Reply #100: How it is done is particular to when and where

[greenisasgreendoes]

There were the patrons derived mostly from old aristocracy in Spain and Italy, the semi corporate partnerships in Germany and our own pure corporate model. I'm sure it can come in many more ways. It isn't necessary for there to be absolute oppression, a total end to democratic forms etc. It is a power struggle and the intensity of that grows with fear like all struggles. And all the players are in the same boat with a shared history to define themselves from. Our system is not very afraid at the moment. We can post our silly notions on websites all we like. We can go through the motions of voting for tweedle dee or tweedle dum as well. We have many structures in place to keep things cozy and safe for the string pullers. (over saturation with teevee entertainment, virtual corporate information monopoly, poor education, poor health care (fear), the American myth that numbs people into accepting a dog eat dog system and on and on...) I have no doubt they would do worse if they felt the need.

To some degree the increasing levels of violence against the people is a sign that the people are waking up and asking questions and challenging the system. Not that this is very consoling. They must also live with their own myths. We have always pretended that we were a democracy and depended on that illusion for a sense of worth. It would be very hard to simply toss out these rituals even as meaningless and empty as they have become. There need be no conspiracy or planning cabal for this. It is a natural evolution. To guide it one has to recognize it. That is a scary thing and the vast majority have not gone there. Most of us are more comfortable with villains and good guys. With forces that willfully act with intelligence. In the grand scheme there is no such thing. Every individual plays their part muddling through on there own trying to make sense out of their life including the most common meme of trying to ignore it and just going for the same things as their neighbor hoping no one will point out the hollowness of that life (and generally reacting with furious rage and violence to anyone who does). The summation of these mostly blind twitchings is what we call our state and society. Nothing new there. The rich have had the power and the powerful have had the wealth too for all of history. Nothing new there either. Fascism then is simply a modern form of this old game. It is just as absurd as the old games that we have left (mostly) in the dust as we have become more and more sophisticated in our understanding.

It wasn't so long ago that even all our Gods were little more than squabbling children. Many still cling to that and prefer their God figure to be some kind of extra clever club wielding thug (sadly a lot of folks of every so called religious stripe) but the fantasy for a universal deity or non deity has steadily grown. I see that as a sign of where our hearts and minds are as a people. Many have even been able to let go of having a separated deity all together. Including many religious folks. (Read Bishop Spong or Dieter Bahnhofer for good examples of deeply religious/spiritual souls who in the end still claim a place for God without the need for a theistic deity. That is an a-theistic God if you will) So we are beginning to step out from the paradigm that right makes right as a species. It won't happen overnight. It has been happening since we first recognized ourselves abstractly as something. We began to pay attention to the other and to feel an empathy. We made up codes to promote this feeling. Often it was lip service, more often it became so over time, but it keeps coming back. Every time deeper than the last. Perhaps we will destroy ourselves with our myopic greed first, but perhaps not. I like to feel that I am spending my precious blink of time here working for ....enlightenment, peace, unity, ... whatever label you like best sister and brother. It makes no difference. Well I have really gone off on a digression here. Sometimes it all just starts to fall out and there it is.