A (very) brief history of Capitalism and Ethnic Cleansing — i.e., nothing new under the sun, just bigger ways of going BOOM! BOOM!
Part 1: And no, I’m no Marxist; saw the fallacies of that stuff the very first time I learned anything about it. He had a couple of interesting ideas though, primarily applying Hegel’s concept of history being the ongoing result of evolving Theses, Antitheses and Syntheses. But the thing is, Marx was also the product of the same thing. ;~) I.e., two of the primary implicit assumptions in the middle 19th century were the concept of Progress or immutable evolution towards human perfection, and the gi-hugeous focus on money, or capital.
And I’d like to add another disclaimer too: we’ve hardly got the market cornered in this kind of stuff: Japan and China certainly provide significant counter-examples. But what we’re looking at right now is us, and if you want to think Hegelian you could even make a case that our system is the Thesis, the old Soviet system the Antithesis and what Putin is doing right now, with his blended oligarchy still taking care of his people while developing political, military and economic relationships with other countries based on genuine cooperation and adherence to international law, sure looks like a nice Synthesis.
Ethnic cleansing in the UK is really interesting and can hardly be done justice in a paragraph or two so I strongly suggest Teh Google for anyone who wants to dig further. Also, every woman reading this really ought to check out Grace O’Malley! In any case, when Oliver Cromwell came to power he needed money to fight the Irish and got it from some Jewish bankers in Amsterdam by agreeing to let Jews back into England, from which they had been banished in 1290. There really hadn’t been banking in England before that — people who had gold and wished to travel without it simply paid a goldsmith to keep it safe — and banking per se didn’t really develop for another fifty years or so. Otoh, the concept of capital, or wealth in something other than land, really started to grow.
Meanwhile, Cromwell was determined to keep the Irish under control and thought he’d kill two birds with one stone by taking a bunch of unruly northern English and lowland Scots who’d been battling each other for several hundred years and plopping them in Northern Ireland to use as a foil between the English Anglicans who’d taken over many of the Irish estates and the Irish Catholics who weren’t exactly happy about it. Much bloodshed ensued and still is, but another of Cromwell’s tactics was to drive out as many Irish as he could, and he was fairly successful at that: war prisoners were shipped off to slavery in the Americas and their destitute wives and children likewise.
Part 2: I don’t know a lot about enclosure on the Continent but an awful lot of people in America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the like are here because of how it worked in the British Isles. And it’s not ethnic cleansing per se because the victims were pretty much the same ethnic stock as their oppressors, but I’m including it here because it’s still pretty much the same thing: people don’t matter as much as power and profits.
There is an archaeological dig outside of Jamestown Va that utterly astonished the people working on it maybe forty years ago because what they found was a medieval town (complete with armour) and they’d just never thought about what the status quo in England really was at the time. I.e., peasants lived on narrow lots in a town and farmed and herded their animals in a shared open Commons. Which worked fairly well until various landowners decided to fence in those lands for their own private use and the now-starving peasants ended up in the cities doing whatever they could to survive. Since the result of that was a huge spike in the crime rate, there wasn’t enough room in the jails and nobody particularly felt like feeding them, they too got sent off to the colonies as prisoners, slaves or indentured servants — which until roughly 1800 ended up being pretty much the same thing. (After people got scared by the revolution in Haiti, whites were freed, free blacks were enslaved and/or restricted as much as possible, slavery here became strictly race-based and theories of racial superiority were developed to keep the thing going).
One particular variant of enclosure, however, does fit the criteria to a “T”: the Highland Clearances, and they were really awful. I’ve got folks in my family who are seriously into the Highland Games and such, and their kids look absolutely adorable in their tartans first assigned as separate symbols for each clan by 19th century German Jewish merchants. And they don’t know and I’m not going to tell them that they come from lowland Scots who either couldn’t stand Ireland or left the borderlands bc of all the mess, not Highlanders at all, who were a whole different (Catholic or Anglican) group of people. And interestingly enough, David Cameron, the UK’s current Prime Minister, even looks like his smarmy ancestor Butcher Cumberland who was responsible for the massacre at Culloden (among other things) that destroyed a people and an entire way of life simply because merchants large and small and landowners old and new wanted to harvest timber and run sheep on the lands again owned in common by their “indigenous” residents. At the end, people were again literally driven to rock-bound coasts to live in pens not five feet high and survive if they were lucky by gathering seaweed. Most left instead, willingly or not.
And now we’re just seeing the latest iteration: privatization, the “ATO”, filtration camps and all the associated horrors are just new variations on the same Godawful theme. I am guessing most Americans visit this blog because they, like me, have become disillusioned because one or another assumption we had held about our country turned out to be not at all what we had thought. And it’s hard when your implicit assumptions, things you never questioned but just took for granted, are shattered. But it’s really important right now, I think, for each of us to continue that journey unafraid to keep searching, both for other erroneous assumptions we don’t even know we have, and for ways to both stop the current evils and develop something a lot better.
