Part 5
Global War and Dying Democracy
The Revolution of the Elites
August 19, 2009
Transnational Totalitarianism
Global trends in political economy suggest that “democracy” as we know it,
is a fading concept, where even Western industrialized nations are
retreating from the system. Arguably, through party politics and
financial-corporate interests, democracy is something of a façade as it is.
However, we are entering into an era in which even the institutions and
image of democracy are in retreat, and the slide into totalitarianism seems
inevitable.
The National Intelligence Council report, Global Trends 2025, stated that
many governments will be,
“expanding domestic security forces, surveillance
capabilities, and the employment of special operations-type forces.”
Counterterrorism measures will increasingly,
“involve urban operations as a
result of greater urbanization,” and governments “may increasingly erect
barricades and fences around their territories to inhibit access. Gated
communities will continue to spring up within many societies as elites seek
to insulate themselves from domestic threats.”[1]
Essentially, expect a
continued move towards and internationalization of domestic police state
measures to control populations.
The nature of totalitarianism is such that it is,
“by nature (or rather by
definition), a global project that cannot be fully accomplished in just one
community or one country. Being fuelled by the need to suppress any
alternative orders and ideas, it has no natural limits and is bound to aim
at totally dominating everything and everyone.”
David Lyon explained in
Theorizing Surveillance, that,
“The ultimate feature of the totalitarian
domination is the absence of exit, which can be achieved temporarily by
closing borders, but permanently only by a truly global reach that would
render the very notion of exit meaningless. This in itself justifies
questions about the totalitarian potential of globalization.”
The author
raises the important question,
“Is abolition of borders intrinsically
(morally) good, because they symbolize barriers that needlessly separate and
exclude people, or are they potential lines of resistance, refuge and
difference that may save us from the totalitarian abyss?”
Further,
“if
globalization undermines the tested, state-based models of democracy, the
world may be vulnerable to a global totalitarian etatization.”[2]
Russia Today, a major Russian media source, published an article by the
Strategic Cultural Fund, in which it stated that,
“the current crisis is
being used as a mechanism for provoking some deepening social upheavals that
would make mankind – plunged as it is already into chaos and frightened by
the ghost of an all-out violence – urge of its own free will that a
‘supranational’ arbitrator with dictatorial powers intervene into the world
affairs.”
The author pointed out that,
“The events are following the same
path as the Great Depression in 1929-1933: a financial crisis, an economic
recession, social conflicts, establishing totalitarian dictatorships,
inciting a war to concentrate power, and capital in the hands of a narrow
circle.”
However, as the author noted, this time around, it’s different, as
this,
“is the final stage in the ‘global control’ strategy, where a decisive
blow should be dealt to the national state sovereignty institution, followed
by a transition to a system of private power of transnational elites.”
The author explained that a global police state is forming, as,
“Intelligence
activities, trade of war, penitentiary system, and information control are
passing into private hands. This is done through so-called outsourcing, a
relatively new business phenomenon that consists of trusting certain
functions to private firms that act as contractors and relying on
individuals outside an organization to solve its internal tasks.”
Further,
“he biggest achievements have been made over the last few years in the area
of establishing electronic control over people’s identities, carried out
under the pretext of counterterrorism. Currently, the FBI is creating the
world’s biggest database of biometric indexes (fingerprints, retina scans,
face shapes, scar shapes and allocation, speech and gesture patterns, etc.)
that now contains 55 million fingerprints.”[3]
Global War
Further, the prospects of war are increasing with the deepening of the
economic crisis.
It must be noted that historically, as empires are in
decline, international violence increases. The scope of a global depression
and the undertaking of restructuring the entire global political economy may
also require and produce a global war to serve as a catalyst for formation
of the New World Order.
