Methods Of Control

     Mike Miles at 90 Miles From Tyranny consistently comes up with good stuff of many kinds. Today he brings us this:

     It got me thinking, of course. If I were bent on world domination but, for whatever reason, desired ardently to stay out of the spotlight, I would want to put men in positions of political power whom I could control thereafter. (“It ain’t who you know, it’s what you’ve got on ‘em.” – Lawrence Block) In our thoroughly degenerated time, the abuse of children, especially the sexual abuse, is about the last of the unanimously recognized crimes. That would make knowledge of a politician’s pedophilia a perfect sword to hold over his head.

     (Yes, yes, I know: there are forces determined to erase the horror and shamefulness of pedophilia, even as we speak. And yes, they’ve made some inroads. But for the moment at least, it remains the blackest of black brushes: something a person in the public eye cannot afford to be tarred with.)

     That sent my lumber-room of a memory back to my favorite thriller, Martin McPhillips’ brilliant Corpse In Armor:

     “I don’t believe you,” the General said to Spencer.
     “Believe or not believe as you please,” Spencer answered. “It won’t change the facts. I relinquished control over the nuclear operation.”
     “You’ve never relinquished control over anything, sir,” the General said. “You certainly wouldn’t let go of something this important.”
     “Well, look, Edward,” Spencer said, “maybe there is a thread that could be pulled, but first just get me out of this chair. My damn fingers are numb.”
     “You need to give me that thread first, Charles.”
     “No. I have nothing for you. You want to continue humiliating me, then I’ll let you guess about what I know. Stop treating me like a dog and I’ll be more forthcoming.”
     “Here’s what I’ll do for you, Charles, if you don’t tell me how to delay the nuclear attack. I’ll let you go, get you all cleaned up, back to your tip-top condition and send you on your way, back to your life, and as you arrive back at whichever estate, the news will break, here in the U.S. and around the world, that you are a pedophile.”
     Spencer froze. It was as though he turned into polished marble, the transformation was so immediate and complete.
     “Yes,” the General said, “we know all about your secret life. Did you think that you would be allowed to accumulate all that money and power without us retaining methods of control? We don’t care about your habits. But we know how attached you are to your grand reputation in the bourgeois world, and what this revelation would do to you.”
     Decades of cultivated arrogance drained out of Spencer in a matter of seconds. The General had the thing that was worse than death for him. Spencer hung limply in his restraints.

     It would work, wouldn’t it? And in an era when confessed murderers often escape all but token consequences for their crimes, what would work better?

     Explanations are hypotheses, not proven causal assertions. The explanation given in the graphic above is one that’s easy to believe, for those of us already convinced of the malice of our ruling elite. And it’s certainly suggestive that despite the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell scandals, no one on either of their client lists has been indicted. This is worth further investigation…but he who chooses to pursue it should be very careful about going through doors, crossing parking lots, and so forth.