Fighting vs. Warfare
People have always fought. They get angry over something and slap each other around. Such quarrels might even lead to murder. Young males with more testosterone than brains might pick a beef with other equally mindless young males of a neighboring tribe and start a long-lasting feud. But fighting is not war. To have war you must have an army. To have an army you must have a state. Warriors are not soldiers. They are independent individuals fighting as individuals to prove how brave they are or to revenge themselves for some real or imagined slight. Soldiers are part of a machine, ordered around like robots and are in the army either because they have been conscripted or for the pay.
Warriors feud, raid and take prisoners as hostages or slaves, but they don’t generally seize and hold territory and its inhabitants. An army exists to conquer the enemy and grab its land, towns and people, enlarging the power, territory and labor force of the ruling class. War is essentially an imperialist venture. War is about power and wealth accrued through violence. Fighting is about any number of things.
War requires the existence of a state. Fighting pre-exists the state.
War and fighting are usually confused. As in the case of status and class, I think the confusion is ideologically based. Since interpersonal violence is not that uncommon, and war and fighting are confused, it becomes easy to claim that humans are naturally warlike. This attitude is an apology for war and imperialism. Opponents of war are branded as naive, since "war is natural" and "they are going against human nature."
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Fudging The Issues Part 1
Status vs. Class Hierarchies
The other day I Googled "class division, origins" and other than the usual and expected tiresome Marxist stuff, got nothing. It figures, for when doing research on
The Primal Wound in the Concordia University Library, I looked for books on class origin, and orthodox anthropology had nothing to say on the subject. But they do have loads to say about STATUS.
The problem for me, however, is there is a world of difference between CLASS and STATUS. Luciano Pavarotti is a wealthy man and has all the status that you could ever want. Yet, he has no power to force anyone to do anything, nor does he exploit anyone. If he is rich it is because we like his music and pay to hear it. The most miserable small town petty bureaucrat has more power over us than Pavarotti.
Status is based upon respect for ability. One cannot force status anymore than one can force love. In a natural society – i.e. one that has neither state nor class, there is oodles of status. Since the notion of status is based upon ability, you thus have a wide number of statuses - the best poet, best dancer, best potter, best lover, best gardener, best carpenter, best warrior, best hunter, best conciliator, etc. And since ability generally improves with practice, most people in such a community, will in time, achieve status. Indeed, all will, if they live long enough, since the old are the repository of knowledge. Someone who might have been mediocre in everything earlier on, will still be respected as a Village Elder, late in life.
In such a society status becomes a factor for both survival and social cohesion. (The wide range of statuses makes for social cohesion – if only a tiny minority could achieve any level of status, there would be envy and destructive competition.) The best people are chosen for the job, and where community mobilization is needed, a natural leadership arises. If the leadership fails, those involved descend in status. Since they rely on the active support of their fellow villagers, they have no choice other than to hand their leadership over to others.
In a status-based society, there is no ability to coerce. The high-status cannot force others to do anything, all they can do is ask, plead, or at worst, slyly manipulate. There is no army, no police, no bureaucracy to bully people. A class society, on the other hand, is founded directly on the ability of a minority to coerce the majority.
Class society, creates a false sense of status. The king, priest or general, might well be (and usually is) the worst person in his society, both vicious and incompetent, yet having the ability to terrorize, creates the pretense of being the best, the wisest, the holiest. A chief in a status society, is often no richer than his fellows, or if he does hold the clan wealth in trust, he must give it away in a potlatch. The king, "nobility", or capitalist owns much of the wealth of society as his personal property and forces other to give him their wealth through state-enforced taxes, tithes, corvees and unequal contracts backed by potential violence.
This is not the place to discuss the origins of class society, but I wish to get back to my original point that orthodox anthropology ignores this issue. They fudge or deliberately confuse status and class. Since status is found virtually everywhere among human societies, by confusing class and status the underlying and very ideological assumption is that class society is therefore natural. Making something appear natural when it isn’t, is a common method of control. Orthodox anthropology engages in a cover-up of the origins of our present coercive and exploitative system.
