Matrix & Transformation: Chapter 1

From: richard-at-cyberjournal.org

Date: 16 Nov 2004

Subject: Matrix & Transformation: Chapter 1

To: newslog-at-cyberjournal.org

Copyright 2004 Richard K. Moore

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CHAPTER 1 - THE MATRIX

* Are you ready for the red pill?

The defining dramatic moment in the film The Matrix occurs

just after Morpheus invites Neo to choose between a red pill

and a blue pill. The red pill promises "the truth, nothing

more." Neo takes the red pill and awakes to reality --

something utterly different from anything Neo, or the

audience, could have expected. What Neo had assumed to be

reality turned out to be only a collective illusion,

fabricated by the Matrix and fed to a population that is

asleep, cocooned in grotesque embryonic pods. In Plato's

famous parable about the shadows on the walls of the cave,

true reality is at least reflected in perceived reality. In

the Matrix world, true reality and perceived reality exist on

entirely different planes.

The story is intended as metaphor, and the parallels that drew

my attention had to do with political reality. This article

offers a particular perspective on what's going on in the

world -- and how things got to be that way -- in this era of

globalization. From that red-pill perspective, everyday

media-consensus reality -- like the Matrix in the film -- is

seen to be a fabricated collective illusion. Like Neo, I

didn't know what I was looking for when my investigation

began, but I knew that what I was being told didn't make

sense. I read scores of histories and biographies of

historical figures, observing connections between them, and

began to develop my own theories about roots of various

historical events. I found myself largely in agreement with

writers like Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti, but I also

perceived important patterns that others seem to have missed.

When I started tracing historical forces, and began to

interpret present-day events from a historical perspective. I

could see the same old dynamics at work and found a meaning in

unfolding events far different from what official

pronouncements proclaimed. Such pronouncements are, after all,

public relations fare, given out by politicians who want to

look good to the voters. Most of us expect rhetoric from

politicians, and take what they say with a grain of salt. But

as my own picture of present reality came into focus, "grain

of salt" no longer worked as a metaphor. I began to see that

consensus reality -- as generated by official rhetoric and

amplified by mass media -- bears very little relationship to

actual reality. "The matrix" was a metaphor I was ready for.

* Imperialism and the matrix

From the time of Columbus to 1945, world affairs were largely

dominated by competition among Western nations seeking to

stake out spheres of influence, control sea lanes, and exploit

colonial empires. Each Western power became the core of an

imperialist economy whose periphery was managed for the

benefit of the core nation. Military might determined the

scope of an empire; wars were initiated when a core nation

felt it had sufficient power to expand its periphery at the

expense of a competitor. Economies and societies in the

periphery were kept backward -- to keep their populations

under control, to provide cheap labor, and to guarantee

markets for goods manufactured in the core. Imperialism robbed

the periphery not only of wealth but also of its ability to

develop its own societies, cultures, and economies in a

natural way for local benefit.

The driving force behind Western imperialism has always been

the pursuit of economic gain, ever since Isabella commissioned

Columbus on his first entrepreneurial voyage. The rhetoric of

empire concerning wars, however, has typically been about

other things -- the White Man's Burden, bringing true religion

to the heathens, Manifest Destiny, defeating the Yellow Peril

or the Hun, seeking lebensraum, or making the world safe for

democracy. Any fabricated motivation for war or empire would

do, as long as it appealed to the collective consciousness of

the population at the time. The propaganda lies of yesterday

were recorded and became consensus history -- the fabric of

the matrix.

While the costs of territorial empire (fleets, colonial

administrations, etc.) were borne by Western taxpayers

generally, the profits of imperialism were enjoyed primarily

by private corporations and investors. Government and

corporate elites were partners in the business of imperialism:

empires gave government leaders power and prestige, and gave

corporate leaders power and wealth. Corporations ran the real

business of empire while government leaders fabricated noble

excuses for the wars that were required to keep that business

going. Matrix reality was about patriotism, national honor,

and heroic causes; true reality was on another plane

altogether: that of economics.

