#6 Part 2: Elite Theory

What if you could peek behind the curtain and uncover the complexities of elite theory, power dynamics, and racial classifications shaping our society? Join us on this fascinating journey into the world of power and politics, where we dive into the influential works of C Wright Mills and Machiavelli, as well as the implications of race on our society's structure. We also explore the intricate structure of the US military bureaucracy and the role of corporate influence on politics, including the ethical questions surrounding politicians motivated by money.

In this episode, we examine the three main arenas where the power elite operate: government, military, and economy, discussing the importance of money, position, education, and prestige in these power dynamics. We take a closer look at the military's role in politics and the power shifts that have occurred over time. Moreover, we unpack the complexities of the military bureaucracy and the power struggles that occur within its ranks.

Finally, we scrutinize the role of money in war and the power of the military-industrial complex in maintaining its influence. We also delve into the world of Machiavellian principles, elite replenishment, and the impact of elite theory on creativity, art, and the media. Don't miss this captivating and informative discussion that is sure to leave you with a fresh perspective on elite theory, power dynamics, and the implications of race and classifications in our society.

Twitter is @ThePanopticon84

Transcript

Speaker 1: Good day, fellow cellmates of the Panopticon. I am Trajan here with Name names. So today, this day, May 21st 2023, on the Panopticon, we're gonna continue our conversation on elite theory. I'll remind you of those. This is part of our power series theory of power series in which we're gonna talk various theories on power. And today is our second part two, if you will of elite theory, where we discuss a bit of C Wright Mills, machiavelli, the Italian school of elite theory, which includes Michele Perretto and others, and Machiavelli himself, and then we just brainstorm into other theorists as well. If we complete this elite theory today, we'll go on to Marxist theory next week. If not, we'll just continue the conversation. 

Speaker 1: Name names in the opening comments. 

Speaker 2: No, no, i'm good. The throat is my instrument, it's my gift. 

Speaker 1: It's your instrument of power. 

Speaker 2: It's my instrument of power. Yes, My orifices are definitely treasured across the land, near and far Deep and wide. Yes, deep, definitely wide, And it's just something that is a fragile gift. As you know, the throat is a fragile specimen of the anatomy And so I have to take care of it with hot tea. It's not in any way effeminate to drink hot tea Like, because I know you're very against hot tea for that reason. But the cup is very effeminate. But the what? 

Speaker 1: The cup that you're using is very effeminate. 

Speaker 2: Ha ha ha, it's Japanese. See, you fall under that whole Western patriarchal mentality of machismo That something delicate and simple as a Japanese man is somehow effeminate. 

Speaker 1: Now they do look like women. What is on that cup? Is that a flower, a rose? 

Speaker 2: These are like cherry blossoms Cherry blossoms delicately painted into this wonderful porcelain teacup which is not effeminate. 

Speaker 1: Um, you know, it's very clean, very Japanese, artistic, and tea itself is very Japanese as well. 

Speaker 2: And British and Chinese yourself fucking God. You're racist and ethnicist and you're just. 

Speaker 1: I'm aist. 

Speaker 2: You're going to get ripped apart if we ever get famous on the base on the show, they're just going to fucking crucify you. 

Speaker 1: I'm a perfect. I'm the perfect archetype of Yep White evil. 

Speaker 2: White straight, white devil. 

Speaker 1: White straight Devil. 

Speaker 2: I might cling on just because of my gay. but My racist comments the other week. 

Speaker 1: I mean you're white right, you identify as white right. 

Speaker 2: No pink. 

Speaker 1: Pink. Well, you know the anti-racist classified pink and white. Caucasian transparent all the same. 

Speaker 2: And with their. I love it how they're so interested in not talk like not making race an issue, but Or to define somebody by their race. Right, it's like we should move beyond race, but that's they're constantly boxing people in these unnatural categories of race. You know when they're talking against, yes, the so-called white establishment. 

Speaker 1: Because they're, i mean they're. That's the only way they can identify themselves is through the other, and particularly through race. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, they think in binary terms, which is, you know, really against what they profess about something's like gender and Very anti-binary. Right. So there's a lot of discrepancies there in their thought. 

Speaker 1: But when you're mixed, this is when it gets Confused. 

Speaker 2: So if you're No shit If you're a person person of color versus 50% nonperson of color. 

Speaker 1: But white is white a color. 

Speaker 2: Well, it is a mix of different Caucasian right. 

Speaker 1: But I mean, like just in color sense, is white a color? I think white is a color now Or no it's the absence of color. 

Speaker 2: Okay, that's why we can't dance. 

Speaker 1: We have no soul. 

Speaker 2: We can't classify ourselves as people of color or people of absence of color. 

Speaker 1: You're, you're, yeah, you're absent. some color You are not a colored individual. 

Speaker 2: But this is also where it gets down. When you start dividing mixes like okay, it's like what the Nazis did with Jews They said, you know they're not going to be able to do that, Okay, it's like what the Nazis did with Jews. They started dividing them and it's ridiculous. It's the point of absurdity. You can't do it. You know what I mean. Like, at what point does mixed become non-mixed? Like it's that oxen's razor thing or whatever? it is where you're never going to get from point A to B. Yes, It's on a line. 

Speaker 1: So here's at some point in time you have to discriminate, even as an anti-discriminator, because at some point you're going to have to come up with the percentage. All right, 1% of black is. can you consider yourself a black? 

Speaker 2: You no longer black. 

Speaker 1: Is it 50%? So at some point in time you're going to have to become a racist. 

Speaker 2: Which is a white. 

Speaker 1: Even as a even as a black. You're just a 100% black being racist against a 1% black. 

Speaker 2: What do you mean? 

Speaker 1: The very nature of putting a percentage on a person as you were describing is discriminatory. 

Speaker 2: Why? Because you're setting up a boundary. 

Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. 

Speaker 2: Well, and why does everything have to be so pardon the pun black and black or white, like? why do the colors have to be so few? Why can't we have more diverse colors too, like genders, like? why can't there be subcategories of white, like, oh, you're ice white, or you're he's lavender blue, or? you know what I mean? There needs to be more diversity in our senses of race. Pearl white, that pearl white, opal white. You know what I mean. It's very limiting. 

Speaker 1: Snow white chalk. White milk white. 

Speaker 2: Black ice. 

Speaker 1: So I'm looking it up here, White is a color, so we are people of color. 

Speaker 2: That needs to be what's on the agenda in 2024. Officially making it where white is a color, white people are colored. 

Speaker 1: We are. 

Speaker 2: How do you feel about that news? 

Speaker 1: I feel, i feel, i feel indifferent. Do you feel now? instantly a victim Almost, but I kind of want to get into more description, Like you said. like am I snow? white chalk, white milk, white pearl, white lizard, ghost white ghost, white dead white. Ghost white dead white. Am I white chocolate? 

Speaker 2: Egg white. 

Speaker 1: Egg white chocolate. Yes. 

Speaker 2: No, because you have to have a little bit of chocolate in there. 

Speaker 1: Yeah. 

Speaker 2: You know the components. 

Speaker 1: OK, OK, any other opening comments? 

Speaker 2: I mean this is I know I'm almost I'm speechless. No, but back to what we're saying. you dividing someone up into how much, like you said, a percentage they are of something. It's absurd And that's why I think topic conversations on race are Who is what? And I just think we need to move beyond that. honestly, it's not a thing. It's a manufactured category of people. but you see, it's being clung on to now and weaponized and it's kind of sad. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's it. 

Speaker 2: That was a joke. No, it wasn't. 

Speaker 1: To classify people, especially in opposites, is definitely an advantage and opportunity that the need and others in power can, can use. And we fall right, for we fall right into it and it's hard not to. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, they're conceptual cages. Yeah linguistic cages, mental cages, Nick cages. Ok, we ready to get into this. 

Speaker 1: Let's do it. 

Speaker 2: Power power elite. I guess I'll start off. I just kind of want to summarize what the C Wright Mills is is saying, his thesis in power of elite. Well, so what he's saying is there's three kind of main arenas that the power elite operate in, and this was written in the 1950s. So take that as you as you will. It's dated in that sense. I think it still applies today. 