The other day I Googled "class division, origins" and other than the usual and expected tiresome Marxist stuff, got nothing. It figures, for when doing research on
The Primal Wound in the Concordia University Library, I looked for books on class origin, and orthodox anthropology had nothing to say on the subject. But they do have loads to say about STATUS.
The problem for me, however, is there is a world of difference between CLASS and STATUS. Luciano Pavarotti is a wealthy man and has all the status that you could ever want. Yet, he has no power to force anyone to do anything, nor does he exploit anyone. If he is rich it is because we like his music and pay to hear it. The most miserable small town petty bureaucrat has more power over us than Pavarotti.
Status is based upon respect for ability. One cannot force status anymore than one can force love. In a natural society – i.e. one that has neither state nor class, there is oodles of status. Since the notion of status is based upon ability, you thus have a wide number of statuses - the best poet, best dancer, best potter, best lover, best gardener, best carpenter, best warrior, best hunter, best conciliator, etc. And since ability generally improves with practice, most people in such a community, will in time, achieve status. Indeed, all will, if they live long enough, since the old are the repository of knowledge. Someone who might have been mediocre in everything earlier on, will still be respected as a Village Elder, late in life.
In such a society status becomes a factor for both survival and social cohesion. (The wide range of statuses makes for social cohesion – if only a tiny minority could achieve any level of status, there would be envy and destructive competition.) The best people are chosen for the job, and where community mobilization is needed, a natural leadership arises. If the leadership fails, those involved descend in status. Since they rely on the active support of their fellow villagers, they have no choice other than to hand their leadership over to others.
In a status-based society, there is no ability to coerce. The high-status cannot force others to do anything, all they can do is ask, plead, or at worst, slyly manipulate. There is no army, no police, no bureaucracy to bully people. A class society, on the other hand, is founded directly on the ability of a minority to coerce the majority.
Class society, creates a false sense of status. The king, priest or general, might well be (and usually is) the worst person in his society, both vicious and incompetent, yet having the ability to terrorize, creates the pretense of being the best, the wisest, the holiest. A chief in a status society, is often no richer than his fellows, or if he does hold the clan wealth in trust, he must give it away in a potlatch. The king, "nobility", or capitalist owns much of the wealth of society as his personal property and forces other to give him their wealth through state-enforced taxes, tithes, corvees and unequal contracts backed by potential violence.
This is not the place to discuss the origins of class society, but I wish to get back to my original point that orthodox anthropology ignores this issue. They fudge or deliberately confuse status and class. Since status is found virtually everywhere among human societies, by confusing class and status the underlying and very ideological assumption is that class society is therefore natural. Making something appear natural when it isn’t, is a common method of control. Orthodox anthropology engages in a cover-up of the origins of our present coercive and exploitative system.
Little Stevie Gets His War
Well, the Harpie got his war. How the little fellow cried when that Big Meanie Jean Cretien wouldn’t play with the Emperor George in Eye-raq. So much better now. Funny how these right-wing authoritarian types love spending on war, always money for killing, never enough for people. Just goes to show the truth of Gambone’s Law, i.e. "When it’s something WE want, there is never enough money. When it’s something THEY want, the purse is open. When it’s something WE want, the government drags its feet for decades. When it’s something THEY want, it gets rammed thru in two hours."
At any rate, this adventure should prove interesting, even if costly in Canadian lives. But what an exercise in hypocrisy. If educating women and creating a modern society in Afghanistan is what we are supposedly after, why did the US arm the Mujahiddin, overthrowing the very forces trying to bring about those changes? Until the US intervened, it looked as though the Russians and their secular Afghan allies were winning. Thanks to the US, Osama Bin Ladin got his training. Remember him, the US-backed "freedom-fighter"? The Taliwackers seem to be reviving, an ominous note. But once again, the stench of hypocrisy. After all it was the great US ally, Pakistan that encouraged the Taliwackers in the first place. Then there is that lovely bumper crop of opium . Who is going to get the proceeds from that?
