• Rafaella Leon
    59
    In my readings, few questions impressed me as the one that gives the title to the second part of José Ortega y Gasset’s La Rebelión de las Masas: “Quién manda en el mundo?” The philosopher did not formulate it in a metaphysical sense, where it could be answered by something like “God”, “chance”, “fatality”, but in a geopolitical sense, and came to the conclusion that it was a pity that Europe had lost its position, leading the way to Russia and the United States.

    The answer seemed out of place with the question. States, nations, governments and continents do not rule. The bosses are the individuals and groups that control them. Before geo-politics comes tout court politics. And then everything gets complicated formidably. It is easy to see which states or countries prevail over others. But finding out who really rules in one state or country — and through it in others — is a more daunting intellectual challenge than the usual political analyst can imagine.

    The verb “command” comes from the Latin manus dare: the commander lends his means of action (his “hand”) to others to do something he has thought. A ruler gives orders to his subordinates, but upon closer examination you will see that only very rare rulers in history — a Napoleon, a Stalin, a Reagan — were themselves the creators of the ideas they came up with. Early theorists of the modern state got it right when they invented the term “executive power”: the man of government is usually the executor of ideas that he did not conceive of, nor would he have the ability — or the time — to conceive. And those who conceived these ideas were the same ones who gave him the means to reach the government to realize them. Who are they?

    Applying the question to the specific case of the United States, the sociologist Charles Wright Mills, one of the New Left mentors, published in 1956 the book that would become a classic: The Power Elite. The answer he found took the form of a complicated plot of groups, families, businesses, official and unofficial secret services, sects, clubs, churches, and ostentatious and discreet personal relationship circles, including lovers and call girls. The political class, which culminated in the person of the nominal ruler, appeared there as the foam on the surface of dark waters. Mills was obviously on the right track. But he died in 1962 and did not have the opportunity to witness a phenomenon that he himself helped produce: the New Left itself became the power elite and lost all interest in “transparency.” On the contrary: not long ago it has worked its opacity to the point of having placing a complete stranger in the presidency of the most powerful country in the world and surrounding it with a protective wall that blocks every attempt to find out who it is, what it has done, who it is with, and what interests it represents. If you want an idea of what the power elite is doing in the United States, you need to look for information at the other end of the ideological spectrum: conservatives are the current heirs to the tradition of study inaugurated by Wright Mills.

    It is thanks to them that today the fabian globalist elite, the living nucleus of power behind virtually all western governments, has become visible in its composition and in details of its modus operandi to the point of near obscenity, involuntarily comical the insistence of some in calling it “secret power”. Press enter on google for the words “Council on Foreign Relations” , “Bilderberg” , “Trilateral” and the like, and you will get more information than your neurons will be able to process over the next ten years — information whose level of credibility ranges from scientific evidence to top-down invention.

    By contrast, little or almost nothing is known about the deep sources of power in Russia, China, and the Islamic countries. Even the descriptions we have of the visible ruling class in these regions of the globe are schematic and superficial, without comparison to the meticulous Who’s Who of the western elite. This is easily explained by the difference in access to information sources. It is one thing to search western archives and libraries, under the protection of democratic laws and institutions, and even in the US to break through the barrier of official ill through the Freedom of Information Act. It is completely different in trying to guess what is passing behind the impenetrable walls of the Russian-Chinese establishment.

    Neither the KGB nor China’s intelligence services have ever given access to independent researchers. Even the archives of the USSR Communist Party closed again after a brief period of tolerance, motivated not by any sudden love of freedom, but by the illusory conviction, soon denied, that western researchers were mostly sympathetic to the Soviet regime.

    In the Islamic world, beneath the ruling class and the clutter of terrorist groups stretches an unfathomable network of esoteric organizations, some millennials, whose power of influence is vastly varied from country to country and from time to time. These organizations, which constitute the spiritual core of Islam, the profound assurance of its civilizational unity and, in the long run, the condition for the possibility of worldwide Islamic expansion, remain perfectly unknown to western political analysts, journalists or even scholars. The difference in visibility between the big contending globalist schemes is a source of catastrophic errors in describing the power conflict in the world.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    By contrast, little or almost nothing is known about the deep sources of power in Russia, China, and the Islamic countries. Even the descriptions we have of the visible ruling class in these regions of the globe are schematic and superficial, without comparison to the meticulous Who’s Who of the western elite.Rafaella Leon
    I'm not so sure about this that there is little or almost nothing known even about the deep sources of power in these countries. Authoritarian countries are more simple to reason about just who has the power. Besides, these regimes leave a ton of documents in their wake as they are quite bureaucratic. Above all, there is much interest in them.

