One of the key points to take away from Moldbug is the De Jouvenelian insight that (successful) rebellion is always, without exception, a mere tool of someone already in a position of power. Whig/ Liberal rubbish on this flows freely, with an ever ready pool of anti-establishment liberals with an obscenely delusional conception of anthropology always coming up with new ways to rebel. It is always their 16th birthday in the liberal tradition. Now most of these don’t amount to anything, but on occasion some rebel movement becomes of some value to someone in power, at which point it “magically” gains traction and the history afterwards is written as if it was a force of nature bubbling up from below.

The process should really have a name, and the best I can come up with is “The Iron law of Rebellious Tools.”

To demonstrate this iron law, it is worthwhile picking any serious rebellious movement for liberty, and then having a look at exactly where the movement got funding, and who supported it. I briefly mentioned the concept on this post, but it does deserve unpacking and demonstrating in more detail.

First, pick a rebellion, any rebellion. For my purposes I will stick with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Obviously this movement had many famous rebels who bubbled up like a force of nature and were the embodiment of the zeitgeist of progress which just can not be stopped. Ever. Progress is a bitch. So we have three very famous examples of leaders of the Civil Right’s Movements massively successful rebellion: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. Now if I can demonstrate that each of these examples had strong backing from within the power structure of the USA, then the iron law is maintained, if not, then it fails.

Starting with Rosa Parks, it is surely clear she was an unsupported rebel who, like, fought the system “man,” except she wasn’t. Rosa Parks was an activist for the NAACP. NAACP appears to have been founded by WASPS, Jews and a couple of token black people (7 of 60 founders.) Joan Roelofs in Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism describes it as:

“… a conservative elite-led approach to racial integration and was aided during its formative years by the Rosenwald and Peabody funds…The early donors were joined by J.D. Rockefeller Jr,. Edsel Ford and the Garland Fund among others.” By 1928 on the eve of the Depression, the NAACP had amassed a sufficient surplus of funds to invest part of its income in an impressive array of stocks and bonds.”

Who do you think paid for the court case that Rosa Park’s stunt was designed to spark? The black community? Come on. As Wiki even records:

“That Monday night, 50 leaders of the African-American community gathered to discuss actions to respond to Parks’ arrest. Edgar Nixon, the president of the NAACP, said, “My God, look what segregation has put in my hands!”[37] Parks was considered the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws, as she was seen as a responsible, mature woman with a good reputation.” (Emphasis mine.)

I think the iron law stands here, and to drive it home and provide even more context, let’s try Martin Luther King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Here is a wonderful article from the Chicago Tribune dated February 11 1968. Please read it, its fascinating, and here is the actual grant letter for (in current money) $1,780,741.18. Here is some more for training “ leaders” So rebellious, such an inevitable force of progress. This is from only one of many foundations as well. Just go fishing with the names of the major USA foundations on the The King Centre website which has a number of primary records. They don’t hide it, so you can find the following on Rockefeller “Rockefeller and Dr. King were good friends… In addition, Rockefeller was a major donor of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)” The conspiracy theorists have a point.

So far then, we have two major rebellious leaders of the civil rights era, and we have two very much elite linked and funded people. Surely Malcolm X is pure raw rebellion taking the fight to “da man!” Well, actually kind of. He seems to have been having a serious problem with actually seeing what was going on, as he said in his Message to the Grass Roots speech following the March on Washington organised by the Council for United Civil Rights:

