Thanks for the interesting article about usury in other cultures, except for the gifting cultures.
You said: My quibble was simply that neither the Judaic nor the Christian tradition "strictly" forbids usury. There have always been ever growing loopholes and exemptions - until we get to today when the loopholes are all that remain... The strongest biblical prohibition that I was taught by the Baptist and Presbyterians are the passages from Ezekiel published below. Ezekiel 18:13 He lends at usury and takes excessive interest. Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he will surely be put to death and his blood will be on his own head. Ezekiel 18:17 He withholds his hand from sin [ 18:17 Septuagint (see also verse 8); Hebrew [ from the poor ] ] and takes no usury or excessive interest. He keeps my laws and follows my decrees. He will not die for his father's sin; he will surely live. Ezekiel 22:12 In you men accept bribes to shed blood; you take usury and excessive interest [ 22:12 Or [ usury and interest ] ] and make unjust gain from your neighbors by extortion. And you have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign LORD . Religion is slippery when it comes to behavior. Prohibitions against foods, money, etc. are often transformed in times of great duress. For example the horse meat that was consumed in the Warsaw Ghetto when Hitler had the ghetto by the throat. As a Cherokee we have a rule that is called "remaking" which can spiritually cleanse something that is considered unclean or simply generic and thus profane to become useful and even sacred if the need is agreed to by the people. The root of that is the verb base of the language as opposed to the object base of the European languages. There is some of that verb base (I have been told) in Hebrew but I could be wrong about that. The key here is "judging". Something that is immutably true forever, but in generic cases is ignored. Generally verb based languages have more flexibility built in with taboos being personal. With noun based (non-relative) languages that seem to be more general laws that are fundamentalist in their orientation than the verb based however there is an interesting example of the slipperiness around legal taboos in my language (verb based) as well. In the Cherokee language the verb and suffixes and prefixes constitute a complete sentence in a word. It describes position, relationship, quality and even types of qualities. It also defines ownership. And there is the rub. You can only own dead things. You cannot own life. Life owns itself. That makes domestic animals a problem. Domestic plants are in a netherworld of partnerships and relationships that are like family with the garden plants being considered sacred and from the body of a sacred mother. The slipperiness begins here. Since you can't own life, what about plants? What about a dog? Is it your dog or is the dog just with you? How about a man? There is a kind of slave that is a captive that is in limbo, i.e. being auditioned for adoption. But there is no possibility of chattel slavery in Cherokee because that would be owning life. But the Cherokee had slaves, Africans prior to the American Civil War. What to do? Well they became Christian Cherokees and the problem was solved and the war was begun. I suspect you have similar issues with Usury as a result of cultural systems interacting and using each other for mutual benefit for individuals to break the rules. But I'm not an economist. Just an Artist. It seems to be your history and so I'll take your word for it. The Wikileaks guy is most certainly taking advantage of that area between systems to stay alive. REH ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Ray Harrell [[email protected]] Sent: December 3, 2010 19:48 To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: [chineseinternetresearch] GT worries about Wikileaks Not being a follower of the Middle Eastern Faiths and having learned much of what I know about usury from performing music in churches and listening to thousands of sermons over the years, having graduated from a Presbyterian school that required we traditional Indian people to attend and pass their religion courses and then from listening to hundreds of sermons as I coached Rabbis in elocution over the years I do not claim expertise in these matters. I mostly rely on a little book that is gracefully written and can be found at this URL on the internet since it's out of print. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21623/21623-8.txt The Project Gutenberg EBook of Usury, by Calvin Elliott Even still, it is not my faith nor my issue. The only issue for me has been Christian and sometimes Jewish Bankers who collaborated with the Congress to get outrageous interest laws passed in the years since the Reagan Administration. (I took out no loans from Muslims nor do I know of them lobbying Congress as a part of a collective as was the case of the banks filled with the other two faiths. The Banks themselves were not religious although the managers claimed to be, which was the point.) I believe it was Elijah that got "all over" the Priests of Baal for being hypocrites and not following their faith, so my precedent is pretty good. Yes I sing Mendelssohn's Elijah, the part of Elijah. I constantly complained because these businessmen from those two Middle Eastern Faiths trashed my company along with most of the small arts companies since the Reagan Tax fiasco. It wasn't until a fellow Oklahoman, Elizabeth Warren took them all to task, that they ever acknowledged anything about what they were doing nor that it was "pure" usury against another American, since none of us are "strangers" as Americans, although I am an Indian, Goy, Gadje, Bajo etc. to certain immigrant groups. I may even be marime (unclean to the Romany) but that is irrelevant. However, we are ALL Americans. If I must consider bankers "American" then I