#7 Part 3: Elite Theory

What do the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s and today's cancel culture have in common? Join us as we explore the legacy of Elia Kazan, a director who faced severe backlash for naming names during the red scare, and compare it to modern cancel culture. Discover the stories of actors and writers, like Lee Grant and Dalton Trumbo, who managed to make a comeback despite being blacklisted and having years taken away from their careers.

Uncover the hidden world of the global power elite as we delve into Phillips' book Giants: The Global Power Elite, which analyzes the transnational capital class made up of 17 financial giants and their 199 directors. We'll discuss their connections to elite universities, the massive amounts of money they manage, and the non-governmental global elite policy planning organizations that shape our world. Plus, learn about the military and security apparatus employed for their investments, and the corporate media used for ideological justification.

Finally, we'll examine the humanitarian consequences of elite decisions - from investments in war and regime change to the exploitation of labor and the climate crisis. We'll question the absence of Chinese companies in this analysis and the potential for deception or deliberate propaganda. Don't miss this intriguing exploration of elite theory, power struggles, and deceptive propaganda in today's world.

Twitter is @ThePanopticon84

Transcript

Speaker 1: Good day, fellow cellmates. May 30th 2023. This is the Panopticon. I am military man with forever Elia. Today is part three of elite theory I have described usually. We opened up with our names military man. We've discussed in detail in our other podcast. Two plus two equals five. Did you want to talk about forever Elia at all Elia? 

Speaker 2: forever, elia. That is harkening back to a director of theater and screen films in the 1940s and 1950s, elia Kazan. Do you know him? 

Speaker 1: Military man does not know, elia. 

Speaker 2: Elia Kazan is an interesting character because or figure He's behind, he's the directorial force behind some of the greatest dramas from the 20th century. He directed the original streetcar name desire A lot of Tennessee William stuff from New York. He directed movie wise. He directed the film version of streetcar name desire. He directed and won the Oscar for on the waterfront with Marlon Brando. He did one called a face in the crowd which we'll have to watch one of these days because it's about media and propaganda and all that He did. 

Speaker 2: All these movies that are kind of showing the complexities of humanity on the waterfront was about this sort of underdog, marlon Brando, this box or in the New York. He worked in the stockyards or the docks, the dockyards, whatever they call them which were corrupt, with mafia and all this stuff, and he's like the little man doing a heroic deed at the end, trying to battle these forces of greed and corruption, like a so almost like a socialism type of drama. Anyways, what's interesting is he was coming up during the communist scare, the red scare and unfortunately, despite all his efforts to show humanity what it is for what it is and the complexities therein, he chose to name names of people who were suspected of communism within. 

Speaker 2: The industry and that kind of tainted his legacy in many ways, because he sold out, in other words, and so when he was honored with an honorary Oscar in, i think, the late 90s, maybe 2000s, half of the crowd did not applaud and stand up. In fact, someone like Ed Harris and his wife Amy Madigan had this very, you know, stern, holier than thou face, and they were made a they did not clap to show that they were not approving of this fella Elya Kazan, who ratted out fellow people who might not have even been communist back in the day. 

Speaker 2: So I'm gonna be naming some names not a lot of names, but just kind of a play off that and we can even talk about the, the cancel culture now and relate it to the blacklist back in the 50s. Do you see a similarity? 

Speaker 1: but similarity between the two well, the first thing that came to mind when he mentioned what's his name Ed, ed and Harris, ed Harris and Madigan, with their pretentiousness, is one these folks that he snitched on could have been communists and handled by communists, or they could not have been. That, i mean, it could go. It could go either way and that tells me. Well, if they were communists, i think the people know, especially within Hollywood, whether or not these were communist sympathizers or just kindness, or even direct had direct relationships with the Soviet regime. That tells me you're a communist if that is true, or you're just a pretentious asshole opportunity you would snitch who would snitch on a fellow actor who was, let's say, a Trump supporter? 

Speaker 1: in a heartbeat you'd go on Oprah and snitch out whoever this would be and sit them out or marginalize them as they do. Who's Angelina Jolie's dad? isn't he a big conservative? what's his name? John boy? yeah, wait. John boy so these hypocritical or pretentious smug looks tells me you're probably a communist yourself at or at the very least, you're just a hypocrite who would snitch out a Trumpian in a heartbeat but maybe they're not. 

Speaker 2: Maybe they just disagree with what he did and they're making a stand you know, ratting out someone else who maybe was, wasn't communist. Who knows, maybe they're just very what's that called, where they take a stand on that type of stuff or they didn't give a fuck and they just wanted the damn thing to be over. 

Speaker 2: So they go home and do whatever the guy do or Elya Kazan didn't hire them for a part and they're resentful. But yeah, so I mean to make a man I don't know, to make a stand 70 years later, or whatever. I don't know it's kind of a there's no teeth to it. I really. I mean that was 50 people make mistakes. That doesn't tarnish his work. It shouldn't anyways. 

Speaker 1: I mean, didn't most of these people that got accused of it nothing? I mean, they were blacklisted for a little bit, but then they come back around to become directors and actors and so forth. It any of them like some in them for some? 

Speaker 2: but it did. It did ruin careers and in Hollywood it's careers fragile anyways and to take seven years off, that's a long time. You know that that is potentially fatal. Some people like the actress Lee Grant. She was blacklisted back in the 50s and she came back late 60s with a, with a passion, you know she and she was celebrated, not necessarily because she was blacklisted maybe because of that also, but because she was very talented and a good actress and chose good parts. But there were writers also who were blacklisted. Dalton Trumbo is a big one, dalton. Who, dalton Trumbo? oh, he wrote what did he write? a face in the crowd, maybe, but there was a big one. He wrote Marty. No, that was Patty Chayevsky. I want to say it was maybe even on the waterfront, one of those big ones. He wrote it under a assumed name or a pseudonym or whatever you call it pen name during the blacklist. 

Speaker 2: So yeah he had support, but yeah, most people. Well is a is a bellows a, isabella Rosalini's mom in Ingrid Bergman. She was blacklisted, she came back? 

Speaker 1: yeah, i guess. I guess the question is, were they communists? and then the second question is even if they were communists doesn't warrant an investigation or persecution by the government, and then we would have to assume that the government, if they were doing that, were not communists, and so that when we get into the entertainment series, i think again, this will be another interesting and fun thing to talk about, because I'm anonymous right now for fear of I don't have the, of course, the popularity nor power sway to be blacklisted and canceled. But there are folks, as you talked about today, who have been canceled. We call it cancel culture. Now that's going to be a very interesting and dynamic discussion, especially when and if we compare the two yeah, we can do that. 

Speaker 2: We can reserve that towards for then, but it's definitely interesting comparison. I think careers are ruined now for the mere suggestion of something done wrong so all right, part three. 

Speaker 1: So we wanted to extend this one one more time, or perhaps another time, but we'll see because we kind of started out the elite theory, talking about big picture elite theory, discussion specifically from Machiavelli and the other Italian, the Italian school of elite theory, if you will. 

Speaker 1: And then part two, we kind of got into discussing the local, or at least the national, regime, and who is that, what parts, what do the parts look like and what's their purpose within the regime I politicians versus corporations versus lobby groups and so forth and then we decided that we needed to talk a little bit more at the international level, because I think we both agree that that's where it's going. It seems as though this change that we're saying is not, is not a specific change to the United States, this is an international change, and so we wanted to connect those dots between our regime, the US regime, and a potential for the international regime and what those parts look like, who they are, what their purpose is, in a little bit of what we think the aims are for those from a pleb perspective. So with that, forever, elia, i think you've been reading a book that kind of encapsulates the international regime and I'll let you you talk about it yeah, that book is called. 

