A single global multinational corporation has more control and influence than the United Nations. The UN has about as much control over things as a substitute teacher in an inner-city ghetto where all the students are armed.

That the world got the organizational factors and state (it has) politically over many generations may seem to have happened through chance and happenstance. However the means have existed for more than two generations now to vastly improve and alter that dynamic for the real and long lasting benefit of most others who have no advantages nor no prospects of better futures. That is not happening, not out of chance but out of the natural desire for all who benefit from any current system, no matter how barbaric or unjust, to keep that system intact. All change, even positive changes from any humanitarian points of view, always at an organizational level beyond mere handouts at will or whims, or the limiting of nations to carry out acts of aggression toward each other, will be leveled, neutered, or crippled by those who seek to maintain the world the way it functions now intact, for their political and economic futures depend upon that structure. Everyone from corporations to criminals, elected leaders or dictators all are always behind the world as it is now and if they benefit from it, are always united in at least one aspect, it must never fundamentally be changed. However it got to how it is now, no one of any real power has shown any desire to alter it save a few token gestures, and only that in the face of probable mutual annihilation. 

Though the foot soldiers may never see it that way, all the leaders of all sides, the black hats and the white hats, all figuratively sit peaceably together at the same table of power. It does not matter how they got there, they often work together for each others mutual benefit, though publicly they keep up the rhetoric. Rare (it is) when anyone really significantly moves drastically on the turf of another, and even then the aggressor must reassure everyone else at the table, whether crime bosses or presidents, dictators, kings, or businessmen, that it was a one time exceptional case. These figurative when not literal alliances are not even corruption in the classical sense, but strategic. At these tables, money is merely there. What they can do for and to each other is the real currency, and not doing the latter is why the world retains the system and shape it has. None want to upset the balance for that balance is all that gives them their power in the first place. 

The rule of law is a myth when some are always only bound by those laws they can never change, and others can change or write them as they see fit whenever they become an obstacle in their way. It is like playing a game where the other player can change the rules whenever they wish. Worse yet is when they know in advance what rules they will change and wait for the best moment, or make plans around such instances others without that power or knowledge must lie helpless with only blind luck to keep them from being knocked back by obstacles, rule changes, they would have no way to counter or anticipate. Beyond belief is when  "legal" systems give themselves the power to make such changes retro-active and make criminal offenses which were not illegal when done. Such abuses drive home the fact that law can not only be changed at any time to anyone's disadvantage, but that any event in anyone's life done at any time under full compliance with the law still can be turned against them. With less and less restrictions on those currently in power to change or rewrite laws as they see fit to reward their backers and ensure their continued support, and their (own) hold on power, the rest of their populations will inevitably become more and more screwed. 

Elections are the parts of democracy people get to see and convince them they have a say in their governance. How those choices are selected to be put before them are determined by non-democratic means by economic interests. Which choices are given as well as how many inevitably frames their outcomes. Those who can influence these without having their hands being seen directly control governments. Leaders are reduced to personalities who can best push an agenda, and those personalities know they will only get to act the part, unless they dare to believe they got there on their own merits alone. The more willing they are to follow "advice", the more inevitable their rise to power becomes. 

It doesn't matter what anyone says. Everything always gets turned around to mean what those in power want it to mean. Even Jesus and God have been used as right wing symbols. Symbology is everything to those who wish to control a population. 

Always consider the worst possible explanation, based on the lowest behavior morally, for anything that happens involving power, to be potentially true and extremely possible, because no doubt, whatever you can imagine does not even come close to how low others are willing to go. Because of that, the median is toward the bottom of what you would consider or consider probable. 

Learning from the history of the Soviet Union- if you call yourself a democracy and go to the trouble of having elections, people might one day actually expect them to be fair, or giving the party in power at  least a snowball's chance in hell at losing. 

History celebrates some people over others and considers them great or extraordinary not because of anything about them necessarily, but because it becomes in the interest of those in power to have them seen as such. Everything (about history) is always political. 

All the things you think are impossible, healing the rift between Christianity and Islam, or even between Judaism and Islam, making China or Russia a real democracy, you need to focus on what makes these things seem impossible, who or how many different groups would oppose such reconciliations or integrations into wider, more expansive and less divided new common communities, and new stronger more diverse common cultures which would emerge from (the) growing partnerships. Once you can identify who would work against such aims, you see it isn't impossible at all, just against a lot of powerful groups in the presents' interests. The only problem is that divided present has few futures which connect back to it, or seen from the present, little hope of surviving long in such a divided house, which will inevitably either unite, or collapse on everyone. 

Engineering civilizations- while I reject the Marxist view of a centralized economy, for civilization to proceed for hundreds of years more into the future, governments have to step up and eliminate the power vacuum that has been filled by non-elected non- responsible to their societies as a whole private business interests they can no longer gain any influence over or regulate. The fate of humanity cannot be left  to economists who see unemployment as "a political problem, not an economic problem". Some group in power ought to see people's interests first, not view them in terms (other than rhetorically) as superfluous or irrelevant. Others in history, too many to name, thought in terms of economists, when solving unemployment by just ridding oneself of an "excess" of its population through wars or other means. A workable sustainable system will not just appear by itself, be justified or come about in a economics only based model, nor by the result of market forces alone. It requires thought, imagination, and above all, making it not only a serious priority, but the number one aim of all governments for it to have a chance of succeeding by drawing them into a vociferous, real, and unending debate. The best forms of government 500 years from now require a level of education and participation which would no more work in any country today than democracy can flourish in uneducated impoverished regions of the world of today. The goal therefore cannot be to give people a better model of how to live, treat each other, but to find one that can both adapt to the present circumstances while moving them toward those more just models, and above all, keep humanity from committing suicide before they can discover and embrace those better models on their own. 

Rewriting history- Americans are told they "prefer" their reality shows scripted, their history idealized, and mistakes sanitized. Fictional movies are now reedited without mentioning (that) scenes were removed for political sensitivity from how they were originally broadcast and edited. (V-The Original Miniseries - "First they came for..." speech at the end, now new copies have no record of it ever having been different or anything having been edited out, yet has ironically though coincidentally, has the word "Original" right there in the title.)  It is only a matter of time (until) they do the same with the news content they "own". Already there is no longer an asterisk next to the outcome of the 2000 election results in current references in newspapers. Historical references and shapeable present public opinion will soon erase any doubt anyone honestly could dispute that Bush clearly won, and that Gore tried to steal the election from him in court. Not surprising for a country that held a general as a hero whose orders ethnically cleansed over 400 men and women after surrendering to him, mostly elderly and children, and yet is still considered as a hero by many despite now admitting this. (Gen. Custer- Wounded Knee - late 1800's) History is whatever those in power want it to be. 

The more power a single person has, the more likely it is to be used indiscriminately and without need for justification or explanation. Rule by committee or consensus may seem unwieldy but it makes abuse of power less likely. Full power sharing is democracy, but depending on the model, makes abuses inevitable when one person ever is in a position of being able to influence every other branch, directly or indirectly. All structures to prevent this from happening are falling like dominoes. 

The world remains static or stable when those in power wish it to stay exactly how it is and those who want it to stay how it is are the only ones who have access to gaining power. History is only as much of an  influence as those in power wish it to be. It may be more difficult imaginatively speaking to know how to improve it safely, but that is hardly ever the only obstacle to positive change. Vested interests in corruption and how positive changes would affect powerful groups negatively are always almost solely why things rarely will be changed for the benefit of the most others.

A person is remembered and celebrated in history as long as it is in the interest of those in power. When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, Jesus became PR and has been used as such ever since. 

History is always idealized. People never write down how things really work. Anyone who does not have a Machiavellian view of history has no idea how things really were. Anyone who thinks things are different now in any way other than being a more subtle and refined savage desire to control everything and everyone else, or limit them from challenging you, in the end, controlling them by having control over their control over themselves or anything else. It is more subtle, and few would say this is not an outrageous overstatement, yet that motivation of control, power, domination, still is the motivation behind much human behavior and almost all group behavior, just according to rules written in the sand. 

Life is supposed to be fun. It can be whenever those in power allow it to be seen as such. Unfortunately it is more profitable for those in power to stand behind ideas like, "Life is not about fun, it is about hard work!" The more people believe that, the better workers they are and the less rights, benefits, and privileges they will expect. 

Things only seem or become inevitable when people believe or can be convinced they have no choice or nothing they can do can make a difference, even when they know something is wrong and would change it if they could. Changing these "inevitable" futures begins first with removing this hopelessness from their minds, for that is the source of its power, and replacing it with hope and the belief that individuals can one day influence their government and society. All governments claim this is how things work, that their opinions matter, though most know differently. They know they are guided and treated like children as to what to think and what to work towards, and only by accepting everything they are told can they prosper. "Free" speech is a myth. Anything even one step behind or ahead of what your government wants you to say or think today has a high price. Remember, though mythologized and romanticized, people could once more easily speak out against their society when they believed it was wrong and not be destroyed for it, and hope and believe such a day can come again, and dare to think your own thoughts whenever you wish. 