certainly demand the return favor about not being a "stranger" in my own land. So the Usury laws should have applied to all of us. I paid back loans in some cases two and three times on my American Masters Arts Festival. It was a miserable time to be an American Artist dealing with the capitalist internal economic virus of productivity lag. As the little Elliott book makes clear, this is contrary to the economic rules of orthodox Judaism and to the Christianity that flowed from it! So who were these CREEPS? One can find a couple of passages from the Bible that may seem contrary to that, especially with the "stranger" stuff but the thrust of the whole does not support such an interpretation, according to Elliott. For someone who wrote at the height of the genocidal Dawes Commission and the banning of our religion in America (1902) it may seem strange, but I like Elliott's attitude. I would have been comfortable having him over for dinner as long as I could make sure that he sat in the proper chair and ate on the proper plates and silverware and didn't touch the kids. (just joking!) Now it's your issue, (if you are of a Middle Eastern Faith), but when someone breaks their own rules and sticks it to the artists of America, it becomes my fight and an issue of hypocrisy, in my humble opinion. Just a thought. Am I being provocative again Arthur? REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Markan Sent: Friday, December 03, 2010 1:16 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: [chineseinternetresearch] GT worries about Wikileaks Sorry to quibble but usury is the Christian term and basically the Christian concept derived from the Jewish concept of ribbit. The Jewish concept (via Deuteronomy) is (in overly simple terms) that interest cannot be charged by Israelites to Israelites. The Jewish tradition does not forbid interest for non-Israelites. The Judiac tradition also allows for the gaining of profit from a loan by sharing the risk - the concept of lending that Islam embraces. So Judaic tradition does not "strictly forbid" usury. Nor does the Christian tradition. Only the Islamic tradition strictly forbids all interest on loans of money. The moral stricture on usury (and a darn good one!) is because usury creates excessive profit and gain without "labor" on the part of the lender. "Money for Nothing". Profits from usury are gained not by honest work but instead are the gains of sloth and greed (two of the deadly sins...). Thus the early Christian logic was that usury was a horrible sin punishable by excommunication. (Interesting that the Christian definition of usury was the charging of interest greater than 1% so some interest was allowed...) An interesting side-effect of the early Christian bans on usury and the Jewish allowance for the lending to non-Israelites was the rise of Jewish money-lenders. The various Christian heads-of-state encouraged and protected Jewish populations as an easy access to capital when loans were needed to finance state activities. Thus arose the stereotype of Shylock... As Christian society and Christian economies changed the ban on usury was eroded by various legal fictions - such as lending money at no interest but charging an annual "insurance fee" on the repayment of the loan... Eventually with the rise of nation-states and the separation of church and state - the moral ban on usury became so weakened as to have no force. Most Christian churches still 'forbid" usury - but now usury is defined as "unjust interest" or "excessive interest". And that apparently is a moving target is that usury is in the eye of the beholder... Anyway I digress from the original topic...usury is one of the those words that will actually get me to type a message :) ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Ray Harrell [[email protected]] Sent: December 3, 2010 08:50 To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: [chineseinternetresearch] GT worries about Wikileaks Interesting that the writer doesn't mention the grandfather religion except as being behind the leaks. Usury is a term from the much older Jewish writings and the grandfather of both Islam and Christianity. The other two don't believe in taking care of their relatives. At least that's my take on it. As for Christianity, they gave up on usury with Crusades. Ever since then they've banked with a vengeance. REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Friday, December 03, 2010 2:40 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Re: FW: [chineseinternetresearch] GT worries about Wikileaks Mike Gurstein wrote: > A most peculiar (semi-official?) Chinese take on wikileaks. > > * http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/editorial/2010-12/597878.html >From the article: Is there some tacit understanding between the website and the US government? It may be worth asking. And what does it mean to other countries that are on the radar screen of WikiLeaks? Over one the conspirscy newsgroup, the CIA is behind Wikileaks; Mossad is; The Israeli government is; or it's a diversion so that (some unnamed) They can do something nefarious un-noticed. At another conspiracy-minded (and perhaps less than meticulously factual) source: WIKILEAKS delivers massive blow on American usury Publication time: 2 December 2010, 13:19 According to the democratic media outlets, Assange warned that the next disclosure will deal with "a large U.S. bank". The warning caused panic in the U.S. Depositors rushed to withdraw money from the Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. Shares of these major usurious parasitic dens plummeted. Christianity and Islam strictly prohibit usury (bank interest). Earlier in 2009, Assange said in an interview that he has huge discrediting evidence on the Bank of America. http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2010/12/02/13042.shtml FWIW, -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
