A recent op-ed piece by William Rivers
Pitt of Truthout celebrates, in no uncertain terms and with more than
a touch of gallows humor, the decline and fall of the Bush dynasty as
exemplified by the miserable failure of Jeb Bush, who has dropped out
of the presidential race. His essay can be found here:
A word of caution is in order, however.
At least one commentator has speculated that Jeb, who notoriously
stated that his strategy was to somehow win the nomination despite
losing the primaries, is being held in reserve by the Republican
powers that be, ready to “parachute in” to the convention and
save the day – i.e. snatch the nomination away from Trump and Cruz
(pushing lesser mortals like Kasich aside like so many dust bunnies,
of course). The idea, apparently, is to fit Jeb with a pair of
tights, a cape, shiny boots, and flashy headgear, and style him as
some kind of superhero whose sole mission is to save the Republican
Party. (“It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Bushman!” Oh...
wait...)
Well... lots of luck with that, is all
I can say. But in this wackiest of all wacky election seasons, who
knows? The Republican establishment is certainly acting desperate,
and grasping at straws – resurrecting Romney from the political
graveyard to do a hatchet job on Trump (which, of course, backfired
very badly; they should have left Mitt in the toy store with the
other Ken dolls) and cooperating with the Democrats to send
rent-a-mobs to any and all Trump rallies.
Now, the immediate revelation from all
of this, for those who hadn't already figured it out, is that there
is, in fact, only one “establishment”, and it consists of the
power structure of both of the major parties. Trump is, if nothing
else, the ultimate anti-establishment candidate, since he doesn't
care who he offends from anywhere along the spectrum. What counts
above all is to preserve the integrity of the establishment and keep
it in charge, little matter which party is nominally in power. This
is the kind of insight that is normally avoided by maintaining the
faux kabuki drama of the election season, in which the parties
pretend – like professional wrestlers – to be in dire opposition,
when they really are in one accord on nearly all points. But these
are desperate times, and they clearly feel that it's worth letting
the cat out of the bag – at least on this occasion, counting on the
brain-dead electorate to go back to sleep and forget all about what
they are now hearing and seeing, like the guys in “Men in Black”.
It's a strategy that has worked time and time again, so why not give
it another shot?
But there are other implications to all
of this, and they should not be overlooked. One is that the power
structure – the ruling class – operates in subtle and surprising
ways at times; they are more agile than we give them credit for. One
would think, for example, that an elite bunch like the Bushes would
want to keep their name in lights and to win at all costs. They are,
after all, part of the perennial power structure, and they want to
keep it that way – or so one would think. And yet even those at
the top of the heap have to make sacrifices once in a while; someone
has to be picked, when the need arises, to “take one for the team”.
Consider, for example, that the Rockefellers, who are indisputably
at the very top of the hierarchy (at least in this country),
nonetheless feel obligated to offer up some of their members on the
sacrificial altar of politics -- with mixed results. Consider that
the Kennedys had to offer up some of their sons to the gods of war,
and that one of them didn't come back alive. This is all along the
lines of maintaining some sort of credibility with the impulsive,
delusion-prone American public, who – enamored as they are with
“American royalty” -- are nonetheless still a bit resistant to
the idea that we have rulers like unto the royalty and nobility of
the Old World. The delusion of democracy must be maintained – or
at least it has been so far, but it has started to seriously erode of
late. And the ruling elite are not – as irritating as it must be
at times – completely immune from the requirements and needs of
“democracy”; lip service must be paid, even if from their lofty
perches, to “the people”, lest “the people” start to murmur,
and resist, and even – heaven forfend! -- rebel.
The age of revolution is, of course,
over with and long gone... and ruling elites around the globe are no
longer in the sort of danger that engulfed the hapless Romanovs, for
example... or the Chinese dynasties... or the French aristocracy. We
are now in the age of the technocrat... the pragmatist... the
globalist (another talking point for Trump)... and are ruled by a
centralized power whose main tentacles are not so much armies as
banks, stock exchanges, and “defense” contractors. But it is
precisely because the trappings and prerogatives of ancient royalty
are a thing of the past that control by other means must be
maintained – through instruments such as the media, the
“entertainment” industry, “free trade”, and the dominance of
a vast array of rackets from agribusiness to big pharma, big
medicine, prisons, centralized food distribution, consumerism run
amok... and all the modern equivalents of the “games and circuses”
and “free bread” of old. Empires, in short, do what they have to
do, and they do, in fact, have to adjust to the times.
