"To take back control of their destiny..."
I do not expect this in what remains of my lifetime....
Prof. Hobson long ago described the condition of Imperial Britain in which a cosmopolitan elite gained state power and used the machinery of the state for its own interests. This was/is an arrangement into which certain of the older families were drawn by marriage, financial inducements, and other methods.
As one analytic approach, we might also consider Pareto's classic "circulation of elites" concept and modify it to reflect present circumstances. Thus, we might observe the movement of a "predatory elite" into positions of power in the US over the past century and, in so doing, displacing and co-opting a faction of the remaining "traditional elite."
War is a profitable business for those commercial and financial interests servicing the war as predatory elites know well. Some elements of the remaining traditional elite can be co-opted into a pro-war stance out of pecuniary interest. There are always the Alcibiades type of military "leaders" to be found, particularly in a corrupted society where virtue is not a "social value." Loyalty to the state does not exist in rootless and predatory elements in their fully realized cosmopolitan perspective, does it?
Profit is the thing, avarice is the driver, corruption and divide to conquer....is the method....
Certain elites know quite well the British imperial and colonial experience. But the empire was profitable indeed to some, was it not? Thus others bleed not those insiders profiting handsomely from the hubris and naiveté of those doing their bidding.
As I have remarked before, Osama CIA Bin Laden, etal.... can really start their retirement planning as it appears the US has been lured into their trap for some years to come and is bleeding at quite a good clip these days....
"War without end, Amen" [irony, no disrespect to the Liturgy intended]
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