Money. War. Religion. Medicine. Control by Me Stuff
Plebeians and the Machines That Rule Us
Read on SubstackPlebeians like you and I are real. Our suffering is real. Every hour we slave, every risk we take, every loss we endure contributes to something tangible: the wealth, power, and influence of the upper crust. But do you really think the people creating these circumstances care about any of us? Not a bit. They designed it this way. They profit from it, they insulate themselves from it, and they call it order while we call it life. Money decides who moves. War decides who lives or dies. Medicine decides who must comply. Control is the result. This is not accidental. It is the architecture of power itself.
From the late Middle Ages into the Tudor period, Britain and other European states discovered that brute force alone cannot endure. Armies burn, rebellions flare, empires crumble. Violence alone is unstable. To maintain dominion, power had to be engineered, systematic, and relentless. Permanent war demanded permanent financing. Permanent financing demanded permanent infrastructure. Permanent infrastructure demanded populations that could be counted, classified, managed, and when necessary, sacrificed. Banking funded armies. Armies expanded states. States enforced order. Medicine rose as both shield and sword, a tool to manage bodies at scale. Not to heal out of kindness, but to maintain efficiency, reliability, and obedience. Sick soldiers and sick workers threatened the system. Healthy bodies reinforced it.
Religion has always been part of the machinery. It sanctifies obedience, legitimizes authority, and gives suffering a narrative. It blesses wars, funds institutions, and keeps plebeians working, dying, and complying. Just like medicine, just like money, just like military rank, it becomes another instrument to reward compliance, extend influence, and make the system seem natural. Pray, fight, or obey, it doesn’t matter. The outcome is always the same: the upper crust thrives while we fight their wars with our lives.
When the United States emerged, the old aristocracy did not vanish. They transformed. Boston Brahmins, industrial dynasties, financiers, and social elites did not need titles. They did not need uniforms to assert power. They needed institutions. Universities, hospitals, research foundations, boards, and regulatory bodies. These were the instruments through which power was centralized and legitimized.
Titles, Rank, and the Management of Death
The myth is that elites went to war alongside everyone else. The reality is that they positioned themselves above it. Take John Jacob Astor IV. Often referred to as Lieutenant Colonel Astor, his title suggests combat leadership, but in truth, his role during the Spanish American War was largely staff-based. He served on the headquarters staff of General William Shafter in Cuba, overseeing logistics, inspections, and coordination. He did not lead infantry charges. He did not march through jungle fire with enlisted men. His proximity to danger was incidental, not structural.
Astor also personally financed an artillery unit, the Astor Battery, which was deployed to the Philippines. Funding a unit conferred status, access, and rank. It also ensured distance. Others commanded. Others fought. Others died. Astor gained legitimacy, prestige, and the enduring social title of Colonel without absorbing the physical cost of war.
This pattern was common. Elite military titles functioned as a bridge between wealth and authority. Rank did not have to mean battlefield exposure. It meant administrative control, symbolic legitimacy, and proximity to decision making. These men were not expendable assets. They were managers of expendable assets.
Other figures illustrate the same logic. Cornelius Vanderbilt III raised and commanded a volunteer cavalry regiment, yet his risk was structured. He entered as an officer, not as cannon fodder. Theodore Roosevelt rode with the Rough Riders and saw combat, but his service elevated him politically and socially, a trajectory not shared by the enlisted men who fought and died around him. Even professional staff officers like Peyton C. March commanded resources and logistics with minimal direct exposure to battlefield danger. National Guard officers and volunteer colonels often never left the United States, their roles symbolic or administrative while ordinary soldiers bore the brunt of disease, heat, and artillery.
The Spanish American War delivered precisely what elites needed: prestige, territorial expansion, and profit. Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba came under U.S. influence. Trade routes expanded. Naval power grew. Military contracts multiplied. Shipping and insurance boomed. Wealth was protected, capital extended, influence secured. The war was brief. The benefits were enduring.
War as Lever and Medicine as Governance
War accelerates elite influence. Every conflict justified emergency measures. Emergency measures concentrated authority. Concentrated authority rewarded obedience and punished resistance. Medicine became their perfect partner. It speaks in absolutes, demands trust, enforces compliance. Trauma care, logistics, epidemiology, surveillance, all scaled through military and state needs. Each innovation reinforced authority. Each emergency expanded power (and continues to do so).
Profit intertwined with purpose, and the system became self-sustaining. Illness became a market. Crisis became a revenue stream. Compliance became measurable. Poisoned environments, neglected prevention, controlled outbreaks, all became part of the machinery. Those at the top insulated themselves from harm. Those at the bottom absorbed it. That asymmetry is not flaw. It is design.
Plebeians like you and I are real. Our suffering is real. Every forced march, every risk, every exhaustion adds to the fortunes of the upper crust. Science seems real too. Reports, charts, experiments, official protocols, laboratories with white coats, all of it looks like knowledge. But is it really about understanding anything, or is it just another way to enforce obedience, measure compliance, and convince the rest of us to keep running in circles while the elite keep scoring points?
Today, the names have changed. The uniforms are still there for the enlisted, but the upper mucks wear suits. They meet at summer camps in Idaho, sit in Bilderberg rooms, attend WEF forums, and gather at UN and WHO meetings to plan strategy, manage narratives, and protect their interests. Foundations, agencies, contractors, public-private partnerships, revolving doors, all operate under the same logic. War is continuous, emergency normalized, health securitized. Money funds force. Force expands authority. Medicine legitimizes control.
Bodies are real. Suffering is real. Authority is real. Everything else is theater. This is the pattern across centuries. Different faces, different tools, same outcome. Money, war, medicine, control. One continuous thread linking empires, nations, crises, and institutions. Once you see it, the question stops being whether the system is broken. The question becomes for whom it is built and at whose expense it endures. Everything else is noise.















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