Thank you Ray
Cogent replies if viewed with the right brain then allowed to drift
through the left hemisphere.
Darryl
On 1/12/2011 12:31 PM, Ray Harrell wrote:
Thank you for your attention.
REH
*From:*Keith Hudson [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Wednesday, January 12, 2011 10:59 AM
*To:* 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'; Ray Harrell
*Subject:* Taking a holiday -- again
In view of your long posting below, I don't want to appear churlish so
I am answering this as politely as I can. Nothing of what you have
written below about the two problems of rising energy costs and
automation is presented in a factual, objective way that can be discussed.
So, as I wrote to Ed the other day, I am taking a holiday from your
constant insertion of the Cherokees into almost any and every topic
that might appear on FW list.
KSH
At 10:19 12/01/2011 -0500, REH wrote:
KSH: What are the Cherokees saying about rising energy costs and
automation? That is, if you don't deny that they are two of the most
serious problems that we (and the Cherokees) face today?
Summary of what Ive said in the past on this list:
THE PROBLEM OF ENERGY;
1. Government should fund green Research and Development for
sustainable energy run by scientists on salary and not by the
politicians or the private sector only interested in maximizing
surplus. Balance rather than devouring the planet. I was taught
and learned that first hand from birth to the age of seventeen [when I
left the reservation and the desolation of the worlds largest lead and
zinc mining fields].
a. Cherokees had sustainable forestry and agricultural technology
and we limited population based on environmental balance. Before the
98% die off from European diseases, we considered devouring the earth
to be an incestuous activity. After that the remnant populations
ignored many of the old laws about balance, universal suffrage and peace.
2. America should build a society that cares about the earth, the
diversity of peoples, plants and animals and that strengthens that
diversity as a knowledge base and stresses personal responsibility for
the long term future needs of the whole earth and not just the two
legged variety. Keith, if you got up every morning at sunrise and
prayed for all of the varieties of Animals and Plants and their life
and success, you would have a different attitude than you have spoken
on these lists. I realize its not very English but then we have a
lot traditions that dont make sense to the average English Man. Yet
our ancient traditions are as true today as any of yours and we are
just as stubborn as Englishmen in keeping them.
a. Cherokees had universal suffrage long before England, as a part
of the culture, education, political and religious structures. Our
clan mothers came to diplomatic meetings with English men and were
spurned even though the history has recorded their intelligence.
b. We have preached the viability of natural systems versus
unnatural irresponsible human systems that overstress visual
intellectual intelligence to the detriment of the wisdom of the whole
person. I do not support systems that are short term, poorly
designed and not based in the development of personal competence as a
goal for every citizen. [How can someone be free if they are
incompetent in a complex world?] How can someone be free if they are
unable to excel or even minimally succeed in providing for the
development of their holistic consciousness and the evolution of the
competence of their families?
c. Cherokees and most Indigenous peoples contend that un-natural
systems based merely in human logic and short term thinking are a race
to the bottom of life and potential, not an appropriate ideal for the
future.
3. If you [and Harry?] are right and economics is the core value of
life and history then the rapacious mining of the world makes sense.
However I believe that when free technologies that cant make money
[because they cant be contained and limited] are used and initial
research and development capital is provided to make mechanics for
those technologies available to the general public, then a different
model for society emerges. A more compassionate humane society
filled with the best of ideals and competencies. I believe an ethic
of balance and harmony rather than an ethos of excess and surplus
wastefulness is more efficient in the long term than Harrys simple
logic. An aesthetic ethic that is much closer to the individual
forestry model used by Indigenous peoples that stressed the individual
responsibility of every citizen for the upkeep of the system.
Something that may be emerging in Asia as they turn back to their
pre-Western cultural values. I dont hold much hope here in the
U.S. however, a synthesis of the various cultures could work out a
uniquely American vision and identity apart from its Western roots.