The National Intelligence Council document, Global Trends 2025, stated that
there is a likely increase in the risk of a nuclear war, or in the very
least, the use of a nuclear weapon by 2025, as,
“Ongoing low-intensity
clashes between India and Pakistan continue to raise the specter that such
events could escalate to a broader conflict between those nuclear
powers.”[4]
The report also predicts a resurgence of mercantilist foreign policies of
the great powers in competition for resources, which,
“could lead to
interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured access to energy
resources to be essential to maintaining domestic stability and the survival
of their regime.”
In particular,
“Central Asia has become an area of intense
international competition for access to energy.”[5]
Further,
“Sub-Saharan Africa will remain the most vulnerable region on Earth
in terms of economic challenges, population stresses, civil conflict, and
political instability. The weakness of states and troubled relations between
states and societies probably will slow major improvements in the region’s
prospects over the next 20 years unless there is sustained international
engagement and, at times, intervention. Southern Africa will continue to be
the most stable and promising sub-region politically and economically.”
This
seems to suggest that there will be many more cases of “humanitarian
intervention,” likely under the auspices of a Western dominated
international organization, such as the UN.
There will also be a democratic
“backslide” in the most populous African countries, and that,
“the region
will be vulnerable to civil conflict and complex forms of interstate
conflict—with militaries fragmented along ethnic or other divides, limited
control of border areas, and insurgents and criminal groups preying on
unarmed civilians in neighboring countries. Central Africa contains the most
troubling of these cases, including Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville,
Central African Republic, and Chad.”[6]
In 2007, the British Defense Ministry released a report in which they
analyzed future trends in the world.
Among many of the things predicted
within 30 years are:
“Information chips implanted in the brain.
Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary,
taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the
Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls.
‘Flashmobs’ - groups rapidly mobilized by criminal gangs or terrorists
groups.”
It further reported that,
“The development of neutron weapons which destroy
living organisms but not buildings ‘might make a weapon of choice for
extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world’. The use of
unmanned weapons platforms would enable the ‘application of lethal force
without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues’.
The ‘explicit use’ of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear
weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.”
Further,
“an implantable ‘information chip’ could be wired directly to the brain. A
growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable
states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilize ‘flashmobs’, challenging
security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to
concentrate forces quickly in a small area.”
In regards to social problems,
“The middle classes could become a
revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx.”
Interestingly,
“The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle
classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening
social order: ‘The world's middle classes might unite, using access to
knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their
own class interest’. Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of
global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic
values will encourage people to seek the ‘sanctuary provided by more rigid
belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political
ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism’.”
The report also forecasts that,
“Globalisation may lead to levels of
international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an
end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared
interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of
violence.”[7]
RAND corporation, a Pentagon-linked powerhouse think tank, connected to the
Blderberg Group, Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations,
came up with a solution to the financial crisis in October of 2008: for the
United States to start a major war.
Chinese media reported that RAND,
“presented a shocking proposal to the Pentagon in which it lobbied for a war
to be started with a major foreign power in an attempt to stimulate the
American economy and prevent a recession.”
Further,
“the target country
would have to be a major influential power,” and Chinese media “speculated
that the target of the new war would probably be China or Russia, but that
it could also be Iran or another middle eastern country.”[8]
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, the most highly
respected trend forecaster in the United States, has been sounding the alarm
over the trends to come in the next few years. Having previously predicted
the 1987 stock market crash, the fall of the Soviet Union, the dot-com
bubble burst, and the 2008 housing bubble burst, these forecasts should not
be taken lightly.
Celente told Fox News that,
“by 2012 America will become an undeveloped
nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter
rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more
about obtaining food, not gifts.”
He stated that this will be “worse than
the great depression.”
In another interview, Celente stated that,
“There
will be a revolution in this country,” and, “It’s not going to come yet, but
it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and
this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad
daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as
conditions continue to worsen.”
