Do you suspect that there is a small group of people controlling world events?

[Skip Intro]

Poll question: Do you suspect that there is a small group of people controlling world events?

Controlling goverments?

I'll leave it at that.

[leftofthedial]

1. About 1200 of them.

if that constitutes "small group."

[Joe Bacon]

2. Yes and the American Politburo meets at Grover Norquist's place

Every week, the Conservative Politburo meets at Grover's place scheming to bring Obama down.

[Greyhound]

3. Not a suspicion, a certainty. n/t

[TahitiNut]

4. I'd call it "wielding massively disproportional influence over" instead of "controlling."

But that's just me, I guess. :shrug:

[Douglas Carpenter]

15. that would be a more reasonable description

If some are alleging some secret united cabal of co-conspirators working in common cause - that is preposterous.

If one means that a relatively small number of people, many in conflict with each other, are "wielding massively disproportional influence" that is obvious.

[Skip Intro]

16. "If some are alleging some secret united cabal of co-conspirators working in common cause"

"...that is preposterous"

why?

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. there are just too many conflicts of interest between the rich and the powerful

They simply do not all think the same or always share common interest. Even at the level of foreign policy decision making, many of the State Department, CIA and Pentagon planners - feel nothing but contempt for the so-called neoconservatives. Not that they don't both hold imperial world views. They do. But one group is driven by a peculiar and relatively new ideology. The other group are driven more my Machiavellian pragmatism.

The competition of market forces alone shows a fair degree of diversity. Although they all have a self-interest in making a profit which frequently conflicts with the self-interest of others also seeking to make a profit.

Much of what can be alleged as conspiracy is actually publicly available knowledge. The media may not find much of newsworthy. But the information is there.

Many conspiracy theories center on institutions such as the Federal Reserve. Well it is not a secret conspiracy that the Federal Reserve zealously works to protect the major banks, usually succeeding, sometimes, but seldomly, failing. This is public knowledge, not a conspiracy.

Conspiracy theory has been around for quite some time. Most modern American conspiracy theory seems to have its roots either in conspiracy theories around the Masonic order or in some cases are rooted in old classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

At the heart of conspiracy theory one usually finds the idea of a group of absolutely evil people are secretly ruling the world. This is a far cry from understanding how power actually operates and competes in capitalist society.

Conspiracy theory is essentially a very paranoid way thinking that is intrinsically a very right-wing way of thinking that blames secret societies and cabals as opposed to a progressive way of thinking that looks for systemic causes within a flawed system.

[Hannah Bell]

22. but they're all united in not wanting the peons to overstep their bounds.

[TahitiNut]

43. Coke and Pepsi both opposed any other cola beverages.

Both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. opposed the rise of any other superpowers. Oligarchies oppose the 'dilution' of their power, no matter how much enmity they might have towards each other.

[LeftishBrit]

34. I agree!

I voted No, because I understood the question to indeed refer to a secret united group of co-conspirators. But if it means disproportionate influence by relatively small numbers, obviously that is true.

[Skip Intro]

17. a rose...

by any other name...

[Octafish]

46. What TahitiNut said.

Control implies mastery and nobody is perfectly evil.

[lies and propaganda]

5. Without a doubt..

one of their yearly retreats is here in my Sonoma County..

[tom_paine]

6. There should be "leaning yes" and "leaning no" choices for reply.

I voted "yes, but the appropriate response would be more like "leaning yes, but not sure".

After the past 8 years and all the maddeningly inexplicable Orwellian Madnesses we have suffered, makes me ponder the "whys" of it. Along with all the mundane hypothesis including the natural dance of human nature repeated over and over again, comes the wondering of "could all that Bildeberger-type stuff be partially or wholly true?"

Which is a far cry from saying it IS true, but I voted "yes" because for the first time in my life, there is some preponderance circumstantial evidence pointing towards SOMETHING very wrong going on, combined with so many things happening which I simply didn't think possible, that makes me wonder if, after 8 years of Orwellian madness, maybe THE WHOLE HUMAN ENTERPRISE is a form of Orwellian Madness, a la "The Bildeberger Theory".

So maybe, the additions of "leaning yes", "leaning no" and "undecided", might be warranted here

[katmondoo]

7. Read "Family of Secrets"

This book shows how the Bushes, the CIA, and the Oil people have controled the US politics and world events since 1945. Scary, they are all intertwined with each other.I worry about Obama, he is not in on the loop.

[MADem]

8. Of course. Some of them are elected, some inherit or take power, and some of them are just

rich bastards who can buy what they want.

