Waking The Left Up To Skull And Bones

[Blighty]

Waking The Left Up To Skull And Bones

By Chuck Zlatkin
10-7-4

The world is still here, so I can continue to wonder about how my friends, who once agonized about having to vote for John Kerry, and are now happy about voting for him. I think when you have the need to be on the winning side against Bush; you can even convince yourself that you really like him. Kerry supported the war in Iraq, along with NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and so on and so forth. Kerry is called a liberal as Clinton was, but really he follows the Democratic Leadership Council line. That line was once called Republican. It will be a heavy price to pay when John Kerry,s version of anybody but Bush, turns out to be surprisingly close to the original.

I will assume that you are really knowledgeable about the issues. I am confused as to how are you not terribly concerned about the fact that both George W. Bush and John F. Kerry are blood brothers in the most exclusive secret society?

The Skull and Bones Society admits only fifteen new members each year. So if you figure that the average new member is 21 years old when tapped there can,t even be as many as 800 living members in the world.

What is the population of the United States now? According to the Census Bureau PopClock at http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html the current population is 294,423,981.

Do you really think that the odds would point to the two presidential candidates coming from the same secret society with not even 800 living members?

When I talk to people about this I always ask them how much they really know about the Skull and Bones Society? They usually say not that much. Most people that I know are left of center and so am I. But being left of center didn,t stop me from reading "Fleshing Out Skull and Bones: Investigation Into America,s Most Powerful Secret Societies by Antony Sutton, Howard Altman, Kris Milligan, Dr Ralph Bunch, Anton Chaitkin & Webster Griffin Tarpley, Edited by Kris Milligan. Published 2003.
http://www.fleshingoutskullandbones.com/

Last night Norman "Nobody Sommer called me. He is the founder and president of the Umbrella Movement to Counteract the Right. Its web site is www.therightiswrong.us and you might see why what he has to say interests me (at least Alan Colmes credited me when he lifted my name). Sommer claims he got the phrase from his granddaughter and it was all innocent. As Sommer pitched me to get involved with his movement, I got into conversation with him about Kerry. Sommer is an erudite, politically astute gentleman. But when I asked him how much he knew about the Skull and Bones society, he mentioned that he didn,t know much. I,m going to send him a copy of Milligan,s book.

When it comes to understanding who the powers-that-be are and what they do, I have found much valuable information from the work of Alex Jones. Jones uncovers plenty. He filmed inside the Bohemian Grove compound showing all the world what depravity goes on there. I would recommend going to Alex Jones two websites www.infowars.com and www.prisonplanet.com to witness for yourself what Jones make available to you. I would also suggest seeing "American Dictators by Alex Jones and Kevin Booth. In this videotape Jones makes a strong argument that we are a lot further along the road to fascism than most of us want to admit.

Alex Jones is a broadcaster out of Austin, Texas. I,m afraid that too many people on the left are unable to hear what Jones is telling them. Alex Jones is a 2nd Amendment, anti-abortion, United Nations-fearing, Christian patriot. He also is unrelenting in his quest for the truth about those who wish to enslave us. Jones,s personal beliefs didn,t stop Cynthia McKinney from respecting him for the truth that he has unearthed, and it doesn,t stop me, either.

I would submit to you that requiring people to pass litmus tests before we allow them to share truth with us, is a true failing of much of the left. I remember when "George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography by Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin was originally published, many people on the left doubted the work or ignored it completely because of the authors rumored association with Lyndon Larouche. How foolish. Tarpley and Chaitkin,s work was groundbreaking. You can check it out for yourself. It is available for free on the web at http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm and by the way Lyndon Larouche is supporting Kerry.

I haven,t really changed, in the sense that I still feel much more comfortable with sources from the left. But what am I supposed to do when Noam Chomsky, Ronnie Dugger, Barbara Ehrenreich, Richard Falk, Jim Hightower, Saul Landau, Michael Lerner, Manning Marable, Robert McChesney, Marcus Raskin, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Studs Terkel, Harvey Wasserman, and Howard Zinn have all joined the Kerry for President movement?

I have been predicting that Kerry would be the next president for some time. Ever since Kerry joined with the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties, Michael Moore and Al Sharpton to stop the Howard Dean juggernaut, it has been clear to me that Kerry was the chosen one.

The race will stay nip and tuck until Election Day. When Kerry wins much of the left will be thrilled. Celebration will take the place of organization for some time. The Kerry honeymoon will give the powers-that-be some time to further the agenda. I am afraid that by the time the left wakes up as to whom Kerry really is, the war will be widened and the reinstitution of the draft will be in place.

What is our alternative? I have looked far and wide for a strategy that doesn,t lead to the coronation of Kerry or Bush. Unfortunately, all I can come up with is a first step. It is time to draw a line in the sand. No more pro-war candidates. No votes for evil even lesser ones. It is time take a stand against the powers-that-be, let them know that we are no longer fooled; we know who they are and what they are doing. Join me in the ultimate protest vote on November 2nd and vote for yourself. People laugh when I tell them that. But I,m not kidding. When you vote for evil it is a Faustian deal. You may tell yourself it is benign but it is truly is not. The reason that John Kerry has not repudiated Skull and Bones, is a simple one, he doesn,t want to do so, and even if he did, he couldn,t and still be president.


http://www.rightiswrong.com/leftout.php

[yeahwho]

Yay....everyone vote for someone else besides Kerry and let Bush win again!

BUSH HAS GOT TO GO! This takes baby steps. Vote for Kerry now....and vote for someone better in '08.

There is no other choice right now.

Agreed. The damage done to our allies will not be undone with Bush. Kerry is a corporate candidate, but he displays a view that is much more credible in the arena of enviroment, nuclear proliferation, diplomacy and war.

The secret society we should all be afraid of is the one that is truly secret. It makes Skull and Bones look like the Safeway Club.

[QueenAdrock]

*yawn*

conspiracy theories = (n)


And as of now, Kerry could come out tonight and say he's the spawn of satan himself, and he'd still have my vote because I'd still know he's better than Bush in my heart.

[EN[i]GMA]

I'm not a big fan of "conspiricy theories" either but this is a RATHER unique coincedence, 2 people from a secret society designed to control the Earth are the 2 people running to basicly control the Earth? Either that or I should go watch TV and stop asking questions.

[adam_f]

The Yankees are playing right now. You could watch that.

[Ace42]

Kerry is Bush-lite. Less gassy, just as intoxicating, takes longer to kill you with chronic heart-disease.

[EN[i]GMA]

Watch baseball? I don't think so.

[adam_f]

There's nothing else on. Saturday afternoons are the worst for TV.

[EN[i]GMA]

Case in point: The Yankees game. I think 30 years of hip-hop might be on VH1. I'll go watch that.

[Funkaloyd]

Vote for Kerry now....and vote for someone better in '08.

What if in '08 the race is between Kerry and another pro-war, corporatist Republican? Progressives suck it in one more time, vote for Kerry, and wait 'till 2012? You see the problem in that, right? You've got to trust that in a single election both the DNC and the GOP give you a good choice of candidates.

Kerry could come out tonight and say he's the spawn of satan himself, and he'd still have my vote because I'd still know he's better than Bush in my heart.

Sounds like a conservative parody.

[Funkaloyd]

But that's just it, when is the right time to vote for Nader, or anyone other than the Democratic candidate of the day?