Life on its most real terms is the only reason anyone is alive is that no one with the power to kill them sees them as a threat or has yet to bother. 

Perpetual war can keep any group in power indefinitely. The mixture of hatred and fear is an iron grip which cannot be loosened. It enabled the Communist Party to remain in power for over 70 years and the Cold War kept the Democrats firmly in control of Congress during its run. When Gorbachev admitted the West wasn't so bad, he began his undoing. Even a seemingly constant war came to an abrupt end. The Republicans have learned a great lesson. The enemy must have no name, nor face, and no one can ever say then when it is over. The public is sold on the concept of being at war with "to be announced". It could be one country today or a different country tomorrow but still the same war which can be believed to be continuing until whenever it is politically expedient to say it is won. Unfortunately history has shown it is never politically expedient for a party in power for a war to end, and without one clear enemy to be defeated, nor even necessarily ongoing battles, now never has to. Fear and hatred are easily rekindled by any number of means so the public will always believe the enemy is real, even if it can be potentially anyone, even a recent ally, and all the same war. And the enemy within can never be defeated either and can also be anyone, thus the need to accept constant scrutiny and suspicion of everyone.  Unfortunately if the enemy is oppression, it really can take any form and can never be defeated. Those who claim to fight it simply become it to seem to win indefinitely. When the words "war" and "peace" have been redefined by those in power to mean whatever they want them to mean, "freedom" is equally open for redefinition as well. If even understanding this shows it to be inevitable and unstoppable, all hope for improvement is lost. 

Organized crime profits by robbing from those who the police would not protect. Those who think the police help all equally are naive. The more corrupt and indifferent or invasive and oppressive the police become, the stronger and richer the criminals become. The more people view the police with fear and suspicion, the stronger the grip shadow groups control a society with. Laws written to strengthen law enforcement by making them more feared, weaken their ability to be anything other than just another group of thugs to those who do not trust them for help. The fewer the police protect or the more of a society they see as criminals, the more powerful criminals it creates. Fewer laws create fewer criminals and the more the population can view police as allies, if they do not extort themselves, and when they are thought more to aid all equally in need of help. 

When any organism gets too big it subdivides. When any group, political, religious, governmental, gets too powerful and near universal, factions within it develop. The opposite of that happening is greater control, less freedom, and dictatorship. The more it happens and the greater the factionalization, the more control people have over their own lives and destinies. Democracy (supposedly decentralized control in the extreme, far from present reality) means having everyone's voices being heard and counting EQUALLY. By this measure, every day and every way we are moving away from that. Yet new ways must emerge to keep plurality of opinions alive or what is left of freewill is lost. 

In the sense previously written here which I know well, that dragonslayers create their own dragons to slay, Judeo-Christian/Moslem notions of good vs. evil can be said to give rise to that perceived dichotomy. Good requires evil to define itself and to battle with. It is not that bad or unfortunate things might happen nor just that such notions give those who wish to do bad things a "god" of their own or framework or a blueprint of what is defined by that culture as all evil things to tap into or identify themselves with, but that the very belief that such supernatural forces exist and one of them being very negative, creates, sustains, or enforces them. People ought to balance that tendency to view everything in black and white, good vs. evil terms, with Chuang Tsu's treatise on who can say what is good or bad (the horse running away), on how it can be a matter of perspective in context of events which have yet to happen which may put it into another light. By believing negative things have a cause or some external influence other than the one true "God" or force which creates you, you empower (that other) with and through your beliefs in it or create it yourself, as do societies as a whole which subscribe to such notions in the same sense as the Romans' beliefs in their lesser than one supernatural powers (gods) could influence them and (those beliefs defined, gave context to, and) guided their lives as well. To make or see life in terms of a fight or struggle to do right, one must create or need an external personification to enable it (that struggle, to fight against), and in such psychology, make existence itself always a fight or conflict, and Earth a "noble" but constant and continuous battlefield. Such views court self-destruction.

There is nothing good about power. Power is control over others and is corrupting in and of its own nature. There is nothing good that can be made of it other than trying to give as much back to those you have power over as you can (given current circumstances). The longer you hold it or try to hold on to it, the more you have of it, the more you gain of it, inevitably the more despotic you will become. There is nothing good, noble, or honorable about power, or the accumulation of power. 

In a fair game, anyone can win. Anyone being able to win means anyone being able to lose. That is why fair games are virtually non-existent. No one with power or wealth will ever (want to prolongingly) play a game they stand a chance of losing at, and they control what games can be played and even write the rules. 

EVERY group in power seeks to (either to) influence or outright control what people read, see, hear, think, and believe so they will have the best chances of staying in power for without that influence, they have absolutely no power whatsoever. Peoples opinions are what constitutes it and influence in creating or maintaining those (favorable) opinions is all that keeps them on top. The more the human mind, behavior, and means of communication are put under a microscope to study, inevitably leads to more effective means of control and manipulation, the more new means must evolve to keep freewill via free thought one step ahead. 

People believe what they want to believe and merely sift through history to find the "proofs" to justify their wants. Once in power, they make sure opposing "proofs" for other beliefs are discredited, and as much as possible, removed from history, and as opposing ideas. If that is not possible, too many recent facts to remove, the PR machine kicks into overdrive on how such unpleasant unremovable clues are to be interpreted, laws on how they can be discussed, and savage outright ostracism and financial ruin of anyone who may think to voice a dissenting opinion. 

The Gnostic texts found in the 1940's renews my admiration of the philosophical leaps made by early Christianity, most of which ended up on the cutting room floor as the not-for-general-consumption version. Though what was left in the edited-for-political- purposes version was interesting, it was not particularly advanced (or challenging), but the early writings in their entirety point to the fact a major dawning of consciousness was occurring which most generations since have lost out on the vitality of its legacy, and left with only a dried out shell. Of its core beliefs, Rome suppressed, and the Jews did not care for to adopt as their own. All that is left is wondering what could have been if not for the politics at the time, censorship, and the need for power and control of the church and the Christian State of the Holy Roman Empire. 

Power and freedom are opposite ends of the spectrum. Freedom is people doing whatever they want to do. Power is people doing (only) whatever the one who has it wants them to do. Worse is when people can be made to do things against their own interests, through suggestive manipulation, media control, or outright blackmail with no avenues that care. Until people can be totally manipulated without their knowledge covertly, the middle stage to getting there is the well worn path of secret police who are not so secret, just their methods and the public's lack of ability to keep check on their activities as even knowledge about it is criminal. 

With criminals and governments, their power comes from the threat and the ability to take from you whatever you hold dear, property, family, income, etc. The early Christians while valuing literally nothing in this world were fairly un-coercible. Make no mistake about it, they did not win. Only the conformists and materialists survived. What is left is organizations like any other although often less threatening, yet protecting usually only those complying letting others threats benefit them. 

Some people are just born long distance trekkers and will always seek out the limits on where and what they can be and what they are allowed by Man or God to know. Those who are not, those who accept limits of things in this reality without questioning them, will never understand my type, and being now the majority, will always be hostile if asked by those with power over them. Then again, those types will react the opposite if asked by those with power over them. To those who seek finding the limits to and of knowledge, those with power over them are merely an obstacle, a challenge to overcome, something to make the search more interesting and the journey longer. That the limits are self- imposed as well as the obstacles, it does not matter so long as you keep yourself blind to this one fact that is always indisputable, and may be the only thing indisputable. Still, it is better to think you have something to do or accomplish than to think there is no point, but each must realize that the choice of what to think they ought to do with their lives is entirely their own, or there is no point to their reality. Those who attempt to take that choice from others are only removing it from themselves, and making others suffer is to make yourself suffer once you awaken enough to realize that. Whenever anyone tries to tell you that you can only be this or you can only know that, just say "whatever dude" until they go away. Sooner or later, (for you or historically speaking) they always will. 

Groups forming to gain more power over their lives, seemingly gaining it only to lose it a different way. New groups forming to gain more power over their lives, seemingly gaining it only to lose it a different way. Infinitely repeat. Whenever something is written down, there are innumerable ways of getting around it and the race is on to find loopholes, gaps, or new ways of getting people to do only what you want them to do. Broad principles of human and civil rights become selectively enforced and new orders, new rules sometimes not even written down become the new rules of the game. Constitutions cannot weather the onslaught desires of others to control others and quickly become moot for whatever one could not think of to guard against, someone else will find a new way to exploit that and make everyone only able to behave as they wish and make all written rights meaningless. Freedom in any sense is provisional only while on the move or in motion. Once you rest, once you think you have it, it is already as good as lost. The desire to control others is in everyone and some will always have abilities more than others to achieve it. That push will never go away or lessen, so the counter push to constantly search how your freedoms are being undermined and gains unknowingly stripped away must also be a constant force just to keep them steady or intact. Conflicts only develop when those with power are too ignorant of the rules of the game. Give people what they demand, find a way to make it worthless. Give people what they demand, find a way to make it worthless. Infinitely repeat. 