Speaker 2: This book is called Giants the global power elite by Peter Phillips. He's the former director of project censored, which is, i read from one of those books, that book, that that article about AI and the NATO conference do you remember that? where they have new plans for cyber, not cyber cognitive warfare, linking the brain and the technology, the new technology that they create for manipulating the brain, and that that's a worthy investment for NATO to get involved in? that's in the project censored is like how do I say? it's like an organization that's trying to reveal stories that are being glossed over or ignored by the, by the corporate media, mainstream media. So he's, he's former director of that. 

Speaker 2: What he does in this book is he takes a sea right mills's thesis, which I just want to summarize it real quick. He takes that thesis and applies it to the global scale. See, right male mills applies. He analyzes how power is structured in the US. This guy Phillips, takes it to the broader scale, the bigger scale of the global. So he summarizes the power elite like this. 

Speaker 2: He goes in the power elite, the sea right mills documented how World War two solidified a trinity of power in the United States that comprised corporate, military and government elites in a centralized power structure motivated by class interests and working in unison through higher circles of contact and agreement. And then he says, at the beginning of this book he goes this book follows in the tradition of mills's 1956 book, the power elite. Like mills, we seek to raise awareness of power networks affecting our lives in the state of society. Mills describe the power elite as those who decide whatever is to is decided of major consequence. And so what this, what Phillips does in this book is? he says he defines that there's this power elite called the transnational capital class. So transnational is a. That's an interesting word. 

Speaker 2: I wonder why he didn't do international transnational, anyways, that it's made up of these. Let's see global financial giants. There's 17 of them. In chapter two He discusses them and we can get into those later in those 17 giant financial groups, one of those being BlackRock, which is kind of in the news nowadays. But there's others JP Morgan Chase, barclays, bank of America, things like that. And then he, in another chapter, he discusses the 199 directors within those global giants, and these are actually names, names. 

Speaker 2: He tells us where those people came from, the brief history of them, how they're linked to elite universities, most of them the board of directors that they're on, how much money they were worth, how much money they also were in charge of. And below that, he talks about the non-governmental global elite policy planning organizations. These are the organizations like G7, g20, the International Monetary Fund I think it's called World Trade Organization, world Bank, trilateral Commission. These are all these non-government policy think tank type of things that all these international figures go to and discuss and plan, basically, how better to secure their investments for these huge giants. These giants, he says, collectively manage more than 41 trillion in self-invested network of interlocking capital that spans the globe. 

Speaker 2: He also discussed how, in order to secure their investments, they also employ military and what he calls security apparatus. So that's the US NATO military empire, the transnational military police, which is US NATO, and others. For these investment firms they do covert activities, regime change, negative propaganda. Other security companies they hire, like the one that used to be called Blackwater You've heard of that, right Blackwater. They're almost like a merchant what do you call those? 

Speaker 2: Mercenary type, but on a huge corporate level? What else Then he talks about? he takes us into chapter six, which is about the necessity to have a corporate media, kind of spouting out propaganda that helps reinforce their financial investments and secure that. He calls it a ideological justification for the decisions that these giant investment firms, the decisions they make, pr firms are a big part of that corporate media. Then he rounds it out by offering a solution to what he feels is he calls the global power elite has huge detrimental effects on humanity because they go and make profit out of war and destroy all these communities, kill a lot of people. 

Speaker 2: You would take a disagreement with this guy because he's definitely in favor of climate change adaptations, he believes in climate change and he feels these global elite companies are furthering increasing climate change through their manufacturing oil. All of that. He comes up with some universal declaration of human rights which we won't get into. It's almost like a new declaration. I would say he's Marxist. It appears to me That doesn't necessarily mean his analysis of this global power structure that it's wrong, but there's a definite ideological perspective he's coming from and I believe that it appears to be Marxist. Any thoughts just on that basic kind of summary. 

Speaker 1: Well, it reminds me of the conversation we were having in our other podcast 2 plus 2 equals 5 with respect to pressure groups or lobby groups on these corporations. We were talking about Bud Light and we were talking specifically about LGBTQ pressure groups on top of Bud Light for backing down, supposedly. It reminds me of that that this guy is one of those pressure groups, because I was thinking how does this guy get all the names? How does he know the names? How does he get how much money they're making? Who they worked for? So my first thought was this guy's working for somebody. If he's not the pressure group, he's the face, or at least the scribe, of a pressure group. 

Speaker 1: I don't know who that is. It may not even be true. Then my next question is are any of these? who are these names? Are these names? does Soros name pop up somewhere? Do these names that are typically affiliated with the regime or the left? are any of these names come up? Or is it all the kind of traditional fossil fuel, big oil, traditional hierarchy names, or is it names across the board, the spectrum, political spectrum? 

Speaker 2: Well, the names, you would recognize some of them, okay, especially well. He highlights three of them, three of these, what he calls the managers. These are the CEOs of the 17 major global financial giants. 

Speaker 1: What's the name of this book again? 

Speaker 2: It's called here. I'll show you. it's called Giants, the Global Power Elite, by Peter Phillips. So the three that he lists, them all lists them all, but the ones that he highlights and that you might recognize are Lawrence Fink He's the chairman and CEO of BlackRock. Jamie Dimon he's president and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. You might remember him from the banking collapse and the housing collapse in 2008 and on. He was one of the ones involved in the whole collapse. His decisions helped to bring about the collapse and he also did not suffer any punishment because of it. In fact, he's become even more and even stronger as a result, which is interesting. 

Speaker 2: And then John McFarland is a third who he highlights. He is a chairman of Barclays Bank, which is one of these 17 global giants. They all come from similar backgrounds. What's interesting is he makes a point to say that they're about 70% white. Most of them are male. I think it might be like 80% male, white, and the majority are from the US as well, but also there's British, french, german, japanese and sort of a smattering of other national representation. I guess. Any thoughts on that? 

Speaker 1: No, i'm trying to, i want to. I haven't read the book. Obviously, i'm not even familiar with the book other than what you brought up yesterday. So what I'm doing right now is I'm on the Amazon account and looking at some of the reviews, and the first review that comes up is Noam Chomsky. So, and then I'm looking at others, i'm looking at his bio. So what comes to mind is Have you read the entire book? 

Speaker 2: I've read up to. I've read about half. 

Speaker 1: Okay, what comes to mind to me is this is potentially an elite civil war or an elite battle for power more power versus the traditional communist or socialist that this guy seems to be, versus the old regime of the capitalist. And again, not having read the book. 

Speaker 1: just looking at the reviews, noam Chomsky states Adam Smith warned that the masters of mankind will pursue their vile maxim All for ourselves and nothing for other people. There could probably be a more apt description of the recent era of savage capitalism straining for new heights under cover of Trump's antics. Who exactly are the masters, chomsky asks? this is a remarkable inquiry. This remarkable inquiry lists the veil, providing detailed and often shocking revelations about the astonishing concentration of private wealth and corporate power, its institutions and integrated structure and, not least, its threat to civilized and humane existence. Noam Chomsky never talks about Biden like that. I don't think So. that's why it tells me this could be some internecence or basically internal war between various parties within the elite. 

Speaker 2: Like it's a targeted effort to try to expose a certain faction within the elite. Well, I thought that too, because they concentrate on US Western groups And the whole time I'm thinking what about Chinese investment? They don't mention that at all. No. And in fact that's a huge component to the global power elite. I would imagine And that's completely left out Now that could be because they don't have access to the information. This author doesn't have access to the information, but he doesn't even mention it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Like he doesn't even add a disclaimer saying the Chinese government didn't. I didn't have access to the information to the companies. Who's leading the Chinese companies? blah, blah, blah blah. So that leads me to be suspicious of it on that aspect. Jumping off of that, jumping. 

Speaker 1: This is deception. I think you're bringing up an excellent point. A true researcher, a true political scientist that this man claims he is would at least address and this happens in all scientific papers is you address what you haven't addressed during your methodology portion of the paper, if you didn't mention it at all deception, deliberate deception at the very least. or deliberate propaganda on and by and for the Communist Party of China? Now that's a large spectrum. It's probably somewhere in between. but if he doesn't address it at all, i'd be very high, i'd be highly suspicious of this work. 

