Is Corporate America a Cabal?

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
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Is Corporate America a Cabal?

Webster says ‘Cabal—artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united to bring about an overturn or usurpation in public affairs—plot’.

Quickie from wiki:
“The banking cabal refers to a conspiracy theory regarding collusion between bankers, financiers, and other associated individuals of extreme wealth to manipulate the strings of commerce, politics, and media in order to serve their common interests. The primary source of their money and power is described as the use of fractional reserve banking and fiat money to surreptitiously steal wealth from the rest of society via inflation of the money supply and by levying interest on sovereign debt.”

I claim that many of the leaders of CA (Corporate America) have been involved as a cabal in America for at least two decades. This cabal has been and is presently plotting and accomplishing to create a public policy in America that best suites their self-interest. The present financial melt down has resulted from this plot and has resulted principally as a result of that segment of this cabal that control the American and worldwide financial aspects of the world economy.

When I set out to understand some particular matter I start with some model of what I think is the answer I am after. From this point I modify my papier-mâché like intellectual model until I reach some kind of understanding for the question I posed to myself in the beginning.

The question I started with many years ago was ‘How does my world operate’? My metaphor is bullfight. I would call this my world view but more appropriately it is my nation view because I only know my nation, the United States.

The Matador waving a red cape to manipulate a giant muscular bull is my understanding of how my world functions. The bull is the people; the Matador is the oligarchy that controls the people through various ideologies.

I recently watched the DVD copy of the movie “The Insider”. This depicts the story of Jeffrey Wiegand, former executive of Brown & Williamson Tobacco, who decided to make known to the world the facts of Big Tobacco.

The movie clearly demonstrates the power of the big corporations and the pain they can inflict on any person who attempts to reveal their secrets. Comparing the DVD movie to the TV show the “Sopranos” I decided that there is little difference between the two modes of operation except for the fact that the actions of the Sopranos are often illegal whereas the actions of the corporations are most often legal.

I think that both shows are valuable viewing for the public because both shows peel back the surface layer of reality to expose the layer that is not obvious to the common sense realism we perceive life to be.

In the last few days we have seen, read, and heard various members of the business media explaining how they personally and their particular operation are not responsible for the “sneak” attack by AIG upon or way of life. They use such excuses as not having subpoena power with which to ferret out secret information.

For decades the business media has been acting as cheerleaders for Corporate America instead of being the watchdogs that bark thus alerting the residents whenever something suspicious approaches our house.

It should have been evident to any Critical Thinking individual who is responsible enough to keep up with current events that the leaders of Corporate America had acquired great power with little accountability. The great power is discernable when we recognize that there were obviously few if any checks upon their behavior when we see that they were able to constantly increase their income to levels that are obscene by any reasonable measure.

The corporate CEOs were free to take what they will in monetary reward. They thereby made it plain to even the casual observer that they could do pretty much whatever suited their personal interests. If we place a normal individual into a position of great power uninhibited by oversight is it any wonder that these individuals will continue to push the envelope of self-interest?

CA (Corporate America) has developed a well-honed expertise in motivating the population to behave in a desired manner. Citizens as consumers are ample manifestation of that expertise. CA has accomplished this ability by careful study and implementation of the knowledge of the ways of human behavior. I suspect this same structure applies to most Western democracies.

A democratic form of government is one wherein the citizens have some voice in some policy decisions. The greater the voice of the citizens the better the democracy.

In America we have policy makers, decision makers, and citizens. The decision makers are our elected representatives and are, thus, under some control by the voting citizen. The policy makers are the leaders of CA; less than ten thousand individuals, according to those who study such matters. Policy makers exercise significant control of decision makers by controlling the financing of elections.

Policy makers customize and maintain the dominant ideology in order to control the political behavior of the citizens. This dominant ideology exercises the political control of the citizens in the same fashion as the consuming citizen is controlled by the same dominant ideology.

An enlightened citizen is the only means to gain more voice in more policy decisions. An enlightened citizen is much more than an informed citizen. Critical thinking is the only practical means to develop a more enlightened citizen. If, however, we wait until our CT trained grade-schoolers become adults I suspect all will be lost. This is why I think a massive effort must be made to convince today’s adults that they must train themselves in CT.

