Although I concluded the last part with the idea of (and that was truely very Machiavelli of me) "Give them what they want and they shall give you the power you need", there is more...
First, let's accept the text in quotes as a mathematical equation;
You are X. (Leader)
You want A.(Power)
And in order to get A, you have to give Y (Society) a certain amount of B (What They Want).
Even though my mathematical skills are seriously questionable, I can easily see that if you can control B, you can gain serious amounts of advantage in order to get A. Because most of the time the agenda of X collides with the desires of Y, X can't really give B to Y all the time to get the desired amount of A. But if you have control over B, you can eliminate that factor of collusion.
If you can determine what society wants, you can get all the power you need. And how can you control the desires of the society? Well, society thinks that the state exists to protect them. Although they don't know they are seriously mistaken, (because they are not really familiar with the 'Monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force' concept, but that's another story) you can use this to your advantage.
So I quote someone who had no reason to lie;
"Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." *
But the things I discussed so far represents only the one side of the coin. But things have changed;
Unlike the oldschool leader, leader today is merely an icon or a symbol. Who definently is not the brains/decision-maker of the orginization we call 'state'. That goes for strong states for various reasons and strong states use icon leaders for various reasons.
Weak state leaders on the other hand, are usually puppets of stronger states. They are condemned to get under influence of some strong state. But now with the Soviet Russia gone and the superpower being U.S, it's usually the U.S who influences the weak states. If a strong leader appears in a weak state and struggles to make a change, and if they fail to buy him out (which makes him even a stronger leader), chances are either the leader gets assassinated or a coup is arranged against him. (Further reading; Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins)
I can't think of any better example for the 'strong state's icon leader of our era; George W. Bush.
He looks dumb and acts dumb, that we know. Perfect choice for invading other countries on false accusations.
9/11 attacks, so called terrorist organization Al-Queda, weapons of mass destruction, war on terrorism. These are the incidents and reasons caused U.S to invade Afghanistan and Iraq (I seriously don't want to mention any false flag accusations, so let's just leave this here.). Leaders have presented those causes to society and to the mass media to legitimate an act of self defence.
After they failed catching Bin Laden and finding weapons of mass destruction, most Americans thought "Dumb president, what can we do?". But they were partially right and completely manipulated.
As I mentioned before, he was an Icon Leader. So who's fault was that?
No ones.
In a system where leaders are merely icons and symbols, it's only the men behind the curtain who makes the decisions. And ofcourse people who intended to do those things (such as causing more than 300.000 children casualties in Iraq) never considered these actions as mistakes, but as profit. Result of this so called 'failure' caused U.S to make billions of dollars of profit and established military bases in Iraq. Not to mention the oil reserves, U.S installed puppet goverment to Iraq too. Selling weapons, profit, sustaining conflict, profit, Americans dying, profit, Iraqis dying, profit. And so forth, so on...
Americans were told that they were under attack and leaders got the support they needed.
They waged war against terrorism, the eternal and ethereal arch-enemy of us (never mind the dot or the capital letters). The boogey-man of our age, it can be anywhere, anytime. A war that is most profitable, for it can be controlled and sustained. While you think the leader of your societies choice made a mistake, the men behind the curtain made profit.
While the richest %20 of the world population controls %82.7 of the world's total income, people still believe in equal rights,
While people still think that they can choose their leaders,
While people still think that their vote still counts,
While people still think they can govern theirselves,
While people still think there is an external enemy,
While people still think that the state is there to protect them,
While people still think it's the mugger that robs them,
They roam in the endless fields of Illussionary Democracy...
*: Oh I almost forgot, Hermann Wilhelm Göring said that. Who was found guilty of committing; crimes against humanity, crimes against peace and war crimes at the Nuremberg trials. As a result he was sentenced to death by hanging, although he committed suicide the night before his execution.
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