The Rise of the Corporate State--Freedom Vs Equality

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/25/aig_and_the_big_takeover_matt

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090318_perp_walks_instead_of_bonuses/

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090401_no_more_refuge_for_scoundrels/


...and on and on ad nauseum. Unfettered capitalism run amok, as it always will do given human nature. Success defined as material gain, or the number dominated by the self. The argument itself governed by the trivial day to day minutiae of acquisition and control. Petty little men with loud voices screaming that the Republic is out of control when it was always so, and should remain so. On either side of the Sword rests the argument of Freedom vs Equality, both seek the good but are incompatible. How is it then that one side demonizes the other? Forsooth, Freedom is narcissistic, and equality coercive. But then, who looks at the bedrock, the foundation of things?--not so many it seems. A few dusty academics, a radical or two unconcerned with consequences, the always emerging dark side spreading like a shadow.

It should be obvious that neither side can be allowed to triumph, or that either side should be suppressed. No faith can be placed in the rule of men, yet the lessons of history teach us that the rule of law degenerates from the constant pressure of ambition. Each of us a tyrant, from order we seek chaos, and from chaos, order; and from each little corner of the empire dictators arise complete with orders for right behaviors and recipes for success, for us, for you, for me, for today--which passes quickly enough.

The age of the nation-state is on its last legs, technology and circumstance has presented ambition with a larger stage, sovereignty and self determination are no longer viable, more and more it will come to be realized that we are all in this together; that it is us and the world that matters, and not the petty ambitions of local demagogues fraught with narcissistic delusions, despite their area of expertise. Another hundred years or so? Give or take. A global constitution that takes the armies away from the pisspot little despots who are feeding the always miserable mob an endless line of bull, regardless once again of their area of expertise, be it real or perceived. It is all in all, who we allow to lead, and that is often a difficult choice, as we cannot know but only guess.

Is one tyranny worse than another? Shall we ask the dead? Which in due time will be ourselves,--I am this, or I am that, or I am virtuous and you are evil. I have noted, in my passage, that to be human is to fail at being Human, except in times of extreme crisis, odd moments when the underlying cause is love, take that how you will.

We fall away from the pursuit of the good, since all in all, we cannot seem to define it, torn as we are between humanism and religion, the spiritual and the material, the empty and the significant. How are we to choose, burdened as we are with existence? What is existence but choice, left or right/ How vain those choices when we have enough to eat, and how ruthless when we do not?

Foolish foolish men! squabbling like dogs over a pile of bones, when of all the creatures that have walked the Earth we are the first to have the capacity to distribute the bones equitably? What is it that gets in the way of all being fed, and clothed and sheltered? Perhaps in truth we are nearer to those dogs than we are to ourselves. Hard men walk among us killing things to raise themselves in their own regard, and it seems that is something we cannot expunge since they too are part of who we are. In the failure of Will civilizations are strangled in their own filth.

At the end of days--be it spiritual or biological--will we have been parasites or symbiotes, scavengers or caretakers? Is our legacy to be, I or we? Sounds simple enough but given the complexity one is faced with the stark realization that in due course all that we are, good and bad will be lost in a dry wind.