Tragedy and Hope 101: the illusion of justice, freedom and democracy by Josef Plummer
Chapter 02
"Power Behind the Throne
As already mentioned, Quigley wasn’t your run-of-the-mill historian. Unlike most respected academics, he wasn’t afraid to talk about secret conspirators exercising power from the shadows. Nor was he afraid to point out that constitutions, parliaments, presidents, and emperors can all be used as a distraction, to divert attention away from the real ruling power behind the throne. As just one example, at about 190 pages into Tragedy and Hope, Quigley sets the record straight regarding the so-called Meiji Restoration in Japan.
By all outward appearances, the Restoration wrested power away from the shogun and placed it back in the hands of the Japanese emperor. But while this story of the emperor’s return to power was spread far and wide, the reality of the situation was quite different. In truth, the restoration had simply shifted power away from the shogun and into the hands of feudal lords who “proceeded to rule Japan in the emperor’s name and from the emperor’s shadow.”
These leaders, organized in a shadowy group known as the Meiji oligarchy, had obtained complete domination of Japan by 1889. To cover this fact with camouflage, they unleashed a vigorous propaganda [of] abject submission to the emperor which culminated in the extreme emperor worship of 1941–1945.
To provide an administrative basis for their rule, the oligarchy created an extensive governmental bureaucracy…To provide an economic basis for their rule, this oligarchy used their political influence to pay themselves extensive pensions and government grants [and engaged] in corrupt business relationships with their allies in the commercial classes…To provide a military basis for their rule, the oligarchy created a new imperial army and navy and penetrated the upper ranks of these so that they were able to dominate these forces as they dominated the civil bureaucracy. To provide a social basis for their rule, the oligarchy created…five ranks of nobility recruited from their own members and supporters.
Having thus assured their dominant position…the oligarchy in 1889 drew up a constitution which would assure, and yet conceal, their political domination of the country."
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