Terminology can be useful to grasping concepts that may or may not otherwise be as clear absent useful nomenclature or terminology. There are several forms of power which could for the purpose of the preface for this article be boiled down to two. There is apparent power and what some have described for decades as the “Unseen Hand.” Apparent power is obvious in the sense that it is visible and thus “apparent.” The so-called Unseen Hand is described in the Reverso Dictionary as: “force or influence not seen.” There are several ways the “unseen hand” metaphor has been used. But in this context, it is in the sense described by the Reverso Dictionary as – force or influence not seen. It may or may not be ‘conspiratorial,’ as some authors have described it. Once someone grasps the notion of the unseen hand it should not be ignored. There are any number of forces that may be subtle. The money trail is one tool that may help reveal that “unseen influence.” As examples for the manufactured housing industry, regulatory agencies are apparent power. Meanwhile, those who may work in a less visible way with regulatory leaders in order to get their goals accomplished could be described as an example of the Unseen Hand. With that in mind, let’s pivot towards the rest of the headline subjects. Google’s power, or that of Facebook for instance, can be both apparent and subtle. The well-informed grasp the enormous power those tech platforms wield over society. FEA is an abbreviation for Facts, Evidence, and Analysis. Anytime someone is temporarily or otherwise overlooking the influence of big tech, a form of the unseen hand is at work, as this fact and evidence packed analysis will reveal.

Stating the obvious, while the 2024 election is over, the battle for the control of the government in the U.S.A. and other countries is ongoing. To that end, corporate, big tech, big media, and leaders in big government are at work. What Mike Benz, former Obama Administration assistant National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, and others sometimes refer to as The Blob, as opposed to the Deep State, is found in that nexus between big corporations, big media, big tech and the apparent actions/inactions of government.

In the midst of that “Blob” is the issue the Whiteheads from the Rutherford Institute are bringing into focus via their column provided in Part I of today’s report. Note that as with any quoted source, the remarks are their own, and sharing a post doesn’t imply editorial agreement with some or all of its content, much less other remarks or behaviors from a quoted source.

Before leaving the notion of the Unseen Hand, some quotes from Kevin Roberts from the Heritage Foundation is worthwhile. Roberts was recently quoted saying we do not have a truly free market (see Part II, below, for the full context).

While that remark by Roberts about the U.S. not having a truly free market may irksome, it is nevertheless demonstrably true.

• “Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother.” – John and Nisha Whitehead, the Rutherford Institute.

• “You only have a free market, for example, if you have good families, a stable society, and a government that reflects those virtues,” Dr. Kevin Roberts said. “And we don’t have a free market in America today.”

• “Instead, it’s “an utter collusion” between Big Government and Big Business, replete with corporate welfare” wrote Christina Lewis about Robert’s remarks in the video posted in Part II.

That not ‘truly free market’ and the Unseen Hand are both serious issues facing our profession and the U.S.A. more broadly. Thousands of now former retailers in manufactured housing experienced that not truly free market firsthand. Retailers and others experienced what amounts to the Unseen Hand in operation. Here below is how Kevin Clayton described the obvious. What Clayton didn’t describe, an apparent example of paltering, is that Clayton’s sister brand 21st Mortgage Corporation and others in the Berkshire Hathaway orbit played a subtle role in that loss of lending in 2009. Kevin simply didn’t mention 21st’s et al’s actions, thus it remained for the purpose of his statement an ‘unseen hand.’

Power that is openly wielded is apparent by definition.

Power that is wielded more subtly is no less powerful than its actual potency.

Each have the ability to derail investments or careers, often with little or no notice.

In Part III will explore developing including insights from left-leaning Matt Stoller on antitrust in the upcoming Trump Administration.

Part I. From the Rutherford Institute to MHProNews is the following.

You’d Better Watch Out: The Surveillance State Is Making a List, and You’re On It
By John & Nisha Whitehead | December 4, 2024

“He sees you when you’re sleeping

He knows when you’re awake

He knows when you’ve been bad or good

So be good for goodness’ sake!”

— “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”

You’d better watch out—you’d better not pout—you’d better not cry—‘cos I’m telling you why: this Christmas, it’s the Surveillance State that’s making a list and checking it twice, and it won’t matter whether you’ve been bad or good.

You’ll be on this list whether you like it or not.

Mass surveillance is the Deep State’s version of a “gift” that keeps on giving…back to the Deep State.

Geofencing dragnets. Fusion centers. Smart devices. Behavioral threat assessments. Terror watch lists. Facial recognition. Snitch tip lines. Biometric scanners. Pre-crime. DNA databases. Data mining. Precognitive technology. Drones. Contact tracing apps. License plate readers. Social media vetting. Surveillance towers.

