That's exactly why it is so worrying. By hook or by crook sometimes these politicians do manage to bribe their way into positions of power. Just look at the current Bush regime's mad policies, ranging from withholding aid for AIDS for countries that promote the use of condoms through to the War Of Terror that they're currently waging around the world.
-- cheers
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Ah ... that's almost but not quite how it works as far as I can see.
Lets say you're a Warren Buffett or Lord Rothschild. You want to make sure that the people elected to government [a href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/08/14/MN7302.DTL]at every level[/url] play your game. You just need to find some dumb stooge. (Image of the two of them together with the dumb stooge attached)
This kind of manipulation has been going on for centuries. The Buffetts and Rothschilds of this world support a policy of perpetual war for keeping the masses busy, and keeping themselves rich.
For example, while the French Rothschilds were financing Napoleon's march through Europe, the British wing of the family was financing the British war effort against him. Have a search of the Congressional Record for vesting order 248 for another example.
So its not the case, in most instances, that a politician bribes his way to power. Rather the powers that be bribe the politicians to keep doing the "right" things.
Add to that the influence on society in general of "philosophers" and "pacifists" like Bertrand Russell, and "writers" like H.G. Wells. Some quotes from Russell ... from his 1952 book The Impact of Science on Society:
"I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology.... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called 'education.' Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part.... It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment."
"The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship.... The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at.
- First, that the influence of home is obstructive.
- Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten.
- Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective.
- Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity.
But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray."
"Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen."
"At present the population of the world is increasing at about 58,000 per diem. War, so far, has had no very great effect on this increase, which continued throughout each of the world wars.... War ... has hitherto been disappointing in this respect ... but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.... The state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it?"
Mike.