He further explained,
“The first thing to do
is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be the big one because people
can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You’re
going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.”[9]
In June of 2009, Gerald Celente reported that,
“The measures taken by
successive governments to save the politically corrupt, morally bankrupt,
physically decrepit [American] giant from collapse have served to only
hasten its demise. While the decline has been decades in the making, the
acceleration of ruinous policies under the current Administration is leading
the United States — and much of the world — to the point of no return.” This
coming catastrophe, which Celente refers to as “Obamageddon,” will become
the “Greatest Depression.”[10]
In May of 2009, Celente forecasted that a major issue is the “bailout
bubble” which is bigger than the dot-com bubble or the real estate bubble
that preceded it, and is made up of 12.8 trillion dollars.
He states that
with the bursting of this bubble, the next trend would be what he calls
“fascism light” and that it will be followed by war.[11]
He stated that,
“this bubble will be the last one. After the final blowout of the bailout
bubble, we are concerned that the government will take the nation into war.
This is a historical precedent that’s been done over and over again.”
He
elaborated,
“So, it’s not the dollar that will survive. We may not even
survive. Look at the German mess after WWI. It gave rise to Fascism and
WWII. The next war will be fought with weapons of mass destruction.”[12]
The Imperial Project
War should not be understood as a recent phenomenon in regards to
accelerating capitalism through expansion and transition, as this has been a
continual theme throughout the history of capitalism. The notion of “surplus
imperialism” is what describes the function and role of war and militarism
within capitalism.
The concept is built around the function of “constant
war.”
Ellen Wood explains the notion of ‘surplus imperialism,’ in that,
“Boundless
domination of a global economy, and of the multiple states that administer
it, requires military action without end, in purpose or time.”[13]
Further,
“Imperial dominance in a global capitalist economy requires a delicate and
contradictory balance between suppressing competition and maintaining
conditions in competing economies that generate markets and profit. This is
one of the most fundamental contradictions of the new world order.”[14]
Shortly after George Bush Sr. declared a “new world order coming into view,”
in 1991, the US strategic community began setting forth a new strategy for
the United States in the world.
This first emerged in 1992, with the Defense
Planning Guidance.
The New York Times broke the story, reporting that,
“In a
broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting phase, the Defense
Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the
post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to
emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet
Union,” and that, “The classified document makes the case for a world
dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by
constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or
group of nations from challenging American primacy.”
The main figure that drafted this policy was the Pentagon’s Under Secretary
for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, who would later become Deputy Secretary of
Defense in the George W. Bush administration, as well as President of the
World Bank.
Wolfowitz is also a member of the Bilderberg Group, the
Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and is currently a
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative think tank.
The document places emphasis,
“on using military force, if necessary, to
prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass
destruction in such countries as North Korea, Iraq, some of the successor
republics to the Soviet Union and in Europe,” and that, “What is most
important, it says, is ‘the sense that the world order is ultimately backed
by the U.S.’ and ‘the United States should be postured to act independently
when collective action cannot be orchestrated’ or in a crisis that demands
quick response.”
Further,
“the new draft sketches a world in which there is
one dominant military power whose leaders ‘must maintain the mechanisms for
deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or
global role’.”
Among the necessary challenges to American supremacy, the
document “postulated regional wars against Iraq and North Korea,” and
identified China and Russia as its major threats.
It further,
“suggests that
the United States could also consider extending to Eastern and Central
European nations security commitments similar to those extended to Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab states along the Persian Gulf.”[15]
The
Secretary of Defense at the time of this document’s writing was none other
than Dick Cheney.
When George Bush Sr. was replaced by Bill Clinton in 1993, the
neo-conservative hawks in the Bush administration formed a think tank called
the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC.
In 2000, they published a
report called, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and
Resources for a New Century.
Building upon the Defense Policy Guidance
document, they state that,
“the United States must retain sufficient forces
able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars,”[16]
that there is “need to retain sufficient combat forces to fight and win,
multiple, nearly simultaneous major theatre wars,”[17] and that “the
Pentagon needs to begin to calculate the force necessary to protect,
independently, US interests in Europe, East Asia and the Gulf at all
times.”[18]
Further,
“the United States has for decades sought to play a
more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict
with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial
American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of
Saddam Hussein.”[19]
In describing the need for massive increases in
military spending, rapidly expanding the armed forces and “dealing” with
threats such as Iraq, North Korea and Iran, they state,
“Further, the
process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely
to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new
Pearl Harbor.”[20]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David
Rockefeller, former National Security Adviser and key foreign policy
architect in Jimmy Carter’s administration, also wrote a book on American geostrategy.
