Tragedy and Hope 101 by Joseph Plummer

A good, shorter alternative to Quigley's much longer Tragedy and Hope.

Western Man has no plan
Since he became complacent
Stopped believing in himself
Let others steal his rewards
While he was dreaming

While he was dreaming
Others were scheming
Doing deals behind his back
Now Western Man is adrift, and under attack
What happened in between?¹

— Van Morrison

My son has talked to me over the years about the book Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time by Carroll Quigley. It’s a long book, a dense book and apparently Quigley’s bosses did not want it to be published. It explains how elites, behind the scenes, attempted to rule the world and in many cases succeeded.

Some months ago I was talking with a Substack friend, ThothStudio, who has read Tragedy and Hope by Quigley and he suggested I get the book Tragedy and Hope 101: The Illusion of Justice, Freedom and Democracy by Joseph Plummer. Plummer distills the original book down to just over a couple of hundred pages and that sounded good to me as the original runs over 1300. It’s not an abridgment of the original book, it is Plummer’s opinion of the main ideas in the original and in some cases his disagreements with Quigley. Quigley was a friend of the elites, not their adversary.

Tragedy and Hope 101 is a look into the inner workings of what the Plummer calls “the Network,” that consists of the Globalists, elites, political figures and bankers who all prefer obedient slaves to free-thinking citizens.

The main intent of the book is to show in general terms how the Network functions, what they think of regular people and what we can do to stop them. Though the Network uses the internet and social media as one way to accomplish its goals, those have become a problem for them with the ascent of X, Substack and other free speech platforms. It’s hard to plan for unintended consequences.

Because of this many regular Joes and Janes like myself have been awakened to a reality we never realized existed. Unfortunately for the Globalists, it appears this Tsunami of enlightenment is not going to stop anytime soon. However, as Plummer explains in his book, it is important to remember that the Network does not care what political parties or religious groups it uses to accomplish its ends. All it cares about is power, how and where it secures it doesn’t matter.

…there is no lie that these men will not tell. There is no crime that they will not commit. The only measure of “right” and “wrong,” in their view, is whether their tactics succeed or fail.²

There are a lot of people currently writing about the downfall of Globalism, but the Network, if it can, will have no qualms about shifting to MAGA or any other movement and away from Democrats and Republicans so long as it can keep its power and influence intact. Is that why the Trump 2024 election in November transpired so effortlessly? Did the Network see the shifting winds, then begin planning for a transition? I have no idea, just posing the questions.

One of the first things that Plummer wants readers to understand is the Network does not consider morality in any of its decisions. It is their belief that they are above moral laws because the ends of the state supersede moral considerations. This is called Realpolitik. Henry Kissinger was a great believer in this philosophy.

You can see, then, how members of the government can justify the killing of citizens or political opponents that they regard as enemies of the state. They don’t consider such acts wrong, because only individuals can be judged in moral terms, the state cannot. If the state succeeds (whatever the hell that means) anything they did to accomplish that is acceptable.

I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.³

Obviously, they don’t want us nobodies to know any of this. Only the elites can handle such high and mighty intellectual nuance which is why they will speak in the standard cliches about “Democracy,” “free speech,” “equality” and whatever else has been tested in their focus groups. They wouldn’t want to tell us that the lockdowns were about wealth transfer and control. In their minds, as Klaus Schwab said, Covid was a grand opportunity for a “Great Reset” that they did not want squandered away. If thousands of small businesses were destroyed and millions died or were maimed after being vaccinated, it didn’t matter, as long the state accomplished its goals.

To clarify, according to statesman like Kissinger, the moral and legislative laws that limit the actions of ordinary men do not apply to a select few.⁴

For the Network the traditional two party system in the U.S. worked great because there is very little difference between them and the Network controlled both of them. It felt good for Republican voters when Republicans lowered taxes, but why? The change was minuscule in the long run and still criminal when one considers before 1913 there was no income tax. Then four years later Democrat voters can feel good when Democrats raise taxes and so it goes.

Though much shorter than the original book, Plummer still gives readers a lot to think about. There are people like Edward Bernays (1891-1995) author of the book Propaganda who became known as the “Father of Propaganda”, Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) who started the secret society that exists to this day, Alfred Milner (1854-1925) who shared power with Rhodes, President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) who we can thank for the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Income Tax implemented in 1913, Edward Mandell House an advisor to Wilson and others.

He also names groups and agencies that are part of The Network: the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Federal Reserve and the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR).

There are many more details in the book but I want to end this recommendation with his suggestions on how to undermine the Network.

1. Raise Awareness: Expose Their Illegitimacy
   Reach out to new people regularly and share information that exposes what the Network is and how it operates.

2. Competing Currencies: Stop Using the Network’s Money
   To truly disarm the Network, we first must end its ability to create and control our money supply.

3. Attack the Income Tax

4. Nullification: Refuse to Comply, Refuse to Convict
   The concept behind nullification is very simple: the people determine what the government has the power to do, not the other way around.

5. Disruptive Technologies
   In all of human history, rulers have never faced a threat of this magnitude [the internet], and it’s only just beginning.⁵

It’s an excellent book and I highly recommend reading it if you’re interested in a good introduction to the inner workings of central banks, governments, elites and getting a short history of our corrupt political systems. I’ll leave you with a couple of more quotes.

This is one of the most common tactics employed by the Network for manipulating public opinion. It will point to an injustice (often caused by the Network itself), whip up an emotional firestorm, and, at the peak of hysteria, offer a solution that furthers its own agenda.⁶

Think about that for a minute…America went from being a sparsely settled nation of wilderness in 1776 to the most prosperous and arguably most powerful nation on the planet without an income tax.⁷

So if you’ve ever thought you’d like to read Tragedy and Hope, but have been intimidated by its length, Tragedy and Hope 101 is a great alternative.

You can read Tragedy and Hope 101 for free on Joe Plummer’s website.

Notes

1. Morrison, Van, "Western Man," Latest Record Project: Vol. 1, Source

2. Plummer, Joseph, Tragedy and Hope 101: The Illusion of Justice, Freedom and Democracy, 2016, Joseph Plummer, Grafton, OH. Kindle Edition, p. 18.

3. Shakespeare, William, "The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus," William Shakespeare Complete Works Second Edition, Kindle Edition, p. 1645.

4. Plummer, p. 19.

5. pp. 103-109.

6. p. 51.

7. p. 71.