Speaker 2: Doesn't mean you shouldn't read it, yeah, and I haven't completed it, so he could address that, but I would be like to me. That's a major omission in the beginning, even in your introduction paragraph You have to or when he breaks down the demographic sort of of the global power elite I would imagine that's where you're gonna talk about other countries, specifically China or Russia even, and break that down Like if you're talking global, you need to include them. 

Speaker 1: So the 17 global financial companies, none of them are from China. 

Speaker 2: No Here, let me list them. There's only 17,. okay, there's BlackRock, vanguard, jpmorgan Chase Alliance, which is German, ubs, which is Switzerland, bank of America, barclays is Great Britain, state Street, fidelity Investments, bank of New York York, mellon, axa Group, which is French Capital, goldman Sachs Credit, swiss Prudential, morgan Stanley and Amundi Credit, which is France. There's no mention of any Russian companies, any Arab companies, no Chinese. He mentioned Singapore a couple times, but very few Brazilian. I mean why He needs to say US global, i think, or Western or something. It's very misleading, like you said, global power elite. If you're not gonna mention those others, then there's something wrong with your or, like you said, intentionally misleading. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i'm just. I'm looking at his bio here. His director of projects, censored president of Media Freedom Foundation, co-editor of 14 editions of censored, co-editor with Dennis Lew of Impeach the president the case against Bush and Cheney. And editor of two editions of Progressive Guide to Alternative Media and. 

Speaker 1: Activism. He's a political scientist from Sonoma State University. He teaches courses in political sociology, sociology of power, sociology of media, sociology of conspiracies and investigative sociology. He was winner of the Firecracker Alternative Book Award and Best Political Book in 1997. He's won a bunch of awards and the PELAR Human Rights Award from the National Association of Whistleblowers. So reading that to me domestically it's obvious which way he leans and what his objectives are, which are important. It's important to know these type of things Doesn't mean he's wrong, it's just it's important to know these things. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and that there's an agenda behind what's going on? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, so he talks about and he keeps reiterating throughout the story, the book, that the decisions that these huge giants make have consequences humanitarian consequences because oftentimes they involve investments in war, regime change, hunger, because these huge corporations run the food market and the food industry and that that has through farming and exploitation of labor and all of this stuff. It has consequences. Humanitarian consequences. There's a bunch of waste. And then he also brings in climate change that there's consequences for climate change based on what these in the industries that these people manage. So that's part of it. He keeps driving that in. Searight Mills didn't really do that, from what I remember. He didn't bring that into his thesis. His was more just, generally like an analysis of how the power is structured. He didn't also include the effects of it necessarily, or the negative effects on humanity, from what I remember You know. 

Speaker 1: So basically his thesis is there's 17 corporations with other peripheral or even central figures, individuals or think tanks, mercenary groups, that are the ones who control The money, control the world And investments. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, control the world And because their decisions can steer whole communities, whole countries even, and that it's super national. In fact, he talks about how, if there's protests in one nation, right, that are interrupting with their global fluid capital gaining, and if the nation's military can't handle it, then they will send in the transnational security forces, like US, nato and all of that, into these regions to secure their investments and to stabilize the country. Also, he brings, he talks about how you said these think tanks, right, did you say that? Yes, that is, let me think. where he talks about the World Economic Forum, right, also the Bilderberg Group, which is this meeting of elites, basically in all types of industries that get together and they discuss plans, policies, ideas, exchange of ideas, council on foreign relations, All of the Trilateral Commission. Henry Kissinger was a big part of all this. Zabrinz, what's his name? Zabruz Zabrinsky, zabruz Zabrinsky. 

Speaker 2: The guy you know who I'm talking about, he's the father of Mika Yep Zabrinsky That they were all part of these. These guys basically get together, plan and then go to the governments and basically instruct them on what they need to happen, what policies need to happen, what laws need to be established, and then lay out the plan through the governments of these nations, so an international group of elite controlling national governments, and they do that through the. Basically they fund the campaigns. Get in the politicians who basically are their key holders and you know, or their functionaries, aaron Boyz, come back, tell the party or the person, the politician, the group, about the cabinet, what to do. They do it In tandem with the media groups, and so those groups are what he calls the ideologists or the PR groups. 

Speaker 2: Corporate media this is chapter six corporate media and public relations, propaganda, firms selling empire, war and capitalism. There's six of them major groups, and those are basically monopolies or conglomerates of what used to be separate groups, smaller companies Comcast, disney, time Warner, 21st Century Fox, bertelsman and ViacomCBS. So you'll know, 21st Century Fox is Rupert Murdoch and they, you know, a part of Fox News is part of that Time Warner, disney, of course, comcast. So what he does is each of those six. He'll break down each one and explain not only the financial group. You know of those 17 financial groups like BlackRock and the other ones. They are funding these PR companies. They're basically the funders. So that implies the relationship and that implies the kind of chain of command or what have you? These PR companies, the media, the corporate media, are being controlled by these guys and the money behind it. So, for example, you take Fox, it's 20th Century Fox. He'll break it down. He'll tell you, okay, who's the CEO? that's Rupert Murdoch. Now, i think it's even the Murdoch's kids. It tells you the publisher, the branches, so that they have purview over Times News in London, wall Street Journal, harper Collins, the Australian Daily Telegraph, which I find useful. Now, like you said, he has an agenda, but that doesn't mean what the information he's providing is wrong, necessarily. 

Speaker 2: I think it's important to know if you're reading a book that's slamming Trump, right, you look at the publisher okay, it's 12th Books or whatever. Usually the books that were slamming Trump, making these wild claims, were kind of the subsidiary publishers, a bigger publishers, because if you wanna make these slander's claims, you're not gonna put it under the publishing label of your main publisher. You're gonna put it on the secondary subsidiary publisher. That's kind of can take the legal hit if anything happens, like if Trump sues or whatnot. Do you know what I mean? It's a separate but same type of. Like Harper Collins, they also own, let's say, penguin or something like that, and let's say Penguin is less credible type. It's more salacious publishing material that they publish with this company. They'll put the more politically slander's type of publishing books under that publishing house, but in actuality they're all the same. They're all under the same umbrella. 

Speaker 2: Let's say Time Warner. He talks about Disney, apple CEO and Chairman of Disney, robert Iger. Yeah, so I think that that's interesting to look at. How, what do you think the media's tied in with these financial corporations? What is their problem there, do you think? Or is that just kind of that's okay? 

Speaker 1: Yeah, no, i think the media is tied into. Well, i mean, the media is a corporation, so it's certainly tied into. And then, as we continue our theme of these conglomerations, we've talked about Bud Light not being it's under a parent company which has a diverse portfolio. 

Speaker 1: Well, these media corporations and are becoming few and far between, It's becoming monopolized by only a few of these large media conglomerations which are also tied in. These conglomerations might be investing or own other types of companies that have nothing to do with media, And so the monopoly of money and influence and capital apply, So they're interdependent, at the very least. but one in the same worst case, just by different names. What? 

Speaker 2: because all these, the 17 global giant financial corporations or what have you, they all invest in all of the media companies. It's not like one is Disney's only invested by, by Bank of America. It's like you know how you talked about the other day when these industrialists would fund both sides of the war. Yeah, it's kind of like that. They're just it's a way of owning all of it. Basically, they're funding, so they're funding. You know how CNN is part of whatever group, fox is another part. They come at the conversation with different ideological point of views. Well, from the financial perspective, it's all the same. It's like it doesn't matter. They're funding both sides. So they're almost above ideology, if that makes sense, or their ideology is only about making money. It doesn't matter Politics, they're not taking a side, they're taking both sides. Yeah. 

Speaker 1: I mean it goes to the amoral approach to life other than your love for power. 