Brzezinski is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
and the Bilderberg Group, and has also been a board member of Amnesty
International, the Atlantic Council and the National Endowment for
Democracy. Currently, he is a trustee and counselor at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a major US policy think tank.
In his 1997 book,
The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski outlined a strategy for
America in the world.
He wrote,
“For America, the chief geopolitical prize
is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs were dominated by Eurasian
powers and peoples who fought with one another for regional domination and
reached out for global power.”
Further,
“how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is
critical. Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically
axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three
most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map
also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail
African subordination.”[21]
Brzezinski explained that,
“the pursuit of power
is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a
sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being. The
economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice
(casualties even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are
uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial
mobilization.”[22]
Brzezinski also outlines Russia and China, in cooperation
with Iran and possibly Pakistan, as the most significant coalition that
could challenge US hegemony.
With the George W. Bush administration, the neo-conservative war hawks put
into action the plans set out in their American imperial strategic
documents. This made up the Bush doctrine, which called for,
“a unilateral
and exclusive right to preemptive attack, any time, anywhere, unfettered by
any international agreements, to ensure that ‘[o]ur forces will be strong
enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up
in hope of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States’.”[23]
In 2000, the Pentagon released a document called Joint Vision 2020, which
outlined a project to achieve what they termed, “Full Spectrum Dominance,”
as the blueprint for the Department of Defense in the future.
“Full-spectrum
dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies,
to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of
military operations.”
The report “addresses full-spectrum dominance across
the range of conflicts from nuclear war to major theater wars to
smaller-scale contingencies. It also addresses amorphous situations like
peacekeeping and noncombat humanitarian relief.”
Further,
“The development
of a global information grid will provide the environment for decision
superiority.”[24]
The War on Terrorism, as a war with invisible enemies and borderless
boundaries, a truly global war, marks a major stage in the evolution of the
constant war “surplus imperialism” of the American empire.
The US military,
while being used as a vehicle for surplus imperialism; is also creating and
maintaining and expanding NATO. NATO is expanding its role in the world. The
wars in Yugoslavia following the collapse of the Soviet Union were used to
legitimize NATO’s continued existence, which was created to have an alliance
against the USSR. When the USSR vanished, so too did NATO’s purpose, until
it found a new calling: becoming a global policeman.
NATO has undergone its
first major war in Afghanistan and its expansion into Eastern Europe is
enclosing Russia and China.
Ivo Daalder, the US representative to NATO, also a Senior Fellow at the
Brookings Institution and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote
an article for Foreign Affairs in which he advocated for a “global NATO” to
“address the global challenges of the day.”[25]
In April of 2009, NATO began
to review its Strategic Concept,
“in order to stay relevant in a changing
security environment,” and that, “The leaders envisage cyber-attacks, energy
security and climate change as new threats to NATO, which would mean big
changes in NATO's future operations.”[26]
Since 2008, NATO has been
re-imagining its strategy and moving to a doctrine of advocating for
pre-emptive nuclear warfare.[27]
As George Orwell wrote in
1984,
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant
to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of
poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past
can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep
society on the brink of starvation.
The war is waged by the ruling group
against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either
Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”
The Revolution of the New World Order
The new system being formed is not one based upon any notion of competition
or “free markets” or “socialist morality”, but is, instead a system based
upon consolidation of power and wealth; thus, the fewer, the better; one
government, one central bank, one army, one currency, one authority, one
ruler.