Speaker 2: And those three arenas are government, or the political sphere, the military and the, what he calls the economy or corporations. And the corporations are made up of CEOs and and the managerial class I guess he calls it the military. Much the same way He says is a bureaucracy. It's made up of, you know, a hierarchy, and at the top are also a select group of individuals who hold all the power. And in the government the government seems to be a bleeding ground between the two, that in fact all three are kind of intermingled. Now, as you get higher and higher up to the top of what he says, the real power elite are, the real power elite are kind of a mix of all three, if that makes sense. Oftentimes a high up military general or whatever will also be on a board of a corporation, and so he's and he's tied through various means to the government, so they're all working kind of in tandem to produce whatever effects they want Usually. 

Speaker 2: And then. So what he also says is power is a mix of, obviously, money, position, education where you're, you know, you're grown into it, you're groomed, money leads to generations of money and they all go to the same schools. But also prestige, and prestige is what we were talking about earlier. It's about celebrity, about people knowing this guy's really rich, he's really powerful, he's a general in the army, so that lends him a certain amount of power through prestige and all that advantages that come with that he gets into. 

Speaker 2: But what I want to talk about today is when he, when he talks about the military, because that I think you can offer a lot of kind of perspective on and see if what he says rings true to you or your understanding of what the military kind of man used to be in in terms of the regular, just private, versus someone like Teddy Roosevelt who was like this big hero type. And then he also talks about, well, his contemporaneous military culture was the 1950s, so he talks about how it changed throughout the World Wars and then what it was like in the 1950s, the different hierarchies within the military, also the different branches of the military, and how different there's differences between them And their histories are different and their prestige is different as well, but that they're all kind of starting to meld together in a way. Yeah, so that's. That's what I'd like to kind of address today with the power elite is his chapters on the military. Do you have any comments about, about his thesis, which was the three branches? 

Speaker 1: No, i mean nothing in addition to what we discussed last week with him. 

Speaker 1: Like I stated last week, these elite theorists all agree, obviously, despite implication of the title is that there's a small group, a minority, that controls and rules the larger group, no matter what society you live in, and it doesn't only apply to government bureaucracy, applies to corporate bureaucracy, as you were alluding to. 

Speaker 1: It applies to organizations at medium sized levels And there's a certain, certainly a certain threshold which a culture or an organization reaches where a bureaucracy and more particular elite must exist, because the the both in practicality, because it's impossible for 100% democracy, as an example, or even in within a trade union or a union you know a trade union example not all the members can vote on every single thing or make a decision on on the bureaucracy, on how the bureaucracy is going to work. Now, small, small groups you can kind of do, you can do the 100% participation. I would also argue that all these theorists agree that sovereignty cannot be delegated, and if it is, then it's not sovereignty anymore, you become a subject of whoever is supposed to represent you. But in his 39, i mean, i think the theory is just a different description or a description of how the elite system works. So I don't have anything in agreement or disagreement necessarily. 

Speaker 2: Well, one of his, i guess, definitions of power or type of power is the violence is violence in general, and so he says all politics is a struggle for power, the ultimate kind of power is violence. So he goes into talking about the military and that the military, or any country that can really harness power or harness violence, is and use it as almost a defining characteristic of its power, of its nation or whatever, will be one of the most powerful or be the most powerful. And he kind of goes into how post-war America is an example of that type of state that uses violence, the harnessing of violence or the threat of violence, as one of its main characteristics. And that's why one of those three arenas I talked about in which power moves, one of those is the military, the military bureaucracy. 

Speaker 2: But first he gets into talking a little bit about what soldiers and what the I guess captain was like back in history, like it wasn't a huge functionary of government at the time. In fact he says, speaking of the constitutionalists or the founding fathers, he said the constitution of the United States was constructed in fear of a powerful military establishment. So they set up all these supposed checks and balances. On that I guess the Second Amendment would be part of that. So, and he talks about how kind of the old school, that there was somehow a greater distance between government and the military elite in history and that as we go to the modern times it's a movement towards the marriage of the two, or that the military is getting more and more power and more and more influence in the government, and that it wasn't always that way. And but then he also mentions that people who became soldiers usually were not the upper class, but the people who became captains. I guess the higher ranks of the military were in fact more aristocratic, is that? do you think that rings true, drew? 

Speaker 1: I think it depends on the time in history, what period in history and the place in history. Because juvenile on power argues that the original elites were their warrior classes. The warriors and elites were the same people because you, you gained your elite status. You gained all the resources that you had He mentions Klan warfare as an example was based off your martial strength, your ability to impose through violence your will on others, and the great warriors were acknowledged as the initial elite. Now I would agree with C Wright Mill. 

Speaker 1: As time moves on and moved on And I think even juvenile would agree as cultures changed less and less, the culture began more so got bigger and bigger. The separation between the elite and the warrior class began and the elite became the managers of the large bureaucracy as opposed to the warriors. So the warriors began to drop on the status hierarchy, if you will, and became subservient to the managerial class. All right, and and juvenile also got into these. Warriors class would also grow to become kings, from clan to warrior to kings, and he describes the monarchy. And then, when the monarchy got overthrown, it was replaced by this bureaucracy. 

Speaker 1: I won't get into the details, but bottom line, that's the shift in power change from the warrior class to this large managerial class, or these three economic, this kind of triumphant, or the, what do you call it, basically, these three silos of power that balance each other out a little bit or interdependent on one another. But modern history tells us that the military is subservient, is subordinate, more so to the political class, the civilian class. So in that sense I would, i would agree. But history tells us a little bit differently. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, And he even talks about how there's kind of a thought, a worldview of the from within the military, at least the more aristocratic understanding of military as being, you know, kind of almost civilized military, if that makes sense, That politics is actually a dirty realm. It's like it's beneath them. They it's messy, it's like it's not honorable And in a military type of establishment is much more noble, i guess. Now politics. 

Speaker 1: So we define power a couple podcasts ago, and I'm going to try to define politics and I think I take this from Burnham. In fact I'm looking at my notes here Politics is the struggle for power and if you define struggle, you can describe it through war, as an example, through diplomacy as another. You do it through cores and you do it through the carrot or the stick, but you have, as Machiavelli described, you have the foxes and you have the lions, the lions being they ground their power in their ability to fight where the fox does it through deception. So it kind of goes back to what we were talking about last week is like war is a constant in everything, at all levels, everywhere, all at once. And the war as we know it, in the modern sense, with the big unit formations, with the state actors, is relatively new. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm a believer that war is a constant and politics is what did Mao say? I think there's a quote that Mao said is I would have to look it up, hold on one second. 

Speaker 1: But by my mind, i think even Machiavelli acknowledges the importance of violence and martial strength, and a couple of these other Italian philosophers on belief theory, um preeps the necessity of violence. And then, when the states rose to prominence, they basically took all the violence and became a monopoly of violence, where the only legitimate way to utilize violence was through the state. No more tribal, no more clan, no more blood, blood feuds, it was all through the state. And so I think the state and power recognizes the importance and necessity of violence as well. And the law, i mean like we have no monopoly, you and I, on large scale violence between states, but even between each other. It's all regulated by the state. No more duels. Hey, you insulted my honor. Let's go kill each other or fight each other. What have you? It's all regulated now, which is controlled through the state. They have an monopoly on violence, yeah. 

Speaker 2: And he talks about how, but that that military was, was thought to be, at least in the United States in the earlier days, more of a subsidiary of the culture or the power I guess It was. It was a service, it was used for certain. It wasn't everywhere. So, whereas when he says, with the result, with the advent of the world wars and World War II and the threat of nuclear disaster, that that threat of violence became almost even greater, almost compelling the state or the country to to be, i guess, more interested in, in inserting military in every aspects of life, if that makes sense, he says there's changes, like with the modern, modern times, 20th century, one of those being that brought the military up into higher levels of of the elite, one of those being the the creation of the atom bomb or nuclear energy, one of another being the other types of technologies that they've created, weapons systems constantly being in a state of emergency The Cold War, i think, is what he's alluding to here that there's always this threat of violence. So your power that you live under has to have almost define itself in terms, in those terms, in military terms or violence, violence and power being connected, primarily being the prime element of your state's power being its capacity to violence or to using violence as a means of control. And then the last change, he says, is for the first time in their history, the American elite find themselves confronting a possible war which they admit among themselves and even in public that none of the combatants would win. They have no image of that victory, of what it might mean, and they have no idea of any road to victory. 