What these add up to is a world in which, on any given day, the average person is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother.

Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by a vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops.

This creepy new era of government/corporate spying—in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted—has been made possible by a global army of techno-tyrants, fusion centers and Peeping Toms.

Consider just a small sampling of the tools being used to track our movements, monitor our spending, and sniff out all the ways in which our thoughts, actions and social circles might land us on the government’s naughty list, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong.

Tracking you based on your phone and movements: Cell phones have become de facto snitches, offering up a steady stream of digital location data on users’ movements and travels. For instance, the FBI was able to use geofence data to identify more than 5,000 mobile devices (and their owners) in a 4-acre area around the Capitol on January 6. This latest surveillance tactic could land you in jail for being in the “wrong place and time.” Police are also using cell-site simulators to carry out mass surveillance of protests without the need for a warrant. Moreover, federal agents can now employ a number of hacking methods in order to gain access to your computer activities and “see” whatever you’re seeing on your monitor. Malicious hacking software can also be used to remotely activate cameras and microphones, offering another means of glimpsing into the personal business of a target.

Tracking you based on your DNA. DNA technology in the hands of government officials completes our transition to a Surveillance State. If you have the misfortune to leave your DNA traces anywhere a crime has been committed, you’ve already got a file somewhere in some state or federal database—albeit it may be a file without a name. By accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc. After all, a DNA print reveals everything about “who we are, where we come from, and who we will be.” It can also be used to predict the physical appearance of potential suspects. It’s only a matter of time before the police state’s pursuit of criminals expands into genetic profiling and a preemptive hunt for criminals of the future.

Tracking you based on your face: Facial recognition software aims to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. Coupled with surveillance cameras that blanket the country, facial recognition technology allows the government and its corporate partners to identify and track someone’s movements in real-time. One particularly controversial software program created by Clearview AI has been used by police, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to collect photos on social media sites for inclusion in a massive facial recognition database. Similarly, biometric software, which relies on one’s unique identifiers (fingerprints, irises, voice prints), is becoming the standard for navigating security lines, as well as bypassing digital locks and gaining access to phones, computers, office buildings, etc. In fact, greater numbers of travelers are opting into programs that rely on their biometrics in order to avoid long waits at airport security. Scientists are also developing lasers that can identify and surveil individuals based on their heartbeats, scent and microbiome.

Tracking you based on your behavior: Rapid advances in behavioral surveillance are not only making it possible for individuals to be monitored and tracked based on their patterns of movement or behavior, including gait recognition (the way one walks), but have given rise to whole industries that revolve around predicting one’s behavior based on data and surveillance patterns and are also shaping the behaviors of whole populations. One smart “anti-riot” surveillance system purports to predict mass riots and unauthorized public events by using artificial intelligence to analyze social media, news sources, surveillance video feeds and public transportation data.

Tracking you based on your spending and consumer activities: With every smartphone we buy, every GPS device we install, every X/Twitter, Facebook, and Google account we open, every frequent buyer card we use for purchases—whether at the grocer’s, the yogurt shop, the airlines or the department store—and every credit and debit card we use to pay for our transactions, we’re helping Corporate America build a dossier for its government counterparts on who we know, what we think, how we spend our money, and how we spend our time. Consumer surveillance, by which your activities and data in the physical and online realms are tracked and shared with advertisers, has become big business, a $300 billion industry that routinely harvests your data for profit. Corporations such as Target have not only been tracking and assessing the behavior of their customers, particularly their purchasing patterns, for years, but the retailer has also funded major surveillance in cities across the country and developed behavioral surveillance algorithms that can determine whether someone’s mannerisms might fit the profile of a thief.

Tracking you based on your public activities: Private corporations in conjunction with police agencies throughout the country have created a web of surveillance that encompasses all major cities in order to monitor large groups of people seamlessly, as in the case of protests and rallies. They are also engaging in extensive online surveillance, looking for any hints of “large public events, social unrest, gang communications, and criminally predicated individuals.” Defense contractors have been at the forefront of this lucrative market. Fusion centers, $330 million-a-year, information-sharing hubs for federal, state and law enforcement agencies, monitor and report such “suspicious” behavior as people buying pallets of bottled water, photographing government buildings, and applying for a pilot’s license as “suspicious activity.”