3 Billion people is an enormous market. This is the vanguard of the globe without North America and Western Europe domination.
When the avaricious capitalists see they are not part of Latin America, Africa and Eurasia development, they might change their mission from Hegemony to participation.
The game is changing. It begins with investment bank for the BRICS + Argentina, the change from the dollar and the Bank of International Settlements,and the World Bank and IMF left behind.
All this drains blood out of the Hegemon.
What are the Hegemons weapons of choice? Drone strikes, cruise missiles and economic sanctions, and apparently, jihadist and nazis as their shock troops.
Putin and Xi have just erected a shield against all those weapons.
We won’t know how this all evolves for ten years or so. But this joyful image is iconic for peaceful development and steps toward prosperity and happiness. It’s the constructive use of capitalism.
It appears that Buddhists celebrate this year 2014 the “year of the Horse”, which only happens every 12 years. They say that in this cycle our virtuous practices are multiplied by thirteen……
Nora, For many decades, the Soviet Union and the Russian people were a counter-balance to the aggressive imperialism of the United States. And they paid a price. When the Soviet Union was dissolved (with the help, I might add, of the CIA) the people were forced into impoverishing circumstances. What they owned collectively was sold off to vulture capitalists from around the world. And the United States was free to engage in unfettered imperialism with the horrifying results that we see today.
I support what Putin is doing because I support anyone who works for peaceful solutions to conflicts. However, I hope that Putin or his successor will continue to work for the betterment of the peoples of the world. That will inevitably mean taking on the oligarchs — the purveyors of capitalism everywhere they exist. In order to maintain their privileged positions, they quite willingly resort to war.
Will the BRICS, who are now forming a counterbalance to the US-controlled IMF and World Bank, turn out to be just another capitalist/imperialist outfit?
Your idea that the synthesis that you see as Putin’s solution where the rich are forced to take care of the poor – essentially, democratic socialism – a la Sweden et al – only works for a while. A profit-based economy always in the end makes the rich richer and greedier.
Great post Nora, thanks, i didn’t know Camerons ancestor was the Butcher of Cumberland, a lot of Scots will now learn this before our referendum 18th september.
Elsi…..Beautiful song.
Viva Brics Viva Donbass Militia Viva a multipolar world of peace and mutual respect. ESPINA
I do know what we did to Russia — Mr. Nora and I ended up with two utterly marvelous grandchildren as a result of the horrors we set in motion — and I too wonder about the extent to which Putin has or will maintain control over the oligarchs.
We’re now seeing a clearer picture of the seamy (I am being kind) underside of Capitalism, and that is important. But we — all of us — need to put a whole lot more effort into examining which parts of which political and economic systems and structures seem best able to sustain decent lives for people, represent them fairly AND keep the oligarchs from grabbing everything yet again.
I sure don’t have any answers but I’d sure rather spend time trying to figure this stuff out than get involved in any more of the Culture Wars urged on us constantly by the oligarchs bc they know while we keep fighting each other they’ve just got more time to rob us blind.
Poverty is conquered by growth. Growth requires profits. You can’t get taxes to build infrastructure, educate and deliver some necessary social services without growth/profits.
Greed is a human thing, not necessarily a capitalist thing.
Northwest Native Americans invented potlatch to keep greed from destroying the tribe. Wealth was distributed in ceremonies and the rich basically zeroed down. Then another season of hunting and some got wealthy and some didn’t. But potlatch brought the tribe back into balance.
They didn’t stop the wealth building. They found a way to keep things in balance.
It is interesting that the practice was outlawed by both U.S. and Canadian governments.
When the wealthy take over the government, that’s when you have big social inequality.
Notice Putin’s admonition to the oligarchs. Keep your money and stay out of government and politics. The two have to be kept apart.
The Hegemon is the amalgam of government power with the Elite’s wealth monopoly.
The potlatch is simply a ritualized variant of the common Native American ethos, in which there was simply no concept whatever of property or profit. The land and all on it are God’s creation to be used wisely and caringly for the benefit of all. So all members of a tribe were cared for, and chiefs were expected to be the most poor bc one of their primary responsibilities was to give to those in need. So it didn’t need to be corrected for: it just simply was. I wasn’t brought up with a lot of Native American values, but I sure got that one! ;~)
And banning potlatch was just another way to deprive Native Americans of their roots and values and pry them away from true strength of their culture. But it served another function as well: from the earliest days, Europeans ran off and joined tribes (who tended to be inclusive re: membership) precisely because there was no poverty and, at least when our numbers were great and we were living essentially undisturbed, as opposed to being slaughtered and driven from place to place, We. Lived. Better. And part of that was due to the fact that we didn’t own land, we cared for it in common — and that collective consciousness and attendant lack of greed/intense competitiveness was a serious threat to… ta dum… Capitalists.