Industrialization, beginning in the late 1700s, created a

demand for new markets and increased raw materials; both

demands spurred accelerated expansion of empire. Wealthy

investors amassed fortunes by setting up large-scale

industrial and trading operations, leading to the emergence of

an influential capitalist elite. Like any other elite,

capitalists used their wealth and influence to further their

own interests however they could. And the interests of

capitalism always come down to economic growth; investors must

reap more than they sow or the whole system comes to a

grinding halt.

Thus capitalism, industrialization, nationalism, warfare,

imperialism -- and the matrix -- coevolved. Industrialized

weapon production provided the muscle of modern warfare, and

capitalism provided the appetite to use that muscle.

Government leaders pursued the policies necessary to expand

empire while creating a rhetorical matrix, around nationalism,

to justify those policies. Capitalist growth depended on

empire, which in turn depended on a strong and stable core

nation to defend it. National interests and capitalist

interests were inextricably linked -- or so it seemed for more

than two centuries.

* World War II and Pax Americana  1945 will be remembered as the year World War II ended and the

bond of the atomic nucleus was broken. But 1945 also marked

another momentous fission -- breaking of the bond between

national and capitalist interests. After every previous war,

and in many cases after severe devastation, European nations

had always picked themselves back up and resumed their

competition over empire. But after World War II, a Pax

Americana was established. The US began to manage all the

Western peripheries on behalf of capitalism generally, while

preventing the communist powers from interfering in the game.

Capitalist powers no longer needed to fight over investment

realms, and competitive imperialism was replaced by collective

imperialism (see sidebar). Opportunities for capital growth

were no longer linked to the military power of nations, apart

from the power of America. In his "Killing Hope, U.S. Military

and CIA Interventions since World War II", William Blum

chronicles hundreds of significant covert and overt

interventions, showing exactly how the US carried out its

imperial management role.

      * Sidebar

            Elite planning for postwar neo-imperialism...

            Recommendation P-B23 (July, 1941) stated that worldwide

      financial institutions were necessary for the purpose of

      "stabilizing currencies and facilitating programs of capital

      investment for constructive undertakings in backward and

      underdeveloped regions." During the last half of 1941 and in

      the first months of 1942, the Council developed this idea for

      the integration of the world…. Isaiah Bowman first suggested a

      way to solve the problem of maintaining effective control over

      weaker territories while avoiding overt imperial conquest. At

      a Council meeting in May 1942, he stated that the United

      States had to exercise the strength needed to assure

      "security," and at the same time "avoid conventional forms of

      imperialism." The way to do this, he argued, was to make the

      exercise of that power international in character through a

      United Nations body. - Laurence Shoup & William Minter, in

      Holly Sklar's Trilateralism (see access, page XX), writing

      about strategic recommendations developed during World War II

      by the Council on Foreign Relations.

In the postwar years matrix reality diverged ever further from

actual reality. In the postwar matrix world, imperialism had

been abandoned and the world was being "democratized"; in the

real world, imperialism had become better organized and more

efficient. In the matrix world the US "restored order," or

"came to the assistance" of nations which were being

"undermined by Soviet influence"; in the real world, the

periphery was being systematically suppressed and exploited.

In the matrix world, the benefit was going to the periphery in

the form of countless aid programs; in the real world, immense

wealth was being extracted from the periphery.

Growing glitches in the matrix weren't noticed by most people

in the West, because the postwar years brought unprecedented

levels of Western prosperity and social progress. The rhetoric

claimed progress would come to all, and Westerners could see

it being realized in their own towns and cities. The West

became the collective core of a global empire, and

exploitative development led to prosperity for Western

populations, while generating immense riches for corporations,

banks, and wealthy capital investors.

* Glitches in the matrix, popular rebellion, and neoliberalism

The parallel agenda of Third-World exploitation and Western

prosperity worked effectively for the first two postwar

decades. But in the 1960s large numbers of Westerners,

particularly the young and well educated, began to notice

glitches in the matrix. In Vietnam imperialism was too naked

to be successfully masked as something else. A major split in

American public consciousness occurred, as millions of

anti-war protestors and civil-rights activists punctured the

fabricated consensus of the 1950s and declared the reality of

exploitation and suppression both at home and abroad. The

environmental movement arose, challenging even the

exploitation of the natural world. In Europe, 1968 joined 1848

as a landmark year of popular protest.

