Saturday 30 March 2013

Our three weapons are...

Whatever came first or followed is not important, but the easiest model by far to understand world government cooperation, from the UN to local councils and everywhere in between, is the structure of the mafia. The three weapons, already discussed, are sticks, carrots and silence. The sticks and carrots, threats and bribes are fairly self evident, but the silence on the surface may be, but goes so deep to the roots of the human soul itself, it needs its own analysis.

Nearly all criminal structures involving a group have a pyramid structure, of a few dirty sods running the show, some thick arses second in command taking orders, like the concentration camp guards, and the thick bottom of unwilling but passive followers. The most important element they provide is maintaining silence. Bernie Madoff and Enron had offices full of staff, many who joined thinking they were genuine outfits (Enron was until they got into trouble and tried to 'fix it'), discovered the truth sooner or later, and (as demonstrated by the many years of successful trading before accidentally being found out for both companies) at the very most may have dropped the odd hint to the authorities anonymously which were never enough to find anything incriminating.

There are many elements of illusion and diversion, as all magicians know and exploit for entertainment only, and a branch of the same elements of mental weakness as silence are false threats. The EU is a wonderful example of making up impossible to qualify statements which enough people accept as they are offered with authority. The standard list of consequences the insiders roll out in opposition to any challenges a country would be better off out are so vague and empty any child studying economics or history could see through them in moments if it was part of their current work, but they successfully convince any waverers throughout the community, including the many whose countries lose billions a year as a direct result of membership, so every single claim is void as besides the equally empty absence of a European war (as we go to war with countries outside Europe instead who are even worse than the current generation of Germans, most of the time anyway) the figures speak for themselves. So ignorance is a feature of the power used to exploit the public, as even when a claim is as easy to refute as taking your socks off and counting your toes, the general public can't be arsed to take a single extra step to question authority so blindly accept it if it needs one or more.

Similar threats drive the silence, as whisteblowers throughout history have generally tended to end up with their severed heads on poles or at the bed of a river than the tiny remainder as heroes such as Silkwood, although many still go through hell and severe persecution, before the few left finally win their cases and get media exposure. People go to work to support themselves and usually their families, so there is a lot at stake for almost certainly losing your job before anything more sinister is considered. But that culture of silence, that which allowed the IRA to operate for decades as they'd shoot the kneecaps of any informers, and the mafia who will not just kill the informer but their families as well, is only watered down in lower levels of violence but equal in criminality. It is impossible for a fraud to be discovered a decade or more afterwards (23 years in the case of the Hillsborough police rewriting witness statements)  without a collective acceptance of protecting the wrongdoers rather than risk any retribution. The methods to enforce the silence vary from those already mentioned, threatening witnesses, saying nothing but being such an absolute bastard it's not worth the risk of crossing them, and basically anything which tips the balance between doing the right thing and avoiding trouble. The empty threat method however actually applies to the vast majority of organisations in reality, as the only difference between the others and the real mafia is very few would dream of using violence or even the standard political fare of smear campaigns. But when ordinary law abiding people discover they are working for crooks they don't see shades of grey but instantly think of The Godfather and besides the valiant few, many of whom are actually dismissed by the authorities so arguably they are either involved or immune as well, assume their lives are at risk, or their incomes at least, so join the dark side. Passive acceptance of crimes is no different in effect to carrying out the actual hits, especially when you consider the mafia themselves tend to delegate the actual murders to others, but in a conspiracy everyone is judged equally.

But as always in these lessons, knowing the methods are sufficient to avoid them entirely. Unless you find you are working for the mafia or IRA then there'll never be a single reason to shut the hell up, as that job you're doing which turns out to be based on stealing lead from old people's rooves and stealing their jewellery when you ask to use their phone or toilet, isn't going to last that long anyway as crooks running any kind of business tend to stop when they reach the target and pack up before their luck runs out. In fact only by the lower staff keeping quiet when a single tipoff could close the place down, protect many victims and probably get a reward, people only think of the negatives which in fact only tend to happen in Italy or the rougher cities of America. Otherwise in the west at least the police tend to be only involved in a small minority running protection rackets and payoffs for drug gangs to operate their patch, and almost always at the lower levels, so absolutely no excuse not to do so. Temptation is another non-religious situation described in the bible, and these temptations of originally decent people will dirty their souls until they repent and come back to the good side.