Do I think there's a secret society of faceless, nameless bozos who meet around a highly polished table and secretly plot? Nope.

If there WERE a group of secret bozos, they wouldn't have allowed Bush to screw up so badly.

[tom_paine]

13. You think, that to the Top 0.01%, Bushler was a SCREW UP?

That implies that his "failures" were just that.

I will never believe that for a second. All the things people said were "failures": Katrina, Iraq War, Crashing the Economy, neutralizing the System of Checks and Balances and exposing it as a toothless fraud (for Bushies) that can conversely be wielded (against Democrats) for the flimsiest of pretexts, a la Clinton.

Yeah...it was all just a bunch of "mistakes".

"Mistakes" that just by happenstance ALL resulted in dead, co-opted or defeated Bushie Opponents, a massive rush of wealth from the American people to the top 0.01%, a looting of the Public Treasury to accomplish same, things like "Lousiana is now lots more Red Bushie" and "woops, the economic crash just allowed us access to $1,000,000,000,000 of taxpayer money with no strings attached to dole out to our Bushie Friends".

"Mistakes"...

ONE thing the last 8 years has hammered home to me, and that, if one thinks about it, is frequently if not always true when considering human history.

ONE thing, and that is Most of the most hideous and costly State Crimes against humanity, take place shamelessly out in the open.

[hootinholler]

37. There was one mistake

This time is was so transparent, so in our face, that many of us now know with certainty there is orchestration.

The question remains who are the henchmen and who are the leaders?

-Hoot

[MADem]

49. Yep. For all of the bums that made money in the mil-industrial-Congressional complex, others lost

their shirts.

Here's what I'm saying, just to be COMPLETELY clear--I don't think a Secret Society picks the leader of the USA. I don't think they rub their hands together in glee and plan out what that Nitwit is to do, or not do.

You can classify his fuckups as failures, mistakes, deliberate missteps, the acts of a crazed asshole, I don't really care. I don't think a Covert Club or an Unseen Hand controlled that idiot.

He was a shitty president. I hope the next one will be a bit better. That shouldn't be too hard.

[arcadian]

36. Bush has actually done quite well for the Havemores

They could give a flying fuck about the rest of us or what we think.

[Luminous Animal]

9. No. I believe that there are those in power

who have a shared ideology. There's no reason for "them" to work in tandem to control anything because they have an implicit shared interest. And this is where I think "progressives" make a mistake by thinking that it is individuals that are the problem rather than the system itself.

[Hannah Bell]

10. define "small".

[McCamy Taylor]

11. They THINK they control it. Wolfowitz is 100% delusional. He can't even control

Cheney.

And none of them can control their own desires, which rule them. The more IN CONTROL they attempt to be, the more they are UNDER the control of things that are BEYOND their control.

Just look at someone like Henry Kissinger. What on earth did he gain from selling out LBJ's attempt to end the war in Vietnam in 1968 so that Nixon could get elected and Kissinger could work with Nixon? Anyone who would accept help like that to win an election was obviously going to be a mistake as a leader. That means Kissinger is either a criminal or an idiot or both. Or, he was ruled by vanity and desire and it blinded him to the fact that he would end up with a loser president who absolutely would NOT help him make his reputation.

And then, he signed up with W. and the NeoCons and their lies about WMDs and Iraq. Wrong choice once again. And Kissinger is supposed to be smart. He must be absolutely consumed by desire and ego, which has made it impossible for him to act effectively.

[Patchuli]

12. Yes !!!

And they are fucking up royally! Let's eat them...:evilgrin:

[Jamastiene]

14. Hang on juuuust a second.

:tinfoilhat:

:popcorn:

[Lucian]

18. Without a doubt.

Absolutely.

[me b zola]

20. Yes

And I have come to believe that "they" influence players from opposing viewpoints. India/Pakistan, Russia/Georgia, Israel/Palestine, etc..

"They" have a vested interest in conflict & obfuscation. Evil operates best in chaos.

[Ani Yun Wiya]

21. I was thinking about this just the other day.

Except that I was really amazed by the fact that some six billion (est) allow themselves to be voiceless against the seeming demands and "requirements" of what I estimated to be no more than 100,000 people (if that many) who make up the leaders of governments and related police, military and business combines who "control" things or appear to make those decisions that affect ALL of our lives.

For instance:


Nobody really likes war, most will even tell you they hope never to be involved in one in any way.
Yet time after time a VERY few make "decisions" about this very abomination and there you have it "the troops all march out" and "all the guns are in place".