At any rate, this adventure should prove interesting, even if costly in Canadian lives. But what an exercise in hypocrisy. If educating women and creating a modern society in Afghanistan is what we are supposedly after, why did the US arm the Mujahiddin, overthrowing the very forces trying to bring about those changes? Until the US intervened, it looked as though the Russians and their secular Afghan allies were winning. Thanks to the US, Osama Bin Ladin got his training. Remember him, the US-backed "freedom-fighter"? The Taliwackers seem to be reviving, an ominous note. But once again, the stench of hypocrisy. After all it was the great US ally, Pakistan that encouraged the Taliwackers in the first place. Then there is that lovely bumper crop of opium . Who is going to get the proceeds from that?
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Secret Revolutionary – The True Story of George W. Bush
When George Bush Jr. was a Yale undergrad back in the 1960’s he had a secret love affair with a beautiful and brilliant young woman. But this young woman, who we will call Tanya, was no spoiled sorority queen, but a leader of Yale SDS. George spotted her one day, striding across the campus, bull-horn in hand, bra-less and mini-skirted. He fell immediately in love – a love from which he would never recover and one that would change his entire life.
At first Tanya would have nothing to do with the seemingly mindless, shallow, frat-boy son of a CIA mass murderer, but George revealed his true self. He had learned early to hide his sensitivity and quick intellect from his ogre-like mother and cold distant father. Now with Tanya he opened up. She took to George, and thrilled at the possibility of winning him over to the side of the Revolution. Tanya explained to him the true nature of US imperialism and George holding his hand on her leather-bound copy of the Communist Manifesto swore to “expend every drop of blood, every breath, for the cause of World Revolution.”
George, of course, wanted to join SDS. Tanya wouldn’t let him. “We have enough snot-nosed little rich boys in our midst.” She said. “I have something better in mind for you!”
Tanya explained that with his family’s connections his old man could be president one day, which means George could, if he played his cards right, do the same. “Then you will have the Empire by the balls!” Then she told him the tough part. They must separate and never see each other again – for the good of the Revolution. George wept bitter tears, but agreed. They kissed goodbye and she whispered softly in his ear, “Remember Leon Trotsky.”
After graduating with a C minus from Yale (he had to do this to keep up the pretext he was a dumb-ass rich kid) he joined the Alabama Air Reserve. He did this as a way of resisting the Vietnam War of which he was a fervent opponent. George spent most of his time picking up cheap floozies, snorting coke and drinking bourbon as form of rebellion and as a way of dulling the deep pain he felt from the loss of Tanya.
After the Air Reserve, George Senior insisted that his son go into business and set him up in a number of oil companies. All of these George W. ran into bankruptcy as a protest against capitalism and as a middle index finger to his domineering father. But he did manage to make friends with the Bin Laden family, which proved to be of great import years later. George continued to drink and coke-up, for it was difficult for him to lead this double life – committed revolutionary socialist pretending to be a reactionary moron.
But the wait began to pay off. His father became Vice President, then President. George W began to make his move. He stopped boozing and coking, claiming he had found Jesus, but it reality it was because his plans were coming to fruition. Acting the part of a heartless brute, he got himself elected governor of Texas. He would cry at night at the thought of all the prisoners he was executing, but held his act together with the thought, “Well, Lenin says you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
All these years he had been studying (in secret of course) the works of the great revolutionaries. George knew what had to be done to destroy the Empire. First off, he had to create imperial over-stretch. Get the US military bogged down in many places at once that it becomes too costly and inoperable. He must run the USA into bankruptcy and destroy its industrial base. He must divide the US from its allies and unite the whole world against it. At home, he must unite the true-blue conservatives and the left against the Federal Government.