Some people think if someone is willing to turn down tons of money, power, and influence for something, that means they might do something bad to achieve it as well. Those people think all are motivated as they are and not having things can be a source of motivation for all. 

Things more valuable than power, wealth, and weapons people (still yet) cannot really understand. To them as this universe seems to be defined, they can easily think and say there is nothing more valuable than power, wealth, and weapons, or what leads to having them. Biological droids through and through. That things are bigger many worship without understanding and others use that worship to gain wealth and power over them, with the highest in the hierarchy, the richest and/or most powerful, separated from it the most. 

Give a group of people a cure for every possible disease and inevitably they will either try to patent it or find some other way to sell it only to the most wealthy, or inoculate their group and release every possible plague on everyone else not immune. People are beyond help at the moment. Whatever you give them, no matter how good, they will find a way to turn it into a weapon or a means of gaining power and control over others. (They can't even imagine a good reason not to try to control it to use it to try to get wealth or power, even when, no, ESPECIALLY WHEN it could save many lives or when many people might not survive without it! Nothing damns this species more or shows it in a truer light that that fact!!!). Nothing but vicious animals beneath the surface trying to control what all others need to survive, and religions, the supposed bastions of morality often only make the greed and hatred more organized and the haters and thieves less apologetic for their actions, because they only do it for the sake of or glory of God, they tell themselves, or by His graces, since he is not stopping them, yet. 

Money and the need for it to survive, makes people behave in ways they otherwise wouldn't giving those who have it power over them, and often to behave in ways they are debased and will feel disgraced afterwards. And this is not the exception, it is the rule and (this situation) rules. What people would only do for great sums of money is usually what ought not to be done at all. 

Happy people are content to die before they would ever do any harm to others who have not done anything bad to them. Unhappy people are quite willing to, almost eagerly. Whether to share their unhappiness, or just because they are searching for something, anything, which might make them less miserable, and are easy to control by anyone convincing them they have something which will take away their unhappiness, if only for awhile. Now you know the source of power here. Controlling happiness to only what you can give or sell to make people happy, then using those people you can now control to search out and find others to make unhappy, dependant upon what you have to make them happy, and add them to your growing army of unhappy people to attack even more others, and stamp out along the way all who are content without what you have to sell or offer, or anything that might make people contented for free. Content = not controllable, not willing to fight and kill others to promote your agenda. Free = no way to get rich off whatever it is which makes them happy. But it won't last that way.

Psychology of interaction of cultures is based upon whether the dominant, more powerful (one) is self-sufficient in its needs. When it is, advanced promotion of aid and interaction of equals is possible. When it isn't, exploitation will be couched over under as many layers of bullshit their culture needs to prevent them from acknowledging it as such.

I am optimistic in that more are speaking out against a lethal status quo, pessimistic that fewer are listening, and horrified by corporations growing power (over media) to guarantee no one will ever be allowed to hear. Even fair reporting is now illegal when saying truths deemed too unpalatable for the public to contemplate. Rice/Newsweek "How the hell did that story get out!"

With Bush, Americans finally have a leader with the credible use of force to use our overwhelming military and economic might to increase the power and wealth of our country, or at least their own supporters. It was only a matter of time before we admitted we really don't give a shit about any fair and just world order or making wars illegal, not when we have all these weapons and the rest of the world is mostly defenseless in comparison. Why not use that military/economic threat to intimidate ALL other nations to do what we wish? (Schroeder, Chirac, kiss your careers goodbye now, thanks for playing.) The only positive aspect for those uncomfortable with that notion is that the spoils by and large are not trickling down to the American public, and they are being squeezed by the greed of the leadership as well. If they WERE cut into the payoff, the policies would have the legitimate support of the majority of the public and not need rigged elections, unchallengable electronic voting machines, disqualifying thousands of eligible voters based on likelihood to vote against them, and other new tricks such as having "Republican party members" be able to demand to see your ID when voting ("say A, O, way to go, Ohio" -The Pretenders) to take down your name and give it to the police to pay a call on you later at your home to prove you are who you say you are, (heaven forbid that would "intimidate" anyone from wanting to vote, though obviously targeting the poor and minorities to be "challenged") and had already proved it legally enough to be able to vote in the first place. (If the Ukraine had been able to get away with that one, Yushchenko or anyone challenging a party in power would never have stood a chance, but then American elections are so much more honest.) If Americans themselves were getting richer off of those same policies, they would be more than content to support them and ignore what is going on elsewhere to make their lives better. They are no worse than anyone who simply buys food in a store without wondering who or what had to die to put it there. Who really bothers to think how anything in their society works as long as the slot machine pays off more than you need to put in? Even more descriptive, as long as the food pellets come out when you push the button, and don't when you don't, a society will grow around those who push the button without thinking about it too much. You want a food pellet? You push the button. That's all you need to know. The ruthless or the well-trained not to think where the stuff comes from or what happened to others, possibly (illegible) who disappeared, they always survive the longest. But the cornfield is a nice place, and they are happier they were forced to go there.

It is within each individual within every group to want to control all else others need to survive so they depend on you and are willing to do whatever you say to survive. Every group around them are means to gain that end. The more ruthless and powerful the group, the more people will want to become members of it, because even if they cannot reach that goal by themselves, by backing the right horse, they believe they have obtained that objective through the group, and that will satisfy them for awhile, even if they will never be able to influence it and must conform themselves to it more than other groups which would allow them more freedom. They think that while that group lives and dominates, their life, even if not remembered or honored, its meaning will live on. 

The more people are shielded like children from knowing how the bad guys think, the more easily they are manipulated by an ever-growing bag of tricks. Manipulative power plays by political parties and would be dictators are like con-artist schemes which must be constantly exposed or the victimization reaches higher numbers unnecessarily destructive due to those who shield the public from knowing or considering it instead of warning and alerting them constantly until they take notice. And those doing that shielding, if not corrupted already, may as well be. The effect is the same.

What those who have power are willing to do to stay in power quickly becomes a race to the bottom of how low they are willing to go to remain there. The longer in power, the lower that bottom drops. Being in power for less time, they are often more willing to leave power with a few principles they have yet to compromise intact. The more they have compromised them or never had them, the more willing they are to see their opposition as dangerous, potential enemies of the state too weak to keep it intact, and see themselves as just in suppressing it by any means possible, and rigging elections keeps everyone happy. People remember the saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely. They forget even a little power is a little corrupting and leads to the desire to hold onto it, and usually to gain more. The need once has acquired a taste for it, is insatiable.

Once you interfere and tip the balance of power within another society, or even in regards to another person's life, that balance may never again be in the same position again, and there is no telling where the new balance will be found, only that wherever it may be will be a temporary balance and will continue to keep shifting as long as they live, and each seeming status quo is a matter of perspective until you blink. Any "balance" in present circumstances is only due to constant overwhelming pressure from all sides offsetting each other. It always wants to unravel, it is just a matter of which direction.

If you are not afraid of what others can do to you, would do or will do, then they can only impede you or get out of your way. Fear is all that can divert you. Ceding direction is to give up power over your own life. Do not believe in side-trips of any significant time. It is to be diverted, become lost, and ultimately to become someone else. 

Einstein said the amazing thing about the universe is not that you cannot understand it all, but that it is all understandable. Understanding power is to strip it of its power over you. It is a shell game of confusion to divert your attention from it. You must always bear that in mind. Exposing power games to control you gives back control until they figure out new ones to keep the rules and methods a secret. 