“They had a meeting at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. The Carlyle Hotel is owned by the Kennedy family; that’s the hotel Kennedy spent the night at, two nights ago; [it] belongs to his family. A philanthropic society headed by a white man named Stephen Currier called all the top civil-rights leaders together at the Carlyle Hotel. And he told them that, “By you all fighting each other, you are destroying the civil-rights movement. And since you’re fighting over money from white liberals, let us set up what is known as the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership. Let’s form this council, and all the civil-rights organizations will belong to it, and we’ll use it for fund-raising purposes.” Let me show you how tricky the white man is. And as soon as they got it formed, they elected Whitney Young as the chairman, and who [do] you think became the co-chairman? Stephen Currier, the white man, a millionaire. Powell was talking about it down at the Cobo [Hall] today. This is what he was talking about. Powell knows it happened. Randolph knows it happened. Wilkins knows it happened. King knows it happened. Everyone of that so-called Big Six — they know what happened. Once they formed it, with the white man over it, he promised them and gave them $800,000 to split up between the Big Six; and told them that after the march was over they’d give them $700,000 more. A million and a half dollars — split up between leaders that you’ve been following, going to jail for, crying crocodile tears for. And they’re nothing but Frank James and Jesse James and the what-do-you-call-’em brothers. [As] soon as they got the setup organized, the white man made available to them top public relations experts; opened the news media across the country at their disposal; and then they begin [sic] to project these Big Six as the leaders of the march. Originally, they weren’t even in the march. You was [sic ] talking this march talk on Hastings Street — Is Hastings Street still here? — on Hasting Street. You was [sic] talking the march talk on Lenox Avenue, and out on — What you call it? — Fillmore Street, and Central Avenue, and 32nd Street and 63rd Street. That’s where the march talk was being talked. But the white man put the Big Six [at the] head of it; made them the march. They became the march. They took it over. And the first move they made after they took it over, they invited Walter Reuther, a white man; they invited a priest, a rabbi, and an old white preacher. Yes, an old white preacher. The same white element that put Kennedy in power — labor, the Catholics, the Jews, and liberal Protestants; [the] same clique that put Kennedy in power, joined the march on Washington. It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What you do? You integrate it with cream; you make it weak. If you pour too much cream in, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it’ll put you to sleep. This is what they did with the march on Washington. They joined it. They didn’t integrate it; they infiltrated it. They joined it, became a part of it, took it over. And as they took it over, it lost its militancy. They ceased to be angry. They ceased to be hot. They ceased to be uncompromising. Why, it even ceased to be a march. It became a picnic, a circus. Nothing but a circus, with clowns and all. You had one right here in Detroit — I saw it on television — with clowns leading it, white clowns and black clowns. I know you don’t like what I’m saying, but I’m going to tell you anyway. ’Cause I can prove what I’m saying. If you think I’m telling you wrong, you bring me Martin Luther King and A. Philip Randolph and James Farmer and those other three, and see if they’ll deny it over a microphone. No, it was a sellout. It was a takeover. When James Baldwin came in from Paris, they wouldn’t let him talk, ’cause they couldn’t make him go by the script. Burt Lancaster read the speech that Baldwin was supposed to make; they wouldn’t let Baldwin get up there, ’cause they know Baldwin’s liable to say anything. They controlled it so tight — they told those Negroes what time to hit town, how to come, where to stop, what signs to carry, what song to sing, what speech they could make, and what speech they couldn’t make; and then told them to get out town by sundown. And everyone of those Toms was out of town by sundown. Now I know you don’t like my saying this. But I can back it up. It was a circus, a performance that beat anything Hollywood could ever do, the performance of the year. Reuther and those other three devils should get a Academy Award for the best actors ’cause they acted like they really loved Negroes and fooled a whole lot of Negroes. And the six Negro leaders should get an award too, for the best supporting cast.”

Malcolm X’s subsequent activities were not very successful. Silly Malcolm. On a side note, the NOI is hilarious. Malcolm X then represents an oddity in being an exception that very much proves the rule.

Moving on, we can have a look at another of those great revolutions that shook the world and was a force of nature blah blah blah – the Reformation. And to examine this, we will follow the same formula and pick three examples of leadership in the revolution, and for this I will chose John Wycliffe, Jan Hus and Martin Luther.

Beginning with John Wycliffe, his position as a rebellious hero was indisputably sponsored by John of Gaunt. Who was this John of Gaunt? You may ask. Obviously a pure rebel, an anti-establishment warrior? Nope. He was none other than the Duke of Lancaster, one of the richest men in England, and the dominant force in England following the senility and death of his father King Edward III, and the death of his elder brother Edward (The black prince,) whilst King Richard the Second (Edward’s son and heir to the throne) was still a minor. This was a man at the very center of power just like the liberals in control of the foundations in the Civil Rights Era. This paper has an interesting investigation of the relationship between the two, with the author writing:

“That Gaunt, openly and publicly, even defiantly, supported Wyclif clearly indicates that there was some connection between the two men – call it an alliance, for lack of a better word.”

The author then goes on to write:

“By the process of elimination we arrive at politics as the basis of the alliance. There are three points of Wyclif’s doctrine that might be thought to appeal to Gaunt: 1. the withdrawal of clerics from secular offices; 2. the disendowment and seizure of church property; 3. the dignity and supremacy of a king. Of these I consider the third as most likely to have appealed to Gaunt; however, I must state that this view has not been advanced by historians to my knowledge.”

The author having issue with the fact that John of Gaunt did not appropriate church property rejects the first two, whilst acknowledging:

“The duke, one feels, was prepared to use Wyclif as a threat to his clerical opponents; a political tactic one can readily understand.”

Personally, I don’t see how this is much of a distinction. Either way the implication is high and low versus’ the middle. The author’s putting forward of Wycliffe’s position on monarchical authority as a basis of the alliance in no way offers a counter reason for the basis of the alliance in my eyes, but does provide an added, and very astutely observed reason. Successful rebellion is pro-power rebellion by default, as he notes:

“According to Wyclif, the king is the father and leader of his people; and all, clergy and laity, must obey him in matters temporal and in any conflict of the temporal and the spiritual. His power is from God; and to God alone is he accountable. This divine origin of kingly power could not fail to appeal to John of Gaunt.”

We can see already the basis of the rapid and great success of protestantism – rebellion against the middle, and support of power. This process obviously was set about with vigor by the time of Henry VIII, but the groundwork was already laid down.

Moving on to Jan Hus, we see that he was burnt at the stake for claiming that communion was being done wrong. Five crusades against his followers followed his death over these issues…except this didn’t happen. To show this we can first locate any sponsors of Jan Hus within the power system of Bohemia, and we find them in the form of Zbyněk Zajíc of Hazmburk, Hus’ strong connections with the king’s Court, and there is also a connection through the royal family to Wycliffe in the form of Queen Anne. Hus was no outsider to power. It is also worth noting (as the author of the essay on Wycliffe was perceptive enough to focus on) that Hus was very much influenced by Wycliffe’s opinion on the pre-eminence of the secular authority. The Catholic church was not going to send five crusades over an issue of who gets to drink the damn wine in a communion. Only liberal atheists would be stupid enough to believe that surely? Nope. Hus’ rebellions was supported when it was useful, then shut down when it stopped being useful anymore. The Hussite rebellion which followed was successful, and surely it was this lead by outsiders to power? No. Jan Žižka was linked to the Royal Court and clearly used the rebellion to his own ends.

So now we arrive at the case of Martin Luther. The first thing we need to do obviously is identify a sponsor, and we have that in the form of Frederick III, Elector of Saxony who protected Luther following the Diet of Worms – and clearly not for religious reasons. It is no coincidence that like Wycliffe and Hus, Luther was a strong advocate of the secular right of kings. The middle man in the relationship being Georg Burkhardt (George Spalatin) who deserves more attention than he has received. Protestantism was clearly a sponsored rebellion – as all successful rebellions are, and to supply another exception that proves the rule, we have the example of Thomas Munster. The pattern is monotonous.

Of course, this could all be wrong, and in fact it could be providence, progress or the spread of the protestant and civil right genes. I will leave the reader to make their own conclusions.

The ramifications if this is indeed correct, and the Iron law of Rebellious Tools is correct, is that it then has application to current socio-political issues. I can see the problem with the USA being the federal structure for example, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the feudal structure when looked at in the correct light. The delusion of Imperium in inperio which the Civil Rights Movement was clearly directed at is obvious. Remember, Rosa Park’s case, as was pretty much all civil right litigation to which the foundations funded, was directed “against city and state segregation laws” not federal. The echo can be seen in the actions of the King’s Court during the many quo warranto campaigns designed to undermine franchises in England in the early modern period. It is obvious when seen in this light, as Szabo notes in this instructive essay on the issue of franchises and the watershed Dr Bonham case:

“Grants of jurisdictional or police powers must be interpreted strictly in order to prevent loss of a subject’s liberty at the pleasure of others. Coke thereby achieved what royal attorneys had often vainly tried to achieve during the quo warranto campaign of Edward I, namely a very strict (and in practice often ruinous) interpretation of franchise grants, but under the rationale of protecting the rights of subjects rather than of protecting the rights of the king.”

The central power promotes the low to further its own ends. The wisdom of this is secondary to the immediate incentive of power in a faulty system which contains the delusion of Imperum in imperio. It is a design error, and it is a grave and unforgivable error to ascribe such an error the trapping of a mystical act of destiny. Such actions promote licence, not liberty, and the process creates an individualising effect that sets the state for greater centralisation as noted by De Maistre in his “Considerations on France”:

“It seems that all the monsters spawned by the Revolution have worked only for the monarchy. Through them, the luster of victories has won the world’s admiration and has surrounded the name of France with a glory not entirely dimmed by the crimes of the Revolution; through them, the king will return to the throne with all his brilliance and power, perhaps even with an increase in power.”

After a revolution, as explained by De jouvenel, Power is refreshed and comes into possession of even greater power. Bitcoin, the internet, and all current technological developments mean the next revolution will usher in a great deal of control. This can be done orderly, or by virtue of mindless high-low conflict due to absurd imperium in imperio.