Ray,
2:54 22/11/2010 -0500, you wrote:
Keith,
Why are western systems so prone to mega-violence?
I don't know that Western systems are any more prone to mega-violence than
any other. As to the rest of your posting I don't view history in the same
way that you do so, regretfully, I can't think there's any way I can
comment constructively.
KSH
It almost seems that everything in the Western mentality points to a
war, and a big war,
· to clean out the pipes,
· reset the brain,
· cut down on population
· mix up the genetics
and to achieve some kind of renewal of their drive.
The article below is typical of the articles being written here and anyone
who knows anything about Lincoln and the Civil War knows that these are
the types of things being said and written prior to that great American
reset button, 1860 Civil War.
Does America really need a huge holocaust to reset that place, destroy old
prejudices and make everyone feel like they need each other to succeed?
The difference in the West, and even more different than Genghiss empire,
is the machine like or choruslike need for things to happen not in
hundreds of peoples but in thousands and now in millions. A Mighty
Fortress is our Godsung by millions. In Europe in the 20th century
there were 90 million people killed as a result of WWI and II.
Genghis would kill you if you fought him but his alpha male empire
considered such slaughter to be waste. Human capital was far more
important to him than physical property. He stole craftsmen and
trinkets not whole countries. They continued simply under his alpha
maledom and paid taxes but were basically free to live their lives
locally. Even the Golden Horde in Iran, converted and became
local. No big deal. But you kill a master artisan and he would burn
your city. Much of the beauty of modern China is due to the mongals and
their movement of thousands of artisans from the Islamic countries to
China where they built the modern capital and set the model for the later
native Chinese regimes to build the Imperial City in all its glory. They
also opened free trade, instituted diplomatic immunity and worked in human
capital because, unlike the Romans, they were the true children of the
Wolf system of dominance and not just the singers. They werent human
children sucking the teets of a mother wolf. They were the system of the
Ani-waya, mother wolf herself. They knew the rules of the Alpha system.
But, like the Europeans, they were systemically violent
people. Violence cleaned out the dross. Brought in new
resources. Cleared the head and made you know what was real and what
was made up by economists and other philosophers working their imaginations.
I dont know what to make of such violence. When I was taught about
Freud, the same person who taught me recommended that I go into the Army
to grow up. When I enlisted I auditioned and was accepted as a soloist
with the U.S. Army Field Band and toured with them for a year and then
transferred to the U.S. Army Chorus in Washington that provided the music
for the government for several years. My old mentor was upset. She
wanted me to go to war, where given my physical infirmities, I would have
died.
(I had to talk the Army doctor into accepting my recruitment with the
words that I would only be singing, because I had damaged ankles that
couldnt be fixed. I barely made it through basic training because I had
casts on those ankles to make them strong enough to complete the
course. Casts were not an option for combat.)
But my wonderful mentor, who was from the American South and very much a
part of the Southern Elite, wanted me to go become a manin a life and
death situation. Instead, I rock climbed for a time to deal with the
issue of courage until I realized that concertizing on the piano took far
more courage and endurance than climbing a mountain. But my elder who
was half Cherokee on her mothers side, still had that European
mega-violence bug. It would be later that I would realize that the
chemicals from the pollution in my childhood made much more control of my
personal violence necessary than anyone who had been raised in the genteel
south with its honor code.
In Krugmans article I hear the reset button and the honor code raising its
bloody head again. Amongst my people with a code of blood payment, such
foolishness was largely absent. If someone caused a death, any member
of that offenders clan could be taken in payment by the clan of the
other. It didnt matter who, man, woman or child. As a result, clans
policed themselves and would give up the offender since the clans were
intermixed in every town and city. They didnt live segregated lives
because they couldnt marry within their clans. That would be considered
having sex with your mother. A criminal could be a cousin but a
different clan. Theres was practically no crime in the old Cherokee
Nation and little violence but a lot of games of great physical
endurance. Will the next European bloodletting finally kill the world
because they forgot the Law of Blood and couldnt replace war with a good
game of stickball? Is that the genetics youve been talking about. Not
enough cleaning of the blood through clan marriage?
