I hear people making all sorts of predictions of what the powers that be (TPTB) will allow or not allow. Honestly, they treat this group as though they are omnipotent. Just to be clear, the term, “powers that be” generally refers to the partnership between central banking cartels, mega-corps, and governments (including military, spy agencies, and secret police). I will use it in that way also.
And while these groups have tremendous power in certain areas, they are not gods. In fact, they are, as individuals, not much more capable than the average person. Many of them, particularly at the higher levels, hold their positions by birth and not necessarily (or usually) for any meritocratic reason.
Given that, TPTB can maintain their edge in two ways:
By hiring especially smart people. By being focused and ruthless. I’ve known politicians and government officials, and few of them have struck me as exceptionally bright. I’ve attended meetings with a few central bankers, and they struck me as possessing a well cultivated air of separation, but not as being exceptionally bright. (Some of their hired analysts were very bright.)
But far more important than my impressions are a couple of facts:
If they were so smart, they would have killed the Internet in 1989, when the death would have gone unnoticed. They could have, if they were so great, killed Bitcoin in 2009, before it proved to the world that crypto-currencies were both effective and durable. We could add plenty of other examples, including several rulers who tried invading Russia in autumn. However we look at it, the big, dominating bosses have almost never been mental giants. Ruthless, yes. Geniuses, no.
Nor are TPTB all-powerful. Just look at how well their two big prohibitions worked. (You could, even through the worst days of the War on Drugs, find a marijuana seller in every area of every city in the Western world.)
Our Attitudes Need To Change
There’s a useful old story about tying an elephant to a stake, like we tie dogs to parking meters:
A trainer ties a juvenile elephant to a stake, and the elephant learns that he/she is not strong enough to get away. After a while, it stops trying. Then, when the elephant is grown, and easily strong enough to escape, it never tries.
So far as I know, this story is true (though I’ve never examined it closely). But this is certainly the way most of us act. We think TPTB are so overwhelmingly powerful that we have no hope of resisting them. So, rather than injuring ourselves by fighting the rope around our legs, we simply give in.
The truth, however, is that TPTB have only the power we all give them. If people simply stopped obeying – stopped taking them seriously – TPTB would crumble in short order.
What the productive people of our time need is moral courage. They need to know that they have a right to retain their earnings, that it is right for them to see to their own needs and the needs of their families. And, most of all, they need to know that their morality is better than that of the thieving, manipulative powers that be.
It’s time to start pulling out our stakes and building a world that suits us, not them.
If enough of us take that statement seriously, TPTB will soon be on their way OUT.
Paul Rosenberg FreemansPerspective.com
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