He can't win...he's not on all the ballots... Why doesn't Nader run as a Republican in '08? He'd get the votes just because it would say "republican" next to his name.

I don't believe he has any intention of winning. He seems to want to scare Democrats it supporting either election reform or progressive policies. He has stated that that's the only way third parties and independents will ever have any power in this system.

[D_Raay]

I'm not a big fan of "conspiricy theories" either but this is a RATHER unique coincedence, 2 people from a secret society designed to control the Earth are the 2 people running to basicly control the Earth?
Excellent point. How about this guys? Maybe enough people actually LEARN from this fiasco of a presidency and campaign race, and we get some real organization behind a REAL Democrat like Dean or Kucinich? Or for that matter a third party candidate? <--(I am not very optimistic about that one though)

[Ace42]

You need some futurists to demolish your current political system so it can be rebuilt afresh. Getting the inherant flaws out of the government by hoping one of their (republocrat) candidates will reform the government is like bringing in a termite in the hopes it will eat your woodworms.

[EN[i]GMA]

Not exactly. Kucinich is for real. But other than that I agree. Kucinich is basicly a Green candidate who runs as a Democrat.

[Funkaloyd]

But the establishment ensures―consciously or not―that people like Kucinich never really have a chance. I think that even he realized this; when Ted Koppel shamelessly asked whether he was going to drop out, he responded (with mad applause from the crowd) "I want the American people to see where the media takes politics in this country."

[EN[i]GMA]

Kucinich fights the good fight and gets blacklisted for it. Mosley-Braun too. Sharpton gets some attention because it's just because he's a moron who makes anyone fighting for change look bad. He said GW was in need of "the big payback". The Big Payback is a James Brown song. Made him seem like even more of an idiot to me.

[Grasshopper]

ugh.

Let's start talking about David Icke and the NWO next. :eek:


Kucinich is a great guy. (y)

[Blighty]

What a lot of people forget is the Bush snr is Skull And Bones too so for sixteen of the last twenty four years there's been a Skull And Bones president or vice President. As the article says there are only 15 new members selected every year which means there can only be around 800 members alive at any one time. There are approaching 300 million people in the US which makes the odds of this happening incredible small.

At the begining of the '911 In Plane Site' documentary Dave von Kleist makes some interesting points. First he says 'I'm gonna say a word and I want you to say the first word that pops into your head'. Then he says 'conspiracy' and the first word that popped in my head was 'theory'. We have been preconditioned to put those two words together.

He also makes a great point. He states 'In theory if you buy a lottery ticket you could win. But if you actually buy a lottery ticket then it's no longer a theory, it becomes a probability. So if you have a piece of evidence then you have a probability and not a theory'. I would say that the Skull And Bones domination of this election and the last two decades of the Whitehouse shows a probable conspiracy. By just going *yawn* and giving the thumbs down to 'conspiracy theories' you're ignoring evidence which is in your face. Evidence which of course does not prove Skull And Bones are 'evil'. But it does prove they are powerful and when you have two Skull And Bones candidates that refuse to talk about Skull And Bones you have to question why. You have to question the role of secret societies.

The thing that always puzzles me about socities like Skull And Bones is that if they have nothing to hide then what are they hiding? Secrecy exists for a reason. So what do Bush and Kerry (and all the others. Bush has given ten of his Skull And Bones buddies top jobs in the US government) get from their Skull And Bones membership? Why are they so loyal after all these years? Why did they refuse to talk about it?

[Blighty]

Double.

[SpanishFly]

I don't even get the party system.....it just seems like an easy way to label someone. Why doesn't Nader run as a Republican in '08? He'd get the votes just because it would say "republican" next to his name. I don't think the American McPublic even pays attention to platforms......or facts. Mindless bumper sticker slogans seem to be enough for Bush sheeple.

He's running as a Populist in this election...am I correct? I don't think I have ever heard of the Populist party before this year.

[BGirl]

Kucinich rocks. And here's what he recently said about this very issue:

"I know people are saying, 'Well, the campaign this, the candidate that...' The time for those discussions is over. It's time to rally around the campaign. ... John Kerry will be a good president - with our help."

That last part is important, he reminds us that our jobs as citizens don't end with voting.

By the way, Kucinich's bid for his seat in Congress is struggling, which I don't quite understand because his constituency seems to adore him, but if you want to help:

http://www.kucinichforcongress.us/

We need to keep that man in Washington.

[Whois]

"It doesn't matter who is elected, as long as the underlying power structure remains intact."

[Ali]

"It doesn't matter who is elected, as long as the underlying power structure remains intact." The president is just a figurehead, somebody to read the speeches off a teleprompt and kiss babies every four years.

The Secret Team (http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/ST.html) are the ones in control. This is no shadowy cult, it's a government department, you might have heard of it, it's called the Central Intelligence Agency and it's been spinning out of control ever since the end of WWII.

If you have a printer, you might want to print out this online book (paste http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/ST.html into your address bar if the link doesn't work and print one chapter at a time). This guy (http://www.prouty.org/) is for real. He's no conspiracy theorist. He worked in the Pentagon as a "Focal Point" Officer between the Air Force and the CIA and was not bound by the Secrets Act after his discharge. His book was written in 1972 and when he sent the manuscript to Prentice-Hall to be published, the editor called him to suggest that I keep it in a safe place at all times. He told me that his home had been broken into the night before, and he suspected it was an attempt to steal his copy of that galley proof. He said, "They didn't get it. It was under the seat of the Volkswagon."

A few days later a nationwide release by the well-known Washington columnist, Jack Anderson, appeared across the country, "Book Bares CIA's Dirty Tricks". In that column, Anderson reported that the CIA had contacted a well-known bookstore in Washington and asked one of the employees to see if he could get a copy of the galley from me, and agreed to pay him $500, if he did. I agreed to meet him at my home that evening.

I suspected his call, but invited him anyway. In the meantime I set up a tape recorder in the umbrella stand near my front door and arranged for it to turn on when I switched on the overhead light on the front porch. With that arrangement, I recorded the whole visit including his final burst, "They promised me $500.00, if I got that galley proof." I took that tape to Anderson, and it was the basis of his March 6, 1973 column. The underground attack didn't quit there.

After excellent early sales of The Secret Team during which Prentice-Hall printed three editions of the book, and it had received more than 100 favorable reviews, I was invited to meet Ian Ballantine, the founder of Ballantine Books. He told me that he liked the book and would publish 100,000 copies in paperback as soon as he could complete the deal with Prentice-Hall. Soon there were 100,000 paperbacks in bookstores all around the country.

Then one day a business associate in Seattle called to tell me that the bookstore next to his office building had had a window full of books the day before, and none the day of his call. They claimed they had never had the book. I called other associates around the country. I got the same story from all over the country. The paperback had vanished. At the same time I learned that Mr. Ballantine had sold his company. I traveled to New York to visit the new "Ballantine Books" president. He professed to know nothing about me, and my book. That was the end of that surge of publication. For some unknown reason Prentice-Hall was out of my book also. It became an extinct species.

Coincidental to that, I received a letter from a Member of Parliament in Canberra, Australia, who wrote that he had been in England recently visiting in the home of a friend who was a Member of the British Parliament. While there, he discovered The Secret Team on a coffee table and during odd hours had begun to read it.

