Let me begin summing all this up, with an important clarification. Have I been arguing that there is One Grand Conspiracy that is bringing about a New World Order? Yes and No. Yes, Virginia, there is a super-elite. No, however, because this super-elite is not always unified, is not omnipotent, and cannot control everything. Doubtless, there have been the same divisions, in-house squabbles and political infighting such as is bound to occur in any group made up of human beings.

The super-elite has had setbacks, such as the torpedoing of the League of Nations. What its members fear most is the kind of exposure that would create a critical mass of educated, independent-thinking voters who will put a stop to globalism when they see its ghastly price tag: the end of U.S. sovereignty, and of government that must at least pay lip service to the Constitution.

The super-elite had a close call, when Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope was published, simply because of Quigley's obvious credibility. It is possible that it experienced another close call with the George Wallace movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Maurice Bessinger, author (of the book Defending My Heritage), barbecue entrepreneur and political activist based in Columbia, SC reports how he knew Wallace personally, and worked closely with him to coordinate several of his campaigns in South Carolina. Wallace was both tough (he had boxed professionally while in college) and courageous. Although Wallace didn't discuss the matter publicly, Bessinger reports that he knew what the globalists were up to, and had every intention, if elected to high office, of stopping them. But in 1972, in Bessinger's words, "they shot him down like a dog."

Wallace, victim of an assassination attempt by a man who had been shadowing him for weeks, survived, but the attack left him paralyzed from the waist down, and in constant severe pain. This ended his candidacy, and, eventually, his political career. Was the man who shot him, Arthur Bremmer, working for the super-elite? We don't really know, of course. Bessinger thinks so; Bremmer denied having any other motivation than a desire for fame. Wallace had the largest following of any independent politician, however; especially in the South, where regional loyalties run strong and where resistance to globalism is in evidence. Running as a Democrat in 1972, Wallace had been leading George McGovern, who finally received his party's nomination that year to run against Nixon (he lost in a landslide). George Wallace's violent subtraction from the picture was, if not the work of the super-elite, an example of an amazing coincidence!

The third and most recent close call might have come indirectly, with Ross Perot's populist campaign in 1992. Perot did not talk about super-elites either, but he did talk about the harm trade agreements, such as NAFTA, would do to the U.S. economy, and he warned about the irrational fiscal policies being pursued in Washington. He received 19 percent of the popular vote—almost 20 million votes. Since 1992, the cost of running a credible campaign has skyrocketed. Today, only extremely wealthy and well-connected Demopublicans have a chance at being elected to the highest office in the land. Commentator Patrick J. Buchanan ran a Reform Party campaign in 2000, based on both social and cultural conservatism, and economic populism, but failed to break through, as Perot had.

So there is a super-elite, and it has itself pretty well insulated on the political front, but still, how much control does it actually wield? I am not asserting—as some skeptics will doubtless accuse me of doing—that One Grand Conspiracy is responsible for everything from Bush's re-election, to the impossibility of telephoning a business and speaking to a human being. What has been done—much of it through the government school system—is the creation of a cultural consensus, especially about the political, corporate, and financial system of the country. This consensus does not ask questions, and sets out to prevent others from asking them. The term is group-think, naming a process which rewards those who think alike, and weeds out those who think differently.

Much so-called education in government schools involves immersion in group-think. Those so immersed, when they become adults (assuming they even follow current events), speak of "democracy," of how "capitalism" won out over "socialism," or how "they hate us because we are free." They have been trained mentally to ignore the vast similarities between the two dominant political parties, skyrocketing debts, both public and private, as well as the rapidly widening gulf between the extremely rich (members of the "Davos culture," one might call it), and those being harmed by their economic policies. They might even become convinced that waging a war of aggression against a country with a fundamentally different culture from ours, that posed no genuine substantive threat to us (Iraq), is the right way to reduce the threat of another lethal terrorist attack on U.S. soil!

The consensus, reinforced daily in newspapers and on television news broadcasts—as well as in classrooms all across the country, and at school board meetings, and at Chamber of Commerce meetings—constitutes the "real matrix," enslaving people without their even being aware of it. The point of consensus is to have as few real controls as possible, because the "sheeple" willingly accept de facto slavery as normal. In this environment, most people don't need to be told what to do or how to act. Gatekeepers are firmly in place, however. The person with the wrong politics, or the wrong attitude toward government, or toward "public schools," is not going to be appointed, say, to the editorial board of the local newspaper. The person with the wrong views about sex and morality, or about homosexuality, will be refused work at state agencies whose business is dealing with public health issues. The person with the wrong views about "diversity" or about educating "global citizens" will be refused employment in education. And so on. This does not mean that those doing the hiring are answering directly to the CFR. They may be among the millions who have never so much as heard of the CFR. Their education and training has ensured that they will "follow the rules" without supervision, as we said above. They are fully plugged into the "real matrix." If presented with arguments such as the one here, they will take the blue pill, and waking up in their beds the next day, laugh the whole thing off.

That is the choice I leave to my readers, who might find the "desert of the real" as presented here, not just unpalatable, but literally unbelievable. No one can be forced to believe something against his will, no matter how great the evidence. So to paraphrase Morpheus, after having read all this—assuming you've read this far—you have the same choice Neo was given in The Matrix. You may take the blue pill: tuning this out, and returning to your academic specialty, or your sports, or your business. You will wake up in your bed, tomorrow, believing what you want to believe.

Some have taken the blue pill. Rush Limbaugh pooh-poohed the whole thing, commenting sarcastically back in 1995:

You see, if you amount to anything in Washington these days, it is because you have been plucked or handpicked from an Ivy league school - Harvard, Yale, Kennedy school of government—you've shown an aptitude to be a good Ivy league type, and so you're plucked, so to speak, and you are assigned success. You are assigned a certain role in government somewhere, and then your success is monitored and tracked, and you go where the pluckers and the handpickers can put you.

And Ira Strauss, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, contended back in 1996 that:

Conspiracy theory is doing America real harm. Long incubating underground, it has grown into the greatest enslaver of human minds since communism. It irrationalizes thinking on every issue. It kills. It turns millions of Americans against their own country. It undermines foreign policy, by vilifying our government's every effort.

Take that! But Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who like Carroll Quigley, was in a position to know, commented that "in politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."

And Woodrow Wilson before him, observed ominously:

Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know there is a power somewhere, so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath, when they speak in condemnation of it.

And U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter said in 1952, "The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes."

So you may take the blue pill, listening to popular commentators, and ignoring the reports of scholars such as Carroll Quigley, or the warnings of numerous figures who have risen to prominence in our government.

Or you may take the red pill, and investigate this Wonderland, or more exactly, this "desert of the real." Everything I've said here can be checked, by tracking down and reading the works I have cited, or by going to the perpetrators' own websites (Agenda 21 is an example).

You'll find out how deep the rabbit-hole goes. It might not be easy. But as Morpheus tells Neo in another of those pivotal moments in The Matrix: