CONTROL FREAKS

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                         SANDY SANDFORT
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C'punks,

Alan Olsen still thinks totalitarians can succeed in industrial
countries.  He wrote:

    ... But it is also the case that industrial countries,
    when they fall on hard times tend to fall back on an
    authoritarian "bread and circuses" approach to
    governing.

Examples, please.  Fascism in 1930's Germany was certainly NOT
one such government.  National Socialism, of course, had its
"bread" aspect, but their were no "circuses" in the Roman sense.
While Bread and Circuses is one technique to keep a population in
line, it is quite separate from the military/police state method
chosen by the NAZIs.  In any event, NAZI Germany supports the
proposition that modern totalitarianism, by its nature, must be
short lived.  How long did the "Thousand Year Reich" last?

    ... We have the control freaks just wating to gain the
    power and more waiting in the wings.  They have the
    money and they have the technology....

"They," again?  I thought it might be "them."  The Illuminati,
right?  Or is it the Trilateral Commission, the Jesuits, or the
CIA?  Who are these control freaks who "have the money and ...
the technology"?  Jeez, and some call me paranoid for being a
privacy advocate.

When I wrote, "There will be some temporary, local setbacks in
the coming years, and have some mopping up to do, but we've
already won." Alan responded:

    Don't be too smug yet...  There are people in power who
    have not figured out that totalitarian states cannot
    survive.... Logic and reason have nothing to do with the
    "thought patterns" of these people.

Roadrunner logic.  Wiley Coyote runs over the edge of a cliff.
Miraculously, he is suspended in the air until he makes the
mistake of looking down.  Only when he becomes aware of his
predicament does he fall.  My point still is, the totalitarians
don't have to figure out anything; their "thought patterns" are
irrelevant; reality still rules.  They will not survive.

    Besides, it is not their money they are spending on
    this.  It is yours.

Are you sure they're spending *my* money?  With each advance in
privacy technology, they have less access to *anyone's* money.

    As far as I have been able to determine, the only thing
    that you can do with a control freak is to kill him
    before he obtains any position of power.  (Or wrap him
    in duct tape and feed him lots of Thorazine(tm).)

Or, with a little ingenuity, you could structure your life so you
could just ignore him.  Living well is the best revenge.


 S a n d y

"Who finds he needs to spend far less time fighting the Great
Enemy, than educating the nattering nabobs of negativism."

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> 
> Examples, please.  Fascism in 1930's Germany was certainly NOT
> one such government.  National Socialism, of course, had its
> "bread" aspect, but their were no "circuses" in the Roman sense.
> While Bread and Circuses is one technique to keep a population in
> line, it is quite separate from the military/police state method
> chosen by the NAZIs.  In any event, NAZI Germany supports the
> proposition that modern totalitarianism, by its nature, must be
> short lived.  How long did the "Thousand Year Reich" last?
>
I take it you don't take the comparison between the Roman circuses where
prisoners and other misfits (ie  Christians) were fed to the lions and 
and the Tutonic cirucses of the 30's and 40's (ie prison or relocation
camps) where the criminal and other misfits (ie Jewish) were fed to the
masochistic 'system' as comparable? The Warsaw Ghetto was not a form of
'circus' then?

I beg to differ. Both the Germans and the Romans held sway because of one
over-bearing fact, each controlled the best 'ass-kickers' around at the 
time.

> 
> "They," again?  I thought it might be "them."  The Illuminati,
> right?  Or is it the Trilateral Commission, the Jesuits, or the
> CIA?  Who are these control freaks who "have the money and ...
> the technology"?  Jeez, and some call me paranoid for being a
> privacy advocate.
> 
'They' are the persons with money and influence and have also made it in 
their best interest to sustain the status quo. Just take a look at the 
Federal Reserve and how they manage the money in this country. Take a look
at the special interest political groups who make it their job to get
law-makers to look at it 'their' way.

> 
> Roadrunner logic.  Wiley Coyote runs over the edge of a cliff.
> Miraculously, he is suspended in the air until he makes the
> mistake of looking down.  Only when he becomes aware of his
> predicament does he fall.  My point still is, the totalitarians
> don't have to figure out anything; their "thought patterns" are
> irrelevant; reality still rules.  They will not survive.
>
Just exactly whose reality are we talking about ruling here? It seems to
me that when  talking about 'reality' and thought processes one has managed
to jump track in a major sort of way. The problem with this view is that
people do not analyze their choices the same way  you analyze some physical
problem like building a bridge. Christians definately look at the worl
around them in a different 'reality' then the way that a pantheist like
myself look at it. Consider, if you will, the difference in outlook of
a commen every  day occurance when viewed with  the concept of a  'ghost
in the machine' versus the purely mechanistic. I think you will find that
the most trivial things take  on very different appearances.

>     Besides, it is not their money they are spending on
>     this.  It is yours.
>
I can assure you that the folks out there will spend their money if it is
clear that they will make more of it in the long run. While it is true that
public monies are the easiest to spend because of its anonymity it is not
the only resource that is there. Consider under-the-table bribes and such.

> 
> Or, with a little ingenuity, you could structure your life so you
> could just ignore him.  Living well is the best revenge.
> 
>
I am afraid that if you ignore a control freak  you build the perfect 
environ for their growth. We are  not talking about roses here but rather
ideas, a decidedly different animal. Ideas can grow long after the original
thinker is gone. To ignore rather than confront and expose is the best
way possible to get what you  don't want.