“Thomas R. Dye, Professor of Political Science at Florida State University, has published a series of books examining who and what institutions actually control and run America. to understand who is making the decisions that affect our lives, we also have to understand how societies structure themselves in general. Why the few always tend to share more power than the many and what this means in terms of both a society’s evolution and our daily lives. they examined the other 11 institutions that exert just as powerful a shaping influence, although somewhat more subtle: The Industrial, Corporations, Utilities and Communications, Banking, Insurance Investment, Mass Media, Law, Education Foundation, Civic and Cultural Organizations, Government, and the Military.”
21stcenturyradio.com/12-dye.html

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can i ask without having to read a book on the topic and in full acknowledgment that “cabal” is an apt METAPHOR for corporate power, do you have any explanation or example of how the cabal’s behavior caused this meltdown rather than just coinciding with it historically?

Al Capone was a symptom of his times not the other way around - this is true of most gangsters and gangs.

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Robber Barons were and are both. If we look back over a hundred years we can see that very rich and powerful men did indeed decide when US troops would enter wars and what policies presidents would put forward or squish out of existence.

It is the never having stopped part of the phenomenon that many people find so disturbing.

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youre right, it will always be the empire’s rich and powerful who ultimately decide when the troops go to war - but war didn’t cause the economic meltdown. . . it’s exacerbating it, but it didn’t cause it. investment bubbles, speculation and greed caused it - sure there’s a culture of avarice feeding the greed that one might associate with corporate cabalism, but i don’t think the economic situation can be blamed specifically on the corporate cabal - corporations don’t control the whims of the market, consumer behavior does - if the corporations influenced consumer behavior in ways that contributed to the collapse, the collapsing part was nontheless certainly unintended.

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I doubt this but I hope you are right.

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have the evil capitalists and corporatists wear 6 pointed yellow stars

I see dead liberals.

-Imp

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As if that follows from what anyone said.

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The book I referenced is one in a series of books about this cabal and gives a background about these matters.

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right, but let’s lynch the aig executives anyway…

I see dead liberals.

history never repeats.

-Imp

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In a crowded theater yell "There is not a fire!!! How many people will hear there is a fire and panic??? quite alot, They will convince the unsure that there is a fire and convince a few of the ones that heard right that they were wrong… Someone always has to lead and control wether it is calmly and deliberate or in a idiotic panic.

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the public is justifiably pissed, it’s called making your own bed.

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hitler was good at whipping up the mob…

the demoFUCKS have learned well…

I see dead liberals

-Imp

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public reaction would be the same regardless of which party happened to be in power - it isn’t just democrats calling for blood . . . in fact, any dem calling for blood might as well be calling for Obama’s blood given what aig spent on his campaign.

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a nationalistic dictator with a penchant for war and enormous military budgets. I mean I am no fan of democrats but hey, if we have to choose the party most like that we are talking about the republicans.

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right, the republicans are the closest thing to national socialists with a hatred of capitalism…

how’s that koolaid?

-Imp

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They said some negative stuff about capitalism but…1) they were, in any case, capitalist. 2) they were right wing 3) they were loved by banks and many of the leading capitialists of the day - Bush Sr. Sr. for example was a big supporter of the Nazi machine 4) they were pro-military 5) they considered themselves more patriotic than other parties 6) they were more likely to support traditional notions of the family and who has the power in the family 7) their aesthetics were conservative and they were very concerned about imagination and sexuality - iow they too would have used the phrase ‘hollywood elite’. They distrusted artists. :sunglasses: they were rabidly anti-communist.

The republicans are not Nazis, but if you have to pick the closer of the two parties it would have to be the Reps.

And the republicans were much more supportive of fascist regimes in Latin America many of whom buddied up with Nazis and admired Hitler. They always felt they could align with Nazi like regimes against the commies - which included men with long hair.

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I’ve been in the same argument before elsewhere and it’s fruitless - Dems are like Nazis insofar as they lean socialist and Reps are like Nazis insofar as they lean fascist - but to compare either of the parties to the nazis with a straight face is ultimately just plain silly.

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:laughing: ](*,) :laughing:

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:question: