Of COURSE there are various groups of businessmen and miscellaneous political groups of various stripes who would like to be the ones in control of the nation, or the whole world for that matter, and who are, indeed, vying for control.

'Twas ever thus.

But in any political discussion here on the 'Cat, there are a couple of people in particular who can be counted on to jump in and tell us that any discussions of issues and candidates are pointless and futile because THEY (often assuming that you already know which particular all-powerful group of bogey-men they're referring to) are in total control and that if we sufficiently deluded into thinking that we can do anything about it or that our vote means anything, then we are naïve fools. It's all a foregone conclusion, so just forget it.

And when you ask them to be a little more specific, as in "who, exactly, are these people you say are in absolute control?" they tend to attack you as being either part of the plot or an idiot child.

I don't know how many times I've heard "The Bilderberg Group" cited on these threads. If you know anything at all about business, you know that groups of business leaders like this are always getting together to discuss things, AND if at all possible, GUIDE things their way. Most of them operate in the open. Some are as small as your local Chamber of Commerce and amount to little more than getting together for lunch periodically, while some are international private cartels seeking to become public cartels (by buying a sufficient number of politicians).

All of this is to maximize profits, while at the same time protecting their butts when they try to do something shady.

Business as usual. To try to claim that any one of these self-interest groups is so all-powerful that they can control the commerce of the nation, or of the entire world, intentionally cause wars and depressions, and all that, is to put them into the category of the kind of paranoid fantasies that some folks are so fond of, like the ones I list above.

DO NOT TRY TO TELL ME THAT NOTHING CAN BE DONE! WE ARE HELPLESS!

I DON'T BUY IT!

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

The statement that "you can't fight City Hall!" is a piece of propaganda circulated by City Hall!

(By the way, michaelr, I'm not addressing this to you specifically. It is a GENERAL observation of the way the world works. Or doesn't, as the case may be.)

Busy the rest of the day. I have a meeting with a number of people this afternoon.

Don Firth