Finally George became – we wouldn’t exactly say elected – the President. He knew what to do – surround himself with crackpots and the most venal individuals he could find, to set everyone’s teeth on edge. The very dregs of the child-molesting, drug-dealing, money-laundering, stock-defrauding Washington Republicans were all put on the pay roll. From the very bottom of this human cesspool he dredged up Cheney and Rumsfeld, chuckling to himself as he wiped off the shit and mucus. A pair of clapped-out male crack whores called Pearly and Wolfi were picked up off one of the sleazier DC streets where they peddled their hemorrhoidal buttocks to visiting Labour MP’s and South America generals. “These two, I will make my court “intellectuals!” and collapsed into a paroxysm of laughter at his own cynical wit.
We all know what happened next. Osama and the boys (with a little guidance from the Mossad, who had their own agenda) made the WCT fall down and go boom. This was the signal for George to go into action. He sent the military into that bit of soldier fly paper called Afghanistan, where they remain stuck. Then, he bankrupted government finances by giving billions in tax cuts to the rich and ballooning the war budget. Next, war in Iraq, now possibly Iran as well. The Imperial spandex is about to bust. The whole world now hates the US government and its corporations. George W. created the biggest demonstrations in the world. Latin America is in flames and daily Bush’s useful idiots like Rumsfeld and Rice pour oil on it. .
George is truly a happy man. The World Revolution is underway. In his daydreams he thinks, “Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, BUSH.”
At first Tanya would have nothing to do with the seemingly mindless, shallow, frat-boy son of a CIA mass murderer, but George revealed his true self. He had learned early to hide his sensitivity and quick intellect from his ogre-like mother and cold distant father. Now with Tanya he opened up. She took to George, and thrilled at the possibility of winning him over to the side of the Revolution. Tanya explained to him the true nature of US imperialism and George holding his hand on her leather-bound copy of the Communist Manifesto swore to “expend every drop of blood, every breath, for the cause of World Revolution.”
George, of course, wanted to join SDS. Tanya wouldn’t let him. “We have enough snot-nosed little rich boys in our midst.” She said. “I have something better in mind for you!”
Tanya explained that with his family’s connections his old man could be president one day, which means George could, if he played his cards right, do the same. “Then you will have the Empire by the balls!” Then she told him the tough part. They must separate and never see each other again – for the good of the Revolution. George wept bitter tears, but agreed. They kissed goodbye and she whispered softly in his ear, “Remember Leon Trotsky.”
After graduating with a C minus from Yale (he had to do this to keep up the pretext he was a dumb-ass rich kid) he joined the Alabama Air Reserve. He did this as a way of resisting the Vietnam War of which he was a fervent opponent. George spent most of his time picking up cheap floozies, snorting coke and drinking bourbon as form of rebellion and as a way of dulling the deep pain he felt from the loss of Tanya.
After the Air Reserve, George Senior insisted that his son go into business and set him up in a number of oil companies. All of these George W. ran into bankruptcy as a protest against capitalism and as a middle index finger to his domineering father. But he did manage to make friends with the Bin Laden family, which proved to be of great import years later. George continued to drink and coke-up, for it was difficult for him to lead this double life – committed revolutionary socialist pretending to be a reactionary moron.
But the wait began to pay off. His father became Vice President, then President. George W began to make his move. He stopped boozing and coking, claiming he had found Jesus, but it reality it was because his plans were coming to fruition. Acting the part of a heartless brute, he got himself elected governor of Texas. He would cry at night at the thought of all the prisoners he was executing, but held his act together with the thought, “Well, Lenin says you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
All these years he had been studying (in secret of course) the works of the great revolutionaries. George knew what had to be done to destroy the Empire. First off, he had to create imperial over-stretch. Get the US military bogged down in many places at once that it becomes too costly and inoperable. He must run the USA into bankruptcy and destroy its industrial base. He must divide the US from its allies and unite the whole world against it. At home, he must unite the true-blue conservatives and the left against the Federal Government.