These developments disturbed elite planners. The postwar

regime's stability was being challenged from within the core

-- and the formula of Western prosperity no longer guaranteed

public passivity. A report published in 1975, the "Report of

the Trilateral Task Force on Governability of Democracies",

provides a glimpse into the thinking of elite circles. Alan

Wolfe discusses this report in Holly Sklar's eye-opening

"Trilateralism". Wolfe focuses especially on the analysis

Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington presented in a section

of the report entitled "The Crisis of Democracy." Huntington

is an articulate promoter of elite policy shifts, and

contributes pivotal articles to publications such as the

Council on Foreign Relations's "Foreign Affairs".

Huntington tells us that democratic societies "cannot work"

unless the citizenry is "passive." The "democratic surge of

the 1960s" represented an "excess of democracy," which must be

reduced if governments are to carry out their traditional

domestic and foreign policies. Huntington's notion of

"traditional policies" is expressed in a passage from the

report:

      To the extent that the United States was governed by anyone

      during the decades after World War II, it was governed by the

      President acting with the support and cooperation of key

      individuals and groups in the executive office, the federal

      bureaucracy, Congress, and the more important businesses,

      banks, law firms, foundations, and media, which constitute the

      private sector's "Establishment."

In these few words Huntington spells out the reality that

electoral democracy has little to do with how America is run,

and summarizes the kind of people who are included within the

elite planning community. Who needs conspiracy theories when

elite machinations are clearly described in public documents

like these?

Besides failing to deliver popular passivity, the policy of

prosperity for Western populations had another downside,

having to do with Japan's economic success. Under the Pax

Americana umbrella, Japan had been able to industrialize and

become an imperial player -- the prohibition on Japanese

rearmament had become irrelevant. With Japan's then-lower

living standards, Japanese producers could undercut prevailing

prices and steal market share from Western producers. Western

capital needed to find a way to become more competitive on

world markets, and Western prosperity was standing in the way.

Elite strategists, as Huntington showed, were fully capable of

understanding these considerations, and the requirements of

corporate growth created a strong motivation to make the

needed adjustments -- in both reality and rhetoric.

If popular prosperity could be sacrificed, there were many

obvious ways Western capital could be made more competitive.

Production could be moved overseas to low-wage areas, allowing

domestic unemployment to rise. Unions could be attacked and

wages forced down, and people could be pushed into temporary

and part-time jobs without benefits. Regulations governing

corporate behavior could be removed, corporate and

capital-gains taxes could be reduced, and the revenue losses

could be taken out of public-service budgets. Public

infrastructures could be privatized, the services reduced to

cut costs, and then they could be milked for easy profits

while they deteriorated from neglect.

These are the very policies and programs launched during the

Reagan-Thatcher years in the US and Britain. They represent a

systematic project of increasing corporate growth at the

expense of popular prosperity and welfare. Such a real agenda

would have been unpopular, and a corresponding matrix reality

was fabricated for public consumption. The matrix reality used

real terms like "deregulation," "reduced taxes," and

"privatization," but around them was woven an economic

mythology. The old, failed laissez-faire doctrine of the 1800s

was reintroduced with the help of Milton Friedman's Chicago

School of economics, and "less government" became the proud

"modern" theme in America and Britain. Sensible regulations

had restored financial stability after the Great Depression,

and had broken up anti-competitive monopolies such as the

Rockefeller trust and AT&T. But in the new matrix reality, all

regulations were considered bureaucratic interference. Reagan

and Thatcher preached the virtues of individualism, and

promised to "get government off people's backs." The

implication was that ordinary people were to get more money

and freedom, but in reality the primary benefits would go to

corporations and wealthy investors.

The academic term for laissez-faire economics is "economic

liberalism," and hence the Reagan-Thatcher revolution has come

to be known as the "neoliberal revolution." It brought a

radical change in actual reality by returning to the economic

philosophy that led to sweatshops, corruption, and

robber-baron monopolies in the nineteenth century. It brought

an equally radical change in matrix reality -- a complete

reversal in the attitude that was projected regarding

government. Government policies had always been criticized in

the media, but the institution of government had always been

respected -- reflecting the traditional bond between

capitalism and nationalism. With Reagan, we had a sitting

president telling us that government itself was a bad thing.

Many of us may have agreed with him, but such a sentiment had

never before found official favor. Soon, British and American

populations were beginning to applaud the destruction of the

very democratic institutions that provided their only hope of

participation in the political process.

* Globalization and world government

The essential bond between capitalism and nationalism was

broken in 1945, but it took some time for elite planners to

fully recognize this new condition and to begin bringing the

world system into alignment with it. The strong Western nation

state had been the bulwark of capitalism for centuries, and

initial postwar policies were based on the assumption that

this would continue indefinitely. The Bretton Woods financial

system (the IMF, World Bank, and a system of fixed exchange

rates among major currencies) was set up to stabilize national

economies, and popular prosperity was encouraged to provide

political stability. Neoliberalism in the US and Britain

represented the first serious break with this policy framework

-- and brought the first visible signs of the fission of the

nation-capital bond.

The neoliberal project was economically profitable for

corporations in the US and Britain, and the public accepted

the matrix economic mythology. Meanwhile, the integrated

global economy gave rise to a new generation of transnational

corporations, and corporate leaders began to realize that

corporate growth was not dependent on strong core

nation-states. Indeed, Western nations -- with their

environmental laws, consumer-protection measures, and other

forms of regulatory "interference" -- were a burden on

corporate growth. Having been successfully field tested in the

two oldest "democracies," the neoliberal project moved onto

the global stage. The Bretton Woods system of fixed rates of

currency exchange was weakened, and the international

financial system became destabilizing, instead of stabilizing,

for national economies. The radical free-trade project was

launched, leading eventually in 1993 to the World Trade

Organization. The fission that had begun in 1945 was finally

manifesting as an explosive change in the world system.

The objective of neoliberal free-trade treaties is to remove

all political controls over domestic and international trade

and commerce. Corporations have free rein to maximize profits,

heedless of environmental consequences and safety risks.

Instead of governments regulating corporations, the WTO now

sets rules for governments, telling them what kind of beef

they must import, whether or not they can ban asbestos, and

what additives they must permit in petroleum products. So far,

in every case where the WTO has been asked to review a health,

safety, or environmental regulation, the regulation has been

overturned.

Most of the world has been turned into a periphery; the

imperial core has been boiled down to the capitalist elite

themselves, represented by their bureaucratic,

unrepresentative, WTO world government. The burden of

accelerated imperialism falls hardest outside the West, where

loans are used as a lever by the IMF to compel debtor nations

such as Rwanda and South Korea to accept suicidal "reform"

packages. In the 1800s, genocide was employed to clear North

America and Australia of their native populations, creating

room for growth. Today, a similar program of genocide has

apparently been unleashed against sub-Saharan Africa. The IMF

destroys the economies, the CIA trains militias and stirs up

tribal conflicts, and the West sells weapons to all sides.

Famine and genocidal civil wars are the predictable and

inevitable result. Meanwhile, AIDS runs rampant while the WTO

and the US government use trade laws to prevent medicines from

reaching the victims.

In matrix reality, globalization is not a project but rather

the "inevitable" result of beneficial market forces. Genocide

in Africa is no fault of the West, but is due to ancient

tribal rivalries. Every measure demanded by globalization is

referred to as "reform," (the word is never used with irony).

"Democracy" and "reform" are frequently used together, always

leaving the subtle impression that one has something to do

with the other. The illusion is presented that all economic

boats are rising, and if yours isn't, it must be your own

fault: you aren't "competitive" enough. Economic failures are

explained away as "temporary adjustments," or else the victim

is blamed for not being sufficiently neoliberal. "Investor

confidence" is referred to with the same awe and reverence

that earlier societies might have expressed toward the "will

of the gods."

Western quality of life continues to decline, while the WTO

establishes legal precedents ensuring that its authority will

not be challenged when its decisions become more draconian.

Things will get much worse in the West; this was anticipated

in elite circles when the neoliberal project was still on the

drawing board, as is illustrated in Samuel Huntington's "The

Crisis of Democracy" report discussed earlier.