Speaker 2: So he is definitely anti-Trump. This was published in 2018, right, which was kind of the heat of it, the middle of it, the thick of it of the Trump era, and Trump put a strategic and policy forum together And here are some of the names that he it goes President-elect Trump in December, december 2nd 2016,. So he just got elected, planned to meet regularly with key US business leaders and Wall Street executives shortly before the. After the inauguration, larry Fink and Jamie Deemann were included on the list shared by the Trump administration of the members of Trump's proposed business council. So he had Stephen Schwartzman He's chairman, ceo, co-founder of Blackstone. Paul Atkins, he's a former commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mary Bara, she's General Motors. All these other guys Jamie Deemann, jp Morgan Chase. Larry Fink, robert Iger Bob Iger, he's the Walt Disney CEO. 

Speaker 2: Other names you might know Elon Musk, chairman, ceo of Space X and Tesla. Indra Nooyi, pepsi Cola, ibm chairman, ceo and the like. Kevin Warsh, the former member board of governors of Federal Reserve. Daniel Juergen, he's the guy who wrote the prize about the oil industry. And then, whenever Charlottesville happened, bob Iger and Elon Musk oh no, bob Iger. Elon Musk withdrew from this in June 2017 when Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, which is about climate change, right. And then, when Charlottesville happened, larry Fink and, i think, Jamie Deemann both withdrew from this group, citing, distancing themselves from Trump and putting out public letters saying, basically trying to save their public relations, their image, you know Right. So he okay. So we know they find all the media companies according to this book. Do they find also the campaigns of both sides? 

Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. 

Speaker 2: Through the Democratic and the Republican Party Parties. 

Speaker 1: Yes, and even directly, i believe. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, because now, with Citizen United, they can take as much money as they want, right, correct, and you can donate as much money as you want, these super PACs and whatnot. Yeah, i believe so. So Trump. However, he made a claim saying he didn't take any money in his campaign. 

Speaker 1: Not from these lobbyist groups. I think he took money from individuals, just individual citizens. I'm sure he took money from some of these lobby groups as well. I don't know. The research is donation list. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. And what do you know about the World Economic Forum? 

Speaker 1: Other than well. initially it was supposed to be this kind of dovetail from the UN UN was hey, we're gonna come together was basically established to prevent nation-state wars to repeat World War I and World War II, but has expanded sense to other things And economy, though sharing the same economy is kind of one of the premises. And so the World Economic Forum. I don't know the exact tie it has with the UN, but it's under the same spirit of the UN, which is international, one government type of thing that was supposed to pertain to economics, but it seems that it's become the leading advocate for much, much more. 

Speaker 1: I know they have a yearly conference where all that you know, you talk about name names, where all the Davos yeah, davos, where they all come together, and that this new world order, or what do they call it, the Great Reset, was kind of formed. And so their mission, the World Economic Forum's mission. let me read that real quick. Where'd it go? Our mission? it's not very long, but the World Economic Forum is the international organization for public-private cooperation. 

Speaker 1: The forum engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, switzerland. It is independent, impartial and not tied to any special interests. The forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest, while upholding the highest standards of governance. Moral and intellectual integrity is the heart of everything it does. Our activities are shaped by a unique institutional culture founded on the stakeholder theory, which asserts that an organization is accountable to all parts of society. The institution carefully blends and balances the best of many kinds of organizations from both the public and private sectors, international organizations and academic institutions. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have to drive in influence to make positive change. 

Speaker 2: So very broad and kind of platform, yeah typical of a typical bullshit, But it doesn't really say anything. 

Speaker 1: It goes back to the Machiavellians with the formal meaning and the real meaning that John Burton talks about, the formal meaning being all this bluster and glossy beautiful language he mentioned and cites political party platforms. Often it's come right out of the Bible, it looks, and he even mentions Dante. That's all bullshit. Where the real meaning is, you kind of have to dig. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, like here's. Here I'll do an analysis of this. Okay, the formal meaning of this mission statement? well, the formal expression of it. He goes at the end we believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and influence to make positive change. So, all walks of life you might take, oh, they're gonna bring a waiter from Delaware who's making $30,000 a year struggling. We're gonna bring them here and include them in the discussion. That's the real. The real meaning is you have to tack on that part with drive and influence to make positive change. Drive and influence that means, okay, influence means money. You have to have a lot of money So that Delaware waiter they don't, they're not included. And we're talking real money like billionaires, trillionaires. The drive and influence. Drive, that means they're cooperating with the rest of the group And the positive change means the change that we want More money. The positive means an increase in investment, would you? is that a good assessment of the real? 

Speaker 1: Yes, The real meaning. My quick assessment is we have. We want to consolidate all the power across all power instruments, through all the instruments of power, whether it be diplomatic, information, military, economic, and we want to control as a one world government. I mean, you look at what are key areas of focus in the World Economic Forum. Consistency is key And it's all about global consensus, global solidarity. Yeah, global consensus, global solidarity And basically regionalism in new antagonists eroding global security. That's a negative, an extreme negative for this type of international group. And so their three keys are mastering the fourth industrial revolution, which ties into technology, solving the problems of the global commons and then addressing-. 

Speaker 2: What is that Okay what is that? 

Speaker 1: There are more challenges that require global consensus than ever before. Meanwhile, that consensus becomes even more difficult to achieve. Our communities tackle global problems with new models of public-private cooperation. that goes back to the stakeholder theory and the application of breakthrough science and technology solutions Again, very broad and very nondescriptive on what that really means. 

Speaker 2: Consensus means really compliance. 

Speaker 1: Yes. 

Speaker 2: And comp, what do you call it? Like conflicts, or you said something challenges Means. It could mean you know the public is a challenge. Things going on in the culture could be that, or it could be this other company's not, or this nation is not cooperating. We're gonna have to deal with that in a militaristic way or a sanctions type way. You know what I mean. 

Speaker 1: Yes, the nation state is, it seems, as an enemy to this global international group. Yeah. 

Speaker 2: So we need to come up with ideas that resolve those conflicts, those challenges, using whatever means. According to this guy, it's like the media, the governments of those states, the nation states and the security forces, the military, now. So, phillips, this writer, talks about how basically the elite culture at these events like Davos he goes. The cultural experience for new and returning attendees is undoubtedly very much a self affirming experience. Sharing the same space with heads of state, ceos of the largest firms in the world and, except for China, russia and Middle East And top academic scholars gives one the impression of being inside the uppermost power network in the world. This social consciousness carries over into daily life for the Davos crowd, giving them a continuing sense of importance and prestige. Shared connections obtained at Davos continue in the mechanism in the business world and the transnational capitalist class networks, improving as reinforcing mechanisms of solidarity and perceived insightfulness. 

Speaker 2: There's other organ, there's other meetings like this one. One's called the Bilderberg group. What do you know about them? Nothing. So this is a smaller and older group or collection of these elite, global elite, as they're mentioned in conspiracy theorists. Alex Jones one time infiltrated them, if I'm not mistaken, in early days like 2004, or something like that So. 

Speaker 2: The Bilderberg meetings take place annually in June at various exclusive resorts around the world, attended by about 150 invited global power elites. It's founded in 1954 to foster a dialogue between Europe and North America after World War II. 

Speaker 2: Though a Bilderberg website states, thanks to the private nature of the meeting, the participants are not bound by the conventions of their office, by pre-agreed positions. As such, they can take time to listen, reflect and gather insights. There is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken and no policy statements are issued, so there's an era of secrecy behind it. no one really knows what they're saying. There's no recording of it. Topics on the agenda include China, europe, migration, growth, reform, vision, unity, the Middle East, russia, the US political landscape, internet, cybersecurity. the geopolitical the geopolitics of energy, commodity prices, the precariat and the middle class, and technological innovation. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, bilderberg group meetings are of a smaller, more intimate, exclusive nature than those held at Davos World Economic Forum. The topics key social political issues in the world. they reflect on those. There's the Council of Foreign Relations. This is the CFR was founded in 1921, it is the premier policy group for international affairs in the United States. This is the goal of the Council of Foreign Relations, according to this author is to solidifying the United States global hegemonic power. 