Upon return to Canberra he sent his clerk to get him a copy of the book. Not finding it in the stores, the clerk had gone to the Customs Office where he learned that 3,500 copies of The Secret Team had arrived, and on that same date had been purchased by a Colonel from the Royal Australian Army. The book was dead everywhere.

The campaign to kill the book was nationwide and world-wide. It was removed from the Library of Congress and from College libraries as letters I received attested all too frequently. It's incredibly difficult to find a published copy, even a google search for ISBN: 0939484358 yeilds very little and it's impossible to buy a copy on Amazon. The only way you can read this book is if you download and print it or read it on your computer.

You will learn a gret deal about how the CIA is above and beyond the control of even those who apparently control it. It is more than the sum of its parts, it is more than just the people who work for it, it has a life of its own and it is making decisions on behalf of whoever it is who's supposed to be in control of the country, determining what should or shouldn't be said in speeches, which country to invade next... all under the shroud of secrecy and National Security. The CIA was responsible for the Vietnam war and a host of other fukups, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the Phillipines... the list goes on. Any attempts to control it have had dire results (http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/GoD.html) and I'll be surprised if this post isn't deleted.

Read it with an Open Mind and of course, as Fox always says: YOU DECIDE!

[D_Raay]

I've always wondered this, Do you suppose the Skull and Bones has a "leader"? Or maybe they as an organization answer to someone else higher in our government? Or even Globally?

[EN[i]GMA]

I don't think they'll censor you here Blighty. Their cool about it.

[Qdrop]

this shit always cracks me up.....

skull n bones...NWO.....shadow governments.....


if people had any real concept of the unbelievable complex happenings of any government system....let alone the military and media....you'd realize the impossibility of any orgranized group running the world....or running any gov't "in the shadows".....

this is pure X-files territory....fantasy.

Just really stop and think of the MONUMENTAL amount of complex structure and cooperation would be required for a group to run a country's government in secret, let alone the world. -the countless layers and levels of command to control all major aspects of legislation, executive decisions, judicial decisions, ....military structure ......and the media (which would eventually blow it wide open if actually existed on any measurable level).
it's just not feasable......it's not possible.

there is a reason this kind of talk is relegated to internet chat boards.....

because only internet geeks believe it.....

wake up indeed.

[Jasonik]

Just really stop and think of the MONUMENTAL amount of complex structure and cooperation would be required for a group to run a country's government in secret, let alone the world. -the countless layers and levels of command to control all major aspects of legislation, executive decisions, judicial decisions, ....military structure ......and the media (which would eventually blow it wide open if actually existed on any measurable level).
it's just not feasable......it's not possible.

What are all these countless layers serving to obfuscate?

[Qdrop]

What are all these countless layers serving to obfuscate?

you're asking me to list the COUNTLESS layers?.....

the COUNTLESS layers?.......


helloooo?

McFly!?!!??!

look up the word "countless"

but anyway...

really now......you know from a logitstics approach, i am correct.

[Jasonik]

You're operating under the assumption that the secret gov't at one time didn't exist, and came into being and took over the visible gov't. That is impossible, I would agree.

[yeahwho]

Follow the Money. Like a casino, the cashroom is hidden. But it does exsist and the house has the advantage. The Big Fish always get the perks. The little fish get raked.

[Qdrop]

You're operating under the assumption that the secret gov't at one time didn't exist, and came into being and took over the visible gov't. That is impossible, I would agree.


are you proposing that a "seceret gov't" or "NWO" of sorts has been in existance since the inseption of government here and elsewhere?


wasn't that some cancelled Fox sci-fi show?.....Millenium?

[Ace42]

wasn't that some cancelled Fox sci-fi show?.....Millenium?

Cancelled ... by whom?!? NWO / NEO-CONS / ALIENS / THE LOCH NESS MONSTER

[Ali]

you're asking me to list the COUNTLESS layers?.....

the COUNTLESS layers?.......


helloooo?

McFly!?!!??!

look up the word "countless"

but anyway...

really now......you know from a logitstics approach, i am correct. cuntless layers

[DroppinScience]

Cancelled ... by whom?!? NWO / NEO-CONS / ALIENS / THE LOCH NESS MONSTER

All of the above... PLUS:

- SASQUATCH
- THE JEWS
- THE INVISIBLE ROBOT ARMY FROM MARS

You've been warned. :p

[Qdrop]

Cancelled ... by whom?!? NWO / NEO-CONS / ALIENS / THE LOCH NESS MONSTER

good point....hmmmmmm.

[trésbienfem]

This takes baby steps. Vote for Kerry now....and vote for someone better in '08.

as much as I would like someone other than Kerry or Bush (and I am voting Kerry), there is not enough wide-spread support to make it a reality. Baby steps indeed.

[Qdrop]

cuntless layers

an even better point.....hmmmmmmmmm.

[bigkidpants]

Follow the Money. Like a casino, the cashroom is hidden. But it does exsist and the house has the advantage. The Big Fish always get the perks. The little fish get raked.

let me applaud blighty for raising this issue again in the critical days leading to the election. while the unlikely coincidence of the skull and bones membership is startling and alarming, it is probably possible to overstate the influence of that one particular group. kerry's totally gratuitous compliments to the president in the third debate were a clear example of "eulogia", one of the pillars of skull and bones. kerry is already working to cement bush's legacy as a good father and the strong post-9/11 leader who kept the nation together, legitimizing his contribution to the master plan. or he was trying to elevate above the garbage politics in a way he knew bush couldn't do. one of the strange facts kerry supporters should consider is that if and when kerry wins, it will be yet another campaign acurrately predicted by burke's peerage solely on the basis of royal lineage.

whoever is pulling the strings, i absolutely believe kerry was the designated opponent even BEFORE iowa and that the assassination of howard dean's character and credibility and kerry's sweep of the primaries and caucuses were mere formalities. if you think government is too complicated and layered to be led by a small group, look at the back of a dollar bill sometime (above the latin words for 'new secular order'). everything that rises must converge -- in a hierarchy there's strict rules about who advances because there's not a lot of room at the top of the pyramid. membership in the club is far too exclusive to ever permit howard dean or dennis kucinich or any of the others (except maybe clark). it's just not clear skull and bones is anything more than a playground for post-adolescent members of that club.

[Schmeltz]

The only force that pulls the strings is history. Is it surprising to find the descendants of royalty in leadership positions? Why should it be? Capital and influence are handed down from one generation to the next in every oligarchy. Is politics a very exclusive club of well-to-do individuals? Of course it is, when has it ever been anything else? There's no conspiracy to any of this, it's just the way things are since all attempts to reverse the standard model have failed.

I believe it was Cato who once said "I find it hard to believe that two priests can pass one another in the street and not laugh." Nothing's changed since then - power is still the privilege of the wealthy and their descendants, and I find it just as difficult to believe that Kerry and Bush don't share a good guffaw after every "debate," if only because they know nothing will really change regardless of which one of them is elected. Conspiracy theory is a joke; oligarchy theory is the stuff of history. Want to change it? Quit wasting time with Skull and Boners, and the New World Order, and the Jews, and Atlantis, and the little green men, and start agitating for a world ruled by law and order, as opposed to money.

[Jasonik]

are you proposing that a "seceret gov't" or "NWO" of sorts has been in existance since the inseption of government here and elsewhere?