* The management of discontented societies

The postwar years, especially in the United States, were

characterized by consensus politics. Most people shared a

common understanding of how society worked, and generally

approved of how things were going. Prosperity was real and the

matrix version of reality was reassuring. Most people believed

in it. Those beliefs became a shared consensus, and the

government could then carry out its plans as it intended,

"responding" to the programmed public will.

The "excess democracy" of the 1960s and 1970s attacked this

shared consensus from below, and neoliberal planners decided

from above that ongoing consensus wasn't worth paying for.

They accepted that segments of society would persist in

disbelieving various parts of the matrix. Activism and protest

were to be expected. New means of social control would be

needed to deal with activist movements and with growing

discontent, as neoliberalism gradually tightened the economic

screws. Such means of control were identified and have since

been largely implemented, particularly in the United States.

In many ways America sets the pace of globalization;

innovations can often be observed there before they occur

elsewhere. This is particularly true in the case of

social-control techniques.

The most obvious means of social control, in a discontented

society, is a strong, semi-militarized police force. Most of

the periphery has been managed by such means for centuries.

Urban and suburban ghettos in America -- where the adverse

consequences of neoliberalism are currently most concentrated

-- have literally become occupied territories, where police

beatings and unjustified shootings are commonplace. So that

the beefed-up police force could maintain control in

conditions of mass unrest, elite planners also realized that

much of the Bill of Rights would need to be neutralized. This

is not surprising, given that the Bill's authors had just

lived through a revolution and were seeking to ensure that

future generations would have the means to organize and

overthrow any oppressive future government.

In the matrix, the genre of the TV or movie police drama has

served to create a reality in which "rights" are a joke, the

accused are despicable sociopaths, and no criminal is ever

brought to justice until some noble cop or prosecutor bends

the rules a bit. Government officials bolstered the construct

in the 1980s and 1990s by declaring "wars" on crime and drugs;

the noble cops are fighting a war out there in the streets --

and you can't win a war without using your enemy's dirty

tricks. The CIA plays its role by managing the international

drug trade and making sure that ghetto drug dealers are well

supplied. In this way, the American public was led down the

garden path to accepting the means of its own suppression.

The covert guiding of various social movements has proven to

be one of the most effective means of programming factions and

stirring them against one another. Fundamentalist religious

movements have been particularly useful. They have been used

not only within the US, but also to maximize divisiveness in

the Middle East and for other purposes throughout the empire.

The collective energy and dedication of "true believers" makes

them a potent political weapon that movement leaders can

readily aim where needed. In the US that weapon has been used

to attack the women's movement, to support repressive

legislation, and generally to bolster the ranks of what is

called in the matrix the "right wing."

In the matrix, the various factions believe that their

competition with each other is the process that determines

society's political agenda. Politicians want votes, and hence

the biggest and best-organized factions should have the most

influence, and their agendas should get the most political

attention. In reality there is only one significant political

agenda these days: the maximization of capital growth through

the dismantling of society, the continuing implementation of

neoliberalism, and the management of empire. During the

Clinton era, his liberal rhetoric and his playing around with

health care and gay rights were not the result of liberal

pressure. They were rather the means by which Clinton was sold

to liberal voters, so that he could proceed with real

business: getting NAFTA through Congress, promoting the WTO,

giving away the public airwaves, justifying military

interventions, and so forth. Issues of genuine importance are

never raised in campaign politics -- this is a major glitch in

the matrix for those who have eyes to see it.

* The New American Century

The New American Century began on September 11, 2001. For

anyone familiar with the history of American war-enabling

"outrage incidents", the attacks on the World Trade Center and

Pentagon were highly suspicious from the very beginning. Four

planes were known to be hijacked for more than an hour, and

yet no fighters were scrambled to intercept them -- not even

after the first Tower had been hit. This is completely

contrary to standard procedure. Typically, when any flight

goes off course in the U.S., even if it's not a hijacking,

interceptors are scrambled within minutes. The manner in which

the Towers collapsed was also highly suspicious --

particularly the third tower, which was not even struck by a

plane. All three collapsed in precisely the manner one would

expect from a professional demolition, and numerous fire

fighters and other eyewitnesses reported hearing explosions in

the buildings -- after the fires had been brought mostly under

control. Although the Administration expressed complete

surprise at the attacks, it claimed to know the exact

identities of all the hijackers within hours of the event.