Speaker 2: I think that relates to what I was saying about nuclear conflict. So those changes in in technology, i guess have provided an opportunity for the United States, for example, to prop up its capability, prop up the military in its government as being one of the huge functions of the government. He talks about how it's become, as a result, also more bureaucratic than it used to be before. I guess back in the days it wasn't, because it was much smaller, militaries were much smaller, so there wasn't all this bureaucratic component to it, whereas now well, he's talking about the 1950s it was this huge, massive bureaucracy and is still today. In fact, i guess the military gets the majority of the budget. Is that how you understand it? 

Speaker 1: They get a significant amount of the budget for sure. 

Speaker 2: He says, as a symbol of this bureaucracy. He points to the building of the Pentagon itself, the actual the building and how it's made up. It's huge, it's full of all this new technology. It's like you could put I don't know how many capital buildings into it. You know what I mean. It's this big maze. He says Just and at the top of this. So the Pentagon is where the Department of Defense is. 

Speaker 1: Yes. 

Speaker 2: So is the CIA part of that, or are they a? 

Speaker 1: separate entity altogether. That's a separate entity altogether. 

Speaker 2: That's kind of strange, because to me, i would imagine, intelligence is a part of defense. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, but the Department of Defense and the defense has its own intelligence apparatus, the. 

Speaker 2: NSA. 

Speaker 1: Yes, that's part of it. In theory, the Department of Defense is supposed to focus on all things, and only things, pertaining to war, so other people's armies and such, where the CIA and other intelligence apparatus has a much broader net than just war. But they certainly work hand in hand and together. There's no doubt about that. 

Speaker 2: Well, so he talks about? when he talks about the Pentagon, he mentions, at the head of the military bureaucracy below, the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense, whom he appoints their civilians, apparently, and his assistants. Then there's this military board of directors, which are called the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Those people are made up of what an admiral? like each representative of each military wing. 

Speaker 1: Yes, so the Army has a chief of staff, the Navy has an equivalent, the Air Force have an equivalent, now that Marines fall under the Navy, but they also have representation. And then I forget now you have the space command, now, which is new, but all of it falls under the Joint Chief of Staff, which currently is General Milley. 

Speaker 2: Oh, so there's one kind of leader of all of those. 

Speaker 1: Yes, he's the joint chief of staff. 

Speaker 2: Okay. Do you think one holds more power than the other, Like the Army's? stronger than has more power than the Navy? 

Speaker 1: In theory, the reason the Joint Chief of Staff was implemented was to balance out that competition for power was to, because the Joint Chief of Staff is relatively new. It came in the Goldwater-Nickels Act, i think, in the 80s, where there wasn't a Joint Chief. There was each chief fighting for its own power within the military industrial complex And a lot of shady stuff was happening. A lot of competition where it was self-defeating was happening. We can get into this later on in a different podcast. But the bottom line is the Joint Chief of Staff was supposed to put it into that, where everyone had representation, but more so that the competition for funding and money was harnessed within this Joint Chiefs And also some of these chiefs were becoming too powerful for the political establishment And allowed the political class to regain some of that power as well. So there's a lot to it. But bottom line, the Joint Chief of Staff is currently led by General Milley. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, And we briefly talked about how they're all kind of coming from the same pedigree Catholic institutions. 

Speaker 1: West. 

Speaker 2: Point. 

Speaker 1: Boston. 

Speaker 2: And the equivalent of West Point for the Navy is called Annapolis. What's it called? 

Speaker 1: Annapolis Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Academy, yep, the Academy Well, it's interesting too is we'll see right mills kind of does a brief survey of the how, the perception of each different type of military as in its nascent stages, how it was perceived by the public and, of course, people with money. The army was seen because it dealt with the land and kind of more people, rustic, it was like almost country type of perception, like they were kind of more rugged, less classy, whereas the people in the Navy, particularly the higher ups, were thought of as being more aristocratic and coming from those pedigrees, because it dealt with these huge technological machines which were ships and dynamics of engines and all of that. So they were typically an admiral was more aristocratic in pedigree than, let's say, general. Would you say that is true at the time? 

Speaker 1: I would say, more so now with the advent of technology and these large machines, naval warships. Do you want to go to the Air Force, the airplanes themselves? So I could see where the argument lays. But in history, the army and the leaders of the army, the aristocracy, the aristocrats, were in the army. Well, that's before the advent of, certainly, aircraft. But I mean, there's always been large navies and you could argue, potentially, that the aristocrats were generally in the Navy. I'm not quite sure. I would say they were both. 

Speaker 1: Because you wanted the center of power remain the army, and you wanted to lead those armies. Well, in the past, even the more recent past, those armies belonged to you. When it came to feudal lordships and so forth, you're the one, those were your people, and the king would come to you for help. But as the state became larger and larger, that kind of fizzled away and it became the states, the people became the state. So I don't know. I would say the aristocrats led both. I mean, they had to. You couldn't have some outsider lead these huge means of power, or else you would have Caesar, no republic Caesar. Well, caesar was an elite in the aristocrat himself. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and he also, C Wright Mills, talks about how, as the military increases in power and becomes even more bureaucratic, the cliques that are already there will become even more tense towards each other and struggling for power within that arena. Do you think the cliques are there? cliques, so there's probably cliques within the type of military so like the army has its own clique and its own dividing cliques, like competing cliques within that, but then there's probably cliques that have their ties in all four that are kind of above do you know what I mean Like above them, fighting, struggling for power. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no doubt about that. So we've talked about last week how individuals and groups within the culture of the United States are all the incentive democracies that struggle for power and supremacy over relative to other groups. That applies within the services as well, and so what the services are trying to gain, in addition to money, is power. So how they do this is they shape the future, and each one, interesting enough, shapes the future that is beneficial to that particular service. So the Navy, as they shape the future and sell the future to the political class or whoever controls the money, the future war is going to be the one on sea And between China and the United States. The center of gravity will be the Navy's And therefore we need more ships, we need better ships. 

Speaker 1: Notice, the Air Force will argue no, no, no. The future war will look like outer space or in space, in between space and so forth, where space command will be arguing for that as well And the Army is like no, no, no, you can't control anything unless you control the land. So the future of warfare looks like this, and it's really about which service can influence and persuade whoever has control of the money to fall for their future. So that competition and again this was another reason why the Joint Chiefs was established was to kind of give a clear, concise understanding to the politicians of what the future really looks like, the void of kind of this internal struggle. But that still I mean it hasn't done its job, because each service is fighting for its supremacy And in order to do that you have to establish a future scenario that is beneficial to your service. 

Speaker 2: Well, also the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Is not some God coming down, the God of equality and blind justice and truth? who's going to tell the Secretary of Defense and the president kind of the unbiased truth? He's also part of a clique, probably. He's human. He's vulnerable to manipulation on all levels, right, so he's not going to necessarily be equitable or be truthful or be fair. I guess is what I'm saying. No, hey, c Wright Mills also talks about how we briefly got into it when we discussed Foucault's crime and punish, particularly how he addresses the discipline of military soldiers. 

Speaker 2: He gets into that in depth and talks about how the education right, you go to the same West Point, you go to the same academy elite club and you're kind of programmed right with their values. You all ostensibly come from money, so you have those values already set in place. But then you also learn the values of the military, how they see the world, how they approach each other and the system of rank and the hierarchy of the military, and we can, i mean, if you ever read it, you can get into that. It actually rings. It plays into what Foucault was talking about a lot when he was addressing discipline in the military. It's about like washing away old values and then putting in the ones that are appropriate for a career in military. 

Speaker 2: He talks about how a lot of military like you see in the public sphere, right when they meet for the State of the Union, for example, how they all look the same kind of. They have this, what he calls the facial mask, and I just want to read that briefly. The facial mask, and certainly it's typical expressions. There is a resolute mouth and usually the steady eye and always the tendency to expression listness. There is the erect posture, the square shoulders and the regulated cadence of the walk. They do not amble, they stride. Is that something they practice? 