Most larger countries are organized around cooperation for conquest (military machines). That is why they have armies and allow each other to make military service mandatory (forcing adolescents into the military or imprisoning or executing them if they refuse). Self-defense is a convenient lie. If self-defense was really the goal, they would have pooled their resources long ago to make wars impossible. That conquest now has simply been transferred in times of peace (between wars for control over resources) to economic warfare, how to plunder anothers resources without firing a shot, and without seeming to act aggressively, or ideally, without anyone thinking there is anything wrong with it. Without enlarging ones territory, political control is not diluted, yet the bleeding of resources from other areas can continue as if they were parts of ones own lands, and the people living there can be easily controlled to be unable to prevent it, and unable to withstand external pressures to control their own laws, land, and livelihoods. Stripped of any means of self-determination economically, they are putty in the hands of wealthier nations, and can be moved around like chess pieces. When diamonds were found recently under the Bushmen's lands (Africa) where they were self-sufficient, they were simply moved elsewheres (and their wells were filled with concrete to get them to go) where they did not have means to survive compared to where they lived thousands of years self-sufficiently, and were given practically free alcohol to keep them happy about it. Now dependent on others for food, "new labor", and robbed blind of the wealth of their lands. All indigenous peoples get treated this way and we have simply substituted weaker countries since we are running out of weaker indigenous people to do that to. The machines must continue to grow, economies to grow, and countries are the main organized means of conquest, though now they are being undermined by global corporations vying for their power. No matter who wins, weaker people will most surely continue to lose what little they had. If they were paid what it was worth, where would the profit be in that? The greater discrepancy is not a crime, not robbery, but simply better business. And if you make them so poor they cannot survive without you, even better. New labor too. And by giving them penny-paying jobs, you get to play the hero too. Ain't life grand? 

To imagine freedoms and know of them beyond what your government allows or wants you to think about is to begin seeing a wider view, not of the world how it is but how you might think it could be or should be. Once upon a time, some governments understood this as good. That was before they wanted to preserve the present at all cost because in deprivation, there is more power. But the desire grows within those who can see or know those more honest worlds of more intellectual freedoms, and it cannot be destroyed by any government no matter how totalitarian it becomes in trying to control what people think about freedom or define freedom to mean by controlling society and the media, even if it imagines itself to still be a democracy. That makes the dictatorship stronger, the hypocrisy, but true freedom cannot be forgotten once tasted, and the heart and soul remember even after the mind has been cleansed of it. If any people were ever willing to accept their own governments definition of freedom, the Soviet Union would never have collapsed, feudalism would not have collapsed, slavery and serfdom would never have been abolished, and democracies would never have arisen, even if they have since abandoned the principle that the people count more than the economic interests, and decry "populism". 

The world may never become a democracy and would prefer never to think it would never wish to be one. Some countries are able to get all the resources from anywhere they wish without having to take care of or listen to the people of that region and make them equal citizens in the decision making process or treat them as they would their own. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Exploitation is not a side effect, it is the defining model of how people relate to each other, and have institutionalized it. I know of many better societal models and higher levels of democracy. The people though will always have the lowest level of participation they are willing to accept and have the greatest level of control and manipulation as those in power think they can get away with. 

The way I see it, humanity idolizes the idea of perpetual civil war with itself. Each powerful "sovereign" nation thinks it can come up with a tactical advantage, militarily or economically, and increase its power. The problem is the level of technology makes playing that game increasingly suicidal and are long overdue in thinking up a new game. With increasing technologies, war will either be everywhere, or people all over the world can begin to figure out how to pull the plug on this mad chase for weapons and control of others or we will soon end up with a world too disorganized with too many nuclear and biological wars or "incidents" to make discussions of a better future even possible. While control of the world is determined by who has the most and worst weapons, all or most independent groups will seek to acquire them, and potentially use or threaten their use on others. The race to always develop more and better ones to stay on top is insane. Humanity can either look to the mind-blowing destruction this will lead to, or can begin talks on how to get itself out of this situation which threatens ALL people in ALL nations equally, no matter what their leaders or generals like to delude themselves with. 

People should not get sold on the characters, not even their own. All power is in the play and how it unfolds.

There is a biological predeterminism to organisms turning on each other when the numbers get too high, and get more selective about which are in the "in-group" and which are their adversaries. Before universal commonality is reached, differences will emerge or be ascribed and conflict will resume. All governments rule by force alone, using the temporary present control or power to enforce or create a common culture based around and on its territorial region to impress upon new members of it to conform to that sense of identity for it as an organization to remain intact or even grow instead of diversifying. Humanity's challenge is not an easy one and goes against the biology. That is since every organization wants to grow, instead how to create a common universal organizational structure to guide their interactions without allowing one group or coalition to dominate it or use that structure for their own selective purposes, as would ALWAYS be the case, for groups to want or think they could use it for their own cliques advantage, or they would never agree to having it. How to have a single government or organizing referee which cannot be corrupted, does not function as a promoter of one culture versus another and cannot be co-opted to promote any ideology over any other, no matter how high the numbers climb, and allow dissenters to remain alive and survive as separate groups. The twin needs of groups to grow and absorb others into it, and to again diversify, this works out naturally through violence, war, murder, (love <sarcastically> the people that have no problem with the word "war" but think using the word "murder" would be going too far), brainwashing of entire cultures through new education, but now humanity must figure out a way to allow these twin needs to occur without weapons, for without that, the struggle will destroy everyone as the weapons will become too powerful and too plentiful too soon. Plus the brainwashing by cultures must allow for their cultures to grow by allowing them to change, adapt to other cultures, and allow people to reject some tenants of them to allow for real individuality over group-think and intimidation. Both of these aspects, cultures to blend and new individualized movements to form, are also part of the dual growth and diversification needs.

Assimilating all aspects of the global geo-political situation: Territorialism (lands and which groups control patrolled sections of it), ethnic identity based upon language and features which set people apart visually (skin color, features, manner of behavior, body language), cross-cultural methods of group identification based on ideology or religion, and other imagined group loyalties which determine behavior. Equal rights or special rights? It is within each individual and group to want to secure advantages over others. Once in power, it is natural that people or groups want to secure their position, their current advantage over others for them or their group. Multiple group identities make it harder to know who is the other to conquer and exploit. It can be less or more conflict provoking. One can see combinations of differences and similarities with all others, or just be turned on one group, then another, territory, religion, etc., whatever is more useful of the day. Whoever controls what people want controls which sense of identity will prevail at any given point, the one group most likely to deliver on that. Thus the territorial group uses that military control over the lands and people to control what they see and read to control what they want. Otherwise a different sense of identity more capable of delivering the goods will prevail. That countries try to set up their own state religions, their own political parties and movements, their own ideologies, etc., to make themselves more self-contained and less susceptible not to foreign influences, but to senses of identity within their own people which cut across borders. The more aces of identity are tied to a border, the more likely the national identity will always prevail over any other sense of identity, even as they routinely shift.

People no matter how devoutly religious ought to be able to consider two things which are important. One is that in the name of God, some of the most horrible things have been done to people. The recent death of a schizophrenic young woman upon a cross in Romania as an example, which is really not that bad and I don't mean to pick on those people because at least they were trying to help her by ridding her of a "demon", but to the ones they don't like, don't care much about, or kill people in the name of "saving" them or converting them such as burning them alive or the ever popular stoning them to death. History is full of morbid examples. If there is a God, people have to admit these people had a point that "He" has not raised much of an objection heretofore of these people doing these things in His name, controlling people and societies by doing so, and their often making a pretty good living at it in the process. The other thing to consider, and I know the concept of faith means to suspend all the logic circuits, but to briefly consider the possibility that God does not exist or not in a way which we in this century can accurately conceive of the notion, in the sense that because a citizen of Egypt 6000 years ago can conceive of the job of Pharaoh does not mean he necessarily can grasp what being the leader of a parliamentary republic is all about, George W. not withstanding of course. Not to imply that God is elected, but that in some ways a president is like a pharaoh, in other ways he is like the guy who sells carpets, especially if he gets caught cheating on Mrs. Pharaoh. The concept is now a lot more complex on what it means to be the leader of a nation, and that concept has evolved over merely a few thousand years, whereas we are either millions of years behind understanding God if you count the past, or how we might understand the concept in the future. I don't mean to imply by that that people are evolving, heaven forbid, but that even the most devout people can agree that our concept of a political leader has evolved over the last 6000 years, and that hopefully they can agree we are getting more intelligent about a lot of things, so maybe our present concept of God might be tidied up a lot more, say 6000 years from now. That God may not exist or not exactly match even a silhouette of our current notions, and if you can concede the fact that many leaders throughout history have not been exactly the most completely sold on the idea, merely using the religion as an excuse to take whatever they want from others and saw it as a good path to power, putting it in this perspective, you might catch a glimpse of how much this concept has enabled the worst behavior, excused and exonerated it among the powerful by having co-opted the religions for political purposes, and the religions as well by being used and benefiting from that relationship to political power, as well as all the good things humble people have done in willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of others. The concept of God has been, at best, a two-edged sword, promoting the best and an excuse to do the worst.