Speaker 2: It's the advisory board to the US State Department, Now the State Department. can you explain that to me? I'm not real familiar with that. 

Speaker 1: What about it? What is it? We're basically, all our embassies fall under the State Department. That's our diplomatic branch. Where you have the Department of Defense, which is our military branch, The State Department is our diplomatic equivalent. 

Speaker 2: So diplomacy, okay. So this lady, which is very crucial in foreign relations, right, yes, but it's also crucial if you're considering these global financial elites, because, well, this is saying the Council of Foreign Relations, which is a lot of these global elite members, are on these boards, they're advising the US State Department. So, for example, victoria Nyland Newland, in the Ukrainian ambassador, she's being, it would seem, told what to do or, quote unquote, advised what to do in Ukraine. Well, through her diplomacy in Ukraine, so when she's kind of exposed in that one video or audio basically planning regime change in Ukraine, you might assume that that regime change policies are coming from these global elites. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i mean we talked about the World Economic Forum. It has its own manifesto, the Davos manifesto. It has its own theory on how to accomplish that, specifically the stakeholder theory. Where, again, i'm just reading through it It's very obscure, very idealistic equality and globalization and so forth. But all these key political leaders, entrepreneurs, business leaders go to these events and presumably they come to some sort of agreement It's like their version of the Constitution and then they go back to their countries and execute according to that Constitution, to that manifesto. 

Speaker 1: So globalization good. any state or nation state action is selfish And you know I'm trying to understand the relationship between World Economic Forum and China as an example. 

Speaker 1: Going back to my other theories, is this these massive changes that I think we're going to see and starting to see. But more pertinent in the next couple of years is is China postured to take over the world or are we posturing ourselves to challenge China? And so you know, you mentioned that this book doesn't mention China at all, and then earlier I mentioned that this seems like an inter-elite battle. It could be inter-elite and international elite battle between the elites of what we are seeing now, generally these BRIC nations Brazil, russia, india, china, saudi Arabia, iran versus the elite of the Western civilization, if you will. 

Speaker 1: And these large coalitions. Instead of one international coalition, it's going to be two or three, as Orwell addressed in his book 1984. So perhaps the World Economic Forum is trying to get us prepared for that type of future. Yeah, And any kind of it's kind of like our conversation with the LGBT thing in our other podcast is any kind of friction can lead to a fracture in this very delicate equilibrium of Western elites versus BRIC elites at this day And that can be exploited. Which brings me back to my other theories. This totalitarian lean that we've seen in Western society, specifically during COVID, brings me to. That is like they have to get the people, not only the nations, stay under control but the people themselves under control or else they will be manipulated by. 

Speaker 1: Here's another example, which is big misinformation on social media and therefore justifying censorship. So when we talked about in our other podcast, everyone thinks that they're doing right, Everyone thinks they're the good guy, They might be We just the road to hell is paved with good intentions. As the people, we don't see it that way because we're the ones suffering, it seems. So that's kind of my again bringing my theory back in, trying to figure this all out is what is the real meaning of the Western or world economic forum? not this blah blah stuff, but the real meaning behind it And that's where I keep coming back to is preparation for a global war or global events that you know. It's like two fault, like a fault line, with two large land masses rubbing up against each other. There's going to be friction, a lot of friction, and we're as the people are in that fault line. 

Speaker 2: And so you, you, well then. So then you think there is a fraction in the global elite like the truly global elite is broken into possibly two factions. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i think so. I'm coming around to it And again, when we do these podcasts, this is my, my personal theory, emerging in real time, and I'm sure yours as well. 

Speaker 1: And so it could change as we move on, and this is one of the purposes of this podcast is, i think I don't think there's any friction or fracture within the Western elites like England, germany versus US. There's always going to be some sort of friction, but not anything significant at this point. There's opportunities there for the other elite, the other group, that the Eastern what's it's called the Eastern of the brick to take advantage of that, and so I think that we're trying to keep us all one, which is very, very difficult, especially at a nation state, international level Again, we were talking about the LGBTQ community. Trying to keep you all together is very, very difficult to stay on the same page, and with social media and technology, it's very hard for either side to block out any unwanted influence. And I think our Western, i think our Western elites see what China does with censorship and find it very, very effective. 

Speaker 2: And so, with the tick tock being banned from government phones and all that, montana recently, i think, passed a law saying you can't use tick tock at all in the state. The argument is that it's revealing that China is a threat because they're getting, and they're getting, sensitive data, personal data and whatever data, big data from all these cell phones, and that that's a threat, so we need to ban it. Other people argue well, it's more a corporate thing like, or a capital thing. Tick tock is so good at what it does that it's addictive and people want it and they don't want Google, they don't want YouTube anymore. It's not good enough And that China came up with a better model. And really, the reason why they're forcing you know the trying to get the companies and the politicians to ban tick tock is because it's it's like fucking with Google's investments. Not that it's about national security, and I don't know which one it is, but that's kind of the conversation. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be both. I mean it could be. They've known all along that it's not only tick tock that collects data. our own companies collect data, our own government collects data, and so everyone with the technology, especially at the state level, has the ability to collect data on its own people and other people And I it could also. At the same time, they've gotten so big that they have to be. You know, they are becoming the primary money makers within this realm And they look at it as capitalistic competition and they try to bum them out as well. 

Speaker 2: But a lot of these investors or these investment companies, the glow. You know the 17 that this author mentions. I just okay. You can't divorce yourself from China. The West cannot do it. They're most of the manufacturing is in China, so their money is tied up in China. So this idea that that there's some encroaching, looming great war, that's actual. Well, how are they going to resolve divorcing themselves from China in the manufacturing side? That's impossible. 

Speaker 1: And how. We don't know for sure who, who owns tick tock. I mean, who's invested in tick tock? are these, these 17 companies invested in tick tock, or is it just solely under the auspice and propriety of the Communist Party of China, cpc? 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

Speaker 1: And so you again, it's up it's. It's hard and difficult for us as commoners trying to decipher the formal reality that is given to us and the real aims, And once we touch on any thing that's real, then we're called a conspiracy theorist. I mean, the game is seem seems to be rigged against the common folk because all they need is a significant amount of other common folk to side on its, on its behalf, and we do all the hard work for it, or that that significant portion, as we were discussing in the other other podcasts, is we go after each other as opposed to up that. 

Speaker 1: But I'm digressing a bit. So but at the same time it's so relevant, like tick tock. I mean, why have we decided all of a sudden? I mean, these arguments have been going on with tick tock since its invention, since it started Why now perhaps it's a shakedown on tick tock and China, like Hey, and just like we were talking about with Bud Light if you don't do what we say, or now it's since you guys are getting so big, it's time for us to increase our taxes on you. Now it's time for you to pay us. Pay us a little more money, whoever us is the regime or whoever. 

Speaker 1: If you don't do it, then all of a sudden we're going to have problems with national security, just like with Bud Light. If you don't do this ESG stuff, you're going to have problems with labor relations. All of a sudden, or the president, the CEO, some picture rain and pictures going to be showing up where he's going to have to step down or things of that nature. Maybe it's that type of intrigue, maybe it's that and a bunch of other stuff. Maybe it is really national security, maybe anti-. 

Speaker 2: Well then, why aren't they bringing up the fact that China owns so much property here? I mean, i would think that would be a national threat as well. If China is actually an enemy, do you know what I mean? Kick them out of the country, take back the property. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to answer your question is how do we disengage the couple or these companies, the couple investors? It's very, very difficult because they are invested in this as well, both monetary wise and primarily that. 

Speaker 2: Oh, ok, yeah, i'm sure it's. I mean, there's so much we don't know behind the scenes, right, that is leaving us just kind of grasping at straws or whatever, trying to piece together the mosaic from the shadows. 

