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and before money was invented, about 15 million years ago, wandering apes got lost in the vast tall grasslands of Southern Africa and, so not to starve, fed on the remains of antelope killed by lions and by observing, learned and imitated the hunting tactics of lions and jackals, using stones, clubs, crude spears and traps. When prey was scarce, some turned to cannibalism, raiding and pillaging other ape encampments. Why ?! Because each family sees itself as the center of existence, so the people on the other side of the mountain could not be human beings, but animals pretending to be humans; and they have been acting on that attitude ever since they evolved from apes and before. Even today, the few thousand chimpanzees now remaining in the shrinking African wilderness, have been observed dividing into opposing clans, stalking, killing and cannibalizing each other. One male was observed in a rainstorm imitating the lightning and thunder by waving a tree branch in the air, running and screaming as though to become that terrifying power. Even lemurs in Madagascar have been observed dividing into opposing factions, screaming and throwing objects at each other. It appears this entire species from its very beginning was always afflicted with terrifying mental images that haunted individuals and drove them insane, so they turned on each other, imagining they could steal another life simply by eating it and so escape death. It was their painfully high intelligence that haunted our primitive ancestors with images of their own inevitable end. We are the only animal so intensely self-aware that we think ahead into the future and realize we must someday die, a terrible thought to such self-conscious, dream-haunted creatures. But why us? None of the other animals appear to suffer such extreme anxiety, or is it only because they have no spoken language? If we were all as telepathic as our dogs, perhaps we could read their fearful thoughts too. Why aren't we telepathic? A few of us are, but most are so trapped in the struggle to make money, we don't give ourselves time to rest and let our minds drift, and even then it's too late. Most children are born with some small degree of "extra sensory perception", but parents ridicule them and suppress it, otherwise the neighbors might think they're insane and call the authorities. So, how did the early human race lose its telepathic ability and degenerate into tribes of crazy apes who launch wars of extermination against each other? One of the rare books I own says that cannibal feasts included the brains of the victim, which changed the mental chemistry of the cannibal making him mad with sexual desire and strange new thoughts. "Intelligence can be eaten" says the author, but as we know from modern science and recent cases of "mad cow disease" also called "Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease", an infected cow or human usually dies slowly of dementia and loss of muscle control as the microscopic prions work their way through the blood stream into the brain to make all the wrong connections. But our primate ancestors couldn't realize that, so cannibalism continued until the human brain was altered forever and passed down through the surviving children - to us. Yes, we are all descended from cannibals. Actually, it's in the Genesis story in the Christian Bible: 2-9 "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden; and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.".... 16 "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:" 17 "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."..... What is "the tree of life"? - the human body. What is "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"? - the human head. Notice, the Biblical God did not forbid the eating of the tree of life, only the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Was it OK to be a cannibal, but not a head hunter? Cannibalism would have wiped out the human race and the only reason we are here is because it was bitterly fought and defeated by the mothers determined to save their children. That is why the earliest tribes were completely dominated by women. Men were too impulsive and dangerous to be trusted with leadership, so they were kept under strict supervision by the Mother's family who tended to solve problems and settle tribal disputes peacefully by trade, gifts and inter-marriage. Motherhood itself was seen as a magical power possessed by strong women who were obeyed and worshipped as devinely gifted beings, whether they deserved it or not, making both good queens and bad queens. Fatherhood was merely a subversive notion to be ridiculed and suppressed for countless centuries, until the invention of herding and animal husbandry made it clear that no female could give birth without male semen. Then, armed with that great revelation, men organized the patriarchal revolution and, after horrendous tribal wars, overthrew the matriarchate and consigned women to be servants and breeders, not slaughtered like cattle, but harshly disciplined whenever necessary. Thus, within a kingdom, children were taught that only men have the cool intelligence to rule, because women are too emotional to portray the objectivity required for just and fair decision-making. Fathers were then seen as innately wise, benevolent, strong and able to defend against their enemies, and that is why the Christian Bible portrays God as male and why women were forbidden to be priests. A few kings were able to live up to their exalted self-image, but most were not, so wars of conquest and empire, defeat and slavery became the engine of ancient history, especially as new inventions provided greater power to grow, expand and become rich with grain and tools to trade with other kingdoms. |
