To: cj
Cc: Lowell Manning
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From: •••@••.••• (Lowell Manning)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 96
Subject: Re: cj#606> Is the NWO too big be a secret?
rkm wrote:
> I make the following claim: The modern American highway system
>resulted from a conspiracy, involving leaders of the major oil companies,
>to undermine alternate transport solutions, and to promote highways. You
>may disagree, but the interesting thing is how few people would acutally
>need to be involved in such a conspiracy, even though the scam was immense.
>All that was necessary was for a few top oil executives to agree to fund
>lobbying for the Trust Fund, and launch a supporting media campaign.
~--<snip of previously published material>--~
Richard, I understand the nature of the lobby and the exercise of power.
There has been a great deal written over the years about the enhanced
ability of corporations to lobby effectively in comparison with
public interest groups. There are also volumes of material written on
the power relationships between elected officials and the civil service.
My question is not really related to the way the corporations and
powerful lobbies operate because, as you say, there is ample evidence
to demonstrate the effect of lobying on lawmakers and in the media.
For example, our proportional representation campaign only just
survived a multi-million dollar corporate smear effort in the run up
to the 1993 referendum; one of the problems we have in NZ is that
the media itself has become the realm of big business, nearly all
independent sources having been eliminated. (Which makes the efforts
of people like yourself more important and more relevant as time passes)
The question I was raising was whether the few at the top who are
driving the vehicle you call the NWO are acting independently. You
seem to suggest the grand conspirator is a kind of genetically mutated
corporate aids virus that manifests itself through the behaviour of
the power brokers in the multinational corporations. The corporation
"ethic" drives the expansion of the corporate base, profits and dominance
through monopoly, while the CEO's are just bit players feeding
coins into the hungriest corporate slot machine. In this view, the
conspirator is the multinational corporate ideology served
by willing individuals pursuing corporate jets and a place in history
as head of the biggest, most powerful or most profitable enterprise.
That would mean corporations have become the masters of human
activity and executives their servants.
The NZ Democratic Party policy prinicples state that "we will make
systems to suit people instead of trying to make people fit the systems".
No surprise we stand in the political marketplace (assailed from
all sides) to modify the (corporate) system so it serves society rather
than the other way around.
But I wonder about the genesis of the virus and the mutations that have
occurred. The above thesis would suggest the mutations are mainly
the result of computerisation of industry (especially the finance sector)
in the "post-industrial" age and the accompanying technological
revolution.
But you imply that by some miracle, collusion is somehow limited
to "a very tiny number of people, at top levels" apparently on some
sort of industry by industry basis:
> The point of all this is that huge events can be set in motion by a
>conspiracy among a very tiny number of people, at top levels, who make very
>subtle changes in system parameters. The events then follow from the
>natural operation of the various systems involved -- there is no need
>(generally) for any secret cabal that covertly manages the details of
>events.
I'm not sure that you haven't introduced a contradiction, because it
seems to me that the "corporate virus" would not need a conspiracy,
even of a few individuals - the corporate outcomes would happen anyway.
Perhaps the virus is, after all, genetically engineered, and injected
into our economic life blood? After all, we have had "captains of
industry" for 150 years and merchant princes for thousands of years.
The drive for personal aggrandisment and wealth is nothing new. What
is new is the systematic incremental disempowerment of people in
supposedly democratic societies, apparently acting through some form
of "market" mandate secured by a conspiratorial corporate elite, whose
size, shape and boundaries are as yet unknown.
> The conspiracy to form a New World Order is indeed monumental, but
>the number of people at the very center of it does not need to be large.
>These are some of the key "wheels" that needed to be set in motion...
~--<snip of previously published material>--~
> Only a very few people need to be aware of the overall pattern.
>And those few would be at the very top -- people like the Rockefellers,
>Kissinger, Bush, and various other members of the wealthy elite who may
>never come into the public eye. Even leaders of the CIA, who help with all
>the minor conspiracies, need not be involved in the really big picture.
My own tendency has been to view what is occurring is an aberration of
the political and economic system that can be fixed by modifying
the system. Perhaps you might like to comment, as your views seem
to exclude (by inference) such an approach, since they clearly admit
only a group of "a very few people need to be aware of the overall
pattern". This points to a central group being aware who, at best,
allow and encourage what is happening without speaking out.
Isn't THAT a conspiracy?
Rest of message and articles cut from reply
Kind regards
Lowell Manning
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Dear Lowell,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments and questions.
You wrote:
>That would mean corporations have become the masters of human
>activity and executives their servants.
and
>I'm not sure that you haven't introduced a contradiction, because it
>seems to me that the "corporate virus" would not need a conspiracy,
>even of a few individuals - the corporate outcomes would happen anyway.
My short answer is "Wheels within wheels, and fact before theory",
but that would be a bit obscure. To expand...
There is a conspiracy of individuals at the top, not because theory
demands it, but because it exists, and can be observed. What the
conspiracy is mainly about is "injecting the corporate virus" into society:
accelerating the spread of corporatism through strategic intevention in
economic, social, and political processes -- lobbying is only one component
of their toolkit.
The elite conspirators concern themselves only with STRATEGIC
intervention. As you point out, the day-to-day TACTICAL advance of
corporatism occurs without large-scale conspiracies -- it arises from the
routine performance (including lobbying and minor conspiracies) of dutiful
corporate executives. At this level, it is indeed true that "corporations
have become the masters of human activity and executives their servants".
A CEO who doesn't achieve growth (whether by acumen or intrigue) is sacked
by his (routinely operating) Board, just as a janitor who doesn't sweep is
sacked by his supervisor.
The painful reality is that as the corporatist virus tightens its
grip on society, it becomes increasingly self sustaining. We may have
already reached the point where, even if all the top-echelon conspirators
were to magically disappear (pardon my pleasurable fantasy), the momentum
of neoliberalism might well carry itself forward nonetheless.
You also wrote:
>My own tendency has been to view what is occurring is an aberration of
>the political and economic system that can be fixed by modifying
>the system.
I fully agree that the problems can be solved by modifying the
system: political, economic, taxation, electoral, regulatory, media, etc.
Strategic intervention, radical yet incremental, is indeed a double-edged
sword.
But beneficial interventions will only happen when democracy is
achieved. The first big problem is achieving democracy -- modifying the
political system -- while elite-backed corporatism is still at the reins.
Your proportional representation campaign is presumably a brilliant
positive step in this regard.
The second big problem, if we ever get to it, would be
democratically formulating enlightened policies. How can generations of
elite-inspired indoctrination be deprogrammed from our brains? How would
we open our minds to the bountiful possiblities available, and not just
make patches to an inherited greed-based system? How could a popular
consensus-oriented policy-making system be established out of the shambles
of an adversary-oriented, artificial-majority system?
-rkm
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Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - Wexford, Ireland
Cyberlib: www | ftp --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib
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