Tracking you based on your social media activities: Every move you make, especially on social media, is monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to form a picture of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line. As The Intercept reported, the FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies are increasingly investing in and relying on corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior. This obsession with social media as a form of surveillance will have some frightening consequences in coming years. As Helen A.S. Popkin, writing for NBC News, observed, “We may very well face a future where algorithms bust people en masse for referencing illegal ‘Game of Thrones’ downloads… the new software has the potential to roll, Terminator-style, targeting every social media user with a shameful confession or questionable sense of humor.”

 Tracking you based on your social network: Not content to merely spy on individuals through their online activity, government agencies are now using surveillance technology to track one’s social network, the people you might connect with by phone, text message, email or through social message, in order to ferret out possible criminals. An FBI document obtained by Rolling Stone speaks to the ease with which agents are able to access address book data from Facebook’s WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage services from the accounts of targeted individuals and individuals not under investigation who might have a targeted individual within their network. What this creates is a “guilt by association” society in which we are all as guilty as the most culpable person in our address book.

Tracking you based on your car: License plate readers are mass surveillance tools that can photograph over 1,800 license tag numbers per minute, take a picture of every passing license tag number and store the tag number and the date, time, and location of the picture in a searchable database, then share the data with law enforcement, fusion centers and private companies to track the movements of persons in their cars. With tens of thousands of these license plate readers now in operation throughout the country, affixed to overpasses, cop cars and throughout business sectors and residential neighborhoods, it allows police to track vehicles and run the plates through law enforcement databases for abducted children, stolen cars, missing people and wanted fugitives. Of course, the technology is not infallible: there have been numerous incidents in which police have mistakenly relied on license plate data to capture out suspects only to end up detaining innocent people at gunpoint.

Tracking you based on your mail: Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people. For instance, the U.S. Postal Service, which has been photographing the exterior of every piece of paper mail for the past 20 years, is also spying on Americans’ texts, emails and social media posts. Headed up by the Postal Service’s law enforcement division, the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) is reportedly using facial recognition technology, combined with fake online identities, to ferret out potential troublemakers with “inflammatory” posts. The agency claims the online surveillance, which falls outside its conventional job scope of processing and delivering paper mail, is necessary to help postal workers avoid “potentially volatile situations.”

Now the government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from these mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong.

Don’t believe it.

The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people—weapons of compliance and control in the government’s hands—haven’t made America any safer. And they certainly aren’t helping to preserve our freedoms.

Indeed, America will never be safe as long as the U.S. government is allowed to shred the Constitution.

—

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. 

Part II. From the Daily Signal to MHProNews is the following

Analysis

‘It’s Time to Saddle Up … to Take Our Country Back,’ Heritage Chief Says

“For every American who is discouraged about the American present and the American future, whatever the reason for that is, it’s time to saddle up, because we’re going to take our country back,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts promises.

Roberts made that vow in a discussion with Joshua Treviño, chief transformation officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, on this week’s episode of “The Kevin Roberts Show” podcast. Roberts, who previously served as chief executive officer of the TPPF, discussed his new book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America.”

For starters, Roberts contended we don’t have a genuine free market in this country.

“You only have a free market, for example, if you have good families, a stable society, and a government that reflects those virtues,” he said. “And we don’t have a free market in America today.”

Instead, it’s “an utter collusion” between Big Government and Big Business, replete with corporate welfare.

That segued into a discussion of a differentiation between conservatism and libertarianism. “The philosophical shortcoming of American libertarianism is that it’s about the material and it’s about the freedom to do whatever the heck you want,” Roberts said.

“The good news is you hit a triple,” he added, drawing an analogy to baseball. “And we’re going to get you home. And home is conservatism, properly understood, with gratitude at the top, which then can be gratitude for both material and nonmaterial things.”

One of the foundational tenets of conservatism is a certain communitarian nature, Roberts said.

“Communitarian in the sense that, before we care about who we’re voting for, we care about one another, we care about our neighbors, we care about community,” he asserted.

The way to undermine the power of Washington is by emphasizing the power of our local communities, the Heritage Foundation chief said.

Roberts later said that if Americans continue to let education in this country deteriorate, all of the policy work will be useless.

“Once we secure that delivery vehicle of universal school choice, we need to make sure that we are regenerating the intellectual tradition that founded this country, because if you don’t do that, you will never understand liberty the way our Founders did,” he said, adding: “You will never understand order the way our Founders did. And it doesn’t require you to subscribe to one religious faith or another. But it at least requires you to respect them, because that’s what required of an American citizen.”

You can hear more of what Roberts has to say about social welfare and about living in Louisiana and Cajun culture here:

Dr. Kevin Roberts | Breaking Free from Washington Elites

Part III – Additional Information with More MHProNews Analysis and Commentary

1) It is fair to say that Ben Rhodes and Mike Benz hold markedly different views on politics. Yet both have talked about The Blob.