The stronger you are, the more power you have, the greater the desire to rule, the need to rule. I know that insatiable feeling too well. There is another to balance that, the desire to impart that power to others, to make them stronger, eventually your equals, to give them more control. People always do the former while promising to do the latter, one day. The problem I have now is with the lies. Electronic voting, sham democracies, rigged elections, electoral systems where the public's will is manipulated by powerful groups so easily and often it is meaningless. They have no power, and are losing any real hope of ever gaining any power over their governments as well. Those who should guard against this, those who are supposed to have stopped it from deteriorating this much, have all been corrupted or blackmailed, either way, side-lined. Those who talk of giving power to the people, democracy, are making sure the blueprints ensure they will never have any power to challenge them or their heirs. That is what power is all about, keeping it and never sharing it, but making everyone think they still have it or never will lose it. Yet those who lose it, allow everyone to be beaten down never assuming it will be them and their children, are only getting what they deserve for being weak and stupid. It is not like they were not told or did not see it coming. (I saw a quote to the effect, completely unchallenged, that a committee in a country determined that voting over the internet was as safe and tamper proof as voting in voting stations. Maybe if you live in Florida. The reality is there has probably never been a generation in history more willing to sell their children and all other generations into virtual slavery having absolutely NO political rights via any means of controlling their own governments so they, the leadership, can make a quick buck off of selling them out in the present, all while promoting "democracy" and thinking they will be remembered as heroes of it. Self-delusion is after all a small price to pay for getting rich at the expense of others freedom whom you will never meet.)

Ignorance = profit. Criminalizing as much behavior as possible = as much potential profit as possible. Denying people access to as much as possible of what they want or need opens the door for someone to be able to charge them for it. If it was previously legal, the price was low. Simply by making something illegal, the potential for greater power and profit soars. Criminals get a new product line, police a new source of bribes, lawyers more cases, right on up the food chain! A whole new revenue stream for society is invented or created overnight. Moralists get something new to condemn their political opponents for, even after they get caught purchasing it on the side. At least they did not say it was right, so the moral high ground can still be claimed. Making collecting clean rainwater for drinking illegal in South America was a revelation! You can even make fresh water a black market product and criminals out of anyone who gives people a free or lower-priced extra day of life because they are costing a US corporation the ability to sell them that water and that day of life to them at a higher profit margin, over 1/3 their income just for water, or force them to drink contaminated water. Oh the unlimited profit potential all around just waiting to be tapped!!!

Power-hypocrisy meter -  The more power you have, the higher the mountain you can think or convince others you are on while actually able to go that amount much deeper than others into the depths of how low humanity can go.

Created by nature for the purpose of going beyond it. If not constantly increasing the limits of what is possible, surprising and surpassing the rest of the Universe, you are ultimately uninteresting, predictable, and a victim or pawn of those who will take the initiative to do so if you don't first. Anything that is not adapting faster is merely standing still in time like a tennis ball suspended in midair just waiting to be slammed by those whose speed is faster and thoughts are quicker. Senses such as sight and hearing were like new inventions, and nature is not as intent upon controlling and limiting improvements as humanity is. Greed has turned patents and copyrights into an excuse to hold back innovation among poorer people indefinitely because they are lengthened at will whenever profitable to do so, and new laws to control information benefits the richer countries which make the rules the rest must live by, or be starved economically and lose more control over their economy and property because of sanctions or less fair trade deals to sell their goods at world prices. When humanity seeks to control adaptation to benefit one group at the expense of others, it is becoming a retard of nature bound to fall behind a race the entire universe runs everyday. (If a minor researcher in a poor country came up with an almost free energy source which could put all the oil companies out of existence overnight, would he/she be able to market it? Would his creation and rights to it be accepted by richer countries? Could he give it away to benefit all humanity and turn the world economy upside down? If you think it would not be stolen, forced to sell it, or being killed and charged with theft of his own ideas from someone who did not invent it, and have it come under the control of the most powerful groups now to limit it as much as possible and profit from it as much as possible, you have no idea of how the world works today.)
Limit the knowledge of others to see and they will simply grow eyes in new ways others will pick up generations later as leftovers like other species picking up new tricks of ways of perceiving ones environment.

The Universe or myself purposely keeps knowledge away from me like a carrot on a stick, because without that, I would not bother to do anything. I neither want nor need existence, nor need power, money, nor even the desire to help people, beyond use as a means to linger awhile until my blind spot, intentionally created, is satisfactorily resolved. Until then, because of this grating, my willpower will grow unchecked until the Universe itself cries uncle and provides the explanation which I will not be denied, honestly and without excuses. Any other kind of power, wealth, or knowledge is insignificant and petty to me, and merely something to stand in my way, be used, or be overcome. Helping people is a side quest, and not an insignificant one, yet I in the end only am using all of existence as a means to an end, and time itself is becoming irrelevant. Common ideas of wealth and power are like kids who try to steal each others lunch money to me. The answer I seek ultimately cannot be found or determined in or by a single entire Universe's timeline from beginning to end, but it is a place to start.

Many to most politicians will "accidentally" pursue policies which exacerbate the problems they devoted and staked their careers on solving which is the basis of their power and public support. The greater the public alarm increases on those issues they have dedicated their careers to, the greater their star will rise, preferably all the way to the top. The last thing these people really want is for the problem to go away, the public to forget about them, and lose their meal ticket. The innocent people's lives these "mistakes" cost is a small price to pay for the greater good they can do once consolidating power. Sick!

Smoking, alcoholism, drug addiction, they are all the same. Lack of willpower, lack of self-respect. Creating their own miseries, to victimize themselves with needless pain and suffering out of misformed senses of identity and lack of positive feedback. There are those who will say they enjoy it, so why wish to stop? That is fine while they believe it. But the walls they build of circumstance and lessened potential they eventually notice if/when they try to stop. That lacking, that loss of control over their own behavior, loss of power over themselves and its ability to eat away at themselves and destroy their lives, to be cut down by it, that is ultimately just another experience to be learned from, hopefully not their last (experience) and can get beyond it before their addiction sucks ALL (the rest of) the life out of them.

Increasing peoples power to do good, or what you think is good, increases, ALWAYS, their abilities to do what you think is bad. Limiting that, trying to control it one way or another, is to take power away from them. If you don't see that as bad in and of itself, you have given up all right to judge others and deserve to be stripped of any claim to power yourself. The only people that deserve power know it is poison, and have no taste for it. All others will use it to inflict their values and opinions on others by force, take away their rights to decide for themselves how they ought to live and the right to define for themselves what they think is right or good.

More freedom means more responsibility. That is a catch-22 even the wisdom of Solomon cannot overcome. On one hand, the powerful would hate you (if you gave more people more freedom) for making people more free because they would be less controlled and less easily exploited. The people themselves would hate you for requiring them to take upon more responsibilities. It is so much easier to just say f*** it and let everyone sort it out the old fashioned way, with guns. Oh the good old days! Wait a minute, it is still the good old days. Only they weren't all that good. Die for freedom, kill for freedom, yet you get rooked every time out of it, so they grow another generation which won't remember (as clearly) how yours got screwed, and naive enough to fight in yet another bigger better bloodbath, not that they will be given any choice about it.

Culture = what you should want to do, what you should want to experience, what you think is valuable, what you should want to try to control and limit others access to, to "own" it. To manipulate and control peoples desires to "own" them. That is the power cultures seek to gain over others.

When might is thought to equal right, those who can and are willing to do the most harm, use that power to convince everyone that their doing so equals good and that it should be no other way, and that God himself sanctioned their deeds.

Seven deadly sins. 1) Lack of accountability- giving unassailable, unquestionable, and unverifiable election results guaranteed to destroy public trust and even if not completely drive them away from the political process (through apathy), leaves it wide open to manipulation by covert intelligence to put anyone in any numbers into power. 2) Mind control- Media manipulation is in its infancy, news content is provided by for-profit corporations unwilling to have their positions of power (and control of that) questioned, and public is already being softened with "positive" applications of memory control. 3) Breakdown of all legal principles- Backdating laws now has been done not only in countries with laughable commitments to rule of law but even the US which is thought to have established principles of justice. While laws can be rewritten to make actions illegal after the fact, anyone or any group can have laws written to be used as a weapon to target them regardless of their compliance with it. 4) Disregard of treaties- All human rights treaties are routinely shit upon with no negative consequences, countries back out of agreements unilaterally and generally international law is used only to punish weaker countries who pay a heavy price when it goes against them (which) the larger countries break routinely and profit from it. (3 left to go).

Humanity, countries, groups, would pay almost any price for one of any number of uninvented methods to completely destroy their own species. They crave it, they lust after it, they prize that power above all others. Offer them one of the rarer ways to prevent that from happening and even if it were accepted as viable, they would consider it worthless.

