Laura sums it up nicely. YES! Thanks!
Death Throes of the Old Paradigm
If you’ve noticed a recent upsurge of reactions and reactionary thinking, arguments, bizarre attacks, ego posturing, power struggles and assertions of authority, you are not alone. As more and more people reject mainstream news — and even “alternative” news — in favor of their own search for truth and reality creation, the purveyors of the old paradigm have felt the pinch. TV news viewership is way down; trust in politicians shockingly close to nil; belief in the entire two party political system is faltering; students strapped with enormous loans and no job prospects have begun to recognize the bogus cash cow of higher education and the College Dream; and spiritual movements and religious practitioners keep seeing through their “gurus.”
All of this makes for a potent mix of chaos, liberation, joy and panic, as old paradigms sink through quicksand, before any new sand castles have proven themselves functional and viable. Planet Earth 2014 is an exciting time to be alive, indeed! It almost feels like the Wild West Frontier where the old rules of civilized society suddenly no longer applied. Representatives from the old paradigm can argue, reason and demand all they want, but as increasingly large swaths of people reject the old rules, then the old arguments and old ways of arguing no longer matter. They lose form in consensus reality.
Centuries (millennia!) of oppression, suppression, manipulation, killing and regulation have shown that people do try to control what others believe. But those old strategies no longer work as well as they used to work. Instead, significant portions of the population have learned to recognize such tactics at face value, rather than as symbols of authority or the right to control. The more the old guard tries to assert itself through old patterns, the more ridiculous it seems to those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Gloria Steinem famously said, “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.” Your new truth might also piss off those who benefit(ted) from “The Truth with a capital T,” as defined by religions, governments, societies and, more recently, transnational corporations. How much legislation do we now have on the books restricting free speech? How much money has the US government invested in preventing “pre-crimes” through Thought Police? What about all the Rockefeller funded (and controlled) medical schools and the BigPharmafia with their neverending demands for complete monopolies on health, foods and supplements? The more the old guard loses control, the more draconian its laws and social mores become.
“Think as I think,” said a man, “Or you are abominably wicked; You are a toad.”
And after I had thought of it, I said, “I will, then, be a toad.”
Stephen Crane had it right, and I’m encouraged to find so many others on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Enjoy the journey! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