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In modern times, with the advantage of historical experience and scientific discoveries, we tend to see the intoxication of power to govern, rule and dictate as the main problem, not which sex occupies the hereditary throne or elected office. After centuries of male supremacy and abuse of women, we favor a family partnership instead of domination by either husband or wife, and government by democracy instead of royal decree, papal edict or party dictate. But the matriarchy ruled long before written history, so we know much more about what happened afterward than before. The Archeological evidence, uncovered and studied, does show that people settled down into defensive villages and, during times of peace, traded animal skins and bone handiwork, and improved their skills to create wooden tools, woven baskets and blankets. Too often they argued and fought over each item's value. So, as centuries passed, metals like copper, gold and silver were also traded as ornaments or lumps and bars, then cast into smaller ingots until stamped coins became a measure of value and a medium of exchange for almost everything. Thus, what we know today as capitalism and big business began with those ancient anonymous people who used coins to exchange for various crafted products. The more coins, the more bolts of cloth and jars of spice for resale to travelers passing through the villages and towns that slowly grew into cities. Some of the very earliest evidence of written language are simple records of sale carved on stone. In that sense, money exchange has been with us almost from day one, half defining our civilization as such. Before money was invented, people survived by cooperation, helping each other within a large family and its friends and neighbors. But when the plow was invented and then animal husbandry, perhaps in ancient Egypt, things got very complicated. It became possible to grow more food than a village or town needed, so a harvest could be traded to outsiders, or sold for money, adding to the wealth of the family clever enough to deal for their own advantage. Thus, cooperation was diminished by self-interest. Not only was the tribal chieftain a fine hunter and wise counselor, he was also clever at business. His family would accumulate more crafted possessions and coins, which might be shared among their neighbors, or kept to trade with other villages for the greater wealth and power of that ruling family, whose village then grew into a town, then a city and eventually an empire that dominated the lives of many thousands of people, by kindness or cruelty, depending more on the circumstances of trade than any traditions of mutual aid among family, friends and neighbors. Eventually, as the populations grew, the job of governing became ever more complicated, requiring the king's full attention, so business and statecraft slowly divided into seperate and sometimes competeing areas of social power. Today that struggle continues, taking the form of two opposing ideas: democratic capitalism - everyone trading honestly and fairly, employers paying fair wages, the rich sharing generously with the poor, all overseen by benevolent government agencies; versus greedy, predatory capitalism - everyone trading for maximum personal and family wealth and power, the rich exploiting ever-growing masses of the poor as cheap labor, giving charity through agencies they control to reduce or avoid taxes, and all overseen by corrupt political appointees who dominate government agencies to make them loyal to their rich supporters. As an example: After many years of suffering under the Royal tyranny of rich imperial English families and their 17th century trading companies, the American colonists revolted and with our famous American Revolution, established the concept of democracy which, acting under our Constitution and its Bill of Rights, tries to prevent the political domination of whatever wealthy families may build fortunes in the "New World". But in fact, the English colonists true motive for declaring their independence from England was to get rid of the legal restrictions on Westward expansion, since the white population was exploding and had nowhere else to go. Thus, one of the great tragedies of history was inflicted upon the native peoples of this continent who were slyly cheated or brutally driven from their open hunting lands by masses of land hungry "Americans" whose practice of their democratic ideals did not include Indians or African slaves. Delaware History Yet, the wording of the U.S. Constitution opened the way for centuries of continuing struggle to apply its democratic principals legally to all citizens of every race, religion and nationality. During the past 226 years, that idea of democracy has spread throughout the World, evolving into a rough and ever-struggling balance between the two contending opposites - private versus social ownership of property. Privately owned companies expand their manufacture and sale of new products, creating greater wealth, while local, state and federal agencies levy taxes to distribute some of that wealth as social services throughout the growing population, encouraging them to join a growing economy for everyone's benefit. Yet, many small business owners and corporate executives hate those taxes, dreaming of all the enormous wealth and power they could use to expand their influence, while many workers resent and fear the power of both the huge, multi-national corporations and the equally huge federal bureaucracies. Too much of a good thing turns it bad. Thus, capitalism is a mixture of blessing and curse, complicated by deceptive commercial advertising and political corruption. In the Presidential election of 2000 each candidate claimed to offer the best public service for the people's welfare - (socialism). Yet both men were rich, private businessmen worth millions. Even the Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader was rich, and as he ran his spoiler campaign to take Democratic votes, the election itself was rigged by Bush's Brother Jeb and his then Secretary of State Katharine Harris who hired a private software corporation to strip the voting lists of mostly Black voters, thousands of whom showed up at the polling places to be told "You're not on the list." A similar theft was perpetrated in Ohio in 2004 when Republican state voting officials in Ohio rigged the election in favor of Bush using a wide variety of tricks and scams. So who's kidding who? No matter which party or candidate "wins" an election, the system of the rich ruling the poor goes on as usual. In a system of monetary exchange, there would be nothing wrong with each person earning a reasonable profit, enough extra to buy various furnishings and equipment for a small house or apartment, a vacation, savings for the children's future, and retirement, and all that seems possible through micro-financing credit arrangements, inspiring dilligent work for a progressive way of life, including our Social Security retirement system. Small-scale capitalism together with limited socialism has succeeded in creating the prosperity we enjoy - or so it seems, but it's not a reliable economy. What happens when corporate Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and their Boards of Directors award themselves six figure salaries and million dollar bonuses from profits that should be shared throughout the company? It inspires the underclass of low-paid workers to cheat, steal and/or to unionize and go on strike, not just for livable wages, but for as much as their union bosses can negotiate, even if that overwhelms a company's profit margin, which then provokes the company accountants to "cook the books" to avoid higher taxes (for a growing population) then safety managers make