Speaker 2: We see, you know it's very difficult, and then also take care of our daily lives. It's just, i'm sure it's very complex, interconnected web of in the history right behind Why, how did China get into? how did we become so Integrated with China in the first place? Worthy studying that, you know, because maybe it did leave us vulnerable in the long run and we're paint, we're which is showing itself now, you know, or maybe that's all just a fucking Made up, like the word that China in the West is going at it. Maybe that's not the case, maybe that's just a facade to a narrative. 

Speaker 2: Last, there's another one of these organizations, these meetings. It's called the trilateral commission. This was formed in 1973. The highest level of leads come together, address important international problems. David Rockefeller was a leader. This is a big new Brazinski. The trilateral commission puts out reports. Basically it's. It's similar to the two that we talked about world trade, world trade organization and the Bilderberg group, but they also. They also come up with strategies on technical, technological, sociological engineering of the public. They brought They Barack Obama appointed 11 members of the trilateral commission to top level and key positions within his administration in the first 10 days. 

Speaker 2: Showing this basically shows the inner cut, how these elite global financial people are In control of a lot of these Nations, like the US, in terms of their financial Not just financial, but also foreign relations administration. You know Some of the topics in the past of discussion at the trilateral commission the Middle East in turmoil from Arab spring to deep winter. Where's Russia heading with issue brief update on the 2014 trilateral report on engaging The North Korean nuclear and missile threats? President Putin concerns about him, you know. It's just interesting to see how, if this information is correct, in this book, the, the connections here. 

Speaker 2: Yeah that it makes Challenges in the process of China's urbanization. A little mention of China. Yeah. So one perspective on the global power of elite, power elite With grave omissions. I think, as you pointed out Yeah, now again, that could be due to the fact that there's not a lot of information available about the. 

Speaker 1: China the China Chinese Elite structure right and the corporate makeup exactly that. All could be true. But it's not the whole truth Or it's a half truth and Whether it's intentional or just a gross mistake, it really waters down. 

Speaker 1: But understanding this guy's background, it makes sense And then, if you're thinking human being, you kind of take that With a grain of salt when you try to form your own opinion. If I can, i want to go back to the Chinese farmland real quick. This, it's not the amount, necessarily, it's the type of land. Um, it's agricultural land and according to Forbes and this is in my opinion, forbes is definitely a regime Outlet China is ranks number 18 Of the 109 countries that own us agricultural land. Number one is Canada, which owns 12.8 million acres of us agricultural land compared to China's, whereas China's 247,000 acres. Netherlands is number two, italy three, united Kingdom four, germany five, portugal six, france seven, denmark eight, luxembourg nine and Ireland 10. So a lot of these European countries, um, minus Canada, own a lot of our land. 

Speaker 2: Agriculture, much is owned by the us. I. 

Speaker 1: Presumably. Let's see There's 109 countries. Let's see Bill Gates, by the way, owns 248,000 acres, almost as much, actually, more than what China owns, according to Forbes. Again, i think it's more important to understand. From what I understand, china owns land that are right next to US bases, a couple of them, but let me see here 100. Well, i mean there's 109 countries that own land, us land. Let me see if there's numbers of how much we actually own. 

Speaker 2: Canada. I think Monsanto is part of that, Maybe yeah it doesn't get into. 

Speaker 1: Are these the Can? a corporation. Are these the? governments or corporations I think they're the corporations within That are based out of. 

Speaker 2: The sake. well we know with China It's definitely the government. Yeah, because they, the government and the corporate are Are the same. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, so I mean relative to other countries. China ranks Relatively low, or number 18 compared to other countries. 

Speaker 2: Interesting So. 

Speaker 1: Interesting. I mean again we. It's good to do a little research. Granted, this is Forbes, but Now I'm looking at one on the new year course. That said, china investors own 384,000, which is about 100,000 more acres than what Forbes is reporting. But again, then you go into definition of what's agro, cultural land versus Other types of land. 

Speaker 2: Right commercial, private or residential. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, the Washington or the New York post is focusing on not how much, but where This land is being bought. So a Chinese company Is attempting to buy land in north North Dakota that's right next to grand forks air force base, mm-hmm. So I mean. 

Speaker 1: It's hard to decipher what the what the truth is. But definitely not a coincidence. I don't think No. Well, i mean, again, you have to dig deep. What is Close mean Are we? is this like a mile? Is this like seven miles, 10 miles? if it's 10 miles or five, maybe Just a coincidence, you know. Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 2: Well, but a lot of people think, with the 2008 housing debacle and foreclosure, that the banks Woped up on a whole bunch of private property or a whole bunch of residential property. You know, yeah, that it was a huge property windfall for the, for the banks and for Corporate, for the banking. 

Speaker 2: Financial money like you know, because then they'll sell the house. They got the house, they'll sell it, but Like black rock, is known now for going in, swooping up huge swaths of private of residential areas And sort of diminishing year and the dumb dumb's you and me our ability to afford a house. You know to be able to buy a house, because if they're, if these huge conglomerates are, are taking up all the property, well, the properties values stay up And unattainable in some ways, you know, yeah to the normal everyday folk. 

Speaker 1: So the the the land going back to Chinese land in North Dakota is 12 miles away, or about 20 minute drive from this base in North Carolina, north Dakota, which just so happens to be a highly sensitive drone That homes a highly sensitive drone technology. 

Speaker 2: So if it was that big of an issue, why didn't the US government buy it? 

Speaker 1: Or deny the sale. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, i mean I. I just don't. I don't know, i just think that would that's kind of a Knife way of looking at it. I would let that that would even be allowed to happen. But maybe, i mean, maybe the US is that fucking dumb If, if China is really a threat, don't let them buy the land, yeah, or buy it before. Yeah. 

Speaker 2: However, then you, if you want to kind of keep on the conspiracy Train, you could say well, a lot of the policymakers, a lot of the government political figures, a lot of the military elites, perhaps they're Being paid by the Chinese government. Do you know what I mean? They're they're infiltrators Yeah. That's a possibility, Yeah. 

Speaker 1: I mean it goes, goes back to Again it's not my theory. I mean everyone Has at least an understanding what what I'm trying to say. It goes back to the elite capture of How much control does China? China have over our elites and thus over our government and us? And so if, if you're on the side that it has significant amount of power over our elites, then it makes sense that this land would be approved or not denied, at least Um, and then I guess it would be brought up by those who are not captured by China Um to bring it up, even though they may not be able to do it, because I mean China still owns that land. 

Speaker 1: So are you just gonna bitch about it? What are you gonna do about it If nothing is gonna be done about it? either the people who are Screaming about the national security are wrong, or They're right and can't do anything about it. Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 2: Because or they're, they're right, but it's too late. 

Speaker 3: Do you I? mean yeah, wherever you 40 years ago. Yep. 

Speaker 2: Because I Mean, we're just so interconnected now It would seem. I Mean, remember we, we hear that a lot of these factor. Well, we know the factories. We're all gone to China for the most part. Yeah, our factory infrastructure, which kept us in sort of a self perpetual power you know, we could feed ourselves, we could make our Own shit and not have to rely on foreign workers Was one of our great assets. And then we fucking just sold it like a sex slave in yep for profit, for these corporate elites, apparently. And now we don't have it, and now we have to rely on this outside entity. Yeah, all those careers lost. What China does, too, is they'll come in, supposedly they'll come in, buy a smaller factory company, right, and they won't put their factors that they'll just destroy it. Yeah, so they'll. They'll buy it for a huge amount of money, right, money that no one else can compete with. They'll take the factory and just destroy it like Mitt Romney, on their merry way. 

Speaker 1: Mitt rock what he do. Romney was accused of that. Doing that, remember, during his campaign against Obama of. There was one business in particular that he. They ran it to the ground on purpose, allegedly for for profit. Kind of going back to the short, short sell yeah. 