    Perhaps it's the third World where we have the real problems as there simply isn't those similar archives and even larger events can simply happen without historical data being gathered (as little if any data is gathered). For example, we have little accurate knowledge about just how many people were killed because of the First and Second Congo War as the estimated differ in the millions. And who knows about the African equivalent of a World War here in the West?
  • creativesoul
    11.4k
    a Reagan — were themselves the creators of the ideas they came up withRafaella Leon

    :rofl:
  • BC
    13.1k
    only very rare rulers in history — a Napoleon, a Stalin, a Reagan — were themselves the creators of the ideas they came up withRafaella Leon

    What a bizarre claim!

    Mills ... died in 1962 and did not have the opportunity to witness a phenomenon that he himself helped produce: the New Left itself became the power elite and lost all interest in “transparency.”Rafaella Leon

    The "New Left" would surely be shocked to discover that they were the power elite. Some members of the New Left may have occupied positions of power, but as a group, they surely are not the power elite.

    "The Power Elite" -- the principal power elite members are drawn from the top ranks of wealth, business, the military, politics and academia. They make up the elite because they possess and they represent real, raw power. The rag tag New Left and its drive for civil and political rights, feminism, gay rights, abortion rights, gender roles and drug policy reforms has never had a victory that overly inconvenienced the power elite. The 'old guard' of the elites might prefer things the way they were before civil right, gay rights, and so on extracted some gains from the powers that be, but nothing has changed so much that the old guard and the new guard can't live with it.
  • Rafaella Leon
    59
    The Frankfurt School instructed American communists to put aside the proletarians and instead try to win the support of the rich and the beautiful people, they created the world we live in today. Making the old KGB jealous, the mega-entrepreneurs have become the most devoted and strict inspectors of communist orthodoxy in the media, on the internet and even in private conversations. Once you have escaped the "fair line", they deny you the services of their companies and make you a renegade, a non-person. Communism (i.e. New Left) dominate the world mentality today, except in the Islamic world and in some rare areas of resistance in Eastern Europe.
  • Outlander
    1.8k
    I imagine it's not a question of who but of what- and no, not like that. Though I do subscribe to the possibility personally. The same thing that would rule a man in charge of the entire world and all its inhabitants is the same thing that would rule his lowliest subject, which is also the same thing that would rule a man on a planet inhabited only by himself. The beast within. Or, human nature to put it inconspicuously. It is in constant battle with a higher nature or calling that also exists within us all.

    I believe, or at least like to think, there are two stages each with potentially different persons. Those who rule by succumbing to human nature, eventually gaining dominion over those who breathe by power of their own breath (influence to speak decrees, laws, etc. that are obeyed), followed by those who rule by overcoming human nature after first allowing themselves to be ruled and subjugated by those whose breaths they know are limited.

    Ultimately, the individual rules themself. That doesn't mean listening to someone who has transient power over you or what you consider important (perhaps that's why you consider these things important?) isn't the best course of action to ensure this.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    Far better would be make the separation of communism/marxism/marxism-leninism with social democracy (or democratic socialism) and the New Left here. Leaders like Tony Blair or Francois Miterrand were not surely communists, but were leftist leaders of our time.

    (Just like that one shouldn't put absolutely everybody in the right-wing/conservative camp as being alt-right / fascists, which is the typical case.)
  • Rafaella Leon
    59
    The history of communist discourse is divided, roughly speaking, into three phases: Lenin's proletarian internationalism, Stalin to Brezhnev's "anti-imperialist" third-worldism and globalist multiculturalism from May 1968 onwards. The first disappeared from the scene. The second survives, in the world, only as nostalgic residue. The third made the left-wing world the unconscious or undeclared handmaiden of global capitalism, which feeds it because it knows that the extinction of all traditional and cultural values ​​will consecrate the economy as the only factor of social cohesion, establishing everywhere the “managed society" of its dreams. Only in this sense can it be said that "communism is over".

    Communism is not a "model of society", it is not an "ideology", it is not an "economic system": it is a movement, a network of organizations, a scheme of power. To know if a subject is a communist, do not ask what he "believes in." Ask who he is associated with, ostensibly or in secret.

    In the time when the communist movement identified itself with the working class, and for that reason it despised the Lumpenproletariat, there could still be, in its self-illusion and its violence, a fund of dignity. Today leftism is an alliance of vagrants and drug addicts with billionaires against the working people.
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k

    Reagan, the Creator of Ideas. Yes, that's how he'll be remembered, I'm sure.