While the whole world was transfixed to TV screens, awed at

the magnitude of the attacks, President Bush read stories to

children and other top administration officials carried on

with their normal schedules. The announcement of the War On

Terrorism and the Patriot Act followed entirely too rapidly to

have been the result of a surprise attack.

As more information emerged in the following weeks and months,

the official version of the 9/11 events became increasingly

untenable. The administration had received dozens of warnings

that Al Qaeda was planning to use hijacked aircraft as attack

planes, contrary to White House claims of being caught

completely by surprise. In fact, the Pentagon had carried out

practice exercises in anticipation of precisely such an

attack. Two weeks prior to the attacks, Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad,

head of Pakistani Intelligence, transferred $100,000 to the

account of Mohammed Atta, leader of the alleged hijackers.

While the attacks were being carried out, Ahmad was having

breakfast in the Senate lunch room with members of the Select

Committee on Intelligence. The FBI identified Ahmad as the

"moneybags of the hijacking", and yet he was allowed to leave

the country and there has been no follow-up regarding his

involvement. About the only thing supporting the

Administration's official version of events is the inability

of most people to imagine that the events of 9/11 could have

been an inside job. For those familiar with America's history

of "outrage incidents", not much imagination is required.

We now know that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and crew came into the

White House with a detailed agenda up their sleeves, and it

was an agenda that would have been very difficult to pursue

without the dramatic events of 9/11. Indeed, such an agenda

would have been incomplete if it did not include a plan for

achieving domestic public acceptance and international

acquiescence. And after 9/11, the pre-existing agenda was

immediately launched into implementation. In terms of

evaluating suspected perpetrators for 9/11, one must clearly

attribute to top U.S. elites motive, opportunity, means, modus

operandi, and lack of alibi. In addition there has been no

evidence presented that is contrary to their culpability.

The agenda of the new White House was written up as a report,

"Rebuilding America's Defenses -- Strategy, Forces and

Resources For a New Century", produced in September 2000 by

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The report is

an updated version of a classified "Defense Policy Guidance"

document drafted in 1992 under the supervision of Paul

Wolfowitz. Some of the founding members of PNAC include Deputy

Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Vice President Dick Cheney,

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Defense Policy Board

chairman Richard Perle. Here are some excerpts from their

written agenda for the New American Century:

   "The United States has for decades sought to play a more

    permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved

    conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need

    for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends

    the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein". (p. 14)

       "Further, these constabulary missions are far more complex and

    likely to generate violence than traditional 'peacekeeping'

    missions. For one, they demand American political leadership

    rather than that of the United Nations, as the failure of the UN

    mission in the Balkans and the relative success of NATO

    operations there attests" (p. 11).

     "Despite the shifting focus of conflict in Europe, a

    requirement to station U.S. forces in northern and central

    Europe remains. The region is stable, but a continued American

    presence helps to assure the major European powers, especially

    Germany, that the United States retains its long-standing

    security interest in the continent. This is especially

    important in light of the nascent European moves toward an

    independent defense 'identity' and policy; it is important

    that NATO not be replaced by the European Union, leaving the

    United States without a voice in European security affairs"

    (p. 16).

     "Since today's peace is the unique product of American

    preeminence, a failure to preserve that preeminence allows others

    an opportunity to shape the world in ways antithetical to

    American interests and principles. The price of American

    preeminence is that, just as it was actively obtained, it must be

    actively maintained" (p. 73).

      "To preserve American military preeminence in the coming decades,

    the Department of Defense must move more aggressively to

    experiment with new technologies and operational concepts, and

    seek to exploit the emerging revolution in military affairs" (p.

    50).

       "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings

    revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some

    catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" (p. 51).

Soon after the PNAC crew managed to gain control of the White

House, they got their "new Pearl Harbor", they got their

"substantial American force presence in the Gulf" under

"American political leadership", and the revolution in

military affairs is now moving "more aggressively". The "War

on Terrorism", enabled by 9/11's "new Pearl Harbor", is the

smoke screen behind which the agenda of the New American

Century is being aggressively implemented. American

"preeminence", apparently, is to be ensured into the future.

No challenge to U.S. military or economic supremacy is to be

tolerated.

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