11 October 2017

Inbox: What about Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope?

I'm somewhat familiar with Quigley. I don't actually own the book but a local library has a copy and I've checked it out before. It's massive and I'll confess I didn't read it all. I pretty much focused on the conspiratorial Round Table sections everyone talks about. And mind you, it's been a good fifteen years or more since I looked at it.


He's interesting and I would add that he's been somewhat hijacked by not a few within conspiracy circles. I say that as one who would be accused by the mainstream of embracing conspiracy. I certainly believe that history attests to them and I don't doubt what Quigley saw with regard to the Round Table and the Anglo-American Establishment.
That said, one must be careful. The Tragedy and Hope podcast you mention, I've never actually listened to but I've heard the host interviewed by James Corbett and others. He's pretty interesting as is Corbett at times. I guess I take exception to the view put forward by some of these folks that EVERYTHING is orchestrated. I don't believe that for a moment. I'm not sure what Plummer says but I know how Corbett and JE Pilato talk about history and current events. There's a lot of good stuff there but they go astray I think. The world is far too complicated to be orchestrated to that degree.
I think many things are definitely manipulated. I think certain specific things are orchestrated. I think there are grand strategies but these don't always go the way they're planned. I think there are defections and betrayals, some quite serious. I think there are sometimes virtual civil wars within the circles of power and yet within an assumed consensus. I've mentioned it before but CS Lewis also spent a good amount of time talking about circles of power and influence. I think that's what is at work. It's the Round Table, it's the Think-Tanks, it's the intelligence agencies, certain law firms, banking circles, lodges and clubs, it's the elite meetings and foundations, it's political and military circles, it's academia, Silicon Valley and the media... it goes on and on. Don't forget the criminal world. They too play a part and there is some overlap. Most people in these formal institutions are not privy to anything conspiratorial and yet it's all right there if they have their eyes open. I believe in mostly Open Conspiracy. There are plenty of outrageous deceptions going on right out in the open if you bother to look.
I saw things in the military because I was looking. Others could have seen but didn't because their minds (and hearts) were geared in a completely different direction.
That said there are some downright wicked and pernicious conspiracies... grand scale deceptions that if people really grasped, it would bring down the system. Some of these are open others are deeply hidden from the public.
People rise and fall within these circles. They have moments in which they are far more influential and they are sometimes 'tapped' to join other circles and higher circles. If they stagnate they get passed up. It's a constantly moving game of musical chairs. Some know how to play and last a long time. Is there a supreme circle of grand masters? No, I don't think so. This is where I think a lot of well meaning people make a wrong turn. They're all Communists or they're all Jews or Bankers etc...
No, they're all people invested in power and certainly the figures who sit atop the world of business, intelligence and politics are very powerful. Are they committed to an ideology? I think they are committed to various ideologies that shift with time and I think that they don't all agree on everything. I think they can actually have some serious disagreements... again within the consensus. Otherwise you will be forced out.
It might take awhile to force you out. You might start a faction and make waves and shake things up. But if you're a threat to the structure of power... you're gone. You'll end up like Strauss-Kahn... who actually may be trying to make a comeback or as with not a few others you end up destroyed or dead.
Again, there are figures that transcend these spheres and float near the top of various circles. These are powerful people indeed and yet they may not have the actual 'hands on' power to launch a war etc...
But they know the people who do and they can work the system and move things in that direction.
And while they may potentially wield vast power they may balk when presented with actual conspiratorial plans. They can do what they do within their own framework, ethics and range of conception. I may find Robert McNamara to be a deeply flawed and immoral man, one who has justified lies and mass murder for the sake of the system and yet I'm also quite sure that in his mind he was acting with integrity and by solid ethical standards. Such standards would allow for cover-ups and propaganda because it was necessary for public stability and the larger threat of Cold War escalation.
Do I think he was the sort ordering murders? Probably not. While he denied even remembering being presented with the plans for Operation Northwoods I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that he would have been genuinely against that sort of thing.
And yet that doesn't mean he's off the hook. And the fact that Northwoods was even conceived tells you a lot about how some of these people will think. Just because Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Armitage would do things that James Baker and Colin Powell wouldn't and just because they might not like each other doesn't mean that Baker and even Powell aren't up to their necks in dirty stuff. They're all part of the same hypocrisy, all part of the same evil system.
Sometimes these people go too far and they're taken down, betrayed, or they mess up in some other way. The notion that there's a Swiss castle filled with cigar smoking men in front of computers with a baphomet on the wall... I don't buy it. To be fair I don't think that's what Corbett is trying to say but sometimes... it begins to approach that kind of scenario.
And even if there are Masonic cabals (like P2) and MJ-12 type groups (like in the X files)... they wouldn't possess that kind of all encompassing control.
That said, technology is opening new doors to this kind of near comprehensive control.
There's another element to all this but it's even more nebulous and one that only Christians can really talk about...and that's the way the angelic/demonic realm influences rulers and nations. That's something we know to be the case but exactly how that works... I don't know. I can only speculate. Once again it's another topic that's been hijacked by people that tend to go wild with their speculations and scenarios and thus it ends up being discredited.
See also:

8 comments:

  1. Ha ha - wasn't expecting that! Thanks for the thorough response...

    For me, the value of Quigley's work is in helping unmask the false/engineered left/right political dialectic. As you're all too aware, the fact that those he chronicles were and are willing to fund politicians and parties across the spectrum demonstrates that we really can't believe that what we see in the papers about our elections is anything like the full story.

