I may have issues with Chris around the use of the word predator but the underlying abstraction of what he says I agree with. Sales taxes of whatever type always fall upon the poorest because of the issue of relativity. The Christian groups make a big deal about Jesus but they always avoid the issue of the Widow and the Banker (or as Chris would say Soros) in the temple. To those who are give great things, even the least is difficult for them to contemplate parting with. The rise of the middle class in America is often blamed on WWII and its aftermath. In some ways that is right IMHO but only because the soldiers from every class who had slogged across those Pacific Islands were unwilling to listen to wealthy bullshit from people who's sons they had given their life and limbs for. They demanded and got a graduated Income Tax based upon how much you had earned during the year. That left money around to use for serious public works. Gradually that was replaced with the Supply Side Myth and the myth of the Invisible Hand in the market and all of the University of Chicago folks who came here as a result of WWII but weren't Americans in culture or in mythology. They felt that the theories were wrong and they set out to change them. Today we have a new set of National Myths that are barely half a century old in the nation. Racism is on the rise and the attacks against the poor in groups that organize the poor like ACORN here in the U.S. would have made Jesus start a war.
We should remember game theory and Gestalt practice. Game theory has "Good Guy/Bad Guy" in interrogation techniques and is used in every crime show in entertainment. The rule here is that the "Good Guy" is not on your side if you are the underdog. He just pretends to be. The Bad Guy isn't on your side either but at least he isn't lying about it. The Gestalt exercise of Top Dog/Underdog is also a part of this little cultural ritual. Topdog gets to play the game and choose the roles of Good Guy or Bad Guy. Underdog has to figure out how to keep from being screwed by both and just survive. All value added taxes are unfair to the poor of society. These taxes choose to focus on the poor and the beginning entrepreneurs using the public sphere. As a lengthy aside to Chris I would add that the Aztecs didn't choose the poor for sacrifices. They were either the children of the elite since they were going to live in the heaven with Tonatiuh or they were warriors captured in battle who would become like the warriors in the Nordic myths of Valhalla (Hall of the Wounded). Women who died in childbirth were also considered to go to this same place. The poor were provided for by the society by their planting crops along the roads where they could simply pick their food or they were being fed from the Central Granaries as they were historically in my culture who learned that from the Mayans and Toltecs when we were in what is now called "Mexico." They were not eligible as lobbyists to the Sun for the Empire. I would still recommend you read the piece on cultural Reconciliation that I wrote with Mike Hollinshead for my real context here. There are a lot of myths around the Indian sacrifices as "losers" of some game. War, the ballgame, etc. This does not fit with the religion which considered the sacrifice to be the one going to the Sun (Tonatiuh) to be His courtiers. Not the "food" of the Gods but the companions of the Gods. You didn't send your losers to be companions with the most important reality in your life. What if they convinced him to give up on us and go away as (She) did in many of the Cherokee stories. No we didn't do human sacrifice but we did sacrifice the first food and drink of every meal as a prayer for the life (pattern) of that food and liquid. Giving the first fruits was considered not an act of predation (although the reality could make that case since a life was taken) still the myth was that it was an honor and a gift to Tonatiuh (Tonatiuh, the sun, was a Helper, a footprint of the Creator, NOT the Creator of All) No one would mistake the fire of the sun for the serenity of the Lifegiver. Fire is transformation not Creation. For the Nahaus their words were Omoteotle/Omotecuhtli as the One who gives us all Breath and to whom we all return and are a part of as One.(Teotl). That's why Mel Gibson's movie about the Mayans was a theological atrocity and stupid as commerce usually is. Commerce claims to be the creator of excellence when in fact the mass production that makes an economie of scale is a destruction of excellence and one of kind products. Creativity is expensive, like in Solar Panels or terminal diseases that kill too few people to make business have an interest in research. To much one of a kind makes no profit. Both Mayans and Nahuas had a first fruits or "best" attitude about those they sent to lobby the Gods for them. That man running in Gibson's movies would not have run or he would have stood and fought like a worthy opponent. This was not a European hunt by an Aristocrat. A coward would be unworthy to be considered for the Sacrifice. These people made an art of the Martial Arts. Their game was explained in the saying that the Priests on both sides of the conflict always told the sacrifice. "Today you go to live with Tonatiuh, tomorrow on the field of battle I will go for your relatives." It was a game. The losers weren't "losers", they were winners although they were taken captive. All life fights to stay here but all life, because it is conscious and aware, knows that this is not the end. That's the story. It is not a predator story. (I realize this must be very strange to you Chris. But no more strange than Europe was for me I'm sure. How could Hitler have happened and how could the bankers have cooperated with his rape of his own people over ethnicity when the Swiss don't do that at all? How could the Swiss cooperate? How could the Hungarian Museums refuse to return all of that great art to the hands of the now destitute Jewish families to whom it rightfully belongs?) Mayan and Nahua Sacrifice was not about the blood providing energy as in thermodynamics. (We are not talking dead machines here.) We are talking something much more organic and subtle. The death of the seed that the plant may live. It was about being chosen to go and live with the closest Helper we know to the Creator of the Universe and to eventually return to the Mind of the Creator from which we all spring. Cycles, not linear, beginning/middle/end or Winner take all. That's not the system here. Sending Losers to lobby the Sun would quickly bring the end of the world for a lack of etiquette, generosity and stupid, provincial cupidity. In Tenochtitlan, a loser who marketed bad products, like drugs, would quickly find his throat slashed and his body thrown into the swamp. The top of the temple was reserved for worthy warriors or the first fruits of a family. To keep the attitude positive they were also anesthetized with hallucinogens. Would you send your worst enemies to live with your President and to lobby against you? It wouldn't make sense. Myths and Metaphors are the way we create reality. Sometimes it works better than others. I find the "predator" myth to be an oversimplification of what is really happening unless you are speaking of capitalism or war crimes. "Predator" doesn't work for me. Neither does fundamentalist human sacrifice ala the martial arts societies of Central America. In the cultural system I was born in, a family that causes the death of another family's members owes a life to that family. That's our way. Sacrifices can only be personal. You can't sacrifice other life except in the act of eating and you have to pray for the continuation of the family of that life and for their prosperity as a species. You become what you eat. The whole idea of predator seems not so much a criminal mistake but a pathology, a psychological disease and imbalance within the person. There has to be another choice than disease or fundamentalism. Criminality never works. Responsibility always comes around. Have you watched these crime reality shows with the families of mobsters. They are surrounded with possibilities but the minds are so destroyed that the wealth is a joke. Pretty objects mean little when competence is blocked by pathology. You are right about the system of human sacrifice being unsustainable. But it is unsustainable as a system because of responsibility built into the Universe. It is not about Predators but about being stupid, venal and short-sighted but most of all psycho-physically unbalanced. My old diction teacher Dorothy Uris went to Russia to lecture on poetic diction. When she came back she told me that she now "got" what the Russian revolution was all about. She said: "They decided to do it all without rich folks." That was their myth that they preached to her. The Russians executed their rich folks. The Chinese re-educated them. Go figure. REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Christoph Reuss Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 11:29 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Shouldn't High Unemployment = Less Work To Do? > So let's imagine a 'bit tax.' Why should the FW list discussion (and all other _non-commercial_ Internet activities, such as browsing and private e-mail) be taxed, while Predators continue to profit tax-free? The "bit tax" would penalize -- and stifle -- the most wide-spread and benign use of the Internet. Just shifting the tax base from material goods to digital traffic does NOT fix/mitigate the fundamental mistake of taxing production instead of predation. So the "bit tax" is even worse than the Tobin tax. 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