2) The influential Heritage Foundation’s Dr. Kevin Roberts, Ph.D., or attorney John Whitehead and Rutherford Institute Executive Director Nisha Whitehead, didn’t use the term “The Blob,” but that term may well fit on numbers of occasions.

3) None of the above directly referenced the unseen hand. But the concept of the power behind the throne and the unseen hand dates back for centuries.  To illustrate, consider the clarification and descriptions from the Q&A with left-leaning Bing’s AI powered Copilot.

When Warren Buffett talked about “class warfare” and how his class has won, that too might be seen as an example of the Blob and thus a reference to unseen hand operating behind the scenes. To illustrate and confirm, consider this next Q&A on this date with Copilot.

When the now late Sam Zell said during an earnings call that “We like the oligopoly nature of our business” or when Warren Buffett spoke about his class has been engaging in class warfare and that they have won, are those possible examples of a reference to what Mike Benz and Ben Rhodes have called “the Blob” and are also a possible example of how the unseen hand operates normally in the background?

Great questions! Let’s break them down:

1. Sam Zell’s “oligopoly nature” comment: When Sam Zell mentioned liking the oligopoly nature of his business, he was referring to the concentration of market power in the hands of a few firms, which can limit competition and control prices. This can be seen as an example of how the “unseen hand” (market forces) operates in the background, shaping industries and economies.
2. Warren Buffett’s “class warfare” statement: Warren Buffett’s remark about class warfare highlights how the wealthy have used their resources and influence to shape policies and maintain their economic advantage. This aligns with the idea of “the Blob” as described by Mike Benz and Ben Rhodes, which refers to the interconnected network of government, media, and corporate interests that work together to maintain power and control.

So, yes, both statements can be seen as examples of how unseen forces and networks operate behind the scenes to shape economic and political landscapes. Does that help clarify things? …”

Copilot linked an article (#2) on Yahoo Finance at this link here and linked the article below on MHProNews to illustrate its findings.

5) There are those on the left and the right that may fail to connect the dots between the unseen power being exercised in or beyond the manufactured home industry.  There are also partisans who may lean left or right and perhaps for reasons related to partisanship will fail to see how their own remarks may or may not confirm their own claimed stance. That’s human nature, what some have called confirmation bias and blind spots.

6) With #5 in mind, Matt Stoller is an arguably left-leaning antitrust advocate that has been periodically referenced here on MHProNews for years. Stoller is the author of the antitrust and monopoly issues focused Big newsletter and the antitrust focused book named Goliath.  Stoller has shared numerous useful insights over the years. One of those in his most recent emailed item to MHProNews is quoted below.

There will be exceptions, and the Trump administration will still be much better on antitrust than Clinton, Bush, or Obama, in many ways because we revived the philosophy behind the law. But elections have consequences. And Trump will make sure his people, whoever he picks, enact his policy.

7) MHProNews plans to look at some insights from Stoller in the near term. While Stoller debatably thinks that the Biden-Harris (D) era administration has done a good job, and he seemed to favor Kamala Harris despite her being supported by those who opposed robust antitrust enforcement, it is interesting to note Stoller’s tip of the hat towards former and future President Donald J. Trump (R) and his soon-to-be vice president, currently Senator J.D. Vance (OH-R).  Watch for that planned report.

8) To recognize what former MHI President and CEO Richard “Dick” Jennison called the chains that are hamstringing the manufactured housing industry, or what the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) called the bottlenecks the industry faces, MHProNews has published the following often deeper dive articles.  Those will help paint the picture of the true state of the manufactured home industry as 2024 marches towards a close. This article began with the headline: “Apparent Power v Unseen Hand; Kevin Robert– ‘We Don’t Have Genuine Free Markets;’ Whitehead– You’d Better Watch Out–Corporate-Surveillance State Are Making Lists and You’re on It-MHVille FEA.” We opened with introducing some terminology that can help professionals, researchers, and others better understand information they are learning, absorbing. or even to some degree may already know. It has been a periodic emphasis of this publication to illustrate and inform industry pros on the forces, seen and unseen, that are limiting our industry.  Some recent and previous reports on those topics are linked below. More to come, stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, our thanks to free email subscribers and all readers like you, as well as our tipsters/sources, sponsors and God for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)

By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.

Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.

For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.

This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.

http://latonykovach.com

Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach

 

 

Related References:

The text/image boxes below are linked to other reports, which can be accessed by clicking on them.’