From jhdaugh@a-albionic.comWed Dec 7 05:22:49 1994 Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 17:31:01 -0500 (EST) From: James Daugherty Reply to: prj@mail.msen.com To: dbennett@crl.com Cc: New Paradigms Discussion Subject: Secret Societies In article <3ble6p$50k@crl6.crl.com> you wrote: : vanhorne@infinet.com (William VanHorne) writes: : >Personally, I wonder about the Elks Clubs. Just what does B.P.O.E. : >stand for anyway? Just what are they *really* up to? : In many small towns and even large cities, the Elks include prominent : members of the community. They get together, sometimes make business : deals and plan political actions. They are the equivalent of the : Masons in England which includes a large part of the "establishment" : in its membership. : The result is a "conspiracy" of sorts, but in communities where no : formal club exists, groups of "power players" get together at certain : eating spots or spas or whatever else is "in". Typically the coalitions : formed are loose, disturbed by conflicting interests and in many cases : the time spent cultivating such "contacts" can be better spent elsewhere. : However in not a few cases, collectives of the (relatively) powerful : result in unsavory behavior including outright corruption. : The problem is that no specific organization is really the cause. Such : organizations simply act to bring people together. If the organization : is disrupted, then a new one will form. For example in the Italy of : the seventies, national corruption was clustered in a pseudo Masonic : organization known as Propaganda 2. When this was exposed, the games : moved elsewhere and the recent scandals have shown. : One thing that the powerful know (and this is no secret, Ben Franklin : wrote about it) is that places and organizations which encourage people : to meet are an important tool (often benign). Such groupings will : always exist and cultures (eg. Jewish, Chinese) which encourage them : will often have advantages in business. More recently, the American : rightwing has used churches for such purposes. : Those who feel left out by the system should remember the pragmatic : reality that they have to build their own system. This often requires : a substantial investment in time and money. One reason that the : American "left" is so weak as a grassroots organization is that : relatively few of those who wanted an "alternative culture" were : willing to go through the sacrifice. They hoped things would : somehow happen spontaneously. : Every organization is a potential powerbase. And evryone is suspect : (at least within local conditions) because power can be abused. But : a great deal of positive accomplishment is also associated with : such groupings because "they can get things done" (be it cleaning : a local park or gathering votes for their favorite canidate). Yes indeed! Conspiracy or "breathing together" is in the very nature of things! -- \\\\\\\\\\\\*//////// message: info prj | get prj gopher/keytogopher | ////////////////////////////////////*\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\