    I'm leery of claims regarding who, or what, rules the world. Power or imperium is more a case of manus manum lavat (if we're to speak of hands) than anything else, I believe, particularly in these sad times. So I think it's unwise to speak of such things as "power elites" particularly where those elites are defined by ideologies or philosophies they purportedly accept. There have been those who blame what they think is the lack of morals in modern times to the Vienna Circle. Thinking that way we tend to become conspiracy theorists. We engage in special pleading.
  • Rafaella Leon
    59
    Thinking that way we tend to become conspiracy theoristsCiceronianus the White

    Millions and millions of people live on the belief that their little routine scenario, including what they hear at school and see on TV, is all that exists in the world and anything that gets out of that box is madness or conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory is not even a defensible scientific concept, it is a metaphor, a figure of speech designed to belittle certain ideas that you don't like.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    May I say something unpopular?

    The nations, states, countries, governments, are a superstructure, capable of making decisions by their servants, the top officials and executive personnel.

    The nation has no mind on its own, and its only need is power. It will go after securing power because that is its only motivational force.

    Obviously it must subdue the will of the executives, and promote its own powerful will.

    How does it do that? By creating a common (perhaps false but maybe true) belief among the executives, that to not gain more power will lead to their demise. The belief is created by humans, and those societies that buy into beleiving the above by its members, are the ones with better survival chances, because they succumbed to totalitarian rule.
  • Mikie
    6.1k
    The verb “command” comes from the Latin manus dare: the commander lends his means of action (his “hand”) to others to do something he has thought. A ruler gives orders to his subordinates, but upon closer examination you will see that only very rare rulers in history — a Napoleon, a Stalin, a Reagan — were themselves the creators of the ideas they came up with. Early theorists of the modern state got it right when they invented the term “executive power”: the man of government is usually the executor of ideas that he did not conceive of, nor would he have the ability — or the time — to conceive. And those who conceived these ideas were the same ones who gave him the means to reach the government to realize them. Who are they?Rafaella Leon

    This is excellent.

    The answer lies right on the surface, for all to see. It's the "winners" of the capitalist system, the 0.1% of super-wealth: the major shareholders (owners) of multinational corporations. The corporate sector rules the world today. It's really that simple. Who are these people, and what ideology do they have? Turns out it's mainly a neoliberal ideology -- which shouldn't be surprising, given that they wouldn't be in these positions without first having internalized certain values.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    The 'old guard' of the elites might prefer things the way they were before civil right, gay rights, and so on extracted some gains from the powers that be, but nothing has changed so much that the old guard and the new guard can't live with it.Bitter Crank
    :up:
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    Conspiracy theory is not even a defensible scientific concept, it is a metaphor, a figure of speech designed to belittle certain ideas that you don't like.Rafaella Leon

    "Defensible scientific concept", forsooth. What does such a thing have to do with this thread you started?
  • ssu
    7.9k

    This idea seems very popular in America where there seems to be little knowledge about the historical wedge between communists and social democrats experienced in the West, which started well in the 19th Century. But as there hasn't been in the US such a leftist party as the Labour Party of the UK or anything similar, just a few leftists called progressives in the Democratic Party that basically haven't got their say, the American narrative totally disregards this very important political movement.

    Hence there is now this narrative of the ominous Frankfurter School who then spread their ideology in the academic circles. This is story for example Jordan Peterson tells and while he has a point, there is obviously a huge part that is missing from the story and what he or many other North American conservatives don't talk about at all: social democracy.

    All important European countries have all had social democrats in power: The UK (Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown), Germany (Wliiy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Gerhard Schröder), France (Francois Miterrand, Francois Holland), Italy (Bettino Craxi, Giuliano Amato, Romano Prodi) or Spain (Felipe Gonzales, Jose Rodriguez-Zapatero, Pedro Sanchez). Basically Sweden has been dominated totally by the Social Democratic Party since the start of the 20th Century.

    Such grasp on power has had a huge effect and just to talk about some eccentric academic communists or leftist intelligentsia rearranging the image of the left after Marxism-Leninism collapsed with the Soviet experiment is simply quite irrelevant compared to what an extremely popular and successful leftist movement has done to change the World. These political parties are so entrenched into the system that in many countries they are seen as part the power elite alongside their conservative peers with trendy leftists choosing some more radical image (even if the actual policies favoured are quite in line with social democracy).

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    20160402_FBM946.png

    However these countries are surely not communist or socialist countries. This is no machinations of few communist professors in their ivory towers spoiling the next generation of students, this is the consequence of actual rule in the countries where the objective surely hasn't been some crazy communist utopia. Social Democrats are just fine with capitalism. They just want to "control the excesses", do wealth distribution, create a welfare state and have the government have an active role in the economy, yet have absolutely no intensions of demolishing capitalism as some fervent communist wants. Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg?