Read the above post.

[Qdrop]

The only force that pulls the strings is history. Is it surprising to find the descendants of royalty in leadership positions? Why should it be? Capital and influence are handed down from one generation to the next in every oligarchy. Is politics a very exclusive club of well-to-do individuals? Of course it is, when has it ever been anything else? There's no conspiracy to any of this, it's just the way things are since all attempts to reverse the standard model have failed.

I believe it was Cato who once said "I find it hard to believe that two priests can pass one another in the street and not laugh." Nothing's changed since then - power is still the privilege of the wealthy and their descendants, and I find it just as difficult to believe that Kerry and Bush don't share a good guffaw after every "debate," if only because they know nothing will really change regardless of which one of them is elected. Conspiracy theory is a joke; oligarchy theory is the stuff of history. Want to change it? Quit wasting time with Skull and Boners, and the New World Order, and the Jews, and Atlantis, and the little green men, and start agitating for a world ruled by law and order, as opposed to money.

beautifully written.....and completely accurate.......take a bow.


the rest of you "believers" need to get off the internet a little more and change up your reading material.

try a couple of books by Michael Shermer:
How We Believe
and
Why People Believe Wierd Things.

it may instill a little more much needed skepticism in your theories.

[bigkidpants]

The only force that pulls the strings is history. Is it surprising to find the descendants of royalty in leadership positions? Why should it be? Capital and influence are handed down from one generation to the next in every oligarchy. Is politics a very exclusive club of well-to-do individuals? Of course it is, when has it ever been anything else? There's no conspiracy to any of this, it's just the way things are since all attempts to reverse the standard model have failed.
you're being a little naive here. leadership positions, sure. but when every president for the last hundred years has been the candidate with the most royal blood, even in elections where multiple candidates were blue-blooded, is more than just the weight of history. the aristocratic system, especially in the information age, is constantly at risk of falling apart and going to common people. like for example when howard dean was leading the polls before the primaries. the system is not just perpetuated by it's own inertia, but by constant betrayals of the commoners by the aristocrats. if it's always been this way, it's because there have always been people to renew the system. dean and kucinich didn't so much lose the primaries as much as they were never really in the running.


I believe it was Cato who once said "I find it hard to believe that two priests can pass one another in the street and not laugh." Nothing's changed since then - power is still the privilege of the wealthy and their descendants, and I find it just as difficult to believe that Kerry and Bush don't share a good guffaw after every "debate," if only because they know nothing will really change regardless of which one of them is elected.
all conspiracy means is 'shared words'. this is exactly a conspiracy. i, for one, am not talking about little green men or atlantis. what i'm saying is that the strings are being pulled by men who understand what they are doing. history is not the operative force.

Conspiracy theory is a joke; oligarchy theory is the stuff of history. Want to change it? Quit wasting time with Skull and Boners, and the New World Order, and the Jews, and Atlantis, and the little green men, and start agitating for a world ruled by law and order, as opposed to money.
by your own admission, there is a ruling class in america and not a democracy. there is constant effort to perpetuate this system, by definition a conspiracy.

[Schmeltz]

but when every president for the last hundred years has been the candidate with the most royal blood, even in elections where multiple candidates were blue-blooded, is more than just the weight of history.


How so? Which secret cadre is manipulating the vote to ensure that that candidate is elected? How do they count the votes creatively to make sure nobody notices? Or do people simply happen to vote for the candidate with the most royal blood? I suspect they might.


if it's always been this way, it's because there have always been people to renew the system.


I disagree. I think the system is self-perpetuating, in part because it only exists as a function of human flaws. The system is indeed always in danger of being commandeered by the common people, but in the end such attempts always fail. Look at the Russian revolution - it started out as a complete reversal of the old order, where the ruling class was virtually annihilated and totally new systems were put in place. But within little more than a decade the system had renewed itself; it simply took a slightly different form. Czar became Dictator of the Proletariat as a consequence of capital and political power falling to a new group - in this case one manufactured by ideology as opposed to genetics or wealth. That was all the revolution really managed to accomplish. Look at the French revolution. It's not so much that people deliberately renew the system as that the system can continue to function because it emerges from the flaws that are common to all people.


all conspiracy means is 'shared words'.


Technically, "conspiracy" means "an agreement between two or more people to commit an act prohibited by law or to commit a lawful act by means prohibited by law." I don't think there's any formal agreement between Bush and Kerry to rig the election. There doesn't need to be. Likewise, I don't think that there's any formal agreement between members of an oligarchy to keep themselves in power at any price; I imagine they're just as glad to stab one another in the back.


by your own admission, there is a ruling class in america and not a democracy. there is constant effort to perpetuate this system


Yes, there is a ruling class in America (admittedly more fluid than most ruling classes have been, but a ruling class nonetheless). But there is no constant effort to perpetuate this system by men behind the scenes; that is one thing I will not admit. Rather, the system is unconsciously perpetuated through historical forces - economics, ideologies political and religious, warfare, and so on. There is no man or group of men who can pull the strings so as to control these, especially in the information age.

Bottom line is that nobody is consciously manipulating the system to produce a predetermined outcome that fits a personal agenda - at least not in the secretive, deceptive manner that you seem to feel is the case. People are simply doing what they have always been doing and likely always will do.

[greedygretchen]

i guess you don't realize that the 2000 election was rigged...
also, do you think a microchipped population (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=569&e=13&u=/nm/health_chip_dc) is far fetched?

"People have no idea of the abyss we are staring into or the nature of the world we are leaving for our children to endure and most people don't seem to care. They would much rather ignore the obvious and go into denial of a truth that's splatting them right between the eyes. I feel like a cow who runs into the field screaming: 'Hey, you know that truck that takes some of our friends away every month? Well they don't take them to another field like we thought. They shoot them in the head, bleed them dry, and put the pieces into packets. Then those humans buy them and eat them!' Imagine what the reaction from the rest of the herd would be: 'You're crazy man. They'd never do that. Anyway, I've got shares in the trucking company and I get a good return. Shut up you're making waves.'"--David Icke

and in response to how the few can control the masses...

"For every action or non-action there is a consequence. When we give our minds and our responsibility away, we give our lives away. If enough of us do it, we give the world away and that is precisely what we have been doing throughout known human history. This is why the few have always controlled the masses. The only difference today is that the few are now manipulating the entire planet because of the globalization of business, banking,and communications. The foundation of that control has always been the same: keep the people in ignorance, fear, and at war with themselves. Divide, rule and conquer while keeping the most important knowledge to yourself...The reason we are so controlled is not that we don't have the power to decide our own destiny, it is that we give the power away every minute of our lives. When something happens that we don't like, we look for someone else to blame. When there is a problem, we say, 'What are they going to do about it?'. At which point they, who have secretly created the problem in the first place, respond to this demand by introducing a 'solution'- more centralization of power and erosion of freedom. If you want to give more powers to the police, security agencies and military, and you want the public to demand you to do it, then ensure there is more crime, violence and terrorism, and then it's a cinch to acheive your aims."--David Icke

[bigkidpants]

technically, to conspire means to breathe together (con - together, spire - breathe) from the latin conspirare, to be in harmony. all the bit about it being unlawful is connotation.

