If the rest of us are to succeed in taking back the world from the .001% we must become clear about our values, the key issues, and our strategies. I argue that some form of democratic socialism must replace the current system of capitalism if the core values of true progressives are to be implemented in society. While we need to mount an aggressive assault against the .001%, the strategies must be non-violent.

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The most significant struggle in the world today is not the one taking place between the sexes, between Blacks and whites, between gays and non-gays, between NATO and the BRIC nations, or between Trump supporters and Trump haters. The struggle between Democrats and Republicans is of even less importance. The primary significant conflict in the world today is between a very small economic elite and the rest of us. The elite don't really much care whether you're black or white, male or female, gay or straight, Republican or Democrat, or from Tanzania or Brazil: if you are not wealthy, you are there to be sucked dry if you are in some way useful to them, or eliminated if you are not.

Yes, there is a conspiracy

The .001% does not want us to believe that they get together to make plans for their continuing and expanding supremacy. Such a notion, they would have us believe, is a figment of the imagination of people they call "conspiracy theorists." A "conspiracy" as I understand it, consists of a set of coordinated activities that are planned in secret -- hidden from the eyes of those whom the plans will affect. It is clear that there are people doing a lot of planning in a variety of right-wing think-tanks. I'm not sure whether they have aliens from other galaxies helping them, or what connection they might have with ancient cults and the Illuminati. Anything is possible. The conspirators look like plain old self-serving rich capitalists to me. It is at least clear that they are not socialists. But a conspiracy there is.

Interestingly, the people and organizations that do the conspiring are not difficult to identify. Lists of those attending the Bilderberg meetings will suffice to keep one up-to-date with the most prominent members. In addition to the Bilderberg group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission might be the next most important planning groups. With regard to organizations for carrying out the plans of the Council, the Bilderberg, the Trilateral groups and the other right-wing think-tanks, we would point to NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the WTO (World Trade Organization). Unfortunately, at this point one has to admit that, for the most part, the United Nations has been co-opted by the economic elite. It is not the democracy of nations that it was intended to be.

My list of think-tanks and organizations is certainly not meant to be exhaustive. I'm simply suggesting that the conspirators, their think tanks, and the organizations by which they carry out their plans are not mere fantasies in the minds of a lunatic fringe. They are absolutely real, and they are out there in plain sight. That many people fail to see what is right in front of their faces is primarily because their minds are distracted and confused by the mainstream media. This media includes the New York Times, the Washington Post, Fox News and CNN, all of which deliver their news neatly wrapped in propaganda. As news, entertainment and propaganda become increasingly fused, Hollywood supplements the official news sources with banal, violent and mindless portrayals of reality -- portrayals that are geared to create pro-American-Empire images in the minds and emotions of the viewers.

The aims of the elite include a single world government with a single global marketplace, policed by a world army, and financially regulated by a world bank on the basis of a single currency. Aspects of the vision of the .001% are appealing at first glance. If the UN did represent a real democracy of nations, and it controlled the military forces of the world, the world would be a safer place. And if the entire world were integrated into a single complex marketplace with a single currency, the exchange of goods and services worldwide would be enhanced. The rub is that the elite wants the centralized economic and military control to exist without any accountability to the general population. This is to assure that the wealth will flow upward much faster that it will trickle down. An additional aim is the raising of the .001% to god-like entities in accordance with a transhumanist vision of who they might become. As Daniel Estulin sums it up in Transhumanism [pg. 126] the elite have great plans for the future: Promethiam plans. The downside is that we, the people, have not been invited to the party."

The strategies of the .001%

The strategies used by the .001% are based on violence, mind control, and the usurpation of democratic processes. Violence includes the threat of attack against any nation or group who would resist their orders, as delivered by the United States, and the use of actual violence against those who do not buckle under in response to the threats. The .001% are especially skilled in agitating conflict between those who might have reason to oppose them. Mind control is carried out primarily by the mass media which carefully shapes the image that ordinary people have of the world. The central means of usurping democratic processes is the buying of elections.

The .001% are very good at what they do, and their wealth gives them tremendous power. This creates the impression that they are omnipotent. They are not. Not only do they make mistakes, but they have three major points of vulnerability. First, they are a tiny minority. Second, the structure that they have built is based on lies. Third, we, the people, can choose the battle field. More on this third point later.

The ideal economic form for the elite is unfettered capitalism, or the neoliberal model as it is presently called in the West. Unfettered capitalism always leads to mergers, and mergers lead to monopolies, and monopolies lead to the control of the world by a tiny elite, which is precisely what we now see. Unfettered capitalism is parasitic to the core. [See my article, We Are the Parasite in OpEdNews, yurl.com/m74syje ]. The world cannot survive a parasitic economic system that places no value of any kind above that of immediate profit for wealthy investors. Such a parasite, which has at its disposal the power of modern technology, will inevitably kill the host.