REH
November 22, 2010
There Will Be Blood
By
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html?inline=nyt-per>PAUL
KRUGMAN
Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be after
all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission
on deficit reduction.
So heres what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: I cant wait for
the blood bath in April. ... When debt limit time comes, theyre going to
look around and say, What in the hell do we do now? Weve got guys who will
not approve the debt limit extension unless we give em a piece of meat,
real meat,meaning spending cuts. And boy, the blood bath will be
extraordinary,he continued.
Think of Mr. Simpsons blood lust as one more piece of evidence that our
nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than
most people realize.
Some explanation: Theres a legal limit to federal debt, which must be
raised periodically if the government keeps running deficits; the limit
will be reached again this spring. And since nobody, not even the hawkiest
of deficit hawks, thinks the budget can be balanced immediately, the debt
limit must be raised to avoid a government shutdown. But Republicans will
probably try to blackmail the president into policy concessions by, in
effect, holding the government hostage; theyve done it before.
Now, you might think that the prospect of this kind of standoff, which
might deny many Americans essential services, wreak havoc in financial
markets and undermine Americas role in the world, would worry all men of
good will. But no, Mr. Simpson cant wait.And hes what passes, these days,
for a reasonable Republican.
The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear
that it has no interest in making America governable, unless its doing the
governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means
that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that partys
cooperation cooperation that wont be forthcoming.
Elite opinion has been slow to recognize this reality. Thus on the same
day that Mr. Simpson rejoiced in the prospect of chaos, Ben Bernanke, the
Federal Reserve chairman, appealed for help in confronting mass
unemployment. He
<http://federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20101119a.htm>asked
for a fiscal program that combines near-term measures to enhance growth
with strong, confidence-inducing steps to reduce longer-term structural
deficits.
My immediate thought was, why not ask for a pony, too? After all, the
G.O.P. isnt interested in helping the economy as long as a Democrat is in
the White House. Indeed, far from being willing to help Mr. Bernankes
efforts, Republicans are trying to bully the Fed itself into giving up
completely on trying to reduce unemployment.
And on matters fiscal, the G.O.P. program is to do almost exactly the
opposite of what Mr. Bernanke called for. On one side, Republicans oppose
just about everything that might reduce structural deficits: they demand
that the Bush tax cuts be made permanent while demagoguing efforts to
limit the rise in Medicare costs, which are essential to any attempts to
get the budget under control. On the other, the G.O.P. opposes anything
that might help sustain demand in a depressed economy even aid to small
businesses, which the party claims to love.
Right now, in particular, Republicans are blocking an extension of
unemployment benefits an action that will both cause immense hardship and
drain purchasing power from an already sputtering economy. But theres no
point appealing to the better angels of their nature; America just doesnt
work that way anymore.
And opposition for the sake of opposition isnt limited to economic policy.
Politics, they used to tell us, stops at the waters edge but that was then.
These days, national security experts are tearing their hair out over the
decision of Senate Republicans to block a desperately needed new strategic
arms treaty. And everyone knows that these Republicans oppose the treaty,
not because of legitimate objections, but simply because its an Obama
administration initiative; if sabotaging the president endangers the
nation, so be it.
How does this end? Mr. Obama is still talking about bipartisan outreach,
and maybe if he caves in sufficiently he can avoid a federal shutdown this
spring. But any respite would be only temporary; again, the G.O.P. is just
not interested in helping a Democrat govern.
My sense is that most Americans still dont understand this reality. They
still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come
together to do whats necessary. But that was another country.
Its hard to see how this situation is resolved without a major crisis of
some kind. Mr. Simpson may or may not get the blood bath he craves this
April, but there will be blood sooner or later. And we can only hope that
the nation that emerges from that blood bath is still one we recognize.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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