Focus on individual players fog the reality of what the game is really all about.

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It's a rough game for rough boys. It reduces the historic struggle for wealth and power to simple clarity: Climb to the top of the hill: Knock down the reigning King; Become King.

Kids have a way cutting to the heart of any complicated matter.

Historians drone on endlessly with detailed texts, charts, and footnotes to properly parse the intricacies of humankind's continual conflicts. That's all good and useful, but focus on the particular acts and circumstances of individual players fog the reality of what the game is really all about.

Every conflict in recorded history is King of the Hill writ large.

We imagine Nations vie against Nations. It's not true. The true power-players are never more than an elevated few. The greater population of any Nation is content with modest striving for modest improvement. Movers-and-Shakers aren't content with worldly success. They're already powerful, rich, and influential. Their ambition can only be satisfied by toppling the control of rival Movers and Shakers.

Many of these contenders are related not only by inclination, but by blood-line as well. Those who conquered by the sword usually beget an aristocratic generation of Kings expected to maintain their Father's, Grandfather's and Great Grandfather's Kingdom.

Most of the Kings of Europe were cousins, a condition that extended right up to WWI.

Further back, in 1066, a bellicose trifecta of ambition set the foundation of modern Great Briton. The game begin when King Harald Hardrada of Norway took it into his head that he should be King of England, as well. The resident King of England, Harald Godwinson, thought otherwise.

The decision was decided when Harald Hardrada was killed at the battle of Stamford Bridge. The Stamford Bridge battle stopped invasion from the north. It didn't stop invasion.

There is no rest for any King of the Hill. Duke William of Normandy invaded next.

King Harald Godwinson was killed by an arrow shot though his eye at the battle of Hastings. Duke William of Normandy was now William the Conqueror, King of both England & Normandy.

When played by world-shakers, King of the Hill, is a very serious game. Horseracing is often said to be the sport of Kings. The true sport of Kings is war.

These days, diplomacy is favored over war, though when diplomacy fails, war still settles the matter. Some say that that might doesn't make right, but it can't be proved by the evidence.

The tools of current Movers-and-Shakers are more subtle than war. These are shadowy societies with shadowy intentions. They are players that conquer with invisible influence, Much like Satan, their power is all the more effective because so few believe in their influence

King of the Hill remains the game.

Their names are known to many. Their ambitions, less so. Their accomplishments are disputed, and usually dismissed as conspiracy theory. Some, like the Illuminati are argued to be historically defunct, yet secretly alive. The Grand Order of the Masons is rumored to be direct descendants of the excommunicated Templar Knights. The Masons, themselves, say they're a civic-minded brotherhood that conspire only to do good works.

Every secretive society makes that same claim.

Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the revelers at the Bohemian Grove, and somewhat less secretly, the World Economic Council - along with many others - all represent their groups as benevolent conclaves working on what's best for a better world.

The phrase, "New World Order", pops up a lot, along with an assumed implication that what's good for the rich and powerful is really best for everyone.

Wouldn't everything work better without all those pesky populists and their selfish nationalism getting in the way?

I wonder if Duke William thought everyone would be better-off if he were King?.

By K. L. Shipley

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