There may be hope but they would have to trash the economic theories
that value the split between haves and have nots and that advocates
raw brutish external motivation, surplus and high salaries as an
indicator of status, as the only mover of human progress. Mahler
said there could be no original American complex music until the
problem of the Folktraditions [identity] were solved. Most of the
great European composers who came here ignored the Europeans and
looked either to Native musics or to the transplanted African forms
that became Jazz. Im not sure they were correct in that but I am
sure that current American identity is not much higher than the fad
and fashion of the moment. You can see in that film on the Gamo
people of the Rift Valley, the problems of Western Culture at its
worst in the missionaries and the corporate push to destroy the
peoples spiritual connection to the land for temporary profit.
http://www.globalonenessproject.org/videos/athousandsuns
AUTOMATION:
1. Automation is good as long as it frees the workers to pursue
the goals of human competence and the elevation of the spirit. That
means that the benefits of automation _has to be shared_ and that
serious work on human competence and the elevation of the quality and
spirit of the culture must be rewarded by the country that benefits
from that type of citizen.
2. Automation is simple machine slavery. Musicians know this
very well and assign the term slaveto extra keyboards and other
materials that substitute for live performers. But the normal way
of dealing with cost reductions through mechanical slaves is to hire a
number of live musicians to sit and play cards and collect their
paychecks in return for the savings. Instead of coming up with
other types of musical work, the employers and unions opt for Harrys
second premise. A solution that is un-artistic, demeaning of the
human spirit and just dumb in my opinion.
3. Simple surplus or what the West calls profit is never much of a
reason for living. In my faith it is idolatrous. Its also
inefficient since having more time or money is useless if your
imagination is dead and your patriotism is only to your pocketbook.
KSH You, as a product of modern times, are no more a traditional
Cherokee than I am a medieval English serf. As before, the Cherokees
have a great deal to tell us but no more than a great many other
non-industrial societies.
1. We are all products of our time, lineage, heritage and
cultures. Telling someone whose family has had to fight for four
generations to maintain their culture and hide their spirituality in
the church of their oppressor until 1978 when he was 46 years old and
it literally took an act of the U.S. Congress to finally allow him and
his community and family to worship in public; telling them that
they are not traditionalis like me saying that you havent a prayer of
knowing what those scores you edited mean because you have no idea of
the performance practice or the culture that they sprang from.
Musica Ficta.
Im a lot closer to my culture, having grown up in an Indian community
and on Indian land, than you are to those composers you market over
the internet. My great grandfather was born in 1838 running away
from American troops. I may not be the traditional Cherokeein your
head but we are very familiar with what is known as the White Mans
Indianwho only exists on paper and in the movies. The term: Kill the
Indian to save the mancomes to mind or is it to win the argument.
Am I not more than a little closer in time, culture and proximity to
my traditions than you are to Dowland or Campion? I could make
that case. I have worked with great English conductors and have
been a part of the Early Music movement almost from the beginning of
that movement. The approach and rules of the Early Music movement
are very similar to our approach to things. A student that I
developed was considered the finest baroque baritone in America and
made over 100 recordings of music unrecorded by English and French
composers including the first recording of many of Handels
Londonoperas. All done with original instrumentation. But do I
know more about that than an Englishman? No. You are English in
your bones and you live there. That speaks volumes for what you
understand without even knowing it. But your statement about my
people and our faith is ignorant, embarrassing and beneath the
accomplishments of your life and your peoples traditions. Ive
never once called you a fraud but as an Indian Ive had to deal with
hyper judgmental people like yourself all my life.
2. As for the second statement I would say that industrial society
and modern economic thought is bankrupt and has pretty well ruined the
planet. When I read about Monsanto and see the immune illnesses
around me I think that your industrial ethos has gone to the dark side.
Thats all I will say about energy, automation or your accusations
about my heritage. As Dame Eva Turner told me so many years ago.
Ray, you must learn to let it roll off of you like water off of a
ducks back. I know she was right, but will it never end until Im dead?
REH
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/01/
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