The economic elite is currently ruling the Western world, and is attempting to force itself on the few nations that still resist its control. This small group of people is powerful, savvy, well-organized, clear about its goals, and is operating on a battlefield of violence and intrigue with which it is familiar. Those of us who would oppose the .001% are not powerful, well-organized, nor, for the most part, very savvy. We are easily deceived by the elite, easily distracted by peripheral issues, and prone to infighting and name-calling rather than organizing a coherent opposition. If we are to have any hope it is imperative that we become more clear about our goals, that we choose a battlefield where we have some chance of success, and that we select weapons that are appropriate to the task we face.

The values we share

The effective organization of any group or movement needs to begin with a clarification of its primary values and the goals that are derived from these values. I would suggest that there are five primary values about which real progressives already agree:

_ Equity

_ Democracy

_ Diversity

_ Ecological integrity

_ Human rights

By equity I mean simply that we need an economic system that prevents huge and dysfunctional gaps between the rich and the poor.

By democracy I mean a system that facilitates the maximum participation of all people in the various institutions and groups that they inhabit. Minimally this means a representative government that is not bought and owned by the wealthy. But it goes beyond this. Our schools, families, places of worship, and businesses should have built into them procedures and policies that ensure everybody's participation in the decision-making with regard to the fundamental aims and policies of the group.

By diversity I mean that individuals and local subcultures should be left intact and free to pursue their own visions.

By human rights I mean essentially that which is affirmed by the Bill of Rights of the United States, or by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations. As Alexis de Tocqueville and others have pointed out, in any democracy the "tyranny of the majority" is an ever-present possibility. It is for this reason that, in every democracy, minorities that may be unpopular, must be protected from the majority by a bill of rights that is legally binding.

Democratic socialism

There may be a variety of ways for a society to implement the values we share, but it seems clear that what is needed is some version of "democratic socialism." The term "democratic socialism" can be confusing. As I am using the term, I refer to any economic system that has the following characteristics:

_ A central bank that is under the public control of a democratically elected government.

_ A mixed economy -- one that includes worker-owned businesses, governmentally-owned services (such as a single-payer health system), and capitalist enterprises that are limited in terms of size and power.

_ Free public education at least through college.

_ A strong commitment to human rights.

_ A safety net that assures that the basic needs for health, food and shelter are available to everyone.

_ Strong measures to protect the environment.

We are aware of historical efforts to implement some or all of the values that we share. Totalitarian societies, such as those created by Stalin or Mao, may have been motivated by the desire to increase equity, but they did not see the need for the sharing of decision making along with the material wealth. Workers were as alienated from their work after these revolutions as they were before them.

Systems of democratic socialism, as they were instituted in the Scandinavian countries in the early years of the last century, on the other hand, worked well. By objective measures they were shown to produce the highest scores of all nations for providing their citizens with freedom, health, education and happiness. While we may not wish to conform ourselves slavishly to any patterns that have preceded us, it does seem reasonable that we should turn to these examples for guidance.

All the characteristics of democratic socialism listed above are important, but the need for central banks to be under public control, and operated for the public good, is pivotal. A central banking system, run as a privately owned enterprise, is the keystone that supports the whole edifice of .001% empire. That is why state and national banks that are under the control of democratically elected governments are opposed by the elite by any and all means, including murder, torture, war and the overthrow of duly elected regimes. Private central banks (including the Federal Reserve) are meant to further enrich the already rich -- not to serve the common good.

The power of ideas

The .001% does not support any of the traditional progressive values. To put these values into practice would be to limit their power to rule the world and to amass wealth. Although they are hoping we won't notice it, they have declared war upon the rest of us. Their wealth, and the violence of their weapons, make them a formidable opponent despite their small numbers. Indeed, the situation looks hopeless. It seems that no one knows how to bell the cat.

While I can think of nothing that we can do that will assure our capacity to defeat them, there is an important strategic fact that is in our favor. We can choose the battlefield. Even were we are ready to tie bombs to ourselves and blow ourselves up in the midst of mostly innocent people, we are no match for elite on the field of physical violence. We will lose if we engage them on that battlefield. If we are thinking in terms of traditional warfare this is obvious. But even if we are talking about violent revolutions using guerrilla tactics, our chances of success on this battlefield are slim. Our primary battlefield must be mental/spiritual. We must defeat them in the realm of ideas. We must expose their lies, and spread the vision of a better world than they offer. This changing of how we think will open the way to radical changes in our institutions.

Absurd, you might say. Mere words and ideas against bombs, bullets and billy clubs? Not a chance. But we have forgotten the power of words and ideas. Perhaps a slight digression will make this point clear.

We do what we do because we see the world as we do. Unlike animals, most of us do not simply act in accordance with our instincts and impulses. We block some impulses and act on others in accordance with our beliefs. With human beings, belief precedes and molds behavior. This can be observed by anyone, yet we consistently underestimate the power of belief.

Those collective beliefs that guide our political activities are called ideologies. An ideology is simply a set of beliefs concerning which social arrangements are most likely to support those things that a group of people value. We value many things: the well-being of those we love, the freedom to come and go as we wish, physical safety, health, access to information, etc. If we as a people believe in capitalism, we will build a society that is totalitarian, inequitable, and parasitic. It will possibly, at least in the short run, provide economic and physical benefits to the more affluent members of society. For this reason many upper middle-class people who genuinely want to be progressives nevertheless find themselves reluctant to advocate for the kind of fundamental changes in our economic and social relationships that are needed.

If the majority of people, whether affluent or not, become committed to the core values of democratic socialism -- that is to say to equity, democracy, diversity, ecological integrity and human rights -- the current totalitarian control by the .001% will come to an end.

Strategies exist that do not require that we maim, torture, bomb, or shoot anyone. Those are the strategies of the .001%. They are more experienced with this kind of violence than we can ever hope to be. We do not need our own military version of the "School of the Americas". Rather, we can learn from those who have developed nonviolent strategies before us -- Thoreau, Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, Cesar Chavez, Eugene Debs, Joe Hill, and Mother Jones, to name a few. But we must also develop new and aggressive strategies tailored to the issues and circumstances within which we now live. Nonviolence means nonviolence against people. It does not mean never disrupting the system. It does not mean being passive. It does not mean being lukewarm and conciliating.

The primary battlefield is not race, gender or nationality

An n article by David Walsh in the World Socialist Website (yurl.com/mo8n5ev) entitled "Should art be judged on the basis of race and gender?" provides a balanced and informative critique of treating gender and racial issues as primary rather than secondary. As the article concedes, " racism remains a serious issue in America," but Walsh points out that:

" The American ruling elite are not concerned with combating racial prejudice. . . , but with encouraging and exacerbating racial and ethnic tensions to divide the working class and weaken it. No one should be a bit surprised that the people in power, the people who monopolize the wealth, should want to see the working-class population fighting amongst itself."

The situation with gender politics is similar, though not identical. Quoting Alison Wolf, Professor of Public Sector Management at King's College London, the article points out that, "Among younger men and women with equal education levels, who have also put in equal time in the same occupation, there are no gender pay gaps left." Compare this statistic with the fact that " eight billionaires, six of them from the United States, own as much combined wealth as the bottom half of the world's population, some 3.6 billion people" (Based on information from Oxfam. ) Gender discrepancies of income in the United States and other developed countries, within any given class, are minuscule. The primary issue here is social class.

Additionally, the article points out that gender and gay rights are used by the .001% to justify its unending and bloody military interventions. When the elite decides to illegally change the regime of another country it often justifies this action on the grounds of its "human rights record."

In general, the treatment of the issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation as primary rather than secondary is associated with four problems:

_ It deflects attention from the more fundamental issue of social class.

_ It is used by reactionary forces to justify its continuing imperialist agenda with all its wars and terror.

_ It enables much of the alternative media to present itself as "progressive" even though it avoids dealing with the issue of social class in an aggressive manner.

_ It is used to drive wedges rather than encourage reconciliation between groups that share common interests and should be natural allies.

One important example of this fourth problem concerns the need for black and white workers to join forces in the work-world. The needed solidarity is difficult to achieve if the struggle between races is seen as primary. Another example has to do with treating the struggles between nations as primary. This is part of the reason for the failure of unions to highlight the need for an international labor movement. So long as labor is fractured along the lines of nationality, it will be helpless against multinational corporations.

The importance of secondary issues

I have suggested that the new cold war, and the ongoing struggle between nations is not the primary concern of true progressives. All the developed nations at this point are capitalist, and capitalism is parasitic. As I argued in the article, "We Are the Parasite", we as a species must cease that sucking the life out of workers and ordinary citizens, out of third world countries, out of other species, and out of the ecological order itself. This means that all the major powers of the world will have to move beyond the capitalist economic model. This said, it must nevertheless be acknowledged that not all capitalist nations are equal. Some are much worse than others.