Consider, for example, that there are
no longer any “idle rich”; they are nowhere to be found. The
richest people on earth nonetheless have to work for a living, after
a fashion. Society has been restructured to the point where a
hundred years ago you had the working poor and the idle rich, and we
now have the working rich and the idle poor. And yet, ultimately,
the same people are in charge now who were in charge then, and the
vast majority of them are – gasp! -- white men. We can fantasize
all we want about “diversity”, and “access to power” by
“minorities” of all stripes... and, certainly, the Regime knows
how, and when, to throw a few bones out now and then... but the basic
hard facts remain the same. Any boy born in a log cabin,
figuratively speaking, can rise up in the system to where he is
invited to weekend retreats at Sea Island, Davos, Mackinac Island,
Bilderberg, the Bohemian Grove... wherever... but despite their
feeling of having been anointed, they are, ultimately, tools,
poodles, and window dressing... and, most importantly of all,
dispensable. (And scapegoats, when the need arises – as witness
George W. Bush.) Surely you don't think that once Hillary Clinton,
for example, has outlived her usefulness she won't be dropped, along
with her reprobate husband, into the Regime's dumpster; it has
happened before, and it will happen again. In fact, this could be
said to be the case for nearly all politicians and, frankly, all
“world leaders”. More often than not they are tools, lackeys, and sock puppets -- and the puppet masters are the faceless few at the very top –
and they are, and remain, faceless for a reason.
But (with all due respect to the conspiracy community, of which I am a member anyway) there is no such thing as perfect
control, and
the world remains full of surprises. Did any of them anticipate, for
example, the rise of militant Islam? Sure, no doubt they are using
this phenomenon to their maximum benefit... but their jobs would have
been easier if the scales had not fallen from the eyes of the Islamic
world (albeit decades after the end of formal, classical
colonialism). Did they anticipate the rise of the Internet and
“social media” as, not only a tool for thought control of the
masses, but as a means by which the masses (some of them, at least)
would start to ask questions and connect the dots? Thus, another
irritant that has to be dealt with – and we see in the news every
day evidence of their exertions to do so.
So yes, “uneasy lies the head that
wears a crown” -- or whatever the modern-day equivalent of a crown
is (and do not doubt that some of the actual remaining “crowned
heads” of Europe are very much participants in this struggle).
Plus, we have the natural paranoia that inevitably haunts the very
few when they are confronted, in whatever form, by the very many.
The mob... the masses... the rabble... are greater in number than
they have ever been in recorded human history, their demands are
becoming harder to meet (because they keep upping the ante), and they
are showing signs of restlessness. You can award some of them
membership in the middle class, which is a guaranteed neutralizer...
but that still leaves quite a few – a majority, in fact. You can
even allow them to, occasionally, have a voice – from the social
media right up to the ossified and dysfunctional United Nations –
but, again, you're not really solving anything, only postponing the
consequences.
And yet, power remains – as it has
down through human history – the ultimate narcotic. Better than
sex, better than money (although these are, let's admit, universally
fringe benefits). To sacrifice people by the million, and even
entire nations, for the sake of power, is nothing new – and to hold
onto it once it's gained is nothing new. What changes and evolves is
the means... the mechanisms... the tools... the iconography... the
narrative. Every culture has its myths, legends, and fairy tales –
that's a given; that's human nature. It's what people believe –
what they are led to believe – that determines outcomes, and those
outcomes become solidified into what we call “history”. Once in
a while people become more sophisticated, slightly better informed,
and more skeptical – and so the means, mechanisms, and tools have
to evolve as well, and morph into a new mythology. We tend to forget
that not only do power and control go together, they are the same
thing. How can you have one without the other? And yet we go around
worshiping men (and women) of power, but chafing at the control they
exert on us. One consolation, at least – perhaps the only one –
is that even the power elite... the ones at the end of every string
and binding chain... have to pay their dues as well. The fate of Jeb
Bush – a very small person in this grand scheme – provides an
example of this, and it may serve as small comfort.
But he may be
down and out, but he's not “out out”, despite Pitt's optimism, so
to speak. Just be prepared for, somewhere down
the line, the moment when you hear someone say “they're baaaaaack”.
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