Why can't we just have a GLOBAL VOTE to abolish this most abhorrent of crimes against humanity?

[MrSlayer]

23. Yep. And the best part is that anyone who calls attention to it is automatically "Crazy".

Dismissed out of hand, marginalized, put on a shelf or killed. It's a great game they have had going for hundreds of years.

[tomreedtoon]

24. The insidious DOCTOR FU MANCHU!!!!

Kill all those yellow devils! They're all his agents!

Thanks for bringing back paranoia and conspiracy-stupidity to DU. Not that it ever really left...

[TWiley]

25. A small group also controlls media coverage of world events.

This fact points towards the group that actually controls the event.

[earth mom]

26. There's a group of them that meet & the name starts with a B. nt

[Festivito]

27. Naw, they're just the newly rich, couple generations old.

The Bush family are just the worst kind of social climbers.

They're not the real masters, just the hired help with hope of making some sizable table scraps while slowly gaining the family connections to that real power.

[Individualist]

40. starts with a B followed by an i

[alcibiades_mystery]

28. It is perhaps the dumbest and most politically debilitating idea there is

As this poll unfortunately testifies, far too many people are taken in by this stupidity.

[DavidDvorkin]

38. You're right

It's an old idea, and it never goes away. Only the makeup of the hypothetical group changes -- although it usually includes the Jews.

[Ifonly]

50. Yea, why can't tin foil hatters get a clue?

Here HERE!! What preposterousness.

[Deja Q]

29. A definite maybe.

I'll leave it at that. Especially as I have no facts to substantiate any tinfoil hat innuendo. And when it comes to innuendo, tinfoil hat is my least favorite kind.

[mikehiggins]

30. There are people who THINK they are controlling events

but generally speaking that is just a fantasy.

Things get out of hand too quickly for any group to really exercise any control. Just look at Greece right now. Who would have predicted weeks of violence like that?

Katrina? Does anyone really think that the result of that hurricane was planned? The response, like so much else during the Bush administration, was ass-backwards but that was a result, not an initiative.

In Freemasonry there is a common refrain: they think we run the world at a time when we can barely run a meeting. Ditto for the rest of us.

[natrat]

31. yea they are called cheeseburgers or bilderburgers or some shit

they cranked the price of oil up to whack the economy and are now in the process of crushing businesses through deflation. The idea is they will swoop in and buy assets for pennies on the dollar. One world government is the goal. If you have not noticed the key people in the US government are owned by them-rahm,pelosi,reid,frank,dodd,schumer,bush,cheney and on and on

[k99]

32. Bush-Bin Laden

I wouldnt be surprised, I wouldnt be surprised if the Bush Bin Laden, USA-Saudi Government had some type of conspiracy going on

[LeftishBrit]

33. No. I think there are lots of groups fighting for control...

and that ordinary people end up as literal and metaphorical 'collateral damage'.

I don't think there is some small organized group that controls everything, no.

[ecstatic]

35. I saw a youtube video about the Bilderberg Group?

:shrug:

[bigtree]

39. there's one controlling interest

. . . greed.

[lonestarnot]

41. Yes.

[BulletproofLandshark]

42. Yes, and here they are:

But seriously, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were an elite few pulling all the strings.

[Junkdrawer]

44. Yep. They have a history that traces back to the British Empire...

Read all about it here:

http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/

Here's the book:


http://www.amazon.com/Century-War-Anglo-American-Politics-World/dp/074532309X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230483819&sr=8-1

[Octafish]

45. Yes. They consider themselves ''The Earth's Owners.''

"One of the things that is interesting about reading conspiracy theory is that much of what folks think is conspiracy is really many people acting in concert to make or protect their money." - Catherine Austin Fitts

[L0oniX]

47. Bilderberg, IMF, WTO, AIPAC, the military industrial corporations.

Bilderberg 2008 and AIPAC 2008 compared: Obama and Hillary attend Bilderberg

http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/06/bilderberg-2008-aipac-2008-obama-and.html

[vanlassie]

48. Google The L-Curve

If money is power, that's all you need to know.

[blues90]

51. there does seem to be controlling group .

I look back through my entire life and see there has always been a hidden power structure.

We never get the truth , everything evaporates as time goes by until it is just a memeory filled with un-answered questions.

Someone knows the truth about everything and I fear we will never know who they are or what their purpose or intent is.

Things happen for a reason with a plan one we are not part of.

[Fire1]

52. Read 'The Iron Triangle' by Dan Briody.