This is a much more “efficient” and “controllable” system, and thus
requires a much smaller population or class to run it, as well as a much
smaller population to serve it. Also, with such a system, a smaller global
population would be ideal for the rulers, for it limits their risk, in terms
of revolt, uprising, and revolution, and created a more malleable and
manageable population.
In this new capitalist system, the end goal is not
profit, but power. In a sense, this is how the whole capitalist system has
functioned, as profit has always acted as a means and lever to achieve
power. Power itself, was the goal, profit was merely the means of achieving
such a goal.
Shortly following the origins of the capitalist system, central banking
emerged. It was through the central banking system that the most powerful
figures and individuals in the world were able to consolidate power,
controlling both industry and governments.
Through central banks, these
figures would collapse economies, destroying industry and thus, profits;
bankrupt countries and collapse their political structures, destroying a
base for the exercise of power; but in doing so, they would consolidate
their authority over these governments and industry, wiping out competition
and eliminating dissent. It is these individuals who have played the
greatest roles in shaping and reshaping the capitalist system, and are the
main figures in the current reorganization of world order.
However, such is the nature of individuals whose lives revolve around the
acquisition and exercise of power.
Like the saying goes,
“Power corrupts,
and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.”
Those who are driven by the lust
for power often eliminate and remove all of those who helped them reach such
a position.
Hitler undertook the Night of Long Knives, in which a series of
political executions were carried out, targeting prominent figures of the
SA, who helped Hitler rise to power. Stalin similarly, also purged the
Soviet Union of those who helped him rise to power.
Power alters the psychology of the individual that holds it. It is an
extremely lonely condition, in which, once power is achieved, and with no
more power to gain, the obsession turns to the preservation of power, and
with that, paranoia of losing it. This is why those that assist the powerful
in gaining more power are doomed to a fate that is similar or worse than
those who fight against such a power.
This, ultimately, is why it is futile
to join forces with such systems of power, or ally oneself with such
powerful figures.
Power is a cancer; it eats away at its host. The greater the power held, the
more cancerous it is, the more malignant it becomes. The less power held by
individuals, the less chance there is for growth of this cancer, or for it
to become malignant.
Power must be shared among all people, for the risk
carried thus becomes a risk to all, and there is a greater degree of
cooperation, support, and there is a more efficient and effective means
through which everyone can act as a check against the abuse of power.
Theoretical Foundations of Global Revolution
Currently, we are witnessing, in the wake of the massive economic crisis, a
revolution in the global political economy.
This revolution, like all
revolutions, is not simply a top-down or a bottom-up revolution.
Historically, revolutions are driven by a combination of both the grassroots
and the elite. Often, this materializes in clashes between social groups,
such as with the American Revolution. Although, the American Revolution
itself was primarily waged by the American landed elite against the foreign
imperial elite of Great Britain.
The French Revolution was the combination
of the banking and aristocratic elite co-opting, manipulating and
controlling the grassroots opposition to the established order. The Russian
Revolution, also being able to see rising social tensions among the lower
classes, was co-opted by an international banking elite.
Currently, the transnational elite are very aware of the increasing social
tensions among the worlds majority. As the crisis deepens, tensions will
rise, and the chances of revolt and revolution from below greatly increase.
Governments everywhere, particularly in the Western industrialized nations
are building massive police states to monitor and control populations, and
are actively preparing for martial law and military rule in the event of
such a situation unfolding.
However, the transnational elite are undertaking their own revolution from
above. This revolution is encompassing the restructuring of the global
political economy through their orchestrated economic crisis.
Neo-Gramscian political economic theory can help us understand how this
revolution has been and is currently being undertaken.
Neo-Gramscian IPE
(International Political Economy) emerged in the 1980s within the critical
camp of theory. Largely based off of the Italian Marxist writer, Antonio
Gramsci, it places a great focus on analysis of global power, order and
structure. There has been much analysis within Neo-Gramscian theory on the
nature and structure of the transnational capitalist class. Among the
analysis of transnational classes, Neo-Gramscian theory also places emphasis
on the notions of hegemony and resistance, or counter-hegemony.
The Gramscian notion of hegemony differs from other perspectives in,
particularly mainstream, Global Political Economy. With the Gramscian
concept of hegemony, it does not focus simply on the use of state power at
exerting power, but rather defines hegemony as a system of power that is
dual; it requires both coercion and consent.
Consent is key, as it implies
the active consent of “subaltern” or “subordinate” groups (in other words,
the great majority of the world’s people), to being submissive to the system
itself. This hegemony is built around the notion of conformity; thus,
conformity is an active consent to hegemony. By conforming, one is
submitting to the system and their place within it.
This is also an
internationalizing concept, in that this hegemony is not nation-based, but
transnational, and backed by the threat of coercive force.
In discussing resistance to hegemony, or counter-hegemony, Gramsci
identified two forms of resistance; the war of position and the war of
movement. Robert Cox, the most well known Neo-Gramscian theorist, analyzed
how Gramsci defined these notions by comparing the experiences of Russia
with the Bolshevik Revolution as compared with experiences in Western
Europe.
As Cox explained,
“The basic difference between Russia and Western
Europe was in the relative strengths of state and civil society. In Russia,
the administrative and coercive apparatus of the state was formidable but
proved to be vulnerable, while civil society was undeveloped. A relatively
small working class led by a disciplined avant-garde was able to overwhelm
the state in a war of movement and met no effective resistance from the rest
of civil society.”[28]
So a war of movement was characterized by a small vanguard seizing power and
overthrowing the state.
“In Western Europe, by contrast, civil society,
under bourgeois hegemony, was much more fully developed and took manifold
forms. A war of movement might conceivably, in conditions of exceptional
upheaval, enable a revolutionary vanguard to seize control of the state
apparatus; but because of the resiliency of civil society such an exploit
would in the long run be doomed to failure.”
As Gramsci himself noted,
“In
Russia, the State was everything, civil society was primordial and
gelatinous; in the West, there was a proper relation between State and civil
society, and when the State trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was
at once revealed.”[29]
In this instance, a war of movement was impossible to achieve in Western
Europe, and thus,
“The alternative strategy is the war of position which
slowly builds up the strength of the social foundations of a new state. In
Western Europe, the struggle had to be won in civil society before an
assault on the state could achieve success.”
This undertaking is massive to
say the least, as it implies as a necessity,
“creating alternative
institutions and alternative intellectual resources within existing society
and building bridges between workers and other subordinate classes. It means
actively building counter-hegemony within an established hegemony while
resisting the pressures and temptations to relapse into pursuit of
incremental gains for subaltern groups within the framework of bourgeois
hegemony.”
In other words, it is a “long-range revolutionary strategy,” as
compared to social democracy, which is “a policy of making gains within the
established order.”[30]
However, I wish to take the concept and notion of the “war of position” and
re-imagine it, not as a means of counter-hegemony, but as a means of
supra-hegemony. This is not a war of position on the part of a
counter-hegemonic group (grassroots opposition, etc), but is rather a war of
position on the part of an embedded international elite, or supra-hegemonic
group.
Supra is Latin for “above,” which implies that this group is above
hegemony, just as supra-national institutions (such as the European Union)
are above nations. This is the elite of the elite, beyond national elites,
and composing the top tier of the hierarchy within the transnational superclass.
In terms of composition, this group is the highly concentrated
international bankers, the dynastic banking families such as
the Rothschilds
and
Rockefellers, who control the major banking institutions of the world,
which in turn, control the international central banking system.
Their
centralized power is exemplified in the
Bank for International Settlements.
I will refer to this group as the Global Cartel.
This Cartel has usurped
global authority and power through an incremental, multi-century spanning
war of position. The Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, constituting two
separate treaties, created the notion of the nation state and state
sovereignty within Western Europe. Feudalism dominated Europe from the
medieval period through the 16th century, and was slowly replaced by the
emergence of Capitalism.