Speaker 1: Not. I don't know if they practice it deliberately or for that intent. I mean there should be no emotion. I mean we practice marching in cadence, So that's required. A certain type of walk is required, although not practice. The expression listness has always been there and kind of reinforced, Although lately, the last few years. So, for example, in pictures, when you took military pictures, no smiles. There should be no smiling, There should be stern seriousness. But the last few years the service that I was in allowed for you to smile like any other picture, So that was starting to degrade. So there are principles within the military that require a stern discipline, almost as a robot, where you don't show emotions. Now there's a particular reason why I would say in the state of the union you wouldn't smile because as a military leader, you're supposed to be neutral. 

Speaker 2: And in the state of union. 

Speaker 1: There's a lot of partisan rhetoric that goes on. 

Speaker 1: So if you're, smiling and nodding your head in agreement. For one thing, you're showing favor for one party or the other, and the Supreme Court justices do the same, or are supposed to do the same in half, where you sit there hands on thighs as a robot and you don't show any inclination to which side you approve of or not approve of. In reality, that doesn't happen. It's eroding much more now than it has in the past Because, for example, when joint chiefs of staff Millie addressed his white privilege and his whiteness, that's a political statement, not a military one necessarily. 

Speaker 1: Now you can tie it in very easily into the military readiness and so forth. But usually in the past military generals at that level would not comment on anything like that. 

Speaker 2: Well, because the country, the people, haven't decided, so to speak, that the concept of white privilege is ubiquitous, that it's a given, and when someone like the military at that level confirms it by just saying it, there's a problem there. I think It shows bias, i guess. 

Speaker 1: There's a problem and there's a signal, and it's a signal by Millie for various reasons, i'm sure, or at least reasons only he knows is that there's a new religion in town Because in the past, i think, generals were given leeway to discuss democracy. We're invading Iraq because we want to provide the people of Iraq with an opportunity for democracy. That has changed now to human rights. Now Human rights to include racial rights, gender rights and all the rights that kind of typically have fallen under the LGBTQ thing or whiteness or what have you, whereas in the past no one would ever question a joint chief stating well, the reason why we're going there is for democracy, or we have issues within the military with communism. That's been replaced with the new religion, the new principles, the new values, which in theory, is supposed to match whatever the political class approves, of which at this point in time it's whatever wokeism is. 

Speaker 2: Maybe if the administration the Biden administration is an administration that is representing the people as a whole, is a woke administration or that's part of their policies, then he has to fall in ensue. Maybe he doesn't personally believe that, but he's told to say that Yeah exactly. 

Speaker 1: It goes back to where the status of the military is relevant to the civilian class. The military should always fall under the civilian class according to our civil military relationship. Therefore, in theory, he's supposed to do whatever the representation, the representative of the people, in this case the Biden regime. That didn't necessarily happen during the Trump regime either, right. Yeah general is coming out left and right. The standard used to be the old general Marshall standard, where you are very apolitical. I'm here for the military to do what I'm told. You never came out. 

Speaker 2: Well, he even see right Mills talks about. General MacArthur in the early 50s was critical of the. I guess was it Truman or the other guy Eisenhower. It's Truman In their policies? Oh, it's Truman. And how he got fired because of it because he was vocally in public criticizing it And you could even point to McChrystal right Was fired by Obama. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's supposed to be the case. 

Speaker 2: Okay. 

Speaker 1: And so, you know, in this time of uncertainty, in this time of change, we're seeing things that we haven't seen in quite some time, if ever in the United States. 

Speaker 2: He right. Mills also talks about the decline of diplomacy as a kind of foreign relations tactic, because people don't take. It's not like diplomacy used to be, almost like a aristocratic thing is what he says. It was more about using words and culture and language and status money as a way to get things done between nations or to come to some sort of agreement. And now, because of World War II and all the subsequent escalation of conflicts in terms of technology and the ascendancy of the military that it now it's more of, the military has become more of, i guess, does he say, the threat of military intervention becomes more of a power play in foreign relations and kind of the go to the default setting, so to speak, rather than diplomacy. And that has all sorts of conflicts within how I guess the founding fathers set it up. It has ramifications, let's say, on how power is made up in the power elite. 

Speaker 1: So I think you know C Wright Mills, i think Maccabally, and certainly Sorrell, one of the Italian philosophers on elite theory. they appreciate and recognize the importance of coercion, in this case violence, to secure your ideology, secure your myth and to secure your power. And a few of these theorists, including Maccabally himself acknowledged, in order to nip any potential revolution or to grind the people down where they can't, revolt is to take their arms, to take their, their weapons from them. That's one of the most crucial, important steps to either subvert a potential revolution or to grow your power over the people, because people with weapons are a threat and a competition to your monopoly of violence and therefore your power. 

Speaker 2: Well, he does talk about how, because the weapons of power now have become so far removed from the average everyday person, whereas before a gun now is considered like a play thing. It's just a toy, even an AR 15, really, when it comes down to the levels of technological power they have at the high, high end, you know, and you can talk about drones, you can talk about planes that they got other types of weapons that we don't even know about Again. So it's all he almost kind of says. It's kind of like a red herring. To talk about an armed public now is just they're not really armed in relation to how the military is armed or the people in power. 

Speaker 1: I would disagree. If you're armed enough, you can at least. you can at least fight, And I'm thinking of folks like the Taliban and others, these tribe tribal warriors, if you will, who don't have the equivalent weaponry as the United States had, but we're able to win. I think where at least the American public or Western public are in trouble, even the ones with arms Saudi arms that threaten the regime is arms and organization. So I think that's where the people in the United States lack is not arms, but in organization. 

Speaker 2: But you use, go ahead. 

Speaker 1: The third piece is the people need a leader who can organize, regardless of the amount of what type of weaponry you have. 

Speaker 2: The example you use is the Afghan war. but were they not armed by outside entities? I mean, that's how I imagine it. Afghans just didn't have these guns. They were given them by somebody Some power. I don't know who that is. 

Speaker 1: Yes, I think they. I'm pretty sure they were, but they didn't have. They weren't equivalent to what the US had. 

Speaker 2: Hmm, well, if your intention I'm just doing this out there if your intention from the US military is to create a forever war, why, i mean, you wouldn't put your whole heart into the endeavor in the first place. So the holdout you know from the Afghanis was almost if you're going to take it this way, is almost like not real, not a real measure of what can happen when you have an armed public. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that gets into limited warfare that claus face talks about versus absolute warfare versus limited warfare And if that premise is correct, that they they are proponents of forever war, they don't really want to win in the traditional sense because they don't want the war to end And they're yeah, because if the war ends, then the money ends but that's kind of, that's limited to war, and I mean I guess, not really is the opposition. 

Speaker 1: Well, you're limiting yourself because you don't want to win. So you're limiting your, your ability, when you can. you have the capabilities, the organization and the resources to win, but it's going to require a war that's more than limited. 

Speaker 1: That's going to require near absolute war polonium that but Latina limited aims limited political aims, whatever that aim is, and the political aim may be just to make more money, and if you win, you're not gonna be making any more money because it comes. Winning comes to an end means that the war whatever the war in this case is your is your means to making more money. Well, winning is, in theory, an end, as you were stating that. That means, yeah, it comes to an end. 

Speaker 2: Well, well, he calls a Seabright Mills cut talks about that because on a grander scale, in terms of the, the corporate, military corporate economy, i guess after World War one it there was a lull and the fucking funding started drying up and because there was no threat. So where they corrected that after World War two is you create he's kind of alluding to. He doesn't overtly say this, but he says like with the Cold War there's 50 years, 60 years or whatever it was, a long drawn-out, protracted threat that not only the people in the positions of power might believe but also the public, more importantly, believe so or and feel that that's gonna create a swelling and increase and a perpetual pumping in of money each year, more money to the corp, i guess you would say the military industrial corporate. 