the historical forces you list, economics, ideologies political and religious, warfare, do not exist in a vacuum. as we have seen there is always a person or group leading others according to their own interests. the iraq occupation had its neocons, christianity its peters and pauls, communism had karl marx and lennin and mao. i'm not saying that any one person has total control over these forces. rather, i liken them to a canal where sure the water flows freely, but only along the manmade channel to the pre-determined detination. even russia, after all that communism, has been steered back to a despotic royal heir (putin is descendent from european royalty and possibly a distant cousin of george w. bush). fancy that.

civilization is not natural. it is the imposition of will, human will, over chaod. thus, there is constant effort to perpetuate the elitist system by men both behind the scenes and in plain view. perhaps if society was static, then the inertia of history would be enough to keep it going forever, like in space. but the rate of change over the past several hundred years alone is enough to keep the elites scrambling to stay on top. government sponsored entities, tax loopholes, and corporate ownership of public media frequencies are all relatively recent examples of conscious efforts to keep the majority subjected to the rule of a minority. then there are factions within the elite that compete for prominence. sure bush or kerry would stab the other in the back, but never in a way that betrays the ruling class. they only compete against each other once the game is fixed and they've eliminated everyone else.

so how do they count the votes creatively to make sure nobody notices? it's amazing that after 2000 people still have to ask this question. i'll tell you one thing, this "statistical deadheat" plays right into their hands. no matter who wins it will be credible and no one will be in a position to contradict the official count. i seriously doubt people just unconsciously happen to choose the most royal candidate -- that's a blind statement of faith on the level of little green men.

[Schmeltz]

there is constant effort to perpetuate the elitist system by men both behind the scenes and in plain view.


I think this is where we disagree. I don't think there are any men behind the scenes trying to perpetuate the system. I think that's a fringe theory which very little substance to support it. If you want to believe in it, fine, but I think you'll have a hard time convincing most people of its veracity.

I do think that elites try to perpetuate the system that rewards them, but this is a purely organic function of history. It's what the elites of every society have always done, and what the commoners do as soon as they take their place, simply because it is natural to do so, and not because they're being directed by mysterious, shadowy entities who control world events so that descendants of royalty are guaranteed to stay in power. So, when you say:


the rate of change over the past several hundred years alone is enough to keep the elites scrambling to stay on top


... then I say you've misinterpreted the whole thing. There will always be someone on top, no scrambling is needed. If the elites are replaced with another group of people, it doesn't change the fact that there is an elite. There's nobody behind the scenes pulling strings to make sure that this is so, it is simply a natural expression of human history.

What the rate of change over the years has produced, however, is a phenomenon unique to our era: a large, well-educated, reasonably affluent middle class who hold a lot of clout in the modern age. Society is no longer shaped like a pyramid, but bulges in the middle; for the first time in history we can define our culture not in terms of hierarchies of class but in terms of education. A world ruled by the force of law, rather than force itself, is just around the corner if the energies of the modern age can be appropriately harnessed. This is what we need to do to change history, instead of seeking to expose a mysterious group that doesn't exist.

[Ace42]

I think this is where we disagree. I don't think there are any men behind the scenes trying to perpetuate the system. I think that's a fringe theory which very little substance to support it. If you want to believe in it, fine, but I think you'll have a hard time convincing most people of its veracity.

"Behind the scenes" only means "not directly / well publicised" - So anyone who has (even relatively small) influence on political leaders would qualify. Bill Gates is not overtly political, and yet his financial wealth gives him direct influence on the domestic and global economy. That amounts to a significant amount of power, and yet do you know where he or his company stands on any political issues? Apart from being anti-anti-trust / anti-monopoly, their opinions are their own.

I do think that elites try to perpetuate the system that rewards them, but this is a purely organic function of history.

That amounts to the same thing, and while the super-powerful need not be focussed in this, the fact that they are so powerful means that they need only work together in a small or limited way in order to achieve significant results. Such co-operation can either be overt (MSNBC, AOL Time-Warner, etc etc) or it can be less so (Halliburton's numerous dubious subsidaries, etc) or it can totally covert, a gentleman's agreement off the record in a smokey room (Price-fixing, built-in obselecence, etc)

It's what the elites of every society have always done, and what the commoners do as soon as they take their place, simply because it is natural to do so, and not because they're being directed by mysterious, shadowy entities who control world events so that descendants of royalty are guaranteed to stay in power.

That is a very Orwellian view of the situation. And it is not precisely true. There have been numerous progressive moves made towards devolution of power. If it is what "all commoners did as soon as they take their place" - we'd still have monarchies and small selected aristocracies. Feudalism does not still exist in the UK, so that is evidence enough to show that your claim is very very spacious to say the least. At best it is a less than satisfactory generalisation. And decendants of royalty are not guaranteed to stay in power - many countries had elected monarchies (where a distant relation rather than a literal descendant) could get into power. More importantly, most Monarchies have numerous splits and branches. In the UK, numerous new families with no direct blood claim to the throne have taken over, including the importation of foreign nobles when we had no direct royalty left.

There will always be someone on top, no scrambling is needed. If the elites are replaced with another group of people, it doesn't change the fact that there is an elite. There's nobody behind the scenes pulling strings to make sure that this is so, it is simply a natural expression of human history.

You are in error if you think "being in charge" is synonymous with being "the most powerful / in the elite" - the officials may change, but as you imply, the politics stays the same, which means the non-electable beneficiaries stay the same. Bill G gets protected by the new elite in much the same as the old elite, and he *will* force the system into acquiescing. Now, is it because it is "in human nature" to adopt these oligarchies? Or is it because we are locked into systems (notably capitalist, sometimes totalitarian, formerly imperial, feudal and tribal in reverse chronological order) which perpetuate this subversion of the interests of the masses? That is not a factor of history, not even a factor of human nature, but a factor of a self-regulating system.

And what is it that makes the middle class change into the ruling class? Corruption due to power? It seems more likely that it is the selection process rather than some inherant inclination. It is ludicrous to say that everyone everywhere has an equal voice in the selection process (whether in a general election, or even in nominating / selecting from candidates, or even just defining the selection criteria) and that means that there must be forces which effect this minority, and forces which effect the force which effects this minority. There must be someone or something at the top level of this hierachy, and knowing the nature of hierachies (to centralise power and influence at the top) then it is clearly going to be a person or organisation which is very powerful. Whether this organisation is merely a collection of people who happened to share some distant past-office or not, it is still indicative of the old elite controlling the new elite. Making the "new elite" not "the different middle class changing" - but the "middle class" having the "ruling class" components extracted from them. Orwellian, indeed.

Society is no longer shaped like a pyramid, but bulges in the middle; for the first time in history we can define our culture not in terms of hierarchies of class but in terms of education.

T&F:

The net wealth of the 10 richest billionaires is $ 133 billion , more than 1.5 times the total national income of the least developed countries.
The cost of eradicating poverty is 1% of global income.
Effective debt relief to the 20 poorest countries would cost $ 5.5 billion - equivalent to the cost of building EuroDisney.

http://www.undp.org/teams/english/facts.htm

I assume you mean the "buldge" in this pyramid is the middle-class that is roughly equivalent to the US "middle class" - this is a tremendous error. The whole of the US population (one of the richest in the world) is less than 1/21st of the world's population. So, a percentage of the 1/21st richest people in the world is NOT a "bulge in the middle" - it is a bulge right near the top. And "in terms of education" - no, in terms of "the old boys network" - Yale is considered a "good university" not because the people that pass through it are clever (Bush is a moron) but because they represent the social not academic elite of the country. The fact that the Skull and Bones soc is a Yale institution is not coincidental.