Major European empires had, since the 15th century,
been pursuing empire building, such as with the trans-Atlantic slave trade
and expansion into the Americas. This formed the first truly global economy.
The empires worked under and in service to the monarchies that oversaw them.
It was with the founding of the Bank of England in 1694 that a European
group of bankers overtook one of the major European empires. Great Britain
then became the dominant empire, experiencing the Industrial Revolution
prior to any other nation, and became a global hegemon. With the French
Revolution, these European bankers took over another major empire through
the establishment of the Bank of France, and then financed and profited off
of all sides of every major war, and expanded imperial reach.
Through the expansion of the central banking system, a highly concentrated
group of European bankers were able to overtake the major nations of the
world. The entire history of the United States is the story of a Republic’s
struggle and battle against a central bank. Finally, the bankers usurped
monetary authority with the establishment of the Federal Reserve, and built
up and created the American empire.
It was in the 20th century that the war of position of the cartel is most
apparent.
As the world
globalized, so too did the war of position. The major
banking dynasties founded powerful philanthropies, such as the Carnegie
Endowment and the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. These organizations
shaped civil society in the United States and set their sights
internationally in scope.
Through the establishment of think tanks like the
Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in Britain and the Council
on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the United States, this cartel was able to
bring in and centralize the intellectual, academic, strategic, military,
economic and political establishments under the cartel’s influence. This was
expanded by the cartel through organizations such as the Bilderberg Group
and the Trilateral Commission.
Centralizing and controlling debate and discussion within these vital
socio-political-economic realms was a vital component of institutionalizing
hegemony, as Gramsci understands it, in that the cartel used their monetary
and financial hegemony (controlling the printing and value of currencies) to
stimulate an active consent among the socio-political-economic elite.
National elites consented to the hegemony of the cartel, whose coercive
hegemony was in their ability to destroy a national economy through monetary
policy.
This hegemony, both coercive and consenting, based within the elite class
themselves, facilitated the war of position of the cartel to advance their
interests and proceed with their incremental revolution. The aim of this
cartel, like many tyrants and power-hungry people before it, was world
domination. Bankers command no army, lead no nation, and motivate no people.
Their influence lies in co-opting the commanders, controlling the leaders,
and manipulating motivation.
Thus, it was of absolute necessity for the cartel to undertake their
ultimate aim of world domination and world government through a war of
position, as no person would fight for, surrender a nation to, or be
motivated to help any banker achieve their own selfish goals.
Rather, they
had to slowly usurp power incrementally; control money, buy politicians, own
economies, build empires, engineer wars, mold civil society, control their
opposition, overtake educational institutions and ultimately, control
thought.
Conclusion
As George Orwell wrote,
“Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not
establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the
revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution
is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is
power.”
The more people that think for themselves; the worse it is for the cartel.
People, free thinking individuals, are the greatest threat to this cartel
and their war of position. That is why the answer and solution to exposing
the supra-hegemonic war of position, challenging and triumphing over the New
World Order, lies in the free-thinking individual. The challenge is global
and globalized; the solution is local and localized. The problem is
conformity and controlled thought; the answer is individuality and free
thought.
While humanity is faced with such monumental crises the likes of which in
scope and size, we have never before faced, so too, are we faced with the
greatest opportunities for an ultimate change in the right direction.
While
people are controlled and manipulated through crisis and disorder, so too
can people be awoken to seeing the necessity of knowledge and critical
thought. When one’s life is thrown into disorder and chaos, suddenly
observation, information and knowledge become important in understanding how
one got into that situation, and how one can escape it.
With this in mind, while facing the potential for the greatest struggle
humanity has ever faced, so too are we facing the greatest potential for a
new Enlightenment or a new Renaissance; an age of new thought, new life, new
potential, and peace. No matter how much elites think they control all
things, life has a way of making one realize that there are things outside
the control of people. With every action, comes an equal and opposite
reaction.