Speaker 1: There's another word congressional complex if you take that theory, i mean, so we had the threat of Nazism, then the threat of communism and then, right after communism, then you for a bit, there you had Saddam Hussein, but then you had the war on terrorism after that. Now that's, that's over. Now you have the war on Russia, the war on China or the war on white supremacy, you know, depending on you. Mean, they have to come up with something. If you're taking that theory, where the forever war crew? so it's interesting to see that there it's all of the above. Right now we're on some white supremacy, war on Russia or fascism, i guess you could say, and that's all tied into the Russians and white supremacy, as they define it so, yeah, yeah, he does just back to the Nazis and all that he's he almost received right mills almost suggests that the Nazis and totalitarian regimes at the time Mussolini and Hirohito and all them were like a happy accident for the military and the military industrial complex. 

Speaker 2: That that was. You know, a lot of people argue that it was a created sort of what are they not? false flag, but a opposed, controlled opposition. That is a concept in the conspiracy theory circles that in fact someone like Hitler was actually created by various means of outside pressures from the British and Americans and all others and the Germans and, you know, some of the captains of industry in Germany themselves to provide an opportunity for something like World War two to happen. I mean, i don't know the truth to that at all, but it's an interesting theory, whereas Seawright Mills is saying it was just kind of a lucky. If you're looking at it from a money-making military perspective, it's like that that those types of regimes started coming up in the 30s and that World War two happened because, as a result, the military was pretty much given all these advantages subsequently and power positions in the public mind as well, not just within the structures of power but also in the public's, public's perception, because you know, a lot of people went to World War two. 

Speaker 2: So they, they felt and experienced the result of a tyrant's. A tyrant's what am I trying to say? power, or struggling with that. You know, people died, they knew people who died, family members died. So, yeah, so he lastly and I'll kind of let you take take over, is he Seawright Mills says basically, what it's become, at least in the late 1950s, is that the military has ascended to the level on par with the corporate executives, the corporate oligarchies and high-up government people. 

Speaker 2: In fact he says governments more of middling power that are being manipulated by corporate and military means or powers. He calls it American militarism. And then so he I also read a chapter called the theory of balance. So in that chapter he criticizes political theories from the school of pluralism, which will get into, i think, and when we get into that I'll bring up Seawright Mills critiques of that type of understanding of of power. He would say basically that pluralistic views are romantic and ignore a bunch of overall, overall, like not facts, but they focus on the details rather than on the greater picture all right, just want to come in a couple. 

Speaker 1: One thing at your time about the on the conspiratorial slant with respect to these enemies of the state Hitler, japanese leadership and it and others. I mean these people exist everywhere and at all times. So in order to reach an objective, i think from a regime perspective, you got to eliminate your competition but, more importantly, to raise an army, raise a society to support you in this. You have to paint your enemies not as a human but as a monster, and you could do. You did that, we did that with Hitler. You'll see the same script over and over again. You paint your enemy as a monster and the enemy falls for it as well, because they do monstrous things. 

Speaker 1: We did it with and we're doing it with Putin now. We did it with Trump. The same talking points over and over again. If you look at them, they're the same same, the same things that the regime did to paint Trump as a monster, as a, as a Nazi, if you will. They're doing with with Putin. It is funny because you know, with the mental stability with Trump, they use the same talking points with Putin as well chiques, chiques, he's sick, they have cancer, they mentally, they need a mental IQ test or whatever. 

Speaker 1: All the same things. The regime is crumbling around, or his inner cabinet is crumbling around him. Same with Putin, and it works in many cases. So I don't think it's a way that I at least what I think you're saying or what CRick Mills was saying, or conspiracy, like they make Hitler ina factory and tell him to do this and do that, or they find Hitler somewhere in some rogue revolutionary group and tell him they even do this and that. I don't think that's the case necessarily. I think they made Hitler in their own image, in the regimes it image, and also amplified the atrocities he was making and doing. But we didn't understand that until near the war's end, at least on a mass level. On what did you know the atrocities he was committing? now the intelligence agencies, the government may have known for quite some time, but us as a people didn't know that. I don't think so. We didn't find that out until we came upon release concentration camps well, the Germans themselves said they didn't know yeah, exactly so. 

Speaker 1: But my point, my larger point, is yes, you can create people like Hitler and and others who, by just well writing a narrative, stating in there well, not only that, not only that. 

Speaker 2: You can look at with the money where. How are these? you know, a one-time rogue outsiders like Hitler and the Nazis. How did they become as powerful as they became? well, you look at the money that who funded them? you know, in Germany it was a lot of these manufacturing companies, apparently not only from Germany, but also from Britain and America. They were getting a lot of money. So people, people with money on their mind, we're looking at Hitler as an opportunity for some reason now, whether or not they probably weren't in envisioning a worldwide conflict where they would benefit from it, but they maybe it was in the back of their mind you know that because of World War one they probably looked at the numbers. 

Speaker 2: You could argue and say, shit, we made a lot of money. You know such IG Farben. Their fucking profits were through the roof and now for 20 years we're not we're not making profit and you know how businesses are. 

Speaker 2: It's like if you don't make more money the next year, you're losing money and you're you're a failure. So I mean one could argue I could see how it would be in these people's interest to try to fund a opposition, to create a conflict in which your profits will, in the end, be huge yeah, i mean, i think that's certainly a possibility, an plausible possibility or, if you want to take it just less conspiratorial, you can say someone like IBM or whoever was funding both the Nazis and both sides as a sort of almost outside yeah, and that the outcome I don't know about. 

Speaker 2: I didn't know that the outcome would be what it was. 

Speaker 1: I think in person could be to. What you're saying is lobbyists here in the US government who they didn't donate to both sides even donates both sides of the same campaign or the same office, folks running for the same office, one for influence sakes, but to they are hedging their bet and it's either one wins. They're still a winner because they're, in theory, still gonna get what they want through this, you know, through money or whatever other means of persuasion that they use. So it's an investment. So I think I, on a grander scale, as you're talking about, if you're a large corporation or just a large investor, you can hedge your bets. You're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna contribute to both sides, because you don't know who's gonna win. But what you know for sure is you're gonna be the winner no matter what, or you're gonna get your interests realized either way it goes back to the a moral discussion we're looking at some of these people who are a power, or game power. 

Speaker 1: They're a moral and a patriotic, if you will. They don't really give a shit which side wins, as long as they are part of the winning team and they're not gonna find someone's. 

Speaker 2: I was just kind of going off that and saying you know, with political campaigns there, these corporations are not gonna fund somebody, a candidate who's volatile or not not susceptible to to. In effect, bribery is what it is. It's like giving you money and if they win the and become the, win the office of whatever they're running for they're, they're gonna do what you want them to. They're gonna remember that you gave them 50 million dollars and so they're gonna pass policies. Because, at the end of the day, i think these politicians are just like actors or any other thing. They just they want the money. They're a moral too. They're gonna just if, if they get elected into office in a campaign funded by these corporations, they're gonna sign whatever policy that these corporations come up with or or vote against it if it doesn't suit their interest. 

Speaker 2: Interest, and that's, i think, what campaigns have become is just like a chessboard for different corporations, different lobbyist groups. I guess you could say as well, but we could talk about how much of these lobby groups are tied to corporations. We know the pharmaceutical companies, but I guess I'm thinking more of social lobby groups like LGBT, the Jewish lobbyists, the Arabs, the Christian lobbyists. You know all these different groups. Like how much is corporate money tied into those lobby groups And is it really are the social causes behind them what they're professing that they're trying to assist? 

Speaker 2: Is that really just a guise for a facade for a corporate interest behind? I don't know much about lobbyists to comment on that or even to really think about it. Yeah, so I really am kind of interested to see what the pluralists think about lobby groups, because C Wright Mills actually in his critique of pluralism mentions, you know, interest groups, because I guess pluralism thinks, oh, the country and powers divided into all these different sub variables and groups and they're all contending in almost like a naturalistic type of almost a democratic way of checking each other's powers by based on their different sets of values. And he mentions lobbyists in part of that. 

