POWER STRATEGIES
Updated Sunday, February 03, 2008 08:02 PM
This site - at its core - observes essentially all of the manipulations and strategies of power that have developed in the overall human experience. Because of the inquiries we receive - we are starting to comment on particular pages on particular power issues as they arise. We will also post them in this section.
Preface
Power of one living thing over another is intrinsic to life - there is constant competition for a position of power over all other things. Machiavelli, in The Prince, wrote a guidebook to the use of power, and those who are Machiavellian practice his guidelines. To be so called is almost always a derogatory comment, unless made by the most powerful and skillful person in the conversation. Certainly at the core of what Machiavelli wrote was a tough understanding of how power is applied, whether that conduct is considered respectable, pragmatic or worse.
The techniques of power management and application are much like what mathematics is to physics - a set of tools to describe and apply conduct of a complex act. Whether those techniques are acceptable, amoral, immoral, legal or illegal is a function of time and place. Applying these sorts of standards to the conduct of power is essentially a human phenomenon. Clearly, there are certain sorts of social conduct that manage power among animals other than humans, but the uses and modifications of raw power are really the purview of the human civilizing processes - at least for the purposes of this manual on power.
The Territorial Imperative
Humans have long perceived their status as superior to all other life in the Universe. As information about the nature of life in general has developed we have discovered that we operate much of other life does, although we may be very dominant in the food chain at this point in time. What is unique in those governments we call democracies or free governments, a larger base of the human population has been able to exert some degree of control over the conduct of power by its leaders. It has been a long, deadly, and bloody struggle to achieve what control we do have.
Control over power has been the center of what was brilliantly written about in the Twentieth Century as the Territorial Imperative. In its simplest form, this is the effort by one living thing to exert control over the part of the Earth that it considers necessary for its survival. (Quite clearly, this is further exerted as efforts are being made to control territory beyond the Earth itself as we examine and move to other parts of the Universes.) For those willing to accept this concept of Territorial Control, even for the sake of discussions of political power, an enormous clarity and perception of how to govern and control power comes quickly to mind.
Proximity to Power
"Cousin Politics"
Grooming the Boss
"Fall Guy" Politics
Executive Privilege
Governing
by Consensus
Commissions and Committees
Commissions and Committees have been critically important to power management through all of history. When the first Caveman leader organized a few of the fellas to decide which wild game to kill, the first consensus developing Committee was born. Such structures shift any blame for defeat - no meat for dinner - to the committee of hunters - but allows the Leader to take credit for great wisdom if the dinner rock is loaded with meat. (in process)
Governing
by Distraction
Governing
by Divisions
Governing
by Disruption
Governing
by Deception
"Slip and Slide" Power
Governing
by Compulsion
Governing
by Threat
The Arrogance of Power
Payback Time
Governing
by Force
Governing
With God at Your Side
The
Spiritual Cohort
The
Genetic Card
The
Faces of Conquest
Power
Money
How do Count in Matters of Power
Sexual Power
Data Control
Plausible Deniability
The Twenty-First Century brought a dangerous breed of terrorism to the United States. President of the United States George W. Bush chose to invade Iraq. To develop a supportive constituency for that war among the American People, the White House, Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA), the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, developed a public policy against Iraq which included their assurance that "Weapons of Mass Destruction" were in the hands of Saddam Hussein, the brutal dictator of Iraq at the time.
The Vice President argued relentlessly that the weapons would be directed to the United States mainland soon. One of his executive appointees was a fiercely loyal sidekick named "Scooter" Libby. "Scooter" managed many of the press contacts of the Vice President's Office. Otherwise he could easily be defined as a loyal and dedicated servant to the Vice President, the President, and would do what he was told to do, and maybe beyond what he was told to do if there was a slightest thought he was being loyal by doing it.
In the course of researching support for the White House argument, the CIA had evidence - at least a good rumor - that Saddam was trying to buy Uranium from an African county. Proof of such a purchase or even an attempt to buy Uranium would be a powerful argument behind the President's appeal for public support for a War in Iraq. The CIA arranged for a study by a former United States Ambassador. He went to the African country in question, did his research, and reported back that the rumor had no basis in fact. He so reported to the CIA which passed it along to the Vice President and other in the White House compound. The Ambassador also revealed his findings to the public when it appeared that the White House had no intention of telling the truth about the untrue allegations.
The Vice President was angry about the release of this information by the Ambassador. He sought to both discredit him in public and to punish him for telling the truth out loud. This is where "Scooter" - the loyal assistant of the Vice President comes into the story. He contacted several well known members of the American press. He apparently told one newspaper columnist that in fact the Ambassador's wife was in reality - a covert or hidden agent of the CIA - and that she had sent her husband on an unapproved trip to Africa. The story soon appeared in important United States newspapers. In the United States, it is a very serious felony crime to release the name of an undercover CIA agent. At this point, the President, the White House, the Vice President, and "Scooter" were in trouble. The Ambassador was not about to take this confrontation without a fight and made it into a head-to-head fight in the public press.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (the FBI) started an immediate investigation. Somebody had committed a felony by revealing the identify of a covert CIA agent - the Ambassador's wife! A Special Federal Criminal Prosecutor was appointed, evidence was presented to a Federal Grand Jury and eventually "Scooter" was charged with lying to the FBI. He was in due course convicted of several felonies.
There were at least three public officials besides "Scooter" who were public suspects of revealing the name of the CIA agent - the President - the Vice President - and Carl Rove, an Assistant to the President in the White House. The details of the overall investigation are secret and will be for generations until most of the current parties are dead.
This is where the concept of "plausible deniability" becomes a question. For openers, there were public denials by all sorts of people around all of these three political characters. How plausible they were was the question of the time.
As the facts came out or the statements of the various representatives were made, the President seemed to be clear of the whole political mess. Only history will reveal any more about his conduct. At the time of the incident, the denials of the President were "plausible" or "believable". There was nothing to suggest that Carl Rove was not involved, in the mood of the time much of the public suspected him of anything underhanded that came along. His participation in the entire incident was not "plausible" for many, but there was not proof to suggest he was involved. He was generally left in the middle of the "plausible" argument - some held him responsible for the leak of the agent's name - other did not.
The Vice President, for different reasons, did not escape the public belief that he was involved - "plausible deniability" did not work for him. No public evidence was presented that he was involved. There may have been a cover-up but there was no public evidence that he was. "Scooter" took the legal bullet to shield the Vice President including lying to the FBI and suffered serious punishment and disgrace.
Throughout history the giant lie that has often been required to develop a "deniable" position has been easy for both secular and sacred politicians. Great loyalty from underlings like "Scooter" has been common - and thousands of these junior assistants have taken punishment and died for their lying superiors. More than a few were the "messengers" of bad news who had to be killed to keep the politician's position "plausible."