    The third made the left-wing world the unconscious or undeclared handmaiden of global capitalismRafaella Leon

    If you are interested about those who hold power, you should look at those in the left that actually have been in power. One has to separate the public discourse from actual implemented policies and political rule.
  • Rafaella Leon
    59


    It is important to note that this permanence of the idea of ​​Empire seems natural and inherent to political power, which is expansive by its very nature. As soon as power is centralized, organized and structured, the tendency is to expand. The expansion is primarily motivated by an instinct for self-defense and aims to eliminate external enemies. While an Empire has external enemies, it is not entirely sure of itself, and ends up imitating the Roman Empire, which gradually subdued its potential enemies until it reached a point where there were only internal enemies.
  • Rxspence
    80
    Me thinks you are reincarnated
  • Hanover
    12k
    Conspiracy theory is not even a defensible scientific concept, it is a metaphor, a figure of speech designed to belittle certain ideas that you don't like.Rafaella Leon

    The distinction between a conspiracy theory and a scientific theory is that the former holds that a theory is provable by hypothesizing motives and the latter by presenting empirical facts supportive of the theory.

    For example, if you believe the US election was stolen and you take as proof of it that there are all sorts of malevolent forces opposed to Trump who would stoop to any level to steal it, and that alone constitutes sufficient proof it was stolen, you are a conspiracy theorist.

    If you reject the theory that the US election was stolen because there is no empirical evidence of it, you are of the scientific mindset.

    You are correct that being called a conspiracy theorist is belittling, but that's because conspiracy theorists rightly hold a place of low esteem, largely because their epistemological standards are stupid as shit.
  • afterthegame
    8
    States, nations, governments and continents do not rule. The bosses are the individuals and groups that control them.Rafaella Leon

    Humans are ruled by concepts. It does not matter whether it is a network of people or one person that holds power. Concepts such as "employer" "family" "religion" are all necessary fictions to create and maintain societal cohesion. We justify the part we play in the world using these words, even though the only place they exist is in our minds.

    And it does not matter what level of society. The ones at the top are also ruled by ideas, ref. "sword of Damocles".
  • Rafaella Leon
    59
    Who denounces — for example, a politician or a ruler that he is plotting such a thing— is accused of conspiracy theory and, immediately, the suspicion falls on the accuser. The most powerful and most infamous capacity of journalism is to repeat over and over a name associated with something ridiculous or evil. Just do this a thousand times without proof and, above all, without arguing — the idea is not to put under discussion, but giving it as if it were common domain — something that has not even been discussed and that nobody knows, in fact, is given as if it were already proven and common domain — and one of the favorite terms for that is “conspiracy theory”.

    The very narrative structure of a serious complaint is different from a conspiracy theory in the ordinary sense. Even because conspiracy theory, in the ordinary sense, is monstrously coherent in all its points, because as everything was imagined, the subject has mastery of all data. We, as we are dealing with reality, only have a part of the data, so we cannot offer a complete description. As our description is incomplete, we are obliged to work with conjectures, and knowing what is the level of reality that exists and the level of conjecture with which we are completing the data. But the individual who really believes in conspiracy theory, in the popular sense of the thing, believes that he has all the points. His version is monstrously coherent, and mine cannot be, there is no such level of coherence in the history. Interestingly, the kind of requirement that is made when you present these things is that of total consistency. You are required to present a reality, incomplete as any reality, and the subject does not believe it because it does not have the total coherence of a work of fiction. Precisely the reason he would not believe it becomes the reason for credibility This is because in the mass society everyone can have an opinion, and monstrously disabled people have an opinion. Most opinion leaders today are people who are totally disabled.
  • Kiingarian
    17
    Your leading question captured me, who rules us. Determinism would lead to points that no one does, but its a set of events that leads us to our path. Most of what is mention before takes free will as a fact. Personally, would say will is beyond determinism if one can obtain control of one's awareness. Never-the-less, that which controls is ones set of unconscious thoughts.
    Most live lives building a belief system, that governs how they will react when certain things come to be. Its the reason we fall into cognitive dissonance so easily.
    May your journey be as fruitful as you wish it.
  • Changeling
    1.4k
    May your journey be as fruitful as you wish it.Kiingarian

    That was a dude with a profile pic of a chick
  • Kiingarian
    17
    That may be but The Who rules us question speaks out due to a dilemma that is in-front of me. Who controls us or what does is our subconscious, what does one do without one.
  • Mikie
    6.1k
    A ruler gives orders to his subordinates, but upon closer examination you will see that only very rare rulers in history — a Napoleon, a Stalin, a Reagan — were themselves the creators of the ideas they came up with.Rafaella Leon

    Reagan was the creator of his own ideas, eh? Lol....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5wfPlgKFh8
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