The original Jewish idea of God was sadistic enough to make everyone sufficiently afraid, self-righteous enough to be unquestionable, and demanding enough to justify genocide of all opponent "unbelievers". THAT, not lucky circumstances breaking in that direction, lead to offshoots of that religion, Christianity and Islam, to carve up the majority of bodies of this planet to be worshippers. Others left outside of them will hear crusaders and missionaries knocking on their doors. Already in India, we LITERALLY take their sacred cows, grind them into hamburger, and force them to watch people eating them in the streets in outdoor cafes. Unquestioning and losing the ability to question the "rightness" of such things does not give one power, it gives one ABSOLUTE POWER! With an idea of God vindictive and jealous enough to not only forgive murdering one's own children out of love for him, but to command it, then just say "Oh, I was just messing with you, but remember I must always come first in your heart or I will torture and kill them myself", with a concept of a "God" like that, who needs Satanists? You can satisfy your bloodlust the politically correct way. Hate these people, even kill them occassionally, and God will love you for it, he hates them too! Those who tried to work against such a view of God, even Jesus, were killed for it, and then ironically their lives were used to spread these concepts all over the globe, the very notions about God they were killed for speaking out against! Gotta love that! And the Gnostics, which he was probably part of, with a different positive idea of God, they were all hunted down to extinction with G.W. poised to crush the last ones left on the planet on the border between Iraq and Iran. Find out as Jesus did what happens when you try to go against the most sadistic view of God, it can even use your life, your metaphorical corpse, to spread itself further than ever.

I can't say I am more in step with the future than the present because whatever time you can imagine, there are potential ones after that, good futures and bad futures, and they are equally potentially real. I am definitely out of step with the present though. The worst tendencies of Man keep pace with technologies, use them to the hilt, profit from them, and exploit the hell out everyone and everything else with them. The political and religious structures and institutions are intentionally designed to always be dinosaurs, unchangeable and unable to keep up (with societies rapid and increasingly rapid changes) so they will forever be co-opted and taken over by the worst groups in a society. The difference between the good futures and the bad futures is at whose expense does your good times cost? In the bad futures, people don't think about that much, more power and control for you is the object, celebrated as a good thing, and others are there to serve you, whether openly as slaves or because economically they have no other choice. The good futures, far rarer, mean people want to share power equally, do not enjoy living in luxury beside their neighbors starving to death and homeless, do not get off on being able to buy anything or anyone, or make people humiliate themselves for your pleasure just because they are desperate (not making anyone do what you yourself would not wish to do). That is hardly an easy sell because as long as it is not you in the lower position, that is what people want, when they dare admit it to themselves, which is practically never or they would not enjoy it so much, and societies silence anyone who implies that is what they (the society as a whole) are doing by design or why they (the people) are enjoying it.

In this reality, no one no matter how powerful or strong willed can achieve anything politically without harnessing and using the desires of others for preferential treatment over everyone else. Leaders of parties or groups gain that leadership role by seeking out the most powerful in those groups and promise to increase their wealth and influence in exchange for their support for their own narrower agendas. If (the society or government is) semi-democratic, the political parties or groups seek out the most influential and wealthiest sub-groups of (that) society and promise them advantages politically or economically with contracts, licenses, permits, or lower taxes. They also promise to further that sub-groups desire to influence the culture sometimes in exchange for cash payments, sometimes in addition to them. The demise of broad based labor or populist parties is simply a reflection of narrower groups having more influence. It is like ratings. How many listen to or watch your programming is far less important than how much your audience as a whole earns. If 20% of the people earned 80% of the income, the opinions of 80% of the people would almost never matter. They are so well controlled with police, so easily manipulated if a developed country (without television it is harder to do), their opinions mostly will match what those who own the media wish them to be, and the highest influential group is those who control the media, and for that reason they will also be the wealthiest and have the best access and mutually profitable relationships with the political groups in charge. The names of politicians and sometimes the party in power changes, but those with the wealth create the groups that will best deliver them the goods, often others' goods, and then figure out how to package that into a party's agenda and sell it to a public used to limited political choices anyway. When greater power and control over others is the whole point of the leadership up and down the entire system to reward those who contribute to your base of power, "corruption" is a meaningless term, only a political tool to use against your opponents because it sounds bad and the public has no clue of the hypocrisy of that term relative to a political system which is institutionalized corruption at best, or at its best.

Just about everything in a society published is censored by at least two groups, publishing companies and its government. Publishers first and foremost censor what they wish to have associated with their name and reputation for. Is this too controversial or just plain badly written or done? If so, releasing too much of that type or even one notable exception which gets too much attention and they might go under (bankrupt, sold, hostile take over, or shut down by the government), and with them that work would vanish anyway due to rights which would fall into others hands and kill its publication. Governments wish to control what people are exposed to politically, though they call it protecting their culture, which is basically for good reasons and bad, the same thing, a political decision. Basically cultures are overtly attempted to be shaped and molded to what those currently in power wish them to be, or be thought of as by the people. In this sense they are the same thing because a culture simply is what most people believe it to be. The move to clamp down on the internet and self-publishing ought to be seen as a defense of smaller fewer groups to keep from losing their greater power to guide in a positive sense, to control in a negative sense, a culture to be thought of in THEIR terms first, foremost, and ideally to them, exclusively. When dissenting opinions get exposed to the general public, it enhances their potential to be believed and the current views of the leadership and mainstream media to be questioned or be thought wrong. That is why the internet will be harnessed like a plow horse, because open debate is not beneficial to the current policies or leaders.

The present leadership in any country in the world has neither the imagination nor the political base nor the will to do anything bold or unpredictably good, what I call good, for the equal benefit of all  countries (or even for the equal benefit of *ALL* of its own citizens),  setting the world off on a more stable and more sustainable direction. They oscillate only between trying to keep everything the way it is to appease the rich and powerful who gave them that position, or doing something they think is unpredictable, what I call bad, sudden movement to enlarge their power base at the expense of others. Since all countries plan to do those things equally, start wars, become more nationalistic (more "patriotic" when its your country), trade wars, disrupt each others economies with sanctions or boycotts, it hardly ever is unpredictable or comes as any big surprise to those who choose not to believe the lies of the rhetoric. We are like riding in an elevator that can only go down or not at all, a world civilization that for the moment can only get more greedy, nationalistic, and dictatorially militaristic, and to cover trying to profit from the situation rather than caring how to make it better or go away.

Just like power is a reversibly symmetrical notion to freedom, more power for you, less freedom for everyone else to oppose you, purpose is (reversibly symmetrical) as well. Keep most attention on your life as defined by you and everyone else becomes subservient to only how they further that notion or idea, instead of seeing the effects you have on others and thinking THAT is you. Both diametrically opposed views are also perpendicular, like spin to orbit to spin in the Omoglatron, not diametrically opposed angles of viewing which are the same from a higher dimensional point of view.

Power means never having your lies be able to be questioned while you wish, and therefore they will not be, even by yourself.

History is whatever those in power wish to say it was. The media and publishers controlling copyrights of past issues, to be able to make old copies slowly disappear from public view by not permitting reprints by others or allowing recycled reuse, combined with the constant deluge of "new" news replacing the old in peoples' minds and shelves makes "1984"(G. Orwell) style burning unnecessarily dramatic. A culture is what those in power wish to say it is, and if they have the help of the media, always in the hands of the most wealthy, the most powerful with the most wealthy define what that culture is all about,  usually to keep those in power in power, and to make those wealthy even more wealthy, that becomes the unconscious purpose and rallying point of the society. When the most wealthy and most politically powerful are one and the same, you may as well call it an aristocracy because that is what it is, not a democracy but an oligarchy. Anyone's individual "life" within this definition of culture and society is irrelevant. Anyone can be erased from history, recast in whatever light is the most useful at the time, and no one will publicly be able to be heard or treated fairly in the media who have a different opinion about him or her, and as the years go by, their opinions, if not forcefully modified or abandoned, will simply die with them. Truth used to be maintained by other cultures. When one got too heavily into book burning, censorship, or rewriting history, someone somewhere would try to keep alive some semblance of the truth. No more. The lies must now be universal and those telling them are deranged enough to think that universality will make them the truth. I say deranged because they do so in the name of God, justice, and truth. Nothing new there. They are just being challenged less as people, always cowards, are now bred and trained to be more docile than ever like farm animals, domesticated for service and slaughtered in wars whenever necessary. People in the West are allowed to be concerned about governments who control their medias. That is one of the few Soviet-styled controls of the population not adapted to the US in the last few years. They are NOT allowed to work against those who control the media from wanting to control the government and blinded by ideology and their own media's propaganda enough not to see that is not only just as bad, but potentially far worse.

The most applicable definition of power is simple to understand and uses only 9 words, "You will help us or we will kill you."

The monarchical model of government is natural, one group or branch, the law giver commanded by God to rule, and the others must obey that law. In this sense the US has become internationally a monarchy, the "king" country which sets the rules for others and is exempt from any itself if it chooses not to follow them. In the same sense, you could call the "Ten Commandments" the first Constitution and the religious clerics the first "lawyers" with the power to interpret it. "Ok, we can sell this to others, while figuring out loopholes to exempt ourselves from having to follow it at the same time." "Thou Shalt Not Kill!" "Good one!" "Ha ha ha." "Right! Sure, and exclusive control to "interpret" what that means to exempt ourselves while getting others to buy it, that one alone will deliver us our every wish!"