Speaker 1: So the question for me, when we were talking about politics, the definition of politics for me, i'm going to use the struggle for power And then, when you ask what is power, go back to the ability to impose one's will on people, places and things. So that ties it nicely into for me at least logically into what we're talking about. But as we started this, i was trying to think about what the quote Mao was talking about And we're going to talk more about him and Marx and the others landing Stalin and their perspective next week or whenever we're ready to jump into we call it Marxist theory, but it's much more than just that. But the quote I was looking for is politics is war without bloodshed, and while war is politics with bloodshed. This is from Mao and he also says political power comes through the barrel of a gun, and what I think he's getting at or released my interpretation of that is there's really no distinction between the two, politics and war. They're almost one in the same, and I guess again, i don't know if that's what he meant, but that's what I'm taking from it because it fits into what I'm trying to say or what I see the world as is politics and war are the same, just, and I guess Mao puts it succinctly and brilliantly with respect to that. They're the same And you could argue that politicians are a soldier or a general, but in just, in different realms. So that's kind of the thought process that I have and how I see it. To struggle for power is both. Is, you know, perhaps politics and war are the same thing. To sign a different spectrum, or what had you? 

Speaker 1: But the Machiavellians is a book that I highly recommend, defenders of Freedom, by James Byrne, and he has a few principles here I'd like to just read, you know, on all these political theorists that he highlights, to include Machiavelli, moskva, who has a theory of the ruling class, Sarell, who is the preordinate of myth and violence, ruchels, the limits of democracy, and Pareto, the nature of social action. But all these have kind of principles. All these theorists have the same principles And in order to to understand power, you have to approach it with a certain objective, and that's his first principle. That one is first objective is you have to describe the facts, you have to correlate those facts and then come up with a probable hypothesis about, about what the facts about predict, predicting the future a little bit, or at least describing, as we're doing now, power. 

Speaker 1: The subject is the struggle for power. You must find real meaning versus the formal meaning. So if you've read the book and I think you have a little bit he uses the example Dante, where he's going through. He's talking about religious things, but what he's really meaning is he you know what Burnham describes as Dante was part of a losing side in reality, and he's kind of fluffing it up, relating it to religious and using religious terms and so forth. What he's trying to say is we've got to cut through all the religious or formal meaning. And he also uses political platforms as an example of a formal meaning, where equality we're strive for equality on the Democratic Party or what have you And he encourages the readers, the true investigators of power like you and I, to kind of cut through all that and ask what is the real meaning behind their statement of equality and so forth. 

Speaker 1: And he states that the logic one of the other principles, principle number four is logic and rationale play a minimal or minor role in the struggle for power. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier I think it was this podcast, maybe it was two plus two but the importance and power of feeling and irrational, and we make that. Basically, humans are irrational actors for the most part as well. So number five most significant division is rulers and the ruled. So that's I mean, these are principles of elite theory, if you will. The most significant division is the elite and the non elite, the rulers versus the ruled. 

Speaker 1: Number six is study of the elite, both its composition, its structure and its relation to the non elite. Number seven is the primary objective of elite is to maintain and grow its power and privilege. Number eight the rule of elite is to force some fraud, which we were talking about earlier, is the elite is going to achieve its aims, both domestically informed, through force and fraud, and what he means by fraud is to deception in particular. And number nine social structure equals political formulas of the elite. Form this political formula either through ideology or religion or through myth. Number 10, rule of elite coincides with the interest of the mass. 

Speaker 1: Number 11, two opposing tendencies within the elite. One is the democratic and the other is the aristocratic. So the elite replenishes itself through itself, through giving birth to kids. Those kids become the new elite. That's the aristocratic, and then the other is the democratic, which is you get. Your elite gets its new members from the outer party, from the people themselves, which is interesting. And so he states there's two kind of opposing ways the elite replenishes itself. He states that the democratic way is the one that wins, tends to win. And then, 13, periodically, there's a rapid shift in composition and structure of the elite, which leads to social revolution, which is which is also interesting. So, basically, if, if the elite calcifies and can't replenish itself, and if the elite becomes too distanced from the multitude, that is and there's other factors and variables involved as well that lends itself to social revolution, which is not good for the elite. So he argues that the replenishment of the elite is essential to keep that bond between the elite and the people. And if you cut out the people, this goes back to his democratic replenishment of the elite. And then then you become two separate entities that are in congruent with one another and again ripe for social revolution. That's the principles, in a nutshell, of the Machiavellians. 

Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into each theorist particulars, but I highly recommend one. Read this. This is I've read it a couple times And every time you read it, or every time I read it, i learned something new which is fabulous. I also recommend On Power by Juvenal, which I've talked about in the past. It's a study of the essence of power and its relationship with the elite and with the people as a whole, which is also a fascinating topic. And then we also talked about in the other podcast the origins of religion, laws and institutions. I recommend the ancient city, a study of the religion, laws and institution of Greece and Rome by Numadini's Foustade de Goulange, a French intellectual which kind of goes to the history. I have not read the entire book of this, not even half of it, but what I have read, the part, is religion and all authority and sovereignty, at least in the Greek and Roman, and according to this gentleman, started with the family and in particular with the leader of that family, the man. And in On Power it discusses that as well. So fascinating reads, fascinating tie into elite theory as a whole. 

Speaker 1: And then the key, another key that is from the Machiavellians, which is not necessarily a principle but is the importance of organization. So they talk about organizations. Within organizations a small minority of the rulers emerges And a large majority of those who don't want to rule, either can't or don't accepts the rule, and that natural progression is they start to go away from one another, the aims of the elite begin to contrast with the aims of the masses And again there's refriching starts to play and the lack of equilibrium. But he also talks about the importance of, or the lack of organization on the masses part, which is hard for them to counter the aims of the elite, and that's why the elite elite always win is because they are more organized and they have the capacity and capability and the personality to win. So that's, that's the Machiavellians in a nutshell and the elite theory in a nutshell, from from what I understand. Any comments? 

Speaker 2: Well, machiavellian is a word that's come into our lexicon for years And it implies sort of ruthless power, ruthless exercise of power, power for power's sake sort of thing, the art of maintaining your power at whatever means necessary. 

Speaker 2: And so there's, you know, like you talked about intrigue or deception, and I've come to, i mean, most people, i think. 

Speaker 2: Look at power, people in power, as especially governments or companies or what have you, as being unethical, right And being more on the having an ethics, but not the ethics that align necessarily with our ethics or individuals, the peasant ethics, and that deception is definitely that they're more Machiavellian in nature, meaning that they'll use deception, they'll use false flags, they'll kill a whole bunch of people if it means that they have that it'll help them maintain power, even on the corporate level. I think this happens especially on the corporate level, like these corporations do Machiavellian things, you could say For one advertisement, i think is a form of deception And a lot. All companies do that. But some people would say the pharmaceutical companies, with the Covita, have released the virus, you know the scandemic, and all that as a way to make a lot of money. So yeah, i was just coming, would you say. The American power players have become more Machiavellian or less, or just about the same throughout time. 

Speaker 1: Let me address kind of what you're starting off with And James Burnham discusses it Machiavelli's reputation. And Machiavelli has become kind of a word synonymous with intrigue and deception and evil and all that kind of stuff. And Burnham addresses that and says that's a reason, there's a reason for that And the elites have it kind of goes back to painting your enemy as a monster and some sort of evil. And he states if I can read word for word, bear with me here. If men generally understood as much of the mechanism of rule and privilege as Machiavellia understood, they would no longer be deceived into accepting that rule and privilege And they would know what steps to take to overcome them. Therefore the powerful and their spokesman, all the official quote unquote thinkers, the lawyers and philosophers and preachers and demagogues and moralists and editors must defame Machiavelli. Machiavelli says that rulers lie and break faith. This proves, they say, that the libel's human, that he libel's human nature. Machiavelli says that ambitious men struggle for power. He is apologizing for the opposition, the enemy, and trying to confuse you about us, the elite, who wish to lead you for your own good and welfare. Machiavelli says that you must keep strict watch over officials and subordinate them to the law. He is encouraging subversion and the loss of national unity. Machiavelli says that no man with power is to be trusted. You see that his aim is to smash all your faith and ideals. 