Finally George became – we wouldn’t exactly say elected – the President. He knew what to do – surround himself with crackpots and the most venal individuals he could find, to set everyone’s teeth on edge. The very dregs of the child-molesting, drug-dealing, money-laundering, stock-defrauding Washington Republicans were all put on the pay roll. From the very bottom of this human cesspool he dredged up Cheney and Rumsfeld, chuckling to himself as he wiped off the shit and mucus. A pair of clapped-out male crack whores called Pearly and Wolfi were picked up off one of the sleazier DC streets where they peddled their hemorrhoidal buttocks to visiting Labour MP’s and South America generals. “These two, I will make my court “intellectuals!” and collapsed into a paroxysm of laughter at his own cynical wit.
We all know what happened next. Osama and the boys (with a little guidance from the Mossad, who had their own agenda) made the WCT fall down and go boom. This was the signal for George to go into action. He sent the military into that bit of soldier fly paper called Afghanistan, where they remain stuck. Then, he bankrupted government finances by giving billions in tax cuts to the rich and ballooning the war budget. Next, war in Iraq, now possibly Iran as well. The Imperial spandex is about to bust. The whole world now hates the US government and its corporations. George W. created the biggest demonstrations in the world. Latin America is in flames and daily Bush’s useful idiots like Rumsfeld and Rice pour oil on it. .
George is truly a happy man. The World Revolution is underway. In his daydreams he thinks, “Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, BUSH.”
Man Marries Goat In Shotgun Wedding
(I wonder about the children...) Thanx to Bob M. for this story
A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal. The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders. They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.
"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said.
Mr Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat.
"When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up".
Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case.
"They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr//1/hi/world/africa/4748292.stm
A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal. The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders. They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.
"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said.
Mr Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat.
"When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up".
Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case.
"They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr//1/hi/world/africa/4748292.stm
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Lessons In Economics
The “Lessons In Economics” based on cows is an old Internet joke, but it has a definite right-wing bias. I have written my own version to rectify this.
American Capitalism
I have two cows. I form a corporation. With the investment raised I buy a bull and soon produce a herd. The cows work long hours for lousy feed, have no medical insurance and only get a weeks vacation. I sell my milk at a loss and under-cut the other farmers, putting them out of business. Thus, I get their pasture and cows, adding them to my farm. Some stubborn farmers remain, but I use eminent domain to take their pasture. My cows revolt and form a union. I get the police to beat them and break the union. The leader of the cows union is arrested on a host of bogus charges, tortured and given 90 years in prison. Then I discover milk is cheaper in India, fire all the cows, build a Gated Community on the pasture land and import milk from India. The government gives me a patent for Potable Bovine Liquid and a copyright on the name “Milk” and thanks to the WTO I now have a global monopoly on the sale and production of milk.
Canadian Capitalism
I have two cows. I form a corporation. The Federal Government gives me $200,000,000 with which I buy most the cows in the country. Then I sell all the cows, take my money and move to the USA.
18th Century English Capitalist
I have two cows. But I notice there are a lot of wild cows in England, grazing on their own pasture land. So I tell my friends in Parliament about this and they pass an Enclosure Act and drive the wild cows off the land which is then deeded to me. I become very wealthy. But all those wild cows wandering the roads mooing for fodder are a problem, so I get my friends in government to arrest the cows and transport them to the Colonies where they work on my farms that the Crown has so kindly granted me. But most of the wild cows die and those that don’t run away and join the Indians. I hear there is a good supply of big, tough cows in Africa so I take a ship and gather them up. Mind you, about half die en route back to the Colonies, but, there’s millions more where they came from. The African cows sometimes revolt, but burning the leaders alive or hanging them by the udders usually helps restore order. I develop a three-way trade; fodder from England, cows from Africa and Colonial milk back to England, but soon find the African cow trade to be the most profitable of the three. Of course, from time to time the cows try to take over a ship or the damned Frenchies try to grab them, but the Royal Navy is always there to help me. By now, I have bought a title, (Lord Fucinarsle) a seat in Parliament and a 50 room Country House, which is rather nice. In my spare time I write letters to The Times on the “Virtues of Free Enterprise” and “The Need to Control the Lower Orders” and am planning a new business venture - selling opium to the Chinese!
