The system that produces positions of power has ensured, through the mechanisms we have examined, that anyone reaching such positions is captured, controlled, or so shaped by ascent that they have become indistinguishable from what needs to change
power corrupts
systems we have inhabited are not flawed but structurally oriented toward outcomes antithetical to human flourishing
Definitely true of capitalism. What about democracy? Is there such a thing?
Most people, across the spectrum, maintain some residual faith that at least part of their side’s leadership is legitimate.
Except anarchists....
Trump campaigned explicitly on releasing the Epstein files. He positioned himself as the instrument of popular vengeance against a corrupt elite.
But plenty of us did see that this was a ruse and said as much. Trump is the swampiest of the swamp creatures.
The experts were captured.
Could this be the point? Not to whitewash his image, but to sully theirs? So that they could blackmail or win the secrecy (allegiance)?
They provide enough truth to satisfy the public appetite for revelation while containing the aspects of the operation that must remain hidden.The goal is not transparency. The goal is narrative control through the strategic deployment of partial truth.
limited hangout: strategy used by intelligence to manage a blown cover
a foreign intelligence service operated a sexual blackmail network that tortured and abused children in service of capturing presidents, princes, academics, and titans of finance, likely with the knowledge and cooperation of American intelligence agencies
Is this the backbone of the entire establishment?
They are participants in a network of exploitation so systematic and so thoroughly documented that its exposure should, by any reasonable standard, delegitimize every institution it touches.
And it touches EVERYTHING! intelligence agencies, financial architectures, scientific and academic institutions, media who tell us what is polite or not to ask; philanthropic foundations that "white wash" (launder) reputation
This is not the revelation of a secret so much as the documentation of a structure.
Lens 1: the great unveiling, leaders cannot be trusted. They sold us the narrative that the world functioned based on a moral logic (merit, the invisible hand)
deliberately constructed fiction designed to keep us looking in the wrong direction while the actual operations of power proceeded unobserved
Hyperreality: Disneyland is there to hide that it is the real
What follows is an attempt to map the territory that becomes visible once the false map is released
Point is to show the territory; we have been living in the map (hyperreality)
This relates to early theories of globalization in anth