This essay assumes that you understand that 9/11 was not an attack against the United States by Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden, but rather a 'psychological operation' perpetrated by various elements of the U.S. government, the City of New York, and certain foreign governments through their intelligence services. For more information about 9/11, click here.
So, given that the government in fact did this deed, what does that say about the nature of the American government? How does it impact the need for, and the possibilities for, a world government? And, what can we and should we do now?
Even before 9/11, we have seen how the federal government has become beholden to various corporate mega-interests. These corporations are world-wide; they owe no allegiance to the United States nor to any foreign country. Although they are incorporated in one specific country, they can then have some or all their operations in other countries, and can change where they are incorporated instantly. They are prepared to instantly move any of their operations from country to country, and will do so at the drop of a hat - or at the onset or even possiblility of any intereference to their operations by the government at any level: national, state, or local. Because of this they are not accountable to the citizenry of the United States or to any other country, nor to the environment, nor to their employees. They are in theory accountable to their stockholders but, in many cases, one person owns 'controlling interest' in the stocks; in other cases mutual funds, holding companies, 'parent' companies and so on hold controlling interest and when so, they have no accountability to the remaining stockholders. Many corporations are in effect controlled by super-rich CEOs and other top management officers, who own huge amounts of stock given to them in stock options. To be sure, they have to be accountable to their customers; however, any one corporation is accountable to that person only to the extent that he is a customer of its products or services. For instance if a corporation makes and sells shoes, it is accountable to a common person only insofar as he is interested in buying shoes.
Given this situation, it is obvious that efforts of the government to 'manage' these corporations is like trying to manage air with a fish net. Indeed, it is the corporations that manage the government. Through their intricate and well- paid lobbyists and by their campaign contributions they manage Congress; by campaign contributions they manage the President, and through his appointment power they manage regulatory agencies like the FDA, FTC, FCC, NRA, FPC, SEC; and the federal courts. Their power is not limited to the federal government; they also influence state governments and even municipalities by similar means. And other countries are not immune: they manage the great majority of national and regional governments around the world.
As an example of how corporations manipulate Congress, consider the bill to regulate gas price gouging, making it a federal crime. In the middle of the night, the oil company lobbyists got them to change the language of the bill to make it virtually unenforcable, believing that "no one" would notice the change. Consider: there are about sixty lobbyists in Washington for every congressman, and collectively they are paid about a hundred times what Congressmen are paid.
Corporations are not the only entities that in this 21st century have 'gone global'. So has organized crime. They are, to be sure, the targets of law enforcement in all the countries that they operate in. Corporations are not, as a rule, interested in drug trafficking or in other of organized crime's enterprises. They are however interested in money laundering, because this is very profitable to them. And they launder money from insider trading. Thus, corporations secretly encourage crime, especially drug trafficking, that generate a lot of money to be laundered. And they secretly encourage insider trading for the same reason. Through their managing power on governments, they get them to 'look the other way' from organized crime generating much money to be laundered, especially drug trafficking and insider trading.
We call this kind of government, beholden to corporations, influenced and essentially managed by corporations, and tolerant of certain kinds of organized crime because it is desirable to corporations, a corporatocracy.
Drug trafficking is a heinous crime understood by all. But many do not understand insider trading, thinking it a victimless crime. This is not true. We are all victims. Every time someone makes a 'killing' on an illegal trade, someone else loses at least that amount. In the end, we all lose.
It is to be emphasized that in general congressmen, state legislators, and probably most of the top people in the Administration truly believe the national (and state) governments are in control, while in truth they are not. Likewise most people in the mainstream press so believe. The corporatocracy does not consist of these. Rather it is in the way that different corporations work together in lobbying Congress and state legislatures, and financing re-election campaigns for them and for presidential candidates, financing that is always a thinly veiled bribe. And it is in the way that, in owning the mainstream media, they censor the media's output. In true Machiavellian fashion, the media make it seem to the public that they are 'looking out for them'. But in truth they print or publicize what the corporatocracy tells them to, and their censorship is in what they never talk about.
9/11 showed the existence of yet another kind of government. It is government that will commit such a heinous crime as 9/11, cover it up with a carefully planned 'story' for the media, for the purpose of manipulating public opinion to accomplish its aims. In other words, a 'psychological operation'. It is totally unaccountable to those who suffered in the 'collateral damage', although it may appear to pay these victims lip service. It appears democratic, as does the corporatocracy, but in fact acts through secret alliances to accomplish its deeds and its cover-ups. Due to its deceptive nature and secret alliances, we will call it an occultocracy.
The occultocracy consists of intelligence/espionage agencies such as the CIA and their counterparts in other countries. They operate with a surprising amount of co-operation with one another, forming the 'intelligence community'. All that has been said in the mainstream press about one agency not talking to others may be true in general, but does not apply to the intelligence community. The intelligence community exists, intelligence czar or no. They thus form a world-wide 'shadow government'. Though in theory each intelligence agency is accountable to its respective national government, in practice they slip around national governments in much the way that corporations do, and are in fact accountable only to themselves. What empowers them to do this is their ability and practice to establish 'proprietary companies'. These for-profit companies appear to operate in the private sector, but are in fact fronts for one or more intelligence agencies. Their profits go into the coffers of the intelligence agencies, making them less dependent on congressional or parliamentary appropriations. And it goes without saying that these 'companies' deal heavily in money laundering, making them even more a 'cash cow' for their agencies. The CIA also has extensive and very lucrative drug trafficking activities.
The effectiveness of the occultocracy as a global government can be appreciated by noting that the great majority of people in the United States, and at least a large minority of people around the world, still believe the 'official' explaination of 9/11. Furthermore, through 9/11 it got the Patriot Act passed, which creates links between the CIA and the FBI. The FBI has police power. Thus, the occultocracy has an army.
It goes without saying that both the corporatocracy and the occultocracy have no accountability to the common person, and are elitist, as we shall see. But more significantly, both are global governing forces, whereas all the national governments, even America, are only regional.
This depends on what theory of political science you believe in. There are many of these. We will examine three of them here as representative. They are: the tribal-communist theory, the elitist theory, and the Spenglerian cycle theory
In examining these theories, bear in mind that the political good that they bear is measured not in terms of how 'democratic' they are, but rather how accountable leadership is in that system to each and every person in it, and by what means that accountability is implemented. For that matter, that is the measure by which 'democracy' itself must be evaluated.
The tribal theory holds that all political consciousness originated in tribal societies in ancient times. A few tribal societies are extant today which serve, more or less, for comparison purposes. Unfortunately, in most cases this is less, for tribal societies are under enormous pressure from 'civilization' and this has colored their politico-philosophical outlook. Tribes were organized on familial lines. As in any family, each person had a place and a unique relationship to the family and to the tribe. From each person was expected output according to his ability, and to each person was provided according to his need. Health care was in particular the responsibility of the community. With even small tribes, there were subdivisions to minimize the occurence of incestuous marriage relationships. This was done either by subdivision of the tribe into clans, or into two roughly equal groups known as moieties. Marriage had to be between clans or between the two moieties.
In the communist theory, private ownership of property by individuals was limited to very personal items only; all other property was considered to be community. In particular, land could not be owned by an individual. The great majority of tribal societies were communist.
Politics in tribal societies are markedly different from what we are used to in "civilized" societies. The three basic differences are consensus politics , accountability-driven politics, and bottom-up organization.
In tribal societies generally, consensus politics were practiced. This requires, for a decision of a group, not merely a majority, but unanimity - in other words, a consensus. The effect of this practice is that attention tends to focus on whatever issue a 'holdout' has that prevents him or her from joining the majority and thus allowing unanimity. In consensus politics there are no minorities and thus no issues of minority rights.
