Interesting. Just one thing about sacrifice. You don't know what you are talking about. You read the words of conquerors who were trying to justify genocide. You should look to the history of your country and continent before you talk about others that you can't even speak their language or know them.
However, we do seem to arrive at the same place, but your context and the inferences you make for my statements are litigious and you struggle to disagree. You should start at my conclusions that you agree with and work your way back through my statements from that context. I've contended all along that this was a cultural issue with you and you are still making my point. I don't mind seeing things from a Swiss viewpoint but you have to give back the same. You are not the first Swiss person that I've talked to and most of them I know better than just in print, however, the contexts you make about what I'm saying are quite stereotypical from a Swiss viewpoint. To come to understand the uniqueness of my point you will have to get beyond that. Otherwise we're just having an argument like a couple of Tasmanian Devil Dogs on a good day. Start at the end where you agreed and ask yourself how that context flows from what I said before. Then ask me for what you don't understand. You might find an ally. Don't assume that I'm "for" anyone who participates in a system that has made my life difficult at best over the past fifty years. That someone can be Soros, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Koch brothers or Steve Jobs or any of the old European families, Swiss or North American. That upper 2% in the world is recreating an old model. Resonances from across the ocean in Europe, and from the children of Europe here, it just seems that Europeans react to Feudalism as an autonomic response to economic life. I don't. After Europe discovered the cultures of America, Europe had a great flowering of liberal thought which they, of course, gave credit to their own history for. If that were true then why were they still leaving Foundlings on the church step to turn into servants for the wealthy? It took Rousseau's connection to the Iroquois to change the European story about childhood. I can and have gone on and on about other instances as well as well as Europe even absorbed our agricultural technology. Their denial of what they absorbed makes sense since they were busy committing genocide here for gold and natural resources. They needed demons not to see their demonic actions. But Europe did write very righteously about the rights of all "men" and Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. However, that was just an intellectual exercise. In the mind but not in the heart. Today's market is the heart of European culture and it is a great golden bull. To me that's not life but hell. And it certainly bears no relationship to freedom and equality whatsoever. You and some others on this list may think that strange, but it's certainly no more strange than what I see from the other side of the circle looking back. But that's what makes a conversation, right? Some people speak in poetry while others speak in prose, some see reality metaphorically while other's languages admit only the concrete. But the world is all of the above and more. If we don't talk then we are all fools and ignoramuses. In my humble opinion :>)) REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Christoph Reuss Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2010 8:06 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Tremble, Banks, Tremble REH wrote: > I don't believe getting rid of one or two individuals would do a thing. That's not what I suggested. > I believe the problem is the system. Only inasfar as the system was made by Predators for Predators. > I also believe that you are a predator on the plant world. (you said you are > a vegetarian) This is silly because meat eaters kill about 10 times more plants than plant eaters. After all, the animals they eat, ate plants to grow the meat. Also note that eating fruits and cereals does NOT kill the plants. And even where vegetarians eat plants that had to be killed, they didn't hunt them, so they're not predators. Agriculture is what Producers do, hunting is what Predators do. Anyway, the predation that matters in the Soros debate is societal predation -- it was you who diverted from the issue by asserting that we all are predators because we all eat -- both wrong and off-topic. > We all are predators on other life. So give up trying not to be. Again you are trivializing societal predation. You're totally ignoring the difference between necessity and insatiable greed. In a civilized society, humans have a right to life, so everyone can eat to live. But it's absolutely unnecessary that billionaires who already have much more than what they need to survive, continue to reap $billions while destroying the lives of many people and destabilizing whole economies. There's really no excuse for that. > The answers must lie elsewhere. The issue here is are we predators on each > other and the answer is yes because of the system we choose to run our > markets. No, the answer to that is NO -- producers who don't rip off others are NOT predators on anyone else --, and no, WE did NOT "choose the system to run our markets". It was Predators who made that system -- for Predators. > The largest "market" in the world was at Tenochtitlan and probably still is > but it wasn't a capital market. The issue of respect for all species can > only come from growth and human freedom. We must be free to evolve. > Change the system but don't touch individual choice. This is absurd. A culture that literally sacrificed humans cannot teach us about human freedom, individual choice and societal progress. > If you hold the group responsible for a > criminal individual then those individual's will naturally feel the pressure > to live peacefully or they will simply be exterminated for the safety of the > group. Since each individual has a group to protect them, that rarely > happens unless groups want to go to constant war. While this is the usual excuse for collective punishment, it ignores the ways of Predators and hence ends up punishing the wrong (innocent) individuals. A cunning Predator will know how to conceal his "authorship" of crimes and let others pay the price -- and even if he's unable to conceal his "authorship", he'll often find ways to bully others into following him and pay the price (even jail time or their life) in lieu of him. For example, did the Brits punish Blair for pulling them into the Iraq war based on a lie (which as a result killed many Brits)? Not at all -- Blair was allowed to remain PM for years, and then he was even rewarded with a position as Middle East envoy. You also ignore that Predators make the laws, to legalize their crimes. Even Hitler's acts were formally legal(ized). > Love the world, Hurt no one. This is obviously not Soros' motto. > The answer for capitalism is to privatize everything because the greatest > good is personal ownership. No, what works best is a mix of large public services (railways, postal, telecom) and small private enterprise. This worked best even under capitalism (Switzerland). Only the neo-con privatizers assert that privatizing everything is better -- but reality gives the lie to that. > How well that works is illustrated by the > private army around the State Department in Iraq as the Public Army leaves. The so-called "private" army is ALSO paid by tax money! It's a billionaires' scheme of bottom-up re-distribution of money -- like Obamacare. > It is immoral, hopelessly expensive and yet the only answer to lovers of > Laissez Faire and the privatization of everything. It is the true road to > most of the country becoming the peasants of the few. It is my experience > that the deep springs of Europe are Feudal. Isn't that why the European > Mountain people arm themselves to the teeth and demand that every house have > six months rations in the basement? Pretty much correct. But actually this is an argument _against_ Soros & Co. Have a nice day, Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
