A great deal of influence if we in the group are dependent or think we’re dependent on the financial instruments the funders wield. But I don’t think we will be very efficacious in trying to “change how money is ruled” or by “changing who rules it”.
One resort I work toward is obsoleting the need for the agency of “their” money. I find other ways to live my life to a larger and larger extent w/o “their” financial instruments.I barter and trade within my community as much as possible. I divorce myself more and more from the pernicious aspects of my generation’s life style and cultural ethos. If a medium of exchange is needed, trade Ithica Dollars (google it my link doesn’t work) or some other community equivalent which is based on the integrity of the community and not on the Federal Reserve or another ‘Alan Greenspan’. I haven’t reached the Ithica level yet but these ideas are fomenting here in the Green Mountains.
to what extent do elites plan?
….
what I am observing is not a personal power pathology, but rather a group psychological pattern
I disagree. There are estimates that I find credible that propose approx. %4 of the general overall population, at least in the U.S., are psychopathic/sociopathic. In small groups two factors inhibit their ascension to power:
a) inhabiting the full spectrum of the population their capabilities are more apt to be average and not superior, thus suppressing their psychotic advantages and
b) psychopaths nefarious but advantageous means are more detectable in small intimate groups than large impersonal ones.
It may not always be, but I am convinced it is one of the most unrecognized aspects of the power elites. There are within their ranks a percentage of psychopaths and my understanding is that it is a higher percentage than the overall societal percentage. They rise to those higher positions because a smart psychopath is not just ruthless but not inhibited by usual human restraints such as conscience or empathy impose on the majority of our species.
I don’t think we should shy away from a perfectly good word:
conspiracy (plural conspiracies)
The act of two or more persons, conspirators, working in secret to obtain some goal, usually understood with negative connotations.
To act in harmony toward a common end.
Whenever two or more people get together and make a plan that they keep under wraps, it is a conspiracy. Yes, the usual connotation is with evil or illegal intent. But within larger conspiracies there exist smaller sub-conspiracies that may even have sinister plans in relation to the major conspiracy. Bob Wilson suggested that this is a perfect formula for SNAFU. Thus we see the globe as a whole, under all the competing world class conspiracies, so totally fucked-up. Our hope is that this SNAFU will take the psychopathic criminal types of the world down before it gets to we all.
and how can knowledge of those plans empower resistance?
I think that more knowledge and awareness of the prevalence of the psychopathic in all levels of society can go a long way in exposing them and thwarting any conspiratorial intents they may harbor. There is a psychologically recognized pathology in our species that is dangerous to all of us if it is not exposed. We don’t have to be trained psychologists to do this. The tendencies exist to some degree in most all of us, I believe, based on my observation and introspection. My first job in recognition is based on the introspection and sublimation of those tendencies.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 6 2009 19:05 utc | 62
Excellent proposition Juannie.
Now I suggest that we dig a bit deeper into this condition of psychopathy. In my opinion it is quite well established that what you say is true, approx 4% of the population lacks empathy, etc. Even if the number is just 1% that is a lot of people who pursue their own aims with no regard for others, and many of them will rise to the top by skillful use of this trait.
If I were a project manager of another species, living in another dimension or on another planet perhaps, whose job is to subvert Earth’s people in a way that allows my compatriots to move in, take over the wealth, and use those earthlings as slaves… If that were my job I’d seek out the psychopaths first (or if necessary create them from birth), selectively dope them with some of my own genetic serum, breed them, raise them, train them, guide them.
The most suited are then placed in strong positions of power, while others are taught the necessary lieutenants’ skills. This process may take plenty of time but we have that to spare. A great advantage is that the human culture has no mechanism for recognising or controlling advancement of a psychopath. Have you ever thought about that? Why is there no such mechanism? Psychopathy can be classified as a serious mental disease and yet, because he is skillful at acting normal, is able to hide the disease, he has a free pass.
I am aware that a suggestion like the one above tends to suck away my “legitimacy” as a commenter, if only because f**king with a minority’s human rights like that would be scary and forbidden. But what if this guy is not really human?
I’ve seen both Cheney and Rumsfeldt at times lose control and publicly display some other-worldly behavior. Wolfowitz too. Being on teevee so much must be a bitch for some of these guys, having to stay under cover in full view so much.
Posted by: rapt | Feb 6 2009 20:04 utc | 63
Uncle, some very scattered remarks, 9/11, Art, and semantics.