Consensus politics had a deep effect on the perceived nature of leadership. A leader had to be accountable to each and every member of the tribe, for any one might become a holdout and he would have to lead the effort to resolve the issues that he or she was holding out for. Consensus politics also affects the level of accountability that each and every member perceives in participating in the political process. In majority politics, coalitions must be allowed to form so that several diverse factions can coalesce into a single majority; but there will always be a minority which can be ignored. But in consensus politics there will be no minorities, no one would be ignored; but anyone who would 'hold out' must take accountability that the issue upon which he or she holds out is a fair and relevant one.
Leaders themselves were selected, in some cases, through hereditary rules: Polynesian societies are an example of this. But in other cases leaders were selected on the basis of competency and achievement: New Guinean and most Melanesian societies are examples. In these a political process implemented the selection.
Other characteristics of tribal society include: the concept of art as the product of a group of people rather than that of a single individual. The latter, first taking place in post-tribal Spenglerian states, indroduced the concept of copyright which is generally absent in tribal societies. Also, tribal societies had hermaphroditic concepts of sexuality, as they believed that humans had descended from hermaphrodites, whereas in post-tribal states they tended to believe male (or female) chauvinist concepts of sexuality. Finally, tribal socieites were very strong on male and female puberty initiation rites. These took the form of ritualized death and rebirth: the boy died to allow the man to be reborn, for instance.
It is to be noted that in the tribal system, freedom and equality were only peripheral issues. To a tribal man, one is 'free to choose his own bondage'. As technologies of transportation and communication grew, it became more possible for a person to move away to a different tribe. But he or she knew that once there, the new tribe would have its expectations on how that person should contribute to the common good. And to tribal peoples, equality meant nothing; they respected that each person had different talents to contribute; and different needs that the tribe needed to tend to. Equality became an issue only as the tribal system was breaking down, as we shall see.
As tribal societies grew, the consensus process grew more and more cumbersome and unworkable. They got around this problem by subdividing the tribe, as had been done earlier to contend with the incest problem. They were subdivided into either clans or bands; there was then a governing council to which each clan or band sent delegates. More than one tier of subdivision was necessary and implemented in some cases. Bands generally implemented geographical subdivisions; the Lakota Sioux were examples of this. Clans generally implemented functional subdivisions, the Hopi tribe was an example of this. Civil or secular leadership was under the Bear Clan; other clans such as Parrot, Snake, Bow, Eagle, Badger, Coyote, had certain duties connected with their cycle of ceremonies. For the Hopi, the cycle of ceremonies acted as a template for their cycle of life.
Tribes in some cases bonded together to form 'nations' or confederacies. The five tribes of eastern United States were an example of this. They established a governing council; and to prevent any one tribe from dominating over the others there was an agreed-upon system containing 'checks and balances'.
Tribal societies broke down because of pressures both from within and without. The pressure from within was as their size increased, the danger of incestuous marriages became less and less of a problem, and the need for clans or moieties seemed to be going away. But as clans disintegrated, so did one's unique identification in the tribe, and so did consensus politics.
Pressure from without was more telling. Conquerors subjagated the tribes to their governance. They had no respect for clans, bands, or familial relationships. They were elitists; their subjects were at best cannon fodder and at worst nothing. Conquerors were succeeded first by kings and aristocratic courts (for Native Americans, by the government and the cavalry), and then by corporations. The common person was at best to the former, a tenant; and at best to the latter, a customer. Other than for that, neither conqueror, aristocrat nor corporation had any accountability to the common person.
Conquerors and their successors also did away with true communism. They owned the land and all major things, so much for communal sharing; and as for the slaves/tenants/common people, perhaps they considered themselves communist but it really didn't matter, they had virtually nothing to share.
Notwithstanding the demise of tribal society from all but a few isolated places in the world, it is considered under tribal theory the fundamental yearning of man contemplating political systems. It remains alive today in nuclear and extended families, and in small local organizations of many kinds. In ancient Greece when democracy first arose, it was like a substitute for tribal organization, and majority politics with its institutions of elections and voting was a substitute for consensus politics.