A world ruled by the force of law, rather than force itself, is just around the corner if the energies of the modern age can be appropriately harnessed. This is what we need to do to change history, instead of seeking to expose a mysterious group that doesn't exist.

They exist, but they are not mysterious. The CIA get up to all sorts of nefarious shit (this is not debatable, this is historical fact) in an effort to manipulate the goverts of the world, etc. These "men in black suits" certainly are a "mysterious group" who exists, and are a reality to numerous foreign nations. To suggest that they or others like them are not at work in the US is ludicrous and patently false. The difference is, you don't shit in your own garden, so they have to be a lot less brazen about their dealings.

[Schmeltz]

All very nice points, but none of them even suggest to me that world events are controlled and dictated by an invisible group of secretive, powerful operatives bent on keeping royalty in power. A couple of things.


Bill Gates is not overtly political, and yet his financial wealth gives him direct influence on the domestic and global economy. That amounts to a significant amount of power


That's not the best example, because Bill Gates is a member of the elite - financial, not political. There are different types of elites, you know, though they often overlap and it is possible to lump them all together generally as the elite - a social class with higher status, prestige, power, and resources. This does not, however, necessarily mean that Bill Gates fields his financial wealth in such a manner as to control the outcome of presidential elections or manipulate world events in his favour. I don't dispute that he has the clout, I dispute the assumptions people make as to how it's used. You could probably say, in fact, that that is what is at the root of our disagreement.


the fact that they are so powerful means that they need only work together in a small or limited way in order to achieve significant results.


Like rigging elections for two hundred years? Like constructing mystery organizations that run history with nobody finding out except for a select group of theorists who miraculously decode their evil conspiracy only to find that nobody will believe them? Again, sure they have the clout, but are they really using to create a New World Order? I don't think they are.


There have been numerous progressive moves made towards devolution of power.


I realize that, and I think I acknowledged it with my point about the middle class, but there's never been any such thing as a truly egalitarian society - elites have always run the show by virtue of some factor - genetics, wealth, ideology, religion, merit - that keeps them at the top. Of course we don't have feudalism, neither do we have emperors or chieftains or tribal patriarchs, but we have a concentration of most power in the hands of a relatively small group of people with higher status than the rest of us. Probably we always will.


Or is it because we are locked into systems (notably capitalist, sometimes totalitarian, formerly imperial, feudal and tribal in reverse chronological order) which perpetuate this subversion of the interests of the masses? That is not a factor of history


Hang on here. We're locked into systems that have persisted throughout history, as you yourself admit, but are not a factor of history? That makes no sense at all. This is like saying warfare and economics are not factors of history because we cannot escape their influence - a nonsensical argument. If these systems have persisted throughout, and have indeed shaped, our history, then I'd say that makes them pretty big factors in it. And functions of it.


that means that there must be forces which effect this minority


Indeed, I think I referred to a few of them in my previous post. That's where you should look - not to a mysterious, invisible top of the hierarchy that is controlling these forces.


I assume you mean the "buldge" in this pyramid is the middle-class that is roughly equivalent to the US "middle class"


Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was referring to Western society in general, and not global society in general. Naturally there are still huge blocs of the world where working poor make of the vast majority of the population. I suppose in that context the middle-class of Western society constitute nothing more than a type of sub-elite. But in "our" (read: Western) culture the middle class has assumed a very crucial position, as you asserted in your point about the devolution of power. I think that's one of the most important changes of the last couple of centuries.

I think you do poor Yale a disservice by asserting that nobody who comes out of there is clever. Sure some morons are coming out of the system - but this is a function of the association of educational merit with social prestige, not a symptom of systematic decay. It's much more telling to note that education is considered a high social virtue worthy of attainment by all, than to note that it's possible for a couple of morons to buy their way through it and pretend they've achieved the merit that should go with the status.


The CIA


... are an intelligence organization who are mysterious and elusive by definition. If they were completely transparent, they wouldn't be doing their job. Again, I can hardly dispute the track record of the CIA (or the KGB or the Mossad) in seeking to influence world events, but it's much more useful to locate these organizations within their specific historical contexts than to wax conspiratorial about their possible secret agendas. The CIA overthrew Mossadegh and put Pehlavi on the Peacock Throne not so a New World Order could be created, but as a function of Cold War politics and ideology. Same with Argentina, Cuba, Afghanistan, etc. I defy you to prove otherwise.

[bigkidpants]

society is based upon men behind the scenes influencing outcomes. that's why we have the corporate veil and big money elections. that's why there're huge marketing firms studying new and better ways to get you to buy a product. why enron can manipulate the price of energy for the largest state in the country, why unions are in the pocket of the democratic party. how can you deny that people talk, network? that business is cut throat and people will cheat and stack the deck in their favor whenever possible? discounting the effect of the man behind the curtain is to make yourself a sheep among wolves, an ignorant consumer among greedy retailers and adverts.

there have always been rich and poor, haves and have nots. but what is not natural and organic is congress voting away its own money-making power to create a federal reserve system that profits private bank owners at the expense of the nation. the election of the most royally-connected presidential candidate in all of the last century's elections is not just the inertia of history!

as ace tells us, the ruling elite is a SOCIAL organization, not the true elite of human ability. there is a natural elite among us, an aristocracy of ability and intelligence and genetics. the most beautiful people, the most athletic, the smartest, the best golfers, they get their rewards, but they don't set national policy. they don't decide if we're going to bomb iraq or stop the killing in africa. the parameters on the politics and ideology of the actual rulers is always determined by personal interest and the social structure of power. george w. bush can be president but dick cheney only vice. at no time is howard dean going to be president. if the people want him elected, he has to be discredited, their minds changed.

if every billionaire was as charming as say, bill clinton, and as capable as howard hughes and as popular as howard dean was for about a month, the power elite would be an organic reality. but strip the money and elitist upbringing and george bush is the same as a million other people, or worse. though bush lacks true ability and intelligence, he has something that proves to be even more important: access to the social world of real power. once he's ascended, his only real obligation is to make DIRECT, CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO PERPETUATE THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEM THAT BUOYED HIM for the benefit of the next generation.

now you can say the fact that the halls of power are guarded by a social group with its own values, morality and ideas about leadership is itself a product of historical forces, but its existence is very real. call it a mysterious secret society or a cult of personality, what every social clique needs is a central myth to hold the membership together, to teach its values while promoting an insider vs. outsider perspective. the mythology in which the elite wraps itself to justify its own power serves these ends, but, while steeped in history, is complete bunk. there is no divine right of kings any more than george bush is a compassionate conservative. the currently ongoing attempt to justify a global ruling family is also a fallacy -- there is no jesus bloodline from which the european royalty was derived (a la dan brown). what there absolutely IS -- a conspiracy to get enough people to believe so they can reap the benefit. if you can't handle the way the conspiracy is presented, in terms of intimidating logos and religious symbols, well, the elite is just rather arrogant that way. and it's not that most people don't believe it, it's that most people don't understand it and would rather not believe anyway.

regardless of the rhetoric and the flag-waving propaganda, western society remains utterly hierarchical, american public education a sad joke. the rulers have always tossed bread and circus to the mob to keep it pacified, but in issues that matter, say occupying iraq, the protests of hundreds of thousands of people with "clout" did not change the outcome in the tiniest measurable bit. what we have today is a middle group of people who at least know they're being fucked, even if they won't all admit that people are doing it on purpose.

[Ace42]

That's not the best example, because Bill Gates is a member of the elite - financial, not political.

That was exactly my point, though. The elite supports itself. If the impossible occured and someone not part of the elite had a controlling influence on the system, that would undermine my argument.

This does not, however, necessarily mean that Bill Gates fields his financial wealth in such a manner as to control the outcome of presidential elections or manipulate world events in his favour. I don't dispute that he has the clout, I dispute the assumptions people make as to how it's used.

I think you are being naive. Capitalism works by centralising wealth (power). Letting other people make choices that effect you removes power from yourself, the antithesis of capitalism. If Gates did not use his power (financial, as the guy has 0 charisma) in such a way, someone who did would be better off than him. By purely Darwinian logic, he must act in this way to be head of the pyramid, or else anyone else with comprable clout could've outmanouvred him at any stage. While the degree to which he does influence this (either consciously, or unconsciously through having a company that works autonymously to protect its / his interests) is up for debate, to say that he is disinterested is head-in-sand naive. I'm sure with even the minimum of research, you'd be able to discern political manouvering designed to minimise his monopoly court losses. If that doesn't make Gates (not in any way overtly political) "a man behind the curtain" I don't know what does. I think you'd say "this isn't a conspiracy theory" only because it is so plausible and common sensical that it doesn't sound suitably exaggerrated to qualify.

Like rigging elections for two hundred years?

It depends how it was done. You could rig an election, and still fail to get the desired outcome. That doesn't mean it wasn't rigged, merely that the rigging was marginally too subtle to be effective. I personally wouldn't saythat two hundred years of elections were rigged, but I do think it incredibly likely that for two-hundred years the vast majority of them were "stacked." The phrase "dirty-tricks campaign" isn't cliché through paranoia. Also, just stuffing a couple of votes is technically "rigging an election" - how many votes do you have to stuff before you consider the election "rigged" ? How many candidates need to be slandered, or intimidated out of running, before the election ceases to be "fair" ? I'd say even the smallest interference qualifies. Take the Florida election - the voting came to an incredibly narrow margin. From this we can see that only a few thousand votes is enough to "rig" an election. Do you think that a few thousand votes is not enough for the most powerful nation on the planet's government to fudge?

Like constructing mystery organizations that run history with nobody finding out except for a select group of theorists who miraculously decode their evil conspiracy only to find that nobody will believe them?

You make it seem like it is hard. Infact it happens every day.

http://www.deoxy.org/wc/warcrim2.htm

^^^ Ramsey Clark, former US GA listed a numberof quite clear and often self-evident charges against the US administration. These war-crimes are illegal, there is no way to debate the black and white laws of it, and yet they got off. Now, how many people do you know who are aware that Colin Powell is technically a war-criminal? This information isn't top-secret, or complicated. It is very very clear. The US used prohibited weapons and performed prohibited actions as defined by the UN charter (and various other articles of international law) which were fully ratified by the US, and thus are prosecutable under the US constitution. There is plenty of freely available footage of these actions occuring. And yet they got away with it. People look blankly at you like you are a nut for suggesting that the VP and CP are degenerate criminals. "Conspiracy theory, it's nuts!"

"So, you saw the burned out truck on the highway of death that had been napalmed? The carnage caused by cluster-bombs?"
"Yeah, even fox showed the glorious victory"
"Well, those weapons are illegal, look, it says so here here and here. You've seen it with your own eyes"
"That can't be right... Otherwise they'd be arrested!"

The reason it is not hard for them to get away with it is because:
1. Even when shit happens right infront of peoples' eyes, they don't see or don't care.
2. They are too powerful for anyone to do anything about. Even a former general attourney (and more recently, a number of intelligence and security officials) are discredited by the establishment. Who else does that leave to bring down the hammer?

You're right, secret shadowy organisations are implausible - but they don't need to be secret or shadowy. Bush and his numerous skull and bones cronies are in the public eye. We all know about it. What can we do about it? Nothing.

Again, sure they have the clout, but are they really using to create a New World Order? I don't think they are.

They are making an old world order. The NWO is now, we are living it, have been since before the 60s - is it coincidence that its the same people in charge since then? Is it coincidence that every aspect of society has changed in all manner of ways, but the Bush is towing the same partisan line that has existed since then? Why would the people in power be creating an NWO when they have what they want now? No, they are using their clout to consolidate their CWO (Current World Order) - the patriot act is just an extension of this.

but we have a concentration of most power in the hands of a relatively small group of people with higher status than the rest of us. Probably we always will.

Pessimist. Oligarchies have no place in my utopia.

We're locked into systems that have persisted throughout history, as you yourself admit, but are not a factor of history? That makes no sense at all. This is like saying warfare and economics are not factors of history because we cannot escape their influence - a nonsensical argument. If these systems have persisted throughout, and have indeed shaped, our history, then I'd say that makes them pretty big factors in it. And functions of it.

Factors of != factors in. "History" is merely the authorised representation of a series of events. As such, it cannot "create" anything. Thus something is not instigated by "History" merely a part of "History" Trying to use "History" in an arguement is often fallacious as not only is it too broad and complex to extract meaningful rulings from, not only is it often deceptive (and false) but also it merely outlines one set of events. I might flip a coin a dozen times and get all heads, but that does not mean that history shows that if you flip coins, they will come up heads. Historic precdent is often worthless when trying to refute claims because it merely shows "it hasn't happened yet" - a state of affairs that preceded 100% of all world events.

Indeed, I think I referred to a few of them in my previous post. That's where you should look - not to a mysterious, invisible top of the hierarchy that is controlling these forces.

The factors you cited are abstracts, and as such are created by, perpetuated by, and believed in by people. To suggest that these abstracts are somehow beyond tampering or deliberate distortion by individuals or organisations is errorneous. Political ideologies and religious ideologies are often manipulated by individuals, Hitler used these (and the economy, and wars) in order to further his own ends. The fact that he did not have a mouth-piece as a proxy (which I am sure you'll concede he easily could've) and operate things from behind the scenes says more about his ego than it does about the workings of power.

I think you do poor Yale a disservice by asserting that nobody who comes out of there is clever. Sure some morons are coming out of the system - but this is a function of the association of educational merit with social prestige, not a symptom of systematic decay.

A function how? So being highly educated is desirable, so more people want to go there. How does that equate to a bunch of rich privlidged fools getting a qualification from there? And it is a straw-man argument to suggest I said nobody who is a Yaley is clever. I merely said that the people who come out of it do well because of their connections, not because of their academic learnings.

It's much more telling to note that education is considered a high social virtue worthy of attainment by all, than to note that it's possible for a couple of morons to buy their way through it and pretend they've achieved the merit that should go with the status.

Telling of what? I fail to see your point.

... are an (...) organization who are mysterious and elusive by definition. If they were completely transparent, they wouldn't be doing their job.

Now take that and apply it to shadey mysterious oligarchies.