Nazi
I have two cows. I complain to the Fuhrer about this and he offers to sell me cows expropriated from Jews, communists and other sub-humans at below market price, provided I kick-back an amount to the Party. I experiment on my now very large herd and find that thru the application of torture I can double milk production. This combined with slave labor makes me a very wealthy man. But alas, the forces of International Judeo-Bolshevism triumph over the Fatherland and I am forced to flee. Luckily, the Vatican smuggles me out and I end up in Paraguay. In the midst of this mongrel and degenerate race I begin my dairy farm anew. Then one day a man from the CIA comes by. I am so pleased to be once more among gentlemen who share my Christian faith and implacable hatred of cultural Jew-Bolshevism and miscegenation that I sign on immediately. After a number of adventure-filled years overthrowing socialist-infested democracies, I end up with my old friend Klaus Barbie, creating the international cocaine cartel, so important during the Iran-Contra days. Now retired in the USA, from time to time the School of the Americas has me teach “The Art of Cow Torture” to South American Latifundists to improve their milk production.
Anarchist
I have two cows. I get together with other farmers and buy a bull which we share. Our herds grow. Our animals are treated with ethical standards and we farm organically. We also form a cooperative to buy feed and equipment and a cooperative dairy to process the milk, make butter and yogurt and market these products. At the same time we develop a credit union which helps local people set up small cheese production as well as a host of other small spin-off industries. The American capitalists hear of our success and the US Government declares us a nest of communist terrorists funded by Hugo Chavez and a threat to democracy. Soon Cowntras are infiltrating our herds, poisoning the milk and murdering the calves.
American Capitalism
I have two cows. I form a corporation. With the investment raised I buy a bull and soon produce a herd. The cows work long hours for lousy feed, have no medical insurance and only get a weeks vacation. I sell my milk at a loss and under-cut the other farmers, putting them out of business. Thus, I get their pasture and cows, adding them to my farm. Some stubborn farmers remain, but I use eminent domain to take their pasture. My cows revolt and form a union. I get the police to beat them and break the union. The leader of the cows union is arrested on a host of bogus charges, tortured and given 90 years in prison. Then I discover milk is cheaper in India, fire all the cows, build a Gated Community on the pasture land and import milk from India. The government gives me a patent for Potable Bovine Liquid and a copyright on the name “Milk” and thanks to the WTO I now have a global monopoly on the sale and production of milk.
Canadian Capitalism
I have two cows. I form a corporation. The Federal Government gives me $200,000,000 with which I buy most the cows in the country. Then I sell all the cows, take my money and move to the USA.
18th Century English Capitalist
I have two cows. But I notice there are a lot of wild cows in England, grazing on their own pasture land. So I tell my friends in Parliament about this and they pass an Enclosure Act and drive the wild cows off the land which is then deeded to me. I become very wealthy. But all those wild cows wandering the roads mooing for fodder are a problem, so I get my friends in government to arrest the cows and transport them to the Colonies where they work on my farms that the Crown has so kindly granted me. But most of the wild cows die and those that don’t run away and join the Indians. I hear there is a good supply of big, tough cows in Africa so I take a ship and gather them up. Mind you, about half die en route back to the Colonies, but, there’s millions more where they came from. The African cows sometimes revolt, but burning the leaders alive or hanging them by the udders usually helps restore order. I develop a three-way trade; fodder from England, cows from Africa and Colonial milk back to England, but soon find the African cow trade to be the most profitable of the three. Of course, from time to time the cows try to take over a ship or the damned Frenchies try to grab them, but the Royal Navy is always there to help me. By now, I have bought a title, (Lord Fucinarsle) a seat in Parliament and a 50 room Country House, which is rather nice. In my spare time I write letters to The Times on the “Virtues of Free Enterprise” and “The Need to Control the Lower Orders” and am planning a new business venture - selling opium to the Chinese!