At the time, progressives tended to state that 9/11 was to be treated as a crime rather than a terrorist plot or an act of war. They chattered a lot about backlash and found some kind of justification, explanation for it.
Remember Pastor Wright and his chickens? On a legal level, crime while it doesn’t quite fit, seemed reasonable, in the sense that a crime has perpetrators, a motive, is followed by an investigation, leads to punishment, etc.
But I far preferred what reportedly the ‘terrorists’ themselves called it:
The Big Wedding.
A ‘wedding’ – between what parties? – but it does nicely call up the idea of alliance.
What that appelation accomplishes is that it tags 9/11 as an event.
At the basic level, that is what it was. An event, a material happening, lasting say 12 hours, with actors, instruments, objects, effects, all of them physical, material. The wedding part is excellent, as compared to say, a concert, because a wedding (like an inauguration, to mention another large complicated event) implies a change of state – nothing is as before!
As an event, it is forged by interests.
The rock or classical concert is brought into being because many people have an interest in it: organisors, agents, musicians, the public, etc.
9/11 was a one-off, incredibly rare event, where different sets of actors coalesced around a project. These were: financial, shadow Gvmt, military, neo-connish, plus foreign involvment.
As a spectacular event it was predicted, anticipated. see for ex:
two examples from pop culture
As a scary threat as well rense, fema manual
(no disrespect for the victims is intended.)
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 6 2009 20:43 utc | 64
Juannie @ 62
The Totnes pound project is something I’ve been keeping my eye on for a while, as Totnes is more or less where I grew up and I hope to be living there again in the not too distant future. It looks similar to the Ithaca Hours or indeed the scheme that was dreamed up here in VT not so long ago (can’t remember its name), but much simpler and more direct.
Posted by: Tantalus | Feb 6 2009 21:33 utc | 65
Right on Tantalus. I’ve encountered the Totnes pound project before, somewhere here I think and need to study it further. Of course it is going to take a lot more than just a local currency but that is a major step. I think the Vermont Commons efforts are approaching this in a doable and non threatening way. Anyone interested should check out my ’here’ link above. Of course, T, I sincerely hope you stay here in VT and become part of our effort and not sail back across the pond.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 6 2009 23:25 utc | 66
Malooga @57: I do not believe that there is necessarily a relationship between a coherent plan and automatically bestowed omnipotence. A plan, in an of itself, is just a proposed road-map, and possesses no fetishistic quality. Not knowing a plan can only lead to random and ineffective resistance.
damn fine point, but what I would like to highlight in my comment is the coordination that is reductively assumed by too many “conspiracy theorists” to fit a meta-narrative that encompasses a vast swath of history. taken to extremes, this belief rivals fundamentalism of any creed, and those of us trying our damn best to remain critical should be weary.
with that said, I think it’s fairly obvious the obscenely wealthy and powerful have one priority: to remain obscenely wealth powerful, and because their status frees them from the day to day drudgery of being a wage-slave, it seems only logical they would spend their “free time” conniving plans to stay on top.
I’m glad to see a few people mention Robert A. Wilson, because his writing has been very influential in my conception of conspiracy theory (thank you Uncle). instead of assuming coordination, i think focusing on the degree of competition between elites is what will matter in terms of setting up an effective form of resistance.
another point I would like to make is that the omnipotence I mentioned is in no way as far reaching as “they” would have us believe, but it’s hard to wade through the mists of intrigue hollywood helps fuel without gathering a few wisps of the swirling mysteries hardcore conspiracy nuts become obsessed with.
on the other hand, I think calling the policies of the past eight years a product of greed and incompetence is a dangerous mistake. if their is a broader intention to be seen, spanning decades, then i think we better try to understand it, because I have a hard time believing it’s all just chaos created from self-serving individuals driven by a lust for wealth and power.
I realize I’m contradicting myself, but that’s probably appropriate, considering the subject matter. to ground myself, I’ll repeat a great snippet from Malooga’s post @57:
Knowledge of a plan’s details allows for analysis of its weaknesses and pointed resistance along multiple lines and vulnerabilities. In other words, public knowledge of a plan diminishes any sense of omnipotence.
there is no such thing as a fool proof plan, especially when dealing with a high percentage of psychotic, sociopathic individuals created from potentially centuries of interbreeding, but what sociopaths can’t understand–what they probably see as our human weakness, compassion–can still be our strength.
for that to happen, amerika needs to get over itself. (the “k” is more than a gimmick; we never deserved the soft contour of “c” to begin with)
Posted by: Lizard | Feb 7 2009 6:02 utc | 67
no ultimate accusation will suffice
no, that isn’t true; the vice that slaughters virtue
only complicates itself through execution:
create a problem, then offer the solution
O splendid substitution of thought!