The societies we have are they way they are because they are built around fear. Fear of thinking for yourself, fear of saying what you think is truth, fear of believing you know what others more powerful than you are doing is wrong and have the right to even just say so, let alone to work for a society not as dysfunctional.

When people are unwilling or afraid to take a stand against laws, rules, guidelines, or requirements they know are wrong, that only encourages lawmakers to make more of them. The more that happens, the less it is thought the laws must make any rational sense whatsoever, and they become free do to with the law whatever they please. Injustice becomes gospel because of the precedents they set which are all their is that guides them when morality becomes whatever is profitable and the law, merely then a tool to use against those you do not like. That is power gone mad. That is our reality.

People instinctively now, they are trained so well, automatically look for a profit angle on any idea they are exposed to, not any longer "is it true or not", but which is the more profitable opinion to take, believe, or propose, which position if argued or believed will please those in power most and advance their careers. This is no longer even conscious in most, simply automatic as an instinct of survival, and noticing it in themselves is not profitable nor advantageous to their self-images. 

Give people, almost any group of people, more freedom of speech and they will ask their opponent groups to be silenced. Give them more power and they will use that power to weaken or control others they do not like or care for. Give them autonomy and they will work to suppress (often at any cost) others drives for more autonomy within their new regions. When people are this predictably bad, how can anyone help them work together as a whole? They see no whole, no commonality, only look for the means to take more from others so they will have more for themselves. No political party is ever able to benefit all of society equally as a whole as its first aim, always their group of backers first who put them there (in office) to increase their own standing over others within that society. Since even societies within themselves are crippled to treating their own members by their own governments truly and always equally, what hope is there that all societies might ever try to do so in regards to each other, especially (towards) weaker countries they can make dance however they wish at the drop of a hat? 

Making the world better is the easiest thing to do in the world, and each and every person always knows exactly how to do so. The only thing that is difficult is how to convince the people who benefit the most from the most horrible things about the world the way it is, that it is in the interests of their children as well to start making these changes now, not to put it off for another time no one may ever see. Doing as you should in the present, helping as many as you can now, trumps whatever you hope can be achieved further along which should not be attempted to be controlled by any now, and if you achieve it, it merely is paid for at the cost of others choices, hardly worth celebrating outside your own ego. There is a machine-like quality to how the world is becoming organized, simply control everything people need to survive, cut off all avenues for them to get around your obstacles, and make yourself the kind of people and the world the machine knows cannot be changed by even who runs it, to destroy the individuality of others to create the worlds they wish, while claiming to do so to enshrine and protect it and them. 

When you begin to suspect everything you have been told, that anything you have been told might be lies, about God, your country's motivations, your political ideologies, merely lies to get you to think the way others have decided you should think, believe what others have decided you should believe, behave the way others have decided you should behave, make sacrifices for others benefits which are not people as a whole, but for a privileged few who control your or all societies, you can begin to think for yourself and come up with your own ideas of truth, though no other may ever be allowed to hear them, speak them, or believe them, which are untainted by the lies and political manipulations to get you to serve people without honor and without truth. Those who can and most certainly do prevent the public from ever hearing unauthorized versions of any truths. People who owe their positions of power only to their lies and their abilities to control what a society as a whole thinks by what they are allowed to know, read about, and think about. Publics with the ability to decide on their own, ideas and ideals, able to surmount their societies constant attempts to manipulate how they think, capable of truly thinking for themselves, those in power fear this more than anything, and their political survival depends on getting less powerful people to hate each other and fight amongst themselves. That keeps humanity from ever progressing to enrich human lives, honor, and self-respect, and themselves securely on top. 

Real people dying, starving, forced by circumstances into economic slavery, prostitution, selling their organs or children, that is truth. Why the world must be that way, why we turn a blind eye to the fact that these things happen only because of the way the world is structured which hypocritically says "oh these things are terrible", those are all interpretations often having no truth. Change to keep all such things from occurring is always at hand and only kept back by all those with power telling us how much they hate such things, but what can be done? And all their cures, privatizing their peoples resources, selling them water and food where before it was free or they could grow food themselves without having to pay anyone, the "cures" we prescribe for them always profits our companies and us and leaves them more screwed than they were before. Social Darwinism is alive and well and is now the real mantra of the world. 

If you wish people or societies to be good, you must constantly reward and nurture their natural tendencies to want to do or be good. Time, events, and natural aging will force the biology and DNA to control their behavior, to think of themselves first and foremost, and often paramount. Goodness is a struggle to hold onto, not naivete, but innocent wide-eyed wonder and belief of a future that will and must always be better and better in the face of all that would divert it to apsire toward something lower than the sky (the heavens), how those in power will convince us how things must be, must remain that way because they are or were that way, and away from that higher level we need to constantly work toward and to keep our focus on, to reach the highest and best potentials of all humanity. 

Of all the countries, Russia is in a position to go from relative worst to first in terms of public confidence in its fairness of its democracy and institutions, but it is unlikely to ever happen. Politics there like so many other places has devolved into how to keep those in power now in power, if not for perpetuity, for as long as they so desire. That is the yardstick they measure the success of their policies against. What is best for the people or nation is a secondary goal at best. It may not be as dangerous to the rest of the world as Bush's attempts to keep his party in power indefinitely, but Russia is in far worse shape to weather a perpetual forecast of greed followed with a flooding of corruption, and never a ray of hope or sunshine of how things will ever become any different any time soon. 

When people think their society has a genuine interest in helping them achieve their own modest goals, they are more likely to work for the benefit of others and feel a sense of belonging and brotherhood with them. When a society works against this, breaks down the sense of obligation to help one another, people become less likely to be concerned of the welfare of others and answer it more and more truthfully with "Why should I help them when I know I cannot count on them to help me?" This deteriorates the foundations of societies, sets everyone eventually against each other, and benefits the worst people (in that society) and plays to humanities worst instincts. That this is being most forced upon other nations (to think in those terms) by the "Christian" right, should have by now made it apparent that labels mean nothing to the truth of what is being done. Evil is most effective when done in the name of Heaven and God. Anyone knows most often there is the selfish thing to do and the right thing to do, but now those who hold the most powerful positions always benefiting themselves and their friends convince us that it is also the right thing to do, not only by appealing to our logic and compassion, but bribing us that they will enrich us while screwing those less fortunate than ourselves and offer a place at their feast off of those weaker will be made for us if we go along with it. 

More than likely the global geopolitical model will change often over the next 500 years should humanity in any form of the word survive. Sometimes to more economically just models, sometimes to ones even more socially Darwinistic because more openly (less hypocritically) committed to injustice than the one today. To takes stands for and against these if fine and necessary to some degree, but some like me must remind people they (the global political/socio-economic models) are only what can be achieved by what most people can imagine and aspire to, balanced against what the most powerful are able to take, for they will always be willing to take more than they need. 

If you were too bright relative to others, what almost any government or society would use you to do, 
99% of it would be bad. How to advance or enrich them or those in control of that society over other groups or limit your ability to help other groups to become nearer in wealth or power to them if they are the ones with the current advantage. This is all the knowledge people in large groups value, and all they really understand and reward their members for advancing. Those who advance a few are given wealth. Those who advance the many without much to become equals destroys the power base of the current system and to the degree they can achieve it more than any other, become eventually its greatest enemy simply because of wanting to help those whom your society hypocritically says it wants to help too, but truly doing so is the last thing on their list, and helping themselves over all others is always the first and highest priority. The brightest are subdued to help only them, harnessed, or extinguished. 

Law - rules written and agreed mutually between the most powerful and influential within a society for the benefit of governing their interactions between EACH OTHER to prevent constant gang wars over each other's "territory" or "interests". Weaker are not consulted except perfunctorily because 1) they do not matter, and 2) they are what is divided up for influence and traded between the most powerful groups or members, the goods or spoils of who gets to exert the most control over them (to sell to them or to control them outright) to keep the ones who make the laws be able to co-exist with each other in relative peace by not directly challenging each others bases except in regards to divvying who gets to control the trade with the weaker ones, whether in above markets (international trade) or black markets (of city streets). When one party gets substantially stronger, the other powerful groups must more and more admit that party is now in a better situation, no longer (their) equal but has now moved to a higher orbit where they are able to transgress the rules more often (than) the others who defined the laws before, because they are as much above them now as they (the others who did not move up) are above the weaker groups. Examples: M$, USA foreign policy. 