As a political theory, the tribal theory forwards and keeps alive the values of tribal society, as summarized above, as that satisfying the fundamental yearnings of man.
The elitist theory holds that it is natural, prevailing and fundamental for elitists to control society, and that tribal structures, utopian societies and democracies are but deviations. The theory originates in part from the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) who, in reviewing history up to his time, concluded that "liberty will be more safely guarded by the nobles" than by the common people. He held also that if a ruler or conqueror is to maintain his power he must move people from one province to another, "as shepherds move their flocks from place to place". A ruler must manipulate the people so that "it may seem that there is no change in the institutions, even though they are entirely different".
Many learned people have described the theory; George Orwell quite illustriously described it in his anti-utopian novel 1984. In his description, people in any stable society are divided into High, Middle and Low. The Highs are the elitists, be they conquerors, aristocrats, bureaucrats or corporations. The Middles are the wannabes. And the Lows are everyone else. But as communication and media proliferates in a society, the Lows are manipulated into believing that the system provides that all people are considered equal, as a sort of panacea for their condition. At various times the Middles will enlist the help of the Lows to overthrow the Highs, promising them greater equality and greater benefits. If they succeed they themselves become the new Highs; the original Highs are exterminated or their remnants disappear into the Lows, and the Lows are betrayed - once again. If they do not succeed the Middles are destroyed, or their remnants disappear into the Lows, and likewise the Lows are betrayed. But in either case a new Middle eventually arises, and the cycle continues.
Since in the elitist viewpoint stratification of society is natural and necessary, communism is inimical, and essentially all property is privately owned. The elitist will go through any number of mental manipulations to believe in a justification to all that he has, and why the Lows should not have it. Given a society with mass media however, they will go to any amount of trouble to convince the Lows that they should have some property, or indeed that they already have it. ("The American Dream ") Indeed, the elitist's most effective weapon to wield his power is propaganda, as Machiavelli predicted.
In the elitist viewpoint, Greek democracy arose because the governing class 'allowed' it. And the American Dream can happen because the governing class 'allows' Americans to own homes, cars, whatever. Likewise, rights exist only because the elitists 'allow' the common people to have them. Corporatocracy and occultocracy are the natural order of things in the elitist viewpoint.
It is important to note that the elitist has no accountability to the Lows. He does not provide property, benefits, rights, whatever to the commoner out of any obligation. He appears to do so 'out of the goodness of his heart', but in reality it is to ensure his continued position as a High. The Middles are always there somewhere, ready to enlist the Lows and shake the pedestal on which he stands.
Elitists are generally opposed to public education, since public schools are governed by boards elected by the people and accountable to the people. Charter and private schools, their curriculum controlled by corporate mega-interests, are their preference.
Elitists go to considerable trouble to make it appear that the 'good' things they do are for altruistic motives, when in fact they are not. But occasionally they must do 'bad' things to satisfy their needs, and they are likewise adept in making it appear that the 'bad' things is someone else's fault, not themselves. 9/11 is a shining example of this, but really, necessity has always been the excuse of tyrants.
In today's world the corporations are the High; the occultocracy (the international intelligence 'community') is the Middle, and 9/11 is part of its struggle to ascend to the High. The fragmented national governments are becoming the Low, which has the effect of making the common people the Low of the Low.
Today, a super-elitism is emerging in the aims of the Republican party and Tea party to destroy the middle class and deliver most of the world's wealth into the hands of a handful of super-rich individuals and mega-corporations. As Alex Jones points out, this is the present manifestation of a "dark dream" beginning with Malthus, and continuing in various forms with Huxley, Galton, the pseudo-science of eugenics, the abortive attempts to engineer a "super- human", Hitler's super-race, and so on- a sort of super-Machievellian vision where the "nobles" would only temporarily rule the masses with the "final solution" of killing them, reducing the population of the world to a tenth of its present level or less.