Oh, and fascinatingly enough, exiled Scottish Highlanders especially were known to have joined various tribes — their lifestyles and values were certainly quite similar — and there is even a Clan MacDonald (of Glen Coe “fame”) faction among the Nez Perce!
Yes to everything else you said though, bc short of total collapse there’s no way we can get back to any kind of common ownership of land or lose any other of our concepts of property and profit. Otoh, figuring out how to regulate everything appropriately so as to foster growth, take care of people and limit predators is something we really, really need to be working on.
I am so pleased you posted this picture – I love it! Such genuine joy to behold :).
There was also a clip on RT today of the other LA countries in attendnace at the summit and a photo of all of them smiling too and waving.
Apparently, all of them represent half the worlds population.
Now that is something to behold.
Meanwhile, back in the freak twilight zone they scream about more sanctions……the end to the imperialistic unipolar world will be a blessing to humanity.
Thank you, Nora…this blog has challenged some of the cozy assumptions held unrealized by me. Yes, the US is getting the blow back its destabilization of Central America in the 80’s and 90’s with the children’s crusade into our borders. This latest mis adventure into the Ukraine is going to be so much, much worse even at a distance. There are two aspects of this yet to be seen 1.resistence movement within West Ukraine 2. insistence of Western European countries that Kiev government back off and refusal to support the US campaign.
Thank you, Nora…this blog has challenged some of the cozy assumptions held unrealized by me. Yes, the US is getting the blow back to its destabilization of Central America in the 80’s and 90’s with the children’s crusade into our borders. But this latest mis adventure into the Ukraine is going to be so much, much worse even at a distance. There are two aspects of this yet to be seen 1.resistence movement within West Ukraine 2. insistence of Western European countries that Kiev government back off along with a refusal to support the US policies in the Ukraine. The chickens are going to come home to roost either way, sooner or later, one way or another
Awesome image, Saker! That’s real multi-culturalism: sovereign, proud nations coming together freely as equals to create institutions to benefit all members.
So much better that our hegemonic (Wall Street dominated) ‘international’ institutions, and our phony corporate ‘diversity’.
“Some call it Marxism I call it Judaism.” —(The American Bulletin, Rabbi S. Wise, May 5, 1935).
“Thanks to the terrible power of our International Banks, we have forced the Christians into wars without number. Wars have a special value for Jews, since Christians massacre each other and make more room for us Jews. Wars are the Jews’ Harvest: The Jew banks grow fat on Christian wars. Over 100-million Christians have been swept off the face of the earth by wars, and the end is not yet.” ~ Rabbi Reichorn, speaking at the funeral of Grand Rabbi Simeon Ben-Iudah, 1869.
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,. Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why gentiles were created.”—-Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, head of Shas Council of Torah Sages during a sermon delivered Oct. 2010 in Jerusalem.
There is certainly more but it’s too nauseating to go on.
Just wanted to pass on some infos that seem relevant in many ways and show how the “Harper Regime” and its Ministry of Truth and Misinformation rolls. Not much more needs to be stated other than, ain’t we still huntin’ NAZI’s? But then again, that’s a whole other story all together…
(part 1 of 2)
Destroying sensitive Indian school survivor accounts ‘irreversible,’ court told
The Canadian Press Posted: Jul 16, 2014 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jul 16, 2014 8:48 AM ET
The sensitive testimony of survivors of Canada’s notorious residential school system should be sealed for decades rather than destroyed, because destruction would damage the historical record, an Ontario court heard Tuesday.
In making a pitch to keep the records, a lawyer for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said their preservation does not have to equal their publication.
“Destruction of those documents will have a deep, irreversible impact on the state of the record,” lawyer Julian Falconer said.
“The minute you destroy the information, you alter the ability for generations to come to remind people of what was done to these victims.”
At issue are records of the often heart-rending and emotional accounts of thousands of survivors of the residential school system who sought compensation for sexual, physical and psychological abuse.
Their evidence under the independent assessment process — separate from thousands of others who spoke publicly to the judicial commission about their experiences — was intended to be confidential.
The head of the adjudication process, Dan Shapiro, with backing from a privacy expert, argues the only practical way to ensure the promised confidentiality and avoid revictimizing survivors is to destroy the documents once their claims are finalized.
In urging destruction of the materials, Shapiro’s lawyer, Will McDowell, argued the compensation process for those who suffered serious harm was designed to address the needs of the individual, not of the collective.
Further harm could still occur decades down the road if, for example, the names of abusers became public, he said.
“It would be a betrayal of trust again,” McDowell told Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell.
“Claimants shouldn’t have to be forever vigilant about the prospects that these documents will be released.”
McDowell proposed a retention period of several years, after which the documents would be shredded.