false reports to reduce company expenses, etc. - all to fill the huge money gap gouged by those bloated salaries, huge bonuses and inflated wages. From top to bottom in various ways great and small, "the system" instigates nearly everyone to cheat, steal and lie, which pressures the entire economy to expand, seeking millions of new customers to buy millions more products, so the spreading margin of profit will compensate for the money spent on those huge salaries and bonuses, bloated wages and benefits and all the cheating, stealing and lying. Yet, both CEOs and workers see their excessive habits as normal, so they press on for more of the same. Then, to avoid possible bankruptcy, companies are forced to raise prices, then unions demand higher wages, then prices rise again, onwards and upwards into an inflationary spiral of greed, everyone reaching and grabbing to get a bigger piece of the economic pie, which is, in fact, planet Earth. Thus, an ever-growing economy seems like a healthy economy, regardless of any consequences to the health and safety of the people, or the natural environment that provides all of us with fresh air, clean water, fertile soil and nourishing food. State and federal agencies pick out glaring examples of corporate stealing or pollution, and union corruption, attempting to justify their own escalating bureaucratic salaries, rewards and benefits, but the corporate "big boys" roll on, grumbling and warning against "socialism" while conspiring to evade whatever laws are cutting into their re-investment capital and their competitive agenda to "get big or get out." Today, the World market in all its manifestations is a huge, blind, all-devouring dragon stumbling and staggering into its own self-endangered future, dragging everyone with it. For example, prices are determined by ever-changing mixtures of supply and demand, the very cheapest possible cost of producing a product bringing in the highest price millions of ad-driven customers are willing to pay. Thus, hard work in one industry is rewarded at 5 times the rate of similar hard work in another, simply because advertising always exadurates the people's appetite for whatever they desire, like a house for the family. So, millions of plywood and 2 by 4 fire traps are thrown up and priced at 5 times their actual value, because millions of people are willing to go into a life-time of debt to pay for it. Likewise, to occupy a modern, fancy office building, a corporation is willing to pay enormous rent, or build their own for many millions of dollars, which their customers end up paying for in higher prices. That's the market dictating "whatever the traffic will bear". The result is, some of the richest people in the World are in the real estate business. Advertising also persuades millions of people they should own their own car or small truck. Yet, even after many thousands of fatal accidents on overcrowded highways in defective vehicles and 40 years of court litigation, the automotive industry is STILL producing death and destruction on the roads and expressways, witness the recent Firestone tire disaster. In the ad-driven market economy, cost-accounting is always at war with the health and safety of the people who buy the products. Thus, all industries are forced by competition to operate by the same economic law of supply and demand, which really seems little different from the law of the jungle, as in "Let the buyer beware"; "A fool and his money are soon parted" and "The Wall Street sharks are circling" - and don't forget the worst example: the lying advertisments for cigarettes that lured many thousands of trusting smokers into addiction and early death from lung cancer and emphysema. This is the economic monster that is destroying the Earth. Consider a stable society in which managers and workers together are the owners and they all get a reasonable share of their company's profits, according to the value of their work, so nobody really needs a wage or salary increase. Any increase in profits produced by greater sales is shared automatically as wages and salaries go up or down, depending on quarterly profits. If they produce a safe and well-made product for a reasonable price that thousands of people need and want, profits would be good and everyone would get their percentage. If not, they would all get exactly that much less as the unsold items represent the cost of production. Then, once prices are set according to regional sales research, they would almost never be raised, unless something external happened that did inevitably raise the cost of production. All such matters would be discussed openly by everyone in the company and with consultation with whoever is interested among the general public. A price rise is everyone's business who will have to pay it. If all the companies in the World operated this way, there would be no inflationary spirals, no recessions, no CEOs and their Boards of Directors could grab six-figure salaries and million dollar bonuses, workers would never have to go on strike for higher wages to keep up with rising prices, and the class war would be ended forever. Call it cooperative capitalism (but isn't that a contradiction in terms?) Even so, if people were persuaded to practice family planning to reduce the human population to about a third of its present size, then modern technology would create a virtual paradise on Earth for everyone. Instead, the opposite is happening. Big corporations and organised religions are deliberately promoting a relentless growth of the human population to feed their relentlessly growing empire, conspiring to create a "New World Order" and a "New American Century" in which 99% of the people are now trapped as sweatshop wage-slaves, crop-picking stoop laborers or service employees and household servants, all permanently in debt and completely at the mercy of their rich employers whose absolutely corrupted governments enforce their rule as an upper class aristocracy that yearns for royal privileges, even while the Earth degenerates around them. It won't work, but they are trapped in their delusions of grandeur -- and despite the recent economic downturn, the crooked business of getting rich fast goes on as usual. This is why I propose that people around the World cooperate to organize continental networks of eco-tech villages that grow their own food, build their own shelter, sew their own clothes, plan their own families, home school their own children and carefully surround themselves with miles of healthy wilderness. Such villages would have no need of big corporations or big government because they would be free to trade with each other for mutual benefit according to the principle of harm to none. ( Send comments to me at J7T14R32@gmail.com ) |
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