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but from China, from the Chinese factory thing is like they don't want any competition, is what it's more about, rather than what you're talking about is. So they'll eliminate the US competition by just simply buying it off and destroying it Yeah, I got you're talking about, where Romney and the like will short sell certain companies To make a profit. 

Speaker 1: Yeah. 

Speaker 2: On its destruction right. It's a wicked, wicked world. Lot of Svangalli's out there. Puppet masters. 

Speaker 1: It's. It seems like it's always been that way. Is it humiliating? now it's in, it's enlightening for me Can be humbling. Mm-hmm and if you don't watch it, disheartening, because then you're like what the hell am I here for? You know other debate be a slave. So you kind of just kind of Try to find that balance. Hey, you know, my future has been written for me. Well, at least I'm out. I guess I'm gonna pretend like I have some free will, so What else? 

Speaker 2: Um Well, there's a lot of stuff, so At some point I want to revisit more of a cons, the power, elite or elite theory, but from a conspirit, a conspiracy theory perspective. 

Speaker 2: Okay so there's, there's books like this one. America's secret establishment order of skull and bones, right, yeah, so this, we talked about skull and bones a little bit. On how you know these elite, the American elite class, kind of Go to the same schools, preparatory schools, private schools, and then the elite call Ivy League colleges and then even within those Ivy League colleges, the Ivy League colleges, there's secret clubs like the skull and bones that further stratify The divides, the elite, into an you know hierarchy within themselves George Bush and all the like. Steve mentioned minutiae. When it was a skull and bones. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, okay so Talks about that. And then there's other ones like Where's though? Here they are Survival of the richest. It's about the corporate elite, the Tava Stockin Institute I think it's a British social engineering of the masses, anglo-american establishment. These are more conspiratorial, i think, texts, but I think it's worthy. I'm gonna read those because I think it's interesting. Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Again, a Lot of this conspiracy, conspiracy theory. A lot of these writers are critical of the West, but You don't see a lot of. It's a lot of anti-west type of yeah. The ones you see on anti-China are the surveillance a Lot of those books are, you know, china police state Surveillance state, you know? The ones I see anyways, are how this Chinese Government has taken complete control of their people through surveillance, censorship and All that. But I don't see a lot of conspiracy theories or even this type of you know elite theory From Phillips or or the like, really being critical of China. 

Speaker 2: And again, that could be because of the lack of information. Yeah maybe those, maybe those journalists disappear. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i think it's a combination of China's influence and our lack of Knowledge, or at least those Writers and authors lack of knowledge on China, especially in our workings. But we know for sure, like when Corporations like NBA, who have close ties to China, speak out of line and out of turn, get punished Like what was his? name morey, the GM out of Houston. Houston rockets. 

Speaker 1: I think acknowledge that Taiwan was a country, whatever in all hell broke loose. You saw NBA basketball players Chastising him. You're taking money out of my pocket. You know, basically telling us it's all about greed, which is not a surprise, saying with old Steve Kerr and Basically they all rallied around China, not freedom of speech, not the American guy, the, not the owner, but also Hollywood. 

Speaker 2: We've talked about that The dumb dumb's who, the actors, who don't What he? he didn't mention. He mentioned Taiwan as a state, as a separate entity or whatever country, and then he immediately had to apologize publicly, this actor, and In Mandarin. They made him even speak in Mandarin, which I thought was hilarious. 

Speaker 1: Oh, that was the wrestler slash actor. What was his yeah? 

Speaker 2: I don't, i forgot Steve, not Steve Austin, but he's horrible, they're all seen it on Cina, yeah. Yeah, that one Apologizing publicly that for saying Taiwan was a country. 

Speaker 1: Humiliation ritual he had to go through. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, a big ol brute, like that prostating prostrating himself and no one watches his damn movies anyway. Do they don't? I don't know. 

Speaker 1: I don't even know what movies has been in. 

Speaker 2: Maybe it may be Guardians of the universe. 

Speaker 1: Maybe he's a huge star in China. 

Speaker 2: Probably A huge, huge. I want to say bitch, but I'm a bitch too. 

Speaker 1: We are all bitches. So elite there. I think we've at least exhausted our first round, yeah, of elite theory. I think you and I both acknowledge that there is some form of elite theory throughout the world. What it looks like, how it Applies, who the actors are, is still left open to debate, and we'll definitely come back around to this and the theme of Of this will remain. I mean, we're gonna talk about Marxist theory next week a little bit, and You could argue that Marxist theory is an elite theory. So I don't know of anything outside of elite theory other than You know, maybe monarchy, but the monarch is an elite as well. I mean it. What else is there outside of? there's a certain group of people, individuals who control and rule a larger group of people. So if there's something else out there Audience, let us, let us know and we can talk about it. But well, there's the, the pluralist. 

Speaker 2: Did you say that? Oh yeah, the pluralist. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, which I mean kind of gets into this global, global Power elite that we were talking about today, i think, and we'll talk about that, i think, in two weeks. Let me look at our Calendar here. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, what do we got lined up? Foucault's different, it seems it's interpersonal power works more on a horizontal level, which is weird, like how you could not be an elite theorist type person. You know what I mean, but maybe I'm not. 

Speaker 1: I'm not understanding his theories, but well, I guess you could you could lean towards that, a Foucault slash, juvenile thought on power as almost like an organism In itself and of itself that uses other forms of government whether it be monarchy, democracy, erostocracy for its own benefit. For it's like it's this separate thing almost, which I think could be separate than elite theory, it's like an organic theory of power. And then you also have the self selfish gene, which doesn't really, which is written by what was his name Hawkins and I'm kind of just started reading that but Where it's the genes, the DNA, the chromosomes that are Basically the power players in life itself, and us as human beings are just basically a, a what he calls a protective body. I believe That protect we're just. We were made by the genes to protect the gene and protect its Expansion of itself. That's That gets into the kind of the natural sciences science part. The organism peaks like that. 

Speaker 2: So Well, also, you could, we could maybe find theories that discuss life, the power in terms of between my to between organisms, so humans versus Trees, or, you know, the competition in the natural work. Yeah, how is that working? Well, i mean that ties into transhumanist as well. We're half human, half robot. 

Speaker 1: But at the same time is Is there a hierarchy that's laid on top of that? I think yeah, all right, so let's see here. I think All right, so let's see here. 

Speaker 2: Now the power, the revolt of the elite, the revolt of the public, the revolt of them Masses or something, the power of the powerless? Are they all dealing with elite theory? 

Speaker 1: Yes, I have not read the revolt of the elite. But I have read the revolt of the populace and it's The vote of the populace is involves technology a lot and Huge influence of technology in the separation between the two. But the two groups are the elite and the populace. 

Speaker 2: Okay, let's see here. 

Speaker 1: All right. So next we have Marxist theory and again, much like everything else. We're not going to do a book report on the communist manifesto, das Kapital or anything like that. I personally gonna read a little bit of. Marx, i'm gonna read a little bit of Mao. I'm gonna read a little read this one. They'll either read a little bit about Lenin or of Lenin and from Lenin, and then kind of just form, kind of my own opinion on it and We'll go from there. 

Speaker 1: So I encourage the audience to do the same on this journey. Let's see. After that, hold on one second We will do The pluralist theory. Let's see here. Let me look at our other calendar, because When we attended, intended to do this and when we're actually going to do these is different. So I got a look. So next week we'll do Marxist and if we've completed Marxist, the week after that we'll do pluralist. But I have a feeling Marxist will probably go a couple parts as well. I think so. But then that will run us into Into Scotland, where military man and forever Elia will be In Scotland and we're gonna talk a little bit about William Wallace, who was a rebel, who was a fighter for independence. It kind of goes back into this Rule and the rulers and the ruled. We're gonna do that. Rule and the rulers and the ruled, we're gonna talk. 