Just wanted to pass on some infos that seem relevant in many ways and show how the “Harper Regime” and its Ministry of Truth and Misinformation rolls. Not much more needs to be stated other than, ain’t we still huntin’ NAZI’s? But then again, that’s a whole other story all together…
(part 2 of 2) … Destroying sensitive Indian school survivor accounts ‘irreversible,’ court told
The Canadian Press Posted: Jul 16, 2014 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jul 16, 2014 8:48 AM ET
…
Court also heard that part of the mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is to create as complete a record as possible of the residential school system and its legacy.
There are ways to protect privacy without threatening history, Falconer told court. He proposed sealing the documents for at least 30 years.
During that time, an “outreach” would occur to try to get survivors to agree to making their accounts part of the trove of material that will be housed at the National Research Centre at the University of Manitoba.
If that consent cannot be obtained, the materials would be transferred from Aboriginal Affairs after the 30-year waiting period to Library and Archives Canada, which would deal with them under its normal document protocols.
“You’re not deciding how to protect history today,” Falconer told the judge.
Perell, who fretted he could be doing harm no matter how he ruled, made it clear he was struggling with balancing claimants’ privacy interests with the need for a comprehensive historical record.
He indicated a willingness to order some length of retention period — perhaps 15 years — followed by destruction where claimants have not agreed to archiving of their documents.
To “take the Indian out of the child,” about 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were forced to attend residential schools over much of the last century. The last school closed outside Regina in 1996.
Ry Moran, head of the to-be-built residential school archive, has said the voices of thousands of survivors would forever be silenced if their testimony was destroyed.
You say: Profits can be greed or it can be growth. Poverty is conquered by growth. Growth requires profits. You can’t get taxes to build infrastructure, educate and deliver some necessary social services without growth/profits.
With respect, I disagree. Abundance and ‘the conquest of poverty’ comes from co-operation and sharing, and a service to others orientation. The condition of our world evidences that It doesn’t arise from competition and “growth” as Capitalists understand it. The growth meme is an integral part of Capitalist propaganda and is arguably a misdirection since we live on a finite planet which cannot sustain “growth” of population or resource use indefinitely.
Moreover, it is counter productive for humanity to pursue growth and profits for some, instead of an adequate quality of life for all.
If we want to get off the destructive Capitalist life styles that lead our governments to attack Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan,Russia,Iran and all the rest, we will need to change our personal paradigms on these issues with a view to helping others to do likewise. Our world will change when a critical mass of humans realies the need for these fundamental attitudinal changes and fervently wishes that they occur.
That second quote doesn’t smell right. I Googled it endlessly and all I found was the same danged thing. Conspirators don’t generally share their secrets in public, much less at the funeral of a “Grand Rabbi”. Meanwhile, the phrase “The Jew banks” sounds more like American anti-Semitism or hasbara nonsense than genuine ownership and pride in one’s accomplishments. Don’t you think it’d be far more likely, if such a person really existed and actually said any of this, that he would have referred with such pride to “Our banks”?? I’d discount it as a very clumsy attempt from one kind of hater or another.
There’s enough real stuff, including Ovadia Yosef and what’s happening in Gaza right now — no need to make anything up. Try these for example:
At first I was ready to say this might take the cake, not, for once, because it’s so brutal, just outrageously self-serving. So really it’s nothing more than maybe Aspartame frosting on a cake the contents of which we all know quite well. So, a significant accomplishment nonetheless.
Is there no way to dump Harper? (I know, I know, what a silly question…)
You are right. That takes us to the intractable problem of the Protocols. In the case of that particular quote to the famous chapter “At the Jewish Cemetery in Prague” of the novel Biarritz by Sir John Retcliffe (the pseudonym of Hermann Goedsche (1815-1878), a prolific German writer who was also an agent of the Prussian secret Police). The book is certainly fiction but nobody can say that it does not unveil secret knowledge (apparently Goedsche was surveilling revolutionary secret societies). This chapter isolated had a wide circulation and is supposed to be the inspiration for the Protocols, forged, as everybody knows, by the… Russians! Needless to say very few people, if any, read the book!
A (very) brief history of Capitalism and Ethnic Cleansing — i.e., nothing new under the sun, just bigger ways of going BOOM! BOOM!
Part 1:
And no, I’m no Marxist; saw the fallacies of that stuff the very first time I learned anything about it. He had a couple of interesting ideas though, primarily applying Hegel’s concept of history being the ongoing result of evolving Theses, Antitheses and Syntheses. But the thing is, Marx was also the product of the same thing. ;~) I.e., two of the primary implicit assumptions in the middle 19th century were the concept of Progress or immutable evolution towards human perfection, and the gi-hugeous focus on money, or capital.
And I’d like to add another disclaimer too: we’ve hardly got the market cornered in this kind of stuff: Japan and China certainly provide significant counter-examples. But what we’re looking at right now is us, and if you want to think Hegelian you could even make a case that our system is the Thesis, the old Soviet system the Antithesis and what Putin is doing right now, with his blended oligarchy still taking care of his people while developing political, military and economic relationships with other countries based on genuine cooperation and adherence to international law, sure looks like a nice Synthesis.
