Secret Defense Organizations

[eqo]

What is your opinion of secret organizations that play roles in the overall system of reality? Personally I feel uncomfortable, there are many reasons for this. I have a strong connection to trust, I cannot follow something blindly without firstly sensing an element of it. I don't like when things are committed behind the scenes, although I'm unaware of it I still do not agree with it occurring, especially when I'm involved with it's result and origin. Do you think that there are groups of people out there who control what you are allowed to know, and input false information into media streams to confuse or deter you from truth?

[Athena]

This thread should be in the political philosophy forum that does not exist.

 

This link provides useful information to this discussion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss .

 

In the 1950's when President Eisenhower established the Military Industrial Complex, he created new links between government and research and new links between government and the media. This allowed President Reagan to switch government funded research form a research of the causes of poverty, to research of welfare fraud and this was given to the media to blame the poor for our economic problems. This turned the war on poverty to a war on the poor, and made it possible for Reagan to slash domestic budgets and pour money into military spending. Which has everything to do with using our military to defend our economic interest. To be blunt we are on the path Germany followed and Germans are passionate about never taking this path again.

[eqo]

I see, cool. So essentially the Government were making the people who were on welfare the potential bad guys, by first removing all funds from the factors that helped them? Leaving people on welfare in a deadlock between poverty and opportunity? Hmm. War is then the primary focus for spending and through it the economy is growing, so it's classed as 'good' or 'plausible'? If so, it's quite obvious why people chose to do this, essentially serving the economy and thus putting the public under it instead of in plain view?

[Marat]

Hey, go easy on poor old General Eisenhower! He was the first to identify, expose, and criticize the Military-Industrial-Complex, so he can hardly be blamed for establishing it! He in fact warned the American public against it in his final speech before leaving office. Perhaps you are thinking of the theory of Gore Vidal, that a kind of 'secret government' of the U.S. was established with the founding of the CIA after World War II, so that the elected government is really just for show, and the country is actually ruled by a committee in the background consisting of certain prominent CIA figures, people in the upper ranks of the State Department, and the military.

 

But I think all these 'secret government' theories are too literal and mythological in their attempt to address what is a real problem, which is that even in a democracy the country is run for the benefit of a small elite rather than for the majority of citizens. The question is then naturally, how does this happen? but the answer has to be understood more in terms of the way our ludicrous political process admits of easy manipulation by the elite to serve its own interests. Caplan in his 'The Myth of the Rational Voter' suggests that since each voter knows that his individual vote makes next to no difference in how he will be governed, the temptation is great to vote just to express the voter's emotions rather than his rational choice, since a purely emotive vote costs him almost nothing in practical terms, yet can bring enormous emotional satisfaction. The elite can then win elections by manipulating voters' emotions rather than by appealing to their rational interests, which are inconsistent with those of the elite, so the governments elected serve elite interests and at the end of the process the voters are mystified as to how this happened. They are then tempted to explain this by positing a 'secret government,' but the real secret is their own stupidity.

[John Cuthber]

"What is your opinion of secret organizations "

It's difficult to answer that because I don't know about them.

[Phi for All]

I see, cool. So essentially the Government were making the people who were on welfare the potential bad guys, by first removing all funds from the factors that helped them? Leaving people on welfare in a deadlock between poverty and opportunity? Hmm. War is then the primary focus for spending and through it the economy is growing, so it's classed as 'good' or 'plausible'? If so, it's quite obvious why people chose to do this, essentially serving the economy and thus putting the public under it instead of in plain view?

A favorite tactic in business in the last several decades (at least). Lobby to suck the funding out of a federal program and then protest how ineffective it is and how it needs to be privatized to be effective. We're seeing the effects of an active campaign against public education right now.

[JohnB]

There are no secret organisations.

 

Now just watch this little red light.

[Athena]

I see, cool. So essentially the Government were making the people who were on welfare the potential bad guys, by first removing all funds from the factors that helped them? Leaving people on welfare in a deadlock between poverty and opportunity? Hmm. War is then the primary focus for spending and through it the economy is growing, so it's classed as 'good' or 'plausible'? If so, it's quite obvious why people chose to do this, essentially serving the economy and thus putting the public under it instead of in plain view?

 

Well, if you think what Germany did is a good thing, and agree with what the Republicans have done since Eisenhower is a good thing. This about oil and the economy right. The economy collapsed, because OPEC embargoed oil to the US. Carter has us conserving oil and did all he could to advance the development of alternative energy. Reagan lied to us about the oil and the cause of the economic troubles. This is how the Germans mobilized for war. We have gone so far down the German path, some of us are holding our breath in fear of having hyper inflation.

 

 

What we have done is about destroying the family so there are more income tax payers to support a very expensive military force, and using that military force to defend economic interest around the world. I can understand how some people think this is a good thing, but then I can understand those who loved Bin Laden and don't think it was a good thing. On the other hand, may be everything would have gone better if we sided with Germany in the first world, instead of fighting two world wars against Germany and then imitating it.

 

Hey, go easy on poor old General Eisenhower! He was the first to identify, expose, and criticize the Military-Industrial-Complex, so he can hardly be blamed for establishing it! He in fact warned the American public against it in his final speech before leaving office. Perhaps you are thinking of the theory of Gore Vidal, that a kind of 'secret government' of the U.S. was established with the founding of the CIA after World War II, so that the elected government is really just for show, and the country is actually ruled by a committee in the background consisting of certain prominent CIA figures, people in the upper ranks of the State Department, and the military.

 

But I think all these 'secret government' theories are too literal and mythological in their attempt to address what is a real problem, which is that even in a democracy the country is run for the benefit of a small elite rather than for the majority of citizens. The question is then naturally, how does this happen? but the answer has to be understood more in terms of the way our ludicrous political process admits of easy manipulation by the elite to serve its own interests. Caplan in his 'The Myth of the Rational Voter' suggests that since each voter knows that his individual vote makes next to no difference in how he will be governed, the temptation is great to vote just to express the voter's emotions rather than his rational choice, since a purely emotive vote costs him almost nothing in practical terms, yet can bring enormous emotional satisfaction. The elite can then win elections by manipulating voters' emotions rather than by appealing to their rational interests, which are inconsistent with those of the elite, so the governments elected serve elite interests and at the end of the process the voters are mystified as to how this happened. They are then tempted to explain this by positing a 'secret government,' but the real secret is their own stupidity.

 

Marat, no I am not thinking of a theory. Join me at the U of O Knight library, and go through the government documents for 1958, with me. Then we can discuss the Military Industrial Complex. Yes, he did embed it in our civilization. He asked congress to pass the National Defense Education Act that replaced our liberal education with education for technology for military and industrial purpose. He praised the Germans for their contributions to democracy. He connect government with research and the media, making it possible for government to manipulate both. What I say is a result of studying documents, and anyone can do this. There is no secret, just a lack of interest and effort to understand bureaucratic changes that have radically shifted powers from the individual to the federal government. We adopted the German models of education and bureaucracy, and the two go together and manifest a democracy very different from the one we had.