One of the greatest paradoxes of our age is that countries like the USA and UK are, to a very limited extent, democracies. And yet, just about every political decision taken by these countries in the last 37 years, at the very least, has increased the powers of the Invisible Government while eroding the health, wealth, liberty, and happiness of the vast majority.

How have they gotten away with recklessly risking the physical and biological foundations of life itself? How in heaven’s name has the vast majority served as cheerleaders for their own impoverishment? The answer to such questions is that the American edifice of exploitation, parasitism, enslavement, perpetual warfare, and ecocide rests on massive, mutually-supporting pillars.

My encyclopedia and many articles I wrote about this subject establish the existence of just one pillar: Smears, incarcerations, and assassinations. Assassinations by themselves might work in a pure dictatorship. But in a system that has democratic pretensions, murders must be supplemented by other pillars. Here then is a glimpse of these pillars:

1. Cloak and Dagger: This pillar is obviously the focus of our interview. To secure more power and riches for its members, the Invisible Government often resorts to smears, incarcerations, and murders. It not only silences or murders its influential opponents, but it also targets innocent bystanders who might pose a threat to its power and goals. Also, when this serves its interests, the Invisible Government is perfectly willing to destroy junior members of its own cabal.

2. Reign of the Psychopaths: Apart from marginal, small-scale, instances of real democracies, all current political and economic systems on earth are conducive to the rise to power of conscience-less, irresponsible, self-seeking psychopaths. “We must admit to ourselves,” says Mike Krieger, “that there are truly evil geniuses out there, and in most cases these characters have taken control of the power structure.”

3. Total control of the banking system and of the issuing and coining of money. The critical importance of this aspect is captured in this article and in John Acton’s aphorism: “The issue which has swept down the centuries, and which will have to be fought sooner or later, is the people versus the banks.”

3. Sunshine Bribery: Eric Margolis’ witticism captures the sleaze of global politics: “It’s often cheaper to buy a legislator than a second-hand car.”

4. Information: From the movie, music, book, and school “industries,” to radio, TV, and newspapers, to online and offline encyclopedias, to bought experts and fake dissidents, to online search engines and social media—the Invisible Government controls most of our sources of information. As a result, all of us are, in varying degrees, denizens of Huxley’s Brave New World.

5. Human Nature. The Invisible Government capitalizes on a vast array of human failings to sustain and augment its riches and power. Here are just two examples of such failings. To begin with, we are all manifestly susceptible to indoctrination. This weakness is in turn exacerbated by the tendency to cling to “our” convictions in the face of overwhelming evidence against them.

Carl Sagan once said:

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

6. Controlled, Manipulated, Trivialized, and Rigged Elections. “If voting made any difference,” Mark Twain observed, “they wouldn’t let us do it.”

7. Broken Electoral Promises. In the absence of real democracy, there is a vast gap between what politicians and parties pledge before elections and what they deliver after elections. Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Donald Trump, for instance, promised peace but, once elected, served the Invisible Government. Through guile, false-flag operations, and propaganda, they dragged (or, in Trump’s case, beginning to drag) their country to catastrophic wars.

8. Leading, Infiltrating, and Co-Opting the Opposition. This strategy incorporates Lenin’s alleged dictum that “the best way to control the opposition is to lead it.” Indeed, case-by-case studies show that most so-called reform organizations, alternative media outlets, and leading dissidents, serve the interests of the Invisible Government.

Here is Hegel’s compatriot and personal acquaintance, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer:

Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan, who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who thus joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of a whole generation.’ “

Nothing indeed is new under the sun. You only need to replace Hegel with such establishment-promoted “leading dissidents” as Chomsky, Zinn, Goodman, or the Cockburn brothers, to describe contemporary realities.

9. Contrived Terror and false-flag Operations. Thomas Jefferson commented on the adverse effects of wars on liberty and prosperity: “Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.”

10. The Conspiracy Theory Bogeyman. Most people had been taught what to think, not how to think. Hence, and thanks to the CIA-ingenious invention of the “conspiracy theory” mumbo jumbo, they cannot readily emerge from the cave of political illiteracy.