This began with the writings of historian and political scientist Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), who in 1918 published The Decline of the West. In it, he described cultures and civilizations as subject to eight distinct phases of political evolution. In these phases, art and archeitecture, religion and philosophy, and even mathematics went through characteristic phases as well. He applied his theory to the Classical (Greek and Roman) culture, the Arabic culture, and to Western culture, which is today in the process of evolving.
His eight phases of political evolution are:
Looking about, it does really look like Western society has been following his cycle since he first outlined it in 1918. We have seen contending states fall away and a single superpower emerge. We have seen the superpower become more and more like an 'imperium'. We have seen the rise of religious revivalism and zealotry. Spengler's system would predict however, that in the present struggle of the occultocracy against corporations for ascendency, the occultocracy will win. (victory of force-politics over money)
It is to be noted that Spengler considered tribal society, having 'no politics', outside his cultural phase system, except that the cycle started with tribal society (and unless interruped by external factors, will eventually return to it.) However, he may have without intending it uncovered several vital truths. In tribal society, spirituality springs from legend, whereas in Spenglerian society spirituality is enchained with dogma, myth replaces legend and such is the nature of Spengler's "spiritual spring". Also, everyone is linked to the tribe through family lines, and a leader is accountable to all through them. In feudalism (Phase 1 of his system) the rulers of a castle and probably the knights are still structured through family ties, but the serfs are not; and the rulers have no concern with the serfs' opinions, needs or rights, and are concerned only in that they provide essential labor. By the time you get to Phase 3, family structures delineate political power only in the royal family; and at Phase 5 and beyond political power has no family dependencies.
The tribal theory is a bottom-up theory of political science. The elitist and Spenglerian theories are top-down. Both are self-admittedly unstable. The elitist theory admits that the Highs can remain in control only by convincing the Lows of the illusion that it is a bottom-up system. In the Spenglerian theory the top-down system is also unstable by reason of being transitory: the initial religious-power regime, when it is about to crumble is replaced by a blood-power regime, thence a money-power regime and finally a regime solely for state' power. When the illusion of even that is seen through all crumbles and bottom-up tribal politics resumes.
9/11 was, as we will explore shortly, the defining event in the transition from a Phase 6 to a Phase 7 Spenglerian state. Egregious as these transition boundaries are, they pale beside the transition from a phase 0 - tribal society - to a phase 1 Spenglerian state characterized by a large, powerful and pampered priesthood. The differences include:
| Tribal Society | Spenglerian State |
| Bottom-up organization of society | top-down organization |
| Consensus rule | Autocratic rule (majority / pseudomajority rule) |
| Accountability-driven politics and relationships | Agenda-driven politics and relationships |
| Inclusive view of self, privacy relative | Exclusive view of self, privacy absolute in concept |
| Artwork a group effort and acheivement | Artwork an individual effort, concept of copyright |
| Shamans are coaches and mentors | Priesthood -spiritual directors, parental; secrecy-driven |
| Spirituality springs from legend | Spirituality enchained in dogma, myth replaces legend |
| Hermaphroditic theories of sexuality | Male (or female) chauvinist theories of sexuality |
| Initiatory puberty rites based on ritualized death and rebirth, transformation | Indoctrination replaces initiation, killing replaces dying, immortality replaces rebirth. |
These changes remain in effect through the succeeding Spenglerian phases, which mostly differ in the rationale that justifies the existence of the State. Majority rule applies in Phase 6 and well into Phase 7 as it applies today, but at the higher levels of society organization, corporatocracy / occultocracy conspires through the power of the press, which they control, to manipulate majorities into pseudo-majorities. Also the priesthood power of Phase 1 gives way to aristocracy power, then military power, then corporate power, and finally to intelligence / secret police power.
Copyright ©2004-2006 by Dave Smart. All Rights Reserved.