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    1. That's a good point. When you look into the big players... the banks, the military contractors etc., they fund all sides.

      When you look into how the State Dept. or more often the CIA works in other countries... they fund various parties.

      Money is power and they spread it around.

      Interesting how political Christianity largely lives by the same creed. They may not spread it over such a broad spectrum but the power part... there's no difference.

      The Left/Right divide is largely false in Western politics. I was just thinking about that in the car today. I was listening to an NPR interview. A 'Left' journalist was criticising Trump but praising men like Tillerson and Mattis... Tillerson for his integrity even while heading Exxon and attempting to run the State Dept. and Mattis for his years of military professionalism. The host wasn't challenging that narrative in the least.

      And NPR is supposed to be so over-the-top Leftist. I don't think so. While some of the mainstream supports the liberalisation of social norms, their support of the military, nationalism, the capitalist system etc. ad nauseam demonstrates that on a fundamental level the Left and the Right (this is largely true in the UK as well) are operating off the same page.

      What's striking though is that in many cases... in the US, France, Germany, UK.... the Establishment centre even while embracing sodomy is actually moving to the right.

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  2. After you put the link, Ben, I checked out Joe Plummer's summarization. As an opener on thinking about global organization, the falsity of left-right over top a more monolithic establishment, and complexity of global finance, it's good. However, he's really annoying when he reverts to his own libertarian and nationalist schtic. These things can (usually) be grossly evil as well.

    As with other members of the conspiracy theory crowd, they never read Quigley sympathetically. What I mean is that they never take his commitment to the Network seriously enough in their own assessments. They make him out to be an accidental hero, without thinking through what this Anglo-American ring is trying to achieve, as if one can't understand how wealthy and powerful men tried to get a hand on the reigns of the globe to save it from itself. Totally misguided perhaps, and, as the story pans out, quickly dependent on consequentialist ethics. Yet, to properly do battle with an enemy, one must grasp what it is he's after. And conspiracy-theory types tend to paint in black-whites that not only neglect the Fall, but fail to pay attention to their own faults.

    In addition, Joe Plummer's summary seemed to appreciate very little of historical change. He makes a comment that the players change, but the instruments of control remain the same. This claim is so totally foolish; institutions change as well in the method and mode that they are applied. Coping with new historical situations creates the kind of differences of strategy Proto highlighted, and not everyone is on board.

    As a side note, somewhat related to Proto's last point, I'm interested in how the establishment, and its different cadre of elites, relates to esoterica. I think it's a pretty easy to show not only the deeply intertwined nature of theology/religion and politics (even an anabaptistic stance is a political stance in its refusal to sign on), but also that elites have tended to mystery cults. Specifically, I'm reminded of David Ferrie who was engaged in child molestation, and who, according to one account, had ritual perversions with the boys. There's also a weird connection between Anton LeVey and the fact he was a CIA informer. Then of course there's all the weird power relations within Scientology. Sometimes worshiping demons can be more overt than being given over to a love of power or money.

    cal

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    1. The real life David Ferrie was probably stranger than Joe Pesci's portrayal of him. I remember when I was a teenager we had some occultic books in the house... Reader's Digest type stuff and I was always fascinated and a little troubled by LaVey. I later read some books on him and his movement. He wasn't a real Satanist as I'm sure you know. I always thought it really weird that Hollywood people were drawn to that... Jayne Mansfield and even Sammy Davis Jr.

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    2. Oh yeah, I'd absolutely agree with you about Plummer. It's just a good intro for those who don't want to wade through 1000+ pages of the real thing.

      I heard of Carroll Quigley through Jay Dyer's site, Jay's Analysis. He delves into the esoteric CIA and Hollywood connections quite a bit. Jay is a hardcore Eastern Orthodox believer, so his EO sacralism colours most things he writes, but there are still many good insights to be found in his work.

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    3. I check out Jay's work every now and then. His film analyses are over the top, but are useful to pinpoint the esoterica at work within establishment circles. There are deep connections between cults, religions more generally, global capital, and establishment within the empire. And it's not just because religion is big business.

      However, he, like many in American christian circles, suffers from idealism and world-view thinking. His theological analyses are not only partisan and two-dimensional, but he misunderstands not only theology but the practices of the church through ascription of all things to "world-view". As if EO monarch and sacralist society, on account of a "pure" church and "true" theology, is somehow immune to the depravity found in the Western world. It beggars belief.

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