Again, I can hardly dispute the track record of the CIA (or the KGB or the Mossad) in seeking to influence world events, but it's much more useful to locate these organizations within their specific historical contexts than to wax conspiratorial about their possible secret agendas. The CIA overthrew Mossadegh and put Pehlavi on the Peacock Throne not so a New World Order could be created, but as a function of Cold War politics and ideology. Same with Argentina, Cuba, Afghanistan, etc. I defy you to prove otherwise.

I don't need to. The Cold War ideology is also a product of the elite playing power-games. The fact that the "domino effect" in 'Nam failed to happen goes to illustrate just how false the ideology was. So, if it was obviously flawed reasoning, then why go along with it? Self-interest. And what could various US presidents gain from the deaths of their young armed individuals apart from political suicide? Not as much as numerous other people profitting from it (arms companies, etc) whose name neither of us know, and thus qualify as shadey mysterious strangers.

[Schmeltz]

Gentlemen, your points are well expressed and I commend you for an admirable defense of your position. I'm sorry to say that I simply don't have time for a detailed point-by-point rebuttal, much as I would like to continue our discussion. Suffer me to say, if you will, that nothing said so far has convinced me that the maintenance of contemporary structures of power - be they political, social, or allegedly conspiratorial in nature - is anything more than an expression of the organic processes of human history. I'm sorry, my friends, but your arguments have failed to convince me otherwise; I still believe that there is a much more reasonable explanation for current events - an explanation that can be derived through rational analysis of historic phenomona. Still, I thank you for the exposure to an alternative point of view and for an enlightening conversation. Would that I had the leisure and energy to pursue it further! But my assignments won't write themselves. Thus, I feel compelled to take my leave of our conversation. Perhaps we can take it up another time.

[Ace42]

But my assignments won't write themselves.

Translation: Meta-Ridley won't defeat itself.

[Schmeltz]

Please. I beat that game a year ago.

[Ace42]

Please. I beat that game a year ago.

I gave up on him. It was a freebie give-away with the console, and thus as soon as it got vaguely challenging, I decided to bug out and play something else.

[Schmeltz]

Yeah, I was stuck on him for quite some time. Metroid Prime itself was even harder, though. But it was all worth it when I got to the credits.

Oh, wait. It wasn't.

[ASsman]

Fuck it.

[bigkidpants]

what is "conspiracy theory"?

Michael Barkun, author of "A Culture of Conspiracy" and much-cited in these matters, wisely informs us that "conspiracy theories are one way to make sense of what happened and regain a sense of control. Of course, they're usually wrong, but they're psychologically reassuring."

"Usually wrong"? Why does Prof. Barkun hedge his bets?

We need to unpack our terms. "Conspiracy theory" describes the official 9/11 report as well as it does the alternative views. The events of Sept. 11 obviously were not the product of a single perpetrator, but of a criminal conspiracy.

Criminal conspiracy is treated in countless volumes of what prosecutors call conspiracy law or racketeering statutes. Another word for it is organized crime. Any attempt to explain a criminal conspiracy constitutes a theory. Prosecutors devise theories based on initial clues, and then try to see which of them best fit the evidence overall. Convictions often follow.

Neither Morello nor Zelikow is concerned about "conspiracy theories" per se. They are applying the term selectively, to include only hypotheses in which elements of the U.S. government were themselves involved in the attacks for political and financial gain.

If Cheney says Saddam Hussein backed the 9/11 attacks, as the vice-president did on many occasions despite his recent protestations to the contrary, this is not called a conspiracy theory, although it obviously involves a theoretical conspiracy. Yet this is the most important 9/11 conspiracy theory to date, because it was used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

If Zelikow tells us that 19 men agreed to hijack four planes and fly them into buildings and evaded all detection (although those identified as the ringleaders had been under observation by U.S. and allied agencies for years beforehand) this is not labeled conspiracy theory, although it describes a conspiracy.

The only theories branded as "conspiracies," and thus subject to ridicule and dismissal without examination, are those that suspect wrongdoing from the U.S. government - which did its best to hide and destroy evidence, and then sent out a top adviser to both Bush administrations, Zelikow, to investigate what happened.



--- from 'An Open Letter to Philip Zelikow and the Washington Post' by Nicholas Levis

[Bob]

as much as I would like someone other than Kerry or Bush (and I am voting Kerry), there is not enough wide-spread support to make it a reality. Baby steps indeed.

my thing is, we need to look at WHY there's not enough wide-spread support for it? why can't a third party stand a chance? who says they can't? how can we shut them up? i don't know man, it just seems to me that as long as we keep sitting here, voting for one of the two guys they pick out for us, we're just baby-stepping on a treadmill

not that i have any ideas

[DroppinScience]

I think the best first step is to have people get INVOLVED, get ENGAGED. It doesn't matter who they vote for, just VOTE and read up on which candidate represents their positions.

High engagement among the citizens equals a strong government. Simple as that.

If the voter turnout in the US increases with every election, than that's a good sign things will be on the right track.

Oh yes, and don't just vote on election day. Vote on all elections. Whether it's for mayor, governor, dog catcher, blah blah blah. Working towards making your city or your state a better place will also translate towards a better country in the process.

Oh yeah and VOTE in the primaries too. Have your say for which candidate (from either party) should be nominated so the Dems and Repubs can have the best candidate running for Prez. If you think Bush and/or Kerry are shit representations of their parties, start voting for people you want to represent your party.

Then maybe, just maybe, you'll have a less shittier country. :p

[Ace42]

It seems to me that more people don't vote third party because "third party doesn't stand a chance" - and yet third party doesn't stand a chance because no-one is voting third party. Totally circular. If the majority voted third party, they would win. The first step is to damn the torpedoes and vote for what you believe in, and deride / criticise / ridicule every moron (and they are morons) who decides that rather than voting for what is "right" they'll vote for "the winner"

A vote for Kerry might be a vote against Bush, but it is a vote FOR the system that allowed Bush to come to power. You might help remove Bush by voting for Kerry, but you are increasing the liklihood that his sort will be elected again.

Bash them around the head with the argument until it sinks in. A vote not for your candidate of preference (irrespective of party) is a vote for every candidate you never wanted for the rest of your life. Is a "wasted" vote in one election worth guaranteeing wasted (in that you do not get who you want) votes in all subsequent elections? I think not.

To vote contrary to one's own political inclinations is a betrayl of conscience and the antithesis of democracy.

"Bush wants you to vote for Nader, it'll win him the election"

Bush wants everyone NOT to vote for Nader, as he and his like would rather have a 50-50 chance of winning (especially easy when there is only one opponent to slander and ridicule, only one opposing stance to answer, and only one dissenting voice to disregard or belittle) than have it fairly spread out between the numerous political stances.

Bush didn't win the last election because people voted for Nader, he won because people didn't vote with their consciences in the previous dozen. What you are seeing now is that error distilled, boiled down to its perfect and pure corruptness. It can't be fixed by simply going along with it like you have for the last few decades.

[ASsman]

There needs to be some serious funding for awareness. No more pussy as commercials about weed and how it MIGHT cause you to do something you will later regret, we need stuff out there making hypocrites out of both canidates. The truth will fuck both canidates up, it's that simple. It is like someone who has been chained in a closet for too long though, people will cover their eyes at the first sight of truth. It has been long since they have seen it in many cases, it will burn.

[steve-onpoint]

Yeah, this shit is freaky deaky. I wonder how much truth there is to all of it. :confused: