Why Conspiracy Goes Hand in Hand with Profit, Politics and Power
(Duncan and Mr. McAllister – Excerpted from Ch. 8 of “The House on Apple Blossom Lane”)
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“The truth is, Duncan, that the War on Drugs isn’t what it appears to be. It was never meant to end the drug supply. That’s just one of the many lies sold to the public so that crookery can continue, legal or not. None of the powers that be that were most responsible for generating the public support for that war have ever seriously entertained the delusion that the supply of narcotics into the United States can actually be stopped.”
Duncan thinks he sees beads of sweat forming on McAllister’s forehead.
“Like the so-called War on Terror, it’s a war that was made to be endless, fought against an unknown, unseen, unceasing succession of enemies. Because when there’s a war against an invisible enemy, and you can get the public to agree that it exists and that it’s of vital importance, it doesn’t end. And so neither does the public support for and financing of that war, or the profits that the war generates; that all war generates.”
“Okay…”
“The War on Drugs, like every war waged by the United States since the end of World War Two, is a war that was created to hide the criminals, and to convince the gullible public that the enemy is overseas, embodied by whomever stands against the interests of the domestic kingpins selling that war. It wasn’t meant to identify, prosecute or kill those actually responsible for the war. Most of those responsible for how that war is waged never really wanted the supply of drugs to be stopped in the first place. All that they want is to be the ones controlling it. Why would profiteers want to burn their merchandise, Duncan? Only fools fall for that bullshit. The supply of narcotics represents a big part of the seedy underbelly of capitalism. And as long as there’s demand, which there always will be, someone is going to make a fortune off of its supply, especially if it can be kept illegal, and therefore more profitable. Just look at what’s happened to the price of marijuana… Get it?”
“I think so…”
“Do you think the kings and queens of industry, those that make billions a year on the supply of everything else, are just going to sit back and let the gangs and cartels make all those fortunes and buy all the political influence with that money when they have the U.S. Army and CIA at their disposal, and can so successfully sell such profitable intercession as… well, as whatever type of war is easiest to sell to the public at any given time? Do you think a pharmaceutical executive is going to stand up and say: you know what, Mother Nature supplies everything you need, and without dependency or side effects, and at the tiniest fraction of the price we charge, so I’ve hereby found my conscience and must resign my post paying me ten million dollars a year? It’s hush money, son. Billions are spent bribing people to stay quiet across all these shady industries. People in any type of power position are paid for their quiet passivity; for their moral ambivalence. More money is spent on sealing lips than on skills, actually… See what I mean?”
“Well, I…”
“Just like, do you think any American politician will ever stand up and say: The U.S. Army is actually responsible for more terrorism than those we condemn as terrorists, because terrorism is essentially armed resistance to our imperial penetration of foreign lands, resources and underdeveloped consumer markets? Most will dismiss this as mere cynicism, but, fundamentally, most terrorism is really just resistance to what we call globalization, Duncan. Shit, Al Qaeda was created by the U.S. Government to resist the Soviet encroachment of the Middle East and its oil and poppy fields. Now they resist our encroachment, so Americans call them terrorists. We fed and raised the dog and trained him to fight the Soviets in the global dogfight, then the dog slips off his leash and decides that his red, white and blue master is no better than the red dog that he’s been fighting, so now we need to put him down.”
“I’ve never heard that one…”
“Because the U.S. Government won’t allow it to be taught. It’s just one of countless examples of invasion and the countering of invasion with one thing in mind: money.There’s just too much money to be made by American corporations not to act. Everything is a cost-benefit analysis of profit and power, son. Everything. It’s the same reason that no U.S. politician will ever publicly say: Religion is the history of empires artificially constraining spirituality for the corrupt purpose of controlling the minds of the masses, pretending to stuff spirituality into a pre-packaged, ready-to-sell box in which it’ll never fit. When eighty percent of the voting public votes for reflexive flag-waving and cross-wearing, saying any such thing is the same as committing political suicide.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“And call me a quack, but I’m with the conspiracy theorists on the 9/11 thing. Motive, means and opportunity just align far too perfectly, especially considering the power players in the upper echelons of government back then, and how they stood to gain; how they did gain. It’s just way too convenient that 9/11 created the perfect means to push the Patriot Act through Congress, so that those connected to the massive intelligence apparatus operating within the United States Federal Government could gain unrestricted access to every bit of electronic data available. It’s just way too convenient that it also supplied the perfect justification for invading the Middle East to finish the job and assuage the ego of the father through his then presidential son, all to the immense profiteering benefit of connected international business interests.”
McAllister abruptly coughs three times, loudly. They come unexpectedly, producing spews. Embarrassed, he wipes spittle from his perfectly manicured goatee, the image of perfection having been shattered. But he’s on a role and loving the release, so he continues.