Ethnic cleansing in the UK is really interesting and can hardly be done justice in a paragraph or two so I strongly suggest Teh Google for anyone who wants to dig further. Also, every woman reading this really ought to check out Grace O’Malley! In any case, when Oliver Cromwell came to power he needed money to fight the Irish and got it from some Jewish bankers in Amsterdam by agreeing to let Jews back into England, from which they had been banished in 1290. There really hadn’t been banking in England before that — people who had gold and wished to travel without it simply paid a goldsmith to keep it safe — and banking per se didn’t really develop for another fifty years or so. Otoh, the concept of capital, or wealth in something other than land, really started to grow.
Meanwhile, Cromwell was determined to keep the Irish under control and thought he’d kill two birds with one stone by taking a bunch of unruly northern English and lowland Scots who’d been battling each other for several hundred years and plopping them in Northern Ireland to use as a foil between the English Anglicans who’d taken over many of the Irish estates and the Irish Catholics who weren’t exactly happy about it. Much bloodshed ensued and still is, but another of Cromwell’s tactics was to drive out as many Irish as he could, and he was fairly successful at that: war prisoners were shipped off to slavery in the Americas and their destitute wives and children likewise.
Part 2:
I don’t know a lot about enclosure on the Continent but an awful lot of people in America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the like are here because of how it worked in the British Isles. And it’s not ethnic cleansing per se because the victims were pretty much the same ethnic stock as their oppressors, but I’m including it here because it’s still pretty much the same thing: people don’t matter as much as power and profits.
There is an archaeological dig outside of Jamestown Va that utterly astonished the people working on it maybe forty years ago because what they found was a medieval town (complete with armour) and they’d just never thought about what the status quo in England really was at the time. I.e., peasants lived on narrow lots in a town and farmed and herded their animals in a shared open Commons. Which worked fairly well until various landowners decided to fence in those lands for their own private use and the now-starving peasants ended up in the cities doing whatever they could to survive. Since the result of that was a huge spike in the crime rate, there wasn’t enough room in the jails and nobody particularly felt like feeding them, they too got sent off to the colonies as prisoners, slaves or indentured servants — which until roughly 1800 ended up being pretty much the same thing. (After people got scared by the revolution in Haiti, whites were freed, free blacks were enslaved and/or restricted as much as possible, slavery here became strictly race-based and theories of racial superiority were developed to keep the thing going).
One particular variant of enclosure, however, does fit the criteria to a “T”: the Highland Clearances, and they were really awful. I’ve got folks in my family who are seriously into the Highland Games and such, and their kids look absolutely adorable in their tartans first assigned as separate symbols for each clan by 19th century German Jewish merchants. And they don’t know and I’m not going to tell them that they come from lowland Scots who either couldn’t stand Ireland or left the borderlands bc of all the mess, not Highlanders at all, who were a whole different (Catholic or Anglican) group of people. And interestingly enough, David Cameron, the UK’s current Prime Minister, even looks like his smarmy ancestor Butcher Cumberland who was responsible for the massacre at Culloden (among other things) that destroyed a people and an entire way of life simply because merchants large and small and landowners old and new wanted to harvest timber and run sheep on the lands again owned in common by their “indigenous” residents. At the end, people were again literally driven to rock-bound coasts to live in pens not five feet high and survive if they were lucky by gathering seaweed. Most left instead, willingly or not.
And now we’re just seeing the latest iteration: privatization, the “ATO”, filtration camps and all the associated horrors are just new variations on the same Godawful theme. I am guessing most Americans visit this blog because they, like me, have become disillusioned because one or another assumption we had held about our country turned out to be not at all what we had thought. And it’s hard when your implicit assumptions, things you never questioned but just took for granted, are shattered. But it’s really important right now, I think, for each of us to continue that journey unafraid to keep searching, both for other erroneous assumptions we don’t even know we have, and for ways to both stop the current evils and develop something a lot better.
Now that’s real multiculturalism. Suck it USSA!
http://youtu.be/ww8wqEgFIA8
What a nice photo! And they all are genuinely smiling … It gives me hope. Yes to a multi-polar world!
3 Billion people is an enormous market.
This is the vanguard of the globe without North America and Western Europe domination.
When the avaricious capitalists see they are not part of Latin America, Africa and Eurasia development, they might change their mission from Hegemony to participation.
The game is changing. It begins with investment bank for the BRICS + Argentina, the change from the dollar and the Bank of International Settlements,and the World Bank and IMF left behind.
All this drains blood out of the Hegemon.
What are the Hegemons weapons of choice?
Drone strikes, cruise missiles and economic sanctions, and apparently, jihadist and nazis as their shock troops.
Putin and Xi have just erected a shield against all those weapons.