Speaker 1: And then the last paragraph. He says small wonder that the powerful in public denounce Machiavelli. The powerful have long practice and much skill in sizing up their opponents. They can recognize an enemy who will never compromise, even when the enemy is so abstract as a body of ideas. So I think that's a profound kind of statement from Burnham on Machiavelli's perception, that they've made him kind of going into Nietzsche a little bit. They've turned his way of thinking into an evil and a bad way of thinking. Because from Burnham's perspective it is dangerous for the people to kind of understand what's going on behind the curtain. And Machiavelli and his ideas provide an opportunity for us as the people although his ideas were written for at Prince to understand what really goes on behind the scenes. And that's a danger to the elite. 

Speaker 2: Well then, how would you take the show House of Cards right, which is a show about this well, very Machiavellian wife and husband who make their way through American politics and ascension to power by the very means we're talking about. I mean, that's like showing the public what's behind the curtain. So I mean, does the public say, oh, in their mind, say this is just fantasy? really, politics in America doesn't really work on a Machiavellian level like this. It's entertainment. Or does it show that there's cracks in the power elite, that this revelation is coming out in the form of this HBO special or you know whatever? it was Netflix. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think. 

Speaker 2: And also. 

Speaker 1: The Game of Thrones is another one of it. 

Speaker 1: That's where fantastical and Game of House of Cards is more realistic And it shows a glimpse, through art, of reality. And I was always amazed by this because people can watch that but they cannot reconcile the fact that this could happen to someone like President Trump. No way could this happen. Well, if you're a believer and big follower which there are many of House of Cards and Game of Thrones, and then way back when in the early 2000s, remember the series Rome, which was fantastic, and other shows like that, basically Deadwood gives you the insight on how real power works. But then, as time goes on, it's like well, maybe they do, but the people who do watch it recognize that's how power works And that's why they don't acknowledge any hypocrisy with what's happened to Trump. Maybe they just used some of the ideas or some of the themes they saw in these shows to gain more power. It just so happened to be on the liberal side of things. 

Speaker 2: Or what they do is plug in who they don't approve of politically into the Machiavellian role in those shows, like, if they don't like Trump, they're going to say, okay, kevin Spacey's character, that's Trump. He got to power based on evil ways. They don't necessarily look critic. use that template and impose the person they approve of or they vote for onto that. 

Speaker 1: Right, it's confirmation bias. potentially. It's like okay, like you said, they're going to. I hate Trump. I see Trump as the evil person And I'm going to place him into the evil character where the good guys are, whoever's on the other side. That's one way, or the other ones they just recognize. Yep, i know Trump is not. you know they take it as an amoral. I see Trump as weak or I don't like and support the aims that he's striving for. Therefore, i'm going to use this as a. I'm going to characterize him as this evil monster, even though I understand and recognize the hypocrisy of it all. but I don't give a crap, i want power. It kind of goes back to like Millie when we were talking about Millie and his acknowledgement of some sort of white struggle. To me, that's a perfect example of is he a true believer or does he just recognize what the true power is, or does he fake the fog to get his, his war in Afghanistan or his war wherever and state whatever the regime wants him to state? 

Speaker 2: or all of the above. 

Speaker 1: I mean because he can't come out and say what the regime is stating is all BS And then the next week asked for more money from the same regime. I mean it's a smart play on his part, I think, at least personally, and then a tribally within those higher military groups, one of those subgroups here at the time. 

Speaker 2: Well, not only military, but you could also graph onto this or include the corporate economic~ structures, the corporations. They also signaled during that whole year that they would play a ball too or at least they would pretend to in the public sphere, with BLM and all of that. They're going to go along with it. I mean, i think we could talk about why are they? they don't want to be labeled in that heated time as being racist or against it, because the potential damages would be grave for a certain corporation. 

Speaker 1: I think it's common. I think it's self-preservation, It's like okay, you want access to the American market. if you're for a company, Then you better show signs of support for the regime and whether that's BLM trains or what have you. 

Speaker 1: That's one theory, but then there's another theory I've been reading about. Is these, what would you call them? these activist investors, where they invest a significant portion of money and therefore they gain a significant portion of stock. So activist stockholders where, if they don't, if the company doesn't do what they want, then they'll implode the company itself, which is another theory is it's been hijacked, if you will. Or parasitic way, where they come from within the company, buy up a bunch of stocks, these highly activist hedge funds, and basically tell them you better do what we say or we're going to break up the company. That's one way. And then the other way is, even if the company was just all about making money, well, if you want access to the American markets in China's sense remember when the NBA got in a lot of hot water you better do what the Chinese government wants you to do not recognize Taiwan as a country, as an example or you're not going to have access to the markets, for a combination of those two theories. 

Speaker 2: Hollywood's part of that too, i guess any corporate arena is because the money is being funded. a lot of these films are being funded by not only is the market in China too, but it's the people funding the films are Chinese a lot of time Chinese corporate investors. They're going to take out certain things, they're going to force the writer. It's like the death of the author, basically the death of the directors really the director too, because it's become so saturated with politics. That doesn't necessarily mean the work that is produced is bad. 

Speaker 2: In fact, shakespeare was highly infused with the I think it's the Tudors Elizabethan propaganda, and his works are considered some of the greatest of human creation. It's just interesting how, from living in a time in the US when Hollywood productions were less, at least seemingly, infused with propaganda I guess I'm talking about the 70s, when it seemed to be more independent products from independent artists who had a clear vision that was in many ways outside politics. We can argue about that and talk about it, but I'm thinking of The Godfather, martin Scorsese, bergman, all these big names in the 70s that created movies that I thought are the best movies of a Hollywood. 

Speaker 2: or of our time, because the very fact they did not seem to be manipulated or controlled by a corporation The corporation would still make money off of these things, but they almost allowed the artists to have free reign. As a result, the work was better, At least. Maybe it spoke more to an individual like me who maybe it represented a more working class, middle class type of mentality and perspective on life, because the corporations seem to have stayed out of it. The story I don't know if I'm making sense, but nowadays it seems to be watered down mass media type movies, speaking to the lowest common denominator, where the life's taken out of it and it's almost like there's no vision to it. There's no clear. 

Speaker 2: The director I mean you could say Trantino still retains some of that auteurist type of vision to his films, but he's few and far between. Mostly what you're going to get is these masters of the universe, whatever they're called, the Avengers and shit like that, which is just garbage. Oh, an example of this is okay. So there's this movie called Nomadland. It's based on a book that is highly critical of Amazon. When they make the Hollywood version of it, they completely take out the Amazon criticism. In fact, they turned it into almost a love story at the end of it And I'm like that love story was not in the book. Now, you can create whatever you want to create when you're doing a movie, but part of what made the book interesting to me was the criticism of Amazon. Well, they completely take it out. 

Speaker 2: Of course, it's probably because maybe Amazon funded the film with the intention of keeping it out, or the one stipulations to keep out the Amazon criticism. But it's definitely an example of where corporate interests can trump the vision of the artist or the vision of the writer. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i mean, if you go back to the influence of power, whether it be corporate power or government power, i think China has bought up a lot of movie studios as well. So that's another way of controlling the narrative and, more importantly, controlling the art, controlling creativity which doesn't become creativity anymore, or at least not the artist's creativity becomes the state creativity which is history, is shown. It becomes very bland and very I don't know, generic, as you were stating. You can tell when it's a state or a corporate. The audience is a corporation of the state, not necessarily the multitude out there. Basically, the art becomes another organ for propaganda, just like the media. It all creative creativity goes away, other than the creativity for the state. 

Speaker 2: And well, the genius comes in when you can have a propaganda piece. That is one of the best films of all time. 

Speaker 1: Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Casablanca. 

Speaker 1: That's where it's kind of cool when you have propaganda. 

Speaker 2: That's fantastic. I like when that happens. I'm okay with that. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's gonna be fun to talk about the creativity versus the state or creativity versus propaganda, when we get into the books and the movies and entertainment as well. How, as an artist, do you do defend that? Or how do you defend your creativity? or do you just surrender, like other people within different organizations like the media, and just say I'm gonna do what I can do because I want a career, i want money? I want, isn't that? I don't want to be canceled or what have you? 

Speaker 2: I still want to be famous and things of that nature, And so yeah and I'd like to talk about Orson Wells when we get into that because he's an example of someone who was not destroyed but gravely hampered by his unwillingness to want his will, his desire to be kind of an independent filmmaker and write and produce stories that were run counter to, i guess, the corporate powers that be. He was almost thrown out of Hollywood, in essence, or used just kind of sporadically because he did have talent. 

