by HypnoKatie » August 31st, 2014, 7:24 pm
Not to get sidetracked into politics/history, but...
[quote="lew897"]Just so you know, the Illuminati just wanted to bring the truth out that god didn't exist.[/quote]
It's a lot more than that, and that's a pretty big misinterpretation of it too. Adam Weishaupt, the founder of it, was a deist. Not an atheist; outright atheism was extremely rare and treated as basically crazy until an alternative origin for man came into the public eye with Darwin. Weishaupt's conception of god was as a sort of hands-off divine craftsman who fashioned an orderly, measurable universe that it's up to us to discover.
It was really more about the monarchy, and the church that propped them up. What the historical Illuminati were was a group of, mostly, academics and writers who embraced the emerging Enlightenment theories of liberalism, secularism, etc. That their ideas and those of the merchant class (OMG BANKERS!!!!11) coincided aren't surprising at all, ideas like the divine right of kings rather than right to rule by wealth or merit was a threat to the merchant class' own advancement in society.
[quote]So, I really don't understand why people believe they are controlling people.[/quote]
Ultimately it goes back to uber-right-wing royalist fearmongering from the late 17/\[url=(https?:\/\/[^\s\[]+):$uid\](.*?)\[\/url:$uid\]/i/\[url=(https?:\/\/[^\s\[]+):$uid\](.*?)\[\/url:$uid\]/is, but it was revived by groups like the fascists (the more elite factions of which, like Vittorio Emanuele and many of the older Prussian officers, longed for feudalism) with "Jews" of course being behind it all, and the John Birch Society during the Cold War with "communists" being their agents. The latter is the source of most of the American conspiracy community, including Alex Jones. So, basically, it started as just a political scapegoat that plays on ignorance, and some people adamantly believed it. And so the meme continues.
[quote]Which is a part of why we succeeded from the Brits, freedom, liberty and justice.[/quote]
More because the British government favored their merchants over our merchants, and imposed taxes which we had to resort to smuggling to get around. Economic reasons were what drove Sam Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and their actions got the ball rolling.
[quote="lew897"]Or so I hear... at this moment the government can tap all of our computers, create riots in peace marches, and steal peoples saveings with the Fed.[/quote]
Which can all be summed up with one thing: your interests and theirs don't coincide. If leaders can get away with exploiting you, unfortunately, most will. And they'll pull out whatever stops they can to preserve that exploitation, including tapping phone calls (the NSA revelations), infiltrating opposition movements (COINTELPRO against the civil rights and peace movements and other stuff like that), etc.
[quote]It does feel like the more I learn the more the big government wants to keep control to only a few idiots.[/quote]
Elites in any society want to keep control to themselves, that's how they keep their power. :p And in this case, we have to look at stuff like campaign finance, government contracts, banking loans, all kinds of other things that make our system of government basically held by corporate pursestrings.
[quote="lew897"]Obama wont even admit that Putin is the second coming of Hitler.[/quote]
Honestly, I can't see that he is. There are some similarities, sure; he rose to power promising order and security after a national humiliation and during a period of deep economic suffering, he's authoritarian and nationalistic. But he doesn't seem to have the burning populist hatred or genocidal imperialism that Hitler had; if he did it seems more like he'd try for all of Ukraine instead of cutting it short at the eastern provinces once his dwindling poll numbers were sufficiently drummed up.
Plus, his record before this has been exactly what I'd expect of some generic chauvinistic-but-smart Russian conservative. Appeals to nationalism to appeal to the anti-liberal and anti-imperialist sentiments common among Russians, while maintaining a pretty integrated role in the Western-dominated geopolitical/world trade system. Simply representing an alternative neoliberalism, one that wants Russia's oligarchy in charge rather than America's but that isn't willing to overturn the whole world geopolitical system (and thus the bedrock of their own power) to achieve that.
The system he's set up and sentiments he's lent legitimacy to have the potential to create a Russian Hitler in the near-future, with the people looking for a strong leader to step into the post-Putin vacuum. And I doubt Medvedev, basically his designated heir, has the gravitas to be that strong leader. But nothing Putin's done tells me he'd play that role himself. He seems much more like a Bismarck.