@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 To: •••@••.••• (Richard K. Moore) >From: Mark Stahlman (via RadioMail) <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: Norman Knights Richard: Sorry, I've been flu'ed out and not online for a few days. Yes, the world is run by elites. Always has been; always will be. That's true of villages in the Amazon and of great nations. Attacking elites -- per se -- is a losing gambit. Sorting out the elites is *always* the issue. Crucially, certain elites are much better than others. In particular, those elites which ceed substantial actual power to elected popular representatives are probably the best we've ever had. Power selected not by birth or by wealth or by force but by election. This innovation is, of course, the constitutional republic and America is its birthplace. To say that AT&T "runs" America is wrong -- factually and symbolically. It has a big clout but is only one among many clouters. Same with Rockefeller. Or, the Robber Barons. Power structures are complex and, now that technology is so important, could become significantly re-defined. The arrangement of the elites shifts all the time. Nonetheless, there are "invariants" or multi-generational "cabals" who try to take advantage of every development to move up another notch. Such are the Norman Knights and the British Empire, in general. Having inherited much from the Empires before them (particularly the Venetians), the "Brits" are the ones who the Americans have had to fight against for 200+ years. We now have a peculiar situation on our hands. Some folks are proposing that we are entering a new age. It's a called post-industrial (or post-modern or New Age) and it is supposed to usher in a new elite. I've researched this issue extensively and my conclusion is that the same old Norman oligarchs are the ones who have sponsored and hope to benefit from this theoretical "power shift." They (the new agers) are publically "led" by folks like Toffler -- which is why the Magna Carta is important to attack. Toffler's an organizer and his disciples are folks like Gingrich *and* Gore. They have made clear their plan is to move to a plebecite electronic "democracy" with a new strata of "intelligensia" -- technocrats -- manipulating the opinion polls. So, the apparent move towards "popular" power on the Net is in my judgement (i.e. not opinion but quite educated knowledge) a move to support a new elite. This one wants to scrap constitutional republics and therefore is a *worse* elite than the one we have now. So, I'm trying to help defeat them. I would contact PFF for a pre-print of "Byte City" -- they made one available after Vlahos gave a speech on it in February. Hope this is useful. Mark @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Dear Mark, I think I agree with nearly everything you said, and it is indeed useful -- I trust you won't object to my posting your message (in entirety) to the CyberJournal list, and sharing it with the CR co-leader group. Where our thinking seems to differ, is that I think it's important to identify _corporations_ (collectively, with power skewed to the richest) as the emobodiment of elitist power, and the Gingrich's and Toffler's as their paid agents, their inhouse demagogues. You seem to religiously avoid the "c" word, and I still haven't figured out why. Cheers, Richard @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore (•••@••.•••) Wexford, Ireland •••@••.••• | Cyberlib=http://www.internet-eireann.ie/cyberlib ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
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