Speaker 2: But, his artistic vision, you could say, was hampered throughout his career and his career stifled because of, well, his first film he criticized. He modeled after Hearst William Randolph Hearst who had huge amount of power in the media And that was like the death knell for his career. In a sense. If you fucking poke the beast it's gonna have consequences. But as well as someone else like who's a kind of company director. 

Speaker 2: Oh maybe, yeah, steven Spielberg or Hitchcock. They're not gonna do that, and their careers will be much more prolific as a result, because they'll have no, they'll have the money backing. They'll have no hiccups, no roadblocks, no character assassinations, all that shit. They'll have the opportunity, yeah, and they'll have some form of power. 

Speaker 1: The regime gives you a certain amount of power as long as you play by the rules and do what you're told And a lot of creative artists or artists are okay with that by you know. they still want to get there. Like you said, i think you know Michelangelo and Sistine Chapel and others. they made great pieces of work under the guise of whatever the Catholic Church wanted them to do, but they were still able to probably send messages through their art that were counter to the. 

Speaker 1: Catholic doctrine. They just did it in a genius way, so you can take that route too. Is like okay. I'm gonna do on the surface, do what I'm told, but I'm gonna make a great piece of art that you know. That's almost secretive or esoteric or things of that nature where the regime is too stupid or too busy to even appreciate what I'm really saying. You know. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can. Maybe Shakespeare comes into play with that Also. I mean, spielberg is one of the best directors ever, you know. I personally love his movies, most of them anyways, i'm not just because they don't get involved in political or any you know sort of dark territory, it doesn't mean that they're horrible, that they're not good, so yeah. Or Hitchcock, he's my favorite director And he definitely was a regime director, you know. So yeah, we'll get into that when we talk about art More in depth. 

Speaker 1: Okay, anything else on elite theory. 

Speaker 2: I do want to get into the global elite, but I need to read the book more, so I just can't do it today, but it actually speaking of name names. it lists names of not only companies but the directors of the companies, the CEOs. I guess it's the what 400 most powerful people, or whatever and how they're all linked in a network, international network. 

Speaker 1: Alright, we'll do it. Let's do part three, the global lead. What do you think? 

Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, love it, and I mean these podcasts after. 

Speaker 1: After the, we're done with the lead in a academic sense, we're going to talk about Marxist, which is also, you could argue, is also an elite theory, and so we're really not going to go away. 

Speaker 1: It's you're going to see constant themes throughout. Although we title it elite theory, we're going to get into other things because they're all tied in. I mean by things, other theories that are basically an elite theory. I think Marxism and even the pluralistic side of the houses is also an elite theory, and I think people on the surface think maybe perhaps Marxism is a plural, populist theory or workers theory, you know, basically a bottom up revolution, a bottom up theory where the people control and the workers control. But I think even Marx acknowledges you have an elite that controls, controls his, his environment at the time, or what his view and his perspective was. I think what Marx had versus these elite theorists is the elite theorists think that elites will own and rule the world forever, whereas Marxist believes that the people, the mass, the multitude, can actually be in power, which will be fun to talk about. But we'll intertwine and inter interrelate all these theories together as we move forward Any closer. 

Speaker 2: Well, nowhere have you just to play off that. Nowhere have you seen the Marxist vision realized. It's all almost well, not I mean it's theory that that workers revolution is going to happen, unless, i mean, has it happened yet? 

Speaker 1: Now I mean there's at least in modern history there's no sign of that where the mass, the people, can rule. Now the mass can transition power from one elite to the other, according to some theorists, but they can never rule, they're only a mechanism or a tool to transition from one elite power to the other. I mean, you look at the Russian Revolution. As soon as the Tsar fell, the monarchy, you had power centers within. you know, you had the whites versus the reds, the Bolsheviks versus the whites, and then when the Bolsheviks eventually won, then there was fighting, internal fighting within the Bolsheviks, to gain that power. You had Trotsky versus or Trotsky versus Stalin and vice versa, which you know the Stalin and Leninist. 

Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks basically, or at least the Stalinist slash, leninist won out, but more so, stalin went out And you know Prince coincidentally was the prince by Machiavelli was Stalin's favorite, according to some historians. So it's just like you're saying, or at least you're commenting on is people ruling, the people as a whole is. it's theoretically nice, but in reality that struggle for power, even under the ideology of you know. 

Speaker 2: I mean, is even. 

Speaker 1: Mao. I mean Mao kind of always ruled the communist regime in China. But there's always that struggle. He had his purges as well. I'm sure there's some internal purges that he was making with any competitors, potential or real. 

Speaker 2: So And you could say that of democracy too, That you call it a democracy. But when you get down and look at the all the fine details and everything, the brushstrokes are not democratic, if so to speak. 

Speaker 1: Yes, indeed. Okay, so next week we will do part three of elite power theory And we'll talk about kind of the global elite. So we've moved kind of from local elites, or at least nation state elite, to what we think is the future, if not, the present is now the international elite. We talk about Charles, or not Charles Schwab? What's his name, frickin the World Economic Forum? Is it Schwab, klaus? 

Speaker 2: Schwab, klaus Schwab. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, these, these now international elitists, even the Elon Musk's or the Bezos of the world, or that Frickin, what's his name? from Microsoft, bill Gates of the world, all these international, all the sources of the world, all these banking. 

Speaker 2: CEOs, bank blank, fine, or whatever. His name is Jamie Deemann. All these unknown people too, they have. They have recognition within their you know groups that they run in, but no one really knows them. There's only very few people in this book in the list of names, that Peter Phillips's giants, the global power elite, that the people. Most of them are people you've never heard of, but they hold positions of great power And a lot of them are you know. They are part of the International Monetary Fund, the World Banking Association or whatever it's called World Economic Forum. You know Bilderberg Group. They're all kind of incestuous running through the same mills, so it'll be good to talk about that With the Marxist theory episodes. What should I read and what should others our Phantom audience read to help prepare for that? 

Speaker 1: I think. I think you can use the primary sources or secondary sources. If you don't have a lot of time, read secondary sources, but primary, like if you have time, you can read Marx, his Communist Manifesto, certainly, if you have a lot of time, das Kapital, but probably not. Read a little bit about, read a little bit of Mao. He's got a couple of pamphlets out there Lenin, some of their maybe not their books, but some of their pamphlets out there, just to give you some context of what their beliefs are. 

Speaker 1: Mao's going to be fast because he's so blunt and honest in his assessment of revolution And that pertinent. If you apply what he was saying to what's going on in the United States, if you at least have that perspective, it gives you some insight on what. If you believe the Communists have taken over what is now repackaged as wokeism or what have you, it gives you some insight on what they're thinking, or at least some of their academic or political icons. And basically, mao was also a successful fighter warrior and he won out. So you got to give, you got to give him respect with respect to that, whether you agree with him ideology, his ideology or not, or the way he ran China Once he was in power, i think you just you have to acknowledge how successful he was as a revolutionary And again, i appreciate his ability to be upfront and blunt with the audience or whoever. 

Speaker 2: Well, there's theories out there that he was. His rise to power was funded by and helped by, the CIA in the early days, the OSS or whatever. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i mean there was definitely a battle, i think, at least from my knowledge, between in the United States on which side they should choose between the Nationalists or the Communists, and at least the state narrative was they chose the Nationalist who lost, and that is now Taiwan, and that they should have many within the regime wanted to support now and still had ties to them and so forth, like the CIA and others Or the quiver or whatever pre CIA, oss or what have you. 

Speaker 2: All right. Well, once again Tray. 

Speaker 1: John. 

Speaker 2: Tray John. Tray John, the gender neutral emperor of the Roman Empire potentially who? was Optimus Septus, or whatever the fact. 

Speaker 1: Optimus, a lot of. 

Speaker 2: S's in that name, queer. 

Speaker 1: All right, fellow cellmates, thank you for joining us Once again in the Panopticon. I am Tray John Trajan, here with name names. until we meet again in the cell amongst cellmates, Have a good day.