“And it’s just way too convenient that so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ being ‘discovered’ in the hands of those old enemies finalized the successful push of that agenda, even as all the evidence has since been found to have been fabricated by those in the Executive Branch, all with impunity. We’re supposed to believe that the government being led by former defense contractor corporation big-wigs was a coincidence in all of that? I mean, how much more obvious could it be that 9/11 was a chosen date, for Chrissakes? C’mon… 9-1-1. Obviously that’s a propagandist date selection made to manipulate the fear of the gullible American public, conditioning them to associate the date with emergency so that the true perpetrators would have the public support to do anything that they wanted, like spy on everyone and everything and send the military in to clear a path for the corporations that came in after them. What’s a few thousand American civilians compared to countless billions of future profits and control of the Middle East?”
“Isn’t that a bit far-fetched, sir?”
“Not at all, actually. I fetched it straight from the investigator’s handbook. The rational conspiracy theories are based upon connecting the dots between motive, means and opportunity. Speaking of which, the Patriot Act gave the NSA the perfect excuse to tap into all of the private tech databases, starting with Google and Facebook. Sorry, with Meta. That rebranding betrays their intention: meta-tech supplanting metaphysics; the Meta Monster consuming God. The Patriot Act was just the first step in Meta becoming the center of the spying, monitoring and censoring apparatus, as an indistinct extension of the intelligence community. When is the public going to realize that Meta is the real life version of Big Brother? You’ve read 1984 by now, right?”
“Yea, last year…”
“I think that Orwell was presaging Meta. It’s the inextricably deep seated blurring of the public-private line; the inseparable Church and State of our time. A monster feeding off of the people, defending the passageways of moral propriety, dictating what’s allowed to be said, pulling the megaphone away from anything and anyone that’s at odds with political correctness and the conservative agenda. Is Meta the monster, or is it the NSA? And at what point do people start to realize that the answer is obviously both; that, like the politicians, the online police are only pretending to serve the people. What they’re really doing is collecting and selling their data and helping the government spy and censor and accumulate information that they can use against anything and anyone deemed unpatriotic. And with recent tech toys, it’s just a matter of time before the line between Meta and mankind itself is blurred, as sci-fi has long predicted. Soon the so-called advancement of humanity will be based upon cyborgs existing as semi-autonomous extensions of Big Brother, having sacrificed their humanity and self-thought. Technology used to be an extension of us, but it won’t be long before we’re more an extension of it.”
“That sounds a little nuts, sir, I’m sorry to say…”
“That’s exactly what they want you to think, my dear boy. From my experience, it’s all about the opportunity to profit. It makes monsters, I say, even of good people!”
“What are you saying, exactly?”
“I’m saying it’s all an inside job by those with the motive, means and opportunity to profit on a global scale; in the big game. Everything that I’ve been talking about makes billions for those pulling the highest political strings. Especially considering that the American People are the ones paying most of the bills! We cover most of the expenses! Just like we financed the 2008 bailouts after their sheer insider greed capsized the economy.”
“But what does this have to do with TRAC, sir?”
“Everything, Duncan. This is why they exist: profit over people. You think that the most effective drug policy, what’s in the best interests of the most people, legalizing, taxing and providing safe havens for the use of narcotics, and plowing all the proceeds into cultivating public benefits, like empowering bigger insurers to force those pharmaceutical companies to charge the public less, will actually happen? You think that those making unfathomable fortunes do anything other than conceal such things? You think the profiteers actually care about the people? Politics, Duncan, is about saying what the public wants to hear while on the podium whilst finding ways to steal and profit off of them behind closed doors like mine. It’s about putting on a patriotic puppet show with your left hand whilst plunging your right hand into public coffers.”
This admission that he’s part of the problem seems to be a relief to Donald McAllister, who smiles as he says it. It’s as though he’s always wanted to say it out loud. Like he needed to say it. Meanwhile, Duncan’s head spins. He just wants out of his own situation. Saving the people was never on his mind. But McAllister is enjoying blowing up the naiveté.
“These aren’t the conventional lessons, Duncan. This isn’t something that your teachers will tell you, or your dad, or anyone but those dismissed as loony conspiracy theorists. But just think about it for a minute, because not all conspiracy theorists are created equal. What happens when something is illegal, and will always be demanded and, thus, will always be supplied? Its value is maximized. It’s Economics 101. Because there’s a far greater risk involved in supplying it, that supply can be controlled, with a risk that’s justifiable because there’s exponentially more money to be made from that supply. It’s profit maximization, you see? By making it illegal, by putting supply in the hands of those willing to make themselves criminals to supply it, profit skyrockets.”
“I see…”
The beads of sweat on McAllister’s reddened brow grow, and he loosens his tie. He continues his sermon, albeit sweating and labored, the train looking like it’ll derail.
“Yes, if made legal, or at least decriminalized, more people might be tempted to use those drugs, but the environment in which they’d be used would be far safer, as the removal of the criminal element removes the danger of dealing with criminals. And the health dangers involved in those consumers hiding and illegally using those substances, instead of being monitored, taxed, protected and educated, would be drastically curtailed.”
“Interesting…” But he’s struggling to listen. Not only is Mr. McAllister’s sweating becoming profuse, but the mention of the increased risk of illegal substance use has his mind jumping to that horrible scene at the hospital, and to Dan’s insinuation that Caroline was killed for selling drugs on a far bigger drug-dealer’s turf.
“Disturbing, Duncan. Disturbing. And many of those plugged into the national and international power centers are well aware of this. So, do you think they just sit back and let the crooks make all of the money off of all of these… activities? Do you think those in power, taking orders from their campaign financiers, just sit back and leave the mightiest sword of globalization, the U.S. Military and all its profiteering weapons suppliers, in its sheath in all of this? Of course not! Do you think that controlling the supply of the massively profitable drug market is unrelated to our military history in Afghanistan, South-East Asia and Central and Southern America, the global centers of narco-production? Of course not! I wish I could wake the American people up to this fact, Duncan, I really do, but I wouldn’t last in office past my first speech. I’d be defunded, or laughed off the stage, or killed outright.”
“That’s not exactly how those military campaigns were taught in U.S. History class…”
“Nope. No way. You think the powers I speak of would allow that? And the biggest front in all of this is the fake War on Drugs itself. That false sham of a war exists for the same reason the War on Terror exists: it’s a façade built to trick the masses into thinking the government and the wealthy and powerful that control it care about things that they really don’t; that they care about drug addiction and all the social fallout and communities in ruin and disrepair, or, when it comes to the War on Terror, that they’re, you know, trying to free people from dictators and backwards belief systems and install freedom and democracy. All the while they’re picking the new so-called elected leaders and plugging their own corporate interests in the best positions to profit, very often propped up by even more diabolical dictators.”
Duncan says nothing. He just stares at McAllister. He’s standing now, pacing behind his desk while offloading his thoughts. Wobbling a bit, he abruptly stops and places both hands on his desk. He’s gone from his purging soliloquy to looking like he could fall onto his desk at any moment. Duncan thinks of what he’s heard in the past about these important men living with so much stress that a quarter of them keel-over from heart attacks before they reach the age of fifty.
“It’s another concealed fact, Duncan, because people are naïve, but the truth is that it’s in the very psychological nature of wealth and power possession to conspire for more of it…” He’s breathing heavily, the words ejected with effort. “The truth is that all the major players are conspiring all the time, we just don’t call it conspiring or plotting when it looks like it’s aboveboard business or politics as usual. But what appears aboveboard often dips belowboard. In fact, it can be very hard to tell the difference between the two. Which is why people like your father exist, I hate to say… And if you think those connected to the political power centers are immune to the psychology of power, to motive, means and opportunity, and that they let opportunities pass them up simply because they’re so-called representatives of the people and stand upon moral high ground, then you’re a fool. In fact, it’s much the opposite. Because they’re informed and in positions of power, because they influence budgets operating in the billions or trillions and see all the private opportunities connected to political operations, because they represent the immensely lucrative grey area set between the public and private sectors, that makes them more likely to conspire, not less.”
“You should write a book…”
“No, it would never make it to print. Because it isn’t truth and morality that writes the story, Duncan. And, sadly, it’s all the same story, with different financial opportunities involved. With one hand they condemn and fight it, keeping profit margins high and wiping-out competitors, all while holding the other hand out of sight, like shady magicians manipulating misdirection, reaching as deep into the till as they can, taking the biggest possible cut. Only a strict minority of those of us in the know have the strength to fight this truth, and it doesn’t make us popular, let me tell you, Duncan. I do what I can… but we all have to survive, my boy.”
“So, what are you saying, that the people that are a part of the organization supposedly helping your son, and my friends, is, what, a part of this somehow?” “There’s nothing specific that I can tell you, Duncan. I can only tell you generally that, with so much money to be made, a lot gets invested in making sure that the hand that gets held out in front is the hand that gets seen by most. Read your Machiavelli. That’s Politics 101. A lot goes into making things appear precisely the opposite of the way things are. Because if the public were to have anything close to an accurate sense of what the other hand is doing, if the monster was unmasked and his deception revealed, well, let’s just say the fallout would be beyond words. The lost profits would be beyond counting, as would the prison time.”
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