The Power of POI

Poi is commonly known as a sacred Polynesian food staple made from the taro plant. It is baked, pounded, moistened, and fermented, with an underlying spiritual appreciation. All conflict with family members is unquestionably halted when served, paying homage to the Hawaiian gods. Poi is also the perfect metaphorical acronym for understanding the root of today’s despicable political state: Power, Obedience, and Incompetence.

The root of today’s despicable political state is Power, Obedience, and Incompetence.

I stumbled upon this observation when reading The Hundred-Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury. From his early days at the United Nations in 1969 to the present, he has been considered the foremost authority on US–China relations. The subtitle of his book, China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower, describes a detailed account of China’s century-long ambition. As I was digesting this cornucopia of facts, beginning with Kissinger’s introduction and engagement, I kept questioning why the thousands of bureaucratic employees and policymakers, including Pillsbury, never understood or identified China’s long game and ideological goal. Any undergrad student of history should have been able to immediately recognize the principles and tangible pathways utilized towards achieving their projected dominance. After reflection and analysis, I realized all those involved fell into one or several categories: power, obedience, and incompetence.

Today, many seek truth, grasping accurate identification, which is essential for proper understanding. But with such a divide in our country, there are countless others, some with nefarious intentions holding powerful and influential positions, who mindlessly regurgitate in concert a scripted narrative absent any critical thought or culpability. This irrational tactic is appalling and correlates with the overlapping tenets of POI.

Power, Obedience, and Incompetence

The intoxicating allure of power is a potent aphrodisiac manifested in various struggles, encompassing military, economic, psychological, ideological, governmental, and sheer brute force. It often becomes a Machiavellian end in itself to control people and events. Dictators throughout history have required this contemptible condition, and as the historian Lord Acton so astutely echoed in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This absolutism creates a perverse, reprehensible morality guided by the dictum, “the ends justify the means,” rationalizing their violent abrogation of any individual rights while increasing their dominance and enriching their treasures.

Obedience, or duty, becomes the depraved psychological state needed to control the masses for these leaders to maintain power. This blind allegiance can result from a misguided ideology, fear of noncompliance, career advancement, mass delusion, subjective peer approval, or financial reward. Whatever the reasons, the loyal minions will fall in lockstep, providing their organizers with an army of unquestioned supporters. Immanuel Kant and his “categorical imperative” crafted the philosophical ethical underpinnings, removing man’s free will and justifying these unthinking, compliant actions. This behavior was so aptly exploited under Hitler with his Gestapo and by every other tyrant, religious theocracy, schoolyard bully, or any sundry cult.

The third piece of this calculation is just incompetence. Once again, numerous factors set the stage for these misdeeds, attributed to non-merit-based appointments or favors, unqualified employees, avoidable errors, ineptitude, deficient knowledge, a lack of due diligence, carelessness, nepotism, and a host of other unidentified characteristics. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is so widespread that a satirical but sadly true 1969 bestseller, The Peter Principle, captured its essence. The book expresses that “in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” The unexpected outcomes from such abysmal performance create unpredicted moral hazards that must be recognized and remedied, or disastrous consequences will ensue.

The Political Venn Diagram

Each segment may be independent, but intersecting qualities are displayed in a three-circled Venn diagram. Combining any two or all three facets will fashion catastrophic outcomes. While history is replete with examples and applies to everyone in the political arena, one needs to look no further than our previous Executive Branch, Biden and Harris (only apropos with the vice president continually referring to Venn diagrams). Both sought power, were obedient to their masters, and exhibited numerous levels of incompetence.

Beginning with the infamous Presidential debate on June 27, 2024, the world viewed an incoherent, cognitively impaired President Biden. It wasn’t that his lack of mental acuity suddenly appeared; this had been known long before the 2020 election and purposely hidden as he and others persisted in their quest for “power.” Right before the election, Stephen Colbert asked Obama, “Did you miss you? Did you ever look at something going on in the news and say, ‘You know what this situation needs? A little Barack Obama’?” and he responded:

People would ask me, ‘Knowing what you know now, do you wish you had a third term?’ And I used to say, You know what? If I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a front man or front woman, and they had an earpiece in and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff, and then I could sort of deliver the lines, but somebody else was doing all the talking and ceremony, I’d be fine with that.

Joe Biden was the selected “front man” as continual lust for “power” is ever-present. Viewed as affable and manageable but “incompetent,” and along with an “obedient” media and political establishment, the falsehood of Biden’s competence was promoted with a righteous certainty. The gullible populace was fed lies about his mental agility, as many from both parties obediently echoed the narrative and endorsed this fraud. Then, when exposed at that debate, the democratic process was circumvented, and “they” hurriedly shifted to replace Biden with Harris. Throughout her tenure under Biden, she had been viewed as the most incompetent vice president in history. So, the script had to be quickly rewritten with the assurance that the “obedient” minions and sycophants would follow the prescribed marching orders. All were executed in secrecy with the ultimate objective of maintaining power.

Unintended (Intended) Consequences

The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Ukraine debacle, the Trump assassination attempts and judicial lawfare, the unsure unprincipled response to the Hamas attack followed by the violent anti-Semitic demonstrations across “Ivy League,” and the more recent assault on Musk and Tesla, all reek of the deadly ingredients of POI.

Today, a plethora of waste, fraud, and abuse is uncovered daily by the Department of Government Efficience (DOGE).

Beyond our political climate, this evaluation applies to every structured influence in our daily lives. Frame the motives of the global agenda and our shifting foreign policy or understand the administrative medical complex through this lens. Evaluate the inducements of mega-corporate interests or reasons for inconsistent media accounts with this interpretation. Comprehend the dissemination of information from our covert bureaucratic intelligence and what “they” want us to believe, knowing Plato’s words that “Those who tell the stories rule society.”

Today, a plethora of waste, fraud, and abuse is uncovered daily by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), openly demonstrating rampant incompetence and obedience in exchange for dollars. Massive funds are selectively spread, feeding the beast, which incessantly nourishes the “power-corruption-power” cycle while exponentially increasing its size and scope. Much of the unaccounted-for expenditures pass through the shell game of manipulative NGOs, aiding their foreign policy influence and funding progressive anti-American ideologues. This money is then laundered back as partisan donations to maintain political power with obedient donors or create obedient politicians with powerful donors. All are satisfied and indebted in this incestuous relationship, buying “loyalty” and creating plausible deniability with paid incompetent subordinates.

What’s for Supper?

So maybe the “powers that be” have been starving the common folk. They only serve mushed poi that’s saturated with their propaganda and redefinitions, to be digested and obeyed with a religious tenacity. As the saying goes, “If you aren’t at the table, then you are on the menu.” This feast will highlight “power” as its main course with a side of “obedience,” all toasted with a glass of “incompetence.” This toxic culinary fare may be the only dinner to eat when the truth is suppressed and dissenting opinions are censored. America should starve rather than feed on this poison, upend the table, and change the chow. We should revere and heed the chilling quote attributed to eighteenth-century French author Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, and years later made famous by Don Vito Corleone in the iconic Godfather:

“Revenge is a dish that is best served cold.”

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About the Author: Edward Pozzuoli

Edward Pozzuoli is a retired mortgage banker and businessman, music aficionado/promoter, restaurateur, casual real estate developer, and armchair Objectivist. He graduated from Brooklyn College with an economics degree and a doctorate in the "street smarts" of his Brooklyn Italian neighborhood. He worked at the Nathaniel Branden Institute in the late 1960s while attending college. He currently resides in South Florida. He bills himself as a seeker of truth in a "happy bubble."