I use to worry greed would breed collapse
now I eagerly anticipate afternoon naps
slipping into a slumbering evasion
of the shame I feel at the behavior of my nation
Posted by: Lizard | Feb 7 2009 6:22 utc | 68
New World Order, Schmoo World Order
The guy who takes your money in the alley with three card monte doesn’t give a GWOT about you, or your shoes or your new world order. ‘new world order’ is just the mania the losers assign to the paranoia that surrounds them when they’ve lost their wallets.
‘ohmig-d, i’m broke!’ i wonder how many bazillion times g-d has laughed at that joke. psst, hey, the jackals are planning a new world order on the wildebeest! pass it on!!
Posted by: Apestoso Zapatos | Feb 7 2009 6:24 utc | 69
an interesting ape who who spells GOD sans O is telling the “paranoid losers” how the ultimate fantasy (g-d) is laughing at us.
Posted by: Lizard | Feb 7 2009 6:39 utc | 70
this is the face of resistance, ApeZap, in case you are curious and not just agitating.
Posted by: Lizard | Feb 7 2009 7:09 utc | 71
I frankly found this development horrifying and unfortunately completely in line with my predictions. There’s no difference between Bush and Obama’s foreign policy. The U.S. will continue openly provoking Russia and telling Iran to “do what we say or else”. God help us all if this is ‘change we can believe in’. But at least we can all die knowing that the phrase was a catchy one.
Biden Rejects Russian Sphere of Influence
Posted by: Parviz | Feb 7 2009 14:16 utc | 72
I received an email from Richard Moore in which he states:
“I find it interesting that no matter what evidence or arguments one presents, people generally respond by repeating their incoming beliefs, without identifying any flaws in the arguments presented. It seems many people don’t understand the distinction between opinion and analysis.”
I agree.
Is the argument flawed, and if so how?
I mentioned that I feel a major flaw is that Moore understates the role of potential resistance, that History is always a dialectic between forces. But I have not yet developed how that might play out.
Elsewhere, Moore cites this article by Richard C. Cook, “They Did It On Purpose: The Housing Bubble & Its Crash were Engineered by the US Government, the Fed & Wall Street” to the effect that the collapse was deliberately induced. I believe that an even stronger case can be made, which I hope to attempt in the future.
On his newsletter, Moore comments:
Besides the direct evidence brought in by Cook, regarding how the collapse was engineered, there is also circumstantial evidence of various kinds, indicating advance preparation for the collapse.
For one thing, there is the uniformity of government responses. Always it’s hundreds of billions for bailouts and infrastructure, which breaks the budget, and then billions cut from social services, blamed on the broken budgets. As I’ve read reports from Australia and Europe, and watched Irish and British TV, I see exactly the same ‘solutions’ being implemented everywhere, always with firm rhetoric about ‘we have no choice’, and always justified in terms of special local circumstances. It would appear that government leaders were coached in advance about the ‘correct’ response.
And that’s what gatherings like the Bilderberger meetings are for, to which government and media figures are invited, and whose proceedings they must promise not to disclose. It’s an insider’s club, where second-tier leaders can rub shoulders with top world figures, hear what others don’t hear, and feel important. These meetings are where everyone is tipped off about what will be coming up, and told what the correct response and spin should be.
From a career point of view, there’s every reason to remain a member of this club, and go along with the agenda. To do otherwise not only ruins your political career, but you can be sure your government would have a hard time getting financing from world markets. As always, there are both carrots and sticks.
In this light we might note that just before the collapse Prime Ministers Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair both resigned, and in each case the Finance Minister (Brian Cowan and Gordon Brown) was appointed to take his place. Bertie and Tony, with their sparkling eyes and charming smiles, were suitable leaders for glad-handing through boom times. Brian and Gordon, with their sombre demeanors, are more suitable for blundering through bad times. I say blundering, because that is how it will seem to the public. In fact, they will be doing exactly what is needed to accomplish unstated elite objectives.
Posted by: Malooga | Feb 8 2009 12:31 utc | 73