Some formatting didn't translate from MS Word exactly as I would have liked, but there you are.
...Marked...
Nice piece. I’m glad I finally discovered it.
That was a great read, Thank you. I could not find anything there to disagree with!
Nice piece. I miss this type of writing.
We know that down through the annals of history small groups of men have existed who have conspired to bring the reins of power into their hands. History books are full of their schemes. Even Life magazine believes in conspiracies like the Cosa Nostra where men conspire to make money through crime. You may recall that Life did a series of articles on the testimony of Joseph Valachi before the McClellan Committee several years ago. There are some aspects of those revelations which are worth noting.Most of us did not know the organization was called Cosa Nostra. Until Valachi "sang" we all thought it was named the Mafia. That is how little we knew about this group, despite the fact that it was a century old and had been operating in many countries with a self-perpetuating clique of leaders. We didn't even know it by its proper name. It is not possible a political conspiracy might exist, waiting for a Joseph Valachi to testify? Is Dr. Carroll Quigley the Joseph Valachi of political conspiracies?
We see that everybody, even Life magazine, believes in some sort of conspiracy. The question is: Which is the more lethal form of conspiracy criminal or political? And what is the difference between a member of the Cosa Nostra and a Communist, or more properly, an insider conspirator? Men like Lucky Luciano who have scratched and clawed to the top of the heap in organized crime must, of necessity, be diabolically brilliant, cunning and absolutely ruthless. But, almost without exception, the men in the hierarchy of organized crime have had no formal education. They were born into poverty and learned their trade in the back alleys of Naples, New York or Chicago.
Now suppose someone with this same amoral grasping personality were born into a patrician family of great wealth and was educated at the best prep schools, then Harvard, Yale or Princeton, followed by graduate work possibly at Oxford. In these institutions he would become totally familiar with history, economics, psychology, sociology and political science. After having graduated from such illustrious establishments of higher learning, are we likely to find him out on the streets peddling fifty cent tickets to a numbers game? Would you find him pushing marijuana to high schoolers or running a string of houses of prostitution? Would he be getting involved in gang-land killings? Not at all. For with that sort of education, this person would realize that if one wants power, real power, the lessons of history say, "Get into the government business." Become a politician and work for political power or, better yet, get some politicians to front for you. That is where the real power — and the real money — is.
Conspiracy to seize the power of government is as old as government itself. We can study the — conspiracies surrounding Alcibiades in Greece or Julius Caesar in ancient, Rome, but we are not supposed to think that men today scheme to achieve political power.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2860231/posts?page=338#338
Placemark to read hopefully tomorrow.
Timely bump for Summer 2012.
Will read later.
Amazing essay. Thanks!
copying to my HDD to read at my leisure
bfl
Just a gun-grabbing bump for new readers.
Who are these gun-grabbers? Really, who are they?
Once you know who “they” really are, there is no room left for dialogue.
Wow, Noumenon, that was excellent! (I think the format was fine. It was very readable & easy to comprehend.) I agree that this should be published.
“Nietzsche believed that the Will to Power would produce a new kind of messiah, uninhibited by religious sanctions, without moral restraint of any kind, and with an unappeasable appetite for controlling mankind.”
That is the left to a T.
BTTT
Big bump
Thanks for posting.
Well done.
BTTT
One of the most remarkable, beautifully written, and absolutely dead-on-balls-accurate analyses I’ve ever read.
It is a masterpiece.
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