Speaker 2: I'll bring in a little bit of the You know the the Tudor rise of Elizabeth, elizabeth the first and the Demise of Mary Queen of Scots. More so I'll bring that up during when we talk about Spy spying networks. 

Speaker 1: And the history of that, and then we were also gonna get into Macbeth, right? 

Speaker 2: oh Yeah, yeah, we got a read. 

Speaker 1: That's the one I was that was the other one we're gonna do and I said okay, the Elizabethan, but no, there's a Macbeth, that's very applicable because of the location and the setting Location, where we'll be in the setting of Macbeth, and then the topic, or at least one of the themes, is the, the quest for power, which is in line of what we've been talking about. So we'll get into that lust. 

Speaker 1: We'll get into that and then, after Scotland, will probably get into pluralist theory, and then we're gonna start getting into the revolt of the elite, revolt of the populace. Some of these clan destine books the secret World, or what is this one called the secret world by Christopher Andrew Chaos, by Tom O'Neill? that one is MK ultra right, mm-hmm. So that would be fun. 

Speaker 2: Mind control and as manifested through the Manson murders. The Manson family, we've got the naked society. 

Speaker 1: We've got surveillance Valley, the secret military history, eyes in the sky and then some of the classics 1984 By George Orwell, brave new world by Huxley, which one is basically basically control the people in a dystopian way. The other is Fill us up with Pleasures and hedonism and we won't do anything. It's kind of like the carrot or the stick carrot of the stick. Exactly. Then we'll get into some music. We'll get, we'll talk. We'll have an episode on punk, punk music, punk rock and its relationship between Itself and the regime and power, truth to power. We'll talk about Prince as well. We'll have an episode on Prince. Talked about him a little bit on our other podcast. 

Speaker 2: I want to include David Bowie to in that, okay. 

Speaker 1: That's fine. We can do that, david Bowie, and According to our plan that wrapped it up in our theory of power series. But but there or there might be a couple other podcasts that we talk reference. 

Speaker 2: Well, also also want to include a section on Hollywood and Some of these movies. So primarily network, maybe all all the presidents, men, and there was another couple ones that I wanted to. Oh, there's this one called air. It's out right now. 

Speaker 2: It's directed by Ben Affleck, starring Matt Damon. Ben Affleck, jason Bateman and essentially the premises this Matt Damon's, this struggling executive guy, kind of a ad guy at Nike, which is a struggling shoe company in the 80s, and Matt Damon's characters looking for a way to and he finds Michael Jordan and tries to convince the company and Michael Jordan's mother, played by the luminary Viola Davis, to go with Nike and create The shoe Air Jordan. It's a interesting movie because it's a great movie by the way you need to see it. 

Speaker 2: It's fantastic and Despite my personal like I didn't want to like it or whatever, because it's a lot of people criticize it, because it's this drama about a fucking these rich ad guys and Jordans of millionaire trying to do a success story, of a capitalist success story about making money and monopolizing an industry and downplaying the slave labor in China. Who gives us? 

Speaker 3: okay, yeah, okay, we'll do with that later, right now it's a great movie great actors, fantastic screenplay. 

Speaker 2: Anyways, it has a lot going for it in terms of discussions too. So I think, watching that and also network, I want you to watch that. 

Speaker 1: I think perhaps we break this down into another series, that being we could call it Hollywood in power or art in power, where we focus slow And we can even be more focused, and focused like Hollywood in power, because art in power might be too broad, because you can get into painters, you can get into writers, you can get into and maybe that's a couple of series we have down the road painting in power and writing in power. 

Speaker 2: Or like with you, like painting, you could talk about Michelangelo commissioned by the Medici family, the bankers. There's a lot of avenues to go. 

Speaker 1: Science in power, things like that. But I think we're starting to come up with our next series, which I think will be fantastic And also keep us focused Hollywood in power or something to that effect, where it's movies, a lot of movies we talk about, And perhaps, if there's a books out there I'm sure there's books out there that talk about Hollywood We talked about the Red Scare and things like that Perhaps we can get into. But I think your intent is to watch movies and talk about those movies in relation to power and politics and so forth. 

Speaker 2: Right, And the theory and the history and theories that we're reading relates to power. So with network, for example, you can take, you can look at network through the lens of a power elite theory and see it pull out the threads. 

Speaker 2: You could look at it in terms of propaganda. You could look at it in terms of what's happening with media from a Neil Postman perspective amusing ourselves to death and manufacturing consent with Chomsky. You can see that in it. You could even go to the production of it, like the politics, the power politics behind who got casted and writer and all that. 

Speaker 1: So there's a lot there Now that'll be fun because we can be quasi film critics, quasi political theorists, cultural critics, all that kind of good stuff where we can, like you said, break it down from before, during and after it. What led up to the film itself? Usually it's based off of some sort of book, like you said. Why were actors chosen? Certain actors chosen? why are directors? Any drama behind the scenes. Then we can talk about the movie itself. You know the acting. 

Speaker 2: It's current Yeah, it's current relevance. 

Speaker 1: And then it's impact. Yeah, it's impact, yeah, it's impact, it's prescience. 

Speaker 2: It's also how is it? unlike movies? now You know what are the differences. Yeah, there's a lot of those good movies that relate to the power series, so I think that would be a good series in itself. 

Speaker 1: It's gonna be a whole new adventure for me because I'm not a movie guy, so it's gonna force me to do things I haven't done in the past, but I think it'll be fun Well there's a new movie called Killers of the Flower Moon. Yeah, I saw the. 

Speaker 2: I saw the what's it called I know you're banning your boycotting movies with your boy, leo DiCaprio. I know that's an issue for you. 

Speaker 1: I actually don't think he's too bad of an actor. It's and he's. 

Speaker 2: Well, you're not boy-decotting him And he's in good movies. 

Speaker 1: Usually what I like is good movies, but I can be an amoralist as well and I will put my grievances aside As best I can. If I can't, i'll discuss it in our podcast. Like I know for sure, i'll have issues. I'll have to keep reframing Leo back into the character, whatever character he is, and not let my mind wander off into why he takes jets as a global outpost. Well, it's about the exploit. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, taking jets even though he's a climate change advocate. So it's about it's directed by Martin Scorsese, based on a book by David Gran a great book, by the way, suspenseful all that But it's about essentially white greedy. White greedy men exploiting Native American in Osage County in Oklahoma, back in the early 20s, i think, or something like that And these Native Americans owned oil in the land on the oil, but there was policies set up by the government the white governments in these areas that if the white person married a Native American woman who owned the land, then they had a certain they're called them sponsors or something. There's a way to get inside there and exploit them, and the way they do it is fucked up, really fucked up. 

Speaker 2: It's great Martin Scorsese type of that. I can see him. I haven't seen the movie yet, but it just was released in Cannes or Cannes Film Festival, so I wonder how it did there. Reviews are good so far yeah. So anyways. 

Speaker 1: All right, good day, Yeah, good conversation Again. We have a Twitter account at the Panopticon84, so I encourage listeners to drop by. 

Speaker 1: There's not a lot of tweets on there now, but this will be a forum where we can engage with anyone and everyone who listens to our podcast and put out messages and so forth. So we encourage that. We encourage you to listen to future Panopticon. We've mentioned we're gonna talk Marxist theory next week, but we also encourage you to listen to the Panopticon two plus two equals five, which is also which is our kind of our sister podcast. So anything else forever Elia. 

Speaker 2: I'd just like to say remember, oscar, remember, remember forever. Elia Love you. And then I love you, oscar, i love you so much. 

Speaker 1: And then also I wanna comb your hair, Oscar. And then remember the meaning of Memorial Day, which we talked about in our other podcast. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, the meaning is to go on a picnic barbecue and a picnic barbecue. Summer's here, hey, pride. 

Speaker 1: All right, i'm military man. That is forever, elia. We are cellmates of the Panopticon. Thank you again for listening. until next time. Fuck you, ed Harris.