Nazi
I have two cows. I complain to the Fuhrer about this and he offers to sell me cows expropriated from Jews, communists and other sub-humans at below market price, provided I kick-back an amount to the Party. I experiment on my now very large herd and find that thru the application of torture I can double milk production. This combined with slave labor makes me a very wealthy man. But alas, the forces of International Judeo-Bolshevism triumph over the Fatherland and I am forced to flee. Luckily, the Vatican smuggles me out and I end up in Paraguay. In the midst of this mongrel and degenerate race I begin my dairy farm anew. Then one day a man from the CIA comes by. I am so pleased to be once more among gentlemen who share my Christian faith and implacable hatred of cultural Jew-Bolshevism and miscegenation that I sign on immediately. After a number of adventure-filled years overthrowing socialist-infested democracies, I end up with my old friend Klaus Barbie, creating the international cocaine cartel, so important during the Iran-Contra days. Now retired in the USA, from time to time the School of the Americas has me teach “The Art of Cow Torture” to South American Latifundists to improve their milk production.
Anarchist
I have two cows. I get together with other farmers and buy a bull which we share. Our herds grow. Our animals are treated with ethical standards and we farm organically. We also form a cooperative to buy feed and equipment and a cooperative dairy to process the milk, make butter and yogurt and market these products. At the same time we develop a credit union which helps local people set up small cheese production as well as a host of other small spin-off industries. The American capitalists hear of our success and the US Government declares us a nest of communist terrorists funded by Hugo Chavez and a threat to democracy. Soon Cowntras are infiltrating our herds, poisoning the milk and murdering the calves.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Some Questions For Your Banker
If you're in the banking industry, a teller, a manager, a territory supervisor, please answer the following questions. Take an oath, and then answer them under the possibility of a charge of perjury if you tell a lie. Sign your name, as well as your bank branch - in other words, take responsibility for your answer.
1. Who creates money in Canada, and at what benefit?
2. While the country's municipal, provincial, and federal leaders complain constantly of having no money to do anything with, how is it that the private banks keep reporting profits?
3. What were the profits of your bank in 2005, and where did they come from, i.e. what are the profitable activities of banking?
4. Does it make sense to have private banks such as yours create the money, and if so, why?
5. What would happen if the Bank of Canada began to create all of the money in our Canadian monetary system, and your bank were forced to stop?
6. As there are no securities taken for credit card accounts, i.e. credit is given based purely on a person's perceived ability to repay what is used, along with their promise to do so, how do you justify the right to be the one to create that credit and charge interest for doing so? Why shouldn't people just promise the seller of the service or product that they will pay over time, and give the interest to the seller rather than the bank?
7. Who gave you the right to create money/credit and do they maintain the ability to take that right away?
By Donn Tarris (originally posted in The Tyee
15\2\06 as a response to the article “ Just Don't Call It Funny Money”)
1. Who creates money in Canada, and at what benefit?
2. While the country's municipal, provincial, and federal leaders complain constantly of having no money to do anything with, how is it that the private banks keep reporting profits?
3. What were the profits of your bank in 2005, and where did they come from, i.e. what are the profitable activities of banking?
4. Does it make sense to have private banks such as yours create the money, and if so, why?
5. What would happen if the Bank of Canada began to create all of the money in our Canadian monetary system, and your bank were forced to stop?
6. As there are no securities taken for credit card accounts, i.e. credit is given based purely on a person's perceived ability to repay what is used, along with their promise to do so, how do you justify the right to be the one to create that credit and charge interest for doing so? Why shouldn't people just promise the seller of the service or product that they will pay over time, and give the interest to the seller rather than the bank?
7. Who gave you the right to create money/credit and do they maintain the ability to take that right away?
By Donn Tarris (originally posted in The Tyee
15\2\06 as a response to the article “ Just Don't Call It Funny Money”)
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