The United States is the greatest threat to the survival of the human species on the earth today. One is horrified by the willingness of the United States to destroy the viability of other countries when they fail to comply with what they are ordered to do. Over and over we watch the US ruthlessly bomb weaker countries into submission, smash the infrastructure upon which their people depend, and by these means, murder their citizens by the millions on behalf of a small international elite of wealthy people. Now that World War III is "on the table" those millions may become billions. Indeed, all capitalist systems are parasitic, but some parasites are more willing than others to kill their host.

It would appear at the present time that China and Russia may be attempting to thwart the United States by economic means. Under the circumstances, one wishes them well. Even so, this international struggle is secondary to the issue of class. Russia has its own wealthy elite. Since the plundering of the public sphere by the oligarchs after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has become one of the most inequitable nations in the world. According to a report by the investment bank Credit Suisse in 2015, thirty-five percent of household wealth in the country is in the hands of 110 people.

China seems to contain its capitalist enterprises better than either Russia or the United States, but it is still pursuing a policy of limitless growth on a finite planet, and as Tiananmen Square taught us, it is not inclined to share the decision-making with the majority of its people. Even if jointly Russia and China are able to frustrate the aims of the United States, the world will continue to be ruled by elites that do not share the decision-making and the material resources of their societies in an equitable manner. Thus the primary struggle between those who have the resources, and the power and those who do not, will not be resolved in a positive manner by any outcome in the struggle between the US and the BRIC nations.

The Trump issue is of some importance. He originally ran on a platform that varied to some degree from the agenda of the elite, but has since been brought into line. He is now a warmonger like the rest of them. It is true that he is a buffoon and a loose cannon, and that it is quite dangerous that a man of his caliber should have his finger on the nuclear button. But it is not true that getting rid of him will create a fundamentally more sane foreign policy. He will be replaced by someone else (presumably Pence) who will support the continuous warmongering policies of the US, and the march toward World War III. Replacing various people at the top of the .001% hierarchy, whether in banks and corporations, or in government, will not change any fundamental policy. Those removed from their positions will simply be replaced with others who will continue to implement the same policies. There are no good apples. The system itself must be replaced.

A fundamental misunderstanding of many people who consider themselves to be progressives is that the essential progressive task is to provide equal opportunity to everybody -- whether they be poor, gays, women, or blacks -- to rise to the upper class. In its most unsophisticated form we find this misunderstanding articulated in various "rags to riches" stories. Rags to riches stories are essentially repressive. The aim of democratic socialism is not to enable a few poor people to rise to the top where they can hobnob with the rich and famous. Even less is the primary aim to get more people from groups that have been marginalized for other reasons -- blacks, women and gays for example -- into the upper class. Rather, the legitimate aim of progressive politics is to flatten the hierarchy within which one finds a privileged upper class opposed to a lower class that is excluded from meaningful participation in decision-making and that does not have a fair share of the resources needed for a decent life.

The .001% cannot rule the world by their violence alone. Their ultimate success depends on the effectiveness of their false flags, deceit and propaganda. They cannot rule a people who have access to real information, who are able to think and evaluate data, and who have an alternate vision of reality. Such a people will understand that it is not in their interest to be sucked dry by the .001%, and that it is not in the interest of the vast majority of people to promote endless wars and mayhem throughout the world.

The natural allies of the poor and marginalized of one race, sex, sexual orientation or country are the poor and marginalized of all races, both sexes, all sexual orientations, and all countries. So long as the poor and marginalized of divergent races, sexes, orientations or countries are at war with one another, the elite will be happy, for the forces that might successfully oppose them are in disarray. Perhaps we see the most extreme form of this inability to see one's natural allies when a person who was brought up poor in one country, murders poor people in another country in a war that benefits only the rich.

It is time that we, the majority of the human race, develop a strategy for extricating ourselves from the clutches of the .001% that is based on an accurate understanding of the world as it is. As a simple starting point, if we live in the US we need to abandon both major parties. They are equally instruments of the parasites, and cannot be reformed. We can support the Green party or the socialists, or an independent who is not owned by the corporate elite. We can highlight the central importance of bringing all central banks under public control. We can organize to stop the endless wars and atrocities of the .001%. Where is the vital and widely supported anti-war movement that is so desperately needed today? And of course more attention needs to be focused on preventing the destruction of the ecological patterns that support all of us. No technology is going to bail us out from a radically damaged ecology. Above all, we can embrace a new vision of what our reality can be if we build it on the principles of an equitable distribution of needed resources and on universal participation in decision making.

We need to declare a very aggressive but nonviolent war on the .001%. It is a war that might be won if we choose the battlefield, and select the weapons with which it will be fought.

Authors Website: http://www.politicsofhealth.org/

Authors Bio:
Write for Politics of Health and work with David Werner on issues of health. Worked in the field of "Mental Health" all my life. Am now retired.

Jim