Recapping economic notes thus far... Helping or being able to advance the wealth or interests of fewer numbers, usually the wealthiest who can buy or control what you offer can usually, if you can keep it from being stolen by them outright, give you great wealth. The fewer who benefit, the greater the "value" to a society. Helping everyone or the largest group possible, making poorer people less poor, and the less easy it is to control and limit what you have to offer, can usually get you a bullet. This is why the wealthy of a region where aid helps those affected by a natural disaster will naturally step in and say, "Hey, wait a minute, what do you think you are doing here? Whatever you give to them (the poorer), you have to give even more to us or you are upsetting the natural balance of our society and our ability to control them. We cannot have this disaster empowering them to be in a situation better than they were in before or they will be able to demand concessions from us or afford to strike or take collective action somewhere down the road." And if the aid is coming from wealthier countries, they can rightly say, "You don't want that either because it will negatively affect your economies too, a trickle up effect affecting your investments in potentially other (poor) regions as well." Helping the poor within a society or making them poor nations substantially less poor inevitably makes it more difficult to control them and less able to tell their governments what policies to purse in line with richer countries interests in their assets which they covet as well, and often own (them) more than those nations ever can afford to own themselves, making them in effect, bound to be poorer neighborhoods of richer city-"states" which can dictate their policies in their own interests, and not in the interests of those in that country. Those ruthless barons we do not like benefit us economically and always have. The greater their control, the greater opportunity for richer outside groups to benefit from their willingness for exploiting their own publics. They rightly say "help them at your own risk," and these groups will always be given more aid than the desperate of that region to keep the socio-economic situation "stable". As said best before previously (in notes 3), what people would only do for great sums of money is usually what ought not to be done at all. From prostitution to contract killing, the more horrible what people are asked to do, the more society will value it and pay them for it. That is the true economic basis societies are built upon. You cannot be richer unless there are others poorer, you cannot be strong unless others are weaker, the more powerful you become, the less power others must have and give to you to do as you say. As a group, you cannot raise yourself above others without pushing someone else down. You either work for greater equality or work for profit or increasing the control or influence of others to do as you (or a few others) wish more than they wish, or control what they wish for.

The greatest and possibly the only difference between a political despot and a humanist humanitarian is the amount of power they have and the length of time they have held it. 

Anti-history Book - history books positive about human development which enabled civilizations to grow (and that this was good), (and are written) from the point of view of winners who ethnically-cleansed (in the same area), starved to death, and murdered all competing civilizations. Anti-history would show would show how these "civilizations" we celebrate would look from the points of view of all these destroyed, often more peaceful and developed civilizations not as savage (as our "winners" were.) Portraying organizations for mass murder, modern warfare, destruction of others food supplies, as equally important for our societies existences. Slavery, colonization, ethnic cleansing of indigenous populations, and the religious justifications and motivations for organizing people for doing so, (showing these) equally held up as "advancements" as the domestication of animals and the harvesting of crops. A full complete version of the "flowering" of civilization including the shit it sprang from and the bullshit in needs to keep the hypocrisy and exploitation moving full-steam ahead without regrets and leaving a trail of idealized "positive" history behind which is as much lies as it is social propaganda to keep people from wondering about their past in a way that would expose itself to knowledge, which if told honestly, would drive people to make the current heir policies of such brutality, the civilized false facade it wears, make them wish to stop because the disguise (how what we do now traces the same line) would no longer fool anyone. 

Gotta love ideologies power to make some people stupid and others rich... 
East Europe 1985: "Capitalism is an evil. Communism is your best path to a better future. Now please ignore that we are only using this as an excuse to keep ourselves perpetually in power and keep ourselves rich." 
East Europe 2005: "Socialism is an evil. A market-economy is your best path to a better future. Now please ignore that we are only using this as an excuse to make our friends obscenely wealthy while you become poorer than you ever dreamed possible while we buy yachts and move to better countries after leaving office. You can revolt against us of course, but only to people who will pursue the same path as us, only more rapidly, while you morons can think your choice prevailed and you won something other than to be yet again more screwed than you were before." 

If I were to achieve the best possible goal, every normal person anywhere in the world being smarter and having more accurate knowledge than myself in less than 40 years, not only would authoritarian governments become impossible to manage, but all the political technologies and institutional devices and structures designed to prevent the majorities in countries to have greater influence over their governments policies than its wealthiest elites who now treat their government's representatives like lapdogs, these structures to prevent true democracy from appearing would constantly be exposed, districting, divisiveness, electronic voting fraud, loss of exit polling and parallel official counts, anything which prevents the most supporters from having the greatest representation, the politically charged and corrupted courts, they would not find fertile soil to grow. The world system as always is founded on and revolves around (and depends on) ignorance. 

For those who cannot have children of their own, for whatever reason, know them to be capable, that within their possible despair over this, they can more easily attain a higher perspective upon life. We are not socially far removed from a group of monkeys where the head monkey of the group is solely motivated over the long term, besides having a good time, to jockeying that his heirs will also inherit his position and control over the group if he has secured it for himself. The world's current head baboon, not withstanding any relevance to anything else, this is why higher education is often distributed first and best to mainly the children of wealthier groups. Lessening its universal availability, like so many other things, makes it more valuable, and thus not only can you build an economic system around it, higher salaries for less work for instructors, but you can count on the less bright of the higher-ups never having the lowly positions their incompetence would suggest would be in the best interests of all. For those not trapped in this biological circle of trying to ensure that those of a generation or many more ahead, unfortunate enough to share a microfragment of their DNA with you, have the best jobs to tell everyone else how great you were and show respect for your memory or else, these people can more easily see all others who can be affected by anything which we do, build schools, improve working conditions, all of these people are equally our offspring because they will be affected more by our existences than just a biological link to someone in an inferior-to-them's past they don't want to remember or give a shit about anyways. People should see their legacy in deeds alone and not their offspring as their ticket to immortality. They are a part of everyone they meet and affect as well, as much as their children's lives are a part of them. 

The only thing that will ensure that any peoples survive the next century is a world based on inviolable international law and not which country or groups of countries have the most or worst weapons of mass destruction. 

Spiegel’s book (The Dreaded Comparison: Human vs. Animal Slavery) I finally read after having it around many weeks, does a good job of showing humanity's true colors. It traces the line of exploitation and asks the right questions about whether this is a part of human nature. The focus (on how it is done) just shifts but the streak it represents is ever present, from native peoples, blacks, poorer countries, its evolution (exploitation) into a science, how to keep people happy in perpetual bondage. How to put a few locals into elites of power, give them the weapons and wealth to force all others to have to work for them, so much less incendiary than foreign "ownership" of them, and then send in our factories to reap the rewards of the people they have "broken in". Train their police forces in torture and other means, random arrests, tortures not for information but as displays of power, and most of all creating new markets for more weapons sales. The greatest hypocrisy of all that I have seen, no doubt minor because my information is sporadic and limited, was the sale (or proposed sale) of Apache attack helicopters not to the Chinese army but to the Beijing police department! Decry Tiananmen Square yet sell them a machine capable of killing thousands of civilians in minutes, what of course are profits for if not for killing all who would stand in up against a friend of our corporations. But then again all police departments need anti-personnel helicopters with machine guns in countries where few to none have weapons but are learning how to make posters.

We, all who exist, whoever existed before, whoever will come later, were all born slaves, even its rulers, to whatever system existed which lead to our creations, however just or unjust, and are raised to propagate and continue that system. Few ever have the power to even affect it substantially, never mind to remake it into anything better. Yet that is the dream we have, the big lie we are told in all movies, government propaganda, education programs, that the machine (of society) responds to us, that it cares what we think, and we can make a difference. No machine or system really provides that (ability to change itself) for long. All are dependent upon selling the illusion that it changes when it never really does. The truth of the matter is the most power usually lies with the most barbaric peoples and policies, hidden behind the most elaborate smokescreen which can be afforded, invented, or devised at the time, to make everyone cheer their lack of ability to influence it (if they find it does not really ever change) and that perfection (in the type of government and economic system) has arrived and complacency to just accept it is finally warranted, no matter how many other billions are suffering just outside your sight. The machine cares about them, it always claims, yet it admits it cannot truly help them, ever. They are a necessity to be helped forever ineffectively. (Most development aid is aimed at making the richest in a poor areas richer, controlling their peoples better, then to send in our companies to collect what the local bosses reap from their "human" harvest, not to aid those who are the most poor there to instead not to have to work for them, ever, (where would be our profit incentive in that?) for usually it is the most barbaric people who rise to the top in the horrible conditions to be found there in the chaos, and have become rich off of it. They are who we will aid, and they wll reward us back with a cut of their profits from their "harvests" which we will give them the means to let them reap them. Without limiting population growth, it not only will always devolve to this, it will only find new ways of getting far more barbaric than anyone living now can imagine.)