We may not reach a new age of thinking and peace before we enter into a new
age of oppression and war. In fact, the former may not be possible without
the latter.
People must awake from their slumber; their immersion in
consumerist society and pop culture distractions, and awake to both the
malevolence of world systems and the wonder of life and its potential.
Through crisis, comes control; through control, comes power; through power,
comes resistance; through resistance, comes thinking; through thinking,
comes potential; through potential, comes peace.
We may very well be entering into the most oppressive and destructive order
the world has yet seen, but from its ruins and ashes, which are as
inevitable as the tides and as sure as the sun rises, we may see the rise of
a truly peaceful world order; in which we see the triumphs of individualism
merge with the interests of the majority; a people’s world order of peace
for all.
We must maintain, as Antonio Gramsci once wrote,
“Pessimism of the
intellect, optimism of the will.”
Notes
[1] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence
Council’s 2025 Project: November, 2008: pages 70-72:
http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html
[2] David Lyon, Theorizing surveillance: the panopticon and beyond. Willan
Publishing, 2006: page 71
[3] Olga Chetverikova, Crisis as a way to build a global totalitarian state.
Russia Today: April 20, 2009:
http://www.russiatoday.com/Politics/2009-04-20/Crisis_as_a_way_to_build_a_global_totalitarian_state.html
[4] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence
Council’s 2025 Project: November, 2008: pages 67:
http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html
[5] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence
Council’s 2025 Project: November, 2008: pages 63:
http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html
[6] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence
Council’s 2025 Project: November, 2008: pages 56:
http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html
[7] Richard Norton-Taylor, Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim
vision of the future. The Guardian: April 9, 2007:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/apr/09/frontpagenews.news
[8] Paul Joseph Watson & Yihan Dai, RAND Lobbies Pentagon: Start War To Save
U.S. Economy. Prison Planet: October 30, 2008:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/rand-lobbies-pentagon-start-war-to-save-us-economy.html
[9] Paul Joseph Watson, Celente Predicts Revolution, Food Riots, Tax
Rebellions By 2012. Prison Planet: November 13, 2008:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/celente-predicts-revolution-food-riots-tax-rebellions-by-2012.html
[10] Gerald Celente, Obamageddon — 2012. Prison Planet: June 30: 2009:
http://www.infowars.com/obamageddon-2012/
[11] CNBC, Gerald Celente. May 21, 2009:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akH5C3f4aTI
[12] Terry Easton, Exclusive Interview with Future Prediction Expert Gerald
Celente. Human Events: June 5, 2009:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32152
[13] Ellen Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 144
[14] Ellen Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 157
[15] Tyler, Patrick E. U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals
Develop: A One Superpower World. The New York Times: March 8, 1992.
http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm
[16] PNAC, Rebuilding America’s Defenses. Project for the New American
Century: September 2000, page 6:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm
[17] Ibid. Page 8
[18] Ibid. Page 9
[19] Ibid. Page 14
[20] Ibid. Page 51
[21] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its
Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Pages 30-31
[22] Ibid. Page 36
[23] Ellen Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 160
[24] Jim Garamone, Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance.
American Forces Press Service: June 2, 2000:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45289
[25] Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier, Global NATO. Foreign Affairs:
Sep/Oct2006, Vol. 85, Issue 5
[26] Xinhua, NATO changes to stay relevant. Xinhua News Agency: April 5,
2009: http://www.china.org.cn/international/2009-04/05/content_17554731.htm
[27] Ian Traynor, Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told. The
Guardian: January 22, 2008:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/22/nato.nuclear
Michel Chossudovsky, The US-NATO Preemptive Nuclear Doctrine: Trigger a
Middle East Nuclear Holocaust to Defend "The Western Way of Life". Global
Research: February 11, 2008:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8048
[28] Robert W. Cox, Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay
in Method. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2:
pages 164-165
[29] Robert W. Cox, Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay
in Method. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2:
page 165
[30] Robert W. Cox, Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay
in Method. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2:
page 165
Back to
Contents