We won’t know how this all evolves for ten years or so. But this joyful image is iconic for peaceful development and steps toward prosperity and happiness. It’s the constructive use of capitalism.
It appears that Buddhists celebrate this year 2014 the “year of the Horse”, which only happens every 12 years. They say that in this cycle our virtuous practices are multiplied by thirteen……
I only wish Mandela was still alive so we wouldn’t have to be led by Zuma!
South Africa has been circling the drain ever since the “recalling” of Pres. Mbeki and perhaps even since before then.
Nora, For many decades, the Soviet Union and the Russian people were a counter-balance to the aggressive imperialism of the United States. And they paid a price. When the Soviet Union was dissolved (with the help, I might add, of the CIA) the people were forced into impoverishing circumstances. What they owned collectively was sold off to vulture capitalists from around the world. And the United States was free to engage in unfettered imperialism with the horrifying results that we see today.
I support what Putin is doing because I support anyone who works for peaceful solutions to conflicts. However, I hope that Putin or his successor will continue to work for the betterment of the peoples of the world. That will inevitably mean taking on the oligarchs — the purveyors of capitalism everywhere they exist. In order to maintain their privileged positions, they quite willingly resort to war.
Will the BRICS, who are now forming a counterbalance to the US-controlled IMF and World Bank, turn out to be just another capitalist/imperialist outfit?
Your idea that the synthesis that you see as Putin’s solution where the rich are forced to take care of the poor – essentially, democratic socialism – a la Sweden et al – only works for a while. A profit-based economy always in the end makes the rich richer and greedier.
Espina said
Great post Nora, thanks, i didn’t know Camerons ancestor was the Butcher of Cumberland, a lot of Scots will now learn this before our referendum 18th september.
Elsi…..Beautiful song.
Viva Brics
Viva Donbass Militia
Viva a multipolar world of peace and mutual respect.
ESPINA
Anonymous 15:20
I do know what we did to Russia — Mr. Nora and I ended up with two utterly marvelous grandchildren as a result of the horrors we set in motion — and I too wonder about the extent to which Putin has or will maintain control over the oligarchs.
We’re now seeing a clearer picture of the seamy (I am being kind) underside of Capitalism, and that is important. But we — all of us — need to put a whole lot more effort into examining which parts of which political and economic systems and structures seem best able to sustain decent lives for people, represent them fairly AND keep the oligarchs from grabbing everything yet again.
I sure don’t have any answers but I’d sure rather spend time trying to figure this stuff out than get involved in any more of the Culture Wars urged on us constantly by the oligarchs bc they know while we keep fighting each other they’ve just got more time to rob us blind.
Profits can be greed or it can be growth.
Poverty is conquered by growth. Growth requires profits. You can’t get taxes to build infrastructure, educate and deliver some necessary social services without growth/profits.
Greed is a human thing, not necessarily a capitalist thing.
Northwest Native Americans invented potlatch to keep greed from destroying the tribe. Wealth was distributed in ceremonies and the rich basically zeroed down. Then another season of hunting and some got wealthy and some didn’t. But potlatch brought the tribe back into balance.
They didn’t stop the wealth building. They found a way to keep things in balance.
It is interesting that the practice was outlawed by both U.S. and Canadian governments.
When the wealthy take over the government, that’s when you have big social inequality.
Notice Putin’s admonition to the oligarchs. Keep your money and stay out of government and politics. The two have to be kept apart.
The Hegemon is the amalgam of government power with the Elite’s wealth monopoly.
Larchmonter445,
The potlatch is simply a ritualized variant of the common Native American ethos, in which there was simply no concept whatever of property or profit. The land and all on it are God’s creation to be used wisely and caringly for the benefit of all. So all members of a tribe were cared for, and chiefs were expected to be the most poor bc one of their primary responsibilities was to give to those in need. So it didn’t need to be corrected for: it just simply was. I wasn’t brought up with a lot of Native American values, but I sure got that one! ;~)
And banning potlatch was just another way to deprive Native Americans of their roots and values and pry them away from true strength of their culture. But it served another function as well: from the earliest days, Europeans ran off and joined tribes (who tended to be inclusive re: membership) precisely because there was no poverty and, at least when our numbers were great and we were living essentially undisturbed, as opposed to being slaughtered and driven from place to place, We. Lived. Better. And part of that was due to the fact that we didn’t own land, we cared for it in common — and that collective consciousness and attendant lack of greed/intense competitiveness was a serious threat to… ta dum… Capitalists.
Oh, and fascinatingly enough, exiled Scottish Highlanders especially were known to have joined various tribes — their lifestyles and values were certainly quite similar — and there is even a Clan MacDonald (of Glen Coe “fame”) faction among the Nez Perce!
Yes to everything else you said though, bc short of total collapse there’s no way we can get back to any kind of common ownership of land or lose any other of our concepts of property and profit. Otoh, figuring out how to regulate everything appropriately so as to foster growth, take care of people and limit predators is something we really, really need to be working on.
Dear The Saker,
I am so pleased you posted this picture – I love it! Such genuine joy to behold :).
There was also a clip on RT today of the other LA countries in attendnace at the summit and a photo of all of them smiling too and waving.
Apparently, all of them represent half the worlds population.
Now that is something to behold.
Meanwhile, back in the freak twilight zone they scream about more sanctions……the end to the imperialistic unipolar world will be a blessing to humanity.
Rgds,
Veritas
Thank you, Nora…this blog has challenged some of the cozy assumptions held unrealized by me. Yes, the US is getting the blow back its destabilization of Central America in the 80’s and 90’s with the children’s crusade into our borders.
This latest mis adventure into the Ukraine is going to be so much, much worse even at a distance. There are two aspects of this yet to be seen 1.resistence movement within West Ukraine 2. insistence of Western European countries that Kiev government back off and refusal to support the US campaign.
Thank you, Nora…this blog has challenged some of the cozy assumptions held unrealized by me. Yes, the US is getting the blow back to its destabilization of Central America in the 80’s and 90’s with the children’s crusade into our borders. But
this latest mis adventure into the Ukraine is going to be so much, much worse even at a distance. There are two aspects of this yet to be seen 1.resistence movement within West Ukraine 2. insistence of Western European countries that Kiev government back off along with a refusal to support the US policies in the Ukraine. The chickens are going to come home to roost either way, sooner or later, one way or another
Awesome image, Saker! That’s real multi-culturalism: sovereign, proud nations coming together freely as equals to create institutions to benefit all members.
So much better that our hegemonic (Wall Street dominated) ‘international’ institutions, and our phony corporate ‘diversity’.
God bless the BRICS!
@Nora
From the horse’s mouth:
“Some call it Marxism I call it Judaism.” —(The American Bulletin, Rabbi S. Wise, May 5, 1935).
“Thanks to the terrible power of our International Banks, we have forced the Christians into wars without number. Wars have a special value for Jews, since Christians massacre each other and make more room for us Jews. Wars are the Jews’ Harvest: The Jew banks grow fat on Christian wars. Over 100-million Christians have been swept off the face of the earth by wars, and the end is not yet.” ~ Rabbi Reichorn, speaking at the funeral of Grand Rabbi Simeon Ben-Iudah, 1869.
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,. Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why gentiles were created.”—-Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, head of Shas Council of Torah Sages during a sermon delivered Oct. 2010 in Jerusalem.
There is certainly more but it’s too nauseating to go on.
Fwd from Canuckistan:
Just wanted to pass on some infos that seem relevant in many ways and show how the “Harper Regime” and its Ministry of Truth and Misinformation rolls. Not much more needs to be stated other than, ain’t we still huntin’ NAZI’s? But then again, that’s a whole other story all together…
(part 1 of 2)
Destroying sensitive Indian school survivor accounts ‘irreversible,’ court told
The Canadian Press Posted: Jul 16, 2014 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jul 16, 2014 8:48 AM ET
The sensitive testimony of survivors of Canada’s notorious residential school system should be sealed for decades rather than destroyed, because destruction would damage the historical record, an Ontario court heard Tuesday.
In making a pitch to keep the records, a lawyer for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said their preservation does not have to equal their publication.
“Destruction of those documents will have a deep, irreversible impact on the state of the record,” lawyer Julian Falconer said.
“The minute you destroy the information, you alter the ability for generations to come to remind people of what was done to these victims.”
At issue are records of the often heart-rending and emotional accounts of thousands of survivors of the residential school system who sought compensation for sexual, physical and psychological abuse.
Their evidence under the independent assessment process — separate from thousands of others who spoke publicly to the judicial commission about their experiences — was intended to be confidential.
The head of the adjudication process, Dan Shapiro, with backing from a privacy expert, argues the only practical way to ensure the promised confidentiality and avoid revictimizing survivors is to destroy the documents once their claims are finalized.
In urging destruction of the materials, Shapiro’s lawyer, Will McDowell, argued the compensation process for those who suffered serious harm was designed to address the needs of the individual, not of the collective.
Further harm could still occur decades down the road if, for example, the names of abusers became public, he said.
“It would be a betrayal of trust again,” McDowell told Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell.
“Claimants shouldn’t have to be forever vigilant about the prospects that these documents will be released.”
McDowell proposed a retention period of several years, after which the documents would be shredded.
…
© The Canadian Press, 2014
http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/destroying-sensitive-indian-school-survivor-accounts-irreversible-court-told-1.2708231
DumpHarper!
Fwd from Canuckistan:
Just wanted to pass on some infos that seem relevant in many ways and show how the “Harper Regime” and its Ministry of Truth and Misinformation rolls. Not much more needs to be stated other than, ain’t we still huntin’ NAZI’s? But then again, that’s a whole other story all together…
(part 2 of 2)
…
Destroying sensitive Indian school survivor accounts ‘irreversible,’ court told
The Canadian Press Posted: Jul 16, 2014 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jul 16, 2014 8:48 AM ET
…
Court also heard that part of the mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is to create as complete a record as possible of the residential school system and its legacy.
There are ways to protect privacy without threatening history, Falconer told court. He proposed sealing the documents for at least 30 years.
During that time, an “outreach” would occur to try to get survivors to agree to making their accounts part of the trove of material that will be housed at the National Research Centre at the University of Manitoba.
If that consent cannot be obtained, the materials would be transferred from Aboriginal Affairs after the 30-year waiting period to Library and Archives Canada, which would deal with them under its normal document protocols.
“You’re not deciding how to protect history today,” Falconer told the judge.
Perell, who fretted he could be doing harm no matter how he ruled, made it clear he was struggling with balancing claimants’ privacy interests with the need for a comprehensive historical record.
He indicated a willingness to order some length of retention period — perhaps 15 years — followed by destruction where claimants have not agreed to archiving of their documents.
To “take the Indian out of the child,” about 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were forced to attend residential schools over much of the last century. The last school closed outside Regina in 1996.
Ry Moran, head of the to-be-built residential school archive, has said the voices of thousands of survivors would forever be silenced if their testimony was destroyed.
The hearing is slated to wrap up Wednesday.
© The Canadian Press, 2014
http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/destroying-sensitive-indian-school-survivor-accounts-irreversible-court-told-1.2708231
DumpHarper!
G’day Larchmonter445
You say:
Profits can be greed or it can be growth.
Poverty is conquered by growth. Growth requires profits. You can’t get taxes to build infrastructure, educate and deliver some necessary social services without growth/profits.
With respect, I disagree. Abundance and ‘the conquest of poverty’ comes from co-operation and sharing, and a service to others orientation. The condition of our world evidences that It doesn’t arise from competition and “growth” as Capitalists understand it. The growth meme is an integral part of Capitalist propaganda and is arguably a misdirection since we live on a finite planet which cannot sustain “growth” of population or resource use indefinitely.
Moreover, it is counter productive for humanity to pursue growth and profits for some, instead of an adequate quality of life for all.
The issue of taxation for use to build infrastructure and to provide education and deliver needed social services is a complex one. My take on it is at:
Getting Off Money. See: http://abundanthope.net/pages/Ron_71/Getting-Off-Money.shtml
Some reasons for humanity having to confront the need to move beyond Capitalism, profits and growth is at: The Permanent Unemployment & Underemployment Economy. – http://abundanthope.net/pages/Political_Information_43/The-Permanent-Unemployment-Underemployment-Economy.shtml
If we want to get off the destructive Capitalist life styles that lead our governments to attack Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan,Russia,Iran and all the rest, we will need to change our personal paradigms on these issues with a view to helping others to do likewise. Our world will change when a critical mass of humans realies the need for these fundamental attitudinal changes and fervently wishes that they occur.
Blessings,
Ron
WizOz,
That second quote doesn’t smell right. I Googled it endlessly and all I found was the same danged thing. Conspirators don’t generally share their secrets in public, much less at the funeral of a “Grand Rabbi”. Meanwhile, the phrase “The Jew banks” sounds more like American anti-Semitism or hasbara nonsense than genuine ownership and pride in one’s accomplishments. Don’t you think it’d be far more likely, if such a person really existed and actually said any of this, that he would have referred with such pride to “Our banks”?? I’d discount it as a very clumsy attempt from one kind of hater or another.
There’s enough real stuff, including Ovadia Yosef and what’s happening in Gaza right now — no need to make anything up. Try these for example:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/07/13/371162/israel-drops-cancerinducing-bombs-on-gaza/
http://www.grassrootspeace.org/israel_dime_bombs_121206.pdf
Canukistan,
At first I was ready to say this might take the cake, not, for once, because it’s so brutal, just outrageously self-serving. So really it’s nothing more than maybe Aspartame frosting on a cake the contents of which we all know quite well. So, a significant accomplishment nonetheless.
Is there no way to dump Harper? (I know, I know, what a silly question…)
@Nora,
You are right. That takes us to the intractable problem of the Protocols. In the case of that particular quote to the famous chapter “At the Jewish Cemetery in Prague” of the novel Biarritz by Sir John Retcliffe (the pseudonym of Hermann Goedsche (1815-1878), a prolific German writer who was also an agent of the Prussian secret Police). The book is certainly fiction but nobody can say that it does not unveil secret knowledge (apparently Goedsche was surveilling revolutionary secret societies). This chapter isolated had a wide circulation and is supposed to be the inspiration for the Protocols, forged, as everybody knows, by the… Russians! Needless to say very few people, if any, read the book!