Ectoplasm

[Mike Weaver]

On Wed, 19 Feb 1997 Richard Romeo wrote
>Andrew Dinn counters:
>
>>Well, that's rather the point isn't it. It's not just whether they can
>>get you asking the right questions, it's also what kind of questions
>>you are allowed to ask. I honestly don't see any possibility of not
>>bringing Them into a historical discussion. History belongs to Them.
>
>then jan wrote:
>>History may indeed belong to a literal Them, but it's mighty hard trying  
>> 
>>to prove it.  Every now 'n then we paranoids catch a glimpse, a face   
>>turning towards us, never quite settling or focusing, easy to misread as  
>> 
>>any ink blot, snatches, probably meaningless...
then Richard wrote
>Could be that face is us sometimes, that's what freaks us out.  I believe 
>in a literal They, but membership into that association is always in 
>flux, seems to me, mirroring history in some way.  To put it more 
>poetically, is anyone _truly_ innocent, is anyone _truly_ guilty?

TP in GR was the first person I had come across who described our lords and
masters in a way which made sense to me.  IMHO They exist and as Richard
suggests, sometimes, as Pogo once observed, "...they is us."  No doubt it's
another poisson distribution with a small number being 100% Them down to the
bottom of the pile where everyone is, if not Us at least approaching 100%
not Them.  Actually this is a terribly static image for a very dynamic
system. If your actions enhance the continued ascendancy of an elite over
the rest of humankind then you are acting, at the least, on Their behalf if
not as one of Them.  TP sums it up most brilliantly on p712: " The Man has a
branch office in each of our brains..." that section, before the phaeast.
 A few years after I'd taken GR into my life I was reading Perry Anderon's
book on Western Marxism wherein I found an excerpt which summed up the
workings of the Establishment/Them perfectly.  It was Antonio Gramsci's
description of what he called 'hegemony', the means by which They maintain
control without constant resort to force: culture, social norms, the whole
straight bit.  Gramsci's idea was that the anti-capitalist movement (the
entity formerly known as Socialism) had to generate its own hegemonic
strengths in order to undermine capital's grip. (For those of you who liked
the intellectual challenge of GR I strongly recommend Gramsci's Prison
Notebooks-very rewarding stuff) One of the great things about Gramsci is his
rescue of Machievelli from his popular image as personifier of
conspiratorial evil.  Which leads into the original short version of this
letter, started in response to Paul Mackin who on Tue, 18 Feb 1997  wrote:

>Come to think, pop culture today presents ALL our fuhrers as loonies. Is
there some
>kind of conspirary to fill high positions with maniacs???)

        Since there is, in all nations, whatever the ideology, a chasm
between the morality preached by the ruling class and inflicted on the
population, and that which They practise, it is necessary for Them to
portray fuhrers as madmen.  To do otherwise would be to acknowledge the
existence of such extremes as a normal part of Their systems and expose
Their own ruthlessness for the populace to see. Similarly popular movements
are often depicted as impressionable masses manipulated by fanatical
leaders,  the idea that movements can generate leaders being the wrong kind
of democracy for Their needs.

It is a separate question as to how popular views are generated but it is
probably safe to say that They would act to suppress/bury any views which
were contrary to Their continued good health. 
Anyone who describes with any accuracy the way Their systems work is
demonised (e.g. Machievelli and Marx) or destroyed (Gramsci, Luxembourg...)
and all ruthless wielders of political power are portrayed as abnormal
loonies in contrast to Their civility and reason.  Pol Pot compared to
Kissinger??? How does it feel?
 
Yep, I'd say that They exist but to hark back to a previous paranoid thread,
there ain't no conspiracy, just business as usual and just how do you
differentiate a conspiracy from private enterprise at work and play?

Yours for a fifth international- Weavercreature